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Full-Text Articles in Business

Tripartism’S Stress Points Are Showing, Tan K. B. Eugene Dec 2012

Tripartism’S Stress Points Are Showing, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed the implications of the SMRT strike incident and whether tripartism has lost its relevance. Assistant Prof Tan highlighted that there are deep, systemic issues within SMRT, and that the reach of the triapartism is not enough. He also highlighted the need to stamp out discrimination, and said that employers need to review their mindsets towards workers, especially foreign ones, and act ethically, equitably and responsibly given the default imbalance of power in the workplace.


Banks' Survival During The Financial Crisis: The Role Of Regulatory Reporting Quality, Jeffrey Ng, Tjomme O. Rusticus Dec 2012

Banks' Survival During The Financial Crisis: The Role Of Regulatory Reporting Quality, Jeffrey Ng, Tjomme O. Rusticus

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this paper, we investigate the effect of bank transparency before the crisis on bank stability during the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. Using a large sample of private and public commercial banks in the United States, we find that transparency enhances stability. We use two measures of transparency. We develop a new measure of financial reporting transparency based on loan loss provision estimation errors. We corroborate our findings using a second measure based on the incidence of accounting restatements. We show that lower transparency before the crisis is associated with higher non-performing loans and lower profitability at the …


Engaging The Corporate Citizen: Social Challenges, Business Solutions, Singapore Management University Nov 2012

Engaging The Corporate Citizen: Social Challenges, Business Solutions, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

When he came up with the idea of selling toilets in Cambodia, where more than 60 per cent of the population does not have access to basic sanitation, National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre chief executive Laurence Lien was laughed at. His detractors told him: "Nobody is going to purchase toilets from you because this is a community that is dependent on (financial) aid. "But tens of thousands of the toilets were sold within the first few months. Speaking at the Africa Singapore Business Forum, Connex, held at Singapore Management University in August 2012, Lien credits the success of the …


Myanmar: Need To Invest Responsibly, Mahdev Mohan, Salil Tripathi, Lan Shiow Tsai Sep 2012

Myanmar: Need To Invest Responsibly, Mahdev Mohan, Salil Tripathi, Lan Shiow Tsai

2008 Asian Business & Rule of Law initiative

No abstract provided.


Roles And Responsibilities Of Corporate Lawyers In The Securities Market In Anglo-American Law (With Implications For Singapore), Wai Yee Wan Sep 2012

Roles And Responsibilities Of Corporate Lawyers In The Securities Market In Anglo-American Law (With Implications For Singapore), Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.


The Effect Of Arthur Andersen's Demise On Clients' Audit Fees And Auditor Conservatism: International Evidence, Bin Srinidhi, Mahmud Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim Sep 2012

The Effect Of Arthur Andersen's Demise On Clients' Audit Fees And Auditor Conservatism: International Evidence, Bin Srinidhi, Mahmud Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using samples from 12 non-U.S.A. countries, we find that following Arthur Andersen's failure in the United States of America, successor Big-N auditors charged an audit fee premium for ex-Andersen clients compared to existing clients and non-Andersen switch-ins. We show that this audit fee premium is not attributable to the Andersen switch-ins having lower prior earnings quality or lower bargaining power than non-Andersen switch-ins. We also show that ex-Andersen clients exhibit higher earnings quality after the switch than do ongoing clients and other switch-ins. These results suggest that the audit fee premium is attributable to auditor conservatism. Furthermore, we find that …


Improving Ethics Education In Accounting: Lessons From Medicine And Law, Chunhui Liu, Lee J. Yao, Nan Hu Aug 2012

Improving Ethics Education In Accounting: Lessons From Medicine And Law, Chunhui Liu, Lee J. Yao, Nan Hu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The purpose of this paper is to offer accounting educators additional perspectives for ethics education by considering teaching approaches from medicine and law. It takes the form of literature review and argument. The paper finds that ethics education in accounting shows deficiencies in terms of code-bound content, less systematic formal training, less informal hands-on training, and less usage of partnering in comparison to ethics education in medicine and law, thereby producing students with higher moral cognitive capabilities. Based on these findings, the authors provide some recommendations for improvement.


