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The study aims to predict and understand the conditions under which the association between corporate governance and a company's financial performance is positive or meaningful by empirically accounting for agency conflicts. This study is motivated by the fact that the separation between ownership and control creates agency conflicts between company owners and managers. Therefore, strong corporate governance systems are expected to align the interests of conflicting parties whereby companies become more likely to improve their financial performance. However, previous research did not yield consistent results in this regard.

Given the latent nature of corporate governance and agency conflicts, this study uses principal component and exploratory factor analyses to proxy for corporate governance and agency conflicts, respectively. Using dynamic panel data modelling, the authors estimate the change in the relationship between corporate governance and a company's financial performance as a function of the change in the level of agency conflict using data from the UK on 78 non-financial companies listed in the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 (FTSE100) index between 1999 and 2014.

The corporate governance quality of companies is significantly differed. Moreover, companies operating at high levels of agency conflict outperform the companies' counterparts operating in low levels of agency conflict only when the former improves the corporate governance quality. This implies that financial performance improves by approximately 11% if companies improve corporate governance quality due to an increase in the level of agency conflicts.

Lack of data on ownership structure for the study period (1999–2014) was the main reason the authors excluded it from the analysis. Additionally, the lack of reliable and quantifiable corporate governance data on small-medium sized enterprises limits findings on large non-financial companies.

The authors propose a framework/tool for the impact of the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance conditional upon the level of agency conflicts whose importance has largely been neglected by the empirical literature. By providing the right “lens” to de-fragmentise the corporate governance mechanisms and estimate empirically the unobserved agency conflicts, researchers, practitioners and investors are able to get further insights on the composing elements of financial performance and evaluate it more objectively. Managers can allocate companies' resources more efficiently and thus improve financial performance. The auditors can get further background information when they compile their report on company's directors. The study's findings offer valuable suggestions for accounting and corporate governance regulators to further put forward and improve accounting standards so as to enhance existing regulations and internal mechanisms which, in turn, could decrease the scope for managerial opportunistic behaviour as the latter can be empirically estimated through our framework.

The findings point out the need for a revised framework accounting for the principal-agent (mis)alignment and the engrained information asymmetries. By acknowledging the level of corporate governance compliance and agency conflict, managers and shareholders should actively strive for the effectiveness of companies, the efficiency of the stock markets and the minimisation of the agency costs. Furthermore, policymakers can look into the development of a code of corporate governance to effectively regulate firms rather than enforcing rigid laws that may not be value relevant. With all these settings in place, the likelihood of corporate failures, corporate scandals as well as corporate violations with the ensuing penalties is set to be reduced. Hence, valuable resources, social capital and effort can be directed into more productive activities.

This study adds to the existing literature by offering empirical and explicit evidence on the dynamic association between corporate governance, agency conflicts and financial performance against a backdrop of high demand for strong corporate governance practices/codes. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study that has yet empirically examined the moderating effect of the level of agency conflicts, given the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance for listed and internationally aligned companies.

The case for stock reduction in manufacturing has been argued by engineers who emphasise the productive benefits. Western management accounting does not provide an adequate indication of the costs of holding stock. This article constructs a framework for identifying and measuring the financial benefits of stock reduction. Within this framework, the financial benefits of stock reduction in Japanese manufacturing in the 1960s are estimated and the productive preconditions for successful stock reduction are identified. The case of British manufacturing where stock levels have not been reduced is considered. Financial savings from stock reduction cannot be realised in Britain because the productive preconditions are not satisfied when output growth is slow and management has poor control over the production process.

Using the example of capital charging in UK hospitals, this paper shows how new public policy initiatives are justified through forms of persuasion without numbers and can be challenged with empirics. A reading of official and academic texts shows how the official problem definition focuses on poor asset utilisation. Hospital accounts are then reworked to show that, although poor asset utilisation was never a major problem, the introduction of capital charges could disrupt service provision. The conclusion is that the operation of NHS hospitals should be understood in terms of distributive conflict, rather than inefficiency. Through practical demonstration, the authors of this article aim to encourage accounting researchers to use numbers to challenge public policy definitions.

Explains how and why the household should, and could, be an object of analysis for a new social accounting. It shows that the household has been neglected in national income accounting, which generally tends to represent it as a black box. It also shows how the data from national income accounting can be reworked to demonstrate the importance of the household at macro and meso levels. The reworking shows that 84 per cent of GDP passes through the household just as, at the meso level, there are important differences between households in how they pool, spend and save income.

The purpose of this paper is to understand why a professor of accounting uses the media to expose the failure/shortcomings of the accounting profession. Using Prem Sikka's writings, the paper argues that accounting communications have become distorted thereby failing to live up to their potential to contribute to the enhancement of social well‐being. The intention is to go beyond the media exposes and appreciate the underlying pursuit of fairness and justice in society.

The approach taken was journalistic in that it sought lots of direct quotations. Such quotations, both from the professor and the responses of his audience, are available through web sites. A telephone interview was conducted with the professor. The paper attempts to place his work in a social context by providing some personal background information.

Prem Sikka's media “blogs” bring forth strong reactions. He tends to polarise people. The purpose of his media releases is to generate opposing reactions in the pursuit of an open and democratic process. By focusing on the darker side of accounting practices, Prem Sikka highlights the political aspects of accounting as accounting language that may be considered as a language of fiction. He writes from the perspective of those who least benefit from current practices and against the powerful elites who benefit from current societal arrangements. His media articles have significant potential in facilitating change for best practices in accounting services to society in a manner that truly reflects the “public interest” that accountants as a professional group ascribe to. Whether this is realised depends on how counter accounts and critiques disseminated connect with common sense of people.

