Corporate websites open wide avenues for companies to disseminate financial and non-financial information to target audiences in a fast, efficient and widely accessible manner. While website communication became a standard means for companies in developed countries, its utilisation, however, by their counterparts in developing countries is still negligible (Oyelere and Kuruppu, 2012). The current study aims to achieve three objectives. Firstly, to explore the patterns and amount of internet corporate reporting (ICR) practices of listed companies in Jordan. Secondly, to identify the determinants of various ICR practices of these companies. Finally, to investigate the determinants and perceived factors contributing to ICR adoption/non-adoption in Jordan. The key literature focuses mainly on economic-based theories in explaining different ICR practices as a voluntary disclosure channel. The theoretical foundation of this study, on the other hand, integrates several disclosure frameworks with innovation diffusion theories. The resulting framework involves dimensions of technology, management, organisation and environment. This was carried out to obtain a more in-depth interpretation of the ICR adoption phenomenon. Within the premises of the positivistic-deductive paradigm, the study relies mainly on three quantitative methods in collecting the required data. Firstly, a self-designed disclosure index of 109 items was used to survey companies’ websites, identifying levels of different forms of disclosure practices. Secondly, secondary data that include 15 companies’ attributes was gathered, specifying determinants of ICR adoption and practices. Finally, a questionnaire survey was conducted among CEOs and CFOs of companies to determine perceived factors that may further contribute to the adoption of ICR.Results of the survey from websites of 262 listed companies on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) in 2012, indicate that, around 150 companies (57%) had usable websites, while only 69 (26%) companies have engaged in reporting the investor relations information on their websites. Explanatory findings also show that, with varying degrees, ICR adoption and different disclosure practices of a firm are a function of its general characteristics, ownership and corporate governance structure. Based on managers’ evaluation, four factors were further identified as significant contributors of ICR adoption, namely cost-benefit balance, management commitment, internal technology readiness and users’ attention. This study represents an investigation into ICR adoption and practices among the listed companies in Jordan. Therefore, the ability to generalise the results may be limited to this context. Future research may also consider retesting the study model, regarding the perceived factors of ICR adoption, in other contexts. The study contributes in providing managers and regulators with a diagnostic tool, assessing the status quo of ICR as a voluntary disclosure practice in Jordan. The study also presents an assessment framework for ICR adoption and practices, which enable managers to evaluate the current status of the company regarding multiple aspects of readiness for engaging in ICR: organisation, management, technology and environment.

No description available.

The first essay (Chapter 2) shows that changes in gambling attitudes affect asset prices and corporate decisions. Using the Internet search volume for lottery-related keywords to capture gambling sentiment shifts, we show that when the overall gambling sentiment is high, investor demand for lottery-like stocks increases, stocks with lottery-like characteristics earn positive abnormal returns in the short-run, managers are more likely to announce stock splits to cater to the increased demand for low-priced lottery stocks, and IPOs perceived as lotteries earn higher first-day returns. Further, the sentiment-return relation is stronger among low institutional-ownership firms and in regions where gambling is more acceptable. The second essay (Chapter 3) examines the relation between social attributes and stock returns. As investors regularly update their beliefs on firm-level CSR records, they are likely to rebalance their portfolios to include firms with good social attributes. Using a novel measure to identify perceived social attributes, we demonstrate that stocks with good perceived social attributes have better future returns. A trading strategy that attempts to exploit demand-based return predictability generates an annualized risk adjusted performance of 14% and spans 15-36% of the market. Further, institutional trading results show that institutions have consistently higher demand for firms with good perceived social attributes. Our findings suggest that perceived social attributes predict stock returns. The third essay (Chapter 4) investigates how social attributes affect mutual fund flows. Using social sensitivity estimates to capture fund-level social attributes perceived by the market, we show that mutual funds with good social attributes attract 0.13% higher monthly flows than their counterparts. In addition, these funds experience greater appreciation in flows following good performance and lower decline in flows following bad performance. When investors increase demand for corporate social responsibility, funds perceived to have poor social attributes experience 0.5% reduction in monthly fund flows. Overall, our findings are consistent with the view that mutual fund investors value social attributes when making investment decisions.

The competitive implications of intra-industry diversification (chapter 2), the firm-investor network (chapter 3) and resource acquisition across the firm boundary (chapter 4) are of central concern to this thesis. The analysis draws on qualitative evidence, a quantitative, large-scale, longitudinal panel dataset (chapters 2 and 3), as well as conceptual reasoning (chapter 4). The empirical setting of the analysis is the hedge fund industry, which is characterised by small, entrepreneurial and knowledge-intensive firms. Whereas the three main chapters of this thesis are constructed and presented as stand-alone papers, three overarching insights emerge. First, intra-industry diversification impacts firm performance and firm survival in non-trivial ways. Whereas the positive effect of intraindustry diversification on survival seems to be driven by the risk reducing effect of beyond sub-sector diversification within an industry, the negative effect on performance seems to be driven by within sub-sector diversification, which may create limited value for investors. Second, the relationship of investment firms and their customers (i.e. investors) is much more multifaceted than the view of ‘investors as passive providers of capital’ would suggest. The analysis provides evidence for a performance and survival enhancing impact of the firminvestor network on the hedge fund firm. Third, moderation of complexity via a differential flow of resources is an important, yet underappreciated attribute of the firm boundary, which may contribute to the creation of resource asymmetries as a basis for competitive advantage. Although the evidence presented in this thesis is based on the empirical setting of the hedge fund industry, the findings on intra-industry diversification, the firm investor network and resource acquisition across the firm boundary may generalise to other firms in the (financial) services industry.

