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The main purpose of this study is to examine the disclosure of earnings forecasts in firms' prospectuses to explain investor demands or, in other words, oversubscription rates of Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs).

Ordinary least squares and robust methods were used to examine cross-sectional data comprising 466 fixed-price IPOs reported for the period from January 2000 to February 2020 on Bursa Malaysia.

The results showed that IPOs with earnings forecasts obtained higher oversubscription rates than those without earnings forecasts. IPOs with earnings forecasts provide value-relevant signals to prospective investors about the good prospects of firms, resulting in an increase in the demand for IPO shares. For the IPO samples listed during the global financial crisis (GFC) period, IPOs with earnings forecasts had negative impacts on the oversubscription rates. These results were robust to quantile methods and the two-stage least squares method.

The research findings provide fresh information for investors regarding the importance of earnings forecasts as a trustworthy signal of a firm’s quality when making share subscription decisions.

The regulator is advised to encourage issuers to include earnings forecasts in their prospectuses since such forecasts help to increase the demand for IPOs.

This study contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence regarding the signalling impact of earnings forecast disclosures on investor demands for Malaysian IPOs. Moreover, this study provides evidence demonstrating the impact of earnings forecast disclosures on oversubscription rates of Malaysian IPOs during the GFC period.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the informational value of Shariah-compliant disclosure in the Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs) prospectus and whether Shariah-compliant status has an impact on the IPO initial return when adopted as a signalling mechanism.

It uses data from 320 IPOs for Shariah-compliant companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia between 2004 and 2013.

It finds that the degree of IPO underpricing for Shariah-compliant companies is 19.97 per cent with investors earning significant returns on the first trading day. For the effect of different factors on the degree of IPO, we find that the size and type of IPO offers have a significant impact on the degree of IPO underpricing. Other economic confidence factor models fail to yield economically plausible parameter values.

The study contributes to the literature in a number of ways. It is the first to evaluate the effect of Shariah-compliance status regulation in Malaysian market, hence it provides an insight into the effectiveness of such regulation. Second, while the existing Shariah-compliant IPO studies in the same market focus on Shariah status at the date of the studies being conducted, this study uses the information around IPO time. The information that investors receive around IPO time may influence investors’ decision and valuation of the IPOs in the aftermarket. Specifically, this study is different from the previous research, as it investigates whether Shariah-compliant companies would change the average degree of IPO underpricing for companies listed on Bursa Malaysia.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of information disclosure by unlisted bond issuers on the stock price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry.

This paper takes advantage of information disclosure during the bond issuance and examines the spillover effect of unlisted bond issuers' information disclosure on listed firms in the stock market. The sample is composed of A-share firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2007 to 2018. All the data are obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research and WIND databases. The impact of bond market information disclosure on price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry is identified through multivariate regression analyses.

Empirical results show that price informativeness of listed firms has a significantly positive association with the information disclosure of same-industry unlisted bond issuers. Further analyses show that the above finding is more significant when information disclosure of bond issuers is a more important channel for acquiring industry information (i.e. when industry is more concentrated, when economic uncertainty is high, and when industry information is less transparent) and understanding the industry competitive landscape (i.e. when bond issuers are relatively large, when bond issuers and listed firms have more direct product competition, when bond issuance firms are large-scale state-owned business groups), and when there are more cross-market information intermediaries (i.e. more cross-market institutional investors and more sell-side analysts). This paper indicates that information disclosure of bond issuers has a positive spillover effect on the stock market.

The novelty of the research is that the authors examine industry information spillover from unlisted firms to listed firms leveraging on unlisted firms' information disclosure in bond markets.

While known by many names, qualifying exams function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD candidacy, yet there has been little formal study on best qualifying exam practices particularly in biomedical and related STEM PhD programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of qualifying exams through an examination of the literature and exploration of university-wide policies.

The authors conducted a literature review of studies on qualifying exams and completed an external evaluation of peer institutions’ and internal institutional qualifying exam requirements to inform our discussion of qualifying exams practices in PhD training at a research-intensive US institutions.

This study identified the need for more research on qualifying exams to establish evidence-based best practices. The authors found a wide variety of qualifying exam formats, with little evidence in support for specific formats. The authors also found little evidence that student expectations are made clear. The lack of evidence-based best practices coupled with insufficient clarity for students has a real potential to disadvantage PhD students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority, international and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socialized to navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the qualifying exams.

There are very few studies that evaluate qualifying exams in US doctoral education, particularly in STEM fields, and to the authors’ knowledge, there has been no analysis of campus-wide policies on qualifying exams reported. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of qualifying exams are discussed.

The aim of this research is to contribute to the existing literature about the entrepreneurial conditions in crowd-based contexts by describing how different European countries regulate equity crowdfunding market in order to incentive the investments and protect investors.

Based on a legal acts' analysis, we conduct a qualitative study comparing the crowdfunding regulation addressed to investors. In particular, we focus our analysis on the European countries with the highest concentration of crowdfunding platforms (i.e. the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain).

