Risk disclosure is an important issue, firstly to prevent future unexpected bankruptcies and economic scandals, secondly to create trust between a company and its stakeholders. Given the importance of the issue, previous literature has mainly focused on quantity of risk disclosures. In this dissertation, both quality and quantity of risk disclosures in the annual reports of 65 companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm exchange are analyzed. The objectives are to describe the degree of risk disclosures and to understand whether the quality and quantity of this information can be explained by size, industry and/or performance of the company. By conducting a content analysis of the annual reports, we explored if the required risk information was disclosed (quantity) and how it was disclosed (quality). Afterwards, a statistical analysis was conducted in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the results from our content analysis. The findings of our study are that both quality and quantity of risk disclosures in our sample are only half as good as they should be according to requirements in the Swedish context. We found that there is a difference in quality and quantity of risk disclosures between two of the industry categories; Energy and Materials, where the first mentioned is the best and the second the worst. We did not find significant correlations between the quality and quantity of risk disclosure and the size or the performance for the whole sample. Still, we found some differences in both quality and quantity of risk disclosure information when looking at smaller parts of our sample. Size has a significant impact on both quality and quantity of risk disclosures within the Industrials and Information Technology companies. Among Information Technology companies, also performance has a significant impact on the quantity of risk disclosure.

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between non-audited and audited sustainability reports and in that way indicate the significance of auditing to the contents of a sustainability report. The study was delimited to include three companies that create sustainability reports according to GRI guidelines, and also have changed from non-audited to audited reports. The study is an exploratory study where we started from companies that follow GRI's standard and who have changed from being non-assured to assured and certified. In order to examine any differences we have started out from corporate sustainability reports and with the basis of these latter gather those changes which may have occurred during the changeover. We therefore chose to conduct a literature review on each company's non-audited sustainability reports and compare them with each company's audited and certified sustainability reports. Furthermore our study has been made on the basis of an assessment model based on the concepts of materiality, completeness and comparability. The study showed that the audited sustainability reports in all companies were more focused and more detailed about the aspects GRI established for the performance indicators. The study also revealed that the audited sustainability report in one of the studied companies had more neutral image on managing and supporting the positive qualities that exist in the waste products and wastes. The study also showed that the audited sustainability report of another of the studied companies, unlike the non-audited, contained information about problems and indirect effects of the business. In further another company appeared to increase the comparability of the audited sustainability report. The summary conclusion of the study was that the differences that emerged between the non-audited and the audited sustainability reports showed that the audit had significance for the contents in the sustainability report regarding to materiality and partly for the completeness and comparability.

By utilizing the Case Study Reserch, the J company was selected as the target of research which adopt with IFRS(International Financial Reporting Standards).The all been probed into suitable main points about some variation topics regarding to the financial reports of J company as the examples, to summarize the trial balances with some accounts had been adjusted and showed financial with its impacted amount. The proposal is to suggest to those construction companies and to their investors in accordance to those problems. Due to the J Company adopt IFRS in financial statements, we found some material impacts listed as followed, the stockholder equity increased,widened operational revenue while the fluctuation , current income/loss and the earning per share fluctuated. The result of research shows that early involvement and promotion will be very helpful to identify the issues and find out the solutions by discussing with Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and government authorities. When the adoption of IFRS by the construction companies, it not only has material impact over financial information but it also has hugely influence over their operation performance and their operational models respectively. Therefore the construction companies should cautiously evaluate all confronted problems after the adopted IFRS. The transformation to IFRS is a big process and time-consuming for all of Taiwan¡¦s public listed companies.

