Earnings have numerous properties that can be investigated, including earnings smoothness, abnormal accruals after modelling the accruals process and asymmetric timely loss and gain recognition. In latest decades, as earnings are the main source of firm-specific information for investors, earnings quality has become a significant focus in the financial accounting field. Moreover, high-quality financial reporting helps investors improve decisions and better evaluate firm performance because capital markets depend on the credibility of financial accounting information. The aim of this study investigates the impact of the mandatory adoption of IFRS on earnings quality in term of earnings management and accounting conservatism in consideration of eleven European countries (Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Norway and the United Kingdom) as a sample study. Then to test whether investors could predict a company's future performance efficiently based on deferred tax expense as one of the accruals components before and after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. Since the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) required by the European Union (EU) Parliament, numerous research studies have examined whether earnings management has been reduced due to the mandatory adoption. Chapter two of this study examines whether the board of directors is more effective in constraining earnings management after the mandatory application of IFRS. More specifically, the study explored ways that two board characteristics, board independence and the existence of an audit committee, have impacted earnings management since 2005. The empirical results with eleven European countries (Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Norway and the United Kingdom) showed evidence of an inverse relationship between the strength of corporate governance and the extent of earnings management. This negative association suggests that firms that apply IFRS with a high level of corporate governance standards are less likely to be involved in earnings management. This study indicates that board independence and the existence of audit committees play important and effective roles in reducing earnings management after the introduction of IFRS. The results also provide evidence that the internationally uniformed accounting regulatory framework significantly contributes to the effectiveness of the two corporate governance mechanisms. Chapter three examines the impact of the mandatory IFRS adoption on the asymmetrically timely gain and loss recognition (accounting conservatism). The findings provide evidence of the importance of the mandatory adoption of IFRS in increasing of accounting conservatism in pooled samples and separate samples. Chapter four investigates whether investors could predict a company's future performance efficiently based on deferred tax expense as one of the accruals components before and after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. Moreover, whether or not the predictions could be generalised to other European countries was examined. The results imply that an accrual anomaly exists in pooled samples before and after mandatory IFRS adoption and the study prove that deferred tax expense as a determinant factor of accounting accruals is overweighed by stocks prices before and after IFRS adoptions.

Under Accounting Statement CPC 38, from 2010 on Brazilian companies started adopting accounting standards correspondent to IAS 39 regarding hedge accounting, whose disclosure is optional and, in cash flow hedge operations, may avoid losses disclosure in the income statements due to deferred values in other comprehensive income (OCI), promoting better earnings disclosure. In this scenario, by means of statistical models we investigate whether firm\'s financial exposure to currency risk and the high exchange rate depreciation environment promote the deferral of losses on firm\'s OCI and, in addition to the tax deferral on exchange gains and losses, the hedge accounting choice for 379 Brazilian listed companies between 2010- 2017. Our results show that firms\' high leverage in foreign currency, the high exchange rate variation on country level and the tax deferral choice influence positively the hedge accounting choice and, consequently, reduce the disclosure of losses on income statements, evidencing potential earnings management activity, since OCI\'s balances are not entirely understood by analysts and investors (even the most sophisticated). Our paper contributes to the disclosure, accounting choice and earnings management theories, highlighting the claim for enhancement of financial instruments accounting standards on uniformity and comparability. / Com o CPC 38, a partir de 2010 as companhias brasileiras passaram a adotar as normas contábeis correspondentes ao IAS 39 no tocante à contabilidade de hedge, cuja divulgação é facultativa e, especificamente em relação ao hedge de fluxo de caixa, pode diferir a divulgação de perdas cambiais em outros resultados abrangentes (ORA) e, consequentemente, promover o disclosure de melhores resultados. Nesse cenário, por meio de modelos estatísticos o estudo investiga se a alta exposição à variação cambial em um ambiente de alta depreciação da taxa de câmbio resulta em diferimento de perdas em ORA e, em conjunto com o diferimento da tributação da variação cambial, promove a escolha da contabilidade de hedge para 379 companhias abertas brasileiras no período de 2010 a 2017. Os resultados evidenciam que a alta alavancagem em moeda estrangeira, a alta depreciação do câmbio e o diferimento da tributação impactam positivamente a escolha pela contabilidade de hedge e, consequentemente, reduzem a divulgação de perdas cambiais no resultado, apontando a existência de gerenciamento de resultados, já que os saldos em ORA não são corretamente interpretados pelos analistas e investidores, mesmo os mais sofisticados. O estudo contribui para as teorias de disclosure, de escolha contábil e de gerenciamento de resultados, e aponta para a necessidade de aprimoramento das normas contábeis relativas a instrumentos financeiros em termos de uniformidade e comparabilidade.

