Search results

The paper seeks to examine the association between corporate governance mechanisms and the quality of accounting earnings.

Quality of earnings is measured in two ways: the accounting‐based measure of earnings management and the market‐based measure of earnings informativeness. Using firm‐level corporate governance data for a sample of Canadian firms in the years 2001‐2004, regression analysis explores the relation between corporate governance (including board composition, management shareholding, shareholders' rights and the extent of disclosure of governance practices), and the quality of earnings.

Empirical tests demonstrate that overall governance quality is negatively related to the level of abnormal accruals and positively influences the return‐earnings association. In addition, the magnitude of abnormal accruals is negatively associated with the level of independence of board composition, the extent of alignment of management compensation with interests of shareholders and the strength of shareholder rights. The results from the returns and earnings analysis are consistent with these findings.

The tests in this study are association tests. Future research may use qualitative research approaches to examine the link between quality of financial reporting and governance effectiveness.

This study provides evidence that supports Canadian regulators' initiatives that stronger corporate governance mechanisms provide greater monitoring of the financial accounting process and may be important factors in improving the integrity of financial reporting.

This study investigates the impact of tax planning, both independently and in conjunction with earnings management, on the persistence of earnings and its various components.

In this study, tax planning refers to corporate strategies aimed at minimizing taxes, while earnings management involves manipulating reported earnings through accounting accruals. The analysis uses a dataset of US companies from 1989 to 2016 and includes a series of regression tests.

The study finds that firms implementing aggressive tax strategies exhibit lower persistence in cash flows from operations and earnings. Furthermore, companies using both aggressive tax planning and earnings management techniques show the lowest persistence in total accruals, cash flows from operations and reported earnings.

Our sample of US firms limits generalizability. Future research could explore the international impacts of tax planning and earnings management on earnings quality and include post-2016 data for insights on the 2018 tax cuts and COVID-19. Investigating other earnings quality measures and their influence on investors and analysts could enhance performance assessment.

This research identifies key factors influencing the interpretation of financial statements, offering valuable insights for regulators, auditors, tax authorities, financial analysts and other users with significant practical and social implications.

This study contributes to prior research by highlighting the need to investigate the real effects of tax avoidance and extends prior research by examining the impact of high levels of tax planning, along with aggressive earnings management, on earnings persistence.

This chapter seeks to investigate the role of student emotional intelligence (EI) in countering in-class cyberloafing behaviour by students, by exploring the mediating role of boredom proneness through a quantitative approach. A sample of 163 postgraduate university students in India was selected. The authors assessed the mediation model using PROCESS macro. The authors found that students who are more aware of their emotions are better equipped to handle internal and external distractions and work towards a desired goal or outcome and therefore are less likely to experience boredom. Results from this study revealed a significant direct and indirect negative relationship between students’ EI and cyberloafing behaviour. This chapter contributes to the body of literature by highlighting the positive effects of EI as an important antidote to student cyberloafing behaviour. On the practical front, the findings of this study can be used by academicians who are charged with the responsibility of understanding and enhancing student learning by diminishing cyberloafing behaviour among them. The proposed framework could provide a foundation for countering cyberloafing behaviour in educational settings.

This study examines the stock market valuation of securitization gains reported by using the financial‐components approach under FAS125 (Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and Extinguishment of Liabilities).

Based on a sample of US securitizing firms for the period from 1993 to 2000, I conduct two analyses to examine the extent to which the securitization gains reported under FAS125 are reflected in the stock market valuation.

The paper finds that the reported gains are positively associated with the stock returns, suggesting that the reported gains are perceived to be value relevant, and that investors appear to use gains in the same manner as they use other earnings information. In addition, it is found that the association between returns and securitization earnings is stronger in the post‐FAS125 period than in the pre‐FAS125 period, suggesting that the financial‐components approach improves the capacity of reported financial statement information to explain stock returns when compared with pre‐FAS125 regulations.

The results of this study should be helpful to standard setters who continue to apply the financial‐components approach for securitizations and for other transactions involving financial instruments.

Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.”

Nowadays, WiFi indoor positioning based on received signal strength (RSS) becomes a research hotspot due to its low cost and ease of deployment characteristics. To further improve the performance of WiFi indoor positioning based on RSS, this paper aims to propose a novel position estimation strategy which is called radius-based domain clustering (RDC). This domain clustering technology aims to avoid the issue of access point (AP) selection.

