Thesis (Ph.D)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009. / Prepared for: Dept. of Accounting. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 98-105.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Finance and Economics. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Bedömningen av företagets fortsatta drift, eller ”going concern” är en av revisorernasuppgifter. För att underlätta denna bedömning har en förhållandevis ny revisionsstandardkommit fram i Sverige, RS 570. Denna standard fungerar som en vägledning för hur enrevisor skall agera när väsentliga osäkerhetsfaktorer kring fortlevnaden är för handen. Dennastandard tar varken hänsyn till de olika förhållanden som karaktäriserar varje bransch ellerföretagens storlek, utan gäller på ett generellt plan. Vår studie syftar till att beskriva ochanalysera revisorernas träffsäkerhet vid bedömningen av ”going concern” för aktiebolag somgått i konkurs i Sverige. Vidare kommer vi att kartlägga och beskriva om det finns någonskillnad i träffsäkerheten och bedömningen av ”going concern” i förhållande till företagensbranschtillhörighet och storlek. Vi har även jämfört dessa mot anmärkning på förbrukat egetkapital och revisionsberättelsens utfall (ren eller oren) då de har en nära koppling till ”goingconcern”. Vi har gjort både en kvantitativ och kvalitativ studie utifrån material från ettforskningsprojekt på Mittuniversitetet i Sundsvall. Den data som vi fick ta del av bestod av801 företag som gick i konkurs under januari och februari 2009. Med hjälp av detta materialhar vi därefter gjort statistiska undersökningar och kommit fram till att den generellaträffsäkerheten ligger på cirka 12 procent. När det gäller företagens branschtillhörighet fannvi ingen skillnad vid ”going concern” bedömningar, anmärkning på förbrukat eget kapitaleller ren/oren revisionsberättelse. Vi fann heller ingen skillnad när det gäller ”going concern”bedömningar i förhållande till företagens storlek. Däremot fann vi en signifikant skillnad vidanmärkningar på förbrukat eget kapital respektive revisionsberättelsens utfall, där små företagär mer benägna att få en anmärkning på förbrukat eget kapital respektive orenrevisionsberättelse än stora företag. Vår slutsats är att träffsäkerheten är oacceptabelt lågvilket gör att vi ställer oss frågande till om revisorerna skall ha till uppgift att bedömaföretagens fortsatta drift. En alternativ lösning är att förändra arbetsprocessen för att höjaträffsäkerheten till en acceptabel nivå. Detta kan ske i form av branschspecialisering, vilkettorde öka den allmänna revisionskvaliteten och även träffsäkerheten i ”going concern”bedömningar. / The assessment of the company's continued operation, or "going concern" is one of theauditors' duties. To facilitate this assessment, a relatively new auditing standard has emergedin Sweden, RS 570. This standard serves as a guide for how an auditor should act whensignificant uncertainties’ surrounding the survival is at hand. This standard does not take thedifferent circumstances that characterize each industry or company size into account, butappears in a general plan. Our study aims to describe and analyze the auditors' accuracy inassessing the "going concern" for companies that went bankrupt in Sweden. Furthermore, wewill identify and describe if there is any difference in accuracy and assessment of "goingconcern" in relation to business size and industry affiliation. We also compared these to thedepleted equity and audit report outcomes (clean or qualified) as they have close links to the"going concern". We have made both a quantitative and qualitative study based on materialfrom a research project at Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall. The data that we receivedconsisted of 801 companies that went bankrupt in January and February 2009. Using thismaterial, we have subsequently done surveys and found that the overall accuracy is around 12percent. We found no difference in "going concern" assessments, observation of depletedequity or clean / qualified audit report between industries. We also found no difference interms of "going concern" assessments in relation to their size. On the other hand, we found asignificant difference in the remarks on the depleted equity and audit report outcomes, wheresmall firms are more likely to get a comment on the depleted equity and qualified opinionthan large companies. We conclude that the accuracy is unacceptably low, which makes uscritical whether the auditors should have the task of assessing companies’ continued operationat all. An alternative solution is to change the work process to increase accuracy to anacceptable level. This change may be done through an industry specialization, which shouldincrease the overall audit quality as well as accuracy in “going concern” judgements.

