1,721,004 research outputs found
Chief Executive Officer Remuneration and the ‘Two-Strikes’ Rule of Australia
No full textOver the past two decades, executive remuneration has been a topic of considerable controversy. The perceived inability of boards of directors to set optimal executive pay, together with the revelation of corporate scandals and subsequent collapse of high-profile companies, has fuelled intense public debates about executive pay. Regulators here and abroad have been forced to address these growing concerns. With the view to improving the accountability of executive pay and to restraining ‘excessive’ executive pay, Australia introduced the Corporations Amendment (Improving Accountability on Director and Executive Remuneration) Act 2011, with effect from 1 July 2011. Unlike previous legislation, under which shareholders’ votes on remuneration reports were non-binding, this new ‘say on pay’ (SOP) legislation, widely known as the ‘two-strikes’ rule in Australia, has specific and predictable consequences. Under this new rule, the board of directors (except the chief executive officer) of a firm listed on the Australian Securities Exchange may potentially face re-election if the remuneration report receives 25% or more ‘no’ votes at the Annual General Meeting in two consecutive years.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith Business SchoolGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
The Implications of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 on Carbon Emissions Disclosure Practices in Australia: 2005 to 2011
No full textCarbon emissions make a significant contribution to climate change and global warming. The accounting standards, though, are silent on the treatment for carbon emissions and disclosures. As a result, stakeholders, other than the Australian Government, are reliant on voluntarily disclosed carbon emission information. This thesis investigates voluntary carbon emission disclosure practices of firms set within a carbon-based economy, Australia. Specially, this thesis notes the changes in voluntary carbon emission disclosures over time, prior to the introduction of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007 to post-legislation, 2005 to 2011. In addition, this thesis also investigates the determinants of such disclosures.
A multi-theoretical framework incorporating legitimacy, signalling and institutional theories support this thesis. The sample comprises of hand-collected and manually-coded data from 170 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed firms with 85 of these firms listed on the NGER register; the other 85 firms are control firms chosen using matched-pair design. Content analysis is used to capture the changes in voluntary carbon emission disclosures while logistic regression analysis is used to investigate the determinants that contribute to these disclosures. Ordinary least squares regression results using the number of words and the number of sentences on voluntary carbon emission disclosures are generally consistent with the logistic regression results.
This thesis finds voluntary carbon emission disclosures increased over the period 2005 through to 2011. However, heavy emitting firms that later listed on the NGER-registered voluntarily disclosed less carbon emission information during 2005 and 2006 than firms not required to register. Though, by 2008 registered firms’ propensity to voluntary disclose carbon emissions increased at a greater rate than other firms. In addition, it is found sustainability reports convey carbon emission data more than annual reports; however can be raised about the timeliness of information in such reports are not produced annually, if they are produced at all.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith Business SchoolGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
Voluntary Corporate Governance Disclosure, Board Diversity, and CEO Compensation: Evidence from Post-Apartheid South Africa
No full textRampant corporate collapses over the past few decades have put corporate governance issues in the spotlight. Shareholders have become increasingly participative over time; corporate boards are no longer passive, whilst regulators constantly seek to implement more effective corporate governance mechanisms. In the midst of these developments, post-apartheid South Africa has notoriously pursued an integrated corporate governance framework in the form of the King Reports. Within the South African corporate governance system, firms are required to disclose their compliance with recommended good corporate governance practices to shareholders and other stakeholders. Further, due to a long history of apartheid, board diversity has become a current and contentious corporate governance issue confronting South African firms. Using a hand-collected data set for 185 unique South African listed firms from 2008-2013, this thesis measures the level of compliance with 72 corporate governance (CG) provisions in the third CG code in South Africa. The thesis also examines the determinants of compliance and explores the interrelations between corporate governance quality, board diversity, and CEO compensation.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith Busines SchoolGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
Auditor Switch, Audit Fees, and Audit Quality: Evidence from the ASX 500 Firms
No full textThis thesis is comprised of two studies. The first study investigates the incidence and magnitude of low-balling in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) top 500 firms. In auditing, low-balling refers to the provision of audit services below their actual costs during the early years of an audit engagement (DeAngelo, 1981a). Indeed, low-balling is the ‘bait to catch’ for non-audit services or continuity of office. It has been the focus of regulatory bodies, practitioners, and academics because of its potential adverse influence on auditor independence and audit quality (Levin, 2002; Ramsay, 2001; SEC, 2000; Sewon & Wang, 2012; U.S. Senate, 2002).
