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The purpose of this paper is to explore the motives for providing voluntary accounting disclosures and investigate the financial differences between voluntary and non‐voluntary disclosers. The paper also examines the association between the provision of voluntary disclosures and earnings management.

The study utilises logistic regressions to test the hypothetical relations set up in the study. The categorisation of firms into those that report the minimum required by law and those that provide voluntary accounting information is based on the examination of firms' financial statements. Company categorisation is based on the construction of an index similar to the disclosure index formulated by the Center for International Financial Analysis and Research. Each sample firm obtains a score, with a higher score reflecting a more significant level of disclosure.

The findings show that voluntary disclosers exhibit higher profitability and growth and appear to be good news bearers. They also display a change in their management and a higher share trading volume. The results provide evidence that the provision of voluntary accounting disclosures is negatively associated with earnings management.

The study indicates that sound financial indicators and good news and prospects are likely to motivate firms to provide voluntary disclosures in order to attract investors' attention and communicate their managerial superiority or potential. Less information asymmetry and earnings management would lead to the disclosure of informative accounting information and would subsequently assist investors in making efficient decisions.

The contribution of the study lies in the fact that Greece is a particular case because it is a “rules‐based” code‐law country that involves high levels of standardisation and that has adopted IFRSs that are “principles‐based” and involve flexibility in financial reporting and judgment. Also, financial reporting in Greece is less restrictive in terms of disclosure requirements. The findings of the study are useful for financial analysts and investors, as they enable them to understand the financial attributes and motives of firms that provide voluntary disclosures as well as their earnings management inclination.

In a capitalist system, an annual report that includes financial statement is assumed to provide sound information concerning a given company. The annual report offers a background to a company, its financial position, operational results, and its performance. According to radical economics, a financial statement serves the interests of capitalists (Belkaoui, 1984). Annual reports are also value free and are not concerned with issues such as justice or ethics. Indeed, current trends in accounting have raised some questions concerning the paradigm of traditional accounting theory and especially its bias its bias concerning capitalist interests. The emergence of Employee Reporting, Value Added Accounting, Socio‐Economic Accounting, and Environmental Accounting, to name just a few, is evidences of the shortcomings of the capitalistic accounting system in establishing both just and fair principles among company stakeholders. This has therefore led to a demand for a new approach towards accounting disclosure including among others things: a clear account of how a company treats its employees, society, the environment, and the beliefs of employee’s. Even tough the standard formulated by AAOIFI (1998) based on capitalistic accounting, are still in a theoretical stage of development they can be used as a starting point that may help lead to an improved set of disclosure criteria that can be used by an Islamic bank or organization. This paper will discuss the empirical evidence derived from one such Islamic organization. Bank Muamalat Indonesia, has compiled information using capitalistic accounting standards so as to clarify its financial position and results of operations to stakeholders. It is hypothesized though, that the current disclosure system employed gives no indication of justness or fairness and so is incompatible with Islamic value. The paper argues Muslim researcher sold aim to move from utilizing capitalistic practice primarily concerned with the disclosure of financial indicators and towards a system that also consider justice, fairness, and ethical practices.

This study investigates Asia Pacific banks' annual report disclosures on derivatives using the Basel Committee and IOSCO joint recommendations as the derivative and risk management disclosure benchmark. Based on our constructed disclosure index, the mean score is 35%, suggesting that many of the disclosure recommendations are not being adopted by the banks in our sample. Cross‐country and regional variation exists in the disclosure practices, with the variation associated with the extent to which accounting regulations for derivative instruments are operational. Hong Kong banks have the highest mean disclosure scores while the Philippines banks have the lowest mean disclosure scores. Australasian banks generally provide more disclosures than East Asian and South East Asian banks, and banks in developed countries generally have a higher level of disclosure relative to developing countries. The transparency of derivative activities by the banks is expected to improve as Asia Pacific countries promulgate accounting regulations congruent with international accounting standards.

This paper aims to respond to recent calls by Jones (2014) and Jones and Solomon (Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2013) for more studies on biodiversity accounting and reporting. In particular, this paper explores biodiversity reporting of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), an Australian public sector enterprise.

The paper uses content analysis of MDBA’s published annual reports over the period of 15 years (1998-2012). Archival data (from different government departments) are also used to prepare natural inventory model.

The paper finds that although specific species, such as flora and fauna, and habitats-related disclosures have increased over the time, such information still allows only a partial construction of an inventory of natural assets, using Jones’ (1996, 2003) model. However, unlike prior studies that find lack of data availability to be the main impediment for operationalising biodiversity accounting, the abundance of biodiversity data in Australia makes it comparatively easier to produce such a statement.

