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This paper aims to explore the biodiversity and threatened species extinction reporting of 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The primary objectives are to explore the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as a practice of virtue ethics and to identify instances of emancipatory extinction accounts on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The research sample comprised 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the IDX. A content analysis of the narrative text of their annual and sustainability reports for 2020 was conducted to discern the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as an ethical practice using Aristotle’s rhetoric (ethos, logos and pathos). The identification of extinction accounts listed on the IUCN Red List was conducted based on criteria established in the conceptual framework of Atkins and Maroun (2018).

All 54 companies used ethos, logos and pathos in their biodiversity disclosure as a virtuous practice. These disclosures improve the tone of corporate communications and enhance accountability and transparency. Low-profile companies showed a greater propensity for reporting biodiversity disclosures compared to high-profile companies. Additionally, the authors identified 14 companies informing extinction accounts that qualify as emancipatory accounts, with high-profile companies disclosing extinction more frequently than low-profile ones. Emancipatory accounting highlighted species such as turtles, orangutans, elephants, rhinos, turtles and medicinal plants. These accounts are intended as a form of accountability to the species.

The limitation of this research is the observation of annual reports in one period. Future studies can add more observation periods to see the consistency of companies in disclosing biodiversity and extinction.

Companies can adopt the rhetorical strategy of ethos, logos and pathos in disclosing their biodiversity. For policymakers, it is important to establish regulations to encourage companies to disclose biodiversity. The implications for accountants, to contribute more to biodiversity and extinction reporting, considering that previously sustainability accounting reporting was mostly carried out by nonaccountants.

Regarding social implications, emancipatory accounts aimed at preventing the extinction of animals such as birds, orangutans and rhinos will have significant social and natural impacts.

This research represents the first use of Aristotelian rhetoric and virtue to understand biodiversity disclosure as virtue rhetoric and extinction disclosure as emancipatory accounting. This rhetoric is a benevolent persuasion tool that can shape the audience’s thinking and behavior in a more ethical manner concerning biodiversity issues. It provides evidence of the role of accounting as a social and moral practice, which is particularly relevant in the face of a complex reality and increasing concerns, notably regarding the threat of biodiversity loss and extinction.

The objective of this paper is to synthesize and extend the existing understanding of social health accounting (SHA) literature within the perspectives of social health disclosures (SHAD) and the effect of social health problems on public and private sector accounting.

This study provides a comprehensive and up-to-date systematic literature review (SLR) of past studies on social health within the accounting literature. This is done by employing a three-step SLR research design to investigate a sample of papers, made up of 62 mixed, qualitative and quantitative studies conducted in over 23 countries, drawn predominantly from the extant accounting literature from 2013 to 2023 and published in 25 peer-reviewed journals.

Our SLR offers several findings. First, we find that existing SHA studies apply theories in SHAD studies, but hardly apply them to explain the impact of health problems on business outcomes. Second, we show that the extant studies have focused predominantly on rigorous empirical studies on SHAD, while this is scarce for studies examining the impact of diseases/health problems on both public and private sector accounting. Third, we identify several research design weaknesses, including a lack of primary data analysis, mixed-methods approach and rigorous qualitative studies. Finally, we present directions for future SHA research.

In contrast to the ever-increasing general social and environmental accounting (SEA) research, existing studies examining global health issues and challenges (e.g. diseases, epidemics and pandemics), especially from an accounting perspective are rare. Nonetheless, the past decade has witnessed a steady increase in research on corporate accounting for, and reporting of, health issues; although the emerging literature remains fragmented thereby impeding the generation of useful empirical and theoretical insights for policymakers, practitioners and researchers. Consequently, this paper offers extensive and timely SLR of the existing studies on SHA; critically reviewing past findings published in a wide range of peer-reviewed international journals that discuss the current state of global SHA research, their weaknesses and set future research agenda.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between accounting fraud and corporate sustainability.

Companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2019 are used to estimate a pooled ordinary least square regression model using panel data. Accounting fraud is represented by accounting disclosure, which is measured by its quality and timeliness, while corporate sustainability is measured by earnings management and corporate social responsibility.

Empirical findings support the hypothesis that the quality and timeliness of accounting disclosure have a statistically favorable impact on the management of company earnings and corporate social responsibility, respectively. Accounting fraud also has an impact on the sustainable development of the company.