This study is primarily motivated by the non-trivial presence of auditor switch even within the ASX 500 firms. For example, there were 282 instances of auditor switch among the ASX top 500 firms between 2006 and 2016. This amounts to roughly 5% of ASX 500 firms switching their auditors every year. An auditor switch potentially creates an opportunity for a fee discounting in the first year of engagement, which in turn can raise questions about audit quality. Given the availability of audit fees data, the Australian setting offers an excellent opportunity to investigate whether auditor switches influence audit fees.
The first study is motivated by increased attention on corporate governance and boards’ monitoring roles since the global financial crisis (Claessens, Dell’Ariccia, Igan, & Laeven, 2010; Erkens, Hung, & Matos, 2012; Goldin & Vogel, 2010; Woods, 2010; Xu, Carson, Fargher, & Jiang, 2013). Moreover, the ASX Corporate Governance Council issued ‘if not, why not’ type governance standards for public listed companies in 2003 (ASX, 2003). These standards oblige companies to publicly disclose their reasons to not comply with a Council recommendation. ASX Listing Rules mandate ASX top 300 companies to establish an audit committee and to provide a summary of their audit committee charters (ASX Corporate Governance Council, 2014, p. 22). It is recommended that the committee comments on the provision of NAS (ASX Corporate Governance Council, 2014, p. 22). Audit committees oversee the selection, remuneration, and dismissal of auditors. Hence, the new regulatory environment in Australia is likely to influence auditor switch and potentially any relation between auditor switch and audit fees. Furthermore, recent Australian studies on the relation between auditor switch and audit fees have focused on audit partner rotation (Ferguson, Lam, & Ma, 2017; Grosse, Ma, & Scott, 2018; Stewart, Kent, & Routledge, 2015). This study extends prior Australian studies by examining audit firm switches rather than partner switches.
Although there are concerns regarding the influence of low-balling on auditor independence (Huang, Raghunandan, Huang, & Chiou, 2015; PCAOB, 2011), prior evidence suggests that low-balling is widely practised (DeAngelo, 1981a; Velte, 2012; Velte & Azibi, 2015). Moreover, in terms of motives for low-balling, DeAngelo (1981a) and Dye (1991) provide two opposing low-balling theories. DeAngelo (1981a) suggests that the initial fee is discounted in every setting, whereas Dye (1991) posits that public disclosure of fees prevents fee discounting. Thus, Australia provides a unique setting to analyse low-balling theories, as it requires public disclosure of audit and non-audit fees data (Craswell & Francis, 1999).
Following prior studies, this study employs a parsimonious model that captures the most significant drivers of audit fees, including auditor switch (variable of interest). This study estimates its audit fees model using both ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and a random-effects technique. The first study examines audit fees data of ASX 500 companies from 2006 to 2016, based on their market capitalisation on 30 June 2016. This study compares the first year's audit fees and total fees of the incumbent auditor against the last fee charged by the former auditor to calculate fee discounting. An audit fee estimation model regresses fees against some variables that are either positively or negatively related to them based on evidence in the extant literature (Hay, Knechel, & Wong, 2006). Audit fees are regressed on a set of control variables, namely: the size of an auditee’s revenue (Iyer & Iyer, 1996; Maher, Tiessen, Colson, & Broman, 1992), audit committee size (Vafeas & Waegelein, 2007), audit committee independence (Lee & Mande, 2005), audit committee expertise (Abbott, Parker, Peters, & Raghunandan, 2003b), auditor quality (Choi, Kim, Kim, & Zang, 2010), audit opinion (Simunic, 1980), provision of non-audit services (Simon, 1985; Simunic, 1984), leverage (Choi, Kim, Liu, & Simunic, 2008), inventory (Gul, Chen, & Tsui, 2003), receivables (Gul et al., 2003; Singh, Woodliff, Sultana, & Newby, 2014), auditor switch in the first year after a switch (Garsombke & Armitage, 1993), return on assets ratio (ROA) (Huang, Raghunandan, & Rama, 2009), and quick ratio (Singh et al., 2014).
