My dissertation is focused on developing a better understanding of the technology and innovation strategies of corporations and their impacts on firm performance. I am particularly interested in corporate venture capital (CVC), which serves as a strategy for accessing external technology for corporate investors and as an alternative source of financing and complementary assets for start-ups. I have investigated the conditions under which corporate investors and start-ups achieve the strategic goals by establishing CVC ties, and on estimating the technological and financial gains created by the CVC ties. Specifically, I have concentrated on when and where CVC ties are established in order to maximize economic value. The former relates to a timing issue, whereas the latter is a space issue of CVC investments. In the first essay, I examine corporate investors' decisions to establish CVC ties and their subsequent strategic actions. Consistent with the real options perspective on CVC investments, I find that CVC investments can help corporate investors effectively search for and select future acquisition or licensing partners by reducing asymmetric information and uncertainty that may characterize markets for technology. Specifically, CVC investments facilitate the external acquisition of technology by substituting for a corporate investor's absorptive capacity, as reflected by its upstream research capabilities. CVC investments instead complement the portfolio of internally generated new products, since they allow highly productive corporate investors to shift their focus onto exploratory initiatives with the objective of selecting future technology and partners. Finally, CVC investments facilitate exploratory investments in distant technological areas that are subsequently integrated through licensing or acquisitions. These findings contribute to emerging research on the organization and financing patterns of external R&D activities. In the second essay, I investigate the nature of the relationship between technological spillovers and capital gains created by CVC investments for corporate investors. Using a simple equilibrium model and data from the global bio-pharmaceutical industry between 1986 and 2007, I find that these technological spillovers and capital gains are complements. This complementarity is enhanced when CVC investments are made in post-IPO and technologically diversified start-ups. Beyond providing a broad benchmark for heterogeneous returns on CVC investments, this study has important implications for corporate investors and start-ups. In particular, to the extent that capital gain is greatly determined by changes in the market values of start-ups, it implies that CVC investments can create value for start-ups as well as corporate investors. These mutual benefits can be greatly determined by when (e.g., post-IPO start-ups) and where (e.g., technologically diversified start-ups) CVC investments are made. In the third essay, I analyze the contextual factors that impact the probability of start-ups' obtaining financing through independent venture capitalists and corporate investors. The systematic empirical evidence based on a three-stage game theoretic model suggests that start-ups that possess better evaluated technology tend to be financed through independent venture capitalists, rather than corporate investors. In contrast, start-ups tend to be financed through corporate investors, rather than independent venture capitalists, when their intellectual properties are effectively protected and their research pipelines contain multiple products. These findings provide a theoretical basis to explain why several types of investors co-exist in the entrepreneurial financing market. Moreover, the existence of such determinants indicates that, although investors traditionally have been viewed as the powerful partner that dominates the investment decision, start-ups are also active decision makers in investment ties.

