Business leaders increasingly face pressure from stakeholders to be transparent. There appears however little consensus on the risks and payoffs of disclosing vital information such as corporate strategy. To fill this gap, this study analyzes firm-specific determinants and organisational outcomes of voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Stakeholder theory and agency theory help to understand whether companies serve their interest to engage with stakeholders and overcome information asymmetries. I connect these theories and propose a comprehensive approach to measure voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Hypotheses from the theoretical framework are empirically tested through panel regression of data on identified determinants and outcomes and of disclosed strategy through annual reports, corporate social responsibility reports, corporate websites and corporate press releases by the 70 largest publicly listed companies in the Netherlands from 2003 through 2008. I found that industry, profitability, dual-listing status, national ranking status and listing age have significant effects on voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effects are found for size, leverage and ownership concentration. On outcomes, I found that liquidity of stock and corporate reputation are significantly influenced by voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effect is found for volatility of stock. My contributions to theory, methodology and empirics offers a stepping-stone for further research into understanding how companies can use transparency to manage stakeholder relations.

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of the segmental disclosure required by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 14 (SFAS 14) on the operating risk of multisegment firms. This investigation is accomplished in two phases. A theoretical model establishing the relationship between segmental disclosure and operating risk is developed in phase one. In the second phase, this model is employed in an empirical study that evaluates the effect of SFAS 14 on the operating risk of the affected firms. The findings of each of these phases are summarized below. A theoretical model for measuring operating risk is developed first. This model is developed by decomposing systematic risk into operating and financial risks. Then it is shown how the additional segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 can be used to assess the value of this measure of operating risk. First, the determinants of operating risk are identified. Then it is argued that if the additional disclosure provided by SFAS 14 had an effect on the assessment of operating risk, this effect would be associated with the disclosure of segmental assets. This argument provides the basis for conducting an empirical study that evaluates the effect of the segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 on operating risk. In this dissertation, the empirical study examines the effect of disclosure of segmental assets on the operating risk of firms that disclosed such information for the first time following the initiation of SFAS 14. A sample of these firms form the treatment group. The control group is composed of single-segment firms. The firms in the control group did not disclose segmental assets prior to or after SFAS 14 went into effect. A control group composed of multisegment firms is not used in this study because only two firms are available from the sample taken. Two hypotheses are tested. Hypothesis 1 simply tests whether SFAS 14 had an effect on the operating risk of the affected firms. Hypothesis 2 then tests if SFAS 14 had a favorable effect on operating risk. The effect on operating risk is evaluated by comparing changes in operating risk from pre-regulation period to post-regulation period for the treatment group with those of the control group. In both hypotheses, the null hypothesis that SFAS 14 did not affect operating risk is tested. The Mann-Whitney U test is employed to test Hypothesis 1. The Mann-Whitney U test, the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test and multiple regression analysis are used to test Hypothesis 2. The empirical results indicate that neither of the null hypotheses could be rejected at any conventional level of significance. In short, the empirical results tend to suggest that the additional segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 did not have a favorable effect on the operating risk of the affected firms. However it is advised that caution should be exercised in drawing inferences based on these results because of the potential effects on operating risk by factors not controlled for in this study. Finally, an alternative future study is suggested. Pending the empirical findings of the future study it is suggested that the empirical results presented in this study should be considered preliminary.

This dissertation consists of two essays in the area of corporate voluntary disclosure of predecision information. The first essay entitled, "Disclosure Choice in a Duopoly", focusses on the phenomenon of partial disclosure, where the manager of the firm discloses selected signals and withholds the rest. The manager may or may not receive private information which is related to both firm-specific and industry-wide common factors. The motivation for disclosure (non-disclosure) is derived from the proprietary nature of the manager's private information. The cost (benefit) of disclosure is modelled in an imperfectly competitive product market, where an uninformed opponent’s reaction to a disclosure affects the manager's expected profit. Our results indicate that the nature of the manager's optimal disclosure policy is crucially dependent on whether the signal is more informative about firm-specific or industry-wide common factors. Unfavourable news is disclosed and favourable news withheld if the signal is more informative about common factors. On the other hand, favourable news is disclosed and unfavourable news is withheld if the signal is more informative about firm-specific factors. Comparative statics show that the sensitivity of the optimal disclosure policy and the probability of disclosure to some key parameters are also dependent on this characteristic of a signal. The empirical implications of our results suggest that when testing hypotheses involving voluntary disclosures, failure to take the above characteristic into account may confound the results. The second essay entitled, "Disclosure and Reputation in Credit Markets", deals with a different aspect of voluntary disclosures. A reputation game is modelled in the absence of credible disclosure. The manager's ability with respect to obtaining predecision information is of interest to the firm's creditors. The manager's future nominal interest charges depend on the creditors' belief about the manager's ability, i.e., on his reputation. Hence, the manager attempts to communicate this ability through sub-optimal production choice and creditors learn about the manager by observing the end of period revenue realization. If credible disclosures are possible the manager may make direct disclosures to communicate his information gathering ability to the creditors. This alternative mechanism avoids the cost of reputation building incurred by selecting a suboptimal project. However, it is shown that if these two mechanisms for reputation acquisition are not "independent", then the possibility of disclosure increases the manager's incentive to select a sub-optimal action.

