The Nearshore Fish Fauna of Bonne Bay, a Fjord within Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

A standardized survey of the nearshore fish fauna of Bonne Bay, a fjord within Gros Morne National Park in western Newfoundland, was conducted using beach seines, gill-nets and bottom trawls during the month of June over a seven year period (2002- 2008). The survey documents the presence of 31 fish species (in 17 taxonomic families). Sampling sites varied in benthic habitat and associated fish assemblages. Both juvenile and adult life history stages of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) were present in Bonne Bay, suggesting the presence of a local population or “bay cod stock”. Acadian redfish (Sebastes fasciatus) live in the bay, and may be members of a genetically differentiable population of redfish. Striped wolfish (Anarhichas lupus), a fish species protected under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), inhabits Bonne Bay. Surrounded by Gros Morne National Park, this bay with a diverse fish fauna is a focus of local stewardship and conservation efforts

Euharistijsko slavlje kao izvor duhovnoga kapitala. Slučaj španjolske katoličke škole

Despite decades of secularization, the influence of the Christian tradition is still felt in Europe. This article focuses on the case of Spain, a country that went from being one of the most Catholic to one of the least religious in just a few decades. This article presents the study of spiritual capital using a sample of Spanish youth. There are many spiritual resources, however an example of a clear religious and spiritual resource is the Eucharist, which is still considered »spiritual food« for most Catholics. Therefore, we measure the extent to which the Mass is still a spiritual resource in the secular Spanish landscape. We capture the younger generation’s own expressions. Our results suggest that young people perceive the celebration of the Eucharist as a source of spiritual capital (experience of joy, compassion, gratitude, emotional well-being, resilience, etc.), as more than 65% of the responses refer to some of the indicators of spiritual capital. However, only 8% of students report attending the Mass regularly. The rest of the students either do not participate in the celebration of the Eucharist at all or only sporadically.Unatoč desetljećima sekularizacije, utjecaj se kršćanske tradicije još uvijek osjeća u Europi. Ovaj se članak usredotočuje na slučaj Španjolske, zemlje koja je u samo nekoliko desetljeća od jedne od najviše katoličkih postala jedna od najmanje religioznih. Ovaj članak predstavlja studiju duhovnog kapitala koristeći uzorak španjolske mladeži. Duhovnih je izvora mnogo, no primjer jasnog vjerskog i duhovnog izvora je euharistija, koju većina katolika još uvijek smatra »duhovnom hranom«. Stoga, u prilogu mjerimo u kojoj je mjeri misa još uvijek duhovni resurs u sekularnom španjolskom krajoliku. Nastojimo dohvatiti vlastite izraze mlađe generacije. Naši rezultati upućuju na to da mladi doživljavaju euharistijsko slavlje kao izvor duhovnog kapitala (iskustvo radosti, sućuti, zahvalnosti, emocionalne dobrobiti, otpornosti itd.) budući da se više od 65% odgovora odnosi na neke od pokazatelja duhovnog kapitala. Međutim, samo 8% učenika izjavljuje da redovito pohađa misu. Ostali učenici ili uopće ne sudjeluju u euharistijskom slavlju ili sudjeluju tek sporadično

A Systematic Approach to the Motivations for Earnings Management: A Literature Review

Earnings management literature attempts to understand why managers manipulate earnings. Our paper presents a review of growing body of literature on motivations for the earnings manipulation. In consequence, our objective is to provide an ample classification of the reasons. A selection of leading papers was reviewed systematically from 1985 to early 2019 resulting in 383 articles. The results of the paper are important for both theoretical and empirical researches on the earnings management. For one side, we offer a theoretical discussion on the incentives and factors; on the other side, the paper aims to highlight recent progresses in the field. Screening, classifying and systematic review of earnings management literature do not only generate a structured overview of the work performed in this area during more than thirty years, but it also provides insights for further research. Our findings confirm that earnings management topic remains a fertile ground for academic research. Second, although there are many possible motives for managing earnings, the spotlight has been mainly on those incentives that are related to the stock market. Third, in terms of the factors and characteristics of the environment, the impact of institutional factors (investor protection, ownership concentration, legal enforcement) is especially accentuated by the authors. Finally, our research confirms that there are still many other opportunities to research. Therefore, in the last section we identify potential line of investigations

