Tesi sul tema "Discretionary information"

Thesis (M.S. in Information Systems and Operations) Naval Postgraduate School, March 2001.
Thesis advisor(s): Michael, James Bret ; Josang, Audun. "March 2001." Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-78). Also Available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2004.
Includes bibliographical references.
This thesis contains two chapters. Chapter One provides definitive evidence about the effect of discretionary current accruals on the pricing of IPOs. Specifically, I seek to discriminate between two alternative explanations for the prior findings: 1) behavioral biases coupled with limited arbitrage; and 2) the sample- and period-specific nature of the results in the prior literature. Using hand-gathered accrual data for all IPOs from 1926 to 1961 and machine-readable accrual data for all IPOs from 1962 to 1998, I obtain the following results. First, I fail to observe a negative association between discretionary current accruals and subsequent price performance for the 1926 to 1971 period. Second, my analysis reveals that the pattern of cross-sectional evidence is inconsistent with the predictions made by behavioral theories. Third, in the 1972 to 1998 period, evidence of predictable negative performance attributable to IPO discretionary current accruals is limited to NASDAQ firms. Overall, these findings are difficult to reconcile with mispricing as an outcome of investor behavioral biases correlated across individuals. Chapter Two examines how financial statement informativeness, analyst following, and company news relate to the information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders. Corporations' timely disclosures of value relevant information and information collection by outsiders reduce information asymmetry, limiting insiders' ability to trade profitably on private information. We use the profitability and intensity of insider trades to proxy for information asymmetry. We find that increased analyst following is associated with reduced profitability of insider trades and reduced insider purchases. Financial statement
(cont.) informativeness is negatively associated with the frequency of insider purchases. However, company news, good or bad, is positively associated with insider purchase frequency.
by Xu Li.
Ph.D.

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A presente pesquisa busca investigar se a auditoria externa (independente) minimiza a propensão à manipulação das informações contábeis - MIC (medidas pelas acumulações discricionárias correntes) por parte das operadoras de plano privado de assistência à saúde, no que tange às informações econômico-financeiras divulgadas à Agência Nacional de Saúde Suplementar. Após revisão bibliográfica sobre qualidade da informação contábil, auditoria e mercado de saúde suplementar, promoveu-se uma pesquisa empírica com informações prestadas à ANS pelas OPS relativas ao período de 2004 a 2006. Para verificar se há diferença significativa no nível de acumulações discricionárias correntes, medidas pelo modelo AWCA e Jones Modificado (1995), entre as informações auditadas (quarto trimestre de cada ano) e as informações nãoauditadas (três primeiros trimestres de cada ano) para as mesmas empresas foi aplicado o teste não-paramétrico de Mann-Whitney. Os resultados indicam que não existem diferenças estatísticas significativas na propensão à manipulação entre as informações contábeis auditadas e não-auditadas, pelo menos no que tange às informações de 2004 a 2006 prestadas pelas OPS à ANS. Adicionalmente, também foram testadas as influências do tipo de modalidade, porte da firma e situação apresentada do patrimônio líquido sobre as acumulações discricionárias correntes. Observou-se que essas três variáveis influenciam em maior ou menor grau na manipulação da informação contábil gerada pelas OPS à ANS. Neste contexto, as seguintes características sobre a maior propensão a MIC foram diagnosticadas: Cooperativa Odontológica e a Medicina de Grupo (Modalidade); Pequeno (Porte da Firma); e Passivo a Descoberto ou PL Próximo de Zero (Situação do Patrimônio Líquido). Ao passo que as características relacionadas à menor propensão de MIC foram: Cooperativa Médica e Filantropia (Modalidade); Médio e Grande (Porte da Firma); Patrimônio Líquido Favorável (Situação do Patrimônio Líquido).
This research aims to investigate whether the external (independent) audit minimizes the propensity for manipulation of accounting information (measured by discretionary current accruals) by health maintenance organizations (OPS), in regard to financial information disclosed to the Brazilian Health Care Agency (ANS). Based on a literature review of external audit, manipulation of accounting information and health care industry we developed an empirical research to information provided by OPS to the ANS for the period 2004 to 2006. To test for significant differences in the level of discretionary current accruals, measured by AWCA model and modified Jones (1995), we compared the quality of audited information (fourth quarter of each year) with the quality of non-audited information (the first three quarters of each year) from the same companies. This difference was investigated by the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test. The results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences in the propensity to manipulation of accounting information between audited and non-audited financial reports, at least in relation to information from 2004 to 2006 provided by OPS to the ANS. In addition, there were also tested the influence of type of procedure, size of firm and the situation presented in shareholders' equity on the discretionary current accruals. It was observed that these three variables influence a greater or lesser degree in the manipulation of accounting information generated by the OPS to the ANS. In this context, the following features on the more likely the MIC were diagnosed: Cooperative Dental and Medical Group (Type of Procedure); Small (Size of Firm); and Negative Equity or close to zero (Situation Presented in Shareholders’ Equity). On the other hand, the main features that are less likely to MIC were: Cooperative Medical and Philanthropy (Type of Procedure); Medium and large (Size of Firm); and Equity Favorable (Situation Presented in Shareholders’ equity).