This thesis presents research into the development and calibration of relative value fixed income trading models. The first chapter provides some background into the models studied, chapters two and three focus on calibration problems relating to an earlier version of the model: the relative value Nelson Siegel and Svensson model (rv-NSS). Chapter four introduces a more advanced version of the model, the relative value Dynamic Nelson and Siegel model (rv-DNS). Chapter five draws overall conclusions and discusses avenues for further research. Contributions to the literature: * Chapter 2 - Shows that Differential Evolution could be successfully applied to calibrate the rv-NSS * Chapter 3 - Compares the widest set of ridge regression estimators ever assembled - Modified (r-k) Class Ridge Regression (MCRR) did not specify how to estimate all of its parameters, two methods to address this were introduced - Improved Ridge Estimators (IRE) had convergence problems, chapter three tries to address these succeeding in the majority of conditions tested - Linearized Ridge Regression Estimator (LRRE) had estimation problems at the lowest volatility levels, an attempt was made to fix this - Although no one estimator dominated in every scenario tested the LRRE came closest to fulfilling that goal * Chapter 4 - Introduces a dynamic relative value trading model based on the Dynamic Nelson Siegel Model (DNS) introduced by Diebold and Li (2006) - This is the only relative value trading model based on the DNS - Successfully tests the model on simulated and real data Overall the thesis successfully introduces a functioning relative value fixed income trading model based on the Nelson and Siegel approach.

This monograph describes an applied research project to develop a computer system to aid the planning process in large internal audit departments. The ultimate outcome was a sophisticated computerised planning system based around a formula, but with the important additions being able to plan at both audit subject and control objective levels and take into account previous audit coverage. The system is capable of producing a plan for up to five years ahead for well over 1.5 million audits involving over 1000 audit staff. The only real limitations to the system are the amount of disk storage available for the data files and the speed of the central processing unit. The system as derived will run on any industry standard micro computer and consists of over 80 separate modules comprising some 9,000 lines of code. The modules are linked to each other by a menu and the user is given information at each stage of the operation. The system is both fault tolerant and user friendly. The main findings from the research are: it is possible to build a computer system to aid the internal audit planning process: spread sheets do not provide the level of sophistication, or the level of user friendliness required: risk analysis, as applied to internal audit planning, is a misnomer and it would be more appropriate to call the output from the process an "importance score", rather than a risk index: the use of a formula to indicate the relative importance of a particular area to the auditor is practical, but it does not necessarily provide an absolute rating to that area: if more than one formula is used to deal with different aspects of the business, then there is a danger that the auditor will be unable to rank items from one area against those of another area with any certainty of relative, or absolute merit: the formula is not the most important part of a planning system: the collection of the data to be manipulated by the formula is one of the most important aspects of the planning process, as it ensures that the auditor has a good understanding of the organisation which he is responsible for: the best time to collect the data required by the planning system is during an actual audit, which implies a link between the historic monitoring process and the future planning process: there is no correlation between the importance of an area, as rated by its importance score, and the resource required to audit it; there is a relationship between the complexity of the area to be audited and the resource that is required to do the work, but the relationship is not necessarily linear: an "override" facility is required to ensure that items with a low importance score can be forced into the scheduling mechanism.

The published papers and accompanying essay which make up this doctoral thesis examine economic aspects of the competitive process in mature product industrial markets and draw implications for competition policy. The analysis of price competition relates patterns of price leadership and discount competition to features of market structure (using the UK petrol market as a case study) and examines the influence of large buyers on price determination. Policies towards buying power and price discrimination in several countries are compared and appraised. The analysis of long-run adjustment and competitive equilibrium focuses on the diversification process, analysing the industry structure determinants of the inter-industry pattern of diversification within a risk/return framework. The same risk/return optimisation provides the basis for an examination of the role of risk differentials in determining inter-firm and inter-industry differences in return on capital. Some implications are drawn for the interpretation by competition authorities of the returns earned by dominant firms.

