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The purpose of this paper is to assess the financial disclosure vis‐á‐vis economic reality of research and development (R&D) expensed by Australian firms under the pre‐2005 Australian generally accepted accounting principles (A‐GAAP) regime via the lens of market‐to‐book.

The authors estimated firms' R&D profit rate, measured R&D revenue intensity and modelled the impacts of these and related economic factors, via economic and financial disclosure channels, on market‐to‐book using data for 1988‐2004.

R&D, on average, was profit neutral and had undetectable impacts on market‐to‐book whether via equity valuation or financial disclosure.

Market‐to‐book's information content is best viewed as conditional on the reference disclosure regime. Australian firms' typically at best minimal R&D profitability is an international anomaly. Data limitations in terms of the generating process and availability mean that R&D's impact on market‐to‐book via financial reporting is not definitively determined.

Restrictive rules on the capitalization of intangible asset‐related expenditures under A‐GAAP apparently did not adversely impact market‐to‐book's economic information. AIFRS's more permissive rule risks compromising market‐to‐book's reliability in such a role.

For Australia, the paper is anticipated to be the first to estimate the profit rate of R&D, measure the intensity of R&D, and model R&D's influence on the market‐to‐book ratio. It develops a framework for the economic and financial reporting impacts of investments on a key indicator of firms' financial standing and contributes to the debate on identifiable intangibles' disclosure.

This paper aims to investigate the association between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) effort due to higher levels of material adjustments and audit fees. In addition, this paper tests whether these associations differ between industry specialist auditors and non-specialist auditors.

The authors measure IFRS effort by using differences between local GAAP and IFRS. More specifically, they measure the differences in the balances of accounts that are prepared under IFRS as opposed to the previously used Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) standards. They posit that higher material adjustments and more risk to fair presentation of financial statements require additional accounting and auditing effort (“IFRS effort”).

The authors find that audit fees are higher when accounting standards are more material and complex at an aggregate level. Nevertheless, not all standards are equally complex and/or material and not all individual standards contribute to higher audit fees. In addition, the results show that the positive association between IFRS effort and audit fees is more pronounced when firms are audited by city-level industry specialists than by non-industry specialists.

Overall, the results are consistent with the prediction of increasing audit fees for firms requiring higher levels of IFRS effort compared to firms requiring lower levels of IFRS effort. The results contribute to the understanding that not all IFRS are equally complex and, thereby, the standards require different levels of auditor effort. Isolating specific standards based on materiality/risk levels is informative to standard setters for standard setting, standard implementation and post-implementation review of standards.

This chapter provides an ethnographic account of conducting organisational research in a deep-level gold mining workplace. The ethnography presented in this book entailed living in the mine hostel, observing and participating in the production tasks of the underground mining teams for a full production shift for a period stretching over six months. The chapter discusses the day-to-day running of the production process at the rock-face down the mine. This section is important for understanding the organisation of the production cycle and the actions of the mining teams, foremen and management to ensuring the smooth daily running of the production process inside the pit. Furthermore, the chapter presents an overview of AfricaGold’s business performance in terms of operational efficiency, productivity and safety.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why environmentally-sensitive companies still face criticism despite the extensive disclosures in their annual reports. This paper explores the extent of site-specific social, environmental and ethical (SEE) reporting by mining companies operating in Ghana.

The authors conduct an interpretive content analysis of the annual/integrated reports of mining companies for the years 2009–2014 to extract site-specific SEE information relating to the companies’ mining operations in Ghana. The authors also theorise these actions using the existentialist work of Jean-Paul Sartre, in particular his work on “bad faith, nothingness and authenticity”.

The findings suggest that SEE information disclosure at site-specific level remains problematic because of bad faith and inauthenticity by mining companies attempting to placate a range of stakeholders. Bad faith represents a form of self-deception or internal denial which manifests in corporate narratives. Inauthenticity is a self-awareness that culminates in the denunciation of corporate identity and the pursuit of external expectations. The effect is the production of inauthentic corporate accounts that is constrained by the assumption made on stakeholder expectation.

The authors apply a Sartrean lens to explore site-specific SEE. Furthermore, the authors seek to expand the social accounting research domain by drawing on Sartre’s work on “bad faith” and “nothingness”. Sartre’s work to the best of the authors’ knowledge is not explored in social accounting research.

This study aimed at investigating the value relevance of book value and earnings and the relationship between earnings and operating cash flow of two different financial reporting regimes in Malaysia. A market and nonmarket valuation approaches were utilised for that purpose. The result of market valuation approach of pool sample shows that book values and earnings are value relevant. We also observed that the change in financial reporting regime affects significantly the value relevance of book value and but not earnings. While book value and earnings are value relevant during the MASB period, only book value is value relevance during the FRS period. The result of non‐market valuation approach on the other hand, shows that the change in financial reporting regime has no significant effect on the relationship between earnings and operating cash flow. The result of market valuation approach implicates that the introduction of new or improved standards under FRS regime strengthen the position of book value thus leaving earnings behind in equity valuation. The result of non‐market valuation model implicates that the level of relationship between earnings and operating cash flow persists as long as operating cash flow comprise of cash and cash equivalent components whereas earnings comprise of cash and accruals components. The study contributes to the existing literature in the area of the effect of adoption of FRS on value relevance of accounting numbers in Malaysia.

