Thesis (Ph. D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Freiburg in der Schweiz, 1922. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [viii]-xi).

M.Com. (International Accounting) / One would be hard-pressed to find an accountant who does not know about the Enron collapse which took place over a decade ago. The scandal was the largest the corporate world had seen at the time, and its impact was significant. Shareholders of the company lost tens of billions of dollars (Jickling, 2002), 4,000 employees lost their jobs (Bratton, 2002), the reputational damage suffered by their auditors Arthur Andersen was severe enough to break up the firm (Fearnley, Brandt & Beattie, 2002) and members of the public stood in awe that this was even possible. This incident was succeeded in following years by more high-profile international corporate scandals involving Tyco International, WorldCom and Parmalat, each one affecting a variety of stakeholders and broader society. The common thread that weaves these corporate collapses together appears to be seized opportunities to misreport financial information. Corporate failures of companies as big as Enron are inclined to give cause for future business regulation (Bratton, 2002). As noted by FearnIey et al. (2002), the Enron collapse provided regulators with an opportunity to reconsider fundamental issues associated with the regulatory framework for corporate financial reporting. Bratton (2002) explains that numerous regulatory-related concerns had been implicated prior to the completion of the Enron investigation. As with the demise of the other companies, the cause thereof involved questionable practices, particularly relating to the accounting treatment of transactions and the reporting of the financial position and performance to the users of financial statements. The result was that stakeholders of the entities did not have access to accurate and complete information regarding the entity in order to make sound economic decisions. This phenomenon is referred to as information asymmetry (Gaffikin, 2008).

The main objectives of this study are to: (1) investigate empirically the extensiveness of the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices; (2) examine the relationship between each of a number of specific corporate characteristics and the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices; (3) assess whether the variations in the extensiveness of Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices can be explained by the selected corporate characteristics together; and (4), compare the results found for Cyprus with those found for Greece. The corporate characteristics examined, which are used as proxies of agency, political and other costs, are: company size, age, profitability, liquidity, industry type, listing status and auditor type. The study begins with the provision of background information about the Cypriot and Greek accounting environments which reveals that companies in the two countries operate within substantially different accounting environments. The study continues with a synthesis of the conceptual framework for corporate financial disclosure that identifies the variables that are likely to affect the research problem. A review of the corporate disclosure literature identifies a gap in the literature, which the study aspires to fill, and establishes the background for choosing the appropriate methodology to be used in the study. To investigate the extensiveness of the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices, the 1996 corporate annual financial statements (CAFSs) of 50 Cypriot and 74 Greek companies were collected. Extensiveness was defined as the quantity and quality of mandatory information disclosed in CAFSs and was measured by applying a country—specific disclosure measuring instrument against the CAFSs of the sample companies from each country. The relationship between the extent of corporate disclosure and the selected corporate characteristics was examined by using both bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses for each of the two countries. The results of the empirical analyses have led to four main conclusions. First, the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices, on the whole, appear to be extensive. Second, Cypriot public companies which are more profitable, are classified as conglomerates or whose shares are listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE), tend to disclose significantly more extensive mandatory information in their 1996 CAFSs. Third, Greek listed companies which are smaller, are classified as conglomerates or manufacturing, or whose shares are listed on the main market of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), tend to disclose significantly more extensive mandatory information in their 1996 CAFSs. Finally, on the basis of the comparative analyses undertaken, it can be concluded that although the influence of listing status and industry type on Cypriot and Greek mandatory disclosure practices is similar, the influence of company size is different. In contrast to Cyprus and most evidence reported in previous studies, company size has a negative influence on the extent of Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices. This difference can be explained by theoretical, environmental, empirical and other considerations. For example, it can be attributed to the distinctive nature of the highly politicised Greek accounting environment and can be explained by political cost theory. Another possible explanation may be that Greek large companies disclose fewer details in their CAFSs but: (1) use other communication media to disclose mandatory information; or (2), use mandatory and voluntary disclosures as substitutes and replace the disclosure of less extensive mandatory information with more extensive voluntary disclosure. There are several possible policy implications that arise out of the above conclusions. The first implication is that improvements in Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure can be made. Another policy implication is that corporate stakeholders who rely on CAFSs to get useful information should be wary of Cypriot companies which are less profitable, are classified as non—conglomerates or are not listed on the CSE; and Greek companies which are larger, are classified as others or are listed on the parallel market of the ASE. This is because these companies have been found to disclose less extensive mandatory information. The third policy implication arising out of the conclusions of the study is that it is possible that different predictions about the disclosure of corporate information may be derived from the political cost theory, depending on the environment within which the theory is examined. This is because although it is usually claimed that politically sensitive companies may disclose more extensively in order to reduce their political costs, the opposite may be true in the case of countries with specific environmental characteristics (similar to those existing in Greece in 1996): politically sensitive companies may disclose less extensively.

