This study assesses the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and earnings management. Based on a sample of 109 Canadian companies drawn from the Michael Jantzi Research Associates – Canadian Social Investment Database for the years 2004 and 2005, our findings corroborate the multiple objectives hypothesis suggesting that the level of CSP is positively associated with earnings management. Using individual measures of CSP, we find a positive association between firm's CSP ratings related to environment and employees, and the earnings management activities. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose This study aims to provide some empirical evidence on the determinants of segment reporting quality, and to propose a new measurement tool of segment reporting quality – segment reporting quality index (SRQI). Design/methodology/approach On the basis of hand-collected segment data for a sample of 171 European Union publicly listed companies from the 2006-2012 annual reports, the study uses multiple regression model to investigate the determinants of segment reporting quality. A new measurement of segment reporting quality is constructed. It aggregates different segment reporting practices indicators, including the number of segments, the extent of information disclosed and the geographic fineness. Additional estimations are conducted to test the robustness of the results. Findings The results suggest that there is a substantial variation in the quality of segment reporting among the sampled European Union firms. Large corporations, audited by Big 4 auditors and more internationally oriented, tend to provide a higher quality of segment reporting. In contrast, debt leverage negatively impacts the quality of segment reporting. However, the quality is not significantly related to profitability. The findings are fairly robust to a number of econometric models that control, for year fixed effects and pre- and post-International Financial Reporting Standards 8 adoption. Overall, the findings are generally consistent with the predictions of agency theory. Research limitations/implications The results imply that considerable managerial discretion exists. Despite the IFRS commitment to enhance comparability of the financial statements, segment information remains very disparate. It enables investors to get a better understanding of a firm’s activities, but it does not allow for a better assessment of a firm as compared to the other firms of the same sector. As compared with other IFRS standards, the segment reporting has more relation with corporate governance structure and specific institutions that regulate a sector or a country. Furthermore, the results show that firm characteristics are associated with the study’s aggregated measure of segment reporting quality (SRQI) consistently with theoretical and empirical evidence. SRQI can, thus, be used by researchers for replication or to study new questions on firms’ segment disclosure behavior on a much wider set of firms in the economy. While this research makes several noteworthy contributions, the authors acknowledge that SRQI considers only multisegments firms that disaggregate their primary/operating segments by line-of-business and disclose secondary/entity-wide level geographic information. Originality/value This study offers new evidence on the determinants of segment reporting quality following IFRS adoption, in the European Union context. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing an aggregated measure of segment reporting quality (SRQI). Unlike previous measures, which were usually limited to researcher self-constructed indexes, SRQI captures different facets of segment information in terms of disaggregation and disclosure extent.

Using a sample of 278 commercial banks operating in OECD countries, this paper shows that numerous banks smooth their earnings intentionally either by using loan loss provisions or by selling trading securities. These banks resort more to real income smoothing than to the artificial one. Results also indicate that the banks' propensity to smooth reported earnings depends on their exposure to prudential and curative constraints and on various institutional constraints. The degree of capitalization, the composition of regulatory equity capital and the presence of insured creditors motivate banks to smooth their results. This study also highlights that Anglo-Saxon accounting systems seem to favour smoothing behaviour probably because they provide discretion in reporting transactions.

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This paper intends to examine the role of intensive monitoring by the boards of Saudi listed firms in protecting the firm's resources through analyzing its impact on firm value. Intensive Board Monitoring (IBM) is measured through the independence of the oversight board committees, which is the audit and the nomination and remuneration committees. Whereas the firm's valuation variables that we apply in this paper are Tobin's Q and M-B ratio. The sample understudy covers all the firms listed in the Saudi stock market, except the firms listed in the banking and insurance sectors, over the period 2008 till 2013. The results of the analysis, when we apply the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) approach, reveal that Intensive Board Monitoring (IBM) has a positive and significant impact on firm value. This positive impact is strengthened when we apply the Two Stage Least Square (2SLS) approach, which prove the endogenous nature of the IBM variables.

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