<p>Intresset för att redovisa hållbarhetsinformation har ökat kraftigt sedan 1990-talet. Denna redovisning fick till att börja med följa med som en bilaga till den årliga finansiella redovisningen. När det sedan blev allt vanligare med denna sorts redovisning, och redogörelserna dessutom tenderade att öka i omfattning, började man separera det som man idag kallar för hållbarhetsredovisning från den finansiella redovisningen. Trots att det fortfarande är en relativt liten andel företag som upprättar hållbarhetsredovisningar runt om i världen, så har det blivit en vanlig standard bland många stora internationella företag. Granskning av hållbarhetsredovisning är ett relativt nytt fenomen och det är endast en handfull svenska företag som låter granska sina hållbarhetsredovisningar. Då de riktlinjer som finns för revisorer är relativt kortfattade och eftersom informationen i hållbarhetsredovisningar till stor del är mjuk, rikhaltig och framtidsinriktad till sin karaktär så är den förhållandevis svår att granska och bedöma. Syftet med arbetet är därför att skapa förståelse för hur tillvägagångssättet vid granskningar av hållbarhetsredovisningar kan se ut och vilka professionella bedömningar som kan behöva göras. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ metod där vi intervjuat fem personer från de fyra största internationella revisionsbyråerna som ingår i ”The Big Four”. Vi har sedan analyserat svaren från intervjuerna med hjälp av litteraturen om riktlinjer kontra bedömningar och gjort jämförelser med finansiell revision. Vår slutsats av arbetet är att granskningen av hållbarhetsredovisningar är ganska lik finansiell revision i flera avseenden både när det gäller vilka bedömningar som revisorn kan behöva göra och när det gäller tillvägagångssättet vid granskningen. Revisorn granskar mer hård information, dels för att denna är lättare att mäta, dokumentera och kontrollera än mjuk information, men också för att man på så sätt kan uppnå en mer tillförlitlig granskning då revisorn kan erhålla mer konkreta revisionsbevis. Det förefaller som om den etablerade revisionsmetoden och inriktningen för finansiell revision överförs till andra områden, både till granskning av eventuell ekonomisk brottslighet och till granskning av hållbarhetsredovisning. </p>

The objective of this study is to examine the association between goodwill and governance structures – specifically, potential agency conflicts and internal and external board monitoring mechanisms – over a four-year period (2004-2007). To do this, I perform two distinct analyses to test (1) whether governance structures appear to be determinants of aggregate goodwill, and (2) whether governance structures appear to moderate investors’ perceptions of aggregate goodwill. I then extend these tests to a sample of U.S. merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions where I calculate a more refined measure of residual goodwill and re-perform the tests using this alternative goodwill measure. I find that potential agency conflicts are associated with both goodwill and residual goodwill, whereas monitoring mechanisms appear to have little measureable association with either of the goodwill measures. In addition, I provide evidence that investors perceive goodwill balances less favorably when agency conflicts are high and limited evidence that their perceptions of goodwill improve when external monitoring is strong. Based on these findings, I conclude that governance structures should be considered when evaluating goodwill. My results also suggest that previous findings based on residual goodwill may need to be reevaluated. Specifically, my analyses highlight an important distinction between the purchase price and consideration elements of residual goodwill, and I propose future avenues of research which may be used to investigate this important distinction further.

The irrigation organizations have been organized in Taiwan for more than 400 years and set the foundation of Taiwan¡¦s agricultural development. This dissertation analyzes the 17 Taiwan irrigation associations¡¦ financial statements and discusses how the members of advisory board of irrigations associations interact with resources, rules and communication from the agency theory. The conclusions in the dissertation are as follows: 1.The type of city irrigation associations sold their useless assets and got the money to maintain and operate the associations. The type of country and fragmentary irrigation associations still irrigate the farms, but they have no unused assets to sell. The finance of these two types irrigation associations are not so sufficient, they should take actions to improve their finance by themselves or by the government. 2.Those factors as the levels of educations, the vocation, the types of associations-attending, the number of the types of associations-attending, the major cadres in the associations, the time to be a member of irrigation association, and be a politician or not, will influence with the members of advisory board of irrigations associations to communicate with members, know about the rules, constitute the irrigation association, and make the commitments to the associations. 3.The members of advisory board of different types of irrigation associations have different attitudes toward the constitutions of irrigation associations and the commitment of organizations. Especially the members of advisory board in the type of fragmentary irrigation associations, they are more concerned about the constitution of the irrigation associations, and the commitments of organizations are stronger. The suggestions have been addressed as follows: 1.The government should set up a system to monitor the finance of the irrigation associations. 2.The government should bring the new thoughts of business management to the irrigation associations. 3.The irrigation associations should operate more diversely. 4.The government should subsidize farming. 5.The government should support the irrigation associations to enlarge the irrigation areas.

