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Earnings per share (EPS) is a key ratio which must be disclosed in the financial statements of South African listed enterprises. It is used to compare the performance of an enterprise over time and to compare its performance with that of other enterprises. Financial analysts also use EPS to calculate the price‐earnings (PE) ratio. In South Africa, listed companies are required to disclose three EPS measures, namely basic EPS (BEPS), diluted EPS (DEPS) and headline EPS (HEPS). This article reports on the results of a study of financial managers’ perceptions of the importance of HEPS and the actual disclosure practices relating to HEPS in selected listed companies’ annual reports. This article also reports on financial managers’ perceptions of selected other accounting measures of performance (such as EPS) and other financial indicators not ordinarily found in the annual report (such as the PE ratio), of the importance of EPS measures in general and of headline EPS in particular. The study found support for HEPS, compared to other per share measures, despite misconceptions regarding the objective of HEPS. The study also found that 95% of the selected companies disclosed HEPS together with the required reconciliation. However, half of the companies contravened the headline earnings definition. As a result, approximately one third of all selected companies overstated their HEPS.

This study aims to investigate the post-implementation impact of expensing share-based payment transactions on basic earnings per share. In recent years, IFRS 2 was one of the most opposed and controversial standards issued by the IASB.

The sample relates to the period immediately after implementation (2006-2009) and consists of the 531 firm-year observations where share-based payments were present among Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies. The effect of share-based payments on basic earnings per share is assessed.

The findings of this study show a statistically significant impact on basic earnings per share, but the results are more modest than suggested by prior studies. The number of companies reporting a share-based payment expense increased over the five-year period 2005-2009.

The introduction of IFRS 2 caused small but not necessarily immaterial changes to the income profile of companies. This is important for analysts and general users of financial information who need to be aware of these changes. The results also suggest that IFRS 2 did not merely cause accounting policy changes, but has impacted on the way share-based payment transactions are used by companies.

This paper aims to examine whether high equity incentives motivate executives to avoid issuing convertible debt and/or to design convertible debt issues as anti-dilutive to earnings-per-share (EPS).

Tests are conducted using the Heckman two-step probit model to control for potential self-selection bias between firms that issue straight debt and those that issue convertible debt. Further, analyses are conducted separately and jointly for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to assess the differential impact of CEOs’ and CFOs’ equity incentives on convertible debt issuance and design decisions.

Firms are more likely to design convertible debt issues as anti-dilutive to EPS when CFOs have high levels of equity incentives, but only when the firm stock price is sensitive to diluted EPS. High CEOs’ equity incentives have limited impact of convertible debt issuance and design decisions.

The main limitation of this study is the generalizability of the findings and implications of this study due to the smaller sample size of convertible debt issues.

Prior research has shown that bonus incentives influence CEOs with disincentive for EPS dilution and motivate them to make anti-dilutive financing decisions. Further, there is evidence that high equity incentives motivate CEOs to manage earnings to boost short-term prices. This study extends prior literature by showing that high equity incentives provide executives with disincentive for EPS dilution and motivate CFOs to design convertible debt issues as anti-dilutive to EPS possibly to avoid reduced stock prices. Further, this study shows that CFOs have greater influence over convertible debt design choices than CEOs do.

An important objective of corporate governance reforms is to increase transparency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this objective of corporate governance reforms of 2002 was achieved in Russia.

This paper utilizes the data collected from UBS Brunswick's “Russian Equity Guides” published during 1999‐2004, and companies’ annual reports. The modified accrual model of Jones presented by Dechow et al. is used to ascertain the quality of reported earnings of 91 Russian listed companies during the pre‐ and post‐ reform periods.

This research paper shows that the quality of earnings – measured as the inverse of absolute discretionary accruals – is not affected by the 2002 reforms in Russia. Therefore, one of the most important objectives of bringing transparency in the Russian corporate sector was not successfully achieved. Instead, this paper finds that adoption of international financial reporting standards (IAS/USGAAP) by Russian listed companies improved the transparency of corporate disclosures irrespective of the reforms. Moreover, the need for large capital investments after the Russian financial crisis of 1998 was depicted by maintaining large pools of accruals by Russian listed companies. Finally, the results show ferrous metal and telecom sector companies have generally lower quality of earnings than other sectors.

