Abstract This thesis is examining not only the relationship between earnings management and information disclosure but also which information disclosure dimensions influence earnings management in banks and financial holding corporations. I classified the information into five dimensions and they are independent variables in this thesis. Due to different industrial characteristics among financial and other industries, I didn¡¦t use The Healy Model ( 1985), The Jones Model (1991), The DeAngelo Model(1986), The Modified Jones (1995) Model to estimate earnings management. Instead, I choose eight proxies selected in Liu¡¦s paper (1999), and they are Bad Debt, Provisions of Other Loss, Gain on Disposal of Investment, Loss on Disposal of Investment, Gain -Disposal of Fixed Asset, Loss -Disposal of Fixed Asset, Gain on Trading S-T Investment, Loss on Trading S-T Investment as the earnings management proxies for financial industry. Hence, I also chose those proxies as my earnings management proxies. The results show that the total scores of information disclosure are not related to earnings management in banks and financial holding corporations. On the other hands, it is the score of information disclosure dimensions related to earnings management. It demonstrates that different information disclosure dimensions influence the earnings management in different ways for banks and financial holding corporations. Key words: earnings management, information disclosure, banks, financial holding industry

How information technology (IT) influence peoples' everyday lives is becoming one of the most important research issues in IS field. In this study a theoretical model based on the self-disclosure theory and the social capital theory has been constructed to research how the bloggers' self-disclosure behaviors in the blogosphere may influence their subjective well-being (SWB). The results suggest that the trust in audiences, self-efficacy for self-disclosure, and stress were the key factors influencing the bloggers' self-disclosure behaviors. In addition, writing blogs provides a channel for users to release their inhibition, enhance their experiences of positive affect, increase their social support and social integration, and extend their social network, all of which in turn enhance the bloggers' perception of subjective well-being. These results provide significant theoretical and practical implications to researchers, enterprises, blog platform designers, and IT policy makers in understanding the roles of blogs in peoples' everyday lives.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate if bloggers¡¦ attachment style would affect their self-disclosure. In addition, the study also examines if bloggers¡¦ social support would affect blogger¡¦s self-efficacy to self-disclose, if self-disclosure would affect Internet interpersonal satisfaction. The results show that social support has positive effect on blogger¡¦s self-efficacy to self-disclosure, and blogger¡¦s self-efficacy to self-disclose has positive effect on self-disclosure and Internet interpersonal satisfaction. The results also show that bloggers of the secure attachment style have higher score than avoidant and anxious attachment styles on self-efficacy, self-disclosure, and Internet interpersonal satisfaction.

Behind ¡§e-mail¡§, ¡§BBS¡¨, ¡§Instant Messenger¡¨, weblog is regarded as the fourth kind of ¡§killer application¡¨ of the Internet. Therefore, ¡§weblog usage behavior¡¨ becomes a popular issue to study in not only industry but also academia. However, there is still not a complete framework to explain the motivation of blog usage and the influence factors. This research extends the ¡¥Attitudinal Belief Structure¡¦ of ¡¥Theory of Planned Behavior¡¦ and discusses which personal values among social value, utilitarian value, hedonic value and psychological value are the main motivations to use blog. In addition, we look into ¡¥past use¡¦, ¡¥attachment styles¡¦, ¡¥information recipients¡¦ and ¡¥blog type¡¦ deeply to find out which influence factors moderate the research model. This study used survey method to collect data from the Internet users and use PLS to analyze it. The result found the social value and psychological value are significant motivations among four personal values, and the influence of hedonic value is comparatively week. Then, the influence of personal value on blog usage intention is generally weaker among heavier users than among lighter users. Otherwise, psychological value influence people with preoccupied attachment style less. However, when the information recipients of blog trend to intimate friends, psychological value becomes more important. Finally, as types of blog are different, the influence of user¡¦s psychological value on future usage intention will be different. In sum, we extend the ¡¥Attitudinal Belief Structure¡¦ and renew it with social psychological theories to build a complete model. The research model can offer future study a framework to refer, and give weblog .com several marketing suggestions.

<p>The Enron collapse in 2001 has resulted in an increasing attention to corporate governance. Even in Sweden, some scandals have occurred, for example Skandia, ABB, Trustor; a parallel could be drawn, implying that these scandals have resulted in increased attention to corporate governance. Corporate governance concerns the relationship between a corporation’s management, board of directors, shareholders and other stakeholders. The problems with the relationship between managers and share-holders are referred to as the principle-agent problem. The increase in corporate governance disclosure can be seen as a way by the corporations to regain the trust from the shareholders. Can agency theory be used to explain why some corporation disclose more corporate governance information than others?</p><p>The purpose with this master thesis is, with starting point in agency theory, to contribute to the understanding of which factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information in the annual reports.</p><p>For this thesis, a quantitative research has been performed. Annual reports from corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have been examined, to be able to develop a corporate governance disclosure index and to measure 15 characteristics, derived from the agency theory and two control variables. The data was analysed in SPSS , using both linear and multiple regressions.</p><p>The analysis showed that role duality actually measured if a corporation had a foreign parent company and corporations listed on the O-list other on Stockholm Stock Exchange served as proxies for smaller corporations. Therefore, it was possible to con-clude that corporations were influenced by the origin of the parent company and the size of the corporation to disclose corporate governance information. Another conclusion was that corporate governance characteristics derived from agency theory is not appropriate when trying to find factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is inappropriate to take the starting point in the agency theory.</p>

