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Full-Text Articles in Business

Determinants Of Ethical Climate In The Firm:The Role Of Governance Systems And Environmental Uncertainty, John J. Williams, Alfred E. Seaman Dec 2014

Determinants Of Ethical Climate In The Firm:The Role Of Governance Systems And Environmental Uncertainty, John J. Williams, Alfred E. Seaman

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Corporate governance mechanisms essentially reside in the control structure/systems of most organizations and provide, theoretically at least, a conduit to support a better organizational ethical climate. This linkage, however, has seldom been portrayed this way in the literature and, correspondingly, there are virtually no empirical studies to offer increased understanding, especially with respect to the professional accountant in practice. Accordingly, this paper empirically assesses the governance mechanisms sanctioned by the International Federation of Accountants (2009) as determinants of an organization’s ethical climate based on evidence from a Canadian sample of CFOs/controllers. The ethics/leadership literature relating to ethical climate provides the …


Societal Trust And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo Jun 2014

Societal Trust And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms and a country-level index for societal trust, we study how differences in trust across countries relate to corporate tax avoidance. Consistent with our prediction, we find strong evidence that societal trust is negatively associated with corporate tax avoidance by firms, even after controlling for other determinants such as home country tax system characteristics. We also explore the effects of three country-level institutional characteristics – level of investor protection, disclosure requirement, and tax enforcement – on the relation between societal trust and tax avoidance. We predict and find that the effects of trust on tax …


Active Cds Trading And Managers’ Voluntary Disclosure, Jae Bum Kim, Pervin K. Shroff, Dushyantk Umar Vyas, Regina Wittenber Mar 2014

Active Cds Trading And Managers’ Voluntary Disclosure, Jae Bum Kim, Pervin K. Shroff, Dushyantk Umar Vyas, Regina Wittenber

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.


Does Corporate Governance Make Financial Reports Better, Or Just Better For Equity Investors?, Dan Segal, Benjamin Segal, Shai Levi Jan 2014

Does Corporate Governance Make Financial Reports Better, Or Just Better For Equity Investors?, Dan Segal, Benjamin Segal, Shai Levi

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Financial reports should provide useful information to both shareholders and creditors, according to U.S. accounting principles. However, directors of corporations have fiduciary duties only toward equity holders, and those fiduciary duties normally do not extend to the interests of creditors. We examine whether this slant in corporate governance biases financial reports in favor of equity investors, and in particular leads to a downward bias in reported debt that can hurt creditors. We focus on firms’ decision to issue structured debt securities that are classified as equity in financial reports and can circumvent debt covenants. We find that when the local …