This research critically analyses and compares how the United Arab Emirates (UAE)1 Law and English and Welsh (EW) Law regulates obligations in a contract, for a thing that is to come into existence in the future, namely a construction contract. Uncertainty/speculation as to how an obligation is to be performed in UAE Law is termed gharar. The word that is synonymous with this terminology in EW Law is “risk”. The extent of gharar or ‘risk’ (these terms are used on an interchangeable basis in this thesis) in an obligation plays a fundamental role in the profitability of a construction contract. Where losses become unacceptable, particularly for the Contractor, a dispute will arise. These circumstances may be in conflict with UAE Law, which obligates parties to a contract to ensure circulation of wealth by maintaining the anticipated profit to be made from a contract. This analysis also reviews how the level of gharar or ‘risk’ can be increased by operation of two types of provision that are included in standard forms of construction contract such as the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, Geneva, Switzerland (FIDIC) Conditions of Contract for Construction for Building and Engineering Works Designed by the Employer 1st Ed. 1999 (FIDIC99). The first is a provision that releases the Employer from liability where the Contractor does not give timely notice of an Employer’s act of prevention. The second is a provision giving the Employer a discretion to act in an opportunistic manner, and exempt or limit his liability. It considers how FIDIC99 should be applied to control gharar or ‘risk’ in a positive way. It also identifies similarities between how UAE Law controls gharar and that of the notion of parties’ reasonable expectations in contract Law (herein referred to as parties’ expectations), and how relational contracts operate to ensure parties achieve their expectations.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T19:14:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 24 / Nenhuma / O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar se as formas de remuneração dos executivos das Companhias Latino-Americanas influenciam o gerenciamento de resultados contábeis. Realizou-se uma análise empírica de 48 empresas, de 4 diferentes países latino-americanos em um período de 5 anos (entre 2002 e 2006), perfazendo um total de 240 observações. Para verificar a ocorrência de gerenciamento de resultados nas companhias latino-americanas, foi adotado o modelo Kang e Sivaramakrishnan (1995). Os testes estatísticos utilizados foram: U Mann-Whitney e Teste Wald. Os resultados do estudo indicaram indícios de maior nível de gerenciamento de resultados nas empresas que fornecem remuneração não fixa aos seus executivos. / The objective of this study was to determine whether the forms of compensation for executives of companies Latin American influence earnings management. There was an empirical analysis of 48 companies, of 4 different Latin American countries in a period of 5 years (between 2002 and 2006), which totaled of 240 observations. To check the occurrence of earnings management in Latin American companies, the model adopted was Kang and Sivaramakrishnan (1995). The statistical tests used to the validity of regressions were: Mann-Whitney U test and Wald. The findings the study showed signs of greater level of earnings management in companies that ofter variable pay to their executives.

