The global environmental crisis has turned accounting scholars’ attention to environmental accounting (hereafter EA). With the gap of EA research and practice between China and the western world, it is necessary to elaborate on this gap through accounting professionals’ environmental awareness (perceptions), which has tended to become the key to adopting EA practices in accounting firms. This has led to the main research question: what are accounting professionals’ perceptions of EA? To illustrate what factors would lead accounting firms (not) adopting EA practices, institutional theory is used as the main framework to identify key issues that lead firms to resemble each other. Legitimacy and stakeholder analysis are adopted as a supplement of institutional analysis to explain how accounting firms respond to influences brought by legitimate concerns and interest groups, which has constructed this multi-framework. This thesis is conducted through 35 semi-structured interviews. Interviewees are invited from different scales of Chinese accounting firms on a top-down basis. Documentary review is used as a supplement of the interviews. Thematic analysis is employed to elaborate on how institutional drivers shape EA across different categories. This thesis has identified that clients’ demands tend to be the key for (not) adopting EA, which can be reflected through participants’ knowledge structure, education and training, practices and the adoption of practical guidelines – this leads to the branding effects of EA in the Big Four, which reflects a practical gap between the Big Four and domestic firms. More specifically, this thesis has reasserted that organizations tend to model themselves on others perceived to be successful in response to certain uncertainty; whereas the clarity of ‘successful organizations’ and ‘uncertainty’ becomes the key institutional driver for firms (not) adopting EA practices. As a supplementary framework, stakeholder and legitimacy analysis tends to reflect how EA is perceived and influenced through different interested parties. In general, this thesis has demonstrated a rather low environmental awareness amongst the Chinese accounting profession, suggesting that EA is developed to enable instead of offsetting the inequity between the Big Four and domestic firms.

This study tracks IPOs from the time of their entry into the public domain up to at least six years post-listing. In the first part of this study, the post-listing performance of these firms relative to that of a set of control firms in event and calendar time is evaluated, using a fresh sample of 746 IPOs in the UK market over the period 1999-2006 and stepwise matching algorithms that select the matching firms from the general population on the basis of key firm risk factors that includes three new factors – pre-IPO performance, turnover growth and earnings yield – employing a refined matching technique and a battery of methods. Given that the majority of the studies in the literature find that IPOs are poor investments in the long-term, the findings in the first part suggest firstly, that investing in IPOs beyond the immediate after-market may not be a bad trading strategy since the relative after-market performance is dependent on the proportions in which the stocks are stacked in the investor’s portfolio; secondly, value-weighted performance does not provide strong evidence against market efficiency when compared to an equally-weighted measure of abnormal performance [which tends to suggest that the former may provide a more useful benchmark in assessing the post-event risk-adjusted performance of IPO firms since it more accurately captures the investors’ wealth effects] and; thirdly, the under-performance of new issues of common stock remains an anomaly that really challenges the efficient market hypothesis only when performance is equally-weighted. In the course of analysing the performance of the firms in the first part, this work finds that the under-performance is more prevalent in some groups of IPOs than others. Hence, in the second part of the work, the economic importance and significance of key firm and industry risk factors prior to or at the IPO that may predict or explain this under-performance is tested. The author’s findings reveal that industry risk factors of IPO surplus value, profitability, market-to-book and equity volatility in addition to firm risk factors of size, market-to-book, past performance, underwriter reputation and the ‘hot’ IPO market can help distinguish the best performing from the worst performing firms. More importantly, the industry effects here are economically large and are first documented in this study. In the third and final part of the work, the firms are tracked in event and calendar time, equally using only that information that is available prior to or at the IPO. The author’s findings reveal that industry risk factors of IPO surplus value and profitability in addition to firm risk factors of size, past performance, initial market return volatility [IPO risk], underwriter prestige and the ‘hot’ IPO market can foreshadow an IPO’s survival. More importantly, the industry effects here are also first documented in this study. More particularly, the evidence here on past performance and underwriter prestige is strong and overwhelming with the results suggesting that firms desirous of going public should first build a track record of profitable performance, while the latter lays credence to the fact that firms underwritten by prestigious underwriters are less likely to fail. The results also suggest that potential IPO investors, IPO firms and their investment bankers should consider industry risk factors prevailing at the time of the IPO to provide them with additional information on whether or not to invest in the IPO [in the case of the investor] or go ahead with the IPO, or alternatively, withdraw and re-launch at a more auspicious date [in the case of the issuing firm and its investment banker].

