Municipal water suppliers are increasingly faced with implementing programs to address temporary water shortages in the United States. Having reliable estimates for the effectiveness of these programs will help in water supply planning. This dissertation estimates the reductions in residential water-use for voluntary and mandatory water-use restrictions used in Virginia during the 2002 drought. These restrictions were evaluated using both a conventional approach (single-dummy variable for each) and non-conventional approach where program intensity was accounted for. Program intensity was measured by information dissemination for voluntary restrictions, and by information dissemination and enforcement efforts for mandatory restrictions. An unbalanced panel with data from 21 municipal water suppliers was used in the analysis. Under the conventional approach, voluntary restrictions had no significant effect on water-use and mandatory restrictions showed a small to moderate effect. However, program intensity was found to have a significant influence on the magnitude of the water-use reductions in the non-conventional approach. These reductions ranged from 0-7% for voluntary restrictions, and from 0-22% for mandatory restrictions. Moreover, these reductions followed a pattern of increasing program effectiveness with higher levels of information and enforcement. This result indicates that water supply planners need to give considerable attention to the manner in which drought management programs are implemented. Price was also found to have an important effect on residential water-use. A moderate price increase of $3 per 1000 gallons would be expected to reduce water-use by almost 15%. Thus combining mandatory restrictions (implemented at high intensity) with a moderate to high price increase could result in water-use savings approaching 40% based on estimates from this analysis. Other important findings included: a) consumers were responding to a mix of pure marginal price and fixed fees/previous block rates, b) apartment accounts were found to be included in most of the localities residential data and had a significant impact on water-use, and c) the income parameter was measuring more than a pure income effect. / Ph. D.

Corporate managers often pursue voluntary non-GAAP reporting when mandatory reporting is limited, although regulators are concerned with how this reporting is utilized. While the level of flexibility external auditors exhibit during discussions over subjective GAAP reporting choices can influence management's GAAP reporting decisions, it is important to determine if this behavior affects subsequent non-GAAP reporting decisions. Additionally, recent calls for increased audit committee questioning of non-GAAP disclosures may also cause audit committees to influence non-GAAP reporting. In this dissertation, I conduct an experiment to examine how auditor flexibility and audit committee questioning influence non-GAAP preparation and earnings release disclosure choices of senior executives. I predict less flexible auditor behavior will enhance managers' psychological feeling of constraint, while audit committee questioning focused on non-GAAP measures can increase managers' self-assessment of reporting decisions, both of which will translate into more conservative non-GAAP reporting. However, given prior research indicating that corporate governance mechanisms can combine in complex ways, I predict a greater impact of audit committee questioning absent auditor constraint. Results indicate managers make less conservative non-GAAP preparation decisions and disclose more non-GAAP measures in the absence of constraint from inflexible auditors. However, absent this constraint, managers make more conservative non-GAAP preparation choices and present non-GAAP measures less prominently in earnings press releases when the audit committee questions non-GAAP disclosures. These results are driven by a thorough self-assessment of reporting decisions by managers expecting audit committee questioning. This study provides evidence on how external auditors and audit committees influence various voluntary reporting decisions. / Doctor of Philosophy / Corporate managers can report their company's financial information to investors and other stakeholders in various ways. Some financial information is required to be reported in accordance with a set of formal accounting standards called United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Beyond this mandatory reporting, other financial information is disclosed voluntarily when company management believes this extra information is beneficial to investors. These voluntary disclosures— called non-GAAP measures— do not follow a set of accounting standards and can be disclosed with more discretion by company management than GAAP measures. The variation in how non-GAAP measures are prepared and disclosed concerns regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mandatory GAAP financial reporting is overseen by external auditors from public accounting firms, but auditors typically have very little formal oversight over non-GAAP reporting. Although company management ultimately decides how to disclose GAAP information, external auditors influence these reporting decisions by recommending choices during discussions over subjective GAAP issues. Sometimes auditors exhibit inflexible behavior during these discussions by being unwilling to consider management's reporting choices. This inflexibility limits or constrains the GAAP reporting choices of managers. However, prior research has not studied how this constraint impacts how managers make non-GAAP reporting choices. Further, GAAP reporting choices can also be influenced by the audit committee, which is a subgroup of members of the board of directors that is in charge of overseeing financial reporting and disclosure. Recent calls from regulators have asked for increased audit committee questioning of non-GAAP disclosures, which may also cause audit committees to influence non-GAAP reporting. Non-GAAP measures are often presented in earnings press releases, which are public announcements by a company that disclose information regarding results of operations or financial condition for a given period. Managers can make strategic decisions regarding the preparation of non-GAAP measures and the presentation of this information in earnings releases, both of which can influence investors' decision-making. In this dissertation, I conduct an experiment utilizing senior executives to examine how auditor flexibility and audit committee questioning influence these two types of non-GAAP reporting decisions: how to prepare non-GAAP measures and how to disclose them in earnings press releases. I predict less flexible auditor behavior will enhance managers' psychological feeling of constraint, while audit committee questioning focused on non-GAAP measures will increase managers' self-assessment of reporting decisions, both of which will translate into more conservative non-GAAP reporting. However, prior research indicates that corporate governance mechanisms, which are factors intended to help direct and monitor company management (such as auditors and audit committees), can combine in complex ways. Therefore, I predict a greater impact of audit committee questioning absent auditor constraint. The results indicate managers make less conservative non-GAAP preparation decisions (i.e. are more likely to calculate non-GAAP earnings figures that deviate from their GAAP counterparts) and disclose more non-GAAP measures in the absence of constraint from inflexible auditors. However, absent this constraint, managers make more conservative non-GAAP preparation choices and present non-GAAP measures less prominently in earnings press releases when the audit committee questions non-GAAP disclosures. These results are driven by a thorough self-assessment of reporting decisions by managers expecting audit committee questioning. This study provides evidence on how external auditors and audit committees influence various voluntary reporting decisions. Given the ubiquity of non-GAAP reporting in recent years, this dissertation can provide valuable insights to regulators, investors, and other stakeholders on factors that influence managerial decision-making related to non-GAAP disclosures.

