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Human resources are considered the most important component of a corporation's competitive advantage in global markets. Society, workers and shareholders expect corporations to manage and utilise human resources not only for the competitive advantage of a corporation but of a nation. Corporations are expected to disclose information relating to the management of human resources in their annual reports. This study analysed the annual reports of a sample of publicly traded corporations in six countries (USA, Canada, Germany, UK, Japan, and S. Korea) for the purpose of an international comparison of human resource information disclosure. Results of the analysis revealed that corporations in different countries differed in the disclosure of human resources information. In particular, those in Europe disclosed more human resources information than those in Asia and North America. The corporations in the financial services sector, which employed over two thirds of the workforce in the developed countries were also different from those in the manufacturing sector in disclosure of human resources information. The details of the differences between the two sectors, and among the six nations of the three continents, in terms of the incidence (frequency) and the word count (content) of information disclosed on different hitman resources issues in the annual reports are presented in the paper.

The purpose of this study is to explore explanation factors regarding labor communication practices by many of the world's large companies.

The data collection focuses on the 2009 fiscal year sourced from 460 highly visible public companies in 57 separate countries. A total of 14 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) items are used as the benchmark of labor disclosure checklist.

The authors' results provide evidence that the overall level of labor‐style communication is 66.4 percent. Companies in emerging market jurisdictions have the highest labor disclosure communication. Employment information is the most frequently disclosed set of items. Lesser communication is noted for training and education, and diversity and equal opportunity issues. Statistical analysis indicates that political visibility, jurisdictional, creditor pressure, and corporate governance variables are directly related to labor communication.

This study assumes that the 14 items used as the checklist benchmark from GRI (2006) are voluntary in each country. Results suggest that combination of legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory are relevant in explaining global context of labor communication.

A broader international survey of labor practices using the specific guidelines of the globally respected Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has not yet been conducted. This study contributes insights for a better understanding of labor communication practices among three jurisdictional business systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of corporate disclosure on human resources (HR) in the annual reports of top performing Indian companies.

The paper explores the extent to which top 82 companies from India present information about HR in their annual reports. This study examines the annual reports of each of the top Indian firms listed on the Bombay stock exchange, using the “content analysis” method. Statistical tests have been performed to analyse the difference between the HR disclosure score across public and private sectors and disclosure variations among various industrial sectors.

In-house training programmes has been noticed to be the favourite item of disclosure followed by safety awards/certifications and statements regarding cordial relations with the employees/unions. A majority of the Indian firms have ignored significant HR issues such as employee welfare fund, maternity/paternity leaves, holiday benefits, employee loans and adopting old age homes, etc. Overall, the study reflects low HR related disclosures. No statistically significant difference has been found between the mean HR disclosure from one industry to another and disclosure practices of the private and the public sector companies.

The disclosure pattern of the Indian companies suggests that they only a few companies are concerned about employees’ welfare than the rest. This may motivate a change of the disclosure policy of the rest of the firms who may follow the reporting pattern of the most disclosing ones.

This is first study on the disclosure of HR by the Indian corporate sector in the CSR domain with a disclosure analysis for a period of nine years . This research provides new directions for the literature in this area and may promote comparative studies on HR-based studies from different perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a numerical model for estimating the unknown boundary heat flux in a parallel plate channel for the case of a hydrodynamically and thermally developing laminar flow.

The conjugate gradient method (CGM) is used to solve the inverse problem. The momentum equations are solved using an in-house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) source code. The energy equations along with the adjoint and sensitivity equations are solved using the finite volume method.

The effects of number of measurements, distribution of measurements and functional form of unknown flux on the accuracy of estimations are investigated in this work. The prediction of boundary flux by the present algorithm is found to be quite reasonable.

It is noticed from the literature review that study of inverse problem with hydrodynamically developing flow has not received sufficient attention despite its practical importance. In the present work, a hydrodynamically and thermally developing flow between two parallel plates is considered and unknown transient boundary heat flux at the upper plate of a parallel plate channel is estimated using CGM.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the significance that companies give to women-friendly policies and practices. Thus, the disclosures on women-friendly policies made in annual reports by top listed companies in India have been examined. This paper also attempts to investigate the disclosure-level changes over a three-year period: 2014–2016.

This paper investigates the extent of women-friendly policies disclosure made by top 83 Bombay Stock Exchange listed companies in India in their annual report. The content analysis method is used to examine the annual reports of each organisation over a period of three years to determine the extent of disclosure.

The result points out that the sexual harassment policy is the most disclosed item, followed by a special committee for handling sexual harassment and maternity leave. Most of the companies have ignored policies such as job sharing, cafeteria benefit plan and differential referral payment programme. It was also found that over a period of three years the women-friendly policies disclosure by companies has increased.

The study focuses on the annual reports published by the companies. A broader study can be done by using other reports issued by companies.

In terms of the knowledge of the researchers, this is the first-ever study in the area of women-friendly policies disclosure in the annual report by listed companies in India. Thus, it also adds to the scarce research on women-friendly policies by companies.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that clarifies the construct of pay secrecy.

Paralleling organizational justice research, two continua of pay information – a distributive continuum about pay raise outcomes and a procedural continuum of pay raise processes – are crossed to produce a 3 × 3 matrix with nine distinct forms of pay communication.

Drawing on the substitutability effect from the organizational justice literature, the matrix highlights the importance of considering how the communication of different types of pay information interact with one another as individuals form pay perceptions.

The matrix framework illustrates that not only information content shapes pay perceptions, but also the extent to which different types of pay information are communicated, and how these different types of information interact. As with any conceptual framework, the current manuscript is limited by a lack of empirical testing.

Managers should be cognizant of the many different ways in which pay information can be communicated. A call is made to reconsider the use of traditionally binary terminology (secret or not) in favor of more accurate descriptions of the nuanced ways in which organizations communicate pay information.