The current study investigates the quality of corporate reporting practices of the listed companies in Bangladesh. It measure quality through the quality of mandatory reporting, the quality of voluntary reporting and the timeliness of reporting by using panel data from 2004 to 2010. The final sample consists of 123 companies with 861 firm year observations listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange, Bangladesh. In order to measure the mandatory reporting quality the current study determines the extent as well as the determinants of corporate mandatory disclosure in total and its categories. This study uses seven self constructed checklists (items ranging from 148 to 179) to measure the extent of mandatory reporting. The study presents average mandatory reporting at 76.42%. These results also indicate that mandatory reporting has significant positive association with firm size, firm profitability (ROA), and multinational parents, while it has significant negative association with ownerships. However, there is non-significant relationship between mandatory reporting and firm profitability (ROE), audit firm size and industry category. For voluntary reporting both a weighted and unweighted index has been used. A self constructed voluntary reporting checklist consisting of 97 items has been prepared. A questionnaire survey has been conducted to determine the weight. A low level of voluntary reporting has been observed over the seven years, standing at 28.56%.There is a gradual increase in the average score. A significant positive relationship has been observed between voluntary reporting and firm size, firm liquidity, percentage of independent director and board structure, while there is a significant negative association with market categories, company age and number of independent director. However, there is a non significant relationship of voluntary reporting with audit committee, and board size. The study determines the extent of timeliness through calculating audit lag, preliminary lag and total reporting lag. It also examines the determinants of timeliness for all three categories. Empirical finding indicate that the sample companies need about 110 days to complete the audit process whereas average reporting lag is 170 days for the entire period. Finally total reporting lag time has a significant positive association with earning, financial condition, company's age and industry classification, while it has significant negative association with firm size and audit firm size. However, audit opinion type has weak or no association with total reporting lag time.

This research contributes to provide a better understanding of the nature of accounting information reliability by measuring the relation between the informativeness of earnings and corporate governance based on the Chinese context with its unique political, social, cultural and economic environment and large sample size. In particular, mainland China has a distinct two-tier board structure comprising a supervisor board including employee representatives and board of directors of whom at least one third are independent directors. The objective of this thesis is to investigate accounting information reliability and corporate governance by addressing three predominant empirical research questions in three studies. The first study examines the impact of board composition and independence on earnings management in mainland China through investigating whether independent directors and supervisors are effective at restraining earnings management. To fully capture the earnings attributes, the second study investigates the quality of reported earnings in China from the perspective of both accounting-based (including accrual quality, persistence, predictability and smoothness) and market-based earnings attributes (including value relevance, timeliness, and conservatism and earnings response coefficient). A two-way test has been conducted to compare the difference in earnings quality between State-Owned and Non-State-Owned enterprises. According to financial distress theory, the incentives for Non-SOEs to manipulate earnings are stronger than in SOEs, since SOEs have the advantage to receive financial subsidies from government while Non-SOEs face more financing constraints. The agency theory, however, argues that state ownership in SOEs creates incentives and regulatory backing for self-serving purposes, thus motivating SOEs to manipulate accounting numbers. The political cost hypothesis complements the agency theory and illustrates that SOEs’ managers would manipulate accounting numbers in response to government intervention (report conservatively to disguise the profits