Business Commons^™

Passive Institutional Ownership, Firm Disclosure, And Post-Earnings Announcement Drift, Jingxin Hu

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter one is the introduction. Chapter two examines the impact of passive institutional ownership on firm disclosure. Passive institutional investors favor more information to minimize monitoring and trading costs. However, passive institutions' diverse holdings make it costly to collect individual firms' private information, so they demand more public information. Managers are likely to supply more firm material information because passive institutions can exert influence by using their sizeable ownership stake. More firm disclosure is related to a better firm information environment and higher stock liquidity. To test the hypothesis, I choose the S&P 500 …

A More Efficient And Effective Objective Measure Of Financial Disclosure Quality: Omissions Of Seven Key Financial Statement Variables, Ying Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation research includes three Chapters. Chapter One proposes a new and simple measure of financial reporting quality. Chapter Two and Chapter Three apply this new measure to examine the association between financial reporting quality and firms' internal governance issues, such as internal control quality and a possible outcome of internal control weakness (ICW), financial restatements.In Chapter One of the thesis, I propose a parsimonious, theory-based and empirically-supported measure of missing variables, REPORT. Chen et al. (2015) proposes a measure of disclosure quality, DQ, based on missing financial statement variables. DQ includes hundreds of items and is complex to program. …

Help Wanted: Inside The Role Of A Community Development Lending Policy Editor, Robert Spichiger

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Students receiving professional degrees are often less motivated than their peers to graduate from the Renée Crown University Honors Program at Syracuse University. One possible explanation for this is that these students are discouraged by the requirement of writing an academic thesis. To remedy this issue and motivate more students from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management to graduate from the Honors Program, this project aims to serve as an example to future business students of one possible way to structure a professional thesis.

This paper is a critical reflection of the skills one develops while working at a …

Short-Term Incentive Effects Of Temporary Full Capital Asset Expensing, John David Patrick Witesman

Dissertations - ALL

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Compensation Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (2010 Tax Relief Act) temporarily modified capital asset expensing provisions, increasing the allowed bonus depreciation percentage from 50% to 100%. The legislative intent of the provision was to encourage capital investment by firms, although prior research suggests that capital expenditures did not increase during the availability of 30% or 50% bonus depreciation. I find that the availability of 100% bonus depreciation significantly increases the likelihood that firms increase capital expenditures, as well as increases the magnitude of capital expenditures. Overall, my evidence highlights how temporary changes in capital …

Does Regulatory Scrutiny Change Investment Behavior? Evidence Of Suboptimal Portfolio Rebalancing After The Financial Crisis, Willie Dion Reddic

Business Administration - Dissertations

Insurers that show losses are expected to sell tax-free securities and replace them with taxable securities since they can no longer benefit from tax savings. However, rebalancing these portfolios after the financial crisis would entail recognizing additional losses during a time period when their financial performance was under stress and their industry was under increased scrutiny. I examine portfolio rebalancing behavior using the period after the financial crisis as a proxy for increased regulatory scrutiny. I predict and find that insurers with losses subsequent to the financial crisis were less likely to increase their ratio of taxable/nontaxable securities. Insurers may …

Fair Value Measurements And Earnings Management: Evidence From The Banking Industry, Xiaolu Xu

Accounting - Dissertations

I examine the association between fair value measurements and bank earnings management using financial data for a sample of U.S. bank holding companies from 2009 to 2012. I follow the methodology in Beatty et al. (2002) and find that banks reporting higher recurring basis fair values, especially level 2 fair values and banks reporting increased fair values are more likely to report small earnings increases both in the current year and one-year ahead after controlling for discretionary loan loss provisions, discretionary security gains and losses, and other bank-specific characteristics. By decomposing the fair values into different types, I find that …

Small Audit Firms And Earnings Manipulations, Huichi Huang

Business Administration - Dissertations

This paper examines the monitoring role of small audit firms (i.e., those with 100 or fewer clients who are subject to different levels of oversight by the PCAOB) on earnings management. Specifically, I examine the relationship between earnings manipulations and the use of small audit firms. I find that small audit firms are less able to constrain managers' opportunistic use of discretionary accruals. However I find no evidence that small audit firms are associated with real activities manipulation. By investigating a specific group of audit firms that are the smallest in the audit market, this study extends our understanding of …

