The effect of timeliness and credit ratings on the information content of earnings announcements

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of timeliness and credit ratings on the information content of the earnings announcements of Greek listed firms from 2001 to 2008. Using the classical event study methodology and regression analysis, we find that firms tend to release good news on time and are inclined to delay the release of bad news. We also provide evidence that the level of corporate risk differentiates the information content of earnings according to the credit rating category. Specifically, firms displaying high creditworthiness enjoy positive excess returns on earnings announcement dates. In contrast, firms with low creditworthiness undergo significant share price erosions on earnings announcement days. We also observe a substitution effect between timeliness and credit ratings in relation to the information content of earnings announcements. Specifically, we find that as the credit category of earnings-announcing firms improves, the informational role of timeliness is mitigated

An Exploratory Survey of Drivers’ Knowledge of Right of Way at Freeway On-ramp Merging Areas

Motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. The most recent data available show that in 2006 there were almost 6 million police-reported motor vehicle crashes in the United States where a total of 42,642 people were killed and an additional 2.6 million were injured. The majority of these motor vehicle crashes occurred at intersections or within the intersection influence areas. Traffic conflicts occur at intersections due to traffic streams moving in different directions interfering with each other, and as a result they become areas with high potential for traffic crashes compared with non-intersection areas of the roadways. In order to reduce the potential conflict points, access to a freeway is only provided through gradeseparated intersection ramps (also known as interchanges). Freeways play a major role in providing mobility due to their high operational speeds and their being fully access controlled. Like other intersections, freeway-ramp areas have also been identified as locations highly prone to crashes as compared to other segments of freeways. A number of studies have been conducted to determine the causes and characteristics of crashes that occur at freeway ramps in order to devise and apply preventive countermeasures to reduce the occurrences of such crashes. Most of these studies have focused on developing and calibrating factors that contribute to traffic crash occurrences such as highway geometry, traffic volume, ramp location, and type of interchange. Other studies analyzed the type and patterns of crashes on urban freeways. For instance, a study by McCartt et al highlighted types and characteristics of ramp-related crashes, which showed that the type of crashes that occur at entrance ramps and exiting ramps are generally different. The most common type of crashes at exit ramps involve vehicles running-off the road while speeding. For the entrance ramps, sideswipe and cut-off crash types are the most frequent ones, with lack of yielding of right of way involving merging drivers from entrance ramps identified as a major cause. What is not clear, however, is whether at-fault merging drivers (from entrance ramps) know who had a right of way at the freeway merging area. In the present study, we assumed that most of these atfault drivers think that they have a right of way over drivers already on mainlines. To date, we have not found any study that has examined the factors that influence on-ramp merging drivers not yielding the right of way to freeway mainline traffic. In particular, the contribution of drivers’ knowledge of who has the right of way at the freeway-entrance ramp merge area has not been addressed. By determining what drivers know about right of way at the freeway merge area, including their driving actions, appropriate countermeasures such as education, engineering, and legislative actions can be implemented as future crash countermeasures. In addition, some states’ driver’s license testing handbooks inform new drivers to accelerate at on-ramps to attain the freeway mainline speed. This is also in accordance with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) guidelines whereby auxiliary (acceleration) lanes are provided in order to minimally affect the through traffic operations. Normally no yield sign is needed for ramps having standard-length acceleration lanes. The abovementioned reasons may also cause some on-ramp merging drivers to think that they share equally the right of way with the mainline traffic; this misconception may be one of the contributing causes of collisions at on-ramp merging areas. Furthermore, traffic safety studies acknowledge that certain demographic factors contribute to most of the motor vehicle crashes. For instance, gender and age differences in traffic crash involvement are well documented. The youngest and oldest drivers are more likely to be involved in motor vehicle crashes; similarly, younger males are more likely than younger females to be involved in motor vehicle crashes. On the other hand, females older than 50 years of age are more likely than the same age males to be involved in fatal crashes. Specifically, half of fatal crashes involving old drivers (80 years and older) tend to occur at intersections, and young drivers (16–25 years old) have a risk of being involved in traffic crashes to the order of 2.5 times higher than that of other drivers. Therefore, in the present study, we assumed that gender and age will be associated with drivers’ knowledge of freeway merging areas’ right of way. Particularly, the objective of this paper is twofold: to explore the knowledge of drivers concerning who has the right of way between the one on mainline lanes of a freeway and the one entering the freeway through the on-ramp junction lane and to explore the drivers’ actions when driving in the vicinity of freeway-entrance ramp merge areas, whether driving on the freeway mainline lanes or entering through the ramp junction lanes

Developing a Cloud Computing Framework for University Libraries

Our understanding of the library context on security challenges on storing research output on the cloud is inadequate and incomplete. Existing research has mostly focused on profit-oriented organizations. To address the limitation within the university environment, the paper unravels the data/information security concerns of cloud storage services within the university libraries. On the score of changes occurring in the libraries, this paper serves to inform users and library managers of the traditional approaches that have not guaranteed the security of research output. The paper is built upon the work of Shaw and the cloud storage security framework, which links aspects of cloud security and helps explain reasons for university libraries moving research output into cloud infrastructure, and how the cloud service is more secured. Specifically, this paper examined the existing storage carriers/media for storing research output and the associated risks with cloud storage services for university libraries. The paper partly fills this gap by a case study examination of two (2) African countries’ (Ghana and Uganda) reports on research output and cloud storage security in university libraries. The paper argues that in storing university research output on the cloud, libraries consider the security of content, the resilience of librarians, determining access levels and enterprise cloud storage platforms. The interview instrument is used to collect qualitative data from librarians and the thematic content analysis is used to analyze the research data. Significantly, results show that copyright law infringement, unauthorized data accessibility, policy issues, insecurity of content, cost and no interoperable cloud standards were major risks associated with cloud storage services. It is expected that university libraries pay more attention to the security/confidentiality of content, the resilience of librarians, determining access levels and enterprise cloud storage platforms to enhance cloud security of research output. The paper contributes to the field of knowledge by developing a framework that supports an approach to understand security in cloud storage. It also enables actors in the library profession to understand the makeup and measures of security issues in cloud storage. By presenting empirical evidence, it is clear that university libraries have migrated research output into cloud infrastructure as an alternative for continued storage, maintenance and access of information