This study is a subset of a larger body of research that examined shoulder time to fatigue during overhead work in an attempt to reduce the prevalence and impact of work-related musculoskeletal problems in the shoulder associated with overhead work, particularly during automobile assembly. Existing evidence suggests that shoulder injuries are diverse in terms of tissues affected and symptoms presented. Furthermore, the cause of these injuries is multifactorial. The work presented here assumes that musculoskeletal injuries of the shoulder mechanism are at least related to, if not caused by, fatigue localized to the shoulder musculature. While the exact relationship between fatigue and injury has not been clearly established, there is consensus among researchers that fatigue plays and important role. Muscular fatigue, therefore, is viewed as a surrogate measure of risk, and task design to avoid fatigue is seen as a rational method to minimize this risk. An experiment to determine the effects of tool weight on shoulder fatigue and performance during overhead work with work/rest cycles was performed. Times to fatigue were derived based on dependent measures including total task duration, controlled maximum muscle contractions, subjective ratings based on Borg's CR-10 RPE scale, electromyogram behavior (MdPF), and hand force performance measures. Experimental findings indicated that duty cycle (percentage of total task cycle time spent working) significantly affected task duration (p<0.0001), changes in maximum voluntary contraction values for the infraspinatus (p<0.05), and the minimum time for any shoulder muscle to fatigue as determined by changes in the EMG power spectrum (p<0.05). Time to fatigue for the mid deltoid as determined by changes in the median frequency of the EMG power spectrum was shown to change significantly (p<0.05) with change in tool weight. Large intersubject variation was observed for the dependent measures, which showed subjects experiencing different levels of fatigue while performing the same task. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future direction are also discussed. / Master of Science