Studies on earnings management usually hypothesise that managers manage accruals opportunistically. Few studies however, argue that managers can also use accruals to improve the value relevance of reported earnings to help investors better assess the firm's operating performance. While substantial evidence on managers' opportunistic behaviour on accruals has been documented in the literature, empirical evidence on the informativeness of accruals is scarce and inconclusive. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether managers use accruals to communicate private information regarding the firm's operating performance, or as reported in the literature, use them for their own benefit. This thesis finds that on average, firms reporting high earnings accompanied by high accruals have significantly negative subsequent period stock returns suggesting that these firms manage their accounting earnings. Focusing on stock dividend issues as an incentive to opportunistically increase accruals, the results are found to be consistent with the earnings management hypothesis. Stock dividend issuing firms are reported to significantly increase accruals in the issue year followed by poor earnings and stock price performances in the subsequent year. Moreover, discretionary accruals of the issuing firms are negatively correlated with both future earnings and abnormal stock returns. This evidence attempts to complement the earnings management literature. The analysis on the incentive to decrease accruals related to share repurchases, however, does not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that managers use their discretion to decrease accruals. To investigate the hypothesis that managers use accruals to convey information regarding their firm's future profitability, this thesis employs the contemporaneous earnings and dividend announcements as the research setting. This choice was made to increase the likelihood of detecting the use of accruals as private information communication while simultaneously mitigating the likelihood of the opportunistic income smoothing hypothesis to explain the results. The evidence strongly indicates that managers use both accruals and dividend increases as their private information communication regarding their firm's future profitability. Dividend increasing firms report positive accruals which are positively correlated with future profitability. This finding contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the accrual signalling hypothesis. Overall, the results of this thesis suggest that, depending on the incentives, managers can use the discretion accorded under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in estimating accounting accrual, either to manage accruals opportunistically or to help investors better assess the firms' operating performance.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Accounting. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Submitted by Noeme Timbo (noeme.timbo@metodista.br) on 2017-01-18T13:47:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fátima Penha Leone.pdf: 1274991 bytes, checksum: 0608f2984cd5de26527877fe43d76fba (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-18T13:47:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fátima Penha Leone.pdf: 1274991 bytes, checksum: 0608f2984cd5de26527877fe43d76fba (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study aimed to verify the existence of relationship between the indebtedness of companies and the earnings management, trying to analyze if the debt influences somehow this kind of practice used by companies in order to change the perception of users of accounting statements. The objective includes: (i) to verify if companies with higher debt levels incurred with greater intensity in the earnings management practice; ii) to identify whether the companies practiced earnings management in the period prior to fundraising through debentures or financial debt; (iii) check for differences in earnings management practices in companies that own debentures and those that do not have debentures; and (iv) to investigate whether there is difference in the practice of earnings management regarding short-term or long-term debts. The sample was collected in the Economatica database, considering the period from 2008 to 2015. After using Model KS (1995) and Model Dechow et al (2012) it was possible to verify the relationship between earnings management practices and indebtedness of companies. A positive relationship between the short-term financial debts and the earnings management practices was found, suggesting that companies with higher debt levels close to maturity, would have a greater concern with funding costs. As for the long-term debt, no relationship was found between the variables, denying the expectation that companies that need third-party capital to maintain their operations manage results to meet requirements linked to contracts loans. Regarding total indebtedness, relationship between debt and management results was found, indicating that companies incur in earnings management practice to change the perception of risk and raise funds with lower rates. / O presente estudo teve como objetivo verificar a existência de relação entre o endividamento de empresas e o gerenciamento de resultados, buscando analisar se a dívida influencia de algum modo esse tipo de prática utilizada por empresas com o intuito de alterar a percepção de usuários das demonstrações contábeis. Quanto aos objetivos propostos para a pesquisa têm-se: (i)verificar se empresas com maiores níveis de endividamento incorrem com maior intensidade na prática de gerenciamento de resultados; (ii) identificar se as empresas praticaram gerenciamento de resultados no período de captação dos recursos por meio de debêntures e ou dívidas financeiras; (iii) verificar se há diferenças quanto ao gerenciamento de resultados em empresas que possuem debêntures e aquelas que não possuem debêntures; e, (iv) investigar se existe diferença quanto à pratica de gerenciamento de resultados e dívidas de curto prazo e ou dívidas de longo prazo. A amostra foi coletada no banco de dados da Economática, considerando o período de 2008 a 2015 e, após a utilização do Modelo KS (1995) e do Modelo Dechow et al (2012), foi possível verificar a relação entre o gerenciamento de resultados e endividamento de empresas. Foi encontrada relação positiva entre as dívidas financeiras de curto prazo e o gerenciamento de resultados, sugerindo que empresas que possuem maiores níveis de endividamento próximos ao vencimento, teriam maior preocupação com os custos de captação. Quanto ao endividamento de longo prazo não foi verificada relação entre as variáveis, não confirmando a expectativa de que empresas que necessitam de capital de terceiros para a manutenção de suas operações possuam motivação para gerenciar os resultados visando atender as exigências de cláusulas restritivas atreladas aos contratos de empréstimos. Em relação ao endividamento total, verificou-se a relação entre o endividamento e gerenciamento de resultados, indicando que empresas incorrem no gerenciamento de resultados para alterarem a percepção de risco e captarem recursos com menores juros.

In the economy intangible assets have become more and more important. Financial standards have evolved in order to capture this change and to be relevant. IFRS are international financial accounting standards with the goal to provide investors relevant information in their investment decision process.  Since 2005, all listed companies in the European Union have to implement the IFRS 3; Forcing companies to write off their goodwill instead of amortizing it. The goal of this measure was to provide investors more information about management’s investment decisions. Beside, companies proceed to firm acquisitions in order to gain a competitive advantage. Such events are important in companies’ life and are impacting the potential value creation. Out of that reason, investors are reacting to acquisition announcements. Moreover, the market reacts to goodwill impairments.   The purpose of this research was to examine to what extent the market reaction of an acquisition announcement can predict goodwill impairment in the two following years. This study was conducted using a quantitative method; focusing on aspects of the financial statements of 43 companies from the Nordic countries that acquired companies in the G20 countries. A Spearman’s correlation, logistic and linear regressions were pursued in order to observe the correlation and the strength of the relationship between goodwill impairment and the market reaction.   The findings imply that the market reaction can predict goodwill impairment in the first year after an acquisition in case of positive market reaction. Additional to that, it can also predict the amount of impairment in the second year, but not whether the impairment is happening. Also, there is a correlation between the first and second year goodwill impairments. However, the results of this research indicate that neither the industry, financial or non-financial, nor the deal value can predict goodwill impairment after an acquisition.

