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This paper examines the determinants of patenting and spin-off creation using survey data of 479 researchers in engineering and 449 researchers in life sciences funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The results show that research novelty and laboratory size are the only two variables significantly explaining patenting and spin-off formation in both engineering and life sciences. Network capital explains spin-off formation in engineering and in life sciences as well as patenting in life sciences, but not in engineering. Furthermore, the results suggest that many categories of resources explain patenting and spin-off formation in engineering and in life sciences, but that the combinations of resources required differ for patenting and spin-off formation and between engineering and life sciences. The results of this paper suggest that customized policies would be required to accommodate differences between spin-off formation and patenting as well as between engineering and life sciences. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Patents, Spin-offs, Universities, Research commercialization, Engineering, Life sciences, Research, Determinants of transfer, Survey data, O34, L26, O31, O32, D83,

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption complements corporate governance factors (e.g. ownership structure) in monitoring managers’ discretional behavior in an emerging market context. Design/methodology/approach – The paper relies on a sample of listed companies in the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, South Africa and the Philippines during an eight-year period on average (four years of pre-adoption period and four years of post-adoption period). Findings – The authors find no evidence of lower earnings management after the switch to IFRS reporting, suggesting that managerial discretional behavior is insensitive to a firm’s IFRS adoption. However, the authors document effective monitoring role of a firm’s ownership structure on earnings management. More interestingly, institutional investors are effective in constraining earnings management when holding a high level of ownership. Moreover, the effect of blockholders and institutional blockholders varies as their ownership rises following a non-linear pattern. Research limitations/implications – First, the assumption that discretionary accruals are adequate measure of earnings management may be criticized in different ways. Second, the findings, performed on listed companies in the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, South Africa and the Philippines, should be interpreted with caution and cannot be generalized to all emerging market countries. Practical implications – Standards setters and market authorities should be aware of earnings management determinants to set adequate and fitting accounting standards limiting opportunistic behavior of managers and mainly to set up training programs to accounting professionals improving the IFRS implementation. Moreover, considering specific features of firms in emerging market countries related to ownership structure, international investors may rely on such criteria to evaluate firms. Finally, auditors should be aware of different incentives for earnings management in order to be able to detect eventual manipulation of accounting earnings. Originality/value – This paper provides a timely contribution to the continuous debate of the effect of IFRS adoption on earnings management in a poorly exploited setting, emerging market context. When investigating, additionally, the eventual non-linear effect of institutional ownership, block ownership, institutional block ownership and non-institutional block ownership on earnings management, a major contribution is that it brings to light the finding of a differential influence of ownership levels on earnings management.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the firm’s capital market benefits in a high-quality information setting. More specifically, the authors address the question of whether the commonly documented IFRS benefits are capable of influencing inducing shareholders to increase their equity investment in adopting firms. Design/methodology/approach This study is performed on publicly listed firms in three emerging countries, namely, Morocco, South Africa and Turkey. The design of the ownership database allows a panel analysis for the years 2001 through 2011. The trend approach is suitable to account for concurrent effects that are unrelated to financial reporting while controlling for time-lasting behavior of investors. Overall, a minimum of four-year periods before and after the IFRS adoption date are warranted. Findings Overall, the findings support evidence of increases in equity holdings following a firm’s IFRS adoption. More specifically, institutional investors and institutional blockholders (both domestic and foreign) invest more heavily in the stocks of the firms that have committed to IFRS. By contrast, the authors fail to report evidence for ownership by blockholders and controlling shareholders. Practical implications The current empirical work should be of value to international investors, policy makers and market authorities. As for international investors facing reduced information disadvantage and comparable financial information across worldwide markets, they will find it easier to select and invest in value-creating stocks. This study may be useful for policy makers in acquiring a clear view of advantages, challenges and relevance of IFRS adoption to emerging markets. In particular, this study contributes to an understanding of potential capital market consequences of IFRS adoption. Furthermore, market authorities should be aware of the importance of institutional framework to enhance IFRS implementation and usage. Originality/value This work contributes to the ongoing empirical research on the intended capital market benefits of IFRS. The authors provide deeper insight into shareholdings changes of a number of key investors in a context where supply and demand of information are stained with asymmetry and mostly, influenced by differences in accounting practices. A major contribution of this study is the use of a methodological approach that outperforms commonly used approaches in the way how it considers concurrent events (compared to the shift specification) and time-lasting investor behavior (compared to the difference-in-differences analysis).

Résumé Dans cet article, nous tentons de démontrer que la confiance interpersonnelle joue un rôle de médiation entre les réseaux sociaux et le comportement de partage des connaissances dans les entreprises tunisiennes de haute technologie. Même si l’impact direct des réseaux sociaux sur le partage des connaissances a été traité par les recherches antérieures, nous pensons qu’une telle relation gagnerait à intégrer le rôle de la confiance interpersonnelle comme mécanisme intermédiaire. En conformité avec McAllister (1995), nous nous proposons d’étudier deux formes de confiance interpersonnelle : la confiance cognitive (basée sur les compétences) et la confiance affective (basée sur les échanges socio-émotionnels). Un modèle structurel a permis de tester les hypothèses de recherche. Les résultats de l’enquête soutiennent partiellement nos conjectures théoriques. Ils montrent que seule la qualité des interactions dans un réseau social influence positivement et significativement les deux formes de confiance. Sur un autre plan, seule la confiance affective aurait une influence sur le comportement de partage des connaissances. Enfin, les résultats stipulent que la confiance affective médiatise l’effet de la qualité d’interaction sur le comportement de partage des connaissances. Une discussion est engagée sur la base de ces résultats et les implications de la recherche, sur le plan théorique et managérial, sont présentées.