The originality is a derivative of Prem Sikka's work. The paper simply tries to understand and explain how Prem Sikka uses the media to hold accountants to account. It illustrates his unique ability to identify and confront the important issues surrounding accounting practice. It adds support to his challenge to accountants to engage with issues of fairness and justice in society. Analysis bringing out accounting's ambiguous and conflict‐enhancing functioning for the socio‐political order has been especially scarce. Such writings of Sikka challenges the status quo of accountants where their charters indicate that they are a professional group that have “public interest” as their key priority but which have been illustrated otherwise by Sikka's media accounts as “dark and secretive practices” that benefit only the privileged few.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether fair value accounting fits for long-term equity investments, which are considered key to retool economies according to sustainability criteria. In doing so, the paper focuses on the European Union and addresses the European Commission’s (2018a) concern that current accounting rules are unfit for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development goals and the targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The paper grounds in a wide literature review on the effects of fair value accounting on investors’ asset allocation strategies. By critically integrating literature on the notion of long-term investment with theories and possible accounting approaches, the paper provides implications for a revision of the current measurement system for long-term equity investments.

The literature review supports the view that fair value accounting has played a role in discouraging equity investments over time, thus leaving economies with poorer risk-sharing and weaker long-term investments. The paper contributes to the debate on alternative measurement systems by suggesting possible solutions in relation to controversies arising from empirical evidence.

Reorienting economies according to sustainability criteria represents an urgent issue which requires prompt and policy-oriented responses. Accordingly, this paper offers insights and guidelines that can help policymakers revise current accounting rules for long-term equity investments in line with sustainable development objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a possible framework for extinction accounting which builds on but also extends significantly the existing GRI guidelines relating to species identified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List as under threat of extinction.

The paper analyses disclosures relating to rhinoceros conservation and protection produced by top South African-listed companies in order to assess the current state of “extinction accounting”. Following this analysis, the authors explore and discuss a potential framework for extinction accounting which may be used by companies to demonstrate their accountability for species and disclose the ways in which they are working alone, and in partnerships, to prevent species extinction.

Corporate disclosures relating to rhinoceros may be interpreted as emancipatory. The authors identify several disclosure themes dealing with rhinoceros in integrated and sustainability reports of large South African companies and on their websites. Contrary to initial expectations, there is evidence to suggest corporate awareness of the importance of addressing the risk of this species becoming extinct.

The authors have relied on public corporate disclosures and would like to extend the work further to include interview data for a further paper.

An extinction accounting framework may be applied to corporate accounting and accountability for any species under threat of extinction. The framework may also be considered for use as a tool for institutional investors as well as NGO engagement and dialogue with stakeholder companies.

The rhinoceros has, from the analysis, significant cultural, heritage, eco-tourism and intrinsic value. Developing and implementing an emancipatory extinction accounting framework to prevent extinction will have a substantial social and environmental impact.

This is the first attempt to the knowledge to explore accounting for extinction and a possible extinction accounting framework. It is also the first attempt to investigate accounting and accountability for the rhinoceros.

This paper explores the way in which industrial pollution has been expressed in the narrative accounts of nature, landscape and industry by William Gilpin in his 18th-century picturesque travel writings. A positive description of pollution is generally outdated and unacceptable in the current society. The authors contrast his “picturesque” view with the contemporary perception of industrial pollution, reflect on these early accounts of industrial impacts as representing the roots of impression management and use the analysis to inform current accounting.

The research uses an interpretive content analysis of the text to draw out themes and features of impression management. Goffman's impression management is the theoretical lens through which Gilpin's travel accounts are interpreted, considering this microhistory through a thematic research approach. The picturesque accounts are explored with reference to the context of impression management.

Gilpin's travel writings and the “Picturesque” aesthetic movement, it appears, constructed a social reality around negative industrial externalities such as air pollution and indeed around humans' impact on nature, through a lens which described pollution as adding aesthetically to the natural landscape. The lens through which the picturesque tourist viewed and expressed negative externalities involved quite literally the tourists' tricks of the trade, Claude glass, called also Gray's glass, a tinted lens to frame the view.

The paper adds to the wealth of literature in accounting and business pertaining to the ways in which companies socially construct reality through their accounts and links closely to the impression management literature in accounting. There is also a body of literature relating to the use of images and photographs in published corporate reports, which again is linked to impression management as well as to a growing literature exploring the potential for the aesthetic influence in accounting and corporate communication. Further, this paper contributes to the growing body of research into the historical roots of environmental reporting.

The aim of this article is an analysis of the links between race and psychotic illness, psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, as well as psychiatric, police and prison violence against people with mental health problems. The analysis focuses on Black men who are more frequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and who face more brutal treatment than other people with such diagnoses. We have adopted a multidisciplinary approach which draws insights from psychiatry, psychology, and sociology and challenges the biologistic interpretation of “mental illness.” We take into account the United States and Britain – two countries with large Black minorities and an established tradition of research on these groups. Among the crucial findings of this study are the facts that racial bias and stereotypes heavily influence the way Black men with a diagnosis of psychotic illness are treated by the psychiatric system, police and prison staff, and that the dominant approach to psychosis masks the connections between racism and mental health.

There is a substantial literature describing the various methods of job evaluation, all of which are essentially concerned to rank different jobs in a pay hierarchy according to rational criteria. Also, the aims and effectiveness of job evaluation schemes in terms of labour cost containment and as an aid to economic growth have been extensively discussed and evaluated. Moreover, in an era of incomes policies and the relative decline of industrywide bargaining, commentators have explored the feasibility of national job evaluation or alternative procedures for the consolidation of consistent acceptable differentials or ‘relativities’ between different work groups and industries at the level of the economy.