Although the inferences of this study are limited to Chinese listed companies, this study may interest other scholars to explore similar topics.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on anti-corruption disclosure (A-CD), paying particular attention to the FTSE 100. Notably, it examines how board and audit committees’ characteristics affect the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

Data from FTSE 100 firms, spanning the period from 2014 to 2020, were analysed using the regression of the Poisson fixed effect and GEE analyses.

The findings show that gender diversity, audit committee expertise and the independence of the audit committee are positively associated with both quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure. Notably, no statistically significant relationships were identified between anti-corruption disclosure and factors such as board size, role duality or board meetings.

The findings provide valuable insights for decision-makers and regulatory bodies, shedding light on the elements that compel UK companies to enhance their anti-corruption disclosure and governance protocols to alleviate corruption and propel efforts towards ethical behaviour.

This study makes a notable contribution to the sparse body of evidence by examining the influence of board and audit committee attributes on anti-corruption disclosure subsequent to the implementation of the UK Bribery Act in 2010. Specifically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study assesses for the first time the impact of board and audit committee mechanisms on both the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

This paper investigates to what extent public sector entities (PSEs) in developing countries (DCs) are compliant with IPSAS and examines the impact of the socioeconomic and politico-administrative environment on this compliance during the period 2015–2018.

This research develops a self-constructed checklist consisting of 116 disclosure items from five accrual-based IPSAS (IPSASs, 1, 2, 3, 14 and 24) and applies panel regressions for a sample of 500 entity-year observations of 125 PSEs.

The study results show a high level of disparity in the degree of compliance with IPSAS amongst DCs' governments, with an overall average level of 61%. They reveal that compliance with IPSAS is positively influenced by the level of citizen wealth, government political culture (degree of government openness) and the quality of public administration, whereas jurisdiction size, government financial condition and political competition are non-significant factors.

This research provides researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive framework for understanding the extent of New Public Management reforms in DCs with a focus on International Public Sector Accounting Standards implementation. It might assist policymakers in their accounting strategies and might be a signal for DCs with low compliance to tap lessons from governments with successful experience of IPSAS adoption.

Focusing on DCs' context, this paper brings new insights into the analysis of socioeconomic and politico-administrative incentives for government compliance with IPSAS. It is the first to investigate the impact of citizen wealth and political competition on IPSAS disclosures.

The study aims to identify and discuss influential aspects of corporate environmental disclosure (CED) literature, including key streams, themes, authors, keywords, journals, affiliations and countries. This review also constructs agendas for future CED research.

Using a bibliometric review approach, the authors reviewed 560 articles on CED from 215 journals published between 1982 and 2020.

The authors' insights are three-fold. First, the authors identified three core streams of CED research: “legitimization of environmental hazards via environmental disclosures,” “the role of environmental accounting in achieving corporate environmental sustainability” and “integrating environmental social and governance (ESG) reporting into the global reporting initiatives (GRI) guidelines”. Second, the authors also deployed a thematic map that classifies CED research into four themes: niche themes (e.g. institutional theory and environmental management system), motor themes (e.g. stakeholder engagement), emerging/declining themes (e.g. legitimacy theory) and basic/transversal themes (e.g. voluntary CED, environmental reporting and corporate social responsibility). Third, the authors highlighted important CED authors, keywords, journals, articles, affiliations and countries.

This study assists researchers, journal editors and consultants in the corporate sector to comprehensively understand various dimensions of CED research and practices and suggests potential emerging research areas. Although this paper appears to have been thoroughly conducted, using authors' keywords to identify themes was a key limitation. Thus, the authors call upon using a more comprehensive data mining technique that uses keywords in abstracts, titles and the whole body of papers and then identifies inclusive trends in CED literature.

The authors contribute to the extant accounting literature by investigating the organizational-level CED, both mandatory and voluntary, using a systematic and bibliometric literature review model to summarize the key research streams, themes, authors, journals, affiliations and countries. By doing so, the authors construct a future research agenda for CED literature.

Narrative disclosures offer further elucidation of a company's financial performance beyond what is presented in numerical format. This can assist stakeholders in gaining a deeper comprehension of the elements that impact reported earnings, thereby improving the quality of financial information. The current research explores the impact of narrative disclosure on the earnings quality of firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE).