<p>Frågor kring frivillig redovisningsinformation har under senare år varit av växande intresse. Missnöjet med den obligatoriska redovisningen bland investerare och andra nyckelintressenter har bidragit till att kraven på företagen att förse dessa intressenter med mer information ökat. Företag uppmuntras därför att förbättra den ekonomiska rapporteringen.</p><p>Syftet med studien är att beskriva och förklara vilka faktorer som påverkar företag att lämna frivillig information i årsredovisningar.</p><p>Uppsatsen bygger på kvantitativ forskningsstrategi då den syftar till att kvantifiera förekomsten av frivillig redovisningsinformation i årsredovisningar. Genom en innehållsanalys av 389 slumpmässigt utvalda aktiebolags årsredovisningar med hjälp av ett kodningsschema kvantifieras den frivilliga informationen. Denna kvantitativa information har sedan statistiskt bearbetats för att kunna bidra till att testa de uppställda hypoteserna.</p><p>Börsnotering är den faktor som har störst inverkan på mängden redovisad frivillig information och den teori som är mest tillämpbar för att förklara förekomsten av frivillig redovisning är legitimitetsteorin.</p>

Empathy has been studied in composition since the 1960s, although it has not yet been adequately defined or theorized. Compositionists tend to employ the common definition of empathy as a feeling of identification with others using the familiar metaphor “walking in another’s shoes,” derived from the liberal-humanist therapeutic paradigm of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, which assumes a universal and transparent human experience. The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework for empathy, answering the question: what is the function of empathy in the teaching of writing? Composition scholarship has shown three general orientations toward empathy: empathy embraced, empathy inferred, and empathy disdained. In response, I trace empathy’s development across disciplines as an aesthetic, ethical, physiological, and psychological construct using current research that shows empathy is a multifaceted, complex, cognitive process. In psychology and neuroscience, empathy is on the cutting edge of research, visible as brain activity in fMRI studies, theorized to have a vital role in evolution, and studied for its efficacy as a vehicle for altruistic action on behalf of stigmatized individuals and groups. Building on this multidisciplinary foundation, I offer an updated definition of empathy that invokes these scientific discoveries in order to account for empathy’s role in the teaching and study of writing and rhetoric. I theorize there are five empathies at work in composition—relational empathy, pedagogical empathy, critical empathy, rhetorical empathy, and discursive empathy. I describe these empathies using another metaphor, that of a watershed, to illustrate empathy as part of a natural process whereby the five empathies are separate like the tributaries in a river system yet as inseparable as the water that fills them. Empathy’s primary weaknesses, the familiarity and morality biases, are addressed; these are foundational to most criticisms of empathy. In the final chapter, I propose a sample course focusing on the study of rhetorical empathy, address the limitations of the study, provide many directions for further research, and argue that the study (and practice) of empathy itself and rhetorical empathy in particular are vital in today’s uncertain times. / Dissertation Chair: Dr. Bennett A. Rafoth Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Gian S. Pagnucci and Dr. Michael M. Williamson

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-140). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This study exploits the recently-issued Uncertain Tax Position Statement (Schedule UTP) to examine the effect of mandatory disclosures of tax uncertainty to tax authorities on firms' reporting decisions. Schedule UTP requires firms to disclose federal income tax positions to the Internal Revenue Service that have been classified as 'uncertain' for financial reporting purposes. In showing how Schedule UTP disclosure requirements affect private and public reporting decisions, I provide insights into the usefulness of these disclosures. Using confidential tax return data and public financial statement data, I find that after imposition of Schedule UTP reporting requirements, firms report lower financial reporting reserves for uncertain income tax positions, but do not claim fewer income tax benefits on their federal tax returns. These findings suggest some firms changed their financial reporting for uncertain tax positions to avoid Schedule UTP reporting requirements without changing the underlying positions. The effect is concentrated among firms with greater business complexity, whose business operations facilitate tax planning strategies that are more difficult for the IRS to identify. More broadly, my results imply private disclosures of tax uncertainty can affect the informativeness of public disclosures of tax uncertainty. / text