The total fees model also considers NAFRATIO (the ratio of an auditee’s nonaudit to audit fees) (Hay et al., 2006; Whisenant, Sankaraguruswamy, & Raghunandan, 2003) and Loss (1 if an auditee has a bottom-line loss, else 0) (Desir, Casterella, & Kokina, 2013) as two additional control variables that are likely to influence total fees. The remaining control variables are as per the audit fees model. The data are obtained from ASX, Connect 4, Morningstar, and companies’ annual reports.
The first study shows that of the 282 instances of auditor switch among the ASX top 500 firms between 2006 and 2016, 155 (55%) switches were to Big Four, and 127 (45%) switches were to non-Big Four. There is evidence that companies switch more frequently from non-Big Fours to Big Fours than they do from Big Fours to non-Big Fours. Results based on multivariate analysis suggest that auditor switch does not affect either audit fees or total fees. Thus, in the sample of ASX top 500 firms throughout 2006- 2016, there is no evidence of low-balling associated with auditor switch. Moreover, an auditee size is the most significant determinant of its audit and total fees. Findings are robust to various robustness checks, namely: heteroscedasticity; multicollinearity; exclusion of audit committee expertise, quick ratio, and mid-tier audit firms; different switching sub-categories, random-effects model, audit fees change model, total fees change model. Between the two competing theories of low-balling, the results are more consistent with Dye (1991) than with DeAngelo (1981a). This finding is potentially due to the public disclosure of audit and non-audit fees in Australia.
The first study also examines the relationship between the audit committee and audit fees. Results show that audit committee existence is not associated with audit fees. However, audit committee quality, measured by audit committee size, independence, and expertise, is positively associated with audit fees. This finding is because a high-quality audit committee demands higher audit effort and quality, leading to higher audit fees. In contrast, audit committee quality is not associated with audit fees in case of an auditor switch. This result is because public disclosure of audit fees deters auditors from discounting their initial audit fees in Australia.
The first study has several contributions. First, it provides recent evidence of the price efficiency of the audit market in Australia. Results suggest that auditor switch does not lead to a significant fee reduction in the initial audit engagement in the sample of ASX top 500 firms. To the extent audit fees reflect audit quality (DeFond & Zhang, 2014; Ireland & Lennox, 2002), this study is likely to enhance users’ confidence in the audit reports of the ASX top 500 firms in Australia. Second, the first study provides recent evidence that the Australian audit market is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of the Big Fours with more firms switching from non-Big Fours to Big Fours. Such concentration of the audit market could be the result of several factors, including increased audit complexity over time, demand for higher audit quality over time, and competitive advantages of the Big Four auditors over non-Big Fours. Third, although the rotation of audit firms is not mandatory in Australia, many of the ASX top 500 listed companies switched their audit firms throughout the 2006-2016 period. The results of the first study support the argument that a low-balling outlaw is not necessary for Australia. Fourth, this study shows that public fee disclosure can prevent low-balling practices, supporting Dye (1991) theory.
The second study of this thesis examines the influence of non-audit services (NAS) on audit quality in Australia. Auditors are more likely to report their discoveries if their litigation and reputation losses are higher than the benefits associated with their NAS (Hong-jo, Choi, & Cheung, 2017). Hence, popular media frequently question the potential implications of NAS on audit quality (Kahn, 2002; Solomon, 2002). A significant audit failure that is associated with the provision of NAS initiates a regulatory response (Schmidt, 2012). For example, a key motivation of Ramsay (2001) to provide a report regarding the independence of auditors was the rise of NAS provided by large accounting firms in Australia (Ramsay, 2001, p. 6). Thus, there are theoretical reasons to believe that the provision of NAS will lead to reduced audit quality.