L’Actionnariat Salarié (AS) est une composante de rémunération qui permet de relier le patrimoine personnel du salarié à celui de l’entreprise. Il assure leur représentation dans le conseil d’administration, ce qui génère des effets sur plusieurs niveaux : individuel, organisationnel et macroéconomique. Ce travail doctoral examine les effets de l’AS sur les pratiques de comptabilité et audit en France, pays où l’AS est le plus développé en Europe. Le premier chapitre introduit les plans d’AS et les autres plans de participation des salariés en France et dans le monde. Le second chapitre étudie les coûts d’agence et les honoraires d’audit. Il montre une relation en U inversé entre l’AS et ces deux variables, indiquant que l’AS a un double effet : l’alignement des intérêts et l’enracinement des dirigeants. Le troisième chapitre montre que l’AS rassure les parties prenantes sur l’indépendance de l’auditeur. Il permet notamment aux dirigeants de profiter des bénéfices liés à un double engagement (audit et non-audit) et d’acquérir plus de services non-audits. Le quatrième chapitre révèle que la gestion des résultats par les managers en France, à travers les accruals discrétionnaires, est plutôt utilisée de manière opportuniste. L’étude démontre aussi que l’AS réduit la manipulation opportuniste des résultats et le taux d’opportunisme des accruals. Le dernier chapitre présente une conclusion de la thèse et synthétise les résultats, les contributions et les limites de la recherche. Cette thèse de doctorat contribue à la littérature sur la gouvernance d’entreprise, en examinant l’effet de l’AS sur les coûts d’agence à travers divers prismes
Employee Share Ownership (ESO) refers to a compensation practice through which an employee’s wealth is directly tied to their companies’. It provides their representation in the board of directors and has several effects on the individual, corporate and macroeconomic levels. This doctoral thesis discusses the effects of employee ownership on accounting and audit practices in France, the country that has the most developed ESO in Europe. The first chapter provides a general introduction to ESO schemes and other shared capitalism arrangements in France and in the world. The second chapter focuses on agency costs and audit fees, and finds a negative U-shaped relationship between ESO and both variables. It indicates that ESO aligns the interests of employees with those of shareholders, but also acts as a managerial entrenchment mechanism. The third chapter finds that ESO reassures the company’s stakeholders about the auditor’s independence and allows managers to benefit from their auditor’s joint-engagement benefits by purchasing more non-audit services. The fourth chapter studies earnings management through discretionary accruals and reveals that earnings management in France is rather used opportunistically by managers. It also finds that ESO helps decreasing the manipulation of earnings and reduces the opportunism of the discretionary accruals. The final chapter summarizes the thesis’ results and presents its contributions and limitations. This doctorate dissertation contributes to research on corporate governance by studying ESO’s effect on agency costs from several perspectives

碩士
中原大學
會計學系
88
Discretionary accruals play an important role in determining the behavior of reported earnings. Since discretionary accruals are subject to management’s manipulation, past researches focused on the role of discretionary accruals in contracting and income smoothing. The current study extends Subramanyam（1996）and classifies discretionary accruals into those for the purposes of signaling and for the purposes of smoothing income. The results indicate that the Taiwan capital market responds to discretional accruals that are hypothesized for the purposes of signaling stronger than those for the purposes of smoothing income. Although the associations between discretionary accruals and future performance indicators are positive, the relationship between discretionary accruals that are hypothesized for the purposes of signaling and future performance indicators is weaker than that between discretionary accruals that are hypothesized for the purposes of smoothing income and future performance indicators.