The manager's personal wealth is one of the central building blocks of agency theory, which considers wealth to be an especially important source of individual utility. The managers' financial position, or the portion of their financial well-being that is not dependent on the firm, is also introduced in the original formulation of upper echelons theory. However, despite the importance of executive personal wealth to both theories, it is rarely mentioned, and even more scarcely studied. My research builds on and extends agency and upper echelons theories by focusing on executive personal wealth, defined here as the portion of executive net worth that is not attached to current employment at the firm (i.e., not contingent on current or future earnings). As such, this research provides an initial answer to the following research question: how does the average personal wealth of the top management team as well as within-team differences in wealth influence firm strategic choices with respect to risk? Specifically, I argue that external wealth alters how managers view firm decisions regarding risk; thus, I hypothesize that average top management team (TMT) wealth is negatively related to firm unrelated diversification, positively related to R&D investments, and positively related to firm risk. Next, I propose that two types of within-group diversity ? TMT wealth diversity and TMT pay dispersion ? attenuate the effect of average TMT wealth on these firm outcomes. I test my hypotheses on a panel dataset of over 700 firms/TMTs from the S&P1500 over 2002?2008 using panel tobit and fixed effect models, and conduct multiple robustness checks. Empirical results strongly and consistently support the hypothesized main effects of wealth. However, the results regarding the moderating effect of within-group diversity are weak, as the majority of the moderation hypotheses are not supported. The main conclusion is that wealthier TMTs are less risk averse with respect to firm strategic decisions, which manifests in greater R&D spending, lower unrelated diversification, and higher overall firm risk. Theoretical and empirical implications as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.

Intresset för att redovisa hållbarhetsinformation har ökat kraftigt sedan 1990-talet. Denna redovisning fick till att börja med följa med som en bilaga till den årliga finansiella redovisningen. När det sedan blev allt vanligare med denna sorts redovisning, och redogörelserna dessutom tenderade att öka i omfattning, började man separera det som man idag kallar för hållbarhetsredovisning från den finansiella redovisningen. Trots att det fortfarande är en relativt liten andel företag som upprättar hållbarhetsredovisningar runt om i världen, så har det blivit en vanlig standard bland många stora internationella företag. Granskning av hållbarhetsredovisning är ett relativt nytt fenomen och det är endast en handfull svenska företag som låter granska sina hållbarhetsredovisningar. Då de riktlinjer som finns för revisorer är relativt kortfattade och eftersom informationen i hållbarhetsredovisningar till stor del är mjuk, rikhaltig och framtidsinriktad till sin karaktär så är den förhållandevis svår att granska och bedöma. Syftet med arbetet är därför att skapa förståelse för hur tillvägagångssättet vid granskningar av hållbarhetsredovisningar kan se ut och vilka professionella bedömningar som kan behöva göras. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ metod där vi intervjuat fem personer från de fyra största internationella revisionsbyråerna som ingår i ”The Big Four”. Vi har sedan analyserat svaren från intervjuerna med hjälp av litteraturen om riktlinjer kontra bedömningar och gjort jämförelser med finansiell revision. Vår slutsats av arbetet är att granskningen av hållbarhetsredovisningar är ganska lik finansiell revision i flera avseenden både när det gäller vilka bedömningar som revisorn kan behöva göra och när det gäller tillvägagångssättet vid granskningen. Revisorn granskar mer hård information, dels för att denna är lättare att mäta, dokumentera och kontrollera än mjuk information, men också för att man på så sätt kan uppnå en mer tillförlitlig granskning då revisorn kan erhålla mer konkreta revisionsbevis. Det förefaller som om den etablerade revisionsmetoden och inriktningen för finansiell revision överförs till andra områden, både till granskning av eventuell ekonomisk brottslighet och till granskning av hållbarhetsredovisning.

