Denna studie finner indikationer på att big bath förekommer genom stora goodwillnedskrivningar i samband med VD-byte. Däremot anser vi att det behöver genomföras mer omfattande studier för att med större säkerhet kunna påstå att big bath förekommer. Eftersom IFRS 3 och IAS 36 tillämpas av samtliga börsnoterade företag inom EU vore det intressant att utöka urvalet och studera fler länders goodwillnedskrivningar och VD-byten. Att sedan jämföra ländernas och branschers resultat anser vi vara av intresse för såväl lagstiftare, investerare och revisorer.
Studien utelämnar många variabler och tar inte hänsyn till andra faktorer som kan påverka undersökningens resultat. Med bakgrund av att omständigheterna kring VD-byten kan ha en inverkan på nedskrivningsbeslut, vore det intressant att studera skillnader i
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goodwillnedskrivningar beroende på om VD-bytet sker frivilligt eller inte, och om den avgående VD:n vidhåller en roll i företaget. Därtill är andra variabler som kan användas som verktyg för big bath relevanta att utforska, för att se om resultaten överensstämmer med denna studie. Det är också av intresse att komplettera en kvantitativ big bath-studie med intervjuer med företagsrepresentanter och revisorer, för att få en fördjupad inblick i deras tolkning av situationen. Därigenom närmar sig studien de bakomliggande orsakerna till de stora goodwillnedskrivningarna och utreder indikationerna av big bath.
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8. Appendix
Figur 4
Normal Probability Plot av goodwillnedskrivningarnas fördelning för populationen VD-byte.
Figur 5
32 Figur 6
Test av varianserna för goodwillnedskrivningarna i grupperna.
Tabell 7
Deskriptiv statistik för populationernas goodwillnedskrivningar i förhållande till totala tillgångar.
Descriptive Statistics: GWN
Variable VD N Mean StDev Minimum Q1 Median Q3 GWN VD-byte 57 0,0844 0,1718 0,0000 0,0005 0,0138 0,0890 Ej VD-byte 150 0,0286 0,0807 0,0000 0,00072 0,00274 0,02138 Variable VD Maximum Skewness Kurtosis
GWN VD-byte 0,9742 3,63 15,15 Ej VD-byte 0,67961 5,50 36,52
33 Figur 7
Boxplot-diagram som beskriver spridningen av goodwillnedskrivningarna i förhållande till företagets totala tillgångar för båda grupperna.
Tabell 8
Sammanställning av Chi-Square testet som undersöker sambandet mellan VD-byte och big bath. Big bath definieras som en goodwillnedskrivning som överstiger en procent av företagets tillgångar.
Tabulated statistics: VD; GWN 1%
Rows: VD Columns: GWN
Ej Big
Big Bath Bath All
Ej VD-byte 47 103 150 55,07 94,93 150,00 1,183 0,686 * VD-byte 29 28 57 20,93 36,07 57,00 3,114 1,806 * All 76 131 207
Cell Contents: Count
Expected count
Contribution to Chi-square Pearson Chi-Square = 6,790; DF = 1; P-Value = 0,009
Likelihood Ratio Chi-Square = 6,649; DF = 1; P-Value = 0,010 Fisher's exact test: P-Value = 0,0149808