Ex Ante Severance Agreements and Timely Disclosures of Bad News

This study explores the puzzle of CEO severance agreements by examining the association between the existence of ex ante severance agreements and the timeliness of bad news disclosures. Classifying severance agreements by type and the way boards grant them, this article documents a positive association between the timeliness of bad news disclosures and the existence of an ex ante single-trigger severance agreement, especially when it is granted alone. This association remains positive in the CEO’s last year of tenure where performance is poor. Further analyses show that this association is stronger among CEOs with a high-variable pay structure than among CEOs with a low-variable pay structure. These results suggest that an ex ante single-trigger severance agreement may play a role in forming timely disclosures of bad news and that paring it with a high-variable pay structure enhances the chance of its success

Disclosure and Cross-listing: Evidence from Asia-Pacific Firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether both country disclosure environment and firm-level disclosures are associated with cross-listing in the USA or London or otherwise. Design/methodology/approach – The authors test the association using a sample of Asia-Pacific firms covered in the Standard and Poor\u27s, 2001/2002 disclosure survey, capturing the country-level disclosure using the Center for International Financial Analysis and Research (CIFAR) score. The firm-level disclosure is measured using the S&P disclosure score. The authors conduct a logistic regression analysis and a two-stage least squares analysis to examine whether the outcome, cross-listing or not, is associated with the country disclosure environment and firm-level disclosures. Findings – The authors find that Asia-Pacific firms from weak disclosure environments and having higher firm-level disclosure scores are more likely to seek listing in the USA. Further, the paper provides initial evidence that these Asia-Pacific firms are as likely to seek listing in London as in the USA. No significant difference was found in S&P scores between US and London cross-listings after controlling for the effects of other variables. This suggests that firms that cross-list in London present similar disclosure levels to firms that cross-list in the USA. Originality/value – The paper\u27s findings contribute to the cross-listing literature on disclosure by showing that the interaction between firm-level disclosure and country-level disclosure has an impact on whether a firm cross-lists in the USA/London or not. The authors\u27 comparison of US cross-listings versus London cross-listings provides the first evidence that disclosures of US and London cross-listings are not significantly different

Implications of Being a Highly Rated Organization: Evidence from Four-Star Rated Nonprofits

This study examines a group of nonprofits rated four stars by Charity Navigator. The purpose is to determine whether this select group of charities exhibits characteristics associated with top charitable organizations, or whether the four-star rating achieved is limited to the more narrow financial metrics employed in the methodology utilized by Charity Navigator. This study finds that organizations rated four stars by Charity Navigator show a lower level of excess cash holdings, report a lower level of compensation expenses and exhibit lower sensitivity of compensation to performance. Financially, these organizations are less vulnerable than their lower rated peers. The results from this study shed light on the continuing debate of the effectiveness of rating agencies to accurately identify top performing charitable organizations

An Examination Of The Use Of The Board Balanced Scorecard By Large Public Corporations

While the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) developed by Norton and Kaplan has gained global prominence as a management tool and there is qualitative accounting literature that discusses the benefits of the Board BSC, there is limited empirical evidence that examines the use of the Board BSC.   We surveyed Chairs of large public companies to determine the extent to which they use the Board BSC and the reasons why.  Our findings suggest that the Board BSC is currently not a widely used technique by Boards of Directors. We also found that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 wasn’t an influencing factor for those boards that are using the Board BSC.

Using Archival Data Sources to Conduct Nonprofit Accounting Research

Research in nonprofit accounting is steadily increasing as more data is available. In an effort to broaden the awareness of the data sources and ensure the quality of nonprofit research, we discuss archival data sources available to nonprofit researchers, data issues, and potential resolutions to those problems. Overall, our paper should raise awareness of data sources in the nonprofit area, increase production, and enhance the quality of nonprofit research

Playing the Ratings Game: The Significance of the Four Star Rating

This study examines a group of exemplary rated nonprofits, organizations rated four stars by Charity Navigator, to determine if this select group of charities exhibits characteristics associated with top charitable organizations, or if the four-star rating achieved is limited to the more narrow financial metrics employed in the methodology utilized by Charity Navigator. Organizations rated four stars by Charity Navigator report a lower level of excess cash holdings, report lower levels of executive compensation and executive compensation that is less sensitive to performance, and are less financially vulnerable than their lower rated peers. The results shed light on the continuing debate of the effectiveness of the rating agencies to accurately identify top performing charitable organizations

