The King II Report on Corporate Governance was released in March 2002. This report, although focusing on South African businesses, is acclaimed as a world first in setting superior governance standards. Corporate governance in South Africa is undergoing transformation due to the influence of the King II Report, and a range of other global trends such as Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and the infamous collapse of Enron due to governance failures. Non-financial reporting (also referred to as sustainability reporting) forms the main focus of this research project. The financial reporting aspects of corporate governance, and the role of governing boards and auditors fall outside the scope of this study. Through document analysis methods, Eskom's annual reports from 1998 - 2002, were analysed to establish whether patterns in sustainability reporting were identifiable. Employees and consumers of Eskom were. interviewed, using structured interviews to explore their awareness and knowledge regarding sustainability issues. A drastic increase in Eskom's non-financial reporting was identified in 2000. Apart from the corporate governance category, none of the chosen categories showed a major change after the 2002 release of the King II Report. Possible reasons for the lack of clear trends since 2002 are that the pattern is either not yet visible or it could be speculated that Eskom, who had won various reporting awards, is a leader in the field of corporate reporting and specifically on sustainability issues. Eskom had been involved in the reviewing of the first King Report and the drawing up of the recommendations for King II, and could therefore have modified their reporting procedures in 2000, prior'to the release of King II. As shown in the trend analysis, companies are coming under increased pressure to be socially accountable and transparent. This is fast becoming a 'core business issue', illustrated by the status of the King II Report requirements for corporate governance. Even though the terminology 'sustainability reporting' is unfamiliar to employees and consumers, both groups want disclosure and transparency of sustainability issues. Employees were, however, more aware than consumers of Eskom policies regarding sustainability issues. This report recommends that companies take a pro-active approach to corporate governance and sustainability reporting, noting the desire of consumers and employees to be informed about non-financial issues. These stakeholders also need to be made more aware of the meaning and significance of sustainability reporting.

Actions by both private sector organizations and legislators in recent years have highlighted the importance of the audit committee of the board of directors of corporations in the financial reporting process. For example, the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 has multiple sections that deal with the composition and functioning of audit committees. My dissertation examines multiple issues related to the composition of audit committees. In the first two parts of my dissertation, I examine the stock market reactions to disclosures of audit committee appointments and departures in the 8-Ks filed with the SEC during 2008 and 2009. I find that there is a positive stock market reaction to the appointment of audit committee directors who are financial experts. The second essay investigates the cumulative abnormal return to departure of audit committee directors. I find that when an accounting expert leaves the audit committee, the market reaction is significantly negative. These results are consistent with regulators’ concerns related to having directors with audit, accounting and other financial expertise on corporate audit committees. The third essay of my dissertation examines the changes in audit committee composition in the last decade. I find that while the increase in audit committee size is relatively modest, there has been a significant increase in the number of audit committee experts and the frequency of audit committee meetings over the past decade; interestingly, such increase in the number of meetings has persisted even after the media focus on the auditing profession, in the immediate aftermath of the Enron and Andersen failures, have waned. My results show that audit committee composition and its role continues to evolve with regulatory and other corporate governance related changes.

In my dissertation, I examine the role of the audit committee chair in the financial reporting process and test if the change in audit committee chair is associated with changes in audit fees, audit report lag, and audit quality. Motivation for this dissertation comes from the increased attention paid by legislators and regulators in recent years on the role of the audit committee in the financial reporting process. While prior studies have examined diverse issues related to the composition of the audit committee, no prior study has examined the role of the audit committee chair on the oversight of financial reporting, even though the chair of the committee has significant control over the functioning of the committee. In the first essay of my dissertation, I show that audit fees are higher in firms that have a change in the audit committee chair. In the second essay, I examine the association between changes in the audit committee chair and audit report lag. In a changes regression, I find that the change in audit committee is associated with higher audit report lag. The third essay examines the association between changes in audit committee chair and two different measures of audit quality: restatements and abnormal accruals. There is no evidence in support of the argument that changes in audit committee chair is associated with higher quality financial reporting. Overall, the results suggest that the change in audit committee chair has an important impact on the financial reporting process of public companies.

