Business Commons^™

An Empirical Assessment Of Party Capability Theory In Federal Tax Cases, Ying Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Party Capability Theory hypothesizes that parties with greater resources, usually "repeat players," fare better in the judicial system and are better able to influence legal changes than "one shotters." The theory also points out that "parties who have lawyers do better." The theory has become most influential since its publication and has been tested by several studies. However, its importance has not been addressed in the accounting academic arena.

The intent of this inquiry is to generalize Party Capability Theory to federal tax cases. The research sample consists of 1,010 trial court cases, 744 federal appellate court cases, and 29 …

Lead Directorship, Corporate Governance, And Firm Performance, Bo Ouyang

Accounting Dissertations

This dissertation empirically explores the role of the lead directorship in the corporate governance system and strives to empirically examine the association between the lead directorship and firm performance. I measure firm performance by three empirical proxies: Tobin's Q, returns on assets (ROA) and stock returns. I explore the research question on the relationship between lead directorship and firm performance in both cross-sectional and inter-temporal contexts. The sample consists of S & P 500 firms from 2001 to 2004 that have all the required financial, stock returns, and other relevant information. Overall, the empirical results of both cross-sectional and inter-temporal …

The Pricing And Determinants Of The Discretionary Component Of Employee Stock Option Value, Chii Shyan Kuo

Accounting Dissertations

In this study, I first re-examine the pricing effect of employee stock option (ESO) value. I find a negative association between ESO value and share price, supporting the view that investors view ESO value as an expense of the firm. Further, I find a negative relation between the nondiscretionary component of ESO value (i.e., the expected ESO value) and stock price; this finding indicates that markets view the full ESO value as well as the nondiscretionary component of ESO value as an expense of the firm. Additionally, I find the discretionary component of ESO value (i.e., the unexpected ESO value) …

Pay And Performance: Among 100 Best U.S. Companies To Work For, Omair Mahmood Faisal

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

In the 21st century, world is becoming a global village and with increased competition businesses are always looking for regions with the lowest possible production costs. Appropriate compensation of U.S. employees working for major U.S. corporations is a hotly debated topic in political circles. This research focuses on the top 100 companies designated as “the best companies to work for” by Fortune Magazine for the year 2006. Performance of these companies, as measured by their return on equity, return on assets, revenue growth and earnings growth along with their profit margin is used to determine the impact on them as …

Costly Arbitrage And The Lead-Lag Structure Between Value And Glamour Stocks, Meng Li

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Motivated by the findings of Lo and Mackinlay (1990) that size premium can be partially attributed to the lead-lag relation between the returns of large stocks and those of small stocks, in this thesis we hypothesize that a possible lead-lag structure between value and glamour returns can partially explain the value premium anomaly.

The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I documents a pronounced lead-lag structure between value and glamour stocks: the glamour stocks lead value stocks in terms of both mean returns and residual volatilities, suggesting that value stocks delay in price adjustment to new information. To further explore …

Organizational Legitimacy And The Strategic Use Of Accounting Information: Three Studies Related To Social And Environmental Dis, Charles Cho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three separate, but inter-related, studies overarching a common theme labeled "the role played by social and environmental accounting disclosures using different methodologies and framed within legitimacy theory." The first study investigates the use of different language techniques in social and environmental disclosures (SED) and tests whether the impression management hypothesis holds when disclosures are measured as such. The second study extends the "legitimacy on the Internet" arguments of Patten and Crampton (2004) by examining the content and presentation of corporate website environmental disclosure in relation to firm environmental performance of four size-matched sample groups constructed based …

Change In The Indian Accounting Profession: Three Studies Related To The Entry Of The Big Four Accounting Firms In India, Vikram G. Desai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the globalization of audit markets. In particular, this dissertation is studying the entry of the Big Four accounting firms into India post-economic and political reforms of the early 1990s. The dissertation is comprised of three separate, but related studies. Each study appeals to prior research in accounting and related disciplines to examine the entry of the Big Four accounting firms in India. The first study appeals to audit market and economic research on incumbent pricing to examine ways in which local accounting firms in India adapted to the competition introduced by the Big Four accounting firms. …

Finance And Accounting Outsourcing: Three Studies Related To The Ethical And Economic Dimensions Of Accounting Outsourcing, Renu V. Desai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates the economic and ethical considerations underlying the outsourcing of professional services such as finance and accounting. The dissertation is comprised of three separate, but related studies. The first study explores the adequacy of the disclosure rules recommended in the revised ethics rulings regarding disclosure of outsourcing relationships and the resulting ethical and economic repercussions for both, the AICPA members and their clients. The second study analyzes the disclosure rules recommended in the AICPA ethics rulings regarding disclosure of outsourcing relationships from an ethical standpoint. The third study adopts the perspective of the third party service provider. The …

An Empirical Investigation Of The Role Of The Accountant In The Implementation Of An Integrated System: A Case Study In Cork County Council., Julie Griffin

Theses

The last decade has been a lime of continuous rapid change in the business environment. To survive in this environment, organisations have had to become more competitive and customer focussed. The promised benefits of integrated systems made their implementation a popular attempt at achieving success in the private sector. The implementation process for, and the benefits of integrated systems in the private sector are well documented.