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In a 2016 comment letter, the SEC summarizes the ongoing debate regarding the usefulness of market risk disclosures and calls for additional discussion (SEC Concept Release 2016). In response to the SEC’s call, I investigate whether investors and firms benefit from market risk disclosures. Prior literature suggests that informative corporate disclosure is associated with improved liquidity and investment efficiency. I find that informative textual contents of market risk disclosures improve investors’ information environment, and as a result, are associated with higher liquidity level, lower liquidity uncertainty, and improved investment efficiency. My study is relevant to the ongoing debate regarding the usefulness of market risk disclosures, calls for more detailed regulatory guidance for market risk disclosures, and contributes to the literature on liquidity, investment efficiency, and risk factor disclosures. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

by Stanley Chu Kam Po. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 84-87.

The purposes of this study were to examine the effects of six variables on auditor independence and the reliability of financial statements as perceived within the Irish commercial environment and to explore the reasons underlying these perceptions. The six variables comprised of audit firm size, audit market competition, audit committees, audit tenure, provision of nonaudit services (NAS) and client employment. From a combination of questionnaire and interview approaches, the study sought to obtain supportable and useful insight as to the perceptions held. The approach builds on and develops previous research conducted outside the Irish market. The results of the study showed that auditor independence and the reliability of financial statements were perceived to be significantly impaired when the audit was performed by a non-Big Six firm, the audit environment was highly competitive, no audit committee existed, audit tenure was long, NAS were provided by audit personnel to audit clients, and the auditor took up an employment position with a former audit client. Some of the reasons underlying these perceptions were as follows. The importance of reputation to, and. the international profile of, the Big Six firms allowed interviewees to have greater confidence in their independence. A highly competitive audit market was perceived to impair auditor independence by encouraging auditors to cut back on the amount of audit work performed in order to maintain audit fee income. Audit committees were perceived to enhance auditor independence by reducing the power that management could exert over the auditor. Long audit tenure was perceived to impair auditor independence by encouraging auditors to become cosy in their relationships with their clients. The lack of confidence as a result of NAS provision was associated with the audit firm's dependency on such services for fee income. Client employment was perceived to provide the ex-auditor with power to influence auditor-client relationships.

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of the segmental disclosure required by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 14 (SFAS 14) on the operating risk of multisegment firms. This investigation is accomplished in two phases. A theoretical model establishing the relationship between segmental disclosure and operating risk is developed in phase one. In the second phase, this model is employed in an empirical study that evaluates the effect of SFAS 14 on the operating risk of the affected firms. The findings of each of these phases are summarized below. A theoretical model for measuring operating risk is developed first. This model is developed by decomposing systematic risk into operating and financial risks. Then it is shown how the additional segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 can be used to assess the value of this measure of operating risk. First, the determinants of operating risk are identified. Then it is argued that if the additional disclosure provided by SFAS 14 had an effect on the assessment of operating risk, this effect would be associated with the disclosure of segmental assets. This argument provides the basis for conducting an empirical study that evaluates the effect of the segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 on operating risk. In this dissertation, the empirical study examines the effect of disclosure of segmental assets on the operating risk of firms that disclosed such information for the first time following the initiation of SFAS 14. A sample of these firms form the treatment group. The control group is composed of single-segment firms. The firms in the control group did not disclose segmental assets prior to or after SFAS 14 went into effect. A control group composed of multisegment firms is not used in this study because only two firms are available from the sample taken. Two hypotheses are tested. Hypothesis 1 simply tests whether SFAS 14 had an effect on the operating risk of the affected firms. Hypothesis 2 then tests if SFAS 14 had a favorable effect on operating risk. The effect on operating risk is evaluated by comparing changes in operating risk from pre-regulation period to post-regulation period for the treatment group with those of the control group. In both hypotheses, the null hypothesis that SFAS 14 did not affect operating risk is tested. The Mann-Whitney U test is employed to test Hypothesis 1. The Mann-Whitney U test, the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test and multiple regression analysis are used to test Hypothesis 2. The empirical results indicate that neither of the null hypotheses could be rejected at any conventional level of significance. In short, the empirical results tend to suggest that the additional segmental disclosure provided by SFAS 14 did not have a favorable effect on the operating risk of the affected firms. However it is advised that caution should be exercised in drawing inferences based on these results because of the potential effects on operating risk by factors not controlled for in this study. Finally, an alternative future study is suggested. Pending the empirical findings of the future study it is suggested that the empirical results presented in this study should be considered preliminary.