The aim of this study is to test the audit fee determinants for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Stock Exchange and to examine whether the audit fee determinants diverge for ownership structures. By testing the audit fee determinants in a Swedish setting the study contributes to the research body in two ways; by testing a previously sparsely researched setting and examining the monitoring need for different ownership structures. The results indicate that audit fees are explained to a large extent by accounting complexities, business complexities and assurance.  The results also suggest that ownership structure does not have a large effect on the monitoring need.  Altogether the results provide further evidence on audit fee determinants whilst adding initial insight into the area of audit fee determinants for ownership structures.

The hardest time to receive financing for a venture is at its earliest stage. These ventures are among the riskiest investments for an investor, which creates a gap in financing that is often bridged through a source of funding called Angel Financing. Angel investors are one of the best providers of early stage funding. This thesis will explain what angel investing is, how they work, and what angels look for. This information will help entrepreneurs be better equipped to find an angel investor for their venture.

This dissertation consists of three papers that examine how aspects of public policy may impact private sector corporate governance. The first two examine the relationship between personal-tax policy and corporate agency costs. The first paper is a theoretical analysis based on an agency model of managerial behavior. A unique element of this paper is that it assumes a discontinuous compensation function, which reflects the occurrence of performance thresholds associated with the dismissal incentive and many common bonus plans. The analysis results in three main findings. First, the relative magnitude of proportional taxation has an indeterminate effect on managerial performance. Second, an increase in tax progressivity is associated with reduced managerial performance and increased agency costs. Third, the inclusion of performance thresholds and compensation discontinuities can cause tax system changes to have surprisingly large impacts on managerial performance. The second paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between personal-tax progressivity and corporate operating efficiency. The analysis is based on variations in across-state tax policy and utilizes a sample of US-based firms. Using matched-pair testing and regression analysis, evidence is found that is consistent with the hypothesis that increased personal-tax progressivity negatively impacts managerial performance. Together, the analysis contained in the first two papers suggests a need to further examine the relationship between personal taxation and corporate agency costs, an issue that is largely absent from the research literature. The third paper investigates whether variations in state corporate law affect firm value. Previous research in this area generally treats all states other than Delaware as having homogeneous corporate law. I relax this assumption and analyze a large panel sample of US firms. Evidence is found that Delaware firms are worth more, on average, than non-Delaware firms. However, this effect is not consistent across all non-Delaware jurisdictions. The valuation differences are correlated to differences in statutory law. Specifically, corporate law that provides greater entrenchment of management is associated with reduced firm value. The results indicate that corporate law does affect corporate governance. Furthermore, the findings are inconsistent with the “race to the bottom” theory of corporate law. / May 2006

I denna studie undersöker vi om det förekommer earnings management i resultathöjande syfte bland svenska börsnoterade företag vid tiden av en nyemission. Studier om earnings management vid nyemissioner har gjorts förut av exempelvis av (Shivakumar, 2000). Han kommer fram till att earnings management förekommer tiden precis innan en nyemission. Vi hittar dock ingen studie utförd på svenska företag, vilket vi vill undersöka närmare. Syftet med resultatet av studien är att visa intressenter till företagen att de kan bli vilseledda när de ska investera sitt kapital när earnings management förekommer. / In this study, we examine whether there occurs earnings management in order to increase earnings in Swedish listed companies at the time of an equity offering. Studies on earnings management at the time of an equity offering has been done before, for example by (Shivakumar, 2000). He concludes that earnings management occurs the time just before an equity offering. We find, however, no study conducted in Swedish companies, which we want to investigate further. The purpose of the outcome of the study is to show stakeholders to the companies that they can be misled when to invest their capital when earnings management occurs.

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State multinationals were investigated in the 1980s. Since then, little work on the state multinational has been done because of the dramatic changes in the world in terms of both politics and economics, such as the waves of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. However, in the current global environment, we see the increase in the number of state multinationals, and thus initiate research of this study. This study investigates two sets of research questions. First, is the state multinational the overlap of two organizational forms (the state owned enterprise (SOE) and the multinational enterprise (MNE))? If so, what are the key characteristics and implications of the state multinational? Second, can the state multinational be considered a hybrid organizational form, which is different from that of its parents? Propositions are set forth to examine the first set of research questions. After clarifying the unit of analysis for this study, the second set of questions asks how state ownership influences the state multinational‘s international diversification and firm performance, and what is the impact of institutional ownership on the state ownership—international diversification relationship, and how home country institutional environments influence the proposed relationships. Hypotheses are proposed to investigate the second set of research questions and are tested with a three-year sample (2004-2007) and a seven year sample (2000-2007) of the state multinational. Results of hierarchical linear models indicate that the state multinational, first, does have characteristics that are different from its parents (i.e., the SOE and the MNE) and thus is considered a hybrid organizational form. Second, state ownership may improve the level of the state multinational‘s international diversification, but reaches a threshold, after which the positive influence diminishes due to the prominent agency costs. Third, institutional ownership has been verified as a useful mechanism to improve the effectiveness of corporate governance in the case of the state multinational. Fourth, home country institutional environments matter in the studied relationships. The state multinational in developed countries with an established institutional environment may not depend on state ownership as much as those in developing and emerging countries. Results also show the influence of state ownership on the state multinational‘s firm performance. The state ownership—performance relationship is also non-linear (inverted U-shaped). Moreover, in the case of the state multinational, the higher the level of international diversification, the higher the firm performance. In addition, international strategies of the state multinational function as a mediator for the relationship between state ownership and firm performance.

