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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incremental information content of estimates of cash flow components in predicting future cash flows.

The authors examine whether the models incorporating components of operating cash flow from income statements and balance sheets using the direct method are associated with smaller prediction errors than the models incorporating core and non-core cash flow.

Using data from US and UK firms and multiple regression analysis, the authors find that around 60 per cent of a current year’s cash flow will persist into the next period’s cash flows, and that income statement and balance sheet variables persist similarly. The explanatory power and predictive ability of disaggregated cash flow models are superior to that of an aggregated model, and further disaggregating previously applied core and non-core cash flows provides incremental information about income statement and balance sheet items that enhances prediction of future cash flows. Disaggregated models and their components produce lower out-of-sample prediction errors than an aggregated model.

This study improves our appreciation of the behaviour of cash flow components and confirms the need for detailed cash flow information in accordance with the articulation of financial statements.

The findings are relevant to investors and analysts in predicting future cash flows and to regulators with respect to disclosure requirements and recommendations.

The findings are also relevant to financial statement users interested in better predicting a firm’s future cash flows and thereby, its firm’s value.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by further disaggregating cash flow items into their underlying items from income statements and balance sheets.

Recent corporate failures such as Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and K‐Mart and auditing failures such as Arthur Andersen have sparked great public concern, including the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002. This paper aims to address the development of accounting standards.

The approach is to use the fuzzy‐analytical‐hierarchical‐process (FAHP), recently developed by de Korvin and Klyele. Uncertainty in assigning priorities and the use of semantic variables lead naturally to the inclusion of fuzzy sets in the structure of the AHP paradigm. The hierarchy of decisions, constructed sequentially, consists of three levels of attributes.

The paper shows that applying the highly sophisticated mathematical FAHP model is needed to select the optimum mechanism for establishing accounting and auditing standards. The FAHP application results lead to a rational ranking of the four bases to develop accounting standards.

This paper helps to explain the ambiguous and vague nature of the attributes of financial reporting and to apply a recently developed mathematical methodology to help accounting policy makers select the optimum mechanism for developing accounting standards.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of two different financial reporting models (revenue-expense vs asset-liability) on several earnings attributes.

The analysis compares the earnings attributes of non-financial private firms using the Italian generally accepted accounting principles (Italian GAAP, based on a revenue-expense model) with those of the Italian non-financial private firms voluntarily adopting the international financial reporting standards (IFRS, based on the asset-liability model). To address major methodological concerns, the research design is based on a single-country analysis and on three different samples as follows: firms voluntarily adopting IFRS; a matched sample of Italian GAAP firms; Italian GAAP firms belonging to the Elite programme, and therefore, comparable to the IFRS adopters in terms of incentives towards financial reporting transparency.

The results show that firms reporting under a revenue-expense model are characterized by a stronger revenue-expense matching degree, along with higher earnings’ persistence, earnings’ predictability and conditional conservatism than firms adopting an asset-liability model. In addition, contrary to the expectations, Italian GAAP firms do not present smoother earnings and do not report greater abnormal accruals than IFRS adopters do. Overall, the findings suggest that the switch from a revenue-expense model to an asset-liability model negatively affects several earnings attributes of non-financial private companies, shedding new light on the drawbacks associated with the adoption of the IFRS accounting model.

This study addresses a theme characterized by sparse research efforts, adding new insights to the debate on the decline in the quality of earnings and on the drawbacks associated with the adoption of the IFRS accounting model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of non-articulation on analyst earnings forecast quality. The authors look for evidence on the relationship between non-articulation and analyst earnings forecast properties: forecast inaccuracy, forecast dispersion and forecast bias.

The empirical tests are primarily based analyst earnings and cash flow forecasts covered by Institutional Broker Estimate System and financial statement information obtained from Compustat North America database.

