Sectoral analysis on capital structure determinants among the Malaysia listed firms

This study highlights the sensitivity of capital structure determinants in each sector within the ensembles of Malaysia Listed Companies. Based on pooled OLS, fixed effect and Generalized Method of Moments analysis, the findings revealed that capital structure determinants vary across sectors due to its nature or characteristics.

Essays on social capital and poverty in Bangladesh

The thesis examines the role of social capital in determining a number of socio-economic factors in Bangladesh. It uses cross-sectional data of 5600 extreme poor households and finds that social capital plays an important role in improving health and hygienic behaviour, and labour market outcomes during lean season.

Accounting professionalization amidst alternating state ideology in Ethiopia

Purpose – This study aims to examine accounting professionalization in Ethiopia focusing on how the state, occupational group struggle and transnational accountancy bodies influence the realization of closure.

Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research approach is employed. Data were collected using document review and oral history approaches.

Findings – Accounting professionalization in Ethiopia was initiated by the state to strengthen the country's financial system. Owing to a change of state ideology to communism in 1974, a strategy of developing accounting professionals as government-employed experts was pursued. The return to a market-oriented economy in 1991 has seen a trend towards a more autonomous accountancy profession. Inflow of UK capital in the early twentieth century and activities of the UK-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in recent decades have influenced Ethiopia's accountancy. Its professional and financial power has enabled ACCA to make arrangements with Ethiopian Professional Association of Accountants and Auditors (EPAAA) and consolidate its position in Ethiopia's accountancy by controlling EPAAA's member training and certification.

Originality/value – The literature on accounting professional projects in developing countries has focused on imperialistic influence in former British colonies. The present study extends this literature by illustrating how British influence has continued to extend beyond Britain's former colonial possessions. This enables an understanding of the dynamics of accounting professional projects in the developing world with analytical dimensions building on the hitherto dominant lens of “formal” colonial connection.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the accounting profession : an exploratory study

The aim of this article is to explore the role that accounting skills and accounting qualifications may play in entering fields that have been virtually closed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people. It is acknowledged in the literature that accounting processes and accountants have historically had a domineering and detrimental impact on marginalised groups, such as ATSI peoples. However, we propose an alternative viewpoint using a Bourdieun perspective and theorise that accounting skills and accounting qualifications (capital) can open doors to powerful organisations and institutions (fields). As this is an exploratory study, we have limited our analysis to one key aspect of the Bourdieun framework, namely that of field. To that end, we examine accounting and other organisations that have traditionally closed their doors to marginalised groups in society. Interviews were conducted with ATSI people who have successfully gained entry into the field of the accounting profession, in an effort to understand the experiences and barriers they faced and to investigate the role that accounting skills plays in enabling ATSI people access to fields and decision-making positions that have traditionally been inaccessible to them.

Capital structure and corporate performance: evidence from Jordan

This study is to investigate the effect which capital structure has had on corporate performance using a panel data sample representing of 167 Jordanian companies during 1989-2003. Our results showed that a firm’s capital structure had a significantly negative impact on the firm’s performance measures, in both the accounting and market’s measures. We also found that the short-term debt to total assets (STDTA) level has a significantly positive effect on the market performance measure (Tobin’s Q). The Gulf Crisis 1990-1991 was found to have a positive impact on Jordani an corporate performance while the out break of Intifadah in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2000 had a negative impact on corporate performance.

Managerial ownership, capital structure and firm value: Evidence from China’s civilian-run firms

This paper examines the influence of managerial ownership on firm performance through capital-structure choices, using a sample of China’s civilian-run firms listed on the Chinese stock market between 2002 and 2007. The empirical results demonstrate a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and firm value. Managerial ownership drives the capital structure into a nonlinear shape, but in an opposite direction to the effect of managerial ownership on firm value. The results of simultaneous regressions suggest that managerial ownership affects capital structure, which in turn affects firm value. Our findings imply that the “interest convergence” and “entrenchment” effects of managers’ behaviour in terms of managerial ownership can also explain the agency-relevant situation of China’s civilian-run firms.

An explanation of capital structure of China's listed property firms

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the capital structure of listed property firms in China.Design/methodology/approach– The study is based on quantitative methods such as dynamic panel data models and a panel data set containing financial and accounting data for all listed property companies from 2006 to 2010 in China.Findings– The findings confirm that the state-own shares, the fixed asset values, the total size of assets and profitability have a positive and significant impact on the leverage ratio of listed property firms in China. The negative impact of the tax shields and the currency ratio, and significant impact of state-own shares on capital structure cannot be explained by existing capital structure theory but the unique property market regulation environment and market conditions in China.Research limitations/implications– The findings confirm the applicability of trade-off theory (except for the correlation between leverage and the tax shield) on property companies in China. They also highlight the importance of government policies and special market conditions in explaining the financing behaviour of property companies in transaction countries like China.Practical implications– Complimentary policies should be established along with property market restriction policies to offset their unequal negative effect on property companies with less state-owned shares. Furthermore, government should invest efforts to eliminate the discrimination credit treatment of banks against property companies with non-existent or few state-owned shares.Originality/value– The special financial behaviour of China's property firms and the unique financial and property market conditions highlight the necessity of researching the capital structure of listed property firms in China. However, most of the existing literature focuses on the company financial behaviour in developed countries, and very few studies have been done concerning property firms’ financing behaviour in emerging economies such as China, and this research prospects to fill this blank.

Determinants of corporate capital structure: a comparison of public and private firms

 This thesis investigates how capital structure decisions of private and public firms in the UK differ in regards to their ownership structure, information asymmetry (proxied by audit quality) and access to debt capital.

Constructing an ‘efficient frontier’ of accounting journal quality

This paper reports the construction of an ‘efficient frontier’ of the perceived quality attributes of academic accountingjournals. The analysis is based on perception data from two web-based surveys of Australasian and British academics.The research reported here contributes to the existing literature by augmenting the commonly supported singledimension of quality with an additional measure indicating the variation of perceptions of journal quality. The result ofcombining these factors is depicted diagrammatically in a manner that reflects the risk and return trade-off asconceptualised in the capital market model of an efficient frontier of investment opportunities. This conceptualisation of a‘market’ for accounting research provides a context in which to highlight the complex issues facing academics in their rolesas editors, researchers and authors.The analysis indicates that the perceptions of the so-called ‘elite’ US accounting journals have become unsettledparticularly in Australasia, showing high levels of variability in perceived quality, while other traditionally highly rankedjournals (ABR, AOS, CAR) have a more ‘efficient’ combination of high-quality ranking and lower dispersion ofperceptions. The implications of these results for accounting academics in the context of what is often seen as a market foraccounting research are discussed.