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The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has justified the simplification of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in several ways, but no effective justification for this simplification has been made based on the information needs of users. This study aims to provide empirical evidence of the decision usefulness of IFRS for SMEs from a prominent user group of SME financial statements – the banks.

This study uses a mixed-method approach. First, a survey was conducted on commercial bank lending officers to assess the usefulness of different disclosure items included in the SME financial statements. Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted with commercial bank lending officers to gain an in-depth insight into the appropriateness and economic consequences of the requirements of IFRS for SMEs on their lending decisions.

The findings show that commercial bank lending officers did not consider all the disclosure requirements presented to them to be equally important. Hence, to facilitate the actual needs of the users’ decision usefulness, it is imperative that when given the opportunity, users participate in the development of accounting standards.

The findings of this study will be of interest to accounting regulators for evaluating the successful implementation of IFRS for SMEs and planning the next review of IFRS for SMEs. The IASB and SME Implementation Group are presently considering ways to increase user involvement for the next review of IFRS for SMEs, and the findings of this study signify the need for user involvement in the standard setting process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that have resulted in the effective implementation of accrual accounting reforms in the Central Government of Tanzania.

The paper relies on the ideas of institutional theory and some aspects of decision-usefulness so as to delineate the external pressures enforcing the Government of Tanzania to embrace accrual accounting and the factors complicating its implementation at organisational level (within government entities). The authors draw on quantitative techniques and the explanatory and cross-sectional survey research strategies and methods for data analysis.

Our findings suggest that the coercive pressures from donors and auditors along with the normative pressures surfaced by the training of employees generate a significant impact on designing the effective administrative model of accrual accounting. In a lesser extent, pressures from the National Board of Accountants and Auditors and cultural factors are positively correlated to the implementation of accrual accounting in the Tanzanian context. Of the factors the authors examined, the management changes are proved to be least effective. Unawareness of the key stakeholders has caused weak political and regulatory commitments. Accrual accounting implementation is further exacerbated by inadequate technical and personnel competence. Ultimately, the implementation of the accrual accounting has increased significant managerial accountability though a major segment of such behaviour is unexplained by the factors the authors employed in the study.

The effective implementation of accrual accounting relies on improvements in cultural and human-related issues. What is important to understand is that accrual accounting is more of a management reform incorporating changes in broader aspects of institutional and accountability mechanisms, rather than just an adoption of particular accounting technologies. Without such broader changes, accrual accounting reforms can be detrimental providing the technocrats and government officials with a space for manipulating financial information, Tanzania serving as an example.

The study highlights the case of an emerging economy in which accrual accounting is actually in effect and has impacted on managerial accountability, but is struggling to engender intended results and outcomes at organisational level.

This paper seeks to establish the influence of several types of factors on the use of accounting information in the public sector within a developing country context. Institutional theory with its branches NIS and OIE underlies the theoretical framework for explaining the factors influencing the use of accounting information. The analysis was based on structural equation modelling to test nine hypotheses. The data were collected by administering 208 questionnaires to the Tanzanian Local Government Authorities’ political and administrative actors.

At large, the findings of this study comprehend the role of institutionalised social and legal rule with professionalism in shaping actors to use accounting information instrumentally and symbolically in budget decision-making processes. Furthermore, the findings establish the importance of education and experiences on accounting and financial aspects of the actors who are involved in the public sector budget decision-making process. The findings also provide an understanding of the differences between political actors and administrative actors in terms of the factors influencing the symbolic use of accounting information in LGA’s decision-making processes.

Our findings challenge development partners (i.e. donors), reformers such as Central Government and National Accounting professional board such NBAA in Tanzania to coerce pressure by adoption of implementation of NPM techniques, which can lead to positive change in LGAs to influence instrumental rather than symbolic use of accounting information in the budgetary decision-making processes. For example, adoption of accrual basis accounting should also concur with the improvement of accounting information systems, legal and regulatory frameworks together with creation of trainings that increase skill and knowledge of using accounting information by the actors. This might ensure financial sustainability to LGAs that can increase provision of service with relevant quality to citizens. Moreover, the findings need the political parties to take responsibility of building capacity of their candidates. It might ensure that their representatives in the council are capable of making appropriate use of the accounting information at their disposal to improve the quality of budget decision making and their representation of the population for the benefit of their organisation and eventually of their political parties. The citizens are needed to be sources of professional behaviours to both councillors and administrators by making closer follow up and demands of quality services from their LGAs through budgeting processes.