The authors hypothesize and find that non-articulation is positively related to analyst forecast dispersion, forecast accuracy and forecast bias for one-year ahead of earnings. The effects of non-articulation on analyst earnings forecast inaccuracy and bias are neutralized when the analyst issues a cash flow forecast and when such forecast provides accurate information regarding the forecasted firm’s operating cash flow. On the other hand, cash flow forecast issuance alone does not mitigate the negative influence of non-articulation.

The sample selection procedure limits the generalizability of the findings.

The findings confirm CFA Institute and prior research asserting that non-articulation deteriorates the quality of earnings forecasts by financial statement users (more specifically, the financial analysts). The authors add to the literature by documenting that accurate cash flow forecasts help analysts mitigate the negative influence of non-articulation on earnings forecast quality.

It remains an empirical question whether non-articulation between the balance sheet and the statement of cash flows has an effect on financial statement users’ ability to assimilate financial information. The paper highlights the detrimental effect of non-articulation by documenting the relationship between the non-articulation and the quality of earnings expectation.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the non-essence of accounting by focusing on financial accounting’s distinct technology: financial statements. Complementing the genealogical perspective on accounting’s changing socio-historical settings, it proposes a semiotic perspective on the accounting statement.

The paper takes an interdisciplinary approach in the theoretical framing of IFRS recognition and measurement principles that underlie the statement of financial position. It mobilises Saussure and Barthes’ sign theory – semiology, as it provides a meaningful delineation of financial accounting, bringing out its distinct numerical-linguistic knowledge-construction operation.

In addition to the justification of employing semiology as a parent discipline for accounting, it is shown how IASB’s recognition and measurement procedures manifest the interrelated non-essentialist semiological principles of reciprocal articulation and value constellation. Accounting entries (“expression”) are not representations of pre-existing economic resources (“content”), but rather both are mutually constituted by delimiting the resource/asset from its broader category. Such judgment-based articulation results with value constellations, where asset value is merely a relational product of other values.

To the long-established critique that accounting has no essence, the paper adds a formulation of a non-essentialist semiotic logic: the financial statement’s semio-logic. It further sheds light on the role of such logic as an epistemological presupposition to the accounting – society reciprocity, where accounting is a malleable product of, and is used to exert power over, its social surroundings.

This instructional tool enhances coverage of statement of cash flows topics in graduate or upper division undergraduate accounting and finance courses.

We review one of the complexities of preparing the statement of cash flows. The exercise may include a discussion of the mechanics of preparation of the statement of cash flows using the indirect method. This discussion might include rationales behind operating section adjustments and highlight the pitfalls of using these adjustments without understanding their reasons. Preparation of a statement of cash flows may be followed by introducing the concept of nonarticulation and how it can cause the information presented in the statement to be misleading. To further understanding, the instructor may introduce the reconciliation worksheet provided. Finally, a current public company example, also provided, highlights the magnitude of nonarticulation in practice.

Students learn the complexities related to the preparation of the statement of cash flows. They are introduced to the concept of nonarticulation using an example of public company financial statements. Student feedback suggests appreciation for developing a deeper understanding of the statement of cash flows, learning why they are unable to replicate disclosed operating cash flow from balance sheets of publicly traded companies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an initial test of the validity of an intertemporal stewardship theory. This theory incorporates stewardship considerations, based on a foundation of spirituality, as well as financial considerations into financial decision‐making models.

Contends that successful contemporary companies incorporate both financial and stewardship considerations into their decision making. Fortune magazine's Global Most Admired Companies list was used to define company success. Using Fortune's reputational criteria, companies were differentiated in terms of level of success. Hypotheses were developed about the articulation of and emphasis on financial considerations and stewardship considerations as evidenced by the corporate mission for highly successful vs less successful companies. The hypotheses were tested using paired t‐tests on mission statement data developed for the top‐, middle‐, and bottom‐ranked companies in each of the global industry categories in the 2002 Fortune magazine list. The intent was to determine if hypothesis‐relevant features of the mission statements significantly differed for the companies that were ranked at the top, middle, and bottom of their industries.

