published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants recently made a decision to adopt accounting standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Committee rather than continuing to develop standards locally. Reasons used to justify this policy change include: the lack of resources to develop accounting standards from a zero base and, with what has been classified as the sub-standard financial reporting that occurs in South Africa. By adopting International Accounting Standards, amending the standard-setting process and providing legal backing for these standards, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants aims to improve the standard of financial reporting. It will be argued that this decision will effect the contribution preparers of financial statements make to the standard-setting process. Corporate management as preparers of financial information participate in this process by reacting to proposed statements of generally accepted accounting practice in a number of ways, including lobbying the standard-setting body. This thesis aims to establish the views of South African corporate managers to the proposed changes to the accounting standard-setting process which incorporates the adoption of international accounting standards. To achieve this objective, the responses of South African corporate managers to the first six exposure drafts issued by the Accounting Practices Committee based on International Accounting Standards are examined to supply evidence that is descriptive in nature and which provides additional support for the findings of the empirical study. Forty hypotheses were developed and tested in an attempt to establish the views of executives to various issues relating to the accounting standard-setting process, corporate managers as the producers of firm specific financial information, the regulation of accounting, management incentive schemes and the international harmonisation of accounting standards. The tests of the hypotheses together with the findings of the individual case studies, provide evidence to suggest that this new disposition effectively marginalises South African corporate managers from the accounting standard-setting process. Finally, it is concluded that the existence of a management compensation/incentive scheme, is unlikely to influence corporate management's reaction to a proposed accounting standard. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Applied Accountancy)

This study examines the incremental information of Canadian accounting principles when financial information according to US GAAP is known. The impact of SEC-required reconciliations of net income and voluntary disclosures of shareholders' equity reconciliations on share returns and prices are analysed. Based on such analysis, inferences are made about the incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP. This study follows the concurrent study by Richardson et al. that examines the question of incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP given the benchmark information provided by US GAAP. This study offers three contributions to this literature. First, it examines the components of reconciliation data and assesses their impact on share returns and prices. Second, it analyzes the effect of exchange rate flucuations on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Third, it analyzes the impact of the dominant trading market on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Unlike Richardson et al., the results of this study suggest that Canadian GAAP offers very limited incremental information when US GAAP financial information is known for Canadian firms that crosslist on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on a US exchange. Convergence of Canadian and US GAAP during the 1993-94 sample period used in this study may partially explain why its results are differenct from the 1983-93 sample period used by Richardson et al. Some components of the reconciliation data were statisticly significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). However, exchange rate flucuations, location of dominant market and reporting currenies were not statistically significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices).

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants recently made a decision to adopt accounting standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Committee rather than continuing to develop standards locally. Reasons used to justify this policy change include: the lack of resources to develop accounting standards from a zero base and, with what has been classified as the sub-standard financial reporting that occurs in South Africa. By adopting International Accounting Standards, amending the standard-setting process and providing legal backing for these standards, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants aims to improve the standard of financial reporting. It will be argued that this decision will effect the contribution preparers of financial statements make to the standard-setting process. Corporate management as preparers of financial information participate in this process by reacting to proposed statements of generally accepted accounting practice in a number of ways, including lobbying the standard-setting body. This thesis aims to establish the views of South African corporate managers to the proposed changes to the accounting standard-setting process which incorporates the adoption of international accounting standards. To achieve this objective, the responses of South African corporate managers to the first six exposure drafts issued by the Accounting Practices Committee based on International Accounting Standards are examined to supply evidence that is descriptive in nature and which provides additional support for the findings of the empirical study. Forty hypotheses were developed and tested in an attempt to establish the views of executives to various issues relating to the accounting standard-setting process, corporate managers as the producers of firm specific financial information, the regulation of accounting, management incentive schemes and the international harmonisation of accounting standards. The tests of the hypotheses together with the findings of the individual case studies, provide evidence to suggest that this new disposition effectively marginalises South African corporate managers from the accounting standard-setting process. Finally, it is concluded that the existence of a management compensation/incentive scheme, is unlikely to influence corporate management's reaction to a proposed accounting standard. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Applied Accountancy)

This study examines the incremental information of Canadian accounting principles when financial information according to US GAAP is known. The impact of SEC-required reconciliations of net income and voluntary disclosures of shareholders' equity reconciliations on share returns and prices are analysed. Based on such analysis, inferences are made about the incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP. This study follows the concurrent study by Richardson et al. that examines the question of incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP given the benchmark information provided by US GAAP. This study offers three contributions to this literature. First, it examines the components of reconciliation data and assesses their impact on share returns and prices. Second, it analyzes the effect of exchange rate flucuations on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Third, it analyzes the impact of the dominant trading market on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Unlike Richardson et al., the results of this study suggest that Canadian GAAP offers very limited incremental information when US GAAP financial information is known for Canadian firms that crosslist on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on a US exchange. Convergence of Canadian and US GAAP during the 1993-94 sample period used in this study may partially explain why its results are differenct from the 1983-93 sample period used by Richardson et al. Some components of the reconciliation data were statisticly significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). However, exchange rate flucuations, location of dominant market and reporting currenies were not statistically significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This dissertation investigates how a move towards an integrated Internet-based treasury function could have a significant impact on the systems that have to support compliance with the requirements of the international accounting standard IAS 39. The objectives of the dissertation are: to identify the measurement, recognition and disclosure requirements as set out in (or implied by) IAS 39 in order to select those requirements for which the possibility of compliance would most probably be affected by the suggested move from a traditional treasury to an integrated Internet-based treasury; and further, to identify the required changes that take place within a treasury environment when changing from a traditional treasury to an integrated Internet-based treasury function and then to match the identified probable system changes implied by the treasury environment change referred to above with the possible requirements from IAS 39 that could be affected by such a system change. / Prof. D Coetsee

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität St. Gallen, 2003.

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