Working and Discussion Papers

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Terms of Engagement: When Academe meets Military
(Security Politics Development Network Massey University, 2018-06-01) Greener, B; Prinsen, G; Powles, A; Harding, N
Value Relevance of Control-based Consolidated Financial Statements
(2015) Barcham, R; Bradbury, M
The study examines whether the switch from ownership-based guidelines for control under SSAP-8 to the principles-based guidelines (power and benefits) of FRS-37 increased the value relevance of consolidated financial statements in New Zealand. The adoption of FRS-37 led to an increase in value relevance of consolidated assets and liabilities (at the 5 percent level). Only weak evidence was found to support the view that FRS-37 was not effective (less value relevant) for entities with a large number of subsidiaries (as a proxy for investment complexity) and associates are less value relevant. The is evidence that investors view non-controlling as a liability, which does not support its presentation as equity (under IFRS 10).
Community Development through Corporate Social Responsibility in Livingston, Zambia: Are Hotels Actually Changing Business Practices?
(Massey University, 2018) Chilufya, Andrew K
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) presents unique prospects for both local development and valuable business returns for tourism companies. However, optimization of CSR-generated development impacts may largely depend on the willingness of companies to change their corporate practices more. This paper explores CSR practices of hotels and lodges in Livingstone, Zambia, and associated community development impacts of activities they implement in the surrounding Mukuni communities. Findings from research amongst eight hotel and lodge companies, show that where the voluntary process of change of CSR practices was accompanied by multi-stakeholder involvement, which tended to ameliorate adverse power relations, substantial community development benefits were widely captured by communities from CSR initiatives. These findings suggest that in situations where companies willingly incorporate pro-poor approaches in their business practices, multi-stakeholder involvement in CSR might be a plausible approach for ensuring equity and for augmenting the CSR community development impacts.
The New Zealand class structure : the demographies of class structure
(Sociology Dept., Massey University, 1985) Wilkes, Chris; Davis, Peter; Tait, David; Chrisp, Peter
Detecting Fraud in Chinese Listed Company Balance Sheets
(SSRN eLibrary, 2016-04-01) Wei, Y; Chen, JG; Wirth, CG
This study investigates the links between accounting values in Chinese listed companies’ balance sheets and the exposure of their fraudulent activities. Every balance sheet account is proposed to be a potential vehicle to manipulate financial statements. Other receivables, inventories, prepaid expenses, employee benefits payables and long-term payables are important indicators of fraudulent financial statements. These results confirm that asset account manipulation is frequently carried out and cast doubt on earlier conclusions by researchers that inflation of liabilities is the most common source of financial statement manipulation. Prior practices of solely scaling balance sheet values by assets are revealed to produce spurious relationships, while scaling by both assets and sales effectively detects fraudulent financial statements and provides a useful fraud prediction tool for Chinese auditors, regulators and investors.
Shallow landsliding and catchment connectivity within the Houpoto Forest, New Zealand.
(Massey University, 2013) McCabe, Michelle; Fuller, Ian C; McColl, Sam T
Active landslides and their contribution to catchment connectivity have been investigated within the Houpoto Forest, North Island, New Zealand. The aim was to quantify the proportion of buffered versus coupled landslides and explore how specific physical conditions influenced differences in landslide connectivity. Landsliding and land use changes between 2007 and 2010 were identified and mapped from aerial photography, and the preliminary analyses and interpretations of these data are presented here. The data indicate that forest harvesting made some slopes more susceptible to failure, and consequently many landslides were triggered during subsequent heavy rainfall events. Failures were particularly widespread during two high magnitude (> 200 mm/day) rainfall events, as recorded in 2010 imagery. Connectivity was analysed by quantifying the relative areal extents of coupled and buffered landslides identified in the different images. Approximately 10 % of the landslides were identified as being coupled to the local stream network, and thus directly contributing to the sediment budget. Following liberation of landslides during high-magnitude events, low-magnitude events are thought to be capable of transferring more of this sediment to the channel. Subsequent re-planting of the slopes appears to have helped recovery by increasing the thresholds for failure, thus reducing the number of landslides during subsequent high-magnitude rainfall events. Associated with this is a reduction in slope-channel connectivity. These preliminary results highlight how site specific preconditioning, preparatory and triggering factors contribute to landslide distribution and connectivity, in addition to how efficient re-afforestation improves the rate of slope recovery.