Improving Ethics Education In Accounting: Lessons From Medicine And Law, Chunhui Liu, Lee J. Yao, Nan Hu Aug 2012

Improving Ethics Education In Accounting: Lessons From Medicine And Law, Chunhui Liu, Lee J. Yao, Nan Hu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The purpose of this paper is to offer accounting educators additional perspectives for ethics education by considering teaching approaches from medicine and law. It takes the form of literature review and argument. The paper finds that ethics education in accounting shows deficiencies in terms of code-bound content, less systematic formal training, less informal hands-on training, and less usage of partnering in comparison to ethics education in medicine and law, thereby producing students with higher moral cognitive capabilities. Based on these findings, the authors provide some recommendations for improvement.


Executive Compensation And Regulation Imposed Governance: Evidence From The California Non-Profit Integrity Act (2004), Tharindra Ranasinghe, S. Khumawala, S. Mishra, S. Dhole Jul 2012

Executive Compensation And Regulation Imposed Governance: Evidence From The California Non-Profit Integrity Act (2004), Tharindra Ranasinghe, S. Khumawala, S. Mishra, S. Dhole

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.


Disciplinary Effect Of Internal Control Provisions Of Sox On Corporate Governance Structures, Beng Wee Goh Jun 2012

Disciplinary Effect Of Internal Control Provisions Of Sox On Corporate Governance Structures, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether the internal control provisions under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) have a disciplining effect on the governance structures of firms. We find that audit committee members and outside directors of firms that disclose material weaknesses (MWs) under Section 302 of SOX are more likely to leave the firms compared to their counterparts in a matched sample of control firms without such weaknesses, and they lose more outside directorships than their counterparts in the control firms. These results are consistent with the notion that the labor market imposes reputational penalties for internal control failures. Although the MW firms …


Client Conservatism And Auditor-Client Contracting, Yoonseok Zang, Chee Yeow Lim, Mark Defond Jun 2012

Client Conservatism And Auditor-Client Contracting, Yoonseok Zang, Chee Yeow Lim, Mark Defond

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Auditors risk costly litigation and loss of reputation when they are associated with clients that engage in substandard financial reporting, and prior research argues that accounting conservatism reduces managements‟ tendency to misreport. Thus, we predict that client conservatism affects auditor-client contracting by reducing auditor litigation and reputation risk. Consistent with our predictions, we find that conservative audit clients are less likely to trigger auditor litigation or issue accounting restatements; and that auditors of conservative clients charge lower audit fees, issue fewer going concern opinions, and resign less frequently. Taken together, these findings are consistent with client accounting conservatism playing an …


Employee Surveillance And The Modern Workplace, Marko Pitesa Jun 2012

Employee Surveillance And The Modern Workplace, Marko Pitesa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Employee surveillance is rapidly becoming widespread in the modern workplace. The rise of information technologies is enabling the development of unprecedented methods of surveillance and employees as well as employers are now facing a need for a reassessment of the system of moral relations this phenomenon entails. This chapter provides an overview of the most widespread workplace surveillance methods and tries to identify the stakeholders and analyse the relations between them. Finally, the key findings of this ethical assessment are pointed out and guidelines for a morally responsible approach to workplace surveillance are proposed. The level of the analysis, in …


Geographic Proximity Between Auditor And Client: How Does It Impact Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang May 2012

Geographic Proximity Between Auditor And Client: How Does It Impact Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a large sample of audit client firms, this paper investigates whether and how the geographic proximity between auditor and client affects audit quality proxied by accrual-based earnings quality. We define an auditor as a local auditor (1) if the auditor’s practicing office is located in the same metropolitan statistical area (MSA) as the client's headquarters and (2) if the geographic distance between the two cities where the auditor’s practicing office and the client’s headquarters are located is within 100 kilometers or they are in the same MSA. As predicted, our empirical results are consistent with local auditors providing higher-quality …


From Boardroom To Parliament, Singapore Management University Apr 2012

From Boardroom To Parliament, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Everyone has different motivations for working, . But the primary incentive for slogging it out in the corporate jungle would be money— at least that is what employers believe. This helps explain why companies are often willing to shell out wads of cash to outbid one another in the labour market for top executives.