Most prior studies that investigated the association between NAS and audit quality were undertaken in the United States (U.S.) setting, where evidence was mixed (Blay & Geiger, 2013; Church, Jenkins, McCracken, Roush, & Stanley, 2014; Knechel & Sharma, 2012; Prawitt, Sharp, & Wood, 2012). The second study is primarily motivated by the limitations of prior studies in this area, especially the U.S. studies. Specifically, previous U.S. studies potentially suffered from the self-selection bias, as before 2001, listed firms in the U.S. were not required to publicly disclose the amount and nature of the fees to their auditors (Dickins & Higgs, 2005). Moreover, although the SOX mandated the public disclosure of fees paid to auditors, it has banned U.S. listed firms from acquiring particular NAS (such as actuarial services) from their auditors (Dickins & Higgs, 2005).
Second, unlike the U.S., Australia permits auditors to provide NAS. However, all NAS require prior approval of the audit committee and subsequent disclosure of the paid fees (Patel & Prasad, 2013). Further, ASX Listing Rules mandate ASX 300 companies to have an audit committee. It is recommended that the committee comments on the provision of NAS (ASX Corporate Governance Council, 2014, p. 22). Hence, the new regulatory environment in Australia is likely to influence audit quality and potentially any relation between NAS and audit quality. Finally, there is limited evidence in Australia on the link between NAS and audit quality. Most prior studies regarding NAS and audit quality in Australia predated CLERP 9 (Craswell, Stokes, & Laughton, 2002; Gul, Tsui, & Dhaliwal, 2006; Ruddock, Taylor, & Taylor, 2006).
The second study focuses on two widely used measures of audit quality: auditor’s propensity to issue a going-concern audit opinion and discretionary accruals to address the hypothesis that the provision of NAS impairs audit quality in Australia. This study uses a logistic regression for its going-concern audit opinion model as its dependent variable is binary (DeFond & Zhang, 2014). However, it uses the OLS regression technique for its discretionary accruals model as its dependent variable is continuous. The experimental variables of the second study are LnNon-auditFees (natural log of an auditee’s non-audit fees in dollar value) and NASTF (the ratio of an auditee’s non-audit to total fee) for both going-concern audit opinion and discretionary accruals models. The second study uses the sample of ASX top 500 companies throughout 2006-2016.
Results support the second study’s hypothesis that NAS impair audit quality. This study contributes to the current debate regarding the relationship between NAS and audit quality. Findings of this study are essential to standard setters (such as AUASB). Findings of this study suggest that the current regulatory environment does not appear to safeguard enough audit quality in Australia. Thus, proposals to regulate NAS to a greater extent may be necessary as current NAS practice deteriorates audit quality. Specifically, this study shows that economic and social bonding of NAS may encourage auditors to sacrifice their independence and reduce their audit quality. Furthermore, the findings have important policy implications for other Anglo-American countries (e.g., the UK) because of the similarities of their regulatory setting with Australia.
However, additional analysis suggests that providing NAS to clients can compromise audit quality of some auditors (such as Deloitte or Bentleys), supporting this study’s hypothesis. However, it does not impair audit quality of others (such as PWC or PKF), supporting prior studies that conclude NAS do not impair audit quality (Church et al., 2014; Knechel & Sharma, 2012; Mitra, 2007; Reynolds, Deis Jr, & Francis, 2004). Overall, further analysis suggests that a gain in audit efficiency and a decline in audit quality are both at play when auditors provide NAS to their clients. Thus, whether audit quality will improve or decline due to the provision of NAS depends on market characteristics and auditor characteristics. These results explain why there is mixed evidence in the literature when it comes to NAS and audit quality.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Dept Account,Finance & EconGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
Australia's Say-on-Pay Rule: Pay-Performance Link and Auditors' Response
No full textOver the last three decades, executive compensation has attracted considerable media attention worldwide and has become a significant issue in corporate governance debates among academic and business communities. Specifically, due to corporate collapses and scandals in the early 2000s as well as the global financial crisis of 2008, managerial remuneration has been subjected to much criticism in recent years. Regulators and activist shareholders around the world have advocated that shareholders have a greater say (vote) on executive pay and greater influence in the boardroom to restrain managerial power and rent extraction. Therefore, Say-on-Pay (SoP) legislation has been enacted in several countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Brazil, China, Russia, India, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, South Africa, Israel, and Slovenia. Australia also has introduced SoP regulation, namely the ‘two-strikes’ rule in 2011 after a decade of growing concerns with the ‘fat cat’ pay and rewards for failure. Australia’s ‘two-strikes’ rule is viewed as a unique and innovative governance tool in that it empowers minority shareholders to remove a board of directors if a listed company receives a ‘strike’ against its remuneration report in two consecutive years. However, giving shareholders more power to have a greater direct say over the executive pay have been heavily debated. Proponents of SoP laws argued that allowing shareholders votes on executive compensation would increase accountability and transparency and incentivize boards to fulfil their fiduciary duty and ensure that CEOs are paid for performance, and thereby maximise shareholder value. In contrast, opponents argued that SoP rules would empower shareholders who lack the required expertise and sophistication, and therefore are likely to abuse their voting rights and put unnecessary pressure on the board of directors to adopt compensation contracts that may potentially destroy firm value.