碩士
國立臺北大學
會計學系
99
Information transparency has attracting numerous attentions from general public since series outbreak of major fraud events involving many large domestic and foreign companies. The "Information Disclosure and Transparence Ranking System" established by the Securities and Futures Market Development Foundation in 2003 is aiming to enhance the transparency of information disclosure for companies listed in national stock exchanges. Previous studies have shown that the probability of management earnings manipulation has significantly reduced after the implementation of information disclosure evaluation system. Countries around the world have developed more rigorous financial reform bills to require information to be much more properly and clearly disclosed, especially after Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case in 2008. This study aims to examine the correlation between information transparency and discretionary accruals and to verify if the results are different before and after 2008. The empirical evidences have shown that disclosure ranking are negative correlative with the discretionary accruals. The evidences also show that the correlation between information transparency and discretionary accruals have different results before and after 2008.

碩士
國立中興大學
會計學研究所
96
Prior research of earning management emphasize on accounting earning management via discretionary accruals .This paper attempts to discuss real earnings management through cutting R&D and AD expenditure, and the impact of accounting flexibility on the substitution effects between accounting and real earning management .The sample of our research includes all firms listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange from 1999 to 2006, using Barton and Simko (2002) NOA/Sales variable as a proxy for accounting flexibility. Since prior research found that information transparency would decrease in earnings management, this paper includes further discussions on information transparency effects on the substitution effects between accounting and real earning management. Finally, the paper analyze that whether the Information Disclosure and Evaluation System, put in practice since 2003, affects real earning management of firms listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange and the substitution effects between accounting and real earning management. The empirical results revealed the following facts. A firm’s ability to engage in accrual manipulations is limited by the cumulative effect of past accounting choices, and there is substitution effect between accounting and real earning management. Besides, the higher information transparency firms, the more substitution between accounting and real earning management. Finally, after the implementation of information disclosure and evaluation system the use of real earnings management by cutting R&D and AD expenditure would increase, but the level of substitution between accounting and real earning management decrease. This is because the claims of evaluation system have decreased the important of the restriction of accounting flexibility.

The main goal of this thesis was to obtain an understanding of the way in which accounting practices that are constantly in transition generate the information that is disclosed in corporate annual reports (CARS). The study shows that CARS may be seen as a product of two main interrelated information processing systems, the first being the mandatory financial information system (MFIS) and the second the discretionary information system (DIS). The MFIS uses accounting practices such as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which include International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), International Accounting Standards (IASs), JSE regulations and the Companies' Act requirements, in producing the information disclosed in CARS. The needs of users to reduce the uncertainty and risks in their decision making have an influence on the constantly evolving accounting practices. Standard-setting bodies play a major role in the development and refinement of GAAP. On the other hand, the DIS, in order to provide a complete picture of business entities, uses discretionary accounting practices to produce the contextual information contained in CARS. These discretionary accounting practices are also currently in transition. They cater for the production of information on the business environment, and provide an operating and financial review, overview of strategy, forward-looking information, key performance indicators and information on corporate governance and transparency. Standard-setting bodies may be able to use the contextual information contained in CARS to develop and refine the GAAP used by the MFIS.
Thesis (DComm(Accounting Sciences))--University of Pretoria, 2008.
Financial Management
DCom
unrestricted

The agency problem between managers and outside investors reflects a separation between the firm’s control and ownership. This separation created a monitoring problem as the agent who controls the firm has access to more information than the principal that owns the firm. This problem stimulated managers to focus more on shortterm performance and current benefits rather than on long-term firm value. Using financial data from Datastream and hand-collected information on CEO’s characteristics from annual reports and press releases, for 19 listed Portuguese firms and for the fiscal years 2005 to 2009, this study investigates the relationship between earnings management and four CEO’s characteristics: age, education, expected tenure and dual role in firm. Results indicate a positive influence of CEO’s age and duality characteristics on earnings management behavior. It was also detected that CEOs with education on management or finance fields practice more earnings management, although this result is not robust. Contrary to what was expected it was discovered that earnings management is not positively related to the fact of the CEO being in his last year’s mandate before turnover.
O problema de agência reflecte uma separação entre o controlo e a propriedade da empresa. Esta separação criou um problema de monitorização, pois o agente (gestor) que controla a empresa tem acesso a mais informação do que o principal (investidor) que é proprietário da empresa. Este problema incentivou a que os gestores se focassem mais na performance a curto prazo que no valor da empresa no longo prazo. Utilizando dados financeiros retirados do Datastream e informação relativa aos CEOs, recolhida manualmente dos relatórios anuais de contas e press-releases, para uma amostra de 19 empresas cotadas portuguesas e para os anos fiscais de 2005 a 2009, é analisada a relação entre a manipulação de resultados e quatro características do CEO: idade, educação, tempo esperado até ao fim do mandato e dualidade de papéis. Os resultados mostram que existe uma influência positiva das características idade e dualidade no comportamento de manipulação de resultados. Mostram também que o facto de a educação dos CEOs ser nas áreas de gestão ou finanças leva a que estes pratiquem mais manipulação dos resultados, contudo neste caso não existe evidência suficiente. Ao contrário do que era esperado os resultados mostram que a manipulação não está relacionada positivamente com o facto de o CEO estar no seu último ano de mandato na empresa.