or report aggressively to meet specific thresholds). In addition, it tests whether analysts' forecasts are more accurate than forecasts based on time-series predicted statistics with random walk. Finally, the third empirical study detects whether managers intend to manipulate earnings via discretionary accruals in order to just meet or beat consensus analyst forecasts on the basis of earnings surprise (analyst forecast error). The key findings of the first study in this thesis suggest that the distinct Chinese two-tier board structure comprising independent directors and supervisory directors fails to mitigate earnings management. The second study documents that Chinese SOEs overall exhibit a lower earnings quality than Non-SOEs, supporting the agency theory. Government ownership might create incentives and regulatory backing for self-serving purposes that negatively influence the listed firms’ financial reporting. Moreover, SOEs manipulate downwards the earnings much more than Non-SOEs, manifesting the government generally expropriate the benefits of SOEs, according to the political cost hypothesis. One interesting finding in second study is that predicted earnings based on the time-series statistical model with drift are more accurate than the consensus analyst forecast. This result conflicts with findings from developed country studies, indicating the malfunction of financial analysts in mainland China. In the third empirical study, the findings suggest an optimistic bias in analysts' forecasts exists in Chinese listed companies but fail to provide any evidence supporting that discretionary accrual measures are positively associated with just meeting or beating the analysts’ forecast benchmark. It challenges the ‘benchmark beating’ incentive in most prior literature based on western developed countries, such as the US and the UK.

This study explored the significance of risk and safety and the need for proper operating procedures in identifying the link between the types and categories of event safety related risks from the perception of event planners and venue managers within the event management industry in Malaysia. Event management is an emerging profession in need of methodical tools to ensure the success and safety of all stakeholders within this field. Despite a plethora of literature confirming that risk and safety is fundamental in event planning and management, a thorough literature review has exposed the insuffiency of research within general risk and safety management areas and, more specifically, the lack of research relating to event risk management and safety. This empirical investigation started by exploring the concept of risk and risk perception and adapts this approach in the field of event management. This has been taken in order to investigate the perceptions of event/venue managers in Malaysia towards risks and safety issues in planning and managing events. Due to the lack of empirical studies in this area, a qualitative exploratory case study approach using semi-structured interviews has been conducted aiming at exploring the importance of this topic, and identifying (and justifying) several important themes within the research context. The sample participants were recruited based on purposive and snowballing sampling technique comprising 33 event/venue managers from various event related organisations in Malaysia. The data were analysed using both inductive and deductive approaches by adopting a typology outlined in the literature. A pragmatic approach of thematic analysis focusing on identifiable themes and patterns of living and/or behaviour has been adopted. A post positivist paradigm with the use of a reflexive approach in analysing data in that the researcher became an important instrument of analysis for the research. The findings identify seven major themes focusing on important types of risks associated with the safety of event employees and event attendees from a Malaysian perspective. These safety risk categories known as: crowd safety and crowd control; technical and logistics hazards; alcohol-related risks; security risks and issues; environmental health and safety; financial risks and insurances and; emergency services. Thus, this research attempts to enhance the current understanding of Malaysian event risk management practice by proposing a generic typology focusing on important risk factors based on a Malaysian perspective. The empirical outcome in the form of an event safety risk typology answered the need for an analytical tool in order to improve the management of risk and safety within the event management domain, and also provided an avenue for further research within this emerging field.