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.

This study investigates the effects of the organizational ethical context (ethical climate and ethical culture) in Chinese enterprises on accounting professionals’ perceptions of earnings management, organizational-professional conflict (OPC) and affective organizational commitment (OC). We also test the effects of Machiavellianism on these factors, and the interactive effects of Machiavellianism and ethical context on OPC and OC. The findings, based on responses from 89 accounting professionals employed by Chinese enterprises at staff, supervisor and manager levels, indicate that in general the perceived ethical context did not affect judgments of the acceptability of earnings management. However, as anticipated, perceptions of a stronger benevolent/cosmopolitan climate (one that places more emphasis on the public interest) were associated with harsher judgments of accounting earnings management. Machiavellianism also had a marginally significant effect on judgments of accounting earnings management and a significant effect on judgments of operating earnings management, with high Machiavellians judging the actions to be more ethical. Two aspects of ethical culture, obedience to authority and ethical norms, were found to be significantly associated with organizational-professional conflict and affective organizational commitment. Contrary to our expectations, high Machiavellians appeared to be more, rather than less, sensitive to the perceived ethical context in their organization. Specifically, the perceived organizational ethical culture had a greater (lesser) impact on affective organizational commitment for high (low) Machiavellians.

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.

This paper examines the effect of the mandatory adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on transparency for investors by measuring the increase in earnings management during the post-adoption period of IFRS. One sign of earnings management is current year earnings being only slightly higher than the previous year’s earnings. An increase in earnings management means a decrease in accounting quality and a decrease of transparency for investors. By comparing firms that mandatorily adopted IFRS to similar benchmark firms in terms of strength of legal enforcement, book-to-market ratios, market values and net incomes, I am able to run empirical regressions examining variables of growth, equity issuance, leverage, debt issuance, turnover, size, cash flow, and time period in order to determine the effect of the adoption on IFRS on earnings growth. After looking at 516 firms from 20 countries for the years of 2002-2007, I conclude that IFRS is decreasing financial reporting quality and decreasing transparency for the investing public, and therefore is not accomplishing its goal of bringing efficiency, accountability, and transparency to global financial markets.

<div>In my main dissertation essay, I investigate advertising spending during a recession. Advertising plays an important role in creating awareness, preference and purchase intent for many products and services. However, advertising is often cut when a firm needs to control costs. This empirical study examines a unique set of factors which motivated 553 firms to change their advertising spending during the Great Recession. The first half of the Great Recession had a moderate 2% decline in GDP and 1% to 2% cuts in advertising spending. The seasonality effect was weaker, which indicates that firms were not as likely to carryover spending from the prior year. The peak of the Great Recession had a GDP decline as high as 7%, which is considered severe. Average advertising spending declined by 13%. In addition to the seasonality effect, decreasing sales decreased advertising spending. Increasing firm risk tends to decrease advertising spending during the peak of the Great Recession, but not before. Finally, firms in high advertising intensity industries, where advertising is strategically important, had modest budget cuts. In contrast, firms in low-intensity industries had much larger percentage cuts.</div><div>The second essay examines real earnings management using advertising budgets” examines. Real earnings management occurs when managers change real activities to meet or beat important earnings benchmarks. Advertising has a limited short-term impact on firm sales for many products. Therefore, when a firm’s earnings are below key benchmarks for a fiscal quarter (year), managers are compelled to reduce advertising expenditures to boost earnings. This study examines factors which persuade firms to manage earnings using advertising budgets. Similar to earlier studies, we find firms suspect of managing earnings upwards reducing advertising expenses. The findings indicate that B2C firms are more likely to manage earnings by reducing advertising expenses than B2B firms. The findings also reveal that suspect firms which spend more in high advertising elasticity mediums such as TV do not reduce advertising spending as much as firms which spend more in low advertising elasticity mediums such as newspapers and magazines. The study also find evidence to suggest that suspect firms which report advertising expenditure in their income statement make smaller advertising spending cuts than firms which don’t report advertising expenditure. Finally, earnings management activity is much stronger during the last quarter of the fiscal year.</div>

