Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of earnings management (EM) and tax aggressiveness (TA) on shareholder wealth and on stock price crash risk (SPCR) of German companies.

The sample comprises 820 firm-year observations of 188 non-financial companies listed on German stock exchanges from 2008 to 2014. The authors apply generalized least square panel regression to overcome autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems.

EM and TA are not related in terms of affecting shareholder wealth and SPCR. EM has no impact on shareholder wealth but significantly affects SPCR. TA has a significant positive effect on shareholder wealth but no impact on SPCR. Thus, EM practices applied within German companies are non-opportunistic, as they do not affect shareholder wealth and decrease SPCR. TA practices are also non-opportunistic, as they increase shareholder wealth and do not affect SPCR.

This study provides insights that can improve managers’ accounting choices (EM vs TA) and alleviate investor concerns about the effect of managers’ manipulation strategies. Considering other variables affecting TA, such as discretionary book tax differences, may add further insights into this discussion. The analysis of and comparison with other markets may shed more light on the validity and generalizability of the results.

This study recommends that investors must take into consideration the accounting variables to ensure better investment decisions and highlight the importance of CEO choices on market reaction.

The investigation of the mutual impact of EM and TA on shareholder wealth and SPCR is novel, and so too is the analysis of whether EM and TA are complementary or substitute for each other in this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main motives of investors in allocating their money in a socially responsible (SR) way.

The paper is based on primary data collected in a survey using an online questionnaire. This paper applies tests for continuous and categorical data and (ordered) logit models.

In a multivariate analysis that investigates determinants of SR investing, this study finds little influence of the demographic factors of gender and investment volume and none of educational level. Furthermore, it shows that the regions investors allocate their money to are significant along with the preference toward the order of return, risk and liquidity. Moreover, there appears to be a gap between supply and demand of SR investments. Additionally, there are indications that a very important inducement for SR investing is the expectation of a high financial performance.

There are very few international studies concerning the link between SR investments and the explanation of preferences with factors other than demographic ones. This study broadens the scope of the literature by providing novel empirical evidence for the German-speaking market.

We develop and validate measurement instruments for the business partner, watchdog, and scorekeeper roles of controllers. This study addresses calls to enhance the quality of survey research in management accounting by devoting more attention to scale development and especially to construct validity. By focusing on the activity sets of the controllers’ roles, we provide a theoretically and empirically grounded picture of their current roles. The measurement instruments presented in this study enable systematic research progress on controller roles, their relationships, antecedents, and performance outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of a resource designed to support practitioners, who are not sexual health specialists, but who work with young people who may be at risk of teenage pregnancy or parenthood. Its aim was to enable practitioners to carry out an assessment using a screening tool, and to use educational interventions designed to reduce risk-taking behaviour or refer to a sexual health specialist. A research project to examine the perceptions of practitioners who had used the resource is reported.

The resource was based on a local needs assessment and developed by a multi-agency working group. The research utilised an online questionnaire and telephone interviews with practitioners.

Practitioners reported using the screening tool with young people with an average age of 13.1 years. They thought the educational interventions provided knowledge and helped with communication, self-awareness, reflection, confidence, attitudes and values clarification.

The project was based in one county in England. A sample of 17 per cent of the practitioners responded to the questionnaire, and they might be biased towards those who had engaged most, or most positively, with the resource. Three practitioners undertook interviews. The views and behaviours of young people are yet to be evaluated.

Within a climate of limited resources, the findings suggest that the project is providing an acceptable proportionate universalist, early sexual health intervention for young people.

In smart cities pervasive systems are deployed by enterprises and stakeholders in municipalities to provide digital services to citizens. But cities are faced with the challenge of achieving system pluggability, mainly service integration due to numerous actors and systems needed for smart urban transformation. Hence, there is need to employ a comprehensive and holistic approach to help achieve service integration of pervasive platforms. Therefore, this study presents an Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) to support smart urban transformation.

In this study the design science research methodology is adopted based on a multi-case studies of two organizations and data is collected using semi-structured interview from an organizations and municipality in Norway to validate how service integration can be achieved by the developed EAF to address pluggability challenges faced in urban environment.

Findings suggest that the presented EAF provides the structure to manage changes and maintain urban transformation and aims to align the business with the underlying information systems from the perspective of the stakeholders. Additionally, findings from the case studies modelled in ArchiMate language depict how service integration of different pervasive platforms provide digital services for smart urban transformation.

