Corporate Finance Commons^™

Why "Democracy" And "Drifter" Firms Can Have Abnormal Returns: The Joint Importance Of Corporate Governance And Abnormal Accruals In Separating Winners From Losers, Koon Boon Kee

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Do managers exercise accounting discretion in an opportunistic or efficient manner? Good governance structures, which mitigate agency costs, are necessary to ensure that the accounting information supplied by management is not opportunistically manipulated. The output of quality accounting information, in turn, serves as an input to better governance structures. Thus, governance and earnings quality (EQ) are inexorably linked through a complementarity relationship. This suggests two previously unexamined relationships. Firstly, the governance effects on performance in the influential paper by Gompers, Ishii and Metrick (2003) is overrated without good EQ, measured by the magnitude of abnormal accruals (AA), as an input. …

Why Does Corporate Governance Matter? Evidence From Seasoned Bond Offerings, Fang Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

To examine the importance of corporate governance, I look at how management and investors behave in the event of seasoned bond offerings, controlling for the corporate governance structure of issuing firms. I find that companies with the weakest governance structure aggressively manipulate their earnings upwards during the two years prior to the debt issuances. And when the bond offerings are announced to the market, these same firms experienced positive abnormal returns over a three day event period, indicating that investors of poorly governed firms value a debt financing for the alleged decrease in agency cost.

Does Corporate Governance Matter, Evidence From Earnings Management Practices In Singapore, Lingxu Hu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper addresses two questions. First, do good corporate governance practices add values to company or does it lead to higher stock returns in Singapore? Second, does poorly governed listed company in SGX tend to manage their earnings by using discretionary accruals? Following the approach of Gompers et al. (2003), we formed two portfolios consisting of well-governed and poorly governed companies. Well governed companies are able to maintain a higher return relative to poorly governed companies. I also look at the firm valuation from the adoption of corporate governance practices. Our result shows a positive relationship between firm valuation and …

Bringing Freud To Fraud: Understanding The State-Of-Mind Of The C-Level Suite/White Collar Offender Through “A-B-C” Analysis, Sridhar Ramamoorti, Daven Morrison, Joseph W. Koletar

Accounting Faculty Publications

In this paper we use a primarily “behavioral lens” (cf. Ramamoorti, 2008; Ramamoorti & Olsen, 2007) to try to understand the state-of-mind and motivations of the C-level suite/white collar offender before, during, and after the perpetration of management fraud. We offer a useful conceptual approach called “A-B-C Analysis” to understand the incidence of fraud from individual and group perspectives, as well as more macro-oriented, cultural/contextual levels. It is our hypothesis that fraud occurs either because of an individual criminal’s calculated/intentional betrayal of trust, a duo or team of “bad boys” who push ethical envelopes, and/or an organizational/social/national culture of passivity, …

Regulation Of The Otc Derivatives Market: A Regulatory Proposal Of Cds, Erik Welin

WCBT Undergraduate Publications

According to many commentators the credit derivatives and especially CDS have been a leading cause to the development of the current financial crisis. During the last year, policy makers, regulators, and other commentators around the world have therefore focused their attention on how to regulate OTC derivatives and especially CDS.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze some of the proposed regulatory responses to OTC derivatives and especially CDS from an economic point of view. The paper proposes a twofold regulatory response. First it proposes that we return to the old common law rule of "rule against difference contracts". …

Audit Committees, Boards Of Directors, And Remediation Of Material Weaknesses In Internal Control, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in 2002 in response to a series ofaccounting improprieties at well-known companies such as Enron and WorldCom.One important aspect of SOX is the internal control requirements. SOX section302 requires that management evaluate the effectiveness of disclosure and controlprocedures, report results of the evaluation, and indicate any “significant changes”in internal controls since the last 10-K or 10-Q report (Securities and ExchangeCommission [SEC] 2002). In addition, SOX section 404 requires that manage-ment’s assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reportingand auditors’ attestation on management’s assessment be included in firms’ 10-Kreports (SEC 2003a). The heightened …

Is Something Missing From Your Company's Satisfaction Package?, Deborah S. Archambeault, Richard Burgess, Stan Davis

Accounting Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom suggests that salary, benefits, and other monetary factors are important aspects of keeping employees satisfied. But which factors have the biggest impact on overall satisfaction? While companies focus on the monetary factors, there are other components of the overall “satisfaction package,” that are just as important, yet often overlooked.