Särskilt Betydelsefulla Områden infördes för att öka informationsvärdet i revisionsberättelsen och bidra till en ökad insikt i revisionsbranschens arbete. Det råder dock delade meningar kring vad SBO faktiskt fyller för funktion och det finns därför ett behov av att undersöka hur SBO påverkar förekomsten av resultatjustering, vilket avgör redovisningskvaliteten. Studien visar att resultatjustering är vanligt förekommande på Stockholmsbörsen, men att den minskar vid högre omfattning av periodiseringsrelaterade SBO i revisionsberättelsen. Större andel periodiseringsrelaterade SBO indikerar alltså bättre redovisningskvalitet. / Key Audit Matters was introduced to increase the informational value of audit reports and contribute to an enhanced insight of the audit process. However, there is a difference of opinion regarding the functionality and efficiency of KAM. Therefore, there is a need to investigate how KAM impacts the extent of earnings management, which decide the accounting quality.

Studies on earnings management usually hypothesise that managers manage accruals opportunistically. Few studies however, argue that managers can also use accruals to improve the value relevance of reported earnings to help investors better assess the firm's operating performance. While substantial evidence on managers' opportunistic behaviour on accruals has been documented in the literature, empirical evidence on the informativeness of accruals is scarce and inconclusive. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether managers use accruals to communicate private information regarding the firm's operating performance, or as reported in the literature, use them for their own benefit. This thesis finds that on average, firms reporting high earnings accompanied by high accruals have significantly negative subsequent period stock returns suggesting that these firms manage their accounting earnings. Focusing on stock dividend issues as an incentive to opportunistically increase accruals, the results are found to be consistent with the earnings management hypothesis. Stock dividend issuing firms are reported to significantly increase accruals in the issue year followed by poor earnings and stock price performances in the subsequent year. Moreover, discretionary accruals of the issuing firms are negatively correlated with both future earnings and abnormal stock returns. This evidence attempts to complement the earnings management literature. The analysis on the incentive to decrease accruals related to share repurchases, however, does not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that managers use their discretion to decrease accruals. To investigate the hypothesis that managers use accruals to convey information regarding their firm's future profitability, this thesis employs the contemporaneous earnings and dividend announcements as the research setting. This choice was made to increase the likelihood of detecting the use of accruals as private information communication while simultaneously mitigating the likelihood of the opportunistic income smoothing hypothesis to explain the results. The evidence strongly indicates that managers use both accruals and dividend increases as their private information communication regarding their firm's future profitability. Dividend increasing firms report positive accruals which are positively correlated with future profitability. This finding contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the accrual signalling hypothesis. Overall, the results of this thesis suggest that, depending on the incentives, managers can use the discretion accorded under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in estimating accounting accrual, either to manage accruals opportunistically or to help investors better assess the firms' operating performance.

本研究主要在研究上市（櫃）公司上半年公告強制性財務預測的達成率與下半年盈餘管理之間的關係。當公司在上半年度公告的財務預測過份樂觀，公司在公告預測的下半年擬現金增資時，則公司會以盈餘管理的方式來令原始（上次更新）預測達到準確的目的。即探討公司上半年度財務預測達成率過高或過低之的情境下，公司是否從事盈餘管理活動以避免於下半年度更新財務預測。 本研究以盈餘達成率作為衡量篩選樣本的指標，以無母數統計MANN-WHITNEY U TEST與單因子變異數(1-WAY ANOVA)分析資料。 本研究的實證結果顯示： 一、上市（櫃）公司於上半年度未更新財務預測，其上半年財務預測達成率低者，公司有傾向以盈餘管理方式操縱應計項目以避免於下半年更新財務預測。 二、上市（櫃）公司於上半年度更新一次財務預測，其上半年財務預測達成率仍未達20﹪者，公司有傾向以盈餘管理方式操縱應計項目以避免於下半年更新財務預測，但幅度不是很顯著，可能盈餘管理並非管理當局達成財務預測的主要方式。 三、不論上市（櫃）公司於上半年度是否更新過財務預測，其上半年財務預測達成率低者，公司皆有傾向以盈餘管理方式操縱應計項目以避免於下半年更新財務預測。而上半年度未更新財務預測者又較上半年度更新一次財務預測者傾向以盈餘管理方式操縱應計項目以避免在下半年更新財務預測。