Corporate social responsibility and earnings management in U.S. banks

Business decision making depends on financial reporting quality. In identifying the drivers of financial reporting quality, proxied by earnings management (EM), prior literature has drawn attention to the association between corporate EM practices and commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Empirical evidence, however, provides inconclusive results regarding the direction of this association. Using simultaneous equations, we examine the bi-directional CSR-EM relationship in U.S. commercial banks. We demonstrate that, although banks that engage in EM practices are also actively involved in CSR, the reverse relationship is not significant. We provide implications for investors, analysts, business participants and regulators

Leveraging Social Media Platforms in Marketing Library Services In Ghanaian Universities

With the continuous improvement of library services across the globe owing to automation, technological advancement, and growth in student population, rapid access to social media (SM) platforms has become a vital part of keeping present and would-be users well-versed about academic library service. The study brings to bear on the use of SM platforms in promoting library services. Using the survey approach, one hundred and seventy-six (176) library users of the University of Ghana (UG), Library System (LS) were selected to provide primary data via questionnaires. All respondents were selected through simple random sampling. The SPSS was used to generate Pearson correlation, mean, and standard deviation results. The results revealed that the effectiveness of SM platforms has a significant positive relationship with users’ perception and its usefulness. The deployment of SM as a marketing tool in university libraries, marketing library resources, and information centres can be promoted greatly. Moreover, few challenges encountered by library users in using the SM include lack of privacy, the confidentiality of information, power cut or shortage, and inadequate training opportunities for the UGLS staff among others. The study presents opportunities useful for professional librarians

Financial Characteristics of Companies Audited by Large Audit Firms

Purpose “ The purpose of this paper is to examine how financial characteristics associated with the choice of a big audit firm with further investigation on the agency costs of free cash flows.Design/methodology/approach “ The sample used for this work includes industrial listed companies from Germany and France. To test our hypothesis, we used a number of logit models, extending the standard model selection audit firm, to include the variables of interest. Following previous work, our dependent dummy variable is Big4 or non-Big4.Findings “ We observed that most independent variables in the German companies show similar results to previous work, but we did not have the same results for the French industry. Moreover, our findings suggest that the total debt and dividends can be an important reason for determining the choice of a large audit firm, reducing agency costs of free cash flows.Research limitations/implications “ This study has some limitations on the measurements of the cost of the audit fees and also generates opportunities for additional searching.Originality/value “ The paper provides only one aspect to explain the relationship between the problems of agency costs of free cash flow and influence in choosing a large auditing firm, which stems from investors\u27 demand for higher quality audits

Investigation of the relationship between vehicle color and safety

Over the years, the concern of many, consumers and insurance companies alike, has been geared towards the contribution of vehicle color to the risk of crash. Consequently, there is a need to provide sufficient scientific evidence to back consumers in selecting the appropriate vehicle color that enhances their safety on the road. The present study utilized the induced exposure study design where data was stratified into two groups: color-prone crash group and induced exposure crash group. The color prone crash group includes the types of crashes where vehicle color visibility may play a part in crash occurring such as two or more vehicles in transport crashing, or where pedestrians or motor cyclists are struck. The induced exposure crash group generally includes crashes where vehicle visibility is not likely to be a factor in the crash occurring, such as single vehicle crashes and a vehicle crashing into a parked vehicle or other fixed/stationery objects such as trees, utility poles, etc. The negative binomial (NB) and Poisson distributions were utilized in fitting a generalized linear model to the data. As opposed to previous studies, this study first desired the appropriate model between the mostly used Poisson and the NB models for crash data modeling. Model goodness-of-fit tests performed indicate that the negative binomial model reflected a better fit to the data. Based on the NB model, no single vehicle color was found to be significantly safer or riskier than white, the baseline color. All the differences noted were not supported by a sound statistical analysis performed

Investigation of the relationship between vehicle color and safety

Over the years, the concern of many, consumers and insurance companies alike, has been geared towards the contribution of vehicle color to the risk of crash. Consequently, there is a need to provide sufficient scientific evidence to back consumers in selecting the appropriate vehicle color that enhances their safety on the road. The present study utilized the induced exposure study design where data was stratified into two groups: color-prone crash group and induced exposure crash group. The color prone crash group includes the types of crashes where vehicle color visibility may play a part in crash occurring such as two or more vehicles in transport crashing, or where pedestrians or motor cyclists are struck. The induced exposure crash group generally includes crashes where vehicle visibility is not likely to be a factor in the crash occurring, such as single vehicle crashes and a vehicle crashing into a parked vehicle or other fixed/stationery objects such as trees, utility poles, etc. The negative binomial (NB) and Poisson distributions were utilized in fitting a generalized linear model to the data. As opposed to previous studies, this study first desired the appropriate model between the mostly used Poisson and the NB models for crash data modeling. Model goodness-of-fit tests performed indicate that the negative binomial model reflected a better fit to the data. Based on the NB model, no single vehicle color was found to be significantly safer or riskier than white, the baseline color. All the differences noted were not supported by a sound statistical analysis performed