Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN119961.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-77). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (D. Ed. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113, 39-43).

Thesis (DBA)--Macquarie University, Graduate School of Management, 2008. / Bibliography: p. 267-292.

Thesis (D. Ed. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113, 39-43).

I study how the decisions of corporate individuals, firm culture, corporate behavior, and the broader financial markets are interconnected. In the first chapter, I examine insider trade reporting violations by corporate insiders, such as executives, officers, and directors, who have access to nonpublic information. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) mandates prompt insider trade reporting within two business days to reduce information asymmetry. However, frequent violations of this deadline breach securities law and may indicate a broader culture of noncompliance. I investigate whether insiders’ adherence to or disregard for filing deadlines reflects the firm’s stance on unethical behavior and its fiduciary duty to shareholders. Using a dataset of 18,567 firm-year observations post-SOX, I find a significant positive association between insider filing violations and future corporate misconduct, especially in firms without a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO). This suggests that strong internal regulatory systems are crucial for promoting a culture of compliance. In the second chapter, I explore the link between incoming CEO incentives and real earnings management (REM), which involves purposeful deviations from normal business operations to meet specific earnings targets. New CEOs face significant scrutiny from shareholders, boards, and the market, which may pressure them to manage earnings. I find a negative association between CEO risk-taking incentives (vega) and REM and a positive association between CEO stock price sensitivity (delta) and REM when the firm is in financial distress. These findings suggest that CEO incentives are closely related to REM. In the third chapter, using hand-collected data, I explore the labor market response to executives’ off-the-job personal misconduct, such as sexual misadventure, substance abuse, violence, and dishonesty. I observe that executives with a record of indiscretion are 12% more likely to switch firms, 11% more likely to lose board seats, and 10% more likely to experience a lower rank the next year. Furthermore, they are 34.5% to 37.3% more likely to join firms with low integrity culture scores. This research highlights the career repercussions of personal indiscretions for executives.

This dissertation analyses the idea that parliament controls public money in parliamentary constitutional systems of government. That analysis proceeds through an historical and contemporary examination of the way legal practices distribute authority over public money between different institutions of government. The legislative and judicial practices concerning taxation, public expenditure, sovereign borrowing, and the government financing activities of central banks are selected for close attention. The contemporary analysis focuses on the design and operation of those legal practices in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Australia, in the context of the boom-bust-recovery economic conditions experienced between 2005 and 2016. The dissertation's ultimate claims are explanatory: that "parliamentary control" is a poor explanation of the distribution of financial authority in parliamentary systems of government and should be jettisoned in favour of an idea of "parliamentary ratification". An empirically engaged methodology is adopted throughout the dissertation and (historical and contemporary) public sector financial data enrich the legal analysis. The dissertation acknowledges the impact of, but remains agnostic between, different economic and political perspectives on fiscal discipline and public financial administration. The dissertation makes a number of original contributions. It provides a detailed examination of the historical development, legal operation and constitutional significance of annual appropriation legislation, and the legal regimes governing sovereign borrowing and monetary finance. It also analyses the way that law interacts with government behaviour in situations of economic emergencies (focusing on the Bank of England's public financing activities since 2008), and the institutional and doctrinal obstacles facing judicial involvement in disputes concerning public finance (focusing on the Australian judiciary's recent engagements with public expenditure legislation).