Given that Australia has moved away from the CLERP9 advisory vote to Australia’s ‘two-strikes’ rule, an important policy question to address is whether this change has had a positive or negative effect and whether this transition achieved or failed the intended goal to align the interests of management with those of shareholders by improving the relationship between executive compensation and firm performance. Given that the ‘two-strikes’ rule has specific and predictable consequences for Australian firms, this thesis has three objectives. First, this thesis examines the pay-performance relation before and after the introduction of the ‘two-strikes’ rule on ‘non-strike’ firms. Second, this thesis investigates whether the incidence of receiving a ‘first strike’ improves the pay-performance link in the long term. Third, this thesis investigates whether auditors respond to the incidence of receiving the first ‘strike’ by increasing the audit fees, issuing modified audit opinion, or resigning from an audit engagement.
Within executive remuneration, CEO pay draws the most attention from the media, politicians, and the public. CEO pay also captures the philosophy and essence of executive remuneration structure. Hence, this thesis focuses on CEO pay. Using a large sample of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed firms with 9,513 firm-year observations for the period 2004-2016, this thesis estimates both CEO pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) and pay-performance elasticity (PPE). To avoid possible sample selection bias, this thesis employs a propensity score matching (PSM) design to match ‘first strike’ firms (treatment) with ‘non-strike’ (control) firms. As part of robustness tests and to enhance the credibility of the findings, the thesis adopts an alternative control sample. It employs a Matched-Pair Design (MPD) with a three-way matching strategy: financial year, GICS-based economic-sector classification, and firm size. Multivariate panel data estimation and logistic regression techniques were used for analysing data and drawing inferences.
Findings in relation to the first research question suggest that, among the ‘nonstrike’ firms, the pay-performance relation was positive and statistically significant before the enactment of the ‘two-strikes’ rule in 2011. Specifically, CEO wealth of Australian firms increased by 1000 increase in the shareholder value. With respect to pay-performance elasticity for Australian firms, CEO remuneration increased by 8% for each 10% increase in shareholder value. However, the relationship was reversed after the introduction of the ‘two-strikes’ rule. Specifically, CEOs of the Australian firms experienced pay cuts of about 1,000 increase in shareholder value post-2011. With respect to pay-performance elasticity, CEO pay decreased by 0.78% for each 10% increase in shareholder value during the 2012-2016 period. The results for both sensitivity and elasticity support the interference hypothesis that the implementation of the ‘two-strikes’ rule with the threat of removing the boards in a very public way may have put unnecessary pressure on Australian boards to punish their CEOs more severely than they deserved.
The reversal of the pay-performance link post-2011 can be explained as the following. There is no collective definitive view of the shareholders about the remuneration report until the annual general meeting takes place. A ‘first strike’ itself can bring a firm under negative spotlight. Further, it can be viewed as a reprimand of the board’s poor corporate governance practice. A ‘first strike’ can suggest the presence of high agency costs in the firm signalling other potential problems to shareholders, lenders, and auditors. Regulators might also take interest in the firm to have a closer scrutiny of its governance practice. All things considered; most firms listed on the ASX might have taken a pre-emptive measure of avoiding a ‘first strike’ by significantly reducing CEO compensation while improving firm performance. This could create a negative relation between CEO pay and firm performance in the ASX-listed firms after the implementation of the ‘two-strikes’ rule (2012-2016).
