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The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

The objective of this study aims at reviewing a synthesis of the economic impact of the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in an attempt to provide directions for future research. There are significant evidences of adopting a high-quality set of harmonised accounting standards (i.e. IFRS) fosters trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), financial transparency, and comparability and reduces information asymmetries. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 108 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 41 articles were analysed. Seven journals contribute to 39% of the articles (The Accounting Review; European Accounting Review; International Journal of Accounting; Journal of Accounting Research; Revista Espanola de Financiacion y Contabilidad; Asian Review of Accounting; and International Journal of Economics and Management). However, most of the cited journals were Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, European Accounting Review, and International Journal of Accounting (Armstrong, Barth, Jagolinzer, & Riedl, 2010; Brüggemann, Hitz, & Sellhorn, 2013; Christensen, Lee, & Walker, 2007; Daske, Hail, Leuz, & Verdi, 2008, 2013). Most of the studies did not use any theory, and most of the articles utilised quantitative approach. The study calls for future research on the theoretical impactions on the economic impact of IFRS implementation in a country-specific study, cross-country study, and global study. Future studies should also focus on the policymaking agenda for the local and international standard setters.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relation between tax reporting and financial reporting, their influence on transparency, and empirical implications.

Over the past few decades, the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has become one of the most controversial and politicized divisions of the Department of Labor. Republic and Democratic Administrations have adopted starkly different practices concerning both the allocation of resources and the focus of regulatory activities at the division. These differences have been brought into sharp focus during the Bush II and Obama Administrations. Under the Bush Administration, funding for OLMS increased significantly, and the DOL revised union financial reporting requirements, imposing a more onerous burden on unions in the name of promoting transparency and accountability. Section 1 of this paper provides a summary and analysis of the most significant changes and innovations at the OLMS under the Obama Administration. Section 2 of the paper provides a detailed summary of the Bush era reforms and their fate under the Obama OLMS, and an analysis of the impact of these reforms in the area of increasing union transparency and accountability. It argues that the Bush reforms did little or nothing to achieve greater accountability and may instead have been motivated largely by a desire to impose a more onerous administrative burden on reporting unions.

Part II contrasts the views of materiality in the Conceptual Frameworks of the IASB, FASB, IPSAS, and other framework such as the Integrated Reporting. In particular, it analyzes at what level and how differently that concept interacts with the qualitative characteristics of financial information in each of those frameworks. It looks at its pervasiveness and entity specificity, the interlock with the concept of relevance, reliability and faithful representation, completeness, understandability, neutrality, and drills down to the link to recognition.

This part then compares the definitions of materiality in different standards and contexts, to then draw a taxonomy of materiality and its attributes, such as the subject matter, thecontext of assessment, the addressees, the assessor, and the materiality test. A large part of the analysis involves the comparison between legal definitions of materiality and characterizations in the accounting, financial, and larger management contexts.

I reexamine the conflicting results in Frank, Lynch, and Rego (2009) and Lennox, Lisowsky, and Pittman (2013). Frank et al. (2009) conclude that firms can manage book income upward and taxable income downward in the same period, implying a positive relation between aggressive book and tax reporting. Lennox et al. (2013) conclude the relation is negative and aggressive book reporting informs users that aggressive tax reporting is less likely. I identify four key differences in the research designs across the two studies, including measures of aggressive book reporting, measures of aggressive tax reporting, sample time periods, and empirical models. I systematically examine whether each of these differences is responsible for the conflicting results by altering the key difference while holding other factors as constant as possible. I find the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting is driven by the measure of aggressive book reporting, as the relation is positive for some subsets of firms and negative for others. Firms accused of financial statement fraud have a negative relation while nonfraud firms exhibit a positive relation. Using discretionary accruals, I also look for, but do not find a “pivot point” in the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting. I provide a better understanding of the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting by identifying research design choices that are responsible for prior results. I show that measures of both discretionary accruals and financial statement fraud are necessary to gain a more complete picture of the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting.

This study examines challenges to the retrospective financial evaluation of continuous improvement (CI) activities. Through a review of the literature and active engagement with CI implementations, we identify several issues that may lead to divergence between operational and financial assessments. Out of this conflict emerges a set of concepts that we find important − the delineation of soft versus hard capacity benefits, the distinction between capacity used and capacity paid for, and the data gaps that relate to these benefits – and recognize operational improvement and financial improvement as distinct, yet interrelated, theoretical constructs. This study helps explain a series of persistent gaps in the management accounting literature: Conflict between operations and accounting managers, the divergent perspectives of Johnson and Kaplan after their publication of Relevance Lost (Johnson & Kaplan, 1987), and the need for both operational control (including detailed capacity control) and accounting control in CI firms. Instead of one control system being at odds with the other, or co-existing despite each other, each of these systems support a different component of the financial improvement process. Operational control systems in CI firms emphasize non-financial information and social and behavioral controls that empower decision-making by employees, while accounting control systems seek to motivate and translate operational gains into financial gains. Soft and hard benefits linked to capacity play an integral role in understanding the difference in focus of each control system, while data limitations help to explain why these systems remain loosely coupled in practice (or absent, as seems to be the case with detailed Capacity Management Systems).

The post industrial revolution era, driven by an expansion of the global energy system (Jaccard, 2006), has witnessed an exponential increase in the consumption of finite and non-renewable resources, coupled with substantial destruction of the natural environment. Weizsacker and Jesinghaus (1992) observed that the consequence of further growth in a conventional sense would not be worldwide prosperity, but rather lead to destruction, putting in jeopardy prosperity and indeed the very basis of life. It follows that the continuance of such economic growth, measured by traditional means is unsustainable and illogical in the long run.