Economic trends in 1991/92 Western industrialised countries: the business cycle bottoms out

Economic trends in 1991/92 Western industrialised countries: the business cycle bottoms out     

How Much Do Corporate Defendants Really Lose? A New Verdict on the Reputation Loss Induced by Corporate Litigation

Using a novel sample of 83,260 lawsuits filed in US Federal District courts, we extend the results of prior studies investigating market value and reputational losses due to corporate misconduct. We examine alternative explanations for the loss in market value, such as media coverage, the expectation of subsequent litigation, and the defendant's willingness to settle, in addition to previously documented factors. Our results suggest that with the exception of securities litigation, this loss in market value can be attributed to these alternative explanations rather than to reputational consequences. This finding is confirmed by several indirect measures of reputation loss.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from the Czech Republic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to characterize the extent to which International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is used as a reference point for national accounting rules in the Czech Republic (CR) and what elements are incorporated in Czech Accounting Regulation, paying particular attention to the latest amendment to the Accounting Act (AA) based on the EU accounting Directive (2013/34/EU). Methods used include analysis of Ministry of Finance documents, interviews with the team members who participated in the new wording of the AA to adapt it to the EU Directive and comparison of current to existing IFRS reporting rules. The results confirm that IFRS implementation in the CR is determined by economic and institutional factors, a major part of which is played by foreign ownership of dominant Czech companies and their subordinate position as subsidiaries of foreign entities and the weak capital market. Implementation of elements of IFRS into Czech accounting standards is still only partial. This process takes place as an integral part of the process of reorientation of the entire economic system toward market principles, which includes the accounting system. Each change of the AA involves some elements of IFRS; however, between the two systems, there are still significant differences, the roots of which lie in a different (continental) model of accounting.     

Special Issue on Tax Research

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the links that continue to be forged between security pricing and accounting, building on recent findings that firms tend to be asymmetrically conservative in the timeliness of earnings recognition. The evidence is that firms in the European Union tend to recognise unrealised losses more quickly in their earnings than unrealised gains (Giner and Rees, 2001 Giner, B. and Rees, W. 2001. On the asymmetric recognition of good and bad news in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 28(9/10): 1285–1331.  [Google Scholar]; Raonic et al., forthcoming), and there is evidence of even greater accounting conservatism in the USA (Basu, 1997 Basu, S. 1997. The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24: 3–37. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ball et al., 2000 Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Givoly and Hayn, 2000 Givoly, D. and Hayn, C. 2000. The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: has financial reporting become more conservative?. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 287–320. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This paper investigates whether the Czech market exhibits conformity with the behaviour that has been documented elsewhere by examining the earnings/returns relationship, focusing to begin with on the impact of losses on earnings response coefficients and then considering the asymmetric timeliness of income recognition in the Czech market. The findings indicate that the Czech market is similar to more developed markets, at least in one respect: there is statistically significant evidence of different market effects of profits and losses, in that profits are more persistent than losses. However, contrary to the findings in more developed markets, there is no statistically significant evidence of earnings conservatism in the Czech market. These results are most probably due to the continuing influence of restrictive tax regulations that mitigate any tendency towards conservatism, as well as the transitional nature of the economy. A further reason is likely to be that the regulatory environment in the Czech Republic is close to the kind of stakeholder corporatism that is described by Ball et al. (2000) Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], who show that conservatism tends to be less pronounced in such regimes where there are fewer managerial incentives to bias current earnings. In conclusion, if changes in market prices signal good news and bad news about future risky outcomes, there is no evidence of asymmetry in the Czech market in accounting for such risks.     

Human Resource Management and the Permeable Organization: The Case of the Multi‐Client Call Centre*

ABSTRACT Despite the interest over recent years in the fragmentation of organizations and the development of contracting, little attention has been paid to the impact of the associated inter‐organizational relationships on the internal organization of employment. Inter‐organizational relations have been introduced primarily as a means of externalizing – and potentially rendering invisible – employment issues and employment relations. In a context where inter‐organizational relationships appear to be growing in volume and diversity, this constitutes a significant gap in the literature that this paper in part aims to fill. The purpose of the paper is two‐fold: to develop a framework for considering the internal and external organizational influences on employment and to apply this framework within a case study of a multi‐client outsourcing call centre. We explore the interactions between internal objectives, client demands and the use of external contracting in relation to three dimensions of employment policy: managing the wage‐effort bargain, managing flexibility and managing commitment and performance. It is the interplay between these factors in a dynamic context that provides, we suggest, the basis for a more general framework for considering human resource policy in permeable organizations.     

Consumer strategic decision making and choice process: prefabricated house purchase

This study examines the consumer choice process in case of strategic purchases, such as house buying. In view of the existing literature exploring consumer decision making and choice for strategically important products, the purpose of this research is twofold: (a) to develop a conceptual model of strategic decision making; and (b) to empirically explore this model with regard to prefabricated house purchases. The results of our qualitative research suggest that in addition to the idiosyncratic characteristics of the customer, his or her personal situation, environmental factors, the role of feelings, experience, subconscious factors, needs, and goals should to be taken into account to better understand strategic consumer decision making and their choice process when buying a house.