Submitted by Leoná Rodrigues (leonarodrigues@id.uff.br) on 2017-08-30T21:13:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Controle da discricionariedade política - Paulo Nasser.pdf: 1066379 bytes, checksum: ed9630034155e46a8b44cc2bf573346e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Biblioteca da Faculdade de Direito (bfd@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-09-12T14:54:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Controle da discricionariedade política - Paulo Nasser.pdf: 1066379 bytes, checksum: ed9630034155e46a8b44cc2bf573346e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-12T14:54:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Controle da discricionariedade política - Paulo Nasser.pdf: 1066379 bytes, checksum: ed9630034155e46a8b44cc2bf573346e (MD5) / O presente trabalho intitulado controle da discricionariedade política à luz da constituição: uma visão de sua legitimidade e legalidade no âmbito do poder judiciário tem por objetivo analisar o tratamento dado pelo Poder Judiciário da discricionariedade política dos atos administrativos a ele submetidos. Para tanto se faz um comparativo entre Brasil e Espanha no tratamento dado pela doutrina e jurisprudência na definição do espectro de abrangência desse indeterminado conceito jurídico e os espaços de atuação de cada um dos poderes no exercício de suas competências constitucionais. Aponta-se para existência de dois grandes grupos de pensamento: os que advogam pela força do ato administrativo discricionário e os limites de legalidade e legitimidade impostos a sua sindicabilidade pelo Poder Judiciário e os que defendem a implementação judicial de políticas públicas como instrumento de viabilização e concretização dos direitos fundamentais resguardados pela Constituição do País. Os resultados apontaram para um desenvolvimento teórico atual muito complexo e elaborado para o tema e que ainda se está longe do fim desse debate. As conclusões do trabalho conduzem a uma reflexão sobre as mudanças estabelecidas ao longo do tempo na interpretação desse tema e sobre os desafios que ainda existem para a doutrina e jurisprudência na construção desses marcos teóricos. / The present work entitled control of the discretionary policy in the light of the constitution: a vision of its legitimacy and legality in the judiciary aims to analyze the treatment by the judiciary of political discretion of the administrative acts submitted to it. For that we make a comparison between Brazil and Spain in the treatment of the doctrine and jurisprudence in defining the scope of this spectrum of indeterminate legal concept and performance spaces for each of the powers in the exercise of its constitutional duties. They point to the existence of two major groups of thought: those who advocate the power of an administrative discretion and the limits of legality and legitimacy attributed to their control by the judiciary and those who advocate the implementation of judicial policies as a means of enabling and realization of fundamental rights protected by the Constitution of the Country results showed a very complex theoretical development today and prepared for the subject and that is still far from the end of this debate. The conclusion leads to a reflection on the changes over time established in the interpretation of this theme and the challenges that still exist for the doctrine and jurisprudence in the construction of theoretical frameworks.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-12-20T16:38:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Kélim Bernardes Sprenger_.pdf: 631926 bytes, checksum: 252828806d3d6757ac0475db132cf8b0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-20T16:38:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Kélim Bernardes Sprenger_.pdf: 631926 bytes, checksum: 252828806d3d6757ac0475db132cf8b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-18 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / UNISINOS - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos / Tendo em vista que o resultado de uma entidade impacta na decisão dos investidores, no mercado e na administração da empresa, determinados gestores podem se utilizar da discricionariedade no processo de mensuração e evidenciação contábil para gerenciar os resultados. Visando compreender as circunstâncias que estão atreladas à essa prática no Brasil, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar a relação entre as características do Chief Executive Officer (CEO) e o gerenciamento de resultados em empresas listadas na BM&FBovespa. Para a consecução deste estudo, foram coletadas as informações do CEO de cada empresa, como idade, gênero, experiência anterior, nível de escolaridade e área de formação, bem como sua forma de eleição e os cargos por ele ocupados, no período de 2010 a 2015, por meio do Formulário de Referência. Para detectar o gerenciamento de resultados, foram utilizados os modelos de Jones (1991) e de Jones Modificado (1995), cujos resíduos representam os accruals discricionários, vistos pela literatura como proxy do gerenciamento de resultados. Dessa forma, para cada empresa e em cada ano, foram estimados os accruals discricionários e estes foram considerados como a variável dependente de uma regressão múltipla elaborada para estabelecer uma relação entre as características do CEO e o gerenciamento de resultados. Os dados foram organizados e estimados em poll de cross section. Os principais resultados indicam que quanto maior a medida de remuneração por desempenho (MRD) do CEO, menor será o uso de accruals discricionários na empresa e, consequentemente, haverá menor nível de gerenciamento de resultados. Também se verificou que há relação entre a idade e o gênero do CEO com o gerenciamento de resultados, indicando que quanto maior a idade do CEO, menor é o gerenciamento de resultados e que os homens fazem mais uso dos accruals discricionários. Identificou-se ainda que as empresas cujo controle acionário é estrangeiro estão menos relacionadas com o gerenciamento de resultados. / Considering that the outcome of a company affects the investors’ decision in the market and in the company’s management, some managers may use the discretion in the measurement and accounting disclosure process to manage the results. To further understand the circumstances linked to this practice in Brazil, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between the characteristics of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and earnings management in companies listed on the BM&FBovespa. To achieve this study, each company CEO’s information was collected, such as age, gender, previous experience, level of education and area, as well as their form of election and positions held by them in the period 2010-2015, through the Formulário de Referência (reference form). In order to detect earnings management, Jones model (1991) and Jones Modified model (1995) were used, which residues represent discretionary accruals, considered in the literature as earnings management’ proxy. Thus, for each company and each year, discretionary accruals were estimated and considered as a dependent variable in a multiple regression designed to establish a relationship between the CEO characteristics and earnings management. Data were organized and estimated at pool of cross-section. The main results indicate that the higher the payment for performance measurement (MRD) of the CEO, the lower the use of discretionary accruals. Consequently, there will be a lower level of earnings management. It was also found that there is a relationship between the age and gender of the CEO with the management results, indicating that the higher the age of the CEO, the lower the earnings management, and that men make more use of discretionary accruals. It also identified that companies with foreign stock control are less related to earnings management.