Seventy seven mothers and their 12-14 year old children participated in a study exploring the role of maternal disclosure on children's disclosure and on positive child outcomes. Disclosure was examined in two domains: protection (referring to worries and distressing situations) and control (referring to values and proper behavior), and two child outcomes were assessed for each domain: empathy and prosocial behavior (protection), and compliance and conduct problems (control). Maternal disclosure facilitated children’s protection disclosure only if children liked this disclosure. Maternal control disclosure predicted compliance only for children who liked this form of disclosure, and maternal protection disclosure predicted compliance only for children who disclosed about their own worries and concerns. Motivations behind disclosure were also assessed, revealing that mothers disclose to their child as a means of teaching behaviors and to encouraging disclosure, whereas children disclose to seek advice and comfort.

The present study examined how a leader’s behavioural intentions are affected by the trustworthiness of their subordinate using the Affective-Cognitive trust model (Gillespie, 2003; McAllister, 1995). Two-hundred and twenty-five undergraduate students participated in an experimental study that assessed their willingness to engage in reliance and disclosure behaviours based on their perceptions of affective and cognitive trust. Given concerns about the conceptual overlap between trust and liking, we controlled for liking. Consistent with our hypotheses we found that cognitive trust predicted participant’s willingness to engage in reliance behaviours, whereas affective trust predicted participant’s willingness to engage in disclosure behaviours. However, when we controlled for liking, these findings held for disclosure behaviours but did not for reliance behaviours. Limitations of our study and implications for both research and practice are discussed.

This thesis presents an historical analysis of the role of financial accounting in the emerging conceptions of corporate governance during the Progressive era in the United States. Specifically, this thesis advances an approach to the governance and control of corporations in terms of historically-situated subjects who are acted upon by various forms of power leading them to assume specific roles in relation to corporations and their governance. The focus of this study is a broad archival analysis of the emergence of the large industrial corporation during the late nineteenth and into the beginning of the twentieth century. In particular, in this thesis I analyze the importance of financial accounting and reporting discourses, as forms of expertise, to the historical emergence of the corporation’s external relationships with broader government bodies and authorities and a broad range of individuals within the public domain. I employ a Foucauldian theoretical and methodological lens to highlight the importance of disclosure and reporting at the macro level of a public economic discourse regarding the corporation. This discourse illustrates how governance focused less on prohibitory laws regarding corporate actions and more on normalizing forms of power in terms measuring and disclosure. I also analyze at the micro level the role of accounting expertise and how it leads to the understanding within the public domain of corporations as norms of business organization. Specifically, accounting expertise provides a means by which the corporation is seen as not only controllable, but also productive and utility maximizing. Taken together, this analysis highlights how financial accounting and reporting comprise forms of normalizing power which shape and define individuals as various types of corporate subjects, such as investors. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-29 15:47:15.015

Seventy seven mothers and their 12-14 year old children participated in a study exploring the role of maternal disclosure on children's disclosure and on positive child outcomes. Disclosure was examined in two domains: protection (referring to worries and distressing situations) and control (referring to values and proper behavior), and two child outcomes were assessed for each domain: empathy and prosocial behavior (protection), and compliance and conduct problems (control). Maternal disclosure facilitated children’s protection disclosure only if children liked this disclosure. Maternal control disclosure predicted compliance only for children who liked this form of disclosure, and maternal protection disclosure predicted compliance only for children who disclosed about their own worries and concerns. Motivations behind disclosure were also assessed, revealing that mothers disclose to their child as a means of teaching behaviors and to encouraging disclosure, whereas children disclose to seek advice and comfort.

