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Full-Text Articles in Business

Determinants Of Voluntary Board Remuneration Committee Formation And Composition, Pamela Kent, Kim Kercher, James Routledge Jun 2013

Determinants Of Voluntary Board Remuneration Committee Formation And Composition, Pamela Kent, Kim Kercher, James Routledge

Pamela Kent

This study provides evidence on factors that determine the voluntary adoption of corporate governance recommendations regarding remuneration committees in 2008. The findings indicate that remuneration committee existence is significantly associated with insider share ownership, institutional shareholding and change in CEO. Composition of the committee is significantly explained by independent directors and complexity measured by geographical segments (marginally). Other variables controlled for are growth opportunities, free cash flow, asset turnover, size, governance quality, debt levels, age and the presence of a big four auditor.


Are Corporate Governance Recommendations Relevant For Small Companies?, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart Oct 2012

Are Corporate Governance Recommendations Relevant For Small Companies?, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart

Pamela Kent

This study examines the extent to which small listed companies in Australia comply with the Australian Securities Exchange corporate governance recommendations, and whether applying these recommendations is associated with benefits in terms of performance and accountability. The results indicate that many small listed companies comply with the recommendations, although the benefits to these companies from doing so appear to be low. We do not find evidence of a positive association between small company compliance with recommendations regarding board independence, diligence and formation of an audit committee and performance. However, we find that compliance with the recommendation against having a dual …


Corporate Governance And The Quality Of Green House Gas Emission Disclosures, Janice Hollindale, Pamela Kent, James Routledge Oct 2012

Corporate Governance And The Quality Of Green House Gas Emission Disclosures, Janice Hollindale, Pamela Kent, James Routledge

Pamela Kent

The introduction of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (Cth) legislation is evidence of the importance the Australian Government places on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reporting. Australian corporations’ GHG disclosure information in annual reports is currently unknown as most research has focused on environmental voluntary disclosures in general. We used content analysis to produce an index wherein we assessed the quality of GHG disclosures made in the annual reports of Australian public-listed companies in 2007. Our interest was focused on whether good quality corporate governance influences the quality of GHG emission disclosures. We examined the …


The Decision To Outsource Risk Management Activities, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent Oct 2012

The Decision To Outsource Risk Management Activities, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent

Pamela Kent

This study uses transaction cost economics (TCE) to identify factors influencing Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) companies’ decision to internally generate or outsource activities required to manage risk. Limited research has been conducted applying TCE in a risk management context with most in the accounting discipline concentrating on internal audit. Increasing our understanding of risk management practices benefits organisations, accounting professionals and regulators concerned with governance practice. Using a unique data set obtained from a survey sample of 271 listed ASX companies in 2009 combined with archival data hypotheses are operationalised and analysed using multivariate and logistic regression. Broadly in line …


Innate And Discretionary Accruals Quality And Corporate Governance, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart Jul 2010

Innate And Discretionary Accruals Quality And Corporate Governance, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart

Pamela Kent

This paper extends previous research on the association between corporate governance mechanisms and accruals quality. We derive measures of the discretionary and innate components of accruals quality and regress them against corporate governance characteristics. For discretionary accruals, we find use of a Big 4 audit firm and a larger audit committee as the primary governance mechanisms associated with higher accruals quality. For innate accruals quality, we find that higher quality is associated with an independent board of directors, a larger, more independent and more active audit committee, and use of a Big 4 audit firm. Our findings suggest a stronger …


Corporate Governance And Company Performance In Australia, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent, Jenny Steward Jul 2010

Corporate Governance And Company Performance In Australia, Jacqueline Christensen, Pamela Kent, Jenny Steward

Pamela Kent

This study tests whether the adoption of Australian best practice corporate governance recommendations have a positive or negative relation with financial performance measured by return on assets (ROA) and Tobin's Q. The governance mechanisms associated with increased ROA and Tobin's Q are the existence of an audit, nomination and remuneration committee in Australia suggesting they are particularly beneficial to companies. We found evidence that a significant negative relation exits between the number of directors and proportion of independent directors on the board and the presence of a dual CEO/Chairperson and ROA. There is a significant positive relation between the number …


Application Of Stakeholder Theory To Corporate Environmental Disclosures, Pamela Kent, Christopher Chan Jul 2010

Application Of Stakeholder Theory To Corporate Environmental Disclosures, Pamela Kent, Christopher Chan

Pamela Kent

Ullmann's (1985) three-dimensional model of social responsibility disclosure is tested to determine whether it can be operationalized to help explain the quantity and quality of environmental disclosures in Australian annual reports. The stakeholder power dimension of Ullmann's framework is significant in explaining environmental disclosures while content of the mission statement and existence or otherwise of environmental or social responsibility committees also find strong statistically significant support in the results. Ullmann's stakeholder theory has previously been applied to explain social disclosures in general (Roberts, 1992) and is an important theory because it introduces a measure of strategy. The current paper demonstrates …


What Drives Tbl Reporting: Good Governance Or Threat To Legitimacy?, Pamela Kent, Reza Monem Aug 2009

What Drives Tbl Reporting: Good Governance Or Threat To Legitimacy?, Pamela Kent, Reza Monem

Pamela Kent

This paper provides two complementary explanations for the adoption of triple bottom line (TBL) reporting by Australian companies. The first explanation is that companies adopt TBL reporting to legitimise their relationship with society because of adverse publicity from the media. The second explanation is that TBL reporting is adopted because of the company’s desire to achieve high-quality reporting and transparency inferred by strong corporate governance. Companies with TBL reporting had significantly more adverse media coverage before implementing TBL reporting than non-TBL companies. TBL reporting is also significantly and positively related to the existence of an environmental or sustainable development committee …


Innate And Discretionary Accrual Quality And Corporate Governance, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart Aug 2009

Innate And Discretionary Accrual Quality And Corporate Governance, Pamela Kent, James Routledge, Jenny Stewart

Pamela Kent

The empirical analysis presented in this paper provides further insight into the important issue of the association between corporate governance structures and the quality of reported company earnings. The analysis uses the measure of accrual quality developed by Dechow and Dichev (2002) which provides a direct measure of the quality of current accruals. We derive measures of the innate and discretionary components of accrual quality following Francis et al. (2005), and subsequently include these measures in regressions against corporate governance characteristics. The results show that sound governance structures have a positive association between the innate and discretionary components of accrual …


Corporate Governance And Disclosures On The Transition To International Financial Reporting Standards, Pamela Kent, Jenny Stewart Aug 2009

Corporate Governance And Disclosures On The Transition To International Financial Reporting Standards, Pamela Kent, Jenny Stewart

Pamela Kent

For reporting periods ending on or after 30 June 2004, Australian companies were required to disclose the expected impact of applying Australian equivalents of International Financial Reporting Standards effective from 1 January 2005. The objective of this paper is to examine the association between the level of disclosure and corporate governance quality. Using a sample of listed companies with 30 June balance dates, we find that the quantity of disclosure was positively related to some aspects of superior corporate governance, such as the frequency of board and audit committee meetings and the choice of auditor.