The thesis investigates the link between internal and external funds in financing new investment when asymmetric information is important. In both chapter, the entrepreneur has private information about the value of a project and, if the quality of the project is high, she tries to signal this to outside investors. The first chapter explores the tradeoff between using internal funds and raising external funds by issuing shares or bonds to finance a project. The entrepreneur can delay the project to accumulate internal funds over time from existing operations. This allows an entrepreneur with a high quality project to reduce her reliance on expensive underpriced bond or share issues. However, accumulating funds is also costly because of discounting and the risk that the project disappears. The more valuable the good project, the less the entrepreneur will delay the project, risking its loss, and so the more she relies on external financing. When external financing is sought, the entrepreneur decides to issue bonds or shares. The greater the value of the good project, the more underpriced shares are relative to bonds. Thus an entrepreneur with a highly valuable good project chooses equity and one with a less valuable project chooses debt. Combining the two results shows that for a highly valuable good project, debt is used, and for a less valuable project, internal funds are used. External equity gets squeezed out. Aggregate data for the U.S. confirm that corporate bond issues are a more important source of funds than new share issued. Furthermore, most small firms rely on internal funds and debt, rather than external equity to finance their projects. The second chapter provides a new theory for the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). As in the first chapter, underpricing is used as a signal of quality. However, the entrepreneur is risk averse and only underprices when she cannot sell enough primary (new) shares to raise sufficient proceeds from the IPO to cover the cost of the project without diluting her position below that needed to signal a high project value. Underpricing allows the entrepreneur to maintain a high stake in the firm and still make a credible signal of quality. This allows more primary shares to be sold resulting in a net increase in proceeds. The model predicts that underpricing should be greatest among firms that don't sell secondary shares (shares held by insiders) at the IPO and that there should be a positive relationship between the firm's capital requirement and the initial return among this group of firms only. A switching regression framework is used. The probit model is first estimated where the probability of no secondary shares is explained by proxies for a firm's capital requirements. The initial return is then regressed on the same proxies, conditioning on whether the firm sells secondary shares or not and accounting for possible correlation between errors in the selection and regression equations. Strong support is found for the positive relationship between initial return and capital requirements for only firms without secondary share sales, as predicted.

Tyrimo aktualumas: šiandien visa švietimo sistema paremta nuolatinio mokymosi koncepcija ( Beresnevičienė, 1995), nusakančia asmenybės gebėjimą „augti“ visą gyvenimą - tai apima mokymą(si) bei ugdymą(si) mokykloje ir už jos ribų. Tik nuolatinis ugdymas(is) padeda neatsilikti nuo visuomenės mokslinės, techninės ir kultūrinės raidos, o taip pat tolydžio tobulinti savo asmenybę, žinias ir gebėjimus. Sportuojantys moksleiviai sportinėje veikloje ugdo(si) mokymosi motyvaciją, vertybines nuostatas bei savęs vertinimą, kaip esminius kintamuosius asmenybės ugdyme(si). Tyrimo objektas: sportuojančių moksleivių savivertė, vertybės bei motyvai ugdyme. Tyrimo tikslas: palyginti sportuojančių ir nesportuojančių moksleivių savivertę, vertybes ir motyvus ugdyme bei nustatyti tarpusavio ryšius. Tyrime dalyvavo 254 (9 -12 klasių, 15 – 18 metų) tiriamieji. Tai 70 Šiaulių Vijolių vidurinės mokyklos sportininkai, 16 Radviliškio Lizdeikos gimnazijos bei 41 Šiaulių Lengvosios atletikos mokyklos sportininkas, 48 Šiaulių S. Daukanto vidurinės mokyklos bei 79 Radviliškio Lizdeikos gimnazijos moksleiviai. Tyrimui taikytas modifikuotas D. Beresnevičienės (1995) metodas. Remtasi humanistinės filosofijos ir psichologijos (Maslow, 1970; Rogers, 1969) nuostatomis, permanentinio ugdymo teorija (Jovaiša, 2001) bei nuolatinio mokymosi koncepcija ( Beresnevičienė, 1995). Tyrimo rezultatai ir išvados: paaiškėjo, kad stipresnė motyvacija sportui, lemia aukštesnį savęs vertinimą. Aukščiau save vertina... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Relevance of the research: today the whole education system is based upon conception of constant learning (Beresneviciene, 1995) defining the ability of a personality “to grow” all lifetime – it includes teaching/learning at school and behind its boundaries. Only constant teaching/learning enables not to fall behind social scientific, technical and cultural development and also constantly improve one’s personality, knowledge and abilities. The pupils going in for sports via sports activity develop learning motivation, value attitudes and self-esteem as essential variables in development of a personality. The object of the research: self-esteem, values and motives in education of pupils. The aim of the research: to compare self-esteem, values and motives in education of pupils who go in for sports and those who do not and to determine interrelations. 254 under research (9-12 forms, 15-18 age old) - 70 sportsmen of Siauliai Vijoliu secondary school, 16 sportsmen of Radviliskis Lizdeikos gymnasium and 41sportsmen of Siauliai athletics school, 48 sportsmen of Siauliai S. Daukanto secondary school, and 79 sportsmen of Radviliskis Lizdeikos gymnasium have participated in the research. Modified method of D. Beresneviciene (1995) has been applied to the research. It has been referred to the guidelines of humanistic philosophy and psychology (Maslow, 1979; Rogers, 1969), theory of permanent education (Jovaisa, 2001) and conception of constant learning (Beresneviciene, 1995). The... [to full text]