This thesis proposes a multi-theoretical framework based on information asymmetry and institutional theories by focusing on the period of change in OFR regulation from 2004-2006. As a means of examining various aspects of the proposed framework, this thesis carries out an empirical investigation to find the extent of forward-looking information for a sample of 690 UK non-financial firm-year observations which are drawn from the top 500 UK listed firms by total market capitalization as listed by Financial Times on 30 March 2007. The investigation concentrates on three aspects: (1) the association between the extent of voluntary disclosure of forward-looking information and both information asymmetry and institutional characteristics; (2) the association between changes in disclosure and information asymmetry and institutional characteristics; and (3) the association between disclosure of cash flow forecasts and industry behaviour. Before examining the extent of FL information, another subsidiary objective arises: to investigate the impact of alternative methods choice on the measurement of information. Different methods of disclosure indices and content analysis (an un-weighted index, a weighted index, a frequency count, a manual content analysis, and a computerised content analysis using coding by text unit as a unit of analysis and coding by sentence as a unit of analysis) are conducted on a sample of 30 UK non-financial companies for 2006. Once the disclosure scores are computed, several set of analyses are performed (descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, multiple regression analysis, and ranking). The results of analyses reveal that, on average, alternative methods of measurements provide quite similar inferences; hence, a trade-off should be made to decide upon a method by which to measure the extent of FL for a large sample. Computerised content analysis using a text unit as a unit of analysis is chosen to perform coding for the large sample. For the purpose of testing the study hypotheses, both parametric and non-parametric tests are undertaken to examine how firm characteristics affect the level of forward-looking information. The results of regression analysis indicate that the extent of voluntary disclosure of FL information is positively and significantly related to growth opportunities, leadership, audit committee, competition rate, corporate size, and cross-listing. However, the extent of FL information is negatively and significantly associated with blockholding of 5% or more. In terms of changes in the extent of disclosure, the results show that changes in capital need is positively and significantly related to changes in disclosure, whereas changes in analyst following, blockholding of 5% or more, and corporate size are negatively and significantly related to changes in the extent of disclosure among consecutive years. In order to examine the relationship between industry behaviour and the extent of forward-looking information, disclosure of cash flow forecasts is chosen as a proxy for forward-looking information. This is done, because of the difficulty of measuring the disclosure practices of other companies in the same industry by means of a scoring sheet. The results of logistic regression analysis document that operating cash flow, industry behaviour, cross-listing, and company size are positively and significantly related to disclosure of cash flow forecasts, whereas performance and competition rate are negatively and significantly related to disclosure of cash flow forecasts

In this study the position was taken that therapist self-disclosure could be utilized as an intake interview intervention. It was believed that initiating a working therapeutic relationship would appear to require the ability to collect pertinent and reliable information from the client. Mutual self-disclosure is an important vehicle for enchance the therapeutic relationship (Curtis, 1981; Jourard, 1971). Self-disclosure assists therapists in obtaining vital client information and in establishing a strong, trusting, clinical relationship (Curtis, 1981). The utilization of self-disclosure between client and therpaist serves (Jourard & Friedman, 1970) as encouragement for success and growth in therapy and thus "encourages the development of trust" (Curtis, 1981, p. 502). Moreover, the client is expected to disclose personal information often in a setting in which he/she knows little about the trustworthiness of his therapist that presumes immediacy and accuracy without trust.."the patient's own disclosures, with which the therapists can recognize, identify, and articulate counter-productive patterns, cannot be assured inasmuch as the patient might not be motivated to reveal such personal information without at least receiving the impression of the therapist's reciprocity" (Curtis, 1981, pp. 502, 503). / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Mergers and acquisitions are business transactions with great potential for value creation. Although they are extremely popular, mergers and acquisitions are usually a gamble, complex to structure, and even more difficult to successfully implement. While realizing the expected synergies is possible, more often than not, mergers and acquisitions are less successful than anticipated and result in substantial destruction of shareholder value. Generally, these transactions come in waves, and many believe that one is currently starting. This study reports the motivations for mergers and acquisitions, as well as the relevant accounting practices regarding goodwill under U.S. GAAP and IFRS. Then, based on current research and an analysis of eight mergers and acquisitions that recorded large goodwill impairments, recommendations are made for improved due diligence prior to completing transactions, as well as for greater accounting transparency when goodwill impairments occur.