The results of this analysis indicate that organizational success cannot be achieved by focusing primarily on financial or stewardship considerations, but rather company success depends upon emphasizing both financial and stewardship considerations within the context of a clearly articulated mission focus.

The research should be extended to cover more than a one‐year period. This will result not only in a test of validity over time but also a larger sample size.

The practical implications are threefold – for managers and for business professors and researchers. Managers should ensure that mission statements are sufficiently well articulated and focused, and that both financial and stewardship considerations are sufficiently emphasized. Business professors and researchers should use a new paradigm – incorporating both stewardship and financial considerations – for teaching and thinking about business and for conducting meaningful and realistic research.

The preeminence of financial considerations in business decision making is challenged in this article. We find that the most successful companies incorporate stewardship considerations as well as financial considerations into their decision making, at least as it is reflected in their missions. This article provides evidence that decision making can no longer be devoid of stewardship considerations if an organization is to survive and prosper over the long term.

Reporting cash flows is a relatively recent development in college and university financial reporting. An examination of the purported usefulness of cash flow information to the users of college and university financial statements including an examination of the relationship between accrual-based change in net assets and cash provided by operations found private universities have implemented the cash flow reporting requirements with a relatively high level of compliance employing the indirect format for reporting operating cash flows. The principal areas of deficiency were the reporting of split-interest, restricted gift activities and the required disclosures of cash outflows related to interest and taxes. The discussion of the compliance deficiencies and display findings leads to needed disclosure guidance and future research.

Auditors nowadays must be aggressive and involved in risk assessment and analysis. This paper identifies, analyzes, and recommends a solution to a current problem in accounting for foreign‐currency hedges. This is accomplished by an examination of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 133, Accounting for Derivatives Instruments and Hedging Activities, as issued in June 1998. Multi‐currency accounting is recommended as an alternative to functional‐currency accounting. The information generated by the multi‐currency versus the functional currency (as advocated in the SFAS 133) accounting methods for using options as hedging instruments is illustrated. Multi‐currency accounting excels in its transparency. It more clearly provides information on the respective exposure positions of the hedged items and the hedging instruments as well as the notional amounts. Auditors’ risk assessment and analysis can now be effectively performed under this system.

An effective management accounting information system (MAIS), as well as the accounting discourse related to it, can support, facilitate, enable, and constrain diverse business discourses. This paper aims to examine the discursive and organisational effects of an organisation accounting upon absent accounting artefacts, i.e. accounting without accounting. Situated within the discursive literature, this paper examines the construction of competing articulations of the organisation by focusing on what accounting does or does not do within an organisation. In particular, the paper acknowledges the fundamental importance of the accounting discourse in supporting, facilitating, enabling, and constraining competing organisational discourses, as it illustrates how the absence of accounting centralises power within the organisation.

From a rhetorical, discursive perspective, the authors develop an in-depth qualitative case study in a manufacturing organisation where MAIS has been abandoned for approximately two years. Interpretive research approaches, from a post-structural perspective, provided the base for the structure of the research. The authors studied how other organisational discourses (such as entrepreneurship and growth), which are traditionally constructed with reference to accounting and other artefacts, continued to be produced and sustained. The non-use and non-availability of management accounting information created a vacuum that needed to be filled. The lack of discursive counterpoints and counter-evidence provided by MAIS created a vacuum of information, allowing powerful, proxy discourses to prevail in the organisation, increasing risks to business management.

The absence of MAIS to support an accounting discourse requires that contingent discourses “fill in the discursive gap”. Despite appearances, they are no substitute for the accounting discourse. Thus, over time, the entrepreneurial, growth and partners' discourses lose credibility, without the corresponding use of management accounting information and its associated discourse.

There are at least two main contributions from the case study and the findings presented in this paper: first, they provide a new perspective for studying MAIS, as a specific organisational discourse among other discourses that shape people relationship within the organisation as an examination of accounting without accounting. Second, this discussion reinforces the relevance of accounting discourse for other organisational discourses, supporting, facilitating, enabling, and constraining them, by demonstrating the effects of its absence.