Gender diversity and earnings management: the case of female directors with financial background

Past evidence generally suggests that the presence of female directors on corporate boards tends to improve earnings quality due to these directors’ superior monitoring abilities. However, it is not clear which characteristics and skills of female directors drive such abilities. In this paper, we focus on the financial background of female directors, an area which remains largely unexplored in existing literature. The results show that the participation of female directors with relevant financial background improves earnings quality more than the participation of female directors without such background. In addition, our findings suggest that only female directors possessing relevant financial background and having fewer outside directorships are able to mitigate earnings management and therefore overcommitting expert female directors with more outside directorships would diminish their monitoring ability. We did not find any evidence suggesting that female directors without relevant financial background are able to mitigate earnings management, irrespective of their outside directorships or tenure. We interpret our findings within a theoretical framework that draws on a number of economic and social theories. The results are generally robust after controlling for potential endogeneity problems

Is there a trade-off between accrual-based and real earnings management activities in the presence of (fe) male auditors?

Prior research suggests that the presence of high quality auditors (i.e. proxied by audit firm characteristics) constrains accrual-based earnings management, but it inadvertently leads to higher real activities manipulation. We investigate whether such trade-off exists between accrual-based and real earnings management activities in the presence of female or male auditors. We use a sample of UK firms for the period 2009 to 2016 and find that firms audited by female auditors do not resort to a higher level real activities manipulation when their ability to engage in accruals management is constrained. Overall, our results suggest that the benefits of hiring female auditors (i.e. less accrual-based earnings management) are overwhelmingly higher than the costs they might bring to the client firms (i.e. higher real activities manipulation).N/

The Impact of Multi-Layer Governance on Bank Risk Disclosure in Emerging Markets: The Case of Middle East and North Africa

This study examines the impact of multi-layer governance mechanisms on the level of bank risk disclosure. Using a large dataset from 14 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries over a period of 8 years, our findings are three-fold. First, our results suggest that the presence of a Sharia supervisory board is positively associated with the level of risk disclosure. Second and at the bank-level, we find that ownership structures have a positive effect on the level of risk disclosure. At the country-level, our evidence suggests that control of corruption has a positive effect on the level of bank risk disclosure. Our study is, therefore, a major departure from much of the existing accounting literature that offers new crucial insights that show that firms’ disclosure choices are not mainly shaped by firm-level (internal) governance arrangements, but also country-level (external) governance and religious factors. Our findings have important implications for corporate boards, investors, regulatory authorities, standards-setters and governments relating to the development, implementation and enforcement of corporate and national governance standards

Corporate governance and performance in sports organisations: The case of UK premier leagues

A considerable amount of accounting, economics and finance studies have investigated the link between corporate governance (CG) and performance in profit and non‐profit organisations. This paper departs from the existing literature by investigating the relationship between CG structures and both financial performance (FP, measured as return on assets (ROA) and equity (ROE)) and non‐financial performance, measured as league points won (NFP‐Points), of sports organisations with specific focus on UK premier leagues' football (soccer) teams. We collect data relating to CG structures, FP and NFP‐Points of football clubs playing in the four UK premier leagues in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales along with the English Championship teams over the 2011–2016 period. We analyse our data relating to 80 football clubs over a 6‐year period (generating 397 club‐year observations) by running a number of multivariate analyses to test our hypotheses. Our findings are as follows. First, we find that NFP‐Points is higher in clubs with larger boards, non‐executive directors (NED), CEO role duality, and higher percentage of foreign and/or younger directors, but lower in firms with higher percentage of female directors. Second and by contrast, we find that the relationship between these same set of variables and FP is, however, insignificant except for boards with NED that remained significant and negatively related to ROA. Our findings appear to reflect the prioritisation of on‐the‐field performance over off‐the‐field performance by sports organisations. Our evidence is largely robust to using alternative measures and estimation models

Association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and biomarkers of oxidative stress among patients hospitalised with acute myocardial infarction

Objective To determine whether exposure to environmental tobacco smoke was associated with oxidative stress among patients hospitalised for acute myocardial infarction.<p></p> Design An existing cohort study of 1,261 patients hospitalised for acute myocardial infarction.<p></p> Setting Nine acute hospitals in Scotland.<p></p> Participants Sixty never smokers who had been exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (admission serum cotinine ≥3.0 ng/mL) were compared with 60 never smokers who had not (admission serum cotinine ≤0.1 ng/mL).<p></p> Intervention None.<p></p> Main outcome measures Three biomarkers of oxidative stress (protein carbonyl, malondialdehyde (MDA) and oxidised low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL)) were measured on admission blood samples and adjusted for potential confounders.<p></p> Results After adjusting for baseline differences in age, sex and socioeconomic status, exposure to environmental tobacco smoke was associated with serum concentrations of both protein carbonyl (beta coefficient 7.96, 95% CI 0.76, 15.17, p = 0.031) and MDA (beta coefficient 10.57, 95% CI 4.32, 16.81, p = 0.001) but not ox-LDL (beta coefficient 2.14, 95% CI −8.94, 13.21, p = 0.703).<p></p> Conclusions Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke was associated with increased oxidative stress. Further studies are requires to explore the role of oxidative stress in the association between environmental tobacco smoke and myocardial infarction.<p></p&gt