The aim of this study is to investigate how the modal auxiliaries will and shall and the semi-modal BE going to are used to express futurity by individuals whose first language is Swedish. The study is corpus based, and the corpora used in this study consist of Swedish newspapers in English (SWENC) and material from blogs which are written in English by Swedes (BESC). These are compared with the press sub-corpora in F-LOB (the Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English) and Frown (the Freiburg-Brown corpus of American English), which represent British and American varieties of English. The method is quantitative and the results are mainly presented in frequencies. The results show that all of the modals are used in SWENC and BESC. The core modal will is the most frequently used modal in all of the corpora and sub-corpora. The semi-modal BE going to is most frequently used in BESC and the second core modal shall is most frequent in SWENC. However, qualitative examination of shall revealed that the writers in SWENC use the modal differently from how it is used in F-LOB Press. This study shows evidence of variation in use of the modals which express futurity. The fact that the semi-modal BE going to exists in the Swedish material indicates that the process of grammaticalization continues in the Swedish form of English.

Bakalauro darbe buvo tiriami nesportuojančių ir aktyviai sportuojančių studentų mitybos ypatumai. Suformuluota hipotezė, kad aktyviai sportuojantys studentai labiau rūpinasi sveikos mitybos įpročiais nei nesportuojantys studentai. Tyrimo tikslas buvo ištirti nesportuojančių ir aktyviai sportuojančių studentų mitybos ypatumus. Suformuluoti uždaviniai: išsiaiškinti studentų savo sveikatos ir fizinio pasiruošimo vertinimą, nustatyti aktyviai sportuojančių studentų sportavimo pobūdį, o taip pat nustatyti nesportuojančių ir aktyviai sportuojančių studentų mitybos ypatumus bei juos palyginti. / The Bachelor Thesis researched eating habits of students actively involved in sports and students who do not participate in sports. The hypothesis that students actively involved in sports are more concerned about healthy eating habits than students who do not participate in sports has been brought forward. The aim of the survey was to investigate eating habits of students actively involved in sports and students who do not participate in sports. The following tasks have been formulated: to find out students’ own assessment of their health and fitness, to identify the nature of sports in which students are actively involved, as well as to determine and compare eating habits between students actively involved in sports and students who do not participate in sports.

First-generation students and students of lower socioeconomic status often prepare for postsecondary education without the benefit of information provided by their families, resulting in lower levels of college access (Lundberg, 2007). Few researchers have sought to understand how potential first-generation college students might go about obtaining the necessary information for a successful transition to college. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine to whom students talk about college and to explore the potential reciprocal relationship between resources for and information about college provided by others and students’ educational beliefs. This dissertation consisted of two empirical studies. In the first study, the composition of students’ networks and differences in social capital were examined among middle and high school students from a rural Appalachian school district (N = 388). Students reported to whom they talked about college and answered questions about each person that they named. Junior and senior high school students spoke to fewer individuals about college than middle grades students. Senior high school students spoke to individuals in their networks more frequently than middle grades students. Boys spoke to fewer individuals about college than girls. Boys received fewer pieces of information about college compared to girls. Potential first-generation college students had fewer individuals in their network who had completed a college degree. The purpose of the second study was to examine the relationship between students’ college information networks and students’ beliefs about college. Participants were 364 students in Grades 6-12 from a rural Appalachian school district. Information on students’ college information networks was collected to better understand the relationship among first-generation college students’ access to social capital, their college-going self-efficacy, and their educational aspirations. College-going self-efficacy and educational aspirations were both significant predictors of available social capital. Social capital was not a significant predictor of students’ educational beliefs. College cultural capital was a significant predictor of students’ social capital and educational beliefs. Results of this dissertation are discussed relative to social cognitive theory and suggestions for educational interventions and future research are offered.