The theoretical framework of this thesis bases itself essentially upon the respective works of Arendt Lijphart and Karl Deutsch, who have studied how societal cleavages and social communication interact with each other. The present thesis's main focus is the Quebec/English Canadian duality. It uses quantitative analysis to study and compare pan-Canadian reactions to the Allaire Report that was issued by the Quebec Liberal Party in early 1991. The purpose is to try and find out whether the Allaire Report and the proposals it contains have had a divisive effect on Canadian society, and if so, to what extent. The data consists of all issues of the following newspapers over a period of time of exactly one month, from the 22nd of January and the 22nd of February, 1991 : the Calgary Herald, the Chronicle Herald, the Globe and Mail, Le Devoir, the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun and the Winnipeg Free Press. The analysis bases itself upon (1) the space that each newspaper devotes to the issue (2) the tone and content of the headlines and (3) the frequencies of appearance of certain selected words. Quantitative analysis shows that the gap between Quebec and English Canada is becoming wider. Quebec clearly overestimates English Canada's fragile degree of homogeneity, while English Canada, by increasingly identifying itself to the so-called "rest of Canada", paradoxically acts as if Quebec were the glue that holds the whole country together. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

This thesis was undertaken with the intention of filling four serious gaps in the vast amount of writing that has been done on the interpretation of the British North America Act by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. First of all, an effort has been made to examine all the decisions handed down by the Board, then to analyse these decisions so as to obtain an understanding of the basic principles established, and lastly to summarise these principles into a coherent picture of the way in which the Constitution of Canada has been shaped, and of the manner In which Canadian constitutional problems of today must be viewed. Secondly, a similar attempt has been made regarding the arguments which the Judicial Committee's interpretation has produced, these arguments likewise being thoroughly examined, analysed into basic components, and summarised into a coherent pattern. Thirdly, one particular point of view, badly neglected in the past, has been given special attention. Finally, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on the bibliography, where the intention Is not only to bring together all the major references on this subject, but also to bring these references together in such a way as to Indicate their general character and relative importance. The body of the thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter I deals with governmental forms in general and the federal form in particular, the conclusion being reached that the distinguishing feature of a federation is a distribution of legislative powers between coordinate authorities. An analysis of the Judicial Committee's interpretation of Sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act is then carried out in Chapter II; two fundamental problems are isolated--the problem of residuary powers and the problem of leaky compartments--and the Judicial Committee's solution to them is discovered in the "three-compartment scheme" and the "Aspect,” "Ancillary Powers," "Cooperation," and "Unoccupied Field" doctrines. Two problems requiring special solutions are examined in Chapter III, where it is found that Section 91, subsection 2 and Section 132 have both been severely restricted in scope. Chapter IV contains a legal or textual evaluation of the Judicial Committee's interpretation, and the opinion is given that if the concluding words of Section 91 are a poor support for the "three-compartment scheme," the introductory words prove that the Judicial Committee's interpretation is legally correct. Three different historical arguments are looked into next, after which Chapter V concludes with a negative answer to the question underlying these arguments: has historical reasoning any connexion with statutory Interpretation in the first place? The purpose of Chapter VI being to determine the practical effects of the Judicial Committee's interpretation, an examination is made of the resulting difficulties; it is decided that before any change is contemplated the admittedly unfortunate consequences must be balanced against the necessity of maintaining Canadian unity—and hence of respecting the French-Canadian attitude regarding provincial autonomy. Finally, in Chapter VII a try is made at summarising the main points of the preceding chapters, and a number of recommendations are then offered with one eye on the present and the other on the future. The thesis concludes with an analytical bibliography and an appendix containing a copy of sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, 1867. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This work is dedicated to the "Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness", a document which was signed in 2005. This declaration was designed to eliminate serious issues occurring during the distribution of development aid and also to contribute to the successful completion of the Millennium Development Goals through the increase of aid effectiveness. In the first part of this thesis several shortages that the development community has had to face are outlined. A detailed analysis of the document follows in the second chapter, also including an evaluation of the progress achieved from 2005 to 2008 when the last report on the status of implementing the Paris Declaration was issued. Special attention is given to the influence of the document over the policies of the World Bank, European Union and the Czech Republic. The illustration of implementing the Paris Declaration into policies of developing countries has been made using Ethiopia and Cambodia as examples. Finally, this work is concluded by evaluating the effects of the Paris Declaration on the system of development aid.

The thesis titled "Women, children and advertising - legal and ethical aspects" deals with the portrayal of women and children in advertising. The aim of the thesis is to analyze advertising with a focus on the portrayal of women and children present to Arbitration Committee in the reporting period and propose recommendations for the future. The work also deals with the importance of legal and ethical rules that regulate advertising and focuses on content regulation of women and children.

