M41 - AccountingReturn

The aim of the paper is to analyse the association between the use of accrual-based and real earnings management practices before the company goes public and the decision of institutional investors on buying or refraining from buying shares offered in initial public offering (IPO). The sample consists of 258 Polish new stock companies over the period 2005-2020. We find that such companies refrain from massive earnings management in the pre-IPO period: both real and accrual-based. However, we find evidence that the presence of institutional investors in the IPO is related to earnings inflation (selling, general and administrative expenses). Our study contributes to the debate on the role of institutional ownership in the IPO process in Central and Eastern Europe.

This study investigates whether firm size moderates the relationship between cash conversion cycle and profitability over 8-year period for 285 German non-financial firms. The moderated regression results reveal that the relationship between cash conversion cycle and profitability is moderated by firm size. As the firm size gets smaller and the cash conversion cycle gets longer, the returns on assets decreases. When the firm size gets bigger and the cash conversion cycle gets longer, on the other hand, the returns on assets increases. In this context, reducing the length of cash conversion cycle has a positive impact on profitability for only small and medium-sized firms. Accordingly, this study concludes that small and also medium-sized firms, contrary to big firms, should reduce the length of cash conversion cycle in order to increase profitability.

I document a new channel that can be used by managers who can take advantage of investors preference for logo colours to influence their perception of the financial reports and thus indirectly affect firm value. Evidence suggests that firms having warm colours as a major logo colour, fewer colours used in the logo, and recognizable elements in the logo are associated with lower earnings management and higher firm value. My findings remain stable across different robustness checks.

We investigate whether the positive relation between accounting accruals and information asymmetry documented for U.S. stock markets also holds for European markets, considered as a whole and at the country level. This research is relevant because this relation is likely to be affected by differences in accounting standards used by companies for financial reporting, in the traditional use of the banking system or capital markets for firm financing, in legal systems and cultural environment. We find that in European stock markets discretionary accruals are positively related with the Corwin and Schultz high-low spread estimator used as a proxy for information asymmetry. Our results suggest that the earnings management component of accruals outweighs the informational component, but the significance of the relation varies across countries. Further, such association tends to be stronger for firms with the highest levels of positive discretionary accruals. Consistent with the evidence provided by the authors, our results also suggest that the high-low spread estimator is more efficient than the closing bid-ask spread when analysing the impact of information quality on information asymmetry.

The UEFA approved the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulation in 2010, which governs the requirements on transparency and financial conditions of football clubs participating at the European cups. The paper focuses on the specifics of Czech professional football clubs. The research is carried out in two ways. Firstly, the compliance with information duties set up by Czech commercial law is analysed. According to the performed empirical survey, a significant number of Czech football clubs submit their financial statements to the Business Register with a delay or they do not submit the statements at all despite the submission is mandatory. This unsatisfactory state of affairs boosts the risk of bankruptcy of football clubs rapidly taking into account an overall poor financial health of Czech football clubs, which is evidenced by the second part of empirical study.

Fair value measurement became pervasive to financial reporting over last 20 years. Under fair value accounting, entities are obliged or permitted to measure particular assets and liabilities at their fair values as at the reporting dates. Fair value is a current market-based hypothetical value. This market value is not always directly observable. The debate on usefulness of fair value accounting has arisen in connection with the financial crunch and economic crisis in years 2007-2009. The opponents of fair value accounting insist on that financial reporting based on fair value measurement has accelerated the financial crisis and significantly worsened the impact on affected companies. On the other hand, there are several important opinions in favour of fair value accounting. The paper aim is to contribute to the actual debate whether fair value accounting played the role of a messenger or a mover in the recent financial crunch and subsequent economic recession and to analyse the characteristics of fair value accounting from the economic point of view.