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This paper aims to provide a critical discussion of the application of the research pitching template developed by Professor Robert Faff to a research topic of tax avoidance and firm risk. This letter provides a brief commentary on using the pitching template and discusses personal reflections on the pitching process.

This pitching research letter applies Faff’s pitching template and provides a critical commentary of the pitching process.

The team found that Faff’s pitching template is a valuable tool for conceiving research ideas. It helped the authors to identify, develop and articulate key aspects of the project. Further, they believe that completing the template was a beneficial and rewarding exercise, especially for early-career researchers.

This pitching research letter is tied to the team’s research idea that was pitched at the 2020 AFAANZ “Shark Tank” event. It provides original commentary on the use of Faff’s pitching template. It is not meant to retrofit published papers.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational design elements (i.e. quality of management accounting skills and performance management system, PMS), management accounting practice (MAP) sophistication and organizational competitiveness using the Global Management Accounting Principles (GMAP) framework.

Survey data was obtained through a structured questionnaire from 131 Nigerian firms. Measures of the quality of management accounting skills, robustness of PMS structure, MAP sophistication and organizational competitiveness were derived from the GMAP framework. Structural equation modelling was applied to explore the complexity of relationship among variables.

While the quality of management accounting skills was found to have a positive but insignificant impact on MAP sophistication, the impact of PMS structure on MAP sophistication was positive and significant. MAP sophistication has a positive impact on organizational competitiveness, but the magnitude of its contribution appears to depend on the quality of management accounting skills and the robustness of PMS structure. The inability of MAP sophistication to exert much influence on organizational competitiveness is attributable to the low contribution of management accounting skills. The result supports the proposition that performance is optimized when all organizational design elements are concurrently improved.

The study shows that organizations need to critically look into the quality of skills possessed by personnel in the accounting function, as all organizational design elements must be given equal importance to achieve the best results.

The study contributes to knowledge by investigating the quality of management accounting skills and the robustness of PMS as organizational design elements affecting MAP and organizational competitiveness using the GMAP framework. The study operationalizes some elements of the GMAP framework by developing measurements that can be used by future studies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether biotechnology and health-care firms in Australia have poorer continuous disclosure (CD) practices as reflected in Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) queries relative to other firms.

Univariate tests and multivariate logit regressions are used to examine whether the frequency and nature of ASX queries and firms’ replies to price queries differ between biotechnology/health-care firms and the control firms.

Results suggest that biotechnology/health-care firms are more likely to receive volume queries and ASX Listing Rule 4.10 queries. They are also more likely to respond to price queries with new information relative to the control firms. However, biotechnology/health-care firms do not otherwise have statistically significantly different CD practice compared to the control firms, as reflected by the frequency and attributes of various types of ASX queries and by the way firms reply to price queries.

Evidence from this study can help evaluate the adequacy and enforcement of CD requirements and the need for further improvement. Investors can also use the evidence to better understand the information risks associated with investment in the biotechnology/health-care industry.

Prior research has not used multivariate methods to examine biotechnology/health-care firms’ CD practice in Australia or to examine accounting determinants of different types of ASX queries and firms’ responses to price queries.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of Faff’s (2015, 2019) pitch template to a research proposal examining independent directors’ acquisition experience and their subsequent acquisition performance.

The author briefly discusses the use of Faff’s (2015, 2019) pitch template and describes their personal reflections on the pitch exercise.

The findings indicate that there are many benefits to using the template, and the author provides reflections based on their experience with the template.

This pitching research letter documents the benefits of using such a tool to inspire and identify future research opportunities and records the author’s experience of communicating with researchers who regularly publish in top-tier accounting and finance journals.

This paper aims to bridge the gap between theoretical dissertations on the demand and supply for equity by Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the reality of the capital raising markets.

The mixed-methods approach includes questions integrated into a survey of 26,000 SMEs paired with semi-structured interviews with the CEOs or Chairs of the 15 Australian small-scale private equity (SSPE) firms.

Contrary to capital structure theory expectations, 46 per cent of Australian SMEs are interested in equity funding, despite a stated ability to acquire additional debt. The authors reveal a mismatch between supply and demand for SSPE with few SMEs able to meet private equity (PE) firms’ stringent investment criteria.

The population of Australian SSPE firms is small and interviewee responses are qualitative and are not easily replicated.

To improve SSPE market liquidity, SMEs must overcome severe information asymmetry to demonstrate their quality and reduce the cost of due diligence for PE firms. One relatively easy step is for SMEs to voluntarily adopt auditable financial controls on SMEs similar to publicly traded firms.

Few studies focus on small firm equity, which is essential to economic growth and innovation. The authors use a large data set of Australian SMEs and unique informationally rich interview data on the population of Australian firms in SSPE, an industry known for its lack of transparency.