Appropriating an index to measure the narrative disclosure level in the research sample firms, the research utilizes an analysis of the textual content of nonfinancial reports and statements issued by the management of the ASE-listed nonfinancial firms between 2013 and 2022. The financial statements issued in the annual financial reports are also adopted to extract data on earnings quality and the controlling variables. The analysis of the data and attainment of the findings necessitate using the panel data.

It is indicated that narrative disclosure affects earnings quality. To be precise, the greater the narrative disclosure, the lower the absolute value of the voluntary discretionary accruals and thus the higher the quality of accounting earnings.

The findings contribute to new research on disclosure issues, particularly narrative disclosure, which enhances reader confidence in financial and nonfinancial reports and prevents misleading and manipulated information.

This research helps decision-makers understand the relationship between reports, statements and earnings quality in a firm. It's unique in exploring this relationship, especially in developing countries. The study is the first of its kind in Jordan, known for its economic stability and strategic location in the Middle East, making its findings applicable to similar environments.

Discourse concerning the most effective way for enterprises to offset environmental impacts is well established. While certain approaches like the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) have gained widespread acceptance, other initiatives like introducing the Carbon Tax in Australia have not been successful. This study examines the practical implementation of two environmental accounting models, the TBL and Carbon Tax, analysing their benefits and drawbacks and focusing on their application within the Australian accounting system. Using discourse and content analysis within two case studies of two different sectors – the banking sector (Westpac) and the manufacturing sector (BlueScope), this research contributes to the discourse concerning the implementation of such disclosures and how models such as the TBL and Carbon Tax initiative could be effectively used in practice. The results show that the implementation of the TBL was more widely adopted and seen as a positive factor in determining the company's environmental impact as viewed by investors. The Carbon Tax was initially adopted less frequently until modifications were made to allow for voluntary compliance. This was due to the misalignment of the cost of the tax with the financial priorities of each sector. Furthermore, the study suggests that a more comprehensive approach that leverages the strengths of both models to complement each other within an integrated framework may be the best solution for organisations seeking a more systemic approach to environmental disclosures and offsetting in their supply chain network.

This study aims to evaluate the quality of the energy efficiency disclosures made by Australian cities. As cities are significant energy users, and energy use is a crucial source of greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency initiatives can play an essential role in addressing climate change. Yet, little is understood about the energy efficiency disclosures being made.

The authors developed an original energy efficiency disclosure index to assess the reporting quality of the eight largest Australian cities. The websites of these cities were analysed for information on energy efficiency measures from December 2018 to June 2019. Annual reports, environmental reports, climate action plans and any other material related to energy plans were downloaded and then coded using the index.

While all cities provided energy efficiency information, little financial information was provided, limited forward-looking information was disclosed, key challenges were not disclosed, and each city provided energy efficiency disclosures differently. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that public accountability is limited.

An important implication is the need to standardise and improve cities’ energy efficiency reporting, especially concerning financial information. Cities, governments and the Carbon Disclosure Project (formerly the CDP) could achieve this, perhaps as part of the broader update of the CDP city-focused guidelines for greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting.

Although some studies on GHG reporting by cities have already been undertaken, including energy efficiency as part of their disclosure index, no study has focused on energy efficiency disclosures. The authors provide original insights concerning these practices. The study also provides an energy efficiency disclosure index that can be used in further research.

The current study aims to analyze the role of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in sustainability issues and its impact on the attitude of practitioners (auditors) in industrial companies. The current study relies on the analytical method, one of the tools of the inductive approach, by examining the literature of researchers, international and local organizations, publications, series, alerts, and topics dealt with by the IFAC, as well as reviewing studies, theoretical and applied research, periodicals, books, and statistics. And specialized publications for this subject, which is related to other sciences – such as – environmental science, economic, and political sciences. The study reached many results, the most important of which are: (1) The first half of the current decade has seen high interest from the IFAC, has led to the issuance of International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) international standard on assurance engagements 3410, (GHG) Statements. (2) Sustainability has become important to a growing number of enterprises, and may have a significant influence, in certain cases, the financial statements, also became the sustainability of the topics under increasing attention from users of financial statements. Thus, the financial statements will need a practitioner to take into consideration sustainability issues and a private greenhouse gas when auditing the financial statements. This study is distinguished by analyzing the role of the IFAC and the IAASB for the period from 1998 to 2023 regarding sustainability issues.