Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Accounting Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Singapore Management University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 691 - 720 of 918

Full-Text Articles in Accounting

Counterparty Responses To Managerial Overconfidence, Paul Hribar, Jaewoo Kim, Ryan Wilson, Holly I-Hwa Yang May 2012

Counterparty Responses To Managerial Overconfidence, Paul Hribar, Jaewoo Kim, Ryan Wilson, Holly I-Hwa Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Existing research links CEO personality traits to a number of corporate decisions including overinvestment, external acquisitions, and earnings management. These findings raise the question of whether counterparties distinguish between differences in individual CEO behavior, and how they respond to it. We focus on two key counterparties – auditors and credit rating agencies – and examine whether audit fees and credit ratings are affected by CEO overconfidence. We find a positive association between audit fees and CEO overconfidence, suggesting that auditors exert more effort or increase the risk premium associated with auditing firms with more overconfident CEOs. We also find a …


In Search Of A Different Accounting Graduate: Entry-Point Determinants Of Students’ Performance In An Undergraduate Accountancy Degree Programme In Singapore, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan, Joanne Tay May 2012

In Search Of A Different Accounting Graduate: Entry-Point Determinants Of Students’ Performance In An Undergraduate Accountancy Degree Programme In Singapore, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan, Joanne Tay

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates the association of prior academic achievement, admission interview, critical thinking, mathematical aptitude, gender and age with successful academic performance in an undergraduate accountancy degree programme at a Singapore university. The purpose of revisiting the determinants of academic performance is twofold: firstly, university accounting education in Singapore has changed greatly since Koh and Koh’s earlier study (1999), so this study examines if determinants previously identified as significant continue to be so in the new setting; secondly, the study tests the usefulness of admission interview in identifying applicants who achieve subsequent academic success. All the data on students’ performance …


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

Information Systems Procurement Process Risk And Control: Insights From A Public Sector Organization, Shan Chi 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 …


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 …


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 …


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 …


Crisis Response Information Networks, Shan L. Pan, Gary Pan, Dorothy E. Leidner Apr 2012

Crisis Response Information Networks, Shan L. Pan, Gary Pan, Dorothy E. Leidner

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In the past two decades, organizational scholars have focused significant attention on how organizations manage crises. While most of these studies concentrate on crisis prevention, there is a growing emphasis on crisis response. Because information that is critical to crisis response may become outdated as crisis conditions change, crisis response research recognizes that the management of information flows and networks is critical to crisis response. Yet despite its importance, little is known about the various types of crisis information networks and the role of IT in enabling these information networks. Employing concepts from information flow and social network theories, this …


Markowitz 2.0: Innovations For Asset Allocation, Knowledge@Smu Mar 2012

Markowitz 2.0: Innovations For Asset Allocation, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The idea of conducting financial analysis on asset classes, while widely accepted today, was a new concept in the 1950s. It was so new that Nobel Prize winner in economics Harry Markowitz almost did not receive his doctorate because his thesis on portfolio optimisation was deemed as “not economics” by his supervisor. Dr Paul Kaplan, quantitative research director at Morningstar, introduces an updated model of Markowitz’s portfolio optimisation model at a seminar in SMU.


Walking The Talk Of Wall Street, Knowledge@Smu Mar 2012

Walking The Talk Of Wall Street, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Years after he theorised that a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at stock listings can select a portfolio that would perform as well as one chosen by experts, Princeton economist Burton Malkiel is sticking by it. In the tenth edition of his investment classic, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel explains why the experts are overrated, and why sticking with a buy-and-hold strategy using a broad stock market index fund will outperform the professionally managed ones.


