This thesis focuses on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in Malaysia. There are four objectives that this study attempts to achieve, namely: (1) to ascertain whether present regulatory enforcement is effective in curbing non-compliance with IFRS in Malaysia; (2) to determine whether corporate ownership structure, culture and corporate governance attributes have a significant influence on the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements; (3) to identify the factors of (non-) compliance with IFRS from the perceptions of preparers and auditors; and (4) to explore the reasons why an unqualified audit report was issued despite non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study employs a mixed methods approach to achieve the stated objectives, where annual reports of 225 Malaysian listed companies are examined and interviews with regulators, preparers and auditors are conducted. The following findings are documented in this study. Although compliance with accounting standards is mandated by law, this study demonstrates that no Malaysian company has fully complied with IFRS disclosure requirements. Similarly, the companies examined still receive unqualified audit reports despite significant non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study argues that merely mandating compliance with accounting standards by law does not result in full compliance with accounting standards if sufficient or stringent enforcement is not in place. The Malaysian economy is dominated by family-owned companies and government-owned companies; however, this study finds that there was not enough evidence to support the influence of these ownership types on the extent of compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements. Despite the importance of corporate governance mechanisms in enhancing financial reporting quality, this study finds that only board meeting, audit committee size and audit committee expertise are significantly associated with the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. However, the association direction for audit committee expertise is puzzling, because the negative coefficient suggests that mandatory disclosure decreases with the presence of audit committee experts. This study also provides evidence that culture (ethnicity) has a significant influence on the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study also contributes to the extant literature by documenting the factors of (non-) compliance with IFRS from the perceptions of preparers and auditors. These factors are the attitude of top management, problems with accounting standards, lack of enforcement, passive investors, materiality, accountants’ attitude, undeveloped capital markets and political excuse. These (non-)compliance factors in fact cannot be revealed by statistical analysis. This study finds that materiality and true and fair view are the two reasons suggested by interviewees that can explain why unqualified audit opinion was expressed despite non-compliance with IFRS. Nevertheless, this study argues that materiality and true and fair view override might also be used (or misused) as an excuse by auditors for not qualifying audit reports in the case of significant non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements, given the subjective and vague concept of both materiality and true and fair view.

The earnings per share ratio is often quoted in financial publications as an indictor of how well a company has performed financially. However, there is much controversy over the usefulness of earnings per share information, especially in respect of its potential for manipulation by the preparers of financial information. Recent changes to South African accounting standards through the International Harmonisation Project resulted in a revision of the Statement of Generally Accepted Accounting Practice 104: Earnings per Share (AC104). Significant changes to the method of calculation and disclosure of both basic and diluted earnings per share were implemented. Unit trusts have gained popularity in South Africa over the past decade. Members of the public prefer to invest on the Johannesburg .Stock Exchange through intermediaries such as unit trusts rather than undertake investment decisions personally. Unit trust portfolio managers are in an important and a responsible position: they wield significant power on the stock exchange with their daily dealings in shares but they also carry the responsibility of making sound investment decisions. Research has tended to focus more on earnings than earnings per share. A review of literature and prior research revealed several controversial issues: the usefulness of earnings in making investment decisions, the susceptibility of both earnings and earnings per share to manipulation, the predictive value of earnings, the use of earnings in the valuation of securities and the use of earnings and earnings per share in performance measurement. The research problem was thus developed as follows: are the earnings per share disclosures of South African listed companies sufficient to meet the needs of equity unit trust portfolio managers in South Africa as a performance indicator, and if not, what additional information do they require? In addressing the research problem, the following four objectives were formulated: (i) to determine what changes have been made to earnings per share calculation and disclosure by the issue of the new ACI04, (ii) to determine what characteristics South African equity unit trust portfolio managers regard as indicative of a good financial performance indicator, (iii) to determine what impact the changes made to the earnings per share calculation and disclosure by the new AC104 has had on the use of earnings per share information by South African unit trust portfolio managers as a performance indicator, and (iv) to determine the extent of use of other similar performance indicators, such as headline earnings per share and cash flows per share, as compared to earnings per share. In order to meet these objectives, it was necessary to conduct a survey of South African equity unit trust portfolio managers. The descriptive survey method was identified as being appropriate and a mailed survey was undertaken. The main conclusions to this research were that: (i) the characteristics of a useful performance indicator are related to reliability, consistency, comparability, adequate disclosure and ease of computation and understanding, (ii) equity unit trust portfolio managers regard the changes to the calculation and disclosure of basic earnings per share to be improvements to the standard but their use of basic earnings per share as a performance indicator has remained unchanged, (iii) equity unit trust portfolio managers regard the changes to the calculation and disclosure of diluted earnings per share to be improvements to the standard and their use of diluted earnings per share as a performance indicator has, as a result, increased, (iv) headline earnings per share and diluted earnings per share are considered to be better performance indicators and are used more frequently as performance indicators than basic earnings per share. Thus the research project achieved its objectives. In addition, interesting findings in respect of other issues were identified. Further areas for research were also identified. / Thesis (M.Acc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 had divesting effects around the globe. Many financial institutions and government officials failed to see the build up of problems predicting the crisis and hence failed to take actions to keep the crisis from breaking out. Thus, it is important to see if the emerging problems could have been identified in advance in order to develop types of analysis that could help us avoid future crises. A full investigation of such possibilities will require many different studies taking different approaches. This dissertation contributes to that collective effort by investigating the extent to which balance sheet information could have been used to identify the emerging problems. We implement our research strategy by analyzing what types of balance sheet information did the best job of explaining how hard different major financial institutions were hit during the crisis. We constructed a large data set of financial variables from the financial reports of financial institutions over the years 2002 to 2011. We used this data to developed models to predict the damage to an individual firm when a systemic crisis occurred based on its financial position and performance over varying time periods and relative to other institutions’ characteristics. We used changes in stock market prices as our measure of performance. We found that the financial leverage ratio and the mismatch between current assets and current liabilities are the most significant ratios to predict the degree of stock market declines each institution would face if a systemic crisis occurred. We quantified the degree of the financial leverage and current ratios in two different ways, an average level and accumulated time-weighted rate of change over different lags of periods using two different estimation techniques. We found that the financial leverage and current ratios can be used as early warning signals based on both the multivariable fractional polynomials estimation technique and structural equation modeling. However, the out-of-sample tests showed that the imbalance between current assets and current liability would be the only significant predictor of the changes in stock market prices. The test confirmed that the changes in pre-crisis stock prices are less sensitive to the leverage ratio but more sensitive during crisis.

Thesis (PhD) -- University of Western Sydney, 2001. / "This thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Accounting, University of Western Sydney" Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: page 387-430.

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) - Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, İşletme Anabilim Dalı, 2007. / Bibliyografya var.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves 248-253). Also available via the Internet.

Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (D. Comm.(Economic and management sciences))-University of Pretoria, 2004. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-74).