The aim of this study is to investigate empirically the extent of mandatory disclosure with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and the level of voluntary disclosure by firms in the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) member states — namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — over the period 2010 to 2013, and to explain why some firms disclose more than others. It aims to investigate the determinants of mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of GCC listed firms. It seeks to assess the relationship between a number of firm-specific characteristics such as corporate characteristics, ownership structure factors, corporate governance factors and cultural factors (manager’s personal characteristics) and the extent of mandatory and voluntary disclosures. In addition, the impact of voluntary disclosure level on mandatory disclosure level, the impact of mandatory disclosure level on voluntary disclosure level and sub-sample country groups. The extent of mandatory disclosure and the level of voluntary disclosure are examined using two different disclosure indices. The former disclosure index contains 325 mandatory disclosure items and the latter disclosure index comprises 129 voluntary disclosure items. The empirical approach is applied to the financial statements of 120 listed firms. Multivariate regression analysis is employed to explore the relationships between the extent of mandatory and voluntary disclosures and firm characteristics of the firms and year dummy variables. The firm characteristics include corporate characteristics, ownership structure factors, corporate governance factors and cultural factors (managers’ personal characteristics). In addition, to the impact of voluntary disclosure level on mandatory disclosure level, the impact of mandatory disclosure level on voluntary disclosure level and sub-sample country groups. The average level of mandatory disclosure requirements with the 24 IFRSs investigated across firms and years was 0.73, with a range from 61% to 87%. The level of mandatory disclosure increased from 0.71 in 2010 to 0.73 in 2013, indicating that the level of mandatory disclosure has been improving in the region over the study period. However, no firm throughout the study period fully satisfied the benchmark index created. The level of mandatory disclosure varies across the GCC listed firms. The highest average mandatory disclosure level for all years was in the UAE (0.77) followed by Qatar (0.76) Kuwait (0.73) Oman (0.71), Saudi Arabia (0.71) and Bahrain (0.69). Several firm characteristics helped to explain the level of mandatory disclosure. The extent of mandatory disclosure increased with firm size, international presence (international listing and international sales), group firms, firm age, the proportion of state share ownership, the degree of board independence, and the education level of the board directors and financial controllers. In addition, the level of mandatory disclosure also varied by industry type. In contrast, the level of mandatory disclosure decreased with profitability, the proportion of institutional share ownership, board size, CEO role duality, and the level of voluntary disclosure. In addition, there were significant differences in the level of mandatory disclosure through time and across country groups. The level of mandatory disclosure is higher in sub-sample country group (grouped by high level of exports). However, liquidity was found not a significant factor in explaining variations in mandatory disclosure levels. The average level of voluntary disclosure, for the GCC listed firms as a whole, across the 13 groups of information categories examined for all years was 0.31; that is, on average firms disclosed 31% of the voluntary disclosure items, with a range from 9% to 68%. The voluntary disclosure mean levels for all years were as follows: Saudi Arabia: 0.45, Oman: 0.36, Bahrain: 0.32, Qatar: 0.32, the UAE: 0.24 and Kuwait: 0.21. The level of voluntary disclosure increased by 1% over the sample period, from 0.31 in 2010 to 0.32 in 2013, indicating that the extent of voluntary disclosure has improved slightly in the GCC listed firms. However, no sample firm fully disclosed the full list of benchmark voluntary information items. The level of voluntary disclosure varies by the type of information, consistent with existing studies. The highest group scores were for general information (0.66), information about directors (0.57), foreign currency information (0.48) and market-based information (0.42), whereas the lowest group scores were for future prospects (0.08), research and development (0.11), employee information (0.18) and social policy and value added information (0.26). The findings show that GCC listed firms disclose significantly more general information, directors’ information, foreign currency information and market information than future prospect information, research and development information, employee and social information. The level of voluntary disclosure increased with firm size, leverage, profitability, the proportion of assets in place, multiple listing status, firm age, the proportion of state share ownership, board size and CEO role duality. In addition, the level of voluntary disclosure also varied by industry type. In contrast, the level of voluntary disclosure was lower for service sector firms, and in relation to the proportion of director ownership, the proportion of family members on the board and the extent of mandatory disclosure. In addition, the level of voluntary disclosure is higher in sub-sample country group (developed stock markets). The results show no significant differences in the level of voluntary disclosure through time. However, liquidity, the proportion of institutional share ownership, and the degree of board independence do not evidence a significant association with the level of voluntary disclosure.