This paper aims to investigate if the more stringent requirements of AASB 138, effective 1 January 2005, regarding capitalising research and development (R&D) spending could have been a catalyst for changes in managerial decisions that consequently resulted in reduced R&D spending in Australian companies.

Financial data of 31 Australian listed firms for financial years from 2001 to 2010 were used. Companies were classified as either capitalisers or non-capitalisers. A regression model was used to ascertain whether managers reduced R&D spending to manage earnings to attain short-term goals. Also, the research intensity ratios were calculated to determine trends in R&D spending of the two groups.

The pursuit of choosing short-term earnings targets to the detriment of long-term returns is referred to as short-termism. This study found a marked increase in the significance of short-termism in explaining changes in R&D of capitalisers before 2005. Furthermore, the median research intensity ratio of capitalisers declined almost three times that of non-capitalisers after the introduction of AASB 138. These findings suggest that AASB 138 could have been a catalyst for changes in managerial decisions in pursuit of short-termism, resulting in reduced R&D spending as a means to manage earnings.

This study is useful to standard setters and board of directors as it alerts them about the potential adverse effect AASB 138 might have on the survivability and competitiveness of Australian companies and hence the Australian economy.

The purpose of this study is to examine factors influencing decisions to repurchase shares on-market in Australia. The present study also examines the role of board size, board independence and chief executive officer duality on the decision to repurchase shares on-market by Australian firms.

This study blends the traditional motivations of share repurchases with the influences of governance. The sample consists of all non-financial firms included in the Australian All Ordinaries Index (AOI) for the period 2004-2010. The repurchase sample consists of 104 repurchases undertaken by 62 firms. A probit panel model is used to analyse the decision to repurchase shares on the market. To account for unobserved heterogeneity, random effects panel models are also used.

Analyses of a sample of non-financial firms included in the AOI for the period 2004-2010 show that size is significantly positively correlated with the decision to repurchase shares, thus supporting the agency cost. Findings also support the undervaluation and signalling hypotheses. Similarly, there is evidence in support of the view that firms repurchase shares to reach their target optimal capital structure. The present study also finds a significant positive association between board independence and the decision to repurchase shares in Australia.

On-market share repurchases help firms to signal their future growth opportunities and resolve agency conflicts. Signals from repurchases also help markets discover the true fundamental values of firms. Governance plays an important role in improving the effectiveness of on-market share repurchases, as independent directors provide both monitoring and discipline which helps to ensure that firms have valid motivations in undertaking share repurchases.

These findings have implications for capital restructuring and governance policies. Principle-based governance frameworks that prevail in countries like Australia work as well as rule-based governance.

This study highlights the complementary roles that financial policies and corporate boards play in corporate governance. Independent boards ensure that firms pursue appropriate financial policies that help resolve agency conflicts and information asymmetry problems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact corporate governance, measured by a governance index, on the performance of listed firms in a developing economy, Ghana. It also evaluates the effect of the introduction of a code of corporate governance on compliance rates across Ghanaian firms as well as assessing the impact of the code’s introduction on firm performance for the study period 2000-2009.

The paper develops a Ghanaian corporate governance index (GCGI) containing 33 provisions to measure corporate governance quality during the pre-code and the post-code sub-periods. The authors use a panel data analytical framework and fixed effects regressions to analyse the governance-performance relationships.

After controlling for endogeneity, the authors find a statistically significant and positive relationship between the GCGI and firm performance. The analysis shows evidence of a statistically significant increase in the degree of compliance with the Ghanaian Code from the pre-2003 sub-period to the post-2003 sub-period. The authors also find that the introduction of the code has led to improved firm performance. However, not all elements of corporate governance appear to have a significant effect on firm performance.

One limitation of this study is the development of a corporate governance index. The binary coding used to construct the GCGI may not reflect the relative importance of the different corporate governance provisions. This means that all elements included in the index are given equal weighting. Future research may assign weights to each of the corporate governance provisions but this may have the disadvantage of making subjective judgements relative to the importance of each corporate governance provision recommended by the Ghanaian Code.

These results have important implications for both policy makers and companies. For policy makers, it is encouraging for the development of a code of corporate governance to regulate firms rather than enforcing rigid laws that may not be value relevant. For companies, the improvement in compliance with a code of corporate governance can provide a means of achieving improved performance.

This paper adds to the limited evidence on the governance-performance relationship in developing economies and in particular it analyses the role of a governance index. It is also the first paper to compare the pre- and the post-code governance index-performance relationship in an African or developing country.

This paper aims to investigate the compliance with IAS 24 and possible audit committee attributes that can influence companies in Ghana to disclose related party (RP) information in their annual reports.

Different univariate tests and multivariate regressions have been used to examine the hypotheses. The sample includes 120 firm-year observations for the period 2013-2016.

The findings of the paper reveal that related party disclosure compliance is influenced by audit committee gender, audit committee independence and ownership concentration.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no empirical studies that have addressed the effect of audit committee attributes on IAS 24 in Ghana and the second of such study in sub-Saharan Africa.