Informed by the environmental stewardship framework, the results of this paper suggest that the disclosures made by MDBA are constrained potentially due to its use of traditional accounting mechanisms of reporting that only allow tradable items to be reported to stakeholders. An alternative reporting format would be more relevant to stakeholder groups who are more interested in information regarding quality and availability of water, and loss of biodiversity in the basin area rather than the financial performance of the MDBA.

Although there are a growing number of studies exploring biodiversity reporting in Australia, this paper is one of the earlier attempts to operationalise biodiversity (particularly habitats, flora and fauna) within the context of an Australian public sector enterprise.

Private company investors operate in unique environments. Seed equity investors, which generally include venture capitalists and angel investors, often have the particularly unusual role of becoming involved in the oversight of the investee company. This continuing involvement with the investee firm introduces conflicting interests: the desire to maximize the profit from the investment, but also the desire to maintain a positive relationship with the entrepreneur(s) (consistent with the theory of upper echelons/strategic management). We discuss in detail this unusual investment context and the role that accounting disclosures can have in this environment. We predict that accounting disclosures can influence the tradeoff between the profit motive and the relationship motive. Using 64 experienced angel investors as participants in a realistic experimental setting, we find that disclosures indicating conservatively biased accounting choice and lower account risk (variance) lead to angels increasing the valuation of the target firm and forgoing higher profits. Increasing the valuation serves to foster the relationship with the entrepreneur(s). Our findings have implications for entrepreneurs making choices about discretionary disclosures and for standard setters; we also inform theory related to overcoming anchoring.

The authors measure the impact of culture on Sharia; Social and Financial Disclosure (SSFD) of Islamic Banks (IBs) around the world.

Content analysis is used to measure levels of disclosure for a sample of 136 IBs of 25 countries for years 2013 and 2014. Different cultural measures are used. These include secrecy/transparency as suggested by Gray (1988) and Hofstede (1980, 1983, 2001, 2010)’s culture dimensions which include: Power Distance; Individualism; Masculinity; Uncertainty Avoidance; Long-Term Ordination and Indulgence. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression is used to test the research hypotheses.

After controlling bank-specific, corporate governance and country characteristics, the authors found that Hofstede’s culture dimensions have a significant impact on SSFD. They also found that Gray's transparency dimension positively influence levels of sharia, social and aggregated disclosure. Therefore, they conclude that culture influences levels of disclosure in IBs.

This study has policy implications for managers and regulators of Islamic banking industry.

This study is the first to use both Gray and Hofstede models in the context of IBs around the world. It also the first to explore the impact of culture on three different disclosure levels for IBs.

This paper aims to examine how banks’ accounting disclosure policies affect information content in stock prices and stock crash risk.

This paper uses 1996-2013 as the sample period. The final sample includes 10,045 observations in 37 countries. This paper uses stock return synchronicity to measure information content in stock prices. This study uses the frequency difference between extremely negative and positive stock returns to measure stock crash risk. To measure the level of bank accounting disclosure, this research follows Nier and Baumann (2006) to construct an aggregate disclosure index based on inclusions and omissions of a series of items in a bank’s annual accounting reports.

This paper finds that banks’ stocks have lower stock return synchronicity and fewer extremely negative returns if banks have higher levels of financial statement disclosure. These results suggest that banks’ stocks have higher information content and lower crash risk if banks’ information environment is more transparent.

Overall, this paper provides new insight about how to increase banks’ transparency and the safety of the banking industry, which is beneficial to economic growth. To increase banks’ transparency and reduce the possibility of extremely negative stock returns, one way to regulate banks is to increase their accounting disclosure. In addition, the extant literature (Chen et al., 2006, Durnev et al., 2003, 2004; Wurgler, 2000) demonstrates that firms with lower stock return synchronicity have more transparent information environments and higher investment efficiency. Thus, this paper finds that higher levels of bank accounting disclosure are associated with lower stock return synchronicity, which further reduces banks’ opacity and increases banks’ investment efficiency. Finally, compared to business firms, stock crash risk has much direr consequences because one bank’s stock crash will affect overall financial stability. Thus, it is important for authorities to know the effects of accounting disclosure on bank stock crash risk.

Non-financial information disclosure may reflect the quality of corporate financial reports or disclosure policy choices. The authors examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and accounting conservatism and also investigate channels through which such effects are transmitted. The purpose of this paper is to explore how CSR, as non-financial information that has received widespread attention, affects choices regarding corporate financial policy.