The goal of this dissertation is to improve financial statement fraud detection using a cross-functional research approach. The efficacy of financial statement fraud detection depends on the classification algorithms and the fraud predictors used and how they are combined. Essay I introduces IMF, a novel combiner method classification algorithm. The results show that IMF performs well relative to existing combiner methods over a wide range of domains. This research contributes to combiner method research and, thereby, to the broader research stream of ensemble-based classification and to classification algorithm research in general. Essay II develops three novel fraud predictors: total discretionary accruals, meeting or beating analyst forecasts and unexpected employee productivity. The results show that the three variables are significant predictors of fraud. Hence Essay II provides insights into (1) conditions under which fraud is more likely to occur (total discretionary accruals is high), (2) incentives for fraud (firms desire to meet or beat analyst forecasts), and (3) how fraud is committed and can be detected (revenue fraud detection using unexpected employee productivity). This essay contributes to confirmatory fraud predictor research, which is a sub-stream of research that focuses on developing and testing financial statement fraud predictors. Essay III compares the utility of artifacts developed in the broader research streams to which the first two essays contribute, i.e., classification algorithm and fraud predictor research in detecting financial statement fraud. The results show that logistic regression and SVM perform well, and that out of 41 variables found to be good predictors in prior fraud research, only six variables are selected by three or more classifiers: auditor turnover, Big 4 auditor, accounts receivable and the three variables introduced in Essay II. Together, the results from Essay I and Essay III show that IMF performs better than existing combiner methods in a wide range of domains and better than stacking, an ensemble-based classification algorithm, in fraud detection. The results from Essay II and Essay III show that the three predictors created in Essay II are significant predictors of fraud and, when evaluated together with 38 other predictors, provide utility to classification algorithms.

Antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors have been studied in depth, focusing on both individual differences and environmental variables. However, motivation has been largely overlooked as a contributor to these voluntary behaviors. Self-Determination Theory, a motivational framework, posits that environmental support in the form of fulfilled basic psychological needs leads to activities geared towards growth and development, whereas a lack of environmental supports thwarts these attempts towards self-growth. It is hypothesized that environmental support will account for unique variance above and beyond previously studied antecedents of voluntary workplace behaviors. This was supported using hierarchical regression. It was also hypothesized that locus of control will moderate the effect of environmental support on voluntary behaviors, such that environmental support will play a larger role in people with an external locus of control, compared to those with an internal locus of control. This was not supported using moderated regression, but the trends suggest that future research in this area may be more successful. The implications for research and practice are discussed.

This paper examines the occurrence and outcome of auditor litigation related to financial statement misstatements and the effect of auditor misstatement-based litigation on subsequent auditor behavior. The study is motivated by recent calls to limit auditor legal liability and the need to examine the ability of litigation to deter non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial reporting. I find that misstatement severity is the primary driver of auditor litigation. Specifically, I find that auditor misstatement-based litigation is more likely when the misstatement is associated with fraud, a regulatory investigation, a larger stock price decline, and/or a greater number of accounting application [i.e., Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)/GAAP) failures. In addition, I find that auditor misstatement-based litigation is more likely to occur when the misstatement is associated with engagement fees that consist of a greater magnitude or a greater proportion of non-audit service fees. Further, I find that misstatement severity and the size of the plaintiffs? claims are the primary drivers of auditor settlements resulting from misstatement-based litigation. Specifically, I find that an auditor settlement resulting from misstatement-based litigation is more likely to occur when the misstatement is associated with fraud, a greater amount of alleged income or equity inflation over the class action time period, and/or a larger alleged percentage drop in share price over the class action time period. With respect to subsequent auditor behavior, I find evidence that auditor litigation results in more conservative subsequent auditor behavior across a litigated auditor?s office-wide client portfolio (that excludes the litigated client). Specifically, in the year following auditor litigation, I find evidence that litigation results in increased auditor constraint of client-reported positive and signed discretionary accruals, as well as longer audit report lags.

The topic of the effects of audit quality as a consequence of audit firm rotation has been debated for decades in business science. It has also been discussed in the political arena. In April 2013 the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Union voted for a draft law requiring mandatory audit firm rotation for periods of 14 years. Countries such as Sweden might face the possible changes in audit quality that the mandatory audit firm rotation entails. In the light of these events, we studied how the audit quality changes when audit firms rotate. Because we used the Jones Model and the Modified Jones Model, discretionary accruals were our proxy for audit quality. The initial sample consisted of all publicly listed companies which rotated audit firms from 2008 to 2012 in Sweden. We found that there was a statistically significant change in audit quality, in the form of higher discretionary accruals following the rotation. Based on earlier research claiming that higher discretionary accruals signifies lower audit quality, our results suggest that audit firm rotation in Sweden leads to a diminished audit quality. This might be due to the loss of firm-specific knowledge. Our results also indicate that the new auditing firms are more conservative than the auditor firm prior to the rotation, which might be explained by the increased audit risk that is related to the audit of the first-year client.

Unanticipated economic fluctuations exert pressure on state governments to adjust their discretionary fiscal policies to accommodate the changing fiscal situation. Even though states adjust fiscal policy as the economy fluctuates, the typical cyclical economic factors are not the sole determinant of such adjustments. State governments budgeting systems in the United States operate under a variety of budgetary institutions. The most prominent state government budgetary institutions include balanced budget rules (BBRs), tax and expenditure limits (TELs), and supermajority voting requirements for tax increases. This dissertation examines how these budgetary institutions affect state government choices of fiscal policy under different economic conditions. To better understand the effect of state level TELs, a stringency index of state level TEL is constructed considering the major structural features. The fixed-effect panel regressions are used for the analysis of impact of TEL and BBR and tax changes and the fixed-effect Tobit is adopted to test the impact of TEL and BBR on spending cuts after the budget is adopted. The result suggests that TEL plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the tax side, while BBR plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the expenditure side. Results of this research show that TEL exerts pressure on states that hinder state ability to deal with volatile fiscal situations, especially in the case of periods of budget crises.

Background and problem: This paper illuminates the problem with temptation of earnings management. However, there are particular disadvantages when companies use this technique because it creates an information asymmetry at the stock market. Problem of earnings management is although not a new phenomenon there issue is the quality of financial reporting. The development is concerning, since recently the performance of financial report has a negative trend, a trend that could harm the financial world. If a company does not provide meaningful information the fundamentals of capital market lose confidence. Purpose: This study has two purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate the ability of various discretionary accruals model at Stockholm Exchange Market. The second purpose is concerning a new model in purpose to understand and reveal earnings management. Boundaries: Data contains only business corporations at large cap and operate at the Stockholm Stock Exchange market. Furthermore is this research based on a time series data from year 2000 – 2009 and cross section data from year 2009. Method: The approach of the methodology are inspired of prior earnings management research, as Healy (1985), DeAngelo (1986) and Jones (1991) which have relied on discretionary accruals to detect earnings management. Conclusion: The result indicates that the Jones modified model is the most powerful models to explain earnings management, which also is consistent with prior studies. The result from the extended Jones modified model indicates no improvement, concerning on revealing earnings management. Further, the results confirm that the null hypothesis can be rejected at 1% significant level but the F-value fall drastically compare to Jones modified model. Suggestions for further research: One suggestion is that more research should be conducted in order to develop accounting policies aimed at limiting the application of earnings management. Alternatively, future research should base on data that measures the phenomenon of earnings management at a deeper level. Yet there are some obstacles to gather desire data and therefore it is not easily accessible. / Bakgrund och problem: Den här studien undersöker resultatstyrning, då det finns både fördelar och nackdelar med att tillämpa denna metod. Problemet med resultatstyrning är dock inte ett nytt fenomen, där tidigare studier visar att kvalitet på den finansiella rapporteringen kan ifrågasättas. Företagens årsredovisning skall speglar en rättvisande bild av verksamheten och således är utvecklingen oroväckande eftersom trovärdigheten för den finansiella rapporteringen har fått en negativ trend, en trend som kan skada den finansiella marknaden. Syfte: Den här studien utvärdera och jämföra hur befintliga disketionära modeller förhåller sig på Stockholmsbörsen. Dessutom utvecklas en förbättringsmodell. En model med förklaringsvariabler som ger ett nytt och/eller annorlunda perspektiv på fenomenet. Avgränsningar: Undersökningen omfattar endast företag som är registrerad på large cap och verkar på Stockholmsbörsen. Data som används i studien är dels en tidsserie data från år 2000-2009 och dels tvärsnittsdata från år 2009. Metod: Den här undersökningen tillämpar liknande metoder som tidigare studier, beträffande resultatstyrning såsom Healy (1985), DeAngelo (1986) och Jones (1991) där de definierar diskretionär avsättning som vinstmanipulering. Slutsats: Resultaten visar att Jones modified model förklara och upptäcker resultatstyrning på ett bättre sätt än de andra modellerna. Denna slutsats överrensstämmer med tidigare studier. Resultaten från den utökande Jones modified model visar inte några förbättringar. Dock förkastar den noll hypotesen på 1 % signifikansnivå men F-värdet sjunker kraftigt jämförelsevis mot Jones modified model. Förslag till vidare forskning: Ett förslag är att framtida forskning bör bedrivas i syfte för att utveckla redovisningsprinciper som begränsar resultatstyrning. Alternativt förslag är att samla in data som mäter resultatstyrning på en djupare nivå, dock är det problematiskt med dagens