Detecting earnings management investigation on different models measuring earnings management for emerging Eastern European countries

Earnings management has received considerable attention as numerous papers were investigated different hypotheses. However, there is still no consensus on how efficiently detect and measure earnings managements. Nevertheless, most authors use methodology based on accruals, sophisticated models that attempt to separate total accruals into discretionary and nondiscretionary components. We may find wide range of use of alternative models to measure earnings management. Nevertheless, the researchers typically used five the most popular models: the Jones (1991) model, the modified Jones model (Dechow, Sloan, and Sweeney, 1995), Teoh, Welch and Wong (1998) model, Kasznik (1999) model and Kothari et al. (2005) model. However, it is confirmed that the environment where the company is operating influences on the earnings management. Therefore, we focus our study on the growing market of the developing European countries. In particular, our analysis comprises four different and independent samples from emerging Eastern European countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, since earnings management in Eastern European countries is still barely explored. Consequently, our objective is to evaluate the ability of the existing models on earnings management for the environment of countries from the East of Europe. Our results confirm that the Jones (1991), Shivakumar (1996), Kasznik (1999) and Yoon and Miller model (2002) offers the most reliable results for detecting earnings management in emerging Eastern European post-communism economic environment. Additionally, based on broad analyses the results indicate that there is no superiority of the cross-sectional models vis-à-vis their time-series counterparts. Both methodologies are consistent in detecting earnings management for Eastern European companies. Therefore, we verified the importance of the previous evaluation of the ability of each model for detecting earnings management before its application. It is because each economic environment has different peculiarities and circumstances, as observed in case of our developing European countries

A comparative study on earnings management by Eastern and Western European companies

This study analyzes and compares the earnings management behaviour between Eastern and Western European countries taking into consideration the particularities and differences of both markets. The paper fills this gap in the literature as it analyzes the context of earnings management in the developing Eastern countries and its comparison to the Western well-developed European countries. This is the first study which compares these two markets. The results show that companies in the European countries included in the study, engage in earnings management, in particular in decreasing earnings practices. Around 70% of the companies from Eastern and Western European countries manage earnings to downward. Mean ranks from the Kruskal Wallis test indicate lower manipulation in Western European countries than in Eastern European countries. Additionally, in the heterogeneity of the European countries based on the cluster analysis we confirm that Eastern European countries follow the German companies’ way of managing earnings. Finally, time-line analysis revealed that earnings management does vary in time and in extent for Eastern as well as for Western European countries. Nevertheless, we detect two main tendencies for all European countries: firstly, a decrease in manipulation between 2003/2004 and 2007; and between 2008 and 2009

Debates and studies on earnings management: a geographical perspective

Earnings management is a very complex and compound phenomenon in the light of many years of investigation. Since then numerous books and articles have been written and conferences held on the concept of earnings management. The subject of earnings management in accounting literature grew in popularity, especially during the last dec- ade of the 20th century. It has almost become a tradition, particularly in the popular and business press, to discuss the subject of accounting manipulation. No doubt, earnings management is presented day-to-day in many of the companies which hypothesized the majority of the studies. However, there is no consensus related to the concept of earnings management. Numerous papers have investigated, theoretically and empirically, different hypotheses related to earnings management. Some researchers aimed simply to provide evidence on earnings management; others assume that earnings management has been found in connection with many aspects of the company, such as its role in companies’ problems, financial markets, information asymmetry and agency theory, among others. As a consequence, an ongoing debate on the concept of earnings management is still present in the accounting and finance literature. This article contributes to this debate. Due to the wide variety and the complexity of the issue of earnings management, our objective is to clarify and explain the question of earnings management and support new insights into the key aspects of this issue by conducting a brief literature review from a geographical perspective. We describe in detail the concept of earnings management and ongoing debates on the issue, and we present the existing literature from different countries. Our investigation covers the period of 1985 to 2011 based on journals, conferences, congresses, and other publications, such as: PhD theses, Master’s theses, and some working papers