The proposed positioning approach uses each individual AP of all available APs to estimate the position of target point. Then, according to circular error probable, the authors search the decision domain which has the 50 per cent of the intermediate position estimates and minimize the radius of a circle via a RDC algorithm. The final estimate of the position of target point is obtained by averaging intermediate position estimates in the decision domain.

Experiments are conducted, and comparison between the different position estimation strategies demonstrates that the new method has a better location estimation accuracy and reliability.

Weighted k nearest neighbor approach and Naive Bayes Classifier method are two classic position estimation strategies for location determination using WiFi fingerprinting. Both of the two strategies are affected by AP selection strategies and inappropriate selection of APs may degrade positioning performance considerably.

The RDC positioning approach can improve the performance of WiFi indoor positioning, and the issue of AP selection and related drawbacks is avoided.

The RSS-based effective WiFi indoor positioning system can makes up for the indoor positioning weaknesses of global navigation satellite system. Many indoor location-based services can be encouraged with the effective and low-cost positioning technology.

A novel position estimation strategy is introduced to avoid the AP selection problem in RSS-based WiFi indoor positioning technology, and the domain clustering technology is proposed to obtain a better accuracy and reliability.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the benefits of reintroducing traditional grazing systems practices for improving arid rangelands. Grazing is the most extensive land use in southern Tunisia, but the rangelands have suffered many decades of severe degradation due to profound socioeconomic changes and the emergence of an agro-pastoral society in place of the former pastoral one. Traditional grazing systems (gdel and herd mobility), which had historically allowed for grazing deferment and control of grazing livestock were abandoned. Yet grazing management strategies are important tools to sustain integrated livestock rangeland production systems in dry areas in the face of ongoing climate change and human pressure.

This study assesses the revival of traditional best practices of rangeland resting in a representative community. Total plant cover, species composition, flora richness and range production were determined in six rangeland sites subjected respectively to one, two and three years of rest; one and two years of light grazing after rest; and free grazing (control).

Results showed that dry rangelands keep their resilience to the negative effects of climate change once human pressure is controlled. A maximum of two years of rest is enough to sustainably manage the rangelands in southern Tunisia, as this protection showed considerable and positive effects on the parameters scored.

The revival of the traditional best practices under new arrangements adapted to current biophysical and socioeconomic conditions would be an excellent tool to mitigate the negative effects of frequent droughts and reduce the animal feed costs that poor farmers face.

The purpose of this paper is to find the relationship of palaeontology, palaeobotany and coal thickness of Taiyuan Formation during Late Carboniferous – Early Permian Period in Shanxi Province.

This paper selects three regions, namely, Baode, Xishan and Lingchuan, to analyse the distribution characteristics of palaeontology, palaeobotany and variation of coal thickness.

It was found that in a certain period of geological history, palaeontology and palaeobotany play a dominant role in shaping of a coal-bearing basin. Coal seam thickness changes largely from the northwest to the southeast, gradually thinning in Taiyuan Formation.

Palaeontology and palaeobotany play a dominant role in the shaping of a coal-bearing basin.

The present study aims to investigate the dynamic relationship between international tourist receipts, economic growth, energy use and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in Pakistan over the period 1980-2016. Many researchers have investigated the link between tourism and CO₂ emissions, but there is no clear picture as the results are contradictory. This study is an attempt to compliment the literature related to tourism and environmental quality.

The study adopted the autoregressive distributed lagged (ARDL) model to investigate the short- and long-run estimates simultaneously. The study further applied Granger causality to find out the direction of causalities. To arrive at long-run robust estimates, the study used dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) model.

The results found that tourist receipts have no significant impact on environmental quality, while growth and energy consumption are the main determinants of CO₂ emissions in Pakistan. The Granger causality test confirmed unidirectional causalities from GDP and energy consumption toward CO₂ emissions, while tourist receipts do not affect environmental quality. DOLS technique confirmed the long-run estimates of ARDL model.

The result of the study complements the literature by adding new evidence regarding the nexus of tourism and environment. Findings of the study are important for policymakers and regulatory bodies to place their focus on the development of tourism sector (services sector) rather than energy-intensive manufacturing activities to sustain the growth of the country in higher quartiles, as tourism receipts have no significant negative externalities toward environment, while energy use is one of the key determinants of environmental degradation.

This study used time series data over the period 1980-2016 for Pakistan to inspect the dynamic relationship between tourist receipts, economic growth, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions.