This study examines whether financial reporting, in its present state, complies with the modern farmer's need for efficient financial management. Although decision making is the ultimate outcome, the emphasis in this study is on the way the presentation and interpretation of financial reporting assist that outcome. The following issues are addressed to establish the usefulness of agricultural financial statements: (1) the nature and quality of current financial statements in agriculture (2) the stakeholders in need of financial management information (3) the methods used to acquire financial information for management purposes (4) new trends in the presentation of financial statements The following are some interesting facts emanating from the study: (1) Farmers must realise that they are principal users of their financial reports. (2) Financial decision making can only be done if financial statements are presented timeously, and are accurate and comprehensible. (3) Farm managers need to keep up with the changing financial and technological environment in which they operate. / Auditing / M.Comm (Accounting))

This study investigates whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Africa has a significant impact on earnings' quality, despite the prevalence of weak country governance. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has identified the use of a common set of high-quality standards- the International financial reporting standards ( IFRS)- to enhance global accounting information quality, and promotes global adoption. However, research opinion on the impact of IFRS compliance, on earnings quality improvement is mixed and unresolved. Furthermore, little is known about the possible impact on earnings in firms located in Africa, where country governance quality is relatively low. Thus, this study targets African countries, and uses data from a general sample of 680 firms covering the period 2000 to 2012, to enrich the impact-of-global-IFRS-adoption debate, with African evidence. The study hypothesises that earnings quality differs between mandatory IFRS and domestic accounting standards(DAS) reporting periods in Africa. The research design involves a range of earnings quality proxies and the use of robust regression models. The study finds that relative to DAS, IFRS based earnings are: more persistent and closely associated with future period cash flows; less managed towards small profits and less smoothed. Also, the study finds more timely loss recognition and an increasing frequency of large losses recognition during periods of mandatory IFRS reporting. The results are robust to various additional tests and offer convincing evidence consistent with the hypotheses. These findings provide some direct evidence that mandatory adoption of IFRS is likely to improve earnings quality in some countries with weak governance. Thus, the study extends the literature on factors that influence earnings quality, and the impact of IFRS in countries with relatively weak governance. The research also informs firms, investors, country-level policy makers; and provides a lead for future investigation.

I explore the impact financial statement transparency has on the probability of restatement and the effect a restatement announcement has on the levels of future financial statement transparency. Information theory suggests that a strong information environment increases accounting quality. Using financial statement transparency as a proxy for the information environment, I find that transparency is associated with a lower probability of financial statement restatement. There are competing theories to predict how restatement announcements affect future levels of transparency. Skinner’s (1953) theory of operant conditioning, which states that behavior is modified based on positive or negative conditioning suggests that the level of transparency increases after a restatement announcement. However, expectancy theory suggests that firms engage in certain behaviors in order to derive expected rewards or incentives. Motivation is eliminated if the rewards are deemed unobtainable thereby eliminating managers’ incentive to improve their reporting strategy suggesting that the level of transparency decreases after a restatement announcement. I find that restatement announcement has a negative association with the transparency measure and the magnitude of this effect decreases over time compared to non-restatement firms. These results are magnified if the restatement is due to fraud. However, the changes are not significant. Further, the transparency associations are mitigated if there is a change in CEO after the restatement announcement. In addition, using a sample of firms that made a restatement announcement matched with a sample of firms that did not make a restatement announcement, the difference in the transparency measure before and after the restatement announcement is statistically insignificant. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-diss.--Erlangen. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 93-98.

In this dissertation, I provide two essays that examine how parties in the financial communication process attempt to persuade other market participants. In the first essay, I provide a thought piece in which I accomplish two objectives. First, I explain how the financial communications process involves persuasion, which is defined as “any effort to modify an individual’s evaluations of people, objects or issues by the presentation of a message” (Petty and Cacioppo 1986, p. 25). The parties on which I focus are corporate managers, information intermediaries (hereafter, sell-side analysts), and investors. I describe the typical communications among the three dyads represented by these groups (e.g., managers-analysts, analysts- investors, etc.), and argue that it involves persuasion. Second, I introduce one persuasion theory--the persuasion knowledge model (PKM)--and explain how it can increase our understanding of the financial communications process. The PKM outlines additional factors beyond those suggested by economic theory--such as, topic knowledge, persuasion knowledge, and recipient (provider) knowledge--that influence the selection of and reaction to persuasion strategies in financial communications. In the second essay, I use two experiments to investigate one dyad--e.g., analysts-investors--in the communications process. Within these experiments, I examine one persuasion strategy that sell-side analysts might use to persuade investors. I test the hypothesis that including some negative argumentation in a favorable analyst report (e.g., two-sided argumentation) acts as a credibility enhancer and augments investor response to the positive arguments included in the report. I also examine whether this effect depends on how investors view one- and two-sided reports: separately or simultaneously. Experimental results show that two-sided argumentation influences credibility only when one- and two-sided reports are viewed simultaneously. Further, this credibility effect is moderated by the strength of the positive arguments, as credibility is enhanced only when the arguments are weak. In contrast, when one- and two-sided reports are viewed independently, two-sided argumentation does not enhance credibility. Rather, argument strength alone determines credibility, as well as the likelihood of investment. These results suggest that, under certain conditions, sell-side analysts can use attributes of accounting argumentation to enhance the credibility of their favorable research and generate trade. / text

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