The generalisation of this study’s findings can be limited because they were obtained only from LGAs operating in Tanzania

This is the first paper that establishes the factors influencing the instrumental–conceptual use and the symbolic use of accounting information in LGAs’ budgetary decision-making processes in developing country context, in particular, in Tanzania.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive and critical overview of the theoretical perspectives used in the accounting disclosure literature including economic theories, political and social theories.

The paper reviews and discusses in details the positive accounting theory (PAT), agency theory, signalling theory, political economy theory (PET), stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory and contingency theory to identify the situations suit each of these perspectives.

The main finding shows that there is no universal theory applicable for all situations or societies. For example, PAT is probably used when a corporation believes that its primary responsibility is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to maximise its profits. On the other hand, the PET seems to better explain why some corporations appear to respond to government or public pressure for information about their social impact. The agency theory provides the required framework to evaluate accounting choices and disclosure decisions in market-based studies. While the legitimacy theory seems to be more suitable for multinational corporations working in developed/democratic countries, the stakeholder theory seems to be most suitable for multinational corporations working in developing/dictator countries; whereas a corporation can manage its stakeholders. The contingency theory supports our main finding that different theories are required for different situations, as it clearly indicates that management's preferences of reporting practices are related to the nature of environmental and organisational constraints rather than their relative income effects.

The paper contributes to the limited body of literature concerning the accounting disclosure theories and to identify the main theoretical perspective that can be used in the accounting disclosure research.

Credit relevance of financial reporting can be influenced by change in financial reporting framework. This study aims to examine the effect of mandatory international financial reporting standards (IFRS) adoption on credit relevance quality of financial reporting of deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria.

This study uses difference-in-differences (D-in-D) design for its modelling. Panel data regression analysis based on the D-in-D model is used in analysing the data collected from secondary sources.

The findings of this study are that based on the D-in-D approach, there is a significant and positive effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on credit relevance quality of financial reporting of DMBs in Nigeria, and that there is also a significant difference in the credit relevance quality of financial reporting of mandatory adopting banks in the post-mandatory IFRS adoption period compared to pre-mandatory IFRS adoption period.

To the best of this study's review, there is inadequacy of literature within the credit relevance research in Nigeria. In the light of this, this study intends to fill the gap.

This study is specifically important to regulatory authorities, both primary and secondary regulators. Specifically, this study has implications in the regulatory roles of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC). However, the study recommends that regulatory authorities should encourage DMBs to avail their financial reports annually to credit rating agencies (local and international) for proper evaluation for subsequent ratings.

The peculiarities in this study, that is the utilisation of the D-in-D design and the use of credit relevance metric as the dependent variable, made this study important and novel to push the frontier of existing knowledge.

To investigate, analyse and critique contemporary research in social and environmental accounting.

An analysis and critique of the social and environmental accountability (SEA) research field since the late 1980s. The study revisits two key prior seminal papers on the field, examines the remit for SEA researchers' focus on practice and policy and offers an empirical analysis of the profile of SEA publication.

Theories are identified in two groups: augmentation and heartland theories. These have been more deductively than inductively generated, evidencing limited attention to field‐based engagement. An alternative to the elusive all‐embracing unitary SEA theory is presented. Researchers' concerns with capture of the SEA field is critiqued and an alternative researcher engagement orientation is offered. Environmental research dominates more recent SEA published output, the dominant methodological approach is literature‐based theorising, and national practices/comparisons and regulations are leading topic areas occupying researchers.

Analysis of publishing patterns including the balance between social and environmental accountability research, research methodologies employed and SEA topics addressed is largely confined to four leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals.

The paper argues for greater SEA researcher engagement with SEA practice and involvement in SEA policy contributions.

The paper offers a contemporary assemblage and critique of the multiple theoretical perspectives applied to the SEA field and offers insights into the range and predominance of research methods and topics within the published SEA field.

This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to examine the extent of academic knowledge of sustainability materiality research. There is no academic review of this field; therefore, this study aims to close this research gap.