Does Corporate Governance Influence Misstatement Disclosure Timeliness?, Rapheal Joseph Hamilton

Business Administration - Dissertations

The relationship between corporate governance and firm disclosure for firms in crisis, specifically firms in violation of GAAP, may differ from the relationship demonstrated in prior literature between governance and voluntary disclosure. An emerging stream of disclosure literature assumes that the relationship between corporate governance and misstatement disclosure choices mirror that found in prior voluntary disclosure literature though no study has empirically demonstrated that a similar relationship exists. Using a sample of 302 accounting irregularities disclosed between 2000 and 2006, I investigate the role of corporate governance, including both internal and external mechanisms, in influencing misstatement disclosure timeliness. I provide …

3d – Personalized Statues Business Plan: Istatue, Junjie Li

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Opportunity Statement

As people in our current society are becoming more fashionable and self-expressive, the demand of products that can enhance uniqueness and demonstrate personality is increasing drastically. iStatue, with the introduction of 3D Personalized Statues, will provide a unique product with quality and satisfaction to its customers.

Business Concept & Product

iStatue will challenge market leaders Build-a Bear Workshop and American Girl with a personalized toy to satisfy customers’ unique needs. The sculpture is a personalized toy in which the face head of the statues are made based on the picture of customers and customers control over which the …

Why Not Accounting? Why Latino Students Say “No Thank You” To The Accounting Profession, Jessica Santana

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Factors like the increasing globalization of business in the world, the imperative to serve increasingly diverse client needs, and the changing demographics of our nation’s population, make it necessary for the accounting industry to implement effective diversification strategies in order to overcome the shortage of Latinos in the profession. The purpose of this study was to present a grounded theory of one major research question: Why do Latino students who are interested in business choose not to pursue degrees in accounting? For the purposes of the investigation, grounded theory is defined as theory generated from data systematically obtained and analyzed …

Two Essays On Governance In Ipo Firms, Palash Deb

Accounting - Dissertations

In this dissertation we collate a unique hand-collected dataset of 417 IPO firms for the 2001 to 2004 period, and study the effectiveness of governance and signaling mechanisms at an IPO. In chapter 1 our main contention is that current management research on IPOs has primarily looked at how corporate governance variables like board composition and ownership structure affect IPO underpricing, while largely overlooking the implications of these governance structures for long-term liquidity. This is a significant oversight, given the many benefits to IPO issuers from having a liquid stock (e.g., reduced cost of capital, increased external monitoring etc.). We …

Does Financial Information Drive Donations To Not For Profit Organizations?, Kristen Paglia

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not Included

The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act On Regional Firms, Hyejoon Yoon

Honors Capstone Projects - All

There have been major audit failures involving the largest companies such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. As a result of these audit failures, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 to establish enhanced standards for oversight of accounting professionals including U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. After the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, there has been increased attention on major public accounting firms regarding audit quality, audit pricing, independence, risk assessment, and legal liabilities. In order to maintain the independence, three of the four major accounting firms sold their consulting practice, even though consulting practices are again growing …

The Effectiveness Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act In Constraining Earnings Management, Liwin Troy Lee

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Widespread concern about earnings management, the management of financial information to mislead investors, was one of the key factors leading to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). In this study, I investigate whether SOX is effective in limiting earnings management. Earnings management is a concern because misrepresentation of a company’s financial position and the results of its performance can mislead investors into making poor investment decisions. This study examines earnings changes before and after the passage of SOX to see whether small positive earnings changes were less likely in the post-SOX period, supporting the effectiveness of SOX …

Uncontrolled Earnings Management-Financial Enhancement Or Downfall?, Kevin A. Costello

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Since the turn of the century it has become undeniably apparent that many corporations, regardless of their size, have resorted to falsifying financial records in an attempt to mask the true financial health of the company. The reasons for such actions vary from attempts to shore up investor confidence to ensuring perks for corporate executives. These scandalous acts are not a characteristic of a certain type of business. They have occurred across a wide array of businesses including, but not limited to, power and energy, insurance, and telecommunications.

The most common form of record falsification comes in the form of …