The Swedish code of corporate governance (the Code) was introduced 1 July 2005 aiming to raise the quality of corporate governance. This thesis investigates how the Code has affected internal audit. The purpose of this study is dual and aims to 1). Describe the internal audit, in companies on the A-list and O-list, and how it has and is believed to be affected by the Code. 2). Explain why the internal audit function varies between companies. The first purpose has been carried out by using an inductive approach. The data has been gathered through qualitative interviews with companies, on the A and O-list, audit firms and the Institute of Internal Auditors. In order to fulfil the second purpose a deductive approach has been used. Quantitative data has been gathered from annual reports as well as homepages. The material has together with agency theory been used in order to analyse why the internal audit differs between firms. The result of the qualitative interviews shows that the perceptions of internal audit differ. This can to a certain extent be explained by that there today are no accepted standards for internal audit. Neither does the Code explain what an internal audit function should involve. Overall, all respondents agree that the Code is nothing new nor revolu-tionary since the majority of the companies regard the regulations to be a matter of course. However, the demand of documentation and information has increased. The respondents also states that the acceptance and importance of internal audit has been raised further. All respondents believe that the role of internal audit will develop further. It is expected to become more consultative wherefore the internal auditor’s competence must be improved. Furthermore, the opinion is that COSO will be the framework that companies will apply. The differences in internal audit practice have in this thesis also been analysed and explained by applying the agency model. The analysis has resulted in two proposals: Proposal 1: The ownership structure affects the agency relationship which in turn leads to differences in the internal audit. Proposal 2: Companies operating in complex business environments are more likely to have an internal audit function than entities in less complex businesses. Therefore, the existence of internal audit varies across business sectors.

The aim of this study is to test the audit fee determinants for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Stock Exchange and to examine whether the audit fee determinants diverge for ownership structures. By testing the audit fee determinants in a Swedish setting the study contributes to the research body in two ways; by testing a previously sparsely researched setting and examining the monitoring need for different ownership structures. The results indicate that audit fees are explained to a large extent by accounting complexities, business complexities and assurance.  The results also suggest that ownership structure does not have a large effect on the monitoring need.  Altogether the results provide further evidence on audit fee determinants whilst adding initial insight into the area of audit fee determinants for ownership structures.

The hardest time to receive financing for a venture is at its earliest stage. These ventures are among the riskiest investments for an investor, which creates a gap in financing that is often bridged through a source of funding called Angel Financing. Angel investors are one of the best providers of early stage funding. This thesis will explain what angel investing is, how they work, and what angels look for. This information will help entrepreneurs be better equipped to find an angel investor for their venture.

This dissertation consists of three papers that examine how aspects of public policy may impact private sector corporate governance. The first two examine the relationship between personal-tax policy and corporate agency costs. The first paper is a theoretical analysis based on an agency model of managerial behavior. A unique element of this paper is that it assumes a discontinuous compensation function, which reflects the occurrence of performance thresholds associated with the dismissal incentive and many common bonus plans. The analysis results in three main findings. First, the relative magnitude of proportional taxation has an indeterminate effect on managerial performance. Second, an increase in tax progressivity is associated with reduced managerial performance and increased agency costs. Third, the inclusion of performance thresholds and compensation discontinuities can cause tax system changes to have surprisingly large impacts on managerial performance. The second paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between personal-tax progressivity and corporate operating efficiency. The analysis is based on variations in across-state tax policy and utilizes a sample of US-based firms. Using matched-pair testing and regression analysis, evidence is found that is consistent with the hypothesis that increased personal-tax progressivity negatively impacts managerial performance. Together, the analysis contained in the first two papers suggests a need to further examine the relationship between personal taxation and corporate agency costs, an issue that is largely absent from the research literature. The third paper investigates whether variations in state corporate law affect firm value. Previous research in this area generally treats all states other than Delaware as having homogeneous corporate law. I relax this assumption and analyze a large panel sample of US firms. Evidence is found that Delaware firms are worth more, on average, than non-Delaware firms. However, this effect is not consistent across all non-Delaware jurisdictions. The valuation differences are correlated to differences in statutory law. Specifically, corporate law that provides greater entrenchment of management is associated with reduced firm value. The results indicate that corporate law does affect corporate governance. Furthermore, the findings are inconsistent with the “race to the bottom” theory of corporate law. / May 2006

I denna studie undersöker vi om det förekommer earnings management i resultathöjande syfte bland svenska börsnoterade företag vid tiden av en nyemission. Studier om earnings management vid nyemissioner har gjorts förut av exempelvis av (Shivakumar, 2000). Han kommer fram till att earnings management förekommer tiden precis innan en nyemission. Vi hittar dock ingen studie utförd på svenska företag, vilket vi vill undersöka närmare. Syftet med resultatet av studien är att visa intressenter till företagen att de kan bli vilseledda när de ska investera sitt kapital när earnings management förekommer. / In this study, we examine whether there occurs earnings management in order to increase earnings in Swedish listed companies at the time of an equity offering. Studies on earnings management at the time of an equity offering has been done before, for example by (Shivakumar, 2000). He concludes that earnings management occurs the time just before an equity offering. We find, however, no study conducted in Swedish companies, which we want to investigate further. The purpose of the outcome of the study is to show stakeholders to the companies that they can be misled when to invest their capital when earnings management occurs.