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Firms in different countries operate in different business environments and prepare financial statements following, by necessity, their own countries' accounting standards. Benchmarks for assessing financial ratios of firms in different countries are likely to be different. In conducting financial ratio analyses, each country's unique cultural, business, financial, and regulatory characteristics have to be taken into consideration, for these external factors may exert significant effects on measurements of financial data. This study aims to investigate challenges in comparing financial ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms.

This study compares ten major financial ratios of 75 Chinese firms with financial ratios of 75 matched sample Japanese firms to determine if a common benchmark for each of the financial ratios can be applied to firms in both countries.

The results show significant differences in liquidity, solvency, and activity ratios between firms from these two countries. Further examination of differences in accounting standards, economic, and institutional environments between these two countries suggests that these external factors have significant effects on financial ratios and may have contributed to the observed differences.

This study is among the first to investigate the comparability of ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms to uncover potential challenges and warn investors of such challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of female board membership on the profitability of corporate insider purchases.

The authors use a classic event study approach. They measure abnormal returns around the insider purchase events, and analyze the cross-sectional variation of this market impact in terms of female board membership, controlling for a range of other factors.

The authors find a strong positive market reaction in the aggregated data, and after decomposing transactions according to gender, they find that the profitability of female directors is statistically indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Additionally, they find evidence that with more females sitting on the board, the profitability of the male directors decreases but the profitability of their female counterparts does not.

The authors’ findings suggest that having females on the board increases corporate governance of male directors. The results also suggest that female directors are no less inclined to exploit the asymmetric information advantage provided by board membership.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of tenure on earnings management.

Analytical model; multivariate regression analysis.

The paper predicts that managers are conservative in managing earnings when they first start to take top managerial positions, and then become aggressive in the next few years. Once they reach the maximum level of earnings management, they will become conservative again and report earnings less aggressively. This inverted U-shaped relationship between tenure and earnings management is confirmed by the data from the Chinese stock market.

It is based on China stock market data. Generalization of the research results to other countries is limited.

With the knowledge of when earnings management is more likely to occur, regulators can set up policies targeting firms and managers with certain characteristics, instead of requiring observances from all firms and managers. This limited scope can greatly reduce the costs of preventing and identifying earnings management, while effectively maintaining the quality of earnings in the meantime.

This paper examines the earnings management behavior related to CEO tenure. It is hoped that the research results can improve the overall understanding of earnings management, then social wealth spent on preventing and identifying it could be reduced.

It is an original work.

Recent trends have seen an upward surge in the number of foreign students coming to study in Australia but most of them have chosen to stay in metropolitan cities. Recognising that foreign students studying in regional Australia are making a significant contribution to regional development, regional universities have put in plans to compete with their metropolitan counterparts for these students. The purpose of this paper is to investigate variables related to issues in quality of research, quality of teaching, life style, local cultures, spending patterns, student background, infrastructures etc in order to find out what factors determine the attractiveness for foreign students to come to study in a regional area, in particular to La Trobe University, Bendigo campus.

A survey that forms the backbone of the study was administered to all foreign students, who study in Bendigo, in order to answer this research question.

Based on the findings from the survey, it was found that regional universities have advantages over their metropolitan counterparts in costs, safety and environment etc.

A direct economic benefit of over one million dollars was realised by the city of Bendigo but there was potential to increase to three million dollars. Some recommendations were also provided for future development policy useful for the University, the governments, and regional centres’ economy.

Although educational export has become a vital part of the Australian economy, very few studies, if any, have examined the magnitude of the economic impacts that have been brought about by international students to regional Australia. To sustain the healthy economic growth of regional centres in Australia, a significant number of international students must be maintained so as to bring the wealth that is becoming so indispensable in order to maintain such sustainable growth. The international students will also bring with them the cultural diversity that otherwise is lacking in regional cities compared to other major cities in Australia. This study seeks to address and quantify the degree and extent of the economic impacts to Bendigo, an important regional city in Victoria. Factors that influence the decisions before the international students actually come to Australia are also examined together with what cultural activities they get involved in when they are here. The findings can provide measurable outputs for decision makers to direct necessary resources appropriately in order to sustain the growth of this industry and to develop strategies to address some problems related to the continuing growth of this industry.

While the use of computerized decision aids in accounting is widespread, little is known about the effects of decision aids on accounting decision making. However, prior research has often noted the difficulty in getting users to accept and rely upon decision aids (Rose, 2002). A primary area of focus in the design of decision aids that will facilitate user acceptance and reliance has been the development of user-centered interfaces that increase the user's comfort with the aid. This study contributes to this body of research by extending the findings of Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983) on the use of informational versus controlling rewards to the context of a decision aid and the interface design. While Ryan et al. focused on the effects of verbal feedback on intrinsic motivation, this study focuses on the impact of text-based feedback from a decision aid on decision performance for a choice task. Additionally, this study examines the effect of task-contingent versus performance-contingent rewards on the impact of the decision aid feedback. The results indicate a differential effect from that of Ryan et al. (1983) when feedback is provided through a decision aid and the focus is on decision performance rather than the precursor condition of intrinsic motivation. Additional research is needed to help explain why the findings obtained by Ryan et al. do not hold in the context of computerized decision aid use when decision performance is measured directly. There are important implications of these findings both in terms of theory development and decision aid design in professional decision-making environments such as accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the relatively rules-based US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the more principles-based International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) provide different opportunities for earnings management (EM). Such an examination is critical as the world moves toward principles-based standards.

Financial information for the fiscal years 1999-2004 from the annual reports of firms listed under the Prime Standard on the Germany Frankfurt Stock Exchange is analyzed. Data from the German Frankfurt Stock Exchange are used to resolve the difficulty in comparing accounting standards across different markets and countries with different institutional factors and corporate governance issues. The unique feature of dual listing in the German Frankfurt Stock Exchange allows firms listing shares under the Prime Standard to report in accordance with either the US GAAP or the IAS/IFRS before the IFRS adoption by the European Union in 2005. Strong legal enforcement in Germany ensures that reporting under each standard is in close compliance to the standard under comparison. Extending extant IFRS vs US GAAP EM research with discretionary accruals, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding by also examining EM through deferred tax expense and EM through research and development investment.

The findings reveal that EM through research and development investment is significantly higher for the IAS/IFRS firms. Similar to prior findings, EM through accruals is not found to be significantly different between US GAAP and IAS/IFRS firms.

The findings of this study advance the understanding of differences between US GAAP and IFRS with data from Germany where legal enforcement of standards is strong. In particular, this study reveals that principles-based standards with imprecise rules like IAS/IFRS may encourage structured management due to the expectation of error costs and compliance uncertainty. The results inform regulators considering IAS/IFRS adoption. In addition, this research highlights the importance of considering real EM in US GAAP vs IAS/IFRS studies.