The development of earnings management research. Review of literature from three different perspectives

The objective of this paper is to review academic evidence on earnings management over the last twenty five years in order to help academic researchers, regulators and investors understand better the issues surrounding earnings management. The paper will be of special interest to investigators just starting to research this topic as we conduct an extensive literature review on earnings management from three different perspectives: a chronological perspective, in which we present the roadmap of the evolution of the earnings management literature in chronological order showing the main developments through the years; a methodological perspective, focusing on the different ways of detecting and measuring earnings management and respective improvements in the models; and a cross-country perspective, presenting the country of origin of the sample used by the authors. The last perspective might be of special interest to authors, as previous studies do not explore this perspective in detail

Earnings management in unlisted firms: cross-country and time difference analyses across four emerging Eastern European countries between 2003-2009

We investigate earnings management in unlisted firms across four emerging Eastern European countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic between 2003-2009. We are interested in determining whether earnings management is being practiced in emerging countries. The question arises as these countries increasingly have more importance in the European market, and till now have been barely explored. Specifically, we investigate whether companies from these emerging countries manage their earnings and whether they do it to increase or decrease the earnings figure. We also analyze whether the manipulation varies in time affected by different events, and cross-sectional analysis between the countries in the sample. Based on discretionary accruals during the period from 2003 to 2009, the results show that an average firm from emerging Eastern European countries manages earnings downwards. Results suggest that the manipulation varies over the years: a decrease in earnings management between 2003 and 2007, and increase in earnings manipulation between 2008 and 2009. We also confirm that there is a significant difference in earnings management between the emerging countries analyzed. Examining earnings management behaviour in new emerging economies may help to understand how managers cope with the pressure in highly competitive European markets. It opens new discussions and debates on the comparison of both European markets, and on the possible investigations of reasons of such manipulation

A new perspective on earnings management in emerging European countries: investigation on environmental factors that explain differences in earnings management

This paper presents a new perspective on earnings management analyzing and comparing emerging European countries in the presence of environmental factors of developing countries. We provide empirical evidence on differences in the extent of earnings management across countries. Developing Eastern European countries experienced important changes. They have been in transition over the past decade, and remain making great strides to overcome the drag exerted by their communist heritage. Nevertheless, the studies on earnings management based on emerging economies are rare and hardly pursued due to the presence of institutional and regulatory differences between developed and emerging economies. Therefore, the present study fulfils the important gap in earnings management literature related to developing countries. Our results confirm that managers from different emerging European countries manage earnings differently. Additionally, we identify that there is not a sole reason affecting the managers’ decisions, but a significant number of circumstances and characteristics. Whether a firm’s environment offers more protection or is characterized by a higher level of development, higher foreign investments, it helps to limit the earnings management. In addition, when accounting and tax are not as strongly aligned with market approach as expected, it also limits the earnings management behaviour of managers

Olfactory Thresholds of the U.S. Population of Home-Dwelling Older Adults: Development and Validation of a Short, Reliable Measure

Current methods of olfactory sensitivity testing are logistically challenging and therefore infeasible for use in in-home surveys and other field settings. We developed a fast, easy and reliable method of assessing olfactory thresholds, and used it in the first study of olfactory sensitivity in a nationally representative sample of U.S. home-dwelling older adults. We validated our method via computer simulation together with a model estimated from 590 normosmics. Simulated subjects were assigned n-butanol thresholds drawn from the estimated normosmic distribution and based on these and the model, we simulated administration of both the staircase and constant stimuli methods. Our results replicate both the correlation between the two methods and their reliability as previously reported by studies using human subjects. Further simulations evaluated the reliability of different constant stimuli protocols, varying both the range of dilutions and number of stimuli (6–16). Six appropriately chosen dilutions were sufficient for good reliability (0.67) in normosmic subjects. Finally, we applied our method to design a 5-minute, in-home assessment of older adults (National Social Life, Health and Aging Project, or NSHAP), which had comparable reliability (0.56), despite many subjects having estimated thresholds above the strongest dilution. Thus, testing with a fast, 6-item constant stimuli protocol is informative, and permits olfactory testing in previously inaccessible research settings