In this thesis I try to clarify the concept of "creative accounting ". First I define the difference between error and fraud. Then I try to compare two different accounting systems (IFRS and Czech accounting standards). I specify the major differences between these two systems (the valuation of assets, the principle of revenue recognition etc.) and I compare their impact on the financial statements. In the end I consider the role of adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in relation to the creative accounting.

In the United States, approximately 7% of nonprofits' annual revenue is lost as a result of a lack of ethical financial operations among nonprofit executive directors (EDs). This represents $85 billion in estimated annual losses in available operating funds. This study addressed the problem of ineffective leadership in nonprofit organizations from the perspective of EDs responsible for ethical financial operations. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of nonprofit EDs who self-reported the use of 1 of Burn's and Bass' 3 leadership styles and whether leadership style influenced the use of the Sarbanes Oxley Act to manage the ethical financial operations of their human service nonprofit organization. Qualitative data were collected from 12 EDs through semi structured interviews and then coded and analyzed using a modified van Kaam procedure. The results of the study indicated that EDs who self-reported using transformational leadership style were more inclined to adhere to the Sarbanes Oxley Act. In addition, participants acknowledged the need for organizational support to improve leadership qualities in EDs, efficiency, and effective ethical financial operations in nonprofit organizations. The study provides a baseline for nonprofit organizations to increase positive social change by adding knowledge on implementing strategies that will result in the enhancement of quality leadership in EDs that may ultimately result in more efficient and effective ethical financial operations in nonprofit organizations.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:19:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 43267.pdf: 987343 bytes, checksum: 81de9440ae0d094a00fa10f6381fd268 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-02-09T00:00:00Z / After a high-profile accounting frauds and misstatements occurred in the US financial markets, US Congress decided to enact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002 ñ the Act, also known as SarOx or Sox, contains a wide number of provisions affecting important issues of Corporate Governance. The objective of this study was to evaluate those provisions in the light of existent Governance mechanisms in order to detect if their compulsory format, as law provisions, will impact corporate governance structure. To achieve this objective, this paper reviews the literature of mainly concepts of Corporate Governance and its mechanisms in order to understand their impact on corporate structure. After that, it was prepared an evaluation of the key provisions of the law and the example of Enron was brought to attention to illustrate the Congress inspiration. The aim of this chapter was to understand the key provisions deeply in order to build a relationship between the law and the Governance mechanisms. Finally, it was evaluated the impact of those provisions on the US corporate governance structure by revising the literature of many studies performed in American companies after the period of Sox enactment. To complete this analysis, a qualitative research was performed in order to register the impressions of managers from a Brazilian corporation about the law implementation process as well as its impact on the Governance of this corporation. The conclusion of the bibliography evaluation is that Sox impacts on Governance structure are still controversial 2 and the recent database turns it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the law. Also, the results obtained with the research of the Brazilian case do not permit further conclusions, once it registers the perception of the interviewers, which cannot be extended to other sectors, neither is statistically proven. / Após uma série de escândalos e fraudes no mercado acionário norte-americano, o Congresso norte-americano decidiu promulgar a Lei Sarbanes-Oxley, em julho de 2002. A Lei, também conhecida como SarbOx ou SOx, é um extenso normativo de reformas corporativas, que estende seus domínios a importantes práticas de governança corporativa. Esse estudo teve como objetivo avaliar os artigos da lei à luz dos mecanismos de governança já existentes, a fim de detectar se a imposição de alguns mecanismos, no formato de lei, está surtindo efeito na estrutura de governança das empresas. Para isso, fomos buscar na literatura os conceitos de governança e seus mecanismos a fim de entendermos o impacto que causam na estrutura das empresas. A seguir, avaliamos os principais artigos da Lei e o exemplo do caso Enron, que foi uma das fontes inspiradoras dos legisladores – o intuito dessa pesquisa foi nos aprofundar na lei e seus artigos para que pudéssemos traçar uma relação entre a lei e os mecanismos de governança, avaliados no estudo preliminar. E, finalmente, analisamos os estudos realizados em empresas americanas, que buscavam comprovar o impacto da lei na estrutura de governança da Empresa. Complementamos essa análise com uma avaliação qualitativa, que visou registrar as impressões de gestores de uma empresa brasileira sobre o processo de adequação à lei bem como sua influência no processo de governança da empresa. Como conclusão do trabalho, avaliamos pela pesquisa bibliográfica que os efeitos da lei ainda são controversos e a base de dados muito recente, dificultando a avaliação sobre a efetividade da lei. A pesquisa qualitativa do caso brasileiro demonstrou uma percepção positiva do processo, porém não conclusiva, pois se trata de percepção, ou seja, das primeiras impressões que os entrevistados estão traçando a respeito do processo - o que não pode ser generalizável, nem estatisticamente comprovado. Palavras-chave: Lei Sarbanes-Oxley, governança corporativa, mecanismos de governança corporativa.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:19:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 68070200633.pdf: 1686127 bytes, checksum: e2da52c9e68b9e8d28bf968e3ef9dd42 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-12-01T00:00:00Z / Propõe-se com a presente dissertação conduzir estudo exploratório sobre a razoabilidade de um método de apoio à tomada de decisão para ordenar os controles internos contábeis, utilizando critérios estabelecidos pelo regulador do mercado de capitais dos Estados Unidos, quantificados por meio de uma escala baseada em operadores da lógica fuzzy. O método foi elaborado com base em pesquisa bibliográfica sobre o controle interno contábil e sua relação com os controles internos em geral; a exigência de constituição, avaliação e divulgação da avaliação dos controles internos contábeis pela legislação do mercado de capitais americano ao longo das últimas três décadas; o conceito de matriz de risco; os métodos de apoio à decisão; e os fundamentos da lógica fuzzy. A metodologia proposta foi adaptada à realidade da entidade objeto do estudo de caso e aplicada sobre 2,4 mil controles. Uma amostra de aproximadamente 14% desse universo foi analisada e permitiu concluir pela razoabilidade do método proposto, que será utilizado pela entidade estudada como parte de seu processo de avaliação dos controles internos contábeis.