A channel rebate is a payment from a manufacturer to a retailer based on retailer sales to end consumers. The widespread use of rebates by manufactures is being met with growing retailer and consumer acceptance. Channel rebates are especially significant in the consumer industries. This kind of sales force compensation method involves the agency relationship between manufactures and retailers. Manufactures often make a specified contract, which rewards retailers when retailing sales exceeds the specified level in a certain period, to minimize the agency cost effectively and align the interests of manufactures and retailers. Since the employ stock option (ESO) transaction involves the exchange of labor inputs for a contingent equity claim on the firm, the economic intuition of ESO and channel rebates is such similar. However, the accounting treatments of channel rebates are often not recorded exactly in the period in which they are incurred. It is important to employ reasonable and correct methods for estimating the value of channel rebates. This article suggests that manufacturers should expense the channel rebates at the grant date. In addition, adjustments for rebate expenses are necessary to recognize the different value of rebates between grant date and statement date. This article estimates channel rebates using the options model, which is a more flexible and useful method to value intangible assets, to make it possible to report on the balance sheet the appropriate assets, liabilities, and stockholders¡¦ equity at the statement date and to report on the income statement the proper net income for the period. Because the analytical solution of our model is unknown, the numerical solution can be obtained by Monte Carlo simulation to determine the value of channel rebates reasonably and correctly. Thus, the financial statements of both manufactures and retailers will provide the most useful information to various user groups.

To Invest in Mainland China becomes Taiwan corporations¡¦ high priority by virtue of China¡¦s vast internal consumer market, the trade liberalization after joining WTO, low labor cost, and easy communication in Chinese language. However, the special relationship between Taiwan and China induces Taiwan corporations¡¦ investment risks due to political uncertainties. The establishment of information and communication network between headquarters in Taiwan and their mainland subsidiaries enables the governance and coordination between two sides. However, bearing these special relations, it is a nontrivial question to ask any unique information infrastructure and system that Taiwan corporations adopt which may be consistent with or different from prior literatures in multi-national corporations. This thesis develops a conceptual framework to identify the relationship between the factors and IT configurations, and then proposes propositions to explain findings from three Taiwan companies, which have subsidiaries in China. This study asserts that the political uncertainties that influence the IT configuration of Taiwan companies with subsidiaries in China are common with multinational firms whose headquarter and subsidiaries have normal relationship. The major contribution of this study is to explore the factors that affect Taiwan companies¡¦ IT governing practice toward their China subsidiaries.

The aim of this study is to discuss the query: ¡§When organizations apply different human resource (HR) systems in managing their employees with different characteristics, what will be the employees¡¦ possible performance patterns?¡¨ by modifying and extending Lepak & Snell¡¦s (1999) HR architecture. According to employees¡¦ contribution to the sustained competitive advantages (SCAs), we first identified two main characteristics of employees: complexity and uniqueness. The employees could be further categorized into core, unique, complex, and imitable HR and the HR architecture is thereby constructed. Furthermore, based on agency theory and transactional cost theory, we propose behavioral control and internal development as the two main strategies for managing employees with different characteristics: integration with HR architecture, and construction of human resource management (HRM) architecture. Finally, there are exchange relationships between employees and their organizations. Since psychological contracts reflect employees¡¦ beliefs in the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange relationship between them and their employers (Rousseau, 1995), they are viewed as the best linking mechanism between HR systems and employee behaviors (Wright & Boswell, 2002). Accordingly, we adopted psychological contract perspective to discuss the relationships between HR systems and employees¡¦ role behaviors and sequentially proposed the corresponding psychological contract architecture as well as the performance architecture. Multilevel analysis and t-test of data from 172 Taiwanese datasets (172 copies from immediate managers and 806 from employees) revealed that different HR systems not only are applied to manage different types of employees but also elicit different patterns of employees¡¦ performance. First, organizations would like to apply higher levels of internal development and lower levels of behavioral control in managing their core HR. These strategies caused employees to believe that they had a long-term exchange relationship with the organizations and simultaneously improve their in-role behaviors, OCBI, and OCBO. In contrast, organizations would like to apply lower levels of internal development and higher levels of behavioral control in managing their imitable HR. This governance made employees focus on specific performance-reward contingencies in their exchange relationships with the organizations, as well as to enhance their in-role behaviors. Next, organizations would like to apply higher levels of internal development and behavioral control in managing their unique HR. These strategies caused employees to believe that they had a long-term exchange relationship with the organizations, with an emphasis on specific performance-reward contingencies. For this reason, this HR system could prompt employees¡¦ appropriate in-role behaviors and OCBO. Finally, according to the HRM architecture, an organization should theoretically apply a lower level of internal development and behavioral control in managing its complex HR. Since it is not possible to form employees¡¦ psychological contract or create relevant role behaviors when organizations do not actively adopt specific strategies to manage them, we did not empirically examine the relationships between HR systems and employees¡¦ complex role behaviors. However, complex HR still contributes to the SCAs. Accordingly, future research could focus on complex HR and explore which types of HR system would be beneficial in regard to their role behaviors.

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