x, 65 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / I examine the relation between book-tax differences (BTDs) and earnings growth. Because financial accounting rules afford managers more flexibility and discretion in reporting than tax accounting rules, prior studies suggest that large differences between book and taxable income indicate lower quality (or less persistent) earnings. Lev and Nissim and Hanlon provide evidence that BTDs contain information about future firm performance, but the nature of the causality in this relation is not clear. While BTDs could proxy for earnings quality, they may also reveal underlying economic events or management's private information about future performance or simply predict future reversals in effective tax rates. I divide total BTDs into their measurable components: temporary (deferred taxes) and non-temporary (permanent differences and tax accruals), and test their relation with the components of net income changes: pretax earnings changes and tax expense changes. I hypothesize that the non-temporary component of BTDs is negatively related to future changes in tax expense, whereas the temporary component of BTDs is negatively related to changes in future pretax earnings. I also examine the maintained hypothesis that the lower earnings growth for large BTD firms is due to earnings management. I use various proxies from prior literature to identify firms potentially managing earnings and test whether the presence or absence of suspected earnings management activity alters the relation between BTDs and earnings changes. My results provide compelling evidence that permanent BTDs are related only to future changes in tax expense, and temporary BTDs are related to changes in pretax earnings. These results are robust to multiple sensitivity analyses, including a replication of the sample and methodology of Lev and Nissim. The results also hold in the case of firms not suspected of earnings management. In fact, 1 find only limited evidence that the results are stronger in the presence of earnings management. Overall, my study suggests that it is only the temporary component of BTDs that is related to future firm performance, with non-temporary differences being related to future tax expense changes, and that these results are primarily due to underlying economic factors, not earnings management. / Committee in charge: David Guenther, Chairperson, Accounting; Steven Matsunaga, Member, Accounting; Linda Krull, Member, Accounting; Glen Waddell, Outside Member, Economics

xi, 68 p. : ill. (some col.) / In this dissertation, I examine whether high disclosure costs explain why acquirers manage earnings before stock-for-stock acquisitions. Because stock-for-stock acquirers use their own shares to pay for targets' shares, stock-for-stock acquirers have incentives to manage earnings in order to boost their stock prices. I show that high disclosure costs lead to an equilibrium in which acquirers engage in earnings management in a manner consistent with target firms' expectations. As a result, I hypothesize that stock-for-stock acquirers with high disclosure costs are more likely to manage earnings before the acquisition than stock-for-stock acquirers with low disclosure costs. Using a sample of stock-for-stock acquisitions in the United States during the period from 1988 to 2009, I find a positive association between acquirers' proprietary disclosure costs and pre-acquisition abnormal accruals. In addition, I find a negative association between pre-acquisition abnormal accruals and abnormal stock returns around the acquisition announcement for acquirers with high proprietary disclosure costs but not for acquirers with low proprietary disclosure costs. Assuming that the market is efficient with respect to publicly available information, this evidence is also consistent with acquirers with high proprietary disclosure costs using abnormal accruals to manage earnings. Finally, I do not find a statistically significant association between the extent of acquirers' earnings management and the acquisition premium received by target shareholders. This is consistent with acquirers' earnings management not serving to extract wealth from target shareholders. Overall, the evidence in this dissertation suggests that earnings management by stock-for-stock acquirers is a rational response to targets' expectations when high disclosure costs prevent the acquirers from credibly signaling the absence of earnings management. / Committee in charge: Steven Matsunaga, Chairperson; Angela Davis, Member; David Guenther, Member; Van Kolpin, Outside Member

abstract: Accounting estimates are developed in a bottom-up fashion; subordinates generate estimates that are reviewed by managers. The anchoring heuristic suggests managers may be highly influenced by subordinates’ initial estimates. However, motivated reasoning theory predicts that reporting incentives will bias managers’ review in favor of estimates that are incentive consistent, and managers will selectively attend to information that supports their preferred conclusion, including their perceptions of the subordinate. Using experimental methods I manipulate the consistency of the subordinate estimate with management reporting incentives, and the narcissistic description of the subordinate. Consistent with motivated reasoning theory, I find that managers anchor on incentive consistent subordinate estimates, regardless of subordinate narcissism, but anchor less on incentive inconsistent subordinate estimates, especially when the estimate comes from a narcissistic subordinate. I also find evidence that managers believe narcissistic subordinates act strategically in their own self-interest, and selectively attend to this belief to adjust away from incentive inconsistent subordinate estimates, but not incentive consistent subordinate estimate. My results reveal two potential weaknesses in the management review process: susceptibility to subordinate anchors, and bias created by reporting incentives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Accountancy 2016