Ce mémoire vise à mettre à l'épreuve les contributions scientifiques des auteurs qui critiquent la médicalisation de l'enjeu suicidaire. Selon eux, l'idée d'une relation causale entre le suicide et la maladie mentale est devenue une évidence acceptée dans les milieux scientifiques et profanes. Cette conception dominante est critiquée car elle oriente les stratégies de prévention du suicide vers des interventions médicales, négligeant ainsi l'importance des facteurs structurels. Nous proposons d'explorer comment ces critiques résonnent avec le contexte québécois. Nous interrogeons également ces critiques en les replaçant au sein d'un large éventail d'approches concernant le suicide, y compris les expertises élaborées en sociologie, psychologie et épidémiologie. En étayant notre examen de la littérature par une démonstration de la complexité théorique du suicide, nous explorons la manière dont les experts intègrent les discours "médicalisés" parmi la diversité de ces connaissances. L'analyse proposée se concentre spécifiquement sur l'établissement d'une cartographie des représentations concernant les causes du suicide et les pratiques de prévention privilégiées. Pour mener cette analyse, nous étudierons les discours de douze professionnels québécois et analyserons le contenu de divers documents institutionnels rédigés par le gouvernement du Québec. / This master’s thesis aims to challenge the scientific contributions of authors who criticize the medicalization of concepts and treatments surrounding the topic of suicide. According to their arguments, the notion of a causal link between suicide and mental illness has become widely acknowledged within scientific and non-expert circles. This prevailing notion also plays a significant role in the public management of suicide, as it narrows down suicide prevention strategies to medical interventions. We intend to investigate how these critiques resonate within the context of Quebec. Furthermore, we also suggest interrogating these criticisms by situating them within a broad a broad range of approaches concerning suicide, including expertise from sociology, psychology, and epidemiology. By grounding our literature review in a demonstration of the intricate theoretical nature of suicide, we will delve into how professionals incorporate "medicalized" discourses within the scope of these competencies. The proposed analysis is specifically directed towards constructing a map of representations regarding the causes of suicide and prevention practices. To accomplish this, we will analyze the viewpoints of twelve Quebec-based professionals, as well as scrutinize the content of various institutional documents produced by the Quebec government.

Reporting regarding issues that are related to Corporate Social Responsibility have come into more and more focus lately. Most countries currently have a limited or no mandatory regulations regarding what should be included in either an annual report or in a stand-alone report in terms of CSR. However Denmark is one of the pioneers regarding mandatory CSR regulations and as such has certain rules and regulations that their companies have to follow. Even if today’s regulations are heavily focused on financial information that companies have to disclose there also exists regulations regarding non-financial information. As with the financial crisis that occurred in the early 21st century that led to stricter disclosures requirements for financial information we see a need for regulating non-financial information and especially CSR information. We have been able to see that some companies have been able to manipulate their CSR report so as to put themselves in a good light. Therefore the question arises if mandatory CSR disclosure will have any influence on the stock market.The purpose of this study was to examine if Swedish companies and the Swedish stock market could benefit from having mandatory CSR regulations, similar to those that exist in Denmark. We sought to examine if fulfilling certain amount of CSR criteria would reduce the volatility of a company’s stock price.In order for us to achieve the purpose of our research we had to conduct an experiment on the Swedish companies. In order for us to conduct the experiment we firstly had to select what type of research we would conduct and what type of research was most suitable for our research. In order for us to achieve an answer to our research question and to be able to fulfill the purpose of our research we decided to conduct a quantitative research. We have chosen to utilize the quantitative research approach as this would allow gathering sufficient data from existing databases and reports. The database that we chose to utilize in order for us to find our sample population was NASDAQ OMX Nordic where the companies had be listed as of 2015-03-31 as well as having financial data for the entire year of 2014, meaning between 2014-01-01 and 2014-12-31. NASDAQ OMX Nordic was also used in order for us to find market indexes. In order for us to able to answer our research question we developed three different hypotheses based on our theoretical framework that would later be tested.From the testing of our hypotheses we could determine that there is a relationship between the amount of CSR that a company reports, in terms of how many of our CSR criteria they fulfill, and the historical volatility of the company’s stock price. We were also able to determine that there exists a relationship between the amount of CSR that a company reports and the level of Beta that a company has. This implied that the Swedish stock market could benefit from mandatory CSR regulation as it would reduce the volatility which would also be beneficial for the company’s different stakeholders.

No / The work was funded by the Leeds Social Science Institute.