Integrated systems are still a relatively new phenomenon in the public sector. The researcher was working, as an accountant, in Cork County Council, when it was tendering for and implementing a new integrated system. …

Impingement Heat Transfer In The Leading Edge Cavity Of A Gas Turbine Vane, Amar Jeetendra Panchangam Nivarthi

LSU Master's Theses

Jet Impingement Cooling is an internal cooling technique used in the leading edge cavities of Turbine Vanes. This involves a series of jets impinging onto the internal surfaces of a turbine vane/blade through the impingement plate. For the model tested here, the area around the blade/vane leading edge was studied for both heat transfer performance and aerodynamics losses. The performance of an Impingement cooling system depends on parameters like the spent flow effect on the downstream jet, film cooling configuration, and tip flow condition. The present study focuses on analyzing the effect of these parameters on a unique impingement cooling …

How Do Institutions Affect Auditor Reporting Behavior? Empirical Evidence From China, Yang An

Theses & Dissertations

It is well documented in cross-country research that institutions, both economic and political, affect the reporting behavior of auditors and audit services. These findings are based on the assumption that institutions vary across countries but are more homogeneous within a country. However, cross-country research suffers from the problems of country-specific cultures, accounting rules, and regulations, and can be criticized for the use of small sample sizes, potential endogeneity, and the correlation of omitted variables. This study overcomes these problems by engaging in within-country research. Specifically, this study examines how variations in the institutional environment within China affect auditor reporting behavior. …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Lifestyle Choice In Public Accounting, Ambrose Jones Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of healthy lifestyle of auditors in public accounting as a mitigating influence between role stress and job outcomes (performance, satisfaction, and turnover). Based on coping and self-determination theories, the study was designed to investigate the impact of healthy lifestyle as a coping measure that is within the control of the individual, regardless of firm policies or the firm's work environment.To address the research issues, a survey was conducted of professional auditors employed by a large national public accounting firm with offices located throughout the United States. The sample included 1,026 auditors from various regions of …

A Design Science Approach To Developing And Determining Web Site Quality Dimensions For The Public Accounting Profession, Casty K. Nyaga

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Public Accounting (PA) firms play an important role in both the local and the international business environment. Their accounting and business services functions cut across organisations, sectors and industries. Like other professional service firms, PA firms are becoming concerned about the World Wide Web (web) since the services they offer can be delivered via the web more efficiently (eg. at a lower cost) and effectively (24/7). Thus there is a need to assess the quality of their web site. This study developed an instrument for measuring PA web site quality based on an extensive literature review which identified the previously …

An Analysis Of The Voluntary Imo Member State Audit Scheme, Kwaku Anthony Afriyie

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Voluntary Disclosures In Mergers And Acquisitions, Scott Allen Wandler

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Whenever there is a merger between two publicly held companies in the form of a stock transaction, the companies must provide a proxy-prospectus to their shareholders with enough information to vote on the proposed merger. The proxy-prospectus contains mandatory pro forma financial statements as if the firms had merged as of the end of the previous year. Occasionally, the proxy-prospectus contains voluntary, forward-looking information, such as projected earnings per share (EPS) or price-to-earnings (PE) ratios of the combined firm. There are two reasons that management may provide this voluntary forward-looking information: 1) management could be providing an optimistic view of …

Rate Regulation And Earnings Management: Evidence From The U.S. Electric Utility Industry, Joseph Ben Omonuk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although accounting research continues to focus on earnings management, few studies have done so within the context of a single industry, and only one study to date (Paek 2001) has investigated this phenomenon within the context of U.S. rate-regulated electric utilities. Most utilities are viewed as natural monopolies, and therefore are subjected to rate regulation. These firms are permitted to earn a prescribed rate of return on an approved rate base. Although utilities are subjected to greater scrutiny than non-regulated public companies, regulatory restraint may create incentives to manage earnings (Healy and Whalen 1999), especially coincident with a utility’s request …

An Empirical Study Of Executive Management Team Compensation And Company Performance, Gregory A. Jonas

Theses and Dissertations

Increasing compensation disclosures mandated by the Securities Exchange Commission provide transparency that allows more shareholders to question the results produced by highly compensated executives. The popular business press often decries the apparent imbalance between executive pay and firm performance. Published academic research has responded with hundreds of studies attempting to explain executive pay in terms of firm performance. The preponderance of these studies focus on Chief Executive Officers. This study empirically examines executive compensation for team effects on future firm performance.Applying a firm specific fixed-effects model to a sample of 13,021 firm-year observations from ExecuComp, the current study regresses top …