Effects of Hepatitis B Virus S Protein Exposure on Sperm Membrane Integrity and Functions

Background: Hepatitis B is a public health problem worldwide. Viral infection can affect a man’s fertility, but only scant information about the influence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection on sperm quality is available. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of hepatitis B virus S protein (HBs) on human sperm membrane integrity and functions. Methods/Principal Findings: Reactive oxygen species (ROS), lipid peroxidation (LP), total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and phosphatidylserine (PS) externalization were determined. The terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assays and flow cytometric analyses were performed. (1) After 3 h incubation with 25 mg/ml of HBs, the average rates of ROS positive cells, annexin V–positive/propidium iodide (PI)-negative cells, Caspases-3,-8,-9 positive cells and TUNEL-positive cells were significantly increased in the test groups as compared to those in the control groups, while TAC level was decreased when compared with the control. The level of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the sperm cells exposed to 50 mg/ml of HBs for 3 h was significantly higher than that in the control (P,0.05–0.01). (2) HBs increased the MDA levels and the numbers of ROS positive cells, annexin V–positive/PI-negative cells, caspases-3,-8,-9 positive cells and TUNEL-positive cells in a dose-dependent manner. (3) HBs monoclonal antibody (MAb) and N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) reduced the number of ROS-positive sperm cells. (4) HBs decreased the TAC levels in sperm cells in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion: HBs exposure could lead to ROS generation, lipid peroxidation, TAC reduction, PS externalization, activation o

Potential Role for a Panel of Immunohistochemical Markers in the Management of Endometrial Carcinoma

Background In order to improve the efficacy of endometrial carcinoma (EC) treatment, identifying prognostic factors for high risk patients is a high research priority. This study aimed to assess the relationships among the expression of estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), Ki-67, and the different histopathological prognostic parameters in EC and to assess the value of these in the management of EC. Methods We examined 109 cases of EC. Immunohistochemistry for ER, PR, HER2, and Ki-67 were evaluated in relation to age, tumor size, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage and grade, depth of infiltration, cervical and ovarian involvement, lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI), and lymph node (LN) metastasis. Results The mean age of patients in this study was 59.8 ± 8.2 years. Low ER and PR expression scores and high Ki-67 expression showed highly significant associations with non-endometrioid histology (p = .007, p < .001, and p < .001, respectively) and poor differentiation (p = .007, p < .001, and p <. 001, respectively). Low PR score showed a significant association with advanced stage (p = .009). Low ER score was highly associated with LVSI (p = .006), and low PR scores were associated significantly with LN metastasis (p = .026). HER2 expression was significantly related to advanced stages (p = .04), increased depth of infiltration (p = .02), LVSI (p = .017), ovarian involvement (p = .038), and LN metastasis (p = .038). There was a close relationship between HER2 expression and uterine cervical involvement (p = .009). Higher Ki-67 values were associated with LN involvement (p = .012). Conclusions The over-expression of HER2 and Ki-67 and low expression of ER and PR indicate a more malignant EC behavior. An immunohistochemical panel for the identification of high risk tumors can contribute significantly to prognostic assessments

A Combined Transcriptomics and Lipidomics Analysis of Subcutaneous, Epididymal and Mesenteric Adipose Tissue Reveals Marked Functional Differences

Depot-dependent differences in adipose tissue physiology may reflect specialized functions and local interactions between adipocytes and surrounding tissues. We combined time-resolved microarray analyses of mesenteric- (MWAT), subcutaneous- (SWAT) and epididymal adipose tissue (EWAT) during high-fat feeding of male transgenic ApoE3Leiden mice with histology, targeted lipidomics and biochemical analyses of metabolic pathways to identify differentially regulated processes and site-specific functions. EWAT was found to exhibit physiological zonation. De novo lipogenesis in fat proximal to epididymis was stably low, whereas de novo lipogenesis distal to epididymis and at other locations was down-regulated in response to high-fat diet. The contents of linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid in EWAT were increased compared to other depots. Expression of the androgen receptor (Ar) was higher in EWAT than in MWAT and SWAT. We suggest that Ar may mediate depot-dependent differences in de novo lipogenesis rate and propose that accumulation of linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid in EWAT is favored by testosterone-mediated inhibition of de novo lipogenesis and may promote further elongation and desaturation of these polyunsaturated fatty acids during spermatogenesis

Female Audit Partners and Extended Audit Reporting: UK Evidence

This study investigates whether audit partner gender is associated with the extent of auditor disclosure and the communication style regarding risks of material misstatements that are classified as key audit matters (KAMs). Using a sample of UK firms during the 2013–2017 period, our results suggest that female audit partners are more likely than male audit partners to disclose more KAMs with more details after controlling for both client and audit firm attributes. Furthermore, female audit partners are found to use a less optimistic tone and provide less readable audit reports, compared to their male counterparts, suggesting that behavioural variances between female and male audit partners may have significant implications on their writing style. Therefore, this study offers new insights on the role of audit partner gender in extended audit reporting. Our findings have important implications for audit firms, investors, policymakers and governments in relation to the development, implementation and enforcement of gender diversity