Findings regarding the second research question suggest that, unlike the ‘nonstrike’ firms, the estimated sensitivity of CEO compensation of the ‘first strike’ firms with respect to shareholder wealth following the ‘first strike’ were all negative and significant. The sum of the shareholder wealth change coefficients implies that the wealth of CEOs of the ‘first strike’ firms decreased by about 1,000 during 2012-2016. With respect to the elasticity model, the results indicate that for a 10% increase in shareholder wealth, the CEO received pay cuts of about 0.12%. By examining the significance of coefficients on the interactions between the ‘first strike’ and changes in shareholder wealth, this thesis finds evidence that receiving a ‘first strike’ is not significantly associated with pay-performance sensitivity or elasticity in the year of the ‘first strike’.
Overall, the results suggest that Australian shareholders may focus more on how much executives are paid (the total of CEO remuneration) rather than how they are paid (the pay-performance link). Furthermore, the results imply that after receiving the ‘first strike’ boards may punish CEOs more severely than they deserve by reducing future remuneration even though shareholder wealth is increasing in the long run. Thus, allowing minority shareholders to remove the boards may put public pressure on Australian firms and lead to the unintended consequence of decreasing the total CEO compensation, rather than improving the alignment of executive pay and firm performance in the long run. Further, the results suggest that shareholders may not have the sophistication necessary to use their new voting power and to target firms with weaker pay-performance relation. Thus, it might be argued that the dissatisfaction of minority shareholders may not reflect specific concerns about poor remuneration design but rather other issues such as capital raising, declining share price, and poor or unexpected financial results.
Findings with regard to the third research question suggest that relative to ‘nonstrike’ firms, auditors were more likely to increase audit fees, resign or be removed from the office in the year following the ‘first strike’. Furthermore, the thesis finds that firms receiving a ‘first strike’ tend to have higher incidence of modified audit opinions than control firms. This result suggests that the incidence of a ‘first strike’ may signal clients’ higher business and/or audit risk to the auditors. In sum, the findings support the notion that the public scrutiny associated with campaigns by shareholder activists heightens auditors’ concerns about reputational damage and litigation risk. The results also suggest that the external auditors should use the incidence of a ‘first strike’ as an input in their risk assessments.
This thesis contributes to the CEO compensation literature in general and the pay-performance link literature in particular by investigating the pay-performance link in preand post-implementation periods of Australia’s ‘two-strikes’ rule (2005-2011 and 2012-2016, respectively). The findings of the thesis have important policy implications for other countries that are in the process of adopting some form of SoP regulation. The findings are important in informing investors, analysts, and managers that shareholder activism in the form of votes on the remuneration report can have diverse consequences. Moreover, awarding ‘excessive’ power to minority shareholders can lead to unintended consequences. The findings of this thesis would have important implications for boards in terms of taking defensive actions to avoid a ‘first strike’ against remuneration reports. Furthermore, the findings of this study are important for activist shareholders in terms of helping them to vote wisely because such a ‘strike’ could lead to negative effects on the firm in the future. The findings of this thesis would have important implications for auditors in terms of using the ‘first strike’ as an input to their audit risk assessments. Finally, the findings of this thesis provide important insights for the global debate on governance of executive compensation.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Dept Account,Finance & EconGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
IFRS Adoption, Political Connections, Family Firms and Earnings Quality: The Case of the GCC Region
No full textThis thesis examines whether the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) plays a role in improving financial reporting quality, in the shape of earnings quality, in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This thesis also investigates the relationship between political connections, family firms and earnings quality in the same context. The vast majority of countries that have adopted the IFRS are emerging economies with weak institutional environments and weak accounting infrastructure, and critics have questioned the efficacy of IFRS adoption for improving financial reporting quality in these economies. It has been argued that change in the quality of financial reporting in a given context is a function of the presence of significant factors (e.g., socio-political and enforcement mechanisms) other than accounting standards. Motivated by this, this thesis descriptively explores the current state of IFRS implementation in the GCC region. Also, the thesis investigates quantitatively the association between the length of the IFRS experience (i.e., time since implementation) and earnings quality.