The value of the pay communication matrix lies in the nine unique forms of pay communication arising from the interaction of two different forms of pay information – distributive (outcomes) and procedural (process).

The Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting has achieved critical mass and recognition as a primary place for publishing both scientific and practical applications of Human Resource Accounting (HRA). This paper reviews the state of the art of the development of HRA as it has appeared in the JHRCA since its inception. The paper assesses contributions and categorizes them according to studies which (1) underscore the importance of reporting human resource assets on the financial statements, (2) present empirical evidence, case and field studies on the various methods of reporting human resource assets and implementing HRA in various organisations, (3) analyse methods for measuring human resources, (4) demonstrate the use of HRA in human resource management decision‐making, (5) identify bottlenecks to the growth of HRA, (6) identify controversies in the field, and (7) discuss recent developments such as the balanced scorecard. The paper draws conclusions on the state of the HRA and suggests recommendations for future research and development.

Human capital (HC) disclosures by firms are voluntary as per the GAAPs in most of the countries including India. Therefore, a wide discrepancy exists across Indian firms with respect to their HC disclosures. This paper aims to investigate the extent and determinants of HC disclosure levels of the Indian listed firms in a two‐stage analysis.

In the first stage, a 12‐item index is developed and is used to measure the extent of HC disclosures of 97 listed firms. In the second stage, a regression analysis is carried out to ascertain the determinants of HC disclosure levels of the Indian listed firms.

The results point out that HC disclosure levels have high variations among the sample firms with information technology firms having highest average HC disclosure levels. Further, regression results indicate that a firm's “size” and “employees' expenses as a proportion of its total operating expenses” have a significant positive bearing on its level of HC disclosure, and “industry affiliation”, “globalisation”, “profitability”, “ownership concentration”, “age”, “structural complexity”, “leverage” and “auditor reputation” do not have significant influence on its level of HC disclosure.

This study follows a cross sectional design. A longitudinal study would have the potential to determine any pattern of changes in extent of HC disclosures over time. Index construction involves subjective judgment. The study assumes that the annual reports are the primary documents available to stakeholders requiring information about the firms.

The HC disclosure index constructed in this study can be used as a benchmark by the Indian firms to enhance their HC disclosures in future. It can be an aid to the regulators as and when they decide on an accounting standard for HC disclosures. The extent of HC disclosure of individual firms measured by this study can be used by the investors to identify the Indian firms which disclose more HC information. The determinants of HC disclosures can be used by the investors in identifying the other Indian firms (not in the study sample) which potentially may have high HC disclosures.

The study adds to the existing literature by constructing a suitable index to measure the level of HC disclosures in the annual reports of the Indian listed firms. Further, this is the first ever study to investigate the extent and determinants of HC disclosures of Indian listed firms. This study empirically validates a new proposition which has never been tested by any of the existing studies. The new proposition validated is: firm's “employee expenses as a proportion of its total operating expenses” has a significant positive bearing on its level of HC disclosures. Additionally this is the first ever study to use Poisson regression to ascertain determinants of HC disclosure practices.

This study investigated the effects of arbitration condition and risk‐taking propensity upon bargaining behavior. Negotiators anticipating final‐offer arbitration settled more contracts, resolved more contract issues, and conceded more than did negotiators anticipating conventional arbitration. Contrary to our hypothesis, low risk‐taking propensity dyads did not settle significantly more contract issues under final‐offer arbitration than they did under conventional arbitration. Union negotiators made significantly greater concessions during the 30 minute pre‐arbitration bargaining period and conceded a greater total amount than did management negotiators. Possible explanations for these findings are presented.

Human resource (HR) disclosures are voluntary in nature in most countries including India. The voluntary nature of HR disclosures results in discrepancy in the HR disclosure practices across companies and industries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of HR disclosures in annual reports of Indian listed companies and to identify their determinants in a three stage analysis.

In the first stage a 16 item human resource disclosure index (HRDI) has been constructed for the set of CNX 200 companies listed on National Stock Exchange. Thereafter the effect of various independent variables on HRDI is analysed descriptively. Finally in the third stage HRDI has been regressed against the independent variables using regression analysis technique to identify key determinants of HRDI.

The research reveals that there is high variation among sample companies as regard HRDI. The results of descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis establish that government’s participation in ownership and market capitalisation has positive significant effect on HRDI at 1 per cent, presence of separate HR directors committee, presence of more independent directors on board at 5 per cent and cross-list America and profit after tax at 10 per cent level. Implicitly HRDI is positively affected by size of company as measured by market capitalisation. Though contrary to expectations, other variables leverage, number of employees, assets, ownership concentration, type of auditor, age, complexity of business structure, employee expense to total operating expense ratio, industry affiliation, foreign investment and proportion of non-executive directors on board are found to have moderate though insignificant influence on HRDI.

Cross-sectional design, dependence on annual reports as a primary document for disclosure and subjectivity in HRDI construction are the main limitations of the research. A longitudinal study may be carried to study the pattern of HR disclosures in future. Weighted ranking of different items of disclosures may be studied to improve the understanding of extent of disclosures.

The HRDI as constructed in the research may be used as a benchmark by companies to improve their HR disclosures. It can also be used by accounting bodies and company regulators while deciding about standards regarding HR disclosures. Investors can also use HR disclosures made by a company as a basis to understand its financial standing and future potentials.

The study adds to the existing literature by developing 16 item HRDI to measure the extent of disclosures by listed companies in India and thereafter by including some new propositions in the determinants of HRDI have never been tested in the existing studies. These propositions are government’s participation in ownership, separate HR committee of directors, board composition and foreign activity. These propositions have been empirically validated in this research except for foreign activity.