The main objective of this thesis is to test whether the financial regulation put in place in Portugal with the aim of bringing stability to the banking system has contributed to that aim. This question is examined not by considering the incidence of failures before and after the regulations were put in place for, as will be set out, that approach would be inappropriate in the particular case of Portugal. Rather what is examined is whether the regulations have contributed to stability by reducing the volatility of profits or by increasing their level. Financial regulatory reform is usually characterised as a move from macroeconomic, allocation and structural controls to prudential, protective and organisational controls. The history of these changes in Portugal is set out, and their effects on profitability then examined. The following questions on the behaviour of profitability were addressed. What happened to profitability? How did it change as between before and after the reforms, and were the changes, if any, significant? Next the effect of regulation on profitability in a model of profitability, which also allows for the effects of real and nominal macroeconomic stability, interest rates, management, market structure, and ownership, is examined. Finally, the evolution of risk in the course of financial regulatory reform is examined. The main findings from the econometric tests are as follows. They show that profits, the RO.A. and RO.E. behave differently with financial regulation changes. Average profitability measured by profits increased but became more volatile, while average profitability measured by return on assets (R.O.A.) and return on equity (R.O.E.) fell. It is also found that regulation is statistically significant in explaining profits and R.O.A. behaviour but the influence of regulation on R.O.E. is statistically not significant. Output from these models is used to build a Regime Switching Model of Risk for the Banking System that allows risk to be determined simultaneously by regulation and by all the other banking performance determinants that are significant. According to these results, risk has decreased with full liberalisation of the banking market.

In our first study (Chapter 3) we investigate valuation bias in the UK. stock market by examining the valuation of new stocks relative to survivor stocks as new stocks have relatively higher valuations with the valuation gap increases in: bullish markets and vice versa. The value explanatory model and individual fundamental factor tests developed provide evidence of a negative significant relation between age and value. This does not seem to be backed by any known economic rationale given that new stocks showed lower profitability levels, no concrete evidence of materialised higher growth or lower risk which is inconsistent with their relatively higher valuations indicating that valuation bias could well be present. The evidence in the first study does not imply that valuation of survivor stocks is rational or otherwise. Hence, in our second study (Chapter 4), we seek evidence on valuation bias at the stock market aggregate level where the occurrence of major divergences between stock prices on one side and economic growth and equity invested capital on the other, followed by subsequent price falls (corrections) is evident. The evidence obtained shows: (a) low earnings yields using theoretical and empirical models under plausible scenarios, (b) no changes in corporate profitability pattern that could explain stock price levels, (c) a cyclical gap between implied growth and economic growth, (d) that implied growth was almost always higher than both economic and earnings realised growth, and finally (e) the implied average equity risk premium compared with the evidence in the literature and the market unbiased expected return appears to underestimate risk revealing a paradox of high return expectations driving prices up implying lower equity risk premium. The evidence on balance, suggests that stock price levels in the UK. during 1989-2002 cannot be explained by fundamentals and the idea of temporary mispricing is not supported by strong evidence leaving the door open to argue the presence of overvaluation on average during 1989-2002. One of the implications of valuation bias and stock age is that investors are relatively more limited in exaggerating the potential of survivor stocks because of the better investment knowledge available about them compared to new stocks. Thus, in our third study (Chapter 5), we seek evidence for the role of 'investment knowledge' in 'stock price rationalisation' from property investment stocks exploiting the special investment characteristics of their underlying assets and operations. We establish the presence of a significant and enduring market discount to the underlying value for property investment stocks. We test the hypothesis that property investment stocks discount is a reflection of investment knowledge-based rationality that limits valuation bias for these stocks. In testing the hypothesis, we establish knowledge-based rational explanations for property stocks market valuation or discount. The evidence from return differential, operating expenses, capital gains risk, leverage risk, and the stability of property stock prices, unlike the overall stocks market, relative to the economy and the underlying value leads towards not rejecting the null hypothesis.

Technical analysis is the study of price movements in traded markets so as to forecast future movements or identify trading opportunities. Following a review of the history and research of technical analysis, three empirical chapters evaluate a number of propositions popular among technical analysts. One approach used widely over the last century assumes that support and resistance levels can be predicted by projecting the ratios between the length and duration of successive trends, in particular using Fibonacci ratios like 1.618. This proposition is rejected for the Dow Jones Industrial Average by identifying turning points and testing for clustering by developing a block bootstrap procedure. A few significant ratios appear to support such anchoring by the market, but no more than would be expected by chance. The thesis then reports a survey based experiment that tests whether individuals themselves do have an in-built tendency to anchor forecasts of future trends on previous trends. The significance of the survey results are tested using a novel kernel density estimator based bootstrap methodology. Respondents' forecasts do bear some relationship to the size of the most recent trend by certain whole-number ratios by more often than would be expected by chance. The third experiment addresses the criticism that academic studies do not use a rich enough characterisation of technical analysis. 120 active market-timing strategies are tested using a regression based framework of equity fundamentals, macroeconomic fundamentals, behavioural variables and a diverse set of mainstream statistical indicators from technical analysis. Our recursive approach uses time-invariant rolling and expanding estimation windows as well as conditional windows based on the presence of structural breaks, identified using the conditional reverse ordered cusum method (ROC), of Pesaran and Timmermann (2002). Models that include both fundamental and technical indicators perform well, even allowing for realistic levels of transactions costs. And accounting for structural instability via the ROC method also improves performance.