This paper builds on the previous accounting literature by studying the determinants of the quality of reported earnings in one of the most interesting emerging economies. The study re‐emphasizes the importance of legal and regulatory framework in determining the level of corporate transparency in emerging economies. The results obtained here are insightful for future accounting research and policy makers in assessing the potential pros and cons of regulatory reforms. However, the paper does not judge or comment on the quality and enforcement of the prescribed reforms. The results describe the trend of the accounting quality in Russia during the analysis period only.

This is one of the first studies on Russian listed firms testing the impacts of the most important of all reforms introduced in Russia since the fall of the USSR. This extends the knowledge not only for academics and investors but for Russian policy makers in particular and for corporate regulators in other emerging markets in general.

This chapter examines the sensitivity of executive incentive compensation to market-adjusted returns and changes in earnings for high-tech (HT) firms vis-à-vis firms (NHT) in other industries. Consistent with the hypotheses, this chapter uncovers the following evidence: First, the sensitivity of executive bonus compensation to market-adjusted returns is weaker and more symmetric for HT firms than for NHT firms (a control group), which implies that the problem of ex post settling up, documented in Leone et al. (2006), may be far less serious in HT firms than in NHT firms. Second, the sensitivity of executive incentive compensation to earnings changes is generally more symmetric for HT firms than for NHT firms, which is consistent with the view that HT firms engage in more conservative financial reporting than NHT firms. Third, the sensitivity of executive equity-based compensation to market-adjusted returns is significantly negative for HT firms compared to NHT firms when bad earnings news is announced. The results imply that HT firms, with a strong motive to attract and retain their highly talented executives, judiciously use both short-term and long-term incentive compensation schemes by compensating for a reduction of short-term incentive pay with an increase in long-term incentive pay. The issue of executive compensation has been a longstanding one in the United States and Canada, and the issue of executive compensation-performance sensitivity for HT firms is also relevant in this era of the information technology (IT) revolution, especially when prior research has shown that HT firms differ from NHT firms in their market-valuation process.

The aim of the paper is to examine the association of corporate governance (CG), the firms’ characteristics and the financial performance of firms operating in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region after Arab Spring. The study focuses on CG, exemplified by boards’ composition and ownership structure. It also explores the possible moderating effects of environmental social and governance characteristics (ESG), leverage and size on the relationship between CG and the company’s performance.

Using Thomson-Reuters database, a sample of 67 firms was extracted in the MENA region to measure CG and financial performance post Arab Spring from 2012 to 2016. Panel GLS regression random effects is used to quantify the relationship; robustness is checked by using several alternative regressions and specifications to the performance measure.

The results reveal that board independence (BI) is negatively correlated with firm profitability but ownership concentration and board gender diversification contribute to profits. When firms that voluntarily form a governance committee are examined, ownership is less concentrated. We obtain a stronger impact of good governance on performance in these firms: board composition, in general, and workers’ satisfaction generate more profits; and undertaking ESG activities become a more dispensable activity. The effect of board size (BS) and forming a governance committee are studied and ensuing recommendations are drawn. In addition, relevant internal control of firms’ characteristics that strongly predict firms’ market values are discussed in the context of agency and stewardship theories.

Despite the fact that governance-performance nexus has been extensively discussed and examined, the focus of this volume of research is on western developed countries. The growing economies of the MENA countries, and the limited governance-performance literature in the MENA context have created a demand to understand the governance environment in these countries and its influence on firm’s performance. In this region where firms’ owners are mainly family members, governments and/or institutions, governance is typically weak; moreover, ownership concentration is expected to guarantee good performance, as the role of independent directors becomes ineffective. For firms where ownership is more diluted, a sound governance system should be established to replace ownership concentration, and to more efficiently monitor management, and consequently improve firm performance. Therefore, this study not only contributes a summary of the prevailing corporate structure in MENA. Moreover, it explains the settings where both the stewardship and agency theories apply in MENA firms. Some recommendation on the importance of changes to the existing governance rules are highlighted in terms of more rules requiring board independence, board gender diversity, limits on board size and establishing governance committees.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of agency risk implied in case of personal debt obtained by promoters through pledging of their stock on accrual and real earnings management practices.