The master's thesis analyses the contemporary corporate governance standards and their legal framework. The paper describes the development of different corporate governance principles and the key legal pieces that regulate the corporate governance area (eg. Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, EC regulation). The core of the paper focuses on corporate governance failures that led to the current financial crisis, analyses their link to the corporate governance principles and describes the trends for development in the corporate governance regulation.

No description available.

This dissertation consists of three essays on the effect of excess compensation and corporate governance changes on the firm’s performance. The first paper utilizes a cost minimization stochastic frontier approach to investigate the efficiency of director total compensation. Our findings suggest that board members are over compensated. We show that, on average, the director actual compensation level is above the efficient compensation level by around 63%. Our results suggest that an increase in director excess compensation decreases the likelihood of CEO turnover, reduces the turnover-performance sensitivity, and increases managerial entrenchment. Thus, the surplus in director compensation is directly associated with managerial job security and entrenchment. Furthermore, although director excess compensation is not significantly inversely related to the firm’s future performance, it has an indirect negative effect on future performance through its impact on the entrenchment-performance relationship. Therefore, this essay proposes that the overcompensation of directors is directly associated with a board culture predicated by mutual back-scratching and collusion between the CEO and the board members. The second essay tests the effect of an exogenous shock, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002, on the structure of corporate boards and their efficiency as a monitoring mechanism. The results suggest an increase in the participation of independent directors at the expense of insiders. Consequently, we investigate the implications of board composition changes on CEO turnover and firm value. We document a noticeable reduction in CEO turnover in the post-SOX period. We also demonstrate that, after SOX, a board dominated by independent directors is less likely to remove a CEO due to poor performance. Finally, we highlight a negative association between the change in board composition and firm value. We propose that our findings are predicated on an off equilibrium result whereby firms were forced to modify iv their endogenously chosen board composition. Therefore, contrary to the legislators’ objectives, we suggest that the change in board structure brought about inefficient monitoring and promoted an unfavorable tradeoff between independent directors and insiders. The third essay examines the relationship between the firm’s governance structure and its value during different economic conditions. We show that both relative industry turnover and CEO entrenchment increase during economic downturns. We also find that relative industry turnover and managerial entrenchment have opposite impacts on the value of the firm throughout the recessionary period. While industry turnover leads to an appreciation in firm value, managerial entrenchment reduces shareholders’ wealth. The negative impact of managerial entrenchment on firm value, however, outweighs the positive impact of industry turnover. Accordingly, we propose that a recession provides managers with a good opportunity to camouflage their behavior and extract more private benefits and, thus, blame the poor performance on bad economic conditions.

No description available.