Using ordinary least squares regression, the authors analyze China CSR Score data for 2010–2018. They control certain influencing variables related to the nature and characteristics of enterprises and discover that CSR can effectively increase accounting conservatism. Then, they extract the components of market reactions to CSR and study the market reaction path of CSR as it affects financial policy. They also conduct a robustness test to ensure that the results are not accidental in a complex environment.

The results reveal the influence of non-financial information on firms’ financial policy. In addition, the results confirm the attraction of liquidity and investor attention as the major market reaction channels by which CSR significantly promotes accounting conservatism. Additionally, other critical paths of influence deserve further exploration. The results remain robust for alternate measures of accounting conservatism, different components of CSR, other proxies on CSR, endogenous testing and alternate estimation methods.

The study represents the first analysis of the influence of CSR information disclosure on accounting conservatism in emerging markets, and it undertakes a preliminary exploration to clarify the mechanism of CSRs’ role in accounting conservatism. The results also provide a policy reference for external supervision and internal governance of enterprises. Thus, the results can help company managers maintain a favorable corporate image and establish a high-level investor protection mechanism.

This paper aims to determine the role governance plays in the voluntary adoption of Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) Disclosure Standards by Islamic insurance (takaful) operators in the Southeast Asia (SEA) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions.

This study uses a sample of 44 takaful operators in the SEA and the GCC regions. While corporate governance (CG) strength is measured by the use of the frequently examined variables of the board of directors and audit committee, Shari’ah governance strength is measured by the characteristics of the Shari’ah Supervisory Board (SSB). Content analysis is used to extract disclosure items from the 2014 annual reports. Agency theory, stakeholder theory and political economy theory are argued to support the hypotheses.

The results show that CG strength has a positive and significant effect on the voluntary adoption of AAOIFI Disclosure Standards by takaful operators, indicating that CG plays an important role in the disclosure of information in the annual reports of takaful operators. However, the results show a lack of association between SSB strength and voluntary adoption of AAOIFI Disclosure Standards. Our results suggest that the SSBs may not be as involved as the other CG mechanisms (such as a board of directors and audit committees) in reviewing financial reports. On another note, the level of the political right and civil liberties has a negative and significant effect on the voluntary adoption of AAOIFI Disclosure Standards, providing an indication that stakeholders in a community with greater freedom tend to be more active in pressuring takaful operators to provide more information to justify their existence in the community. Similar to SSB strength, the legal system is also found to have no significant association with the voluntary adoption of the AAOIFI disclosure standards.

This study provides stakeholders with a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the governance role in increasing the transparency of takaful operators by examining the governance factors using a self-constructed disclosure index.

Our study is among the first to provide an in-depth analysis of voluntary adoption of AAOIFI Disclosure Standards for takaful operators in these two regions; therefore, this study has implications for regulators and standard setters. The findings of this study are expected to provide information to regulators and standard setters on the role of governance in improving the transparency of takaful operators.

This paper aims to explore the determinants of circular economy accounting information disclosure quality, and also to make empirical analysis on the relationship between circular economy accounting information disclosure quality and corporate ownership governance and institutional pressures according to institutional theory and corporate governance theory. Finally, this paper provides some corresponding suggestions for heightening circular economy accounting information disclosure quality.

This paper constructs enterprise circular economy accounting information disclosure model with Chinese characteristics. First, it takes disclosure index method to measure enterprise circular economy accounting information disclosure quality, followed by the hypotheses of this study. Then, this study employs a statistical analysis technique to empirically study the relationship between enterprise circular economy accounting information disclosure quality and ownership governance and institutional pressures, to study the ways to heighten enterprise circular economy accounting information disclosure quality in Chinese background.

Ownership governance and institutional pressures mainly determine quality of circular economy accounting information disclosure. This paper draws the following conclusions: Chinese listed companies have heightened their circular economy accounting information disclosure quality due to ownership concentration, shareholding of institutional investors, mandatory disclosure, capital structure and assets size. However, the circular economy accounting information disclosure quality has low correlation with the profitability and the location of listed companies.

Both in China and the West, few scholars or experts adopt empirical research to study the determinants of circular economy accounting information disclosure quality in an institutional theory and corporate governance theory perspective based on China’s supervisory system background. This paper makes a thorough analysis of the factors that affect listed companies’ circular economy accounting information disclosure quality, and provides some corresponding suggestions relevant for heightening circular economy accounting information disclosure quality.