Competitive strategy, voluntary environmental disclosure strategy, and voluntary environmental disclosure quality

Scope and Method of Study: Concerns exist that companies make voluntary environmental disclosures (VED) primarily to enhance their public image. In response to the concerns, this study examines whether a company's competitive strategy is an important factor in the VED decision, and also in the quality of VED. This study focuses on a highly polluting industry, the chemical industry, and adopts various measurement methods and econometric specifications for the examination.Findings and Conclusions: Using VED about 2004 environmental performance, this study finds that companies emphasizing investment in brand image are likely to voluntarily provide more environmental information than companies that do not emphasize this strategy. Companies emphasizing investment in R&D are likely to make more voluntary disclosures about actual environmental performance than companies that do not emphasize the strategy.This study also finds that company competitive strategies affect the association between VED and environmental performance differently. If the environmental performance measure has implications for sustainability, the association between VED and environmental performance is the same or more negative for companies emphasizing investment in brand image relative to other companies. If the environmental performance measure has implications for environmental liabilities, the association between VED and environmental performance is adjusted, so these companies' VED are less likely to relate to poor environmental performance. For companies emphasizing investment in R&D, the tendency of VED to be linked to poor environmental performance is ameliorated. The association between VED and environmental performance is stronger for R&D companies compared to other companies. This association is also stronger if the environmental performance measure has implications for sustainability than if the environmental performance measure has implications for environmental liabilities

An Examination Of Underreporting Of Time And Premature Signoffs By Internal Auditors

The passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) heightened the importance of internal controls and accordingly, a key control - the internal audit function.  Consequently, management and external auditors have both increased their reliance on internal auditors’ work.  While there has been considerable research regarding the impact of the underreporting of time and premature sign-offs on the external audit, there has only been one study that has examined the impact of these two items on the internal auditors’ work.  Such research is dated (1994) and prior to the passage of SOX.  We surveyed members of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) in the Midwest to examine their behavior and perceptions regarding these two items.  The respondents in our study believe the underreporting of time is unethical and is supported by their reporting of all time worked, even if such time exceeded the budget.  Our findings also show that the respondents feel premature sign-offs are unethical and result primarily from lack of professional skepticism and inadequate training.  Increasing training in audit areas and improving communications within the audit team are possible solutions to reduce premature sign-offs.  Premature sign-offs are more likely to occur in operational audits and to a lesser degree in financial audits and compliance audits.&nbsp

The Adoption and Use of the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index in Nonprofit Research: Does Revenue Diversification Measurement Matter?

Since its introduction by Tuckman and Chang, the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index (HHI) has been widely adopted into the nonprofit literature as a precise measure of revenue concentration. This widespread adoption has been characterized by diverse composition, with the HHI’s calculation being largely determined by the nature of the available data and the degree to which it contained disaggregated measures of revenue. Using the NCCS 990 Digitized Data, we perform an acid test on whether different HHI measures yield significantly different results. Four measures of revenue concentration—an aggregated measure based on three revenue streams, an aggregated measure separating government grants from other contributions, a more nuanced measure based on seven revenue streams, and a fully disaggregated measure based on thirteen revenue streams—are used to predict two dominant nonprofit financial health dimensions: financial volatility and financial capacity. Overall, our results show that aggregation in HHI measurement matters; aggregation often downplays relationships by influencing the significance levels and magnitudes of estimates in a non-trivial way

Design of binary weighted DAC for asynchronous ADC with improved slew rate and with calibrated size of capacitors

This work proposed a binary-weighted Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), which is designed to be used in Asynchronous successive approximation register (SAR) based Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) specifically and in other relevant operations .The design has yielded an improved slew rate, and it is less prone to noise as the size of capacitors is taken in accordance with KT/C noise calculation. For achieving all mentioned goals, and to restrict the size of DAC, within suitable dimensions charge scaling DACs are used. One more advantage of this design is its accuracy, further it does not require op-Amps for its operation. Results of statistical simulation and mathematical consideration are published which depicts the supremacy of the design. A high-resolution DAC designed for this specific purpose has to have special consideration for the effect of local mismatch, parasitic and matching of the capacitors, for that, the common-centroid approach has been followed. This design has displayed a high resolution with small unit capacitances and that too without expensive factory calibration