In this paper abnormal accruals, as suggested in Dechow et al. (1995), and the real earnings management proxies as indicated in Dechow et al. (1998) and Roychowdhury (2006) are used. OLS regression is run over 29,054 firm-years of Indian companies starting from the year 2008 to 2016. Then the occurrence of earnings management is tested in firms in year t where promoters pledge/release their holdings from the pledge in year t+1.

The findings suggest that earnings management increases in the prior year with an increase in the proportion of promoters’ stock pledge in the subsequent year. The authors find evidence for increased earnings management through accruals and also for real earnings management using abnormal cash flows and abnormal discretionary expenses. However, the authors do not find real earnings management using abnormal production cost as a measure.

The paper has considerable implications on managerial behavior toward earnings management because of the flexibility managers have in applying accounting policies and authority in operating decisions under domestic GAAP, and IFRS and earnings are prone to management tactics, fostering agency risk when they relate to the welfare of decision makers.

This paper addresses the consequences of individual borrowing of promoters collateralized by their stake in the firm, which is a global phenomenon, on reporting quality.

This research examines the bidirectional relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) voluntary disclosure engagement and financial performance of a panel of banks extracted from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) banking industry, covering a period of 11 years (2007–2017). We find that GCC banks, and in particular Islamic banks, voluntarily disclose low level of information related to ESG activities. Using system GMM methodology, we provide evidence that ESG disclosure adversely affects bank performance, regardless of the bank performance measure used. Thus spending on ESG turns out to be costly for GCC banks, a result that is consistent with the agency problem, where managers are likely to reduce long-term expenditures related to ESG actions in order to boost short-term profits. As managers' compensations often relate to short-term financial performance, managers tend to reduce their spending on ESG activities. Furthermore, contrary to previous research, our results indicate that the relationship between ESG and financial performance is bidirectional and dynamic. We also find evidence that ESG disclosure positively affects performance only for well-diversified banks. Finally, although conventional banks disclose significantly more information related to ESG activities, we do not find any significant differences between the two types of banks in the relationship between ESG disclosure and performance. Our suggestion is that these results are consistent with what we call “clientele” and “gravitation” effects, where a customer tends to choose to deal with the bank that reflects his religious beliefs (gravitation effect) and with the bank that provides him with the best services (clientele effect) regardless of its ESG disclosure.

In June 2001, the owners of this small rapidly growing sports promotion firm are assessing the financing implications of their growth plans. Threshold Sports organizes professional cycling races, and holds major race franchises for several large U.S. cities. It seeks to expand quickly the number of events that it manages, eventually to build professional cycling in the United States to a level consistent with Europe. The growth outlook creates a financing need of $500,000. The case presents three financing alternatives: debt, common equity, and convertible preferred stock. The task for the student is to assess the alternatives and make a recommendation. The choice hinges importantly on the estimated value of the firm.

It has been found that stock market returns vary seasonally with the amount of daylight, and they attribute this effect to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is a psychological condition that causes depression and heightened risk aversion during the fall and winter months. The goal of this study is to examine whether this effect also manifests itself in the pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs).

The authors conduct an empirical analysis on IPO data collected over the period 1986‐2000. Specifically, we examine potential pricing differences between IPO that go public during the fall and winter months, relative to other issues. The paper begins by exploring differences on a univariate basis (i.e. testing via t‐statistics), subsequently extending the analysis by controlling for firm and offer characteristics in a multiple regression framework.

The paper finds that IPOs experience higher levels of underpricing in both the fall and winter months and that offer price revisions are higher during the winter months. Both of these results are consistent with SAD influencing the IPO pricing process.

The results suggest that behavioral issues (i.e. the emotions of buyers) may have as much of an effect on the pricing of IPOs as more traditional characteristics. Further, the results imply that firms with flexible issuance schedules should avoid going public during months affected by SAD, thereby potentially reducing the cost of issuance.