No / This paper investigates the impact of corporate risk levels on aggregated, voluntary and mandatory risk disclosures in the annual report narratives of UK non-financial listed companies. We find that firms characterised by higher levels of systematic, financing risks and risk-adjusted returns and those with lower levels of stock return variability are likely to exhibit significantly higher levels of aggregated and voluntary risk disclosures. The results also show that firms of large size, high dividend-yield, high board independence, low (high) insider (outsider) ownership, and effective audit environments are likely to exhibit higher levels of aggregated and voluntary risk disclosures than other firms. Similarly, mandatory risk disclosures are influenced positively by firm size, dividend-yield and board independence and negatively by high leverage. The results suggest that managers of firms exhibiting greater compliance with mandatory regulations have a greater propensity to make voluntary risk disclosures. When we distinguish between high- and low-risk firms, we find that high-risk firms appear to be more sensitive to underlying risk levels, resulting in more disclosure of both voluntary and mandatory risk information than in the case of low-risk firms. The results generally support the present UK emphasis on encouraging rather than mandating risk disclosure. Nevertheless, under this regime, the voluntary risk disclosures of some firms, e.g., those characterised by higher-volatility market returns, do not reflect their underlying risk levels.

Yes / This paper provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date (1997-2016) review of the archival empirical risk-reporting literature. The reviewed papers are classified into two principal themes: the incentives for and/or informativeness of risk reporting. Our review demonstrates areas of significant divergence in the literature specifically: mandatory versus voluntary risk reporting, manual versus automated content analysis, within-country versus cross-country variations in risk reporting, and risk reporting in financial versus non-financial firms. Our paper identifies a number of issues which require further research. In particular we draw attention to two: first, a lack of clarity and consistency around the conceptualization of risk; and second, the potential costs and benefits of standard-setters’ involvement

Yes / The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate board attributes, ownership structure and firm-level characteristics on both corporate mandatory and voluntary disclosure behaviour. Multivariate regression techniques are used to estimate the effect of corporate board and ownership structures on mandatory and voluntary disclosures of a sample of Libyan listed and non-listed firms between 2006 and 2010. First, the authors find that board size, board composition, the frequency of board meetings and the presence of an audit committee have an impact on the level of corporate disclosure. Second, results indicate that ownership structures have a non-linear effect on the level of corporate disclosure. Finally, the authors document that firm age, liquidity, listing status, industry type and auditor type are positively associated with the level of corporate disclosure. Future research could investigate disclosure practices using other channels of corporate disclosure media, such as corporate websites. Useful insights may be offered also by future studies by conducting in-depth interviews with corporate managers, directors and owners regarding these issues. The evidence relating to the important role that corporate governance mechanisms play in shaping the expectations relating to the level of corporate voluntary and/or mandatory disclosures may be useful in informing investor decisions, as well as future policy and regulatory initiatives. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the governance-disclosure nexus relating to both mandatory and voluntary disclosures in both listed and non-listed firms operating in a developing country setting.

Salary.com (2009) found that despite the sinking economy, 57 % of U.S. employees will increase their search for a new job in the next three months. They also reported that it costs approximately twenty-one thousand dollars to replace an employee due to turnover, across industries. Thus, for half a century, research has been conducted to better understand voluntary turnover in organizations. Given the sharp rise in merger and acquisition activity in organizations over the past two decades, it is important to understand the reasons for voluntary turnover among employees facing the uncertainty typically experienced during a merger or acquisition. The current study examined the psychological perceptions of employees who voluntarily left a major multi-conglomerate firm during a period of time where a division of the company was placed up for sale. Seventy-four archival exit interview surveys were obtained, and information coded in order to describe the types of reasons why employees left, the relative frequency and numbers of these reasons, the relations among supervisor and job satisfaction and various turnover reasons, and possible retention factors. Turnover reasons were grouped into five types: nonwork, job/task, work/unit, company and motivation. Findings show company reasons were the most frequently cited reasons for leaving and that career opportunities were the most highly cited as possible ways employees could have been retained. Supervisor satisfaction was inversely related to the number of job, work, and company reasons for leaving, and the reasons for leaving differed between employees reporting high and low levels of supervisor satisfaction. Findings are intended to provide insight about the perceptions of employees going through a merger or acquisition in order to better equip businesses who are losing star employees and facing tremendous costs in training new employees during a divestiture.