Accounting Restatements And External Financing Choices, Qiang Cheng, Xia Chen, Alvis Lo Mar 2012

Accounting Restatements And External Financing Choices, Qiang Cheng, Xia Chen, Alvis Lo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

There is little research on how accounting information quality affects a firm’s external financing choices. In this paper, we use the occurrence of accounting restatements as a proxy for the reduced credibility of accounting information and investigate how restatements affect a firm’s external financing choices. We find that for firms that obtain external financing after restatements, they rely more on debt financing, especially private debt financing, and less on equity financing. The increase in debt financing is more pronounced for firms with more severe information problems and less pronounced for firms with prompt CEO/CFO turnover and auditor dismissal. Our evidence …


On-Market Share Buy-Backs: Asx Disclsoure, Jason David Mitchell, Holub M. Mar 2012

On-Market Share Buy-Backs: Asx Disclsoure, Jason David Mitchell, Holub M.

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Our paper investigates the compliance of Australian listed firms with the ASX disclosure rules for on‐market share buy‐backs. We find that firm compliance is reasonable for initial buy‐back announcements, but poor for final buy‐back notices. In the latter instance, the disclosure in the appropriate ASX notice is provided in only 53% of cases. Of significant concern is the even lower degree of final notice compliance (42%) for buy‐backs tagged as having ‘unlimited’ duration. Across our total sample of 807 buy‐backs, an alternative form of disclosure of buy‐back completion is provided in 25% of cases, and no proper notification of either …


Cash Is King, Themin Suwardy Mar 2012

Cash Is King, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

What can SMEs do to monitor, manage and improve their cash flow


Hedge Funds And Analyst Conflict Of Interest, Sung Gon Chung, Melvyn Teo Mar 2012

Hedge Funds And Analyst Conflict Of Interest, Sung Gon Chung, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Are sell-side analysts reluctant to go against the investment views of their hedge fund clients? We show that analysts tend to upgrade stocks recently bought and downgrade stocks recently sold by hedge funds. Relative to other buy and strong buy recommendations, similar recommendations on stocks predominantly held by hedge funds parlay into poorer three-month and six-month stock returns. Hedge funds concurrently offload their stock holdings when analysts issue flattering reports. In line with an agency based explanation, our results are more pronounced for important brokerage clients such as high dollar turnover hedge funds and hedge funds who are prime brokerage …


Large Mutual Fund Families: Bigger May Not Always Be Better, Knowledge@Smu Feb 2012

Large Mutual Fund Families: Bigger May Not Always Be Better, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Investments are vital to one’s financial freedom. But investment strategy is an art which not everybody can master. Those who are new to investing may see mutual funds as an easy tool to make money. It has been traditionally thought that larger mutual fund families tend to perform better than their smaller counterparts. Do they really?


Capital Market Consequences Of Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Styles, Holly I. Yang Feb 2012

Capital Market Consequences Of Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Styles, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper studies the capital market consequences of managers establishing an individual forecasting style. Using a manager-firm matched panel dataset, I examine whether and when manager-specific credibility matters. If managers' forecasting styles affect their perceived credibility, then the stock price reaction to forecast news should increase with managers' prior forecasting accuracy. Consistent with this prediction, I find that the stock price reaction to management forecast news is stronger when information uncertainty is high and when the manager has a history of issuing more accurate forecasts, indicating that individual managers benefit from establishing a personal disclosure reputation.


Productivity Incentive At Work, Yee Loong Sum Feb 2012

Productivity Incentive At Work, Yee Loong Sum

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

On the issue of productivity incentives, Professor Sum Yee Loong from SMU School of Accounting provided some insights into the Production and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme and how it can help SMEs offset the increase in the Dependency ratio ceilings (DRCs) announced in the recent Singapore Budget 2012.


The Party's Over: The Role Of Earnings Guidance In Resolving Sentiment-Driven Overvaluation, Nicholas Seybert, Holly I. Yang Feb 2012

The Party's Over: The Role Of Earnings Guidance In Resolving Sentiment-Driven Overvaluation, Nicholas Seybert, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper shows that an important link between investor sentiment and firm over valuation is optimistic earnings expectations, and that management earnings guidance helps resolve sentiment-driven overvaluation. Using previously identified firm characteristics, we find that most of the negative returns to uncertain firms in months following high-sentiment periods fall within the three-day window around the issuance of management earnings guidance. Comparisons of guidance months to nonguidance months show that guidance issuance affects the magnitude and not just the daily distribution of negative returns. There is also some evidence of negative returns around earnings announcements for firms that previously issued guidance, …


Risk Management In A Volatile Market, Knowledge@Smu Jan 2012

Risk Management In A Volatile Market, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers was the 9/11 on Wall Street. Since then, the global risk landscape has changed and swings in the equity markets have become more volatile Now, a study of statistically significant changes in global financial risks and sharp increases in conditional Value-at-Risk after September 2008 has suggested a technically superior technique for effective risk management.


