Reversal of impairment losses, firm performance and reporting incentives: Evidence from Malaysia

Malaysian Financial Reporting Standard (FRS) No. 136, Impairment of Assets, was issued in 2005. The standard requires public listed companies to report their non-current assets at no more than their recoverable amount. When the value of impaired assets is recovered, or partly recovered, FRS 136 requires the impairment charges to be reversed to its new recoverable amount. This study tests whether the reversal of impairment losses by Malaysian firms is more closely associated with economic reasons or reporting incentives. The sample of this study consists of 182 public companies listed on Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange) that reported reversals of their impairment charges during the period 2006-2009. These firms are matched with firms which do not reverse impairment on the basis of industrial classification and size. In the year of reversal, this study finds that the reversal firms are more profitable (before reversals) than their matched firms. On average, the Malaysian stock market values the reversals of impairment losses positively. These results suggest that the reversals generally reflect increases in the value of the previously impaired assets. After partitioning firms that are likely to manage earnings and those that are not, this study finds that there are some Malaysian firms which reverse the impairment charges to manage earnings. Their reversals are not value-relevant, and are negatively associated with future firm performance. On the other hand, the reversals of firms which are deemed not to be earnings managers are positively associated with both future firm performance and current stock price performance, and this is the dominant motivation for the reversal of impairment charges in Malaysia. In further analysis, this study provides evidence that the opportunistic reversals are also associated with other earnings management manifestations, namely abnormal working capital accruals and the motivation to avoid earnings declines. In general, the findings suggest that the fair value measurement in impairment standard provides useful information to the users of financial statements.

Development of miniaturized wireless sensor nodes suitable for building energy management and modelling

Buildings consume 40% of Ireland's total annual energy translating to 3.5 billion (2004). The EPBD directive (effective January 2003) places an onus on all member states to rate the energy performance of all buildings in excess of 50m2. Energy and environmental performance management systems for residential buildings do not exist and consist of an ad-hoc integration of wired building management systems and Monitoring & Targeting systems for non-residential buildings. These systems are unsophisticated and do not easily lend themselves to cost effective retrofit or integration with other enterprise management systems. It is commonly agreed that a 15-40% reduction of building energy consumption is achievable by efficiently operating buildings when compared with typical practice. Existing research has identified that the level of information available to Building Managers with existing Building Management Systems and Environmental Monitoring Systems (BMS/EMS) is insufficient to perform the required performance based building assessment. The cost of installing additional sensors and meters is extremely high, primarily due to the estimated cost of wiring and the needed labour. From this perspective wireless sensor technology provides the capability to provide reliable sensor data at the required temporal and spatial granularity associated with building energy management. In this paper, a wireless sensor network mote hardware design and implementation is presented for a building energy management application. Appropriate sensors were selected and interfaced with the developed system based on user requirements to meet both the building monitoring and metering requirements. Beside the sensing capability, actuation and interfacing to external meters/sensors are provided to perform different management control and data recording tasks associated with minimisation of energy consumption in the built environment and the development of appropriate Building information models(BIM)to enable the design and development of energy efficient spaces.

The impact of new public management on the roles of elected councillors, management and the community sector in Irish local government: a case study of Cork County Council

The fundamental aim of this thesis is to examine the effect of New Public Management (NPM) on the traditional roles of elected representatives, management and community activists in Irish local government. This will be achieved through a case study analysis of one local authority, Cork County Council. NPM promises greater democracy in decision-making. Therefore, one can hypothesise that the roles of the three key groupings identified will become more influenced by principles of participatory decision-making. Thus, a number of related questions will be addressed by this work, such as, have the local elected representatives been empowered by NPM? Has a managerial revolution taken place? Has local democracy been enhanced by more effective community participation? It will be seen in chapter 2 that these questions have not been adequately addressed to date in NPM literature. The three groups identified can be regarded as stakeholders although the researcher is cautious in using this term because of its value-laden nature. Essentially, in terms of Cork County Council, stakeholders can be defined as decision-makers and people within the organization and its environment who are interested in or could be affected directly or indirectly by organizational performance. This is an all-embracing definition and includes all citizens, residents, community groups and client organizations. It is in this context that the term 'stakeholder' should be understood when it is occasionally used in this thesis. In this case, the perceptions of elected councilors, management and community representatives with regard to their changing roles are as significant as the changes themselves. The chapter begins with a brief account of the background to this research. This is followed by an explanation of the methodology which is used and then concludes with short statements about the remaining chapters in the thesis.

First principles modelling of nucleation and growth during atomic layer deposition onto III-V substrates

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is now used in semiconductor fabrication lines to deposit nanometre-thin oxide films, and has thus enabled the introduction of high-permittivity dielectrics into the CMOS gate stack. With interest increasing in transistors based on high mobility substrates, such as GaAs, we are investigating the surface treatments that may improve the interface characteristics. We focus on incubation periods of ALD processes on III-V substrates. We have applied first principles Density Functional Theory (DFT) to investigate detailed chemistry of these early stages of growth, specifically substrate and ALD precursor interaction. We have modelled the ‘clean-up’ effect by which organometallic precursors: trimethylaluminium (TMA) or hafnium and titanium amides clean arsenic oxides off the GaAs surface before ALD growth of dielectric commences and similar effect on Si3N4 substrate. Our simulations show that ‘clean-up’ of an oxide film strongly depends on precursor ligand, its affinity to the oxide and the redox character of the oxide. The predominant pathway for a metalloid oxide such as arsenic oxide is reduction, producing volatile molecules or gettering oxygen from less reducible oxides. An alternative pathway is non-redox ligand exchange, which allows non-reducible oxides (e.g. SiO2) to be cleaned-up. First principles study shows also that alkylamides are more susceptible to decomposition rather than migration on the oxide surface. This improved understanding of the chemical principles underlying ‘clean-up’ allows us to rationalize and predict which precursors will perform the reaction. The comparison is made between selection of metal chlorides, methyls and alkylamides precursors.

Risk management and the potential of cattle insurance in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

This study explores the role of livestock insurance to complement existing risk management strategies adopted by smallholder farmers. Using survey data, first, it provides insights into farmers’ risk perception of livestock farming, in terms of likelihood and severity of risk, attitude to risk and their determinants. Second, it examines farmers’ risk management strategies and their determinants. Third, it investigates farmers’ potential engagement with a hypothetical cattle insurance decision and their intensity of participation. Factor analysis is used to analyse risk sources and risk management, multiple regressions are used to identify the determinants; a Heckman model was used to investigate cattle insurance participation and intensity of participation. The findings show different groups of farmers display different risk attitude in their decision-making related to livestock farming. Production risk (especially livestock diseases) was perceived as the most likely and severe source of risk. Disease control was perceived as the best strategy to manage risk overall. Disease control and feed management were important strategies to mitigate the production risks. Disease control and participation on safety net program were found to be important to counter households’ financial risks. With regard to the hypothetical cattle insurance scheme, 94.38% of households were interested to participate in cattle insurance. Of those households that accepted cattle insurance, 77.38% of the households were willing to pay the benchmark annual premium of 4% of the animal value while for the remaining households this was not affordable. The average number of cattle that farmers were willing to insure was 2.71 at this benchmark. Results revealed that income (log income) and education levels influenced positively and significantly farmers’ participation in cattle insurance and the number of cattle to insure. The findings prompt policy makers to consider livestock insurance as a complement to existing risk management strategies to reduce poverty in the long-run.