Crisis and triage clinicians' attitudes toward working with people with personality disorder

PURPOSE. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of Australian psychiatric triage and crisis clinicians toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
DESIGN AND METHODS. The design of the study was exploratory descriptive research. The study employed a survey method using Bowers and Allan's (2006) Attitude to Personality Disorder Questionnaire, which was designed to identify global attitudes toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
FINDINGS. The findings of this study indicate that psychiatric crisis and triage clinicians hold negative attitudes toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS. Education and clinical supervision is required to address negative clinician attitudes.

The global financial crisis and the centro properties group earnings revision and refinancing announcements : an event study

This study analyses the impact of the global financial crisis using Centro Properties Group's earnings revision and refinancing announcements on December 17th 2007 as the event date to investigate the change in risk profile for A-REITs that were included in the S&P/ASX 300. The study finds that nine of the 25 A-REIT constituents on the S&P/ASX 300 recorded statistically significant negative abnormal returns on 17th December 2007 and that the systematic risk for many A-REITs moved significantly higher after this date. This increased systematic risk has major implications for the cost of capital to the sector.

Crisis in Clio's family : a study of the discipline of Australian economic history 1918-1965

This thesis presents an intellectual history of the historiography of Australian Economic History between 1918 and 1965. More specifically, it is a contribution to a relatively novel area of research into 'disciplinary history’. It takes as its basic analytical material the four books widely used for significant lengths of time for undergraduate teaching during the period of the study. The thesis consists of five main chapters, plus an appendix which surveys the institutional development of Australian Economic History and provides the empirical basis for the selection of the works named above. After a brief introduction and overview, the next four chapters consist of a detailed study of one of these works, the historical context in which each was written, and an intellectual biography. The fifth chapter is largely theoretical and conceptual. It analyses the epistemological bases of History and Economics and explores the implications of different models of knowledge for the relationship between Economic History and its two antecedent disciplines, History and Economics. Current perceptions of the state of the discipline in Australia and overseas are also examined. There are three main propositions advanced and their implications explored in the fifth chapter. First, that changes which occurred in Australian Economic History during the period 1918-1965 shifted the discipline from the broad area of History to the broad area of Economics. Second, that the inherent tension and fundamental differences between the two disciplinary areas of History and Economics have profound and complex implications for Australian Economic History at a number of levels and in a number of areas. The third proposition posits that the paradigm shift of the 1950s/1960s in Australian Economic History, and the paradigm shift of the 1960s/1970s in Economic History respectively have resulted in crisis. The final part of the chapter summarises the contents of the preceding chapters, and draws some conclusions based on those detailed studies.

The impact of ownership structure on corporate debt policy : two stage least square simultaneous model approach for post crisis period : evidence from Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

Ownership concentration as a governance mechanism has received considerable attention among academician, practitioners as well as policy makers because large-block shareholders are increasingly active in their demands that corporations adopt effective governance mechanisms to control managerial decisions, which include corporate debt policy. Earlier study on the agency model of the firm widely recognizes that the managerial ownership and external debt play an important role in mitigating agency conflicts and enhancing firm value. They also found that increase in the external monitors, for example the institutional investors, can actually play a useful role in limiting agency problems in the firm. This paper, using 100 Composite Index companies from Brusa Malaysia between 1998 to 2002 explores the impact of institutional holdings on managerial ownership and debt policy in an integrated framework by using a simultaneous equations estimation procedure (2SLS). The findings show that there is a significant impact of institutional ownership which serves effective control mechanism on managerial ownership and corporate debt policy as hypothesized. Findings of such evidence suggest that institutional holding thus have played an important role in managers' strategic management decision and reduce agency conflict. In addition, corporate debt policy too is governed by managerial ownership and exhibited a negative relation.

Wealth effect of auditor switch during crisis and non-crisis period : the Malaysian experience

This study examines the auditor switch effect on share prices among listed companies in Malaysia, mainly the Second Board companies during economic crisis and the economic growth period. Data on companies listed on the KLSE that reported switching of auditors were gathered from the respective companies’ annual reports for the period of 1990 until 1999. Daily stock prices and the Second Board Index for an interval of 200 days windows were extracted from the KLSE Daily Dairy. The wealth effect of auditor’s switch was investigated using the market model event study methodology. The general findings of the study imply that it is consistent with the theory, the market reacts positively to news involving switching to higher prestige audit firms before the economic crisis but reacted negatively during the economic crisis. News involving switching to lower prestige auditors received negative reaction both before and during the crisis. This study postulate that the negative reaction to switches during the economic crisis (either to higher prestige or to lower prestige auditors) may be due to cost cutting exercise rather than obtaining qualified audit reports.

Audit quality : earnings management in the context of the Asian crisis

This study assumes that evidence regarding audit quality can be derived from the level of earnings management reflected in reported abnormal or discretionary accruals. Given this assumption, audit quality is examined in the context of the 1997 Asian financial crisis using data from Malaysia. Examining audit quality in its association with earnings management across differential macroeconomic periods provides insights that may be otherwise masked. The period of the crisis is partitioned between pre-crisis (1994-1996), crisis (1997-1998) and post-crisis (1999). Using a robust approach to the measurement of abnormal accruals, the association of Big 5/non-Big 5 and Industry Specialist/Industry non-specialist auditors with both the levels of, and change in levels of, abnormal accruals is investigated across and within the crisis sub-periods from 1994-1999. Audit quality is found to be associated with abnormal accruals, and differentially so across macroeconomic period with greater constraint evident post-crisis.

Audit quality : earnings management in the context of the 1997 Asian crisis

This study assumes that evidence regarding audit quality can be derived from the level of earnings management reflected in reported abnormal or discretionary accruals. Given this assumption, audit quality is examined in the context of the 1997 Asian financial crisis using data from Malaysia. Examining audit quality in its association with earnings management across differential macroeconomic periods provides insights that may be otherwise masked. The period of the crisis is partitioned between pre-crisis (1994-1996), crisis (1997-1998) and post-crisis (1999). Using a robust approach to the measurement of abnormal accruals, the association of Big 5/non-Big 5 and Industry Specialist/Industry non-specialist auditors with both the levels of, and change in levels of, abnormal accruals is investigated across and within the crisis sub-periods from 1994-1999. Audit quality is found to be associated with abnormal accruals, and differentially so across macroeconomic period with greater constraint evident post-crisis.

Asymmetric recognition of good and bad news at Malaysian capital market : a pre and crisis analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyze the asymmetric recognition of good and bad news on reported earnings of Malaysian-listed firms. The study uses both descriptive and regression analyses to ascertain whether there is a contemporaneous relationship between news (good and bad) and reported earnings. The analysis is based on a sample of 150 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia Index over a period of 10 years, from 1990 to 2000. Two regression models were adopted based on Basu (1997) and Giner and Rees (2001). The first model aims to capture asymmetric recognition of good and bad news into reported earnings while the latter model is developed to capture both asymmetric recognition of information shock and permanent earnings effect on contemporaneous earnings. The evidence from this study reported the steady increase in earnings per share till 1997. However, a drastic decline was observed for the period 1997 to 1999 because of Asian financial crisis. The findings from the regression model one suggested that the asymmetric recognition of good news was more prominent during the good time compare to bad time and vice versa. The findings from model two also suggested that autoregressive effect of permanent effect was very prominent both for crisis and non crisis periods.