It comes as no surprise that satisfied employees are important to the success of any organization. In short, higher satisfaction increases productivity, improves service levels, and positively impacts a company’s bottom line. While keeping employees satisfied should be an important goal for any organization, a recent job satisfaction survey …

The Association Between Institutional Ownership And Audit Properties, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Lynn Reesc

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this study, we examine how institutional ownership affects the quality and riskiness of the financial statement audit. We hypothesize that institutional investors can influence corporate policy to employ governance mechanisms that reduce their monitoring costs. Our evidence shows that firms are more likely to hire a Big 4 auditor (our proxy for audit quality) when long-term institutional ownership is high, suggesting that long-term institutional investors view high quality audits as a viable means of improving corporate governance while reducing their direct monitoring costs. We find no association between auditor choice and short-term institutional ownership. Next, we find that auditors …

The Case Against Exempting Smaller Reporting Companies From Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404: Why Market-Based Solutions Are Likely To Harm Ordinary Investors, John Orcutt

Law Faculty Scholarship

Section 404 is arguably the most controversial provision of Sarbanes-Oxley (“SOX”). The controversy focuses on whether Section 404’s substantial compliance costs exceed the statute’s benefits, with no consensus on Section 404’s cost-effectiveness. If Section 404 turns out to be cost-ineffective, the companies that are most threatened are smaller companies, as cost-ineffective regulations tend to disproportionately harm smaller companies. This Article considers whether Congress and the SEC should exempt smaller reporting companies from Section 404 compliance, as that would allow for a market-based resolution to the uncertain value of Section 404 for smaller reporting companies. Smaller reporting companies would be relieved …

Wherefore Art Thou Guidelines? An Empirical Study Of White-Collar Criminal Sentencing And How The Gall Decision Effectively Eliminated The Sentencing Guidelines, S. Patrick Morin

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Until the passage of the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1984, federal judges had relatively wide discretion in sentencing federal offenders up to the statutory maximum. This judicial discretion led to a disparity in the sentences of similarly situated offenders, particularly in white-collar cases. The Guidelines attempted to eliminate this disparity by establishing maximum and minimum sentences for certain offenses based on the characteristics of the crime. An important feature of the Guidelines system was its mandatory nature, which decreased and structured the judiciary‘s discretion within bounds set by Congress.

The mandatory application of the Guidelines resulted in stiff …

Managerial Ownership, Corporate Monitoring And Audit Pricing, Soongsoo Han, Julia Higgs, Tony Kang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We study whether managerial ownership and corporate monitoring (board quality and analyst coverage) relate to audit pricing. Managerial ownership has been identified as a fraud risk factor under SAS 99. However, the role of ownership is not clear. Under an alignment view, high levels of stock ownership align management with shareholders. Under an entrenchment view, high levels of ownership may motivate management to be self interested. Corporate monitoring, as measured by analyst coverage and overall board quality (Gomper’s index), are associated with information quality. Audit pricing will be affected to the extent that auditors perceive monitoring as being relevant to …

Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between managerial stock ownership and the firm’s information environment. We focus on three dimensions of the information environment: total, public, and private information precision (Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens 1998). Our results suggest that firms’ total and public information precision are positively related to managerial ownership. In contrast, there is no clear pattern in private information precision across different levels of managerial ownership. We also observe that managerial ownership has a greater impact on the firm’s public information environment after the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, suggesting that the regulation was effective in improving the firms’ …

Electronic Banking In Nigeria: Problems And Prospects From The Consumer's Perspective, Agbada A.O

Bullion

This paper explores the adoption of electronic banking [e-banking] in Nigeria. It examines the problems and prospects of e-banking in Nigeria from the consumer's perspective. The research findings show that a number of problems ranging from human, operational and technical constraints hinder the maximum utilization of services provided through e-banking channels in Nigeria. However, the results from the study have also revealed that despite these problems, the rate of adoption of e-banking services in Nigeria is phenomenal as banks have recorded outstanding successes in some areas. Nigeria is a consuming nation and based on the experience from other sectors of …

The Enduring Ambivalence Of Corporate Law, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Works

