An effective going concern prediction model for the sustainability of enterprises and capital market development

The purpose of this study is to construct a two-stage effective and innovative going concern prediction model to predict going concern doubt for the sustainability of enterprises and capital market development. Samples of this study are the companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange or the Taipei Exchange, totalling 196 companies and including 49 companies with going concern doubt and 147 normal companies (with no going concern doubt). The data are taken from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) and the Market Observation Post System during the period from 2001 to 2016 (totalling 16 years). This study adopts a two-stage way to construct the going concern prediction models. In Stage I, the traditional statistical method of stepwise regression (SR) and the data mining technique artificial neural network (ANN) are applied to select the important variables. In Stage II, two decision tree algorithms (data mining techniques): classification and regression tree (CART) and C5.0 are used to establish the prediction models. The results show that the SR + CART model has the highest going concern prediction accuracy, with an overall accuracy of 87.42%.     

基于人文关怀的和谐旅游城市发展模式研究--以上海市为例

从人文关怀的角度出发,探讨了和谐旅游城市的内涵,认为和谐旅游城市发展模式是旅游城市的发展目标和高级阶段,并以上海市为例,提出了建设和谐旅游城市的对策与建议.     

Contagion or Competition: Going Concern Audit Opinions for Real Estate Firms

We examine whether intra–industry information transfers from going–concern audit opinion announcements create contagion or competitive stock price reactions for other real estate firms operating in the same line of business. Using returns from publicly-traded land subdivision/development firms and Real Estate Investment Trusts, we find modest evidence supporting a competitive effect among rival firms as a result of another real estate firm announcing the receipt of a Going Concern Opinion (GCO) from its independent auditors.     

Balance sheet conservatism and audit reporting conservatism

Financial reports are prepared on a going‐concern (GC) basis rather than a liquidation basis even when companies are highly distressed. This allows distressed companies to report book values of assets that greatly exceed their liquidation values, implying a lack of conservatism in the balance sheet. We argue that auditors issue going‐concern opinions in order to warn investors about this lack of balance sheet conservatism. This argument leads to two testable hypotheses. First, for companies that are at risk of bankruptcy, auditors are more likely to issue GC opinions when the book values of assets under the GC assumption are high relative to the expected liquidation values of assets (i.e., when the GC assumption causes the balance sheet to lack conservatism). Second, for companies that enter bankruptcy, the issuance of a prior GC opinion has predictive information content with respect to the wedge between the book values of assets and the future liquidation values of those same assets. Our results strongly support both hypotheses. The findings are important because they indicate that conservative audit reporting helps to compensate for a lack of conservatism in the balance sheet, which arises because the GC assumption permits the book values of assets to exceed their liquidation values.     

The Unintended Consequences of the Frequency of PCAOB Inspection

After more than 50 years of self‐regulation of the US auditing profession, the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) as a quasi‐governmental entity with statutory authority to inspect accounting firms that audit public clients. The frequency of this inspection is annual or triennial, based upon the number of public clients the firm audits. We examine the effects of these two levels of inspection frequency on financial reporting quality and audit fees for clients of small and midsize public accounting firms. Our findings provide evidence of significantly higher audit quality and audit fees for clients of annually inspected firms relative to clients of triennially inspected firms. These findings are robust to auditor‐client alignment analyses, propensity score matching, time‐series analyses, examination of firms that have changed from triennial to annual inspection, and particular examination of firms with inspection deficiencies. Overall, our study suggests that the two‐tier frequency system of PCAOB inspection may have also resulted in two‐tier audit quality and audit fee systems for small and midsize public accounting firms, with more frequent inspection leading to more rigorous and informed auditor decisions. We discuss the implications of our results for the Board and the profession at large.     

The unexpected effect of frugality on green purchase intention

Frugality is frequently associated with sustainable consumer behavior which contributes to a growing resource saving. In this study, we challenge the prevailing view. Compared to the positive effects of frugality, little work has focused on its negative effects. Thus, this study presents a research model which explores whether and how frugality influence green purchase intention. With data collected from 369 participants, the results report that frugality has a negative effect on green purchase intention. It is significantly mediated by motivation to save. In addition, green concern negatively moderates the relationship between frugality and purchase intention, and that between motivation to save and purchase intention. The study provides a deeper understanding of frugality, and develops an avenue to promote sustainable consumption.     

Altruistic or egoistic: Which value promotes organic food consumption among young consumers? A study in the context of a developing nation

The present research attempts to understand the importance of altruistic and egoistic value in determining the young consumers’ intention to buy organic food. Environmental concern was considered as the altruistic value, whereas health concern as egoistic value. Using the convenience sampling method, a total of 304 usable responses was collected from young consumers, with the help of self administered questionnaire survey approach. Data analysis was done using two step structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, i.e. measurement model and structural model. Findings indicated that, both altruistic as well as egoistic value influences the intention to buy organic food among young Indian consumers. However, egoistic value was found to have more impact on the consumers’ organic food purchase intention. The present research is one of the initial attempts in the Indian context to understand the importance of values (altruistic and egoistic) organic food consumption among young consumers.     

Responding to negative online reviews: The effects of hotel responses on customer inferences of trust and concern

Our research examines the perceptions and evaluations of prospective customers toward an online negative review and any accompanying hotel response. The study explores two main issues: whether the presence (versus absence) of an organizational response to negative customer reviews affects the inferences potential consumers draw about the target business, and which aspects of responses affect their impressions. We test the effects of four variables associated with a response: source of response, voice of responder, speed of response, and action frame on two outcomes variables (i.e., customer concern and trust inferences). The provision of an online response (versus no response) enhanced inferences that potential consumers draw regarding the business's trustworthiness and the extent to which it cares about its customers. Using a human voice and a timely response yielded favorable customer inferences. Inferences did not vary with response source or action frame. Implications are drawn for effective management of negative online reviews.     

基于股东利益要求及其实现方式的非财务指标关注程度研究

从股东角度出发,对股东所关注的反映其利益要求和实现方式信息的非财务指标的关注程度进行了排序研究和分组研究。研究表明：股东对不同类的反映其利益要求和实现方式信息的非财务指标的关注程度存在显著的差异。详尽必要的信息披露更易取得股东对企业的理解和支持。因此,企业除应当进行法定性披露和习惯性披露外,还应当根据本企业股东特点和本企业股东对非财务指标关注的需要以及关注程度的差异对非财务指标信息进行科学、恰当的自愿性详细披露,以满足本企业股东关注相关信息的需要。     

Who cares about the environment? An empirical analysis of the evolution of political parties’ environmental concern in European countries (1970–2008)

Why do parties offer environmental policies in their political programs? While a number of papers examine the determinants of citizens’ pro-environmental behaviour, we know little about the extent to which political parties adjust their platform towards environmentalism. We investigate this process through data provided by the Manifesto Project Dataset (CMP) for 20 European countries over the period 1970-2008. Following the literature on public concern towards environment, we examine economic, environmental and political determinants. Our findings provide evidence that political parties’ environmental concern is strongly correlated with their political ideology and with country-level economic conditions.