We propose and empirically test a new hypothesis that managers rationally choose between specific channels of earnings management to meet earnings benchmarks. Prior research documents that managers are ready to interfere with the neutrality of financial reporting process to report earnings above zero, earnings above last year's earnings, and earnings above analysts' forecast. However, there is a controversy over whether this earnings management to meet or beat earnings benchmarks is intended to distort investors' view by delaying the disclosure of bad news or whether it is intended to communicate managers' private information about the firm's strong future performance. We argue that the credibility of the earnings management signal crucially depends on the cost of its imitation. As revenue management is more costly to imitate than cost management, we argue that managers who intend to send a credible signal about their firm's future performance likely boost revenues rather than depress costs. To test this prediction, we use a recently developed model of discretionary revenues that is arguably more powerful in detecting earnings management than traditional techniques. The empirical results are consistent with our predictions for the most important earnings benchmark - the consensus of analysts'...

A presente dissertação procura analisar, sinteticamente, a qualidade da informação no contexto das Pequenas e Médias Empresas (PME) existentes em Portugal, revelando-se de extrema pertinência analisar para esse efeito, se existe uma maior propensão para estas - no contexto das empresas familiares - manipularem os seus resultados. O foco irá centrar-se nas PME dada a sua importância na economia portuguesa, sendo as principais responsáveis pelo investimento e desenvolvimento em Portugal. A metodologia utilizada para avaliar o impacto da estrutura de propriedade na manipulação de resultados, será baseada em accruals, através da aplicação do modelo de Dechow e Dichev (2002), onde optamos por efetuar uma análise cross section, por forma a prevenir eventuais problemas de enviesamento associados à utilização de modelos de séries temporais (Peasnell et al., 2005). Adicionalmente, utilizaremos o modelo de distribuições de Burgsthaler e Dichev (1997) para uma análise acerca do comportamento das empresas. Com base numa amostra de 64.646 PME e recorrendo à estimação do modelo de Dechow e Dichev (2002), os resultados empíricos evidenciam que existe uma relação positiva entre a propriedade da empresa e a prática de manipulação de resultados. Em particular, conclui-se que quanto maior a percentagem de capital detido por cada acionista que tem pelo menos um apelido igual aos dois apelidos do gestor, maior o desvio-padrão (menor qualidade de informação), e consequentemente, maior o nível de manipulação de resultados.
This dissertation briefly summarizes the quality of information in the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Portugal, and it is extremely pertinent to analyze to that effect if there is a greater propensity for these companies - in the context of Family businesses - to manipulate their results. The focus will be on SMEs given their importance in the context of the Portuguese economy. SMEs are primarily responsible for investment and development in Portugal. The methodology used to evaluate the impact of the property structure in the manipulation of results, will be based on accruals, through the application of Dechow and Dichev (2002) model, where we chose (Peasnell et al., 2005). In order to avoid any bias problems associated with the use of time series models, Pearson et al. In addition, we will use the distributions model of Burgsthaler and Dichev (1997) for an analysis about the behavior of companies. Based on a sample of 64,646 SMEs and using the Dechow and Dichev (2002) model, the empirical results show that there is a positive relationship between company ownership and the practice of earnings management. In particular, it is concluded that the higher the percentage of capital held by each shareholder who has at least one surname equal to the two surnames of the manager, the greater the standard deviation (lower quality of information), and consequently, the higher the level of earnings management.