Guidance Frequency And Guidance Properties: The Effect Of Reputation-Building And Learning-By-Doing, Sanjeev Bhojraj, Robert Libby, Holly I. Yang Apr 2012

Guidance Frequency And Guidance Properties: The Effect Of Reputation-Building And Learning-By-Doing, Sanjeev Bhojraj, Robert Libby, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Different firms issue earnings guidance at dramatically different rates. We suggest that frequent guiders more likely represent a type of firm that is attempting to develop a reputation for enhanced disclosures through their guidance issuances. Furthermore, the desire to build a reputation and the opportunities to learn provided by issuing more frequent guidance should translate into frequent guiders providing higher quality guidance than occasional guiders. We examine our hypotheses in three stages. First, we find that guidance frequency is positively correlated with variables associated with reputation with capital market participants and reputation in product and labor markets. Second, our cross-sectional …


Auditor Reporting Under Section 404: The Association Between The Internal Control And Going Concern Audit Opinions, Beng Wee Goh Apr 2012

Auditor Reporting Under Section 404: The Association Between The Internal Control And Going Concern Audit Opinions, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act introduced integrated audits of internal control over financial reporting and the financial statements. Since the internal control and audit reports are joint products of the audit process, we examine whether the issuance of an internal control material weakness opinion (MWO) influences, other things equal, the issuance of a going concern audit opinion (GCO). Using a sample of financially stressed companies, we find that the issuance of a MWO increases the likelihood of a GCO, suggesting that auditors respond to the uncertainty surrounding a MWO by issuing a GCO. Further, the positive association between MWO …


The Effects Of Political Connections On The Level And Value Of Cash Holdings: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, K.C. John Wei Jan 2012

The Effects Of Political Connections On The Level And Value Of Cash Holdings: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, K.C. John Wei

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this paper, we examine the role of political connections on corporate liquidity policies and their consequences in an international setting. We find that managers of politically connected firms have a tendency to hoard more cash than their non-connected counterparts. Moreover, presence of political connections reduces the value of cash holdings. Further analysis reveals that our main findings are more pronounced for firms in emerging markets as well as for firms in countries with weak legal protection of investors and high levels of corruption. Overall, our empirical results corroborate previous findings on the agency cost explanation for corporate cash holdings.


Sense And Sustainability, Ken Hickson Jan 2012

Sense And Sustainability, Ken Hickson

Social Space

Like the proverbial chicken and egg, climate change and sustainability are inextricably linked; it is impossible to decide which comes first, but urgent solutions are needed. Ken Hickson delivers a timely lesson on the four E’s of sustainability—energy, environment, economics and ethics.


Information Systems Procurement Process Risk And Control: Insights From A Public Sector Organization, Gary Pan, Manjari Mehta, Poh Sun Seow Jan 2012

Information Systems Procurement Process Risk And Control: Insights From A Public Sector Organization, Gary Pan, Manjari Mehta, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This case highlights the specific risks and issues that may be encountered in the information systems (IS) procurement process in a country where bribery and corruption are more common. PSO is a large Indian public sector organization involved in energy-related business. Being financially deprived, PSO relied on government funding to build its infrastructures. Besides the funding support, PSO also inherited the bureaucratic structure and the corruption practices. Lately, PSO was involved in several IS infrastructure and applications upgrading projects and wanted to review its IS procurement process. Does PSO understand the process risks in public IS procurement? Does PSO have …


Why Corporate Social Responsibility Will Emerge As A Driver Of Effective And Compelling Differentiation For Chinese Brands, Joseph Baladi Jan 2012

Why Corporate Social Responsibility Will Emerge As A Driver Of Effective And Compelling Differentiation For Chinese Brands, Joseph Baladi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the responsibility and role of business within society have evolved over the past two decades, they remain issues that retain conceptual dimensions. This means that instead of consensus over form and function, both are surrounded by a persistent cloud of disagreement and confusion. Too many people remain unsure about what they represent, the importance they play and the impact they have (or should have) on business as well as society. For one thing, different interpretations of what defines business responsibility to society exist. These range from concern over business’ environmental impact and contribution to climate change, to sustainability practices, …