Aid, education and adventure: Thai women’s participation in a development scholarship scheme.
(Institute of Development Studies, Massey University, 2012) Wild, Kirsty; Scheyvens, Regina
Development scholarships – endowments that provide individuals from so-called ‘developing’ nations with opportunities to undertake tertiary training abroad – are an historically important, yet increasingly contested, form of educational aid. However, meaningful debates about the value of this type of aid are limited by a lack of research about the impact that it has. The experience of female development scholars is a particularly neglected area of research. This article provides a qualitative exploration of the experiences of twelve Thai women who have completed a postgraduate degree through a scholarship scheme funded by the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID). This research highlights a number of benefits associated with these schemes, including greater emotional autonomy, increased cross-cultural knowledge, new professional networks, new work skills, and improved English-language competency. Negative outcomes identified include career disruption, new unwanted work responsibilities, and dissatisfaction with aspects of life in their country of origin.
Claims for wrongful pregnancy and child rearing expenses
(2002) Thomas, C. M.
Wrongful birth claims relate to the birth of a child as a consequence of medical negligence. There has been general acceptance by courts in various jurisdictions that costs relating to the pregnancy and birth may be recovered. However the more contentious issue is whether there is liability for the costs of rearing such a child. The English courts have held there is no such liability with respect to a healthy child, while in Australia, the Queensland Court of Appeal has taken the opposite view2. In New Zealand the issue has yet to be decided. The Accident Compensation scheme has limited the development of the law relating to personal injury in general, but the High Court has found that the scheme does not prevent claims for wrongful birth. It is argued that the New Zealand courts should follow the Australian decisions, as the English approach is based on the views of ordinary people on this moral question as perceived by judges. This requires the individual judge’s sense of the moral answer to a question to prevail, albeit in light of the judge’s view of the opinions of ordinary people. It is argued that this is a subjective approach in that, in such a complex and emotionally difficult area of the law, there is unlikely to be uniformity of opinion among the public, or even among judges. As such, this is arguably a matter better resolved by legislation than by the courts.
Kiwi talent flow : a study of chartered accountants and business professionals overseas
(2005) Hooks, J. J.; Carr, S. C.; Edwards, M. F.; Inkson, K.; Jackson, D. J. R.; Thorn, K. J.; Allfree, N.
New Zealanders have always had a propensity to travel overseas. The globalisation of the world has seen an increase in the number of people who, having completed their education and gained some work experience, set off on their overseas experience. Concern has been expressed as to the potential “brain drain” that would result should these well-educated and talented citizens remain overseas permanently. This research considers the propensity to return of over 1,500 expatriate Kiwis working in the areas of accounting and finance. It examines their demographics, attitudes, values, motivations, factors of attraction to, and repulsion from, New Zealand and their concerns for change in New Zealand. It therefore provides insights into the nature and purpose of this significant group of professionals resident mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia. We find that less than half are likely to return to New Zealand. This is because of the lack of career and business opportunities despite the “pull” of family and relations in New Zealand.
Has IFRS resulted in information overload?
(2010) Morunga, M.; Bradbury, M. E.
The move to NZ IFRS has been surrounded by complaints of too much information being provided. This is not simply a matter of the cost of providing the information, but the possibility of data overload. Data overload is an important issue as it impacts information search strategies and decision outcomes. This relevant for the current debate on differential reporting and for assessing whether NZ IFRS has achieved its goals of reducing the cost of financial analysis. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the move to international financial reporting by New Zealand listed entities on the quantity of data provided in the annual report. Our analysis shows that the annual report increased for 92% of our sample firms. The average increase in size was 29% of the prior years‟ annual report and arose through notes to the accounts and accounting policies. Even after transitional information (e.g., accounting policies and reconciliations) the increase is 15%.

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