The results show that some countries, such as the UK, Germany and France, present an investor-oriented approach based on non-restrictive regulation, while other countries, such as Spain and Italy, have a restrictive approach that protects investors excessively and discourages them. In particular, the case study of France shows how the introduction of unrestricted regulation can produce positive effects on the volume of crowdfunding transactions.

The paper is addressed to investors, policymakers and intermediaries (platforms) to help the first in orienting themselves between the different crowdfunding regulations and the latter in aligning and orchestrating rules and norms.

This is the first study that analyses the role of investor-oriented regulations in the promotion of entrepreneurship through the identification of four key factors to monitor equity crowdfunding regulations.

This paper aims to explain the fundraising and valuation processes of startups and discuss the conflicts of interest between entrepreneurs, venture capital (VC) firms and stakeholders in the context of startup corporate governance. Further, this paper uses the examples of WeWork and Zenefits to explain how a failure of stakeholders to demand an external audit from an independent accounting firm in early stages of funding led to an opportunity for fraud.

The methodology used is a literature review and analysis of startup valuation combined with the Fraud Triangle Theory. This paper also provides a discussion of WeWork and Zenefits, both highly visible examples of startup fraud, and explores an increased role for independent external auditors in fraud risk mitigation on behalf of stakeholders prior to an initial public offering (IPO).

This paper documents a number of fraud risks posed by the “fake it till you make it” ethos and investor behavior and pricing in the world of entrepreneurial finance and VC, which could be mitigated by a greater awareness of startup stakeholders of the value of an external audit performed by an independent accounting firm prior to an IPO.

An implication of this paper is that regulators should consider greater oversight of the startup financing process and potentially take steps to facilitate greater independence of participants in the IPO process.

Given the potential conflicts of interest between VC firms, investment banks and startup founders, the investors at the time of an IPO may be exposed to the risk that the shares of the IPO firms are overvalued at offering.

This study demonstrates how startup practices can be extended to the Fraud Triangle and issue a call to action for the accounting profession to take a greater role in protecting the public from startup fraud. This study then offers recommendations for regulators and standards entities.

There are few academic papers in the financial crime literature that link the valuation and culture of startup firms with fraud risk. This study provides a concise explanation of the process of valuation for startups and highlights the considerations for stakeholders in assessing fraud risk. In addition, this study documents an emerging role for auditors as stewards of proper valuation for pre-IPO firms.

The purpose of this article is to present the results of empirical research concerning the identification of the impact of the transfer of companies from the alternative market to the regulated market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange on their operating and net performance.

The study was conducted based on the empirical data of the companies that changed the listing place on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Data regarding the years before the transfer were collected from the prospectuses of companies prepared mandatorily in connection with the transition to the regulated market. Data regarding the years of the event and subsequent years were obtained from companies' annual reports. As in other studies in the analysis, the operational metrics were used (operating return on sale, operating return on assets, total asset turnover), which was further extended to net profitability ratios (net return on ale, net return on asset, net return on equity). The significance analysis was based on the Student's t-test and Wilcoxon’s test.

The results show that before the transfer from the alternative market to the regulated market, companies improved financial performance. As a result of the change of listing venues, the results already collapsed in the year of the event. The downward trend continued in the following two years, with a noticeable improvement in the third year after the transfer.

The literature lacks such studies based on the Polish market. To the best knowledge of the author, this is one of the first studies in Poland showing the changes in operating and net performance of companies changing the stock listing venues. The research is based on a large group including all companies that have changed listing venues since the beginning of the alternative market in Poland. The article presents an original empirical result that can be used both by managers and investors in their decisions.

In the European Union, the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive (UCITS IV) requires fund management companies to provide a Key Investor Information Document (UCITS KIID) for investors. This papers uses archival data from the Finnish mutual fund market to test how the regulation's information disclosure requirements concerning past performance, risk and fund fees are associated with mutual fund flows.

The study uses archival data on the mutual funds market in Finland to test how the regulation relating to retail investors' information requirements is associated with mutual fund flows.

Our findings suggest that the UCITS KIID predicts retail investors' fund flows. While past performance is associated with fund flows throughout the observation period, retail investors appear to have become more sensitive to fund fees and invest in less risky funds following the adoption of the UCITS IV period.

Information relating to fund fees and risk appears to be relevant to retail investors, which should be acknowledged in future iterations of short-form disclosure and in mutual fund marketing.

This paper is the first to assess the significance of KIID in actual market environment.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the student managed investment fund at the School of Business, University of Connecticut.

The authors trace the history and growth of the fund and identify the special features and dimensions that have contributed to its success.

The operation of the fund is a constantly evolving program and the authors discuss the important changes and improvements made in the program since its inception in the early 2000s in response to growth in the number of finance majors, new career opportunities in the field of investments and most importantly, the strength of capital markets and the development of new instruments in the capital markets. The authors also discuss the common features of over 300 student funds in the USA. The authors close with a discussion of the limitations and constraints the fund advisors at, and possibly, at other schools, face in the management and administration of the fund, and also what developments and adjustments the authors expect to see in these funds in the future.

The authors combine extensive analyses of fund history and performance. The authors also provide some suggestions for the future direction and priorities for student funds.