Prevailing theories of corporate law tend to rely heavily on strong claims regarding the corporate governance primacy and legitimacy of either the board or the shareholders, as the case may be. In this article I challenge the descriptive power of these theories as applied to widely held public corporations and advance an alternative, arguing that corporate law is, and will remain, deeply ambivalent - both doctrinally and morally - with respect to three fundamental and related issues: the locus of ultimate corporate governance authority, the intended beneficiaries of corporate production, and the relationship between corporate law and theachievement of the …

Engineering Value Into Enterprise Risk Management; Six Sigma Techniques Can Improve The Quality Of Erm Processes And Enable Organizations To Manage Risks More Successfully, Sridhar Ramamoorti, Marcia Weidenmier Watson, Mark Zabel

Accounting Faculty Publications

Organizations should not only recognize and minimize traditional downside risks, but also embrace upside risks, or opportunities, as a strategy for success. According to a 2005 survey by management consulting firm Booz Allen, 87 percent of the market value lost by large companies with market capitalizations over US $1 billion was the result of strategic and operational blunders. Compliance failure, typically the focus of downside risk, destroyed only 13 percent of market value during the five-year study. Faced with this counter-intuitive finding, companies may wish to pursue a more balanced and positive approach to risk management. Enterprise risk management (ERM) …

Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between managerial stock ownership and the firm’s information environment. We focus on three dimensions of the information environment: total, public, and private information precision (Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens 1998). Our results suggest that firms’ total and public information precision are positively related to managerial ownership. In contrast, there is no clear pattern in private information precision across different levels of managerial ownership. We also observe that managerial ownership has a greater impact on the firm’s public information environment after the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, suggesting that the regulation was effective in improving the firms’ …

Cross-Country Analysis Of Auditor Specialization Premium: Effect Of Legal, Extra-Legal And Political Environments, Sirinidhi Bin, M. Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Previous literature has provided mixed evidence of a premium in audit fee for industry-specialist auditors in US and other developed countries. In this cross-country study spanning twelve non-US countries, we provide evidence of such a premium in the international context, implying that specialist auditors provide a higher level of investor assurance than non-specialists. Further, we show that the average audit fee in countries with effective legal, extra-legal and political institutions is higher but the specialization premium is lower than in other countries. We interpret this finding as evidence that while effective institutions increase the demand for average level of audit …

Audit Partner Tenure, Audit Firm Tenure, And Discretionary Accruals: Does Long Auditor Tenure Impair Earnings Quality?, Chih-Ying Chen, Chan-Jane Lin, Yu-Chen Lin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Mandatory audit partner relation has been adopted in some countries while audit firm rotation is still being debated in many places. Most of the extant research on the relation between auditor tenure and earnings quality provides evidence at the audit firm level. However, since audit firm tenure is correlated with partner tenure and audit firm rotation is more costly than partner rotation, it is important to know whether earnings quality is related to audit firm tenure, partner tenure, or both. We investigate this issue using a sample of Taiwanese companies for which the audit report must be signed by two …

The Association Between Excess Audit Fees And Audit Quality: A Us-Uk Comparison, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior studies that examine the association between excess audit fees and audit quality (measured by discretionary accruals) using US data fail to document a significant association. However, there is no convincing explanation for this result to date. In this study, we test a cancellation hypothesis, which suggests that the non-association might be due to the cancellation effect between the risk-effort effect and the bonding effect that excess fees capture. To the extent that excess fees capture the compensation for effort the auditor puts in for a risky client, which is not captured in the existing audit fee models (the risk-effort …

Governance Role Of Auditors And Legal Environment: Evidence From Corporate Disclosure Transparency, Sam Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether auditor size associates with disclosure transparency. Given thatprior studies generally focus on discretionary accruals to investigate the relation betweenauditor size and financial reporting quality, there is little evidence on how auditor size relates toother attributes of reporting quality. Further, studies that examine this associationinternationally produce mixed results as to how auditor size relates to reporting quality indifferent legal origins. Focusing on corporate disclosure transparency (i.e., disclosure levels), wefind that auditor size and disclosure level are positively associated across countries and that theassociation is stronger in code law regimes than in common law regimes. The latter findingsupports …

The Changing Components Of The Corporate Annual Report: An Update, Deborah S. Archambeault, John G. Fulmer Jr., Richard A. Turpin

Accounting Faculty Publications

Recent regulatory changes affect not only the content of annual reports but also the population of companies that are required to comply with these reporting regulations. Lenders need to stay abreast of the information provided in corporate reporting packages. This article provides an update on regulatory changes and discusses how these changes affect the information that can be found in corporate annual reports.