This research only employed semi-structured interviews to validate service integration of digital platforms, other identified dimensions of pluggability were not fully addressed in this study.

Findings from the case studies provides insights on how pervasive platforms can be integrated to achieve a pluggable digital service from different stakeholders and data sources in practice. The developed EAF presented in this study provide a model that supports collection and exchange of data from different data sources in smart urban environment to enable the provision and consumption of digital services.

The developed EAF aids system pluggability of actors and systems in providing digital service such as smart urban transformation that contributes to sustainable use of electric mobility in cities.

As cities increasingly deploy pervasive platforms to support urban innovation, researchers are seeking to explore how these platforms shape urban transformation. Presently, prior studies do not offer important insights into pervasive platform management from urban perspective. Against this backdrop, this study employs the information systems perspective of digital platforms literature roots in software development and physical product development to depict how the EAF can be employed to describe specific cases that integrate different pervasive platforms deployed by different stakeholders communicating to co-create collective digital services to citizens.

The purpose of this paper is to capture the collective understanding of digital transformation (DT) across Swiss businesses and establish a reference framework based on the strategic action field (SAF) theory.

A number of Swiss associations provided their databases for an online survey. The large sample includes 2,590 participants from 1,854 organisations and delivered over 4,200 descriptions of DT, categorised into seven SAFs. A cross tabulation of SAF combinations by firm size identified 127 possible SAF combinations which constitute the common understanding of DT.

The data set allowed the identification of SAFs and the conceptualisation of DT based on a shared understanding. Drivers of digital transformation are: process engineering, new technologies and digital business development, supported by digital leadership and culture, the cloud and data, customer centricity and digital marketing.

For practitioners, the study provides the SAFs that should be considered for DT strategies. For academic scholars, a unique data set has allowed the study of DT by analysing action field combinations, revealing a nuanced constellation of SAFs. Limitations are the focus on Swiss organisations and a convenience sample for collecting the analysed data.

For the first time, the shared understanding of DT in Swiss businesses – based on SAFs – has allowed a conceptualisation of DT in order to provide guidance to businesses managers and employees.

The development and testing of the hedonic methods for property valuation require statistical analysis and professional preparation of relevant databases. As a first step, the presumable relevant influencing variables (parameters) have to be determined. Previous studies have shown a large variety of parameters which overlap or deviate from each other. This study aims to collect, systematise and structure different parameters for the further development and testing of hedonic models.

The study comprises a detailed research and deeper analysis of previous studies regarding the hedonic valuation (mainly for residential properties). Flanking areas of examination serve, if they are appropriately suitable, as supplements (e.g. performance analysis and regression). Parameters are extracted from a wide range of literature, compared and integrated into an overall presentation of the results.

In total, 407 parameters were extracted from previous studies on hedonic valuation and performance analysis. Because of various definitions of some parameters in the literature, the current paper combined them in one meaning to avoid misunderstandings in further analysis. Higher-level (global) and lower-level (specific) parameters are contained/described in the final list. The result of this study identifies up to five levels of parameters (within the relevant hierarchy).

The parameters have not yet been statistically tested. The relevance of individual parameters has to be tested with relevant corresponding databases and statistical methods (e.g. correlation and regression).

To manage larger real estate portfolios, there is a need for regular property valuations. From this perspective, there is a great interest related to the optimisation of the valuation costs, valuation quality and valuation duration. Hedonic methods are considered as an efficient way of performing these valuation tasks. However, further suitable models and parameters are needed. The study describes parameters that can be appropriate for the development of relevant models and creates a structured parameters list, providing the technical basis for the latter. This structured parameter list is substantiated by the evaluation of the existing research.

Property values represent a significant asset for the national economy and for the individual wealth/welfare. The development of property value in a national economy is also relevant for politics, economy and society. The use of hedonic methods and the knowledge of important individual parameters can contribute towards assessing and substantiating the effect of political decisions on the value of real estate.

For the first time, a comprehensive and structured analysis on the value of the relevant parameters used in hedonic methods is performed. Thereby a large number of parameters were identified which question the stability of the results in respective individual studies. In addition, the newly developed hierarchy of parameters can serve as the basis for further research.