This thesis examines the information content of earnings components conditional on the existence of misclassification of core earnings as transitory earnings in the income statement (often referred to as classification shifting), and how this misclassification is likely to induce a “hidden” core earnings element in reported transitory earnings. The thesis focuses on a major type of the misclassification of earnings line items, namely the transfer of negative core earnings (operating expenses and losses) to negative special items in order to increase net core earnings, while bottom-line earnings remain unaffected. The thesis comprises three empirical essays. In the first essay, we develop a vector autoregression (VAR) of a set of accounting information that includes, in addition to other accounting variables, two components of transitory earnings; a shifted core earnings component and a purified transitory earnings component. The model analysis derives two properties of shifted core earnings. First, shifted core earnings forecast future abnormal earnings similar to core earnings. Second, shifted core earnings provide a “bad news” signal of management incompetence. Using special items as an objective measure of transitory earnings, we develop an innovative approach to decompose special items into core and transitory components. Our empirical results support the former property of shifted core earnings, and show little evidence for the latter one. The model demonstrates how the properties of the transitory earnings components map into stock prices. However, we find empirically that stock prices do not fully reflect the heterogeneity between the two components of transitory earnings, but rather overstate the shifters‟ entire special items, which are mostly income decreasing items, as if they are all shifted core earnings. In the second essay, we investigate the manager‟s incentive to misclassify negative core earnings as negative special items, and the change in the composition of negative special items as a result of the misclassification. We find that large negative special items are increasing with the difference between reported core earnings in the prior period and expected core earnings in the current period. Extremely large negative special items are more likely associated with GAAPviolation rather than allowable discretion within GAAP. We distinguish between two types of misclassification signals, an “informative” signal associated with steady improvements in negative special items predictability and a “noisy” signal associated with a pattern in earnings response coefficients (ERC) that is inconsistent with improvements in negative special items predictability. We propose and find that the measures of negative special items predictability of future earnings go hand-in-hand with the extent of an informative signal based on the difference between reported core earnings in the prior period and expected core earnings in the current period. However, stock prices do not fully impound information in this identified informative signal, and react to a “noisy” reporting signal that is based on the level of earnings before special items in the income statement. In the third essay, we investigate whether analysts fully understand the nature and quality of negative special items when they adjust actual earnings and whether their future earnings forecast incorporates the actual persistence of negative special items components. We identify an alternative direct approach to measure the core and transitory elements of negative special items. We validate our measures by showing that the identified core component is more persistent and has very low asymmetric timeliness relative to the identified transitory component. We expand our decomposition of negative special items further in order to examine the nature of negative special items included in and excluded from street earnings. We find that the analysts‟ inclusion decision reflects analysts‟ expertise in processing information in special items. The analysts‟ treatment of negative special items does not lead to predictable forecast errors, consistent with analysts fully understanding the persistence of negative special items components. This result is robust to partitioning the sample between different disclosure and information environments and adding analysts forecast efficiency controls.

This thesis aims to establish the relationship between Real Exchange Rate (RER) changes and Firm value changes. It is a well-known reality that RER changes may affect the value of the company through competition, cash flow, and profit margin. Theoretically, this study investigates exchange rates, efficiency, and exposure. Empirically, it tests the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) at disaggregated level by using cointegration analysis. The results confirm the requirement of disaggregate analysis among industries and/or countries. The exchange rate exposure is tested by using OLS technique. We try to modify the explanatory variables, exchange rate, in order to find the exact relationship between RER changes and Firm value changes. Several Issues are evaluated in empirical parts. Industry portfolio results tend not to show a significant relationship possibly because of aggregation. Therefore, individual regressions are carried on. The results, clearly, exhibit that exposure is present for British Companies but exposure depends on several factors such as the firm, the industry, the size of the company, and the deviation from PPP.

