The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of ABC（Activity-Based Costing） implementation which has on the behavior of constituent members of an organization, through analysis of customer-specific cost behaviors after ABC has been adopted. Specifically, this paper examines the structural changes caused by the implementation of ABC, using the financial archival data provided by Japanese wholesale company; Iida Co., Ltd.. This study finds that stickiness of customer-specific cost mitigates in the period of which ABC information has come to wide use throughout the company. In addition, cost stickiness mitigates and the cost adjustment is promptly accelerated in response to the sales decrease as far as the customer generating losses are concerned.

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　This paper examines the relation between earnings management preceding a stock-for-stock merger announcement and the market performance. Because the exchange ratio is inversely related to acquiring firms’ stock price, acquiring firms have an incentive to attempt to manage earnings upward, and to increase their share price pre-merger. If acquiring firms manage earnings prior to the merger announcement, the effect is expected to be a significant determinant of the short-term or the long-term performance of stock-for-stock mergers. The result suggests that acquiring firms manage earnings upward in the period prior to a stock-forstock merger announcement. The study also suggests that the effect of the earnings management seems to be reflected in the reversal of earnings, and the post-merger long-term underperformance.

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　This paper investigates whether corporate posture toward disclosure as part of Corporate Social Responsibility（CSR）positively affects disclosures on corporate websites. First, it is revealed whether descriptions regarding disclosure are mentioned in the basic CSR policy by applying text mining to the textual data on the policy. Then, it is determined that a company is disclosure-oriented as part of CSR, if the company’s basic CSR policy contains matters pertaining to disclosure. Second, it is examined whether a company discloses information in a more positive manner if it has a basic CSR policy which includes issues related to disclosure. The result reveals that companies have actually better disclosures on their corporate websites if they are disclosureoriented as part of CSR. Especially, those companies have the advantage that there is more information on their corporate website disclosures. In addition, the fact that awareness of accountability is an important factor responsible for excellent disclosures on corporate websites is also demonstrated.

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　This paper examined the features of recent accounting research from institutional theories perspective. We distinguished the three key approaches of institutional theories which have been the most commonly used in accounting studies. And then, we examined closely the theoretical assumptions and definitions in the recent accounting studies based on the institutional theories. In the present paper, we identified that pluralistic perspectives have presented in the accounting researches while we also extracted three pluralistic features in their assumptions from the researches using institutional theories of which each streams had been strictly classified before: motivation for institutional change, assumption for actors and acknowledgment of institutional diversities.

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　In this paper, we test two hypotheses by stock market experiments. First, it is the hypothesis whether investors would be irritated when they are conscious of other investors. Second, it is the hypothesis whether investors would be irritated when accounting information is released in public. 　Our market experiments verified these hypotheses. Therefore, we should reconsider the intent of fair disclosure of accounting information.

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　This paper examines the relationship between types of strategy, the characteristics of environment, roles of management accountants, and their perceived contribution to their organizational performance. Based on the mail questionnaires distributed to Japanese manufacturing firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, there are three findings. First, two types of roles of management accountants are found: Business Support through Providing Information to Managers; Counselor for Division Managers. Second, we can not find any relationship between the roles of management accountants and types of strategy. However, when the environment is more uncertain and complex, management accountants perform the role of Business Support through Providing Information to Managers more aggressively. Third, the results of a multiple regression analysis using management accountants’ perceived contribution to organizational performance as dependent variable indicates that management accountants who perform the role of Counselor for Division Managers in the context of low degree of environmental complexity feel higher perceived contribution to organizational performance.

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　This paper considers how performance budgeting in U.S. Federal Government has been put into practice under the technical difficulties and political conflicts among parties involved. Although Government Performance and Results Act（GPRA）of 1993 served as a starting point for performance budgeting, federal agencies and Office of Management and Budget（OMB）did not fully enforce the expressed intent of GPRA. Performance budgeting emerged from practicing the performance management scheme provided by GPRA. It resulted in the establishment of PART. In an array of their efforts to implement performance budgeting, GAO, OMB and other agencies conflicted at one time, or cooperated at other time, with each other. Performance budgeting has been permeated the field of performance management in the federal government.

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　Recent researches on cost behavior have revealed that costs do not change proportionately with changes in sales showing that costs increase in response to increase in sales, costs do not decline proportionately with decrease in sales. This asymmetric cost behavior is termed as “sticky costs”. One of the hypotheses on costs stickiness explains it as a result of deliberate decisions of managers. When managers facing decline in sales consider that sales temporally decrease and expect that sales increase in near future, they would deliberately retain the organizational resources. Because, in the long run, retaining orgnizational resources could result in lower costs than eliminating the organizational resources in response to the decline in sales and reacquiring the same in response to the increase in sales. This hypothesis, however, has not been examined in the previous researches. Information on the prospect of future sales has not been used in the previous works. In this paper, sales forecasts issued by managers will be used as a proxy for the prospect of future sales, as we examine the hypothesis that cost stickiness is the result of deliberate decision making by managers.

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　This paper investigates whether manager’s opportunistic earnings-increased real discretion negatively affects firm’s future operating performance. I analyze three types of earningsincreased real discretion, that is, sales manipulation through price discounts, reduction of discretionary expenses such as research and development expenses, and overproduction to report lower cost of goods sold. And, I try to specify opportunistic part from earnings-increased real discretion. Then, I take account of two circumstances. One is a low capability to increase accruals, and the other is a meeting or beating earnings benchmarks. I define opportunistic choice as earnings-increased real discretion with such circumstances. The results indicate that opportunistic real discretion has a significant negative influence on future operating performance （ROA）.

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