The aim of this thesis is to provide insights into what the concept of audit quality means for a number of parties who have responsibilities for delivering, commissioning or evaluating audit quality in practice - auditors, AC members and quality inspectors concerning. It explores the influence of internal and external factors in the auditing setting on the construction of meaning of audit quality and how meaning is symbolised in practice. This research is based on an interpretive approach employing research methods of document analysis, semi-structured interviews and a survey questionnaire. Drawing on a symbolic interactionist framework, the research illustrates the process of giving meaning to audit quality in practice. The study identifies various constructs that give meaning to audit quality in practice - auditors' characteristics, firm's characteristics, compliance obligations, the content and control of audit procedures, financial statement quality and client service orientation. It also identifies acts such as asking challenging questions, professional appearance, the quality of interaction between auditor and AC, consultation and training, and objects such as documents and records as fundamental in symbolising audit quality in practice. The study also highlights the existence of possible conflicts between some of these constructs of audit quality and the potential for problems in audit quality in practice.The research reports that the audit practitioners predominantly framed their conceptions of the meaning of audit quality around four important constructs: client service, compliance obligations, the technical audit process or content, and individual auditors' characteristics. Client service is found to have a particular importance for the practitioners' meaning of audit quality. Their construction of the meaning for audit quality is influenced by interactions with other audit market constituents as well as by economic and societal forces in the auditing environment. Auditors perceptions of what quality means in practice are underpinned by factors such as the need to legitimise the conduct of the auditor, to restore trust and confidence in the public at large about the quality of audit services, to maintain profitability and the survival of the audit firm given the competitive and commercial pressures in the audit market, and to legitimise firm methodology and the resulting audit process to outside constituents.Amongst the AC members interviewed, the meaning of audit quality appears to be associated with the characteristics of individual auditors, in particular, auditors' interpersonal and behavioural skills, attributes of the audit firm (size and industry specialisation) and financial statement quality. The findings show that AC members perceptions of audit quality significantly depend on the 'relational' rather than the technical attributes of individual auditors. The quality of the financial statements also dominates the AC members' perceptions of audit quality rather than a technical interpretation of the quality of the content of the audit process. The AC members' conception of meaning for audit quality is influenced by interaction and communication with the external auditors. For the quality inspectors, the meaning of audit quality is mainly constructed in relation to the conduct or content of an audit. Therefore, the level of challenge to the management of the audit, and the sufficiency of evidence and documentation are important for constructing their perceptions of audit quality. They also ascribe considerable importance to the internal compliance-quality control applied within the audit firm the notion of audit quality. Overall, the study describes the multifaceted meaning of audit quality and how this is influenced and shaped by interactions - based on role expectations, self-image, economic and social factors - and illustrates the way in which various acts and objects are used to represent practical meaning for the abstract concept of audit quality in practice. These findings have relevance for auditors, other parties to audit engagements, policy makers and regulators concerned with the contribution of auditing to the financial reporting system and for academic researchers seeking to develop a deeper understanding of how that contribution is achieved in practice.

Between the years 1910-1916, the Vancouver Medical Association was responsible for designing a sex education program for the British Columbia Public School System. Through the course of the committee's work, the Vancouver Medical Association Sex Hygiene Committee (VMASHC) familiarised themselves with the teachings of the Sex Hygiene movement. The program which they recommend for implementation can be seen as representative of the second stage of North American sex education which advocated the teaching of sex education from the standpoint of biology. The VMASHC can be seen as a pioneer in the effort to teach sex education within Canadian schooling. Considerable time is spent contextualizing and explaining the impetus for the creating the first sex education program in British Columbia. The historical conditions and constraints involved in the birth of sex education are considered. It is argued that the social and political climate of early Vancouver played a direct role in influencing the VMASHC's final creation of what they called "a new line" of sex education in B.C. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

本文主要目的為探討經理人現金薪酬受到薪酬委員會品質影響時，是否會影響公司進行租稅規避行為。本文以當期有效稅率、現金有效稅率、總財稅差異以及永久性財稅差異衡量公司之租稅規避，而薪酬委員會品質衡量則依據Sun and Cahan (2009)所提出之方式衡量，並計算出各公司的薪酬委員會品質分數。研究期間為2012年至2014年之上市櫃公司，但不含產業性質特殊之金融業公司。其實證結果發現經理人現金薪酬與公司進行租稅規避行為呈顯著正相關，但加入薪酬委員會品質時，發現受到薪酬委員會品質影響之經理人現金薪酬與公司租稅規避行為呈顯著負相關，其結果顯示，當薪酬委員會品質越佳時，公司越不會進行租稅規避行為。