Empirical investigations on firms' export performance have concentrated on firms from developed countries. However, in developing countries generally, and in Saudi Arabia particularly, little is known about this issue among their firms. Therefore, this study explored the export behaviour and performance of manufacturing firms in Saudi Arabia. The main objective of this thesis was to compare firm-level characteristics of successful and less successful exporters together with other factors associated with their export success. Additionally, the obstacles facing Saudi exporters were identified. The sampling frame comprised of 411 firms which have been involved in exporting for at least two years identified by the Saudi Export Development Center. A postal questionnaire was used as the main research instrument to collect the data from exporting manufacturers, and the total number of usable questionnaires received was 99, a response rate of 24.1 percent. This sample was divided in two groups: successful and less successful exporters, according to their export performance (export ratio and export growth) in international markets over a three-year period (1993 to 1995). On the basis of existing literature, hypotheses were formulated and tested, to see if there are differences in the relationships between the two groups in their firm characteristics (size, age, export experience and export market strategy) and in other factors associated with export success (export market planning, market research, export department, management strength and adaptation of their marketing mix to the export market). The findings of this study suggested that there is no correlation between the size, age and export experience of the firm and its export success. However, regarding export strategy, a significant positive correlation was found between the success of exporters and export strategy (number of export markets). Those firms adopting a market diversification strategy were more successful than firms adopting a market concentration strategy.

This thesis laid the emphasis on Zhejiang Province which SMEs play a dominant role and is characterized with informal finance. The current financial system provided little opportunity for the SMEs to raise fund; companies in temporary illiquidity or facing solvency crisis obviously could not possibly rely upon internal capital for financing. Then, informal finance should be deeply studied. Guiding the informal finance to alleviate the SMEs financing difficulties could make contribution the financial and social stability at large. Therefore, it is a meaningful topic to be studied, both in theoretical and practical perspective. In chapter 2, the focus is mainly laid on studying the status quo of the SME financing in Zhejiang Province and exploring the role formal and informal financing play. Through literatures consulting, a tailor made questionnaire has been designed to learn the basic information, business establishment, business growth and funding sources of the firms. The copies of the questionnaire have been disseminated to the sampled entrepreneurs of SMEs across Zhejiang Province. Through the data collected from the valid copies, we could gain a brief understanding of these firms and its financing situation through basic descriptive statistics. With the data collected from the 150 valid copies, we have gained a brief understanding of these firms and their financing situation through basic descriptive statistics. In chapter 3, we tend to adopt various empirical methods to analyze the relationship of usage of formal (informal) lending and other factors. Correlation analysis, binary regression model and ordered logistic regression model is applied on the collected questionnaire data. With this empirical investigation, we try to further explore what impact these reputation and relationship variables may have on the financing practices they try to employ. From the empirical results, we find that firms with strong political ties, higher education, larger turnover and having received credit rating are more likely to employ formal financing practices. No consistent results have been found for informal financing practices. Moreover, we find that more factors work in the case of global financial crisis while only political ties and credit rating status work in the tightened monetary background like the period after year 2010. Combining these results, we conclude that reputation and relationship are vital in obtaining funds from formal financing channels in China. By contrast, all kinds of SMEs’ entrepreneurs are likely to tap the informal financing market. The finding is critical: on the one hand, the criteria necessary to obtain formal loans are quite stringent; on the other hand, the informal market seems to set no threshold for financing. In the light of these considerations, informal financing will inevitably play a dominant role within the financial system. In chapter 4, we firstly consult the extant literatures to learn the SMEs practice around the world. We then hold interviews with five managers from a commercial bank to learn their mindset towards SMEs business. Then, through the combination of what we find from the literature and the interviews, as well as the empirical results from the previous chapters, we propose specific policy suggestions. Policy suggestions are proposed from three different dimensions: the supply side of funds for SMEs financing (including both the formal and informal financial institutions); and the demand side. Such grand view will offer more insightful understanding in SMEs financing. The policy suggestions proposed are explicit, specific and practical.