If auditors question a company’s ability to continue existing, they should issue a going concern opinion in the audit report. Whether or not auditors will issue a going concern opinion depends on auditors’ ability to identify going concern problems, as well as their decision whether or not to issue going concern opinions. In Sweden, the going concern accuracy rate has been low compared to other countries. The aim of this study is therefore to analyse whether it is auditors’ lack of ability to identify going concern problems or their decision not to issue a going concern opinion, or perhaps both, that could explain the relatively low accuracy rate. Interviews with four auditors from the Big Four audit firms and four CFOs from middle sized companies were conducted. The results show that there are factors speaking both for and against auditors’ ability to identify going concern problems, why we cannot say for sure whether auditors’ lack of ability to identify going concern problems could be an explanation to the relatively low accuracy rate. The results do however reveal that auditors actively make decisions not to issue going concern opinions to their clients as much as possible, which could explain the relatively low accuracy rate.

This thesis consists of empirical studies on various aspects of international corporate finance, a series of long-run event studies examining the abnormal stock return performance of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), and stock analyst recommendations. The first two of these, presented in Chapters 2 and 3, investigate the key issues relating to Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). The next, in Chapter 4, examines the performance of new American Depositary Receipt issues from emerging markets and its determinants. The final study, presented in Chapter 5, assesses the value of stock analysts? recommendations in emerging markets. It is essentially a series of empirical studies adopting a tried and tested methodology, involving benchmarks, for measuring returns over time in emerging markets, a subject that has not been sufficiently investigated. The long-run event study approach is designed to identify anomalies in these markets, which may be much more pronounced than in developed markets. This thesis makes substantive contributions to the existing knowledge on measuring, documenting and determining various issues in international corporate finance, and provides methodological improvements over previous studies. Chapter 2 presents an examination of the stock return performance of the IPO stocks listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) in Hong Kong, finding that the return performance is sensitive to the benchmark employed. Two main factors contributing to the underperformance of GEM stocks are the ?technology boom? and ?IPO effects?. Moreover, the results of cross-sectional analyses suggest that the Hong Kong GEM is a unique market; since at least 70 percent of the IPO stocks listed on the GEM are technology stocks, the ?technology? factor outweighs previous hypotheses advocated by previous researchers to explain the poor performance of newly listed stocks. Chapter 3 extends this analysis by turning attention to the post-issue stock price performance of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in Asian markets, using a comparative assessment of the stock performance of Asian IPOs motivated by the ongoing discovery of biases in event studies involving long horizon returns. Various methods were used to remove such biases, while examining the robustness of the long run performance of the IPOs. The results of this examination show that the existence of long run underperformance for the Asian IPOs depends on the methodology used. The study also assesses the ?Market Timing? theory with regard to Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), adding to the growing literature that suggests that Asian firms time their issuance of equity securities. Chapter 4 presents a comparative study of the post-issue stock performance and operating performance of the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of American Depositary Receipts (ADR) in emerging markets. The results of this study suggest that ADR IPOs are underpriced, though not to the same extent as regular IPOs. In the aftermarket, ADR IPOs underperform the Emerging Market Index. However, after controlling for differences in size and industry, underperformance of ADR IPOs compared with both home market IPOs and US IPOs could not be demonstrated. The analysis of stock and operating performance yields consistent results; aside from the ?window dressing? effect, this also demonstrates that stock price performance is a reflection of operating performance over the long run. Chapter 5 presents the first study to examine post-recommendation abnormal returns in emerging markets, based on the Emerging Market Index adjusted model and the Controlling Firm approach, demonstrating that stock prices react significantly to recommendation revisions, both on the revision day and subsequently. In this cross-sectional analysis, it appears that the Market-to-Book ratio is the primary indicator for Buy and Strong Buy recommendations. This indicates that stock analysts in emerging markets prefer high growth stocks with their attractive characteristics.