An Assessment Of The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act On The Investigation Violations Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Karen Cascini, Alan L. Delfavero

WCBT Faculty Publications

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, a plethora of corporate scandals occurred. Due to these corporate debacles, corporate executives have been placed under fire. In response to such unethical conduct with regard to internal practices and financial reporting, legislation has been passed in order to ensure that corporations conduct their business in an ethical manner. The purpose of this paper is to assess the connection between the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOx), to determine whether SOx has influenced the FCPA’s investigative violation activities by examining the number of such investigations …

Corporate Social Responsibility For Solving The Housing Problem For The Poor In South Africa, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Basheera Mia

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Too Little Or Too Much? Untangling The Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy And Corporate Financial Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Jiatao Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

What is the relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate financial performance? Some scholars argue that corporate philanthropy facilitates stakeholder cooperation and helps secure access to critical resources controlled by those stakeholders, suggesting that corporate philanthropy should be positively associated with corporate financial performance. In contrast, other scholars take a negative stance, suggesting that corporate philanthropy diverts valuable corporate resources and tends to inhibit corporate financial performance. Existing empirical studies have not found conclusive evidence on the corporate philanthropy-financial performance relationship. Integrating and extending existing perspectives, this study develops the argument that the relationship between corporate philanthropy and financial performance is …

Auditing Management Assertions: The Impact Of Sas No. 106, Deborah S. Archambeault

Accounting Faculty Publications

The Auditing Standards Board (ASB) of the AICPA recently issued eight new statements on auditing standards (SASs), which are effective for audits of financial statement periods beginning on or after Dec. 15, 2006. Included within this new set of audit standards is SAS No. 106: Audit Evidence, which provides guidance on the use of management assertions in obtaining audit evidence.

The Association Between Audit Fees And Auditors' Opinions On Internal Control Weakness Under Section 404 Of The Sox, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Soo Young Kwon, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires top management toestablish, maintain, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the internal controlover financial reporting (ICOFR), and obtain an auditor’s attestation. In this paper, weidentify 232 firms that received “Ineffective” audit opinion on the effectiveness ofICOFR due to one or more material weakness in internal control (WIC). We examinethe association between audit fees and the WIC for pre- and post-SOX period. Wefind that highly levered clients with the WIC paid greater audit fees even in the preSOXperiod and continuously paid the high fees in post-SOX period, whereas theloss-making clients with WIC paid …

Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes institutional and legal changes related to corporate governance and their impact on financial performance in Japan since the second half of the 1990s. We attempt to address two issues systematically: (1) how much the governance reforms of Japanese firms transformed the conventional system of alliance capitalism and managerial control; and (2) what economic outcomes those governance changes have yielded. As the Commercial Code and other legal and institutional frameworks were revised, Japanese firms experienced shifts in terms of stock ownership, corporate control and managerial organizations. Our empirical results show that the influence of new ownership composition and …

Auditor Locality, Audit Quality And Audit Pricing, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Examining The Performance Of Competition Policy Enforcement Agencies: A Cross-Country Comparison, A. E. Rodriguez, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

An examination of a cross-section of 102 nations reveals marked differences in the performance of their competition policy enforcement agencies. Likely explanatory factors considered include gross domestic product per capita, the intensity of competition, physical size, the level of corruption, national experience with a modern antitrust law and whether the common law prevails. Competition policy agencies operate poorly in jurisdictions characterized by corruption and poor competitive intensity. In fact, differences in levels of corruption and variations in the intensity of competition account for approximately 78 percent of the observed variance in agency performance. Group characteristics, however, vary by region and …

The Effectiveness Of Insider Trading Regulation: International Evidence, Art Durnev, Amrita S. Nain

Finance Faculty Publications

There is a long standing debate in the finance and law literatures about the need for insider trading regulation. Some scholars and practitioners argue that insider trading restrictions should be revoked because insider trading allows private information to be quickly incorporated into stock prices, thereby leading to more informationally efficient stock prices (Carlton and Fischel (1983); Dye (1984)). For example, Milton Friedman, laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, said: “You want more insider trading, not less. You want to give the people most likely to have knowledge about deficiencies of the company an incentive to make the public …