In the years following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, corporations have heightened their efforts to comprehensively manage all aspect of business risk that could jeopardize their operations or potentially lead to business failure. This increase in efforts have motivated firms to adopt additional preventative measures to internally manage their unique portfolios of impeding enterprise risk. Due to legislative efforts by the U.S. Congress, both the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) were broadly developed to improve corporate governance while increasing transparency within financial reporting. Specifically, Dodd-Frank mandates that large financial firms with $50 billion in assets establish special committees dedicated to assessing their financial risks. Meanwhile, SOX requires all public firms to establish rigorous internal control systems to ensure the adequacy of financial reporting. However, these laws mainly target financial firms and fall short of requiring nonfinancial firms to establish a separate committee to manage corporate risk even though it would be in these companies own interest to enhance their safeguarding efforts against ambiguous financial uncertainties, reputation downshifts, and other inherent risk. This dissertation seeks to understand whether a separate voluntary risk management committee at the board level is related to the financial stability and creditworthiness of nonfinancial firms. Firstly, we investigated whether the existence of a separate risk management committee is associated with the firm’s leverage, solvency, financial health, and organizational soundness. Secondly, we examined whether the existence of a separate risk management committee is associated with the firm’s short- and long-term credit ratings. Using secondary data from Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS), we analyzed data from a wide range of financial ratios and credit ratings from companies listed on the S&P 1500 index to evaluate if these committees have an association with the firm’s ability to manage its risk effectively. Regression analysis was utilized to explore this relationship. Although the direction of the relationship cannot be determined, the results suggest that the establishment of a separate voluntary risk management committee was minimally related to the financial soundness of the firm and was not related to the firm's leverage, solvency, or overall organizational soundness. Inferences or causality cannot be made. Additionally, we found that firms with better short-term credit ratings were more likely to establish a voluntary risk management committee, while long-term credit ratings did not show a correlation with the presence of a voluntary risk management committee. Interestingly, the study also found that the presence of more men on the board and a larger board size increased the likelihood of firms adopting a risk management committee, but over time, the interest in forming these committees has declined within the timeframe reviewed, particularly in the healthcare, communication, and utilities sectors. The results of this study suggest that relying on traditional financial/accounting ratios might not be the most effective method for assessing a firm's risk. Further, these results underscore the need for a more comprehensive approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative risk assessments and approaches. This dissertation contributes to the benefits of establishing a voluntary risk management committee in nonfinancial firms, which is a topic that has not been extensively researched. The aim is to offer a deeper insight into the benefits of such committees and encourage more firms to improve their risk management practices where positive correlations were identified. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

Visselblåsarbegreppet har blivit ett allt mer frekvent förekommande inslag inom den unionsrättsliga lagstiftningen, och vikten av att beskydda arbetstagare som bistår myndigheter med information som kan stoppa överträdelser har på senare år uppmärksammats och betonats världen över. I samband med en modernisering och uppdatering av den finansmarknadsrättsliga lagstiftningen, inte minst till följd av den tekniska utvecklingen inom området, valde EU:s lagstiftande organ att göra en markering mot fysiska och juridiska personer som ägnar sig åt överträdelser som kan vilseleda aktörerna på de finansiella marknaderna. Bland annat infördes, genom ett antal nya rättsakter, enhetliga sanktioner samt minimibestämmelser för kriminalisering av vissa ageranden. Vid framtagandet av lagstiftningen diskuterades även på EU-nivå huruvida ett potentiellt införande av ekonomiska incitament för visselblåsare som bidrar med värdefull information i fråga om marknadsmissbruk borde utgöra en del av det sociala skyddet för nämnda individer. Medlemsstaterna hade redan i samband med tidigare unionsöverskridande lagstiftning ålagts att vidta särskilda åtgärder för att säkerställa att visselblåsare erhåller skydd gentemot arbetsgivare avseende hämndaktioner, men här, tydligt inspirerade av den amerikanska lagstiftningen i motsvarande område, öppnade EU för första gången för att låta unionsmedlemmarna erbjuda monetära utbetalningar till visselblåsare. I förevarande uppsats presenteras den aktuella EU-lagstiftningen samt den inhemska lagstiftning som bestämmelserna genererat i Sverige. Nämnda inslag sätts i relation till den amerikanska visselblåsarlagstiftningen. En redogörelse för lagstiftningens mottagande och effekt – kombinerat med teoretiska såväl som statistiska studier avseende ekonomiska incitament kopplat till visselblåsning – används för att besvara frågan huruvida ett införande av nämnda incitament skulle kunna utgöra ett ändamålsenligt inslag inom den svenska lagstiftningen. Min argumentation, vilken presenteras i analysdelen, utmynnar i ståndpunkten att ekonomiska incitament mycket väl skulle kunna utgöra en funktionell beståndsdel av visselblåsarskyddet, men att lagstiftningens utformning och det praktiska utförandet skulle kunna optimeras jämfört med dess amerikanska motsvarighet. Vidare vill jag i analysavsnittet betona vikten av ett skifte i inställning och attityd inom europeisk rättskultur gentemot visselblåsare.