Financial Literacy And Numerical Ability: Keys To Better Mortgage Outcomes, Knowledge@Smu Jan 2012

Financial Literacy And Numerical Ability: Keys To Better Mortgage Outcomes, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The US mortgage crisis and its dire after effects have highlighted the criticality of financial literacy. And while most people would have picked up fundamental mathematical principles in schools, not everyone appreciates how arithmetic translates within the complex world of finance. Yet, given what has transpired with the subprime crisis, is it important for borrowers to appreciate complicated financial concepts before taking up a loan? A study of the US mortgage market, presented at a SMU School of Economics Seminar Series, provides some clues as it uncovers links between basic numerical skills and financial fate.


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 …


Assessing The Valuation And Risk Implications Of Fair Value Accounting For Liabilities: Evidence From Fas 159'S Reported Gains And Losses, Sung Gon Chung, Gerald Lobo, Kevin Ow Yong Jan 2012

Assessing The Valuation And Risk Implications Of Fair Value Accounting For Liabilities: Evidence From Fas 159'S Reported Gains And Losses, Sung Gon Chung, Gerald Lobo, Kevin Ow Yong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines the implications of fair value liability gains and losses arising from the adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 159 (hereafter FAS 159). We find a positive correspondence between a firm’s FAS 159 fair value liability gains and losses and stock returns. Further analysis indicates that fair value gains and losses from liabilities attributable to the change in a firm’s own credit risk, which are considered counter-intuitive by critics of fair value accounting for liabilities, are also positively related to returns. Lastly, we document that the volatility of earnings that incorporate FAS 159 liability fair value …


An Analytical And Empirical Measure Of The Degree Of Conditional Conservatism, Dan Segal, Jeffrey L. Callen Jan 2012

An Analytical And Empirical Measure Of The Degree Of Conditional Conservatism, Dan Segal, Jeffrey L. Callen

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

There is a profound gap between models of accounting conservatism and the proxies for conditional conservatism currently used by the empirical literature. Not one of the proxies employed by the empirical literature to date obtains from a rigorous definition of conditional conservatism. In contrast, this study defines conditional conservatism in terms of truncated distributions and derives analytically a nonlinear relation between revisions to returns and earnings news for the conservative firm. This nonlinear relation is shown to be mathematically equivalent to two linear relations conditioned on the firm's degree of conservatism. From these relations, we derive a model-based proxy of …


Accounting Flexibility And Managers’ Forecast Behavior Prior To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Jae Bum Kim Jan 2012

Accounting Flexibility And Managers’ Forecast Behavior Prior To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Jae Bum Kim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines the effect of accounting flexibility on managers’ forecasting behavior prior to seasoned equity offerings(SEO). While SEO firms have strong incentives to convey optimistic information to boost the pre-SEO stock price, they also face enhanced litigation risk arising from SEO-related regulations. Thus, I hypothesize that managers of SEO firms will release optimistic forecasts prior to an SEO only if they have the accounting flexibility to manage subsequent reported earnings to meet or exceed their forecasts. I find that managers with greater accounting flexibility are more likely to issue a forecast prior to the SEO and their forecasts are …


The Role Of Accounting Conservatism In Firms' Financial Decisions, Jimmy Kiat Bee Lee Jan 2012

The Role Of Accounting Conservatism In Firms' Financial Decisions, Jimmy Kiat Bee Lee