Chemical incidents can be prevented or mitigated by improving safety performance and implementing the lessons learned from past incidents. Despite some limitations in the range of information they provide, chemical incident databases can be utilized as sources of lessons learned from incidents by evaluating patterns and relationships that exist between the data variables. Much of the previous research focused on studying the causal factors of incidents; hence, this research analyzes the chemical incidents from both the causal and consequence elements of the incidents. A subset of incidents data reported to the Hazardous Substance Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) chemical incident database from 2002-2006 was analyzed using data mining and text mining methodologies. Both methodologies were performed with the aid of STATISTICA software. The analysis studied 12,737 chemical process related incidents and extracted descriptions of incidents in free-text data format from 3,316 incident reports. The structured data was analyzed using data mining tools such as classification and regression trees, association rules, and cluster analysis. The unstructured data (textual data) was transformed into structured data using text mining, and subsequently analyzed further using data mining tools such as, feature selections and cluster analysis. The data mining analysis demonstrated that this technique can be used in estimating the incident severity based on input variables of release quantity and distance between victims and source of release. Using the subset data of ammonia release, the classification and regression tree produced 23 final nodes. Each of the final nodes corresponded to a range of release quantity and, of distance between victims and source of release. For each node, the severity of injury was estimated from the observed severity scores' average. The association rule identified the conditional probability for incidents involving piping, chlorine, ammonia, and benzene in the value of 0.19, 0.04, 0.12, and 0.04 respectively. The text mining was utilized successfully to generate elements of incidents that can be used in developing incident scenarios. Also, the research has identified information gaps in the HSEES database that can be improved to enhance future data analysis. The findings from data mining and text mining should then be used to modify or revise design, operation, emergency response planning or other management strategies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-104). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the incremental information content of the Annual Report to Shareholders (ARS) and the 10-K. The study defines incremental information content as that set of data that has not been previously released to the public, which is contained in the ARS or 10-K, that gives rise to a resetting of equilibrium security prices. The results of the study have two implications. First, a finding of the existence of incremental information content in either the ARS or the 10-K provides evidence that investors may use the incremental data contained in either report to improve their estimates of firms' systematic risk components (Beta). Second, the results of the study may provide feedback value to accounting policymakers for evaluating their prior beliefs concerning the wealth effects of their accounting policy decisions. The study employs the familiar Market Model for generating unexpected returns. Further, the ordinary least squares regression method is used to derive regression parameters (including Beta) for the Market Model. This procedure has been accomplished for the 312 ARS and 159 10-K sample firms for reporting years ending in 1975, 1976 and 1977. The Quandt log-likelihood ratio and the Chow test have been employed to block the two study samples on the basis of stable regression parameters and to determine which weeks in the study period Beta-shifts have occurred for firms in the Non-Stationary ARS and 10-K groups. Two procedures have been employed in the study. The first procedure has been employed to determine if an unusual concentration of Beta-shifts has occurred in conjunction with the release of either report. The second procedure has been employed to detect the existence of any unusual unexpected return activity associated with the release of the ARS or the 10-K. Using the procedures described above, the study concludes that neither the release of the ARS nor the release of the 10-K affects investors' assessments of firms' systematic risk components or return distributions. Thus, the evidence the dissertation provides does not support an hypothesis that either report possesses incremental information content. Finally, the study concludes that the ARS and the 10-K fail to influence investors assessments and that policymakers must rely on their value judgments concerning their prior beliefs for the wealth effects of the ARS and 10-K.

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This study investigates the reporting and grading, as well as the meaning of letter grades, of students in Science 9 from the perspectives of teachers, students, and parents in five schools from two British Columbia school districts, one urban and one rural. To that end, four research questions guided the data collection and analyses: (1) What reporting methods do teachers use to communicate information about student learning in Science 9 to students and parents, and what are teachers', students', and parents' opinions of those reporting methods? (2) What grading components do teachers incorporate into Science 9 letter grades, and what grading components do students and parents believe teachers incorporate into Science 9 letter grades? (3) What meanings do teachers, students, and parents attribute to Science 9 letter grades? and (4) What are students' and parents' perceptions about some possible effects of student progress reports in Science 9? A mixed-methodology design was employed to collect the data. Quantitative data, collected via self-administered written questionnaires from the five Science 9 teachers, 43 students, and 21 parents who volunteered to participate in the study, were used to identify participants' practices and perceptions about grading and reporting. Qualitative data, collected via individual, audio-taped interviews conducted with a subset of the people who completed questionnaires (all five teachers, 16 students, and seven parents), were used to verify, clarify, and expand the questionnaire data. Observational notes and collected documents (e.g., report card forms) also served as data sources. The results of this study show that most of the participants in the study were generally satisfied with most aspects of the reporting of student progress in Science 9. However, individual teachers consider different kinds of assessment information when they assign Science 9 letter grades, teachers are not always clear and consistent about what they intend letter grades to mean, and students' and parents' beliefs about the grading components and meanings of Science 9 letter grades vary widely. The results pf this study also indicate that the information communicated by a letter grade is not always clear and consistent. That the meaning of a letter grade is not always clear has implications for the ways in which letter grades are used by students and parents. The results of this study indicate that some students' attitudes, behaviours, and decisions could be affected by the grades they receive in Science 9. However, in order for students' attitudes, behaviours, and decisions to be appropriate, their interpretations of the meanings of letter grades must be appropriate. Given the multiple meanings attributed to a Science 9 letter grade, it is likely that peoples' inferences and actions based on a letter grade will not always be appropriate. This study raises a number of issues. Two classes of issues are discussed: those arising from the research findings, and those arising from the methodology of the study. An example of an issue arising from the research findings is that the process of assigning letter grades is problematic. An example of an issue arising from the methodology is that participants do not always interpret questionnaire items in the way they are intended. This study contributes to our understanding of teachers' grading practices with respect to the assignment of Science 9 letter grades, and it provides information about students' and parents' understandings of those grading practices. The study also provides insight into teachers', students', and parents' understandings of the meaning of letter grades. In addition, the results of this study help us understand some possible consequences of reports of student progress from the perspectives of students and parents. Another contribution is a direct result of the methodology of the study — by interviewing a subset of the questionnaire respondents after they had completed the questionnaires, it was possible to learn more about how different people interpreted the questionnaire items; that is, it was possible to explore the internal validity of the study. As a result, this study offers evidence about the value of employing more than one data collection method when conducting research.