Additionally, the GCC region has very distinctive cultural aspects that have evolved over time (e.g., high degree of uncertainty avoidance, large power distance and secrecy). The uniqueness of the region’s corporate environment stems particularly from the fact that businesses are predominantly controlled by families, and many businesses have overt political connections with ruling families. Empirically, prior evidence has shown that family-owned firms are characterised by higher earnings quality than non-family firms. Conversely, politically connected firms are characterised by lower earnings quality than non-connected firms. Given the significance of these two distinctive features in businesses in the GCC region, this thesis exploits this unique institutional setting and investigates how the relationship between family-owned firms and earnings quality is moderated by the presence of firm-level political connections.
The relationship between IFRS adoption, political connections, family ownership and earnings quality is examined using a cross-country sample of 222 listed firms from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the period 2012–2017. Level of IFRS compliance is measured by employing a self-constructed disclosure index using 24 applicable standards (seven IFRS and 17 International Accounting Standards [IAS]) with 219 disclosure items. The length of IFRS experience is measured by subtracting the adoption date from the end of each calendar year in the sample. Earnings quality is measured via two properties of earnings: persistence and accruals quality. Persistence is measured using two alternative proxies (earnings per share and return on assets) and accruals quality is measured using Dechow and Dichev’s (2002) model of accruals.
The descriptive results provide evidence that the average level of compliance for the full sample over the sample period is 34.25%, suggesting that the level of overall compliance is low. This overall low level of compliance among sample countries can be attributed to the weak institutional environments of these countries (i.e., weak governance mechanisms, low financial reporting transparency and weak enforcement laws). Also, as a unique core cultural dimension in GCC countries’ societies, the propensity of secrecy can play a key role in lowering the level of compliance and disclosure practices, as it overrides IFRS/IAS requirements.
Multivariate regression estimates based on two-way cluster-robust standard errors and random effects suggest that earnings persistence is decreasing in IFRS experience and discretionary accruals are increasing in IFRS experience in the GCC region over the period 2012-2017. The findings clearly show that reported earnings quality has declined following IFRS adoption in the GCC region over time. This is consistent with the critique that mere adoption of higher quality accounting standards does not improve financial reporting quality unless institutional weaknesses and managerial incentive problems are addressed.
In addition, panel data estimations based on random effects suggest that family-owned firms exhibit higher earnings persistence (earnings per share) compared to non-family firms. Also, the two-way cluster-robust standard errors and random effects estimations provide evidence that family-owned firms exhibit higher accruals quality than non-family firms. Further, panel data estimations based on two-way cluster-robust standard errors and random effects suggest that politically connected firms exhibit higher earnings persistence and higher accruals quality than non-connected firms. However, the earnings quality of politically connected, family-owned firms is not significantly different from that of politically unconnected, family-owned firms in all models. Thus, the presence of board members that are politically connected with ruling families in the GCC region does not weaken the influence of family ownership on earnings quality.
This thesis contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the GCC region is increasingly important in the global economy. Moreover, the literature on IFRS adoption, political connections, family firms and earnings quality in the Middle East is in its infancy. This thesis extends the literature on these topics by documenting recent evidence from the GCC region. Second, prior studies on IFRS adoption documented that IFRS adoption in the GCC region is de jure but not de facto. This thesis’s results provide new evidence that earnings quality has declined in IFRS experience in the GCC region. Third, this thesis contributes to the literature by exploiting the unique institutional setting of the GCC region, where political ties with ruling families are a precondition to business success and family ownership has emerged as the dominant form of business ownership. This setting allows us to examine how earnings quality is shaped in the simultaneous presence of family ownership and corporate–political connections. Finally, the results can be used as a reference by policymakers and governmental officials in other emerging economies that are in the process of implementing the IFRS. The regulatory bodies in these countries are subject to the danger that, unless there is a general awareness within the government and business communities regarding the role of enforcement mechanisms and other socio-political factors, IFRS implementation will be partial, particularly if managers have no motives or incentives to follow these standards.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Dept Account,Finance & EconGriffith Business SchoolFull Tex
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