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper investigates whether financial reporting conservatism is related to firms’ financial flexibility and their access to capital. If conservatism facilitates monitoring and governance by capital providers, they should be more willing to extend financing and increase firms’ access to capital. However, because conservatism leads to systematic understatement of net worth and weakens the appearance of firms’ balance sheet strength, it could also reduce firms’ access to capital. This study tests these two opposing views of the relationship between conservatism and firms’ financial flexibility. Results indicate that firms with greater reporting conservatism exhibit less flexibility in their corporate liquidity management, …


Investor Sentiment, Disagreement, And The Breadth Return Relationship, Hai Lu, Ling Cen, Liyan Yang Jan 2012

Investor Sentiment, Disagreement, And The Breadth Return Relationship, Hai Lu, Ling Cen, Liyan Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We extend the theory and empirics in Chen, Hong, and Stein (2002) by assuming that investors subject to market sentiment hold a biased belief in the aggregate. With a dynamic multi-asset model, we predict that the breadth-return relationship can be either positive or negative depending on the relative strength of two offsetting forces — disagreement and sentiment. Using the sentiment index developed in Baker and Wurgler (2006, 2007), we find evidence consistent with our predictions. The breadth-return relationship is positive when the sentiment effect is small. However, the relationship becomes negative when (i) the time-series variation of market-wide sentiment is …


Mutual Fund Size, Fund Family Size And Mutual Fund Performance: The Role Of Regulatory Changes, Sanjeev Bhojra, Young Jun Cho, Nir Yehuda Jan 2012

Mutual Fund Size, Fund Family Size And Mutual Fund Performance: The Role Of Regulatory Changes, Sanjeev Bhojra, Young Jun Cho, Nir Yehuda

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine whether the previously documented positive association between fund family size and fund performance is affected by significant regulatory changes (i.e., Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), the Global Settlement (GS), and increased scrutiny as a result of trading scandals) that have occurred in the last decade. Using Reg FD as a beginning point for these structural changes, we find that, while fund family size was positively associated with fund performance in the period prior to the regulatory changes, this advantage is significantly weaker in the period subsequent to the regulatory changes. Consistent with the weakened advantage of fund family …


Investor Competition Over Information And The Pricing Of Information Asymmetry, Brian K. Atkins, Jeffrey Ng, Rodrigo Verdi Jan 2012

Investor Competition Over Information And The Pricing Of Information Asymmetry, Brian K. Atkins, Jeffrey Ng, Rodrigo Verdi

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Whether the information environment affects the cost of capital is a fundamental question in accounting and finance research. Relying on theories about competition between informed investors as well as the pricing of information asymmetry, we hypothesize a cross-sectional variation in the pricing of information asymmetry that is conditional on competition. We develop and validate empirical proxies for competition using the number and concentration of institutional investor ownership. Using these proxies, we find a lower pricing of information asymmetry when there is more competition. Overall, our results suggest that competition between informed investors has an important effect on how the information …


Direct And Mediated Associations Among Earnings Quality, Information Asymmetry And The Cost Of Equity, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Frank Ecker, Per Olsson, Katherine Schipper Jan 2012

Direct And Mediated Associations Among Earnings Quality, Information Asymmetry And The Cost Of Equity, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Frank Ecker, Per Olsson, Katherine Schipper

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using path analysis, we investigate the direct and indirect links between three measures of earnings quality and the cost of equity. Our investigation is motivated by analytical models that specify both a direct link and an indirect link that is mediated by information asymmetry, but do not suggest which link would be more important empirically. We measure information asymmetry as both the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread and the probability of informed trading (PIN). For a large sample of Value Line firms during 1993–2005, we find statistically reliable evidence of both a direct path from earnings quality to …


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.


Opportunities And Challenges For The Asset Management Industry, Knowledge@Smu Dec 2011

Opportunities And Challenges For The Asset Management Industry, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Singapore, with its open economy and stable business environment, is host to some of the world's largest asset management companies. It has been observed, however, that local asset management firms are lagging far behind; somehow unable to capitalise on the same opportunities available to the global giants. Speaking at a conference organised by SMU's Centre for Asset Securitisation and Management in Asia, a panel of industry experts shared their views on what it would take to get both local and Asia-based firms into the big league.