The paper systematically reviews the existing literature on sustainability materiality research. Papers were qualitatively classified and analysed in accordance with the theoretical underpinning, research methods and academic themes of sustainability materiality research.

The findings of the review show that scholarly work on sustainability materiality has increased exponentially since the 2010s. In terms of research methods, scholars have examined sustainability using content analysis techniques and qualitative approaches. A common theoretical foundation was missing, but an increasing number of articles have been anchored to stakeholder theory. The academic themes have progressively enriched empirical evidence on the evaluation of materiality in sustainability information.

This review can be useful as an academic basis to open avenues for strengthening theoretical and empirical research on new emerging issues regarding double materiality and dynamic materiality.

This paper conducts the first SLR of academic knowledge on sustainability materiality research. Eight academic themes are proposed to classify sustainability materiality. Thus, it is an aid to future research in this area.

The purpose of this study is to provide insights into the perceptions and uses of qualified audit reports in financial statements of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As there is a long-standing debate on the usefulness of auditor’s going-concern reports, this study aims to provide insights into the factors that affect how banks perceive and use going-concern reports.

Semi-structured interviews with bank officers were conducted.

The study findings demonstrated that bank officers considered that the going-concern report provided information, although they did not regard the information as being particularly useful. The main factors affecting the usefulness of information are use of other information sources and bank officers’ perceptions of auditing. Other factors are also presented and discussed in the current research paper.

Regulators have taken the action to improve the auditor’s reporting model, and the findings provided by this study are important because they provide a deeper understanding of the perceptions and uses of audit reports from smaller companies. The study also contributes knowledge about the role of audit reports in the context of SMEs finance.

This is one of the first studies to use a qualitative approach to examine factors that affect the use of going-concern reports.

This paper aims to construct a comprehensive theoretical framework for interpreting voluntary IC disclosure practices by organizations.

Four most‐commonly used theories in the area, namely agency theory, stakeholder theory, signalling theory, and legitimacy theory, were integrated in terms of the interrelated concepts relating to voluntary IC disclosure.

The constructed theoretical framework includes three concepts: to reduce information asymmetry; to discharge accountability to various stakeholders; and to signal organizational legitimacy and excellence (or superior quality) to society, which are seen as motivations for organizations to disclose their IC on a voluntary basis.

The framework ignores some other theoretical perspectives which are also relevant to voluntary IC disclosure; the framework is not justified by any empirical evidence.

This research is the first attempt to construct a comprehensive theoretical framework for the voluntary disclosure of IC; the constructed framework can be employed as a theoretical foundation for future empirical studies in relation to voluntary IC disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to provide further insight into internet social and environmental reporting (ISER) in the Middle East by investigating the ISER of Lebanese banks as well as their greenwashing behaviour and identifying its extent, quality and association with different variables such as profitability, size, religion and other variables.

This study adopted a mixed methodology. Interviews were conducted to seek the opinions of banks towards corporate social responsibility (CSR). Content analysis of bank’s websites was used to examine the extent, quality and association of ISER with several bank characteristics.

The results show the prevalent use of ISER and greenwashing by Lebanese banks. The most disclosed category of ISER is community, whereas the least disclosed is environment. The study found a positive association between ISER and bank profitability, size, leverage and ownership concentration and an insignificant relationship with age and religion.

The authors recognise that the sample is small and addresses a single context and that it could have been expanded to other Middle Eastern contexts. However, the study is exploratory focusing on the Lebanese banking sector which is one of the most developed in the region. Further longitudinal studies could also be conducted to complement the work. The process used to measure greenwashing could be enhanced by addressing the materiality of CSR disclosures to stakeholders and the purpose of communicating CSR information.

In light of the empirical findings, banks will gain a better understanding of the status and importance of ISER and will understand the risks of greenwashing leading them towards higher standard ISER and more ethical activities, which will have a positive impact on the Lebanese economy and society.

This study examines almost all aspects of online social and environmental disclosures including the webpage, CSR sections in addition to online published reports; it is an investigation about ISER with reference to Lebanon which has perhaps the most significant banking sector in the Middle East. It tackles the greenwashing issue in a new context and in a different way by examining its association with several variables. The study also investigates the association between religion and ISER which has seldom been tackled in similar studies.