The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has recently required auditors to disclose critical audit matters (CAMs), which are financial statement matters that involve especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgments. The PCAOB contends that CAMs will increase the decision usefulness of the auditor’s report and indirectly benefit investors by increasing audit and financial reporting quality. I examine whether investors react to CAM disclosures and whether they perceive any change in adopting firms’ financial reporting quality. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that (1) while there is no significant stock price reaction to CAMs on average, investors react negatively to CAMs disclosed by firms with high levels of short interest; (2) there is a significant increase in the quarterly earnings response coefficient for adopting firms. The effect is driven by big-N audit firms, and increases with the number of CAMs reported. Collectively, the evidence suggests that investors use CAMs to confirm their pre-existing opinions about a firm, and that they perceive an improvement in audit quality and financial reporting reliability due to the CAM disclosure requirement.

In Canada, the natural birth rate is declining in part because of delayed childbirth (Canada 2016). As a result of their decision to postpone parenthood and their increasing age, more couples are turning to assisted reproductive treatment (ART) including in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive. The risk of IVF failure, the detrimental mental health outcomes (i.e. depression) associated with infertility, and the strain on physical, financial, spiritual, and emotional resources contribute to heightened stress for IVF patients, and compel them to identify and leverage psychosocial supports. Since the quality of social support individuals receive depends on the nature of communication they share with the receiver, it is important to consider how disclosure builds social support. Common social support channels such as spouses, family, friends, counsellors, and support groups and their associated communication patterns have already been explored in the fertility literature whereas processes integral to peer relationships, a support that women have signaled as promising, remain uncovered. It remains important to understand the nature of peer relationships in the context of infertility. This dissertation explores how in-vitro fertilization (IVF) users approached their decision to disclose to a peer and carried out their communication. Guided by the Disclosure-Decision Making Model (DD-MM) it starts by showing how IVF patients assess their support needs, and peers as recipients before communication takes place. It then delineates how these women execute their communication with specific focus on the modalities of their process and the scope of the disclosures of fertility-related and non-fertility related information between them. A sample population of 23 first-time and recurring IVF patients were interviewed. Results show that prior to disclosing to a peer, women reflect on information about their condition and their personal support needs on the basis of the adequacy of their social circles and perceptions of stigma, the benefits and drawbacks of secrecy versus transparency, and their personal motivation to leverage peer support. They also assess their peers, considering diverse pathways of connection as well as desirable peer traits which include IVF experience, other common ground and transparency. Relating to their communication, patients showed a distinct capacity to communicate with their peers and meet their support needs. The IVF patient-peer communication process is characterized through immediate disclosure transitions and backwards introductions, a solid mutual understanding when it comes to engagement and disengagement boundaries, a preference for digital communication via texting and instant messaging, and the coverage of a broad range of fertility topics in reciprocal conversations. The findings also show however that the majority of women choose to distance themselves and limit their conversations during the post embryo transfer waiting period and refrain from discussing pregnancy testing as a form of self- preservation. IVF patients share a natural relationship with peers. This dissertation points to opportunities to facilitate patient-peer relationships and enhance the fertility-care experience overall by embracing: the transparency of patients, better coping resources for men, safe places to personally connect in clinic and support group settings, and roles for all IVF patients in social support regardless of their outcome. It also suggests that patient-peer support is a pragmatic and flexible support channel that when managed properly can respond to patients’ personal disclosure and communication needs and preferences.

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This study explores the relationship between classroom disclosure of political views and opinions by professors and student perceptions. A sample of students (N = 158) chose to participate in a survey asking questions about their perceptions of the amount, depth, and inappropriateness of teacher political disclosure, as well as whether or not they agreed with their professor's disclosed political ideology. The questionnaire also measured student perceptions of the teacher's subsequent competence, goodwill, trustworthiness, student state motivation, and student affective learning (content and teacher). The data revealed negative relationships between perceived inappropriateness of political disclosure and perceived competence and goodwill of the professor. Another finding of this study was that students who disagreed with their professors' disclosed political views tended to perceive those professors as less competent and trustworthy, and reported lower state motivation and affective learning.

Reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate tremendous advancement in the fight against HIV/AIDS infection through prevention, provision of high-quality treatment options, and psychosocial services to infected and affected individuals and communities. However, there is still a considerable number of new infections occurring among children, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers highlight the benefits of HIV status disclosure to children. Yet, there is limited research concerning the ways counselors navigate the process of status disclosure to children with an HIV diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of counselors regarding status disclosure to children living with HIV in Uganda, and to determine their self-identified training needs. I utilized a phenomenological qualitative research method and conducted individual interviews using a semi-structured interview protocol with 10 counselors from three HIV care centers in the central region of Uganda. Findings indicated six overarching themes including: (1) counselors' roles and responsibilities, (2) impact of age in the disclosure process, (3) motivations for disclosure, (4) challenges and barriers, (5) counselor preparations and trainings for disclosure, (6) and post-disclosure interventions. Study results highlight the critical role played by counselors during the HIV status disclosure process and the need for additional training and support to enable counselors to effectively support children and their caregivers. There is a need to further examine the effectiveness of current HIV status disclosure procedures and post-disclosure support interventions utilized by counselors within HIV care centers in Uganda.

Individuals at the DFW Church publicly confess intensely personal information, such as drug and alcohol addiction, spousal and child abuse, stripping, and sexual abuse. Using communication privacy management theory (CPM), I examined the way individuals at the DFW Church manage their private information, how they make disclosure decisions, and how they manage boundaries around their private information. I interviewed 13 individuals who participated in public confession, and coded their responses to identify the common themes and tactics for making disclosure decisions. Through this process, I pioneer the application of CPM to examine public disclosure events, rather than dyadic or small group disclosures. I also expand our current understanding of motivations for disclosure; rather than focusing on selfish or therapeutic motivations, participants want to encourage others through their disclosure. In terms of boundary management, individuals at the DFW Church believe that God owns part, or all, of their information; thus, disclosing their pasts is "not about them." Participants construct a new identity through their testimony narrative, effectively putting the old person in the past and presenting a new, Christian identity to the church body for group approval. In this context, confessing a negative behavior becomes a way to build a positive image by showing the drastic reformation that has taken place in that person's life. Lastly, I propose the public disclosure model—which involves boundary testing, audience analysis, and choice of disclosure path—to be tested for use in future research.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In the United States, approximately one in five women are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying. Due to the pervasiveness of pronatalism in Western society, having a child is widely assumed to be a natural and expected part of womanhood. Society’s master narratives reinforce these ideals and stigmatize the experiences of women who have infertility. This multi-phase research study examined how women discuss their infertility journey with their friends. The study’s aims were to understand friendships within the context of infertility, how the relationship affects a woman’s identity, and the communicative behaviors used in conversations. Fifteen interviews were conducted with women who experienced or are experiencing infertility and had discussed their past or current challenges with a friend. Results of a phronetic iterative analysis suggested that women who have personal experience with infertility (a) disclose to close/best friends, (b) communicate their identity as “broken,” (c) desire emotional support, and (d) strategically navigate conversations as they encounter positive and negative messages. These results were transformed into a performance, which included six monologues and a talkback. The purpose of the arts-based methodology was to disseminate results and assess the performance’s impact. Seventy-three individuals attended one of the two performances in April 2023, and 50 attendees completed the post-performance evaluation. The quantitative results suggest that attendees felt informed about the complexities of infertility, gained a new perspective, received advice about how to have future conversations, and did not feel offended by the content. Through a thematic analysis, four themes emerged from the two talkback sessions and evaluation comments: being informed about infertility as a health condition, appreciating the theatrical format to learn, connecting to the performance to understand the illness experience, and feeling comfortable navigating conversations about infertility. Despite the variance in infertility experiences, friends are essential social support figures as women navigate infertility, and there are best practices when having a conversation, as demonstrated in the performance. This study’s implications include providing communication strategies to support women with infertility and recognizing that an arts-based methodology can highlight counterstories, inform about a stigmatized health issue, and engage the community.

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