Purpose - the purpose of this thesis is to investigate earnings management in an emerging economy without market force. We use discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP) to proxy earnings management, which constitute a material portion of the total accruals in the banking industry. We examine this abnormal behavior in the financial statements prepared under US GAAP and IFRS. Specifically, we try to find the differences in managerial opportunistic behavior that might exist in the two accounting regimes. We also examine the micro economy and regulatory factors that might influence the earnings behavior in the banks. Design/method/approach - This empirical investigation uses an unbalanced panel data of five commercial banks in Liberia for a period of six years, 2010 to 2012 before and 2013 to 2016 after IFRS adoption. The data generated from the audited financial statements of the commercial banks were analyzed with two sample t test and multiple linear regression. We also run robustness check with same statistical procedures to validate the results. Findings - the empirical results show a statistically insignificant difference in earnings management after the adoption of IFRS, which means the introduction of IFRS did not have significant effect on earnings management practices in the banks. Additionally, we found no significant relationship between Liberia GDP growth and DLLP. Finally, we discovered a positive insignificant relationship between the capital adequacy ratio and DLLP as predicted. Originality/value - the result of this thesis advances the understanding of earnings management under US GAAP and IFRS in an emerging economy. As most of the existing literature conducted on earnings management are mainly focused on developed economy with capital market and data from non-financial institutions. This thesis fills a gap in the existing literature by studying managerial discretion in an unusual environment. The results of our findings inform regulators, investors, auditors and standards setters considering IFRS adoption.

Cooperativas são organizações econômicas que possuem propriedade dispersa e existem para enfrentar as falhas de mercado. Essas organizações se diferenciam pelo fato de que seus associados são tanto proprietários quanto usuários da estrutura da cooperativa. Nessas organizações o estabelecimento da propriedade ocorre entre os indivíduos e a cooperativa. Esses indivíduos (chamados de donos), assinando o contrato irão compartilhar os direitos formais de propriedade que garantem a ele a autoridade formal sobre a organização. O dono não possui toda a informação sobre o ambiente organizacional e/ou é incapaz de processáIlas eficientemente. Neste cenário, existem incentivos, para fins de eficiência econômica, aos proprietários delegarem parte de seu direito de controle a outro indivíduo para agir em nome deles. Em outras palavras, existem incentivos para se estabelecer uma relação de agência entre o principal (proprietário) e um agente (gestor) que possuirá a autoridade informal para gerenciar a organização. Se a organização é complexa e possui propriedade dispersa, como as cooperativas, a delegação que implica na separação da propriedade e da gestão gera melhores benefícios. Entretanto, no Brasil, especificamente no Estado do Paraná, 67% das cooperativas agropecuárias não desvinculam a propriedade da gestão, visto que há associados participando da gestão. O argumento dessas cooperativas é que a alocação de autoridade informal confere a estes indivíduos poder discricionário para agir em favor de maximizar o benefício coletivo dos outros membros, não agindo oportunisticamente. Uma das formas de se identificar o uso do poder discricionário é o chamado gerenciamento de resultados em que o gestor faz escolhas para modificar o resultado final divulgado pela organização dentro dos parâmetros contábeis aceitos. Portanto, o presente estudo tem como objetivo investigar se os gestores das cooperativas do Estado do Paraná fazem uso de seu poder discricionário, incorrendo em gerenciamento de resultados, para distribuir benefícios a todos os associados por meio da maximização da funçãoIobjetivo da cooperativa, validando o argumento de que um cooperadoIgestor é orientado para maximizar a utilidade coletiva, e não sua própria utilidade. / Cooperatives are economic organizations that have dispersed ownership and are focused in facing the market failures of the economy. Their property rights, characterized by the control right is not linked to the capital equally divided into shares, which gives the associated the right to vote (the \"one man, one vote\" principle). These organizations property occurs with the establishment of a property contract between individuals and the cooperative. These individuals (called owners), signing the contract, will share formal rights of property granting them the formal authority of the organization. The owner does not have all the information in the organization\'s environment and/or is unable to process them efficiently. In this scenario, there are incentives, for the economics efficiency purpose, to the owner delegate part of its control rights to other individuals act on their behalf. In other words, there are incentives to establish an agency relationship between the principal (owner) and an agent (manager) that guides the informal transfer of authority of the first to the second to manage the organization. However, in Brazil, particularly in the state of Paraná, 67% of agricultural cooperatives do not detach the property from the management. The argument is that the allocation of informal authority to another individual gives him a discretionary power to act in favour of maximizing the collective utility, not expropriating wealth of others members. A way to identify the use of the discretionary power by the managers is called earnings management in which the manager makes choices to modify the company final result disclosed within acceptable parameters of accounting standards. Thus, the present study aims to investigate if the managers of the cooperatives which are located in Paraná use their discretionary power to maximize the objective function of the cooperative, validating the argument that a manager who is also a member is oriented to maximize the utility of the cooperative instead his individual utility.