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This paper aims to examine the relation between firms’ political connections and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in Portugal. The authors argue that in settings where the existence of political connections are viewed as damaging collective interests of stakeholders, political connected firms can deal with legitimacy issues from such connections by resorting to CSR practices and the reporting thereof.

Using archival data from a panel sample of 36 firms from Portugal between 2009 and 2012, the authors examine the relationship between political connections and CSR reporting by way of regression analysis.

The authors find a positive relationship between political connections and CSR reporting.

This study draws on legitimacy theory to highlight that CSR can be used to deal with stakeholder activism and vigilance pertaining to suspicion related to the existence of political connections.

Social factors can shape economic decisions. Corporate governance (CG) studies and guidelines usually neglect that the chief executive officer (CEO) and board members may be socially tied. This study investigates the effects of social ties between the CEO and board members on earnings management (EM).

The authors run a series of regressions using a sample of Brazilian companies listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange [B]³ between 2011 and 2017 to assess the effect of the social ties between the CEO and board members on EM using a social ties index. The authors also employ five robustness tests to verify the consistency of results, including alternative proxies of EM and social ties and an estimation using fixed effects.

After developing and computing a social ties index between the CEOs and members of the board of directors (BD) and the fiscal council (FC), the study’s findings indicate that a significant level of social ties between the CEO and BD has a negative impact on EM. However, for FC members, the authors found non-significant results.

Unlike previous studies, the authors built a social tie index (STI) from five elements of social ties assessed in an environment with a two-tier board system. Results show that elements of social interactions and personal relationships can benefit the company, as a CEO's level of social ties with the BD reduces EM practices.

This study aims to explore the firm’s and country-level institutional forces that determine banks’ CSR reporting diversity, during the recent global financial crisis.

Specifically, this study assesses whether economic and institutional conditions explain CSR disclosure strategies used by 30 listed and unlisted banks from six countries in the context of the recent 2007/2008 global financial crisis. The annual reports and social responsibility reports of the largest banks in Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal were content analyzed.

The findings suggest that economic factors do not influence CSR disclosure. Institutional factors associated with the legal environment, industry self-regulation and the organization’s commitments in maintaining a dialogue with relevant stakeholders are crucial elements in explaining CSR reporting. Consistent with the Dillard et al.’s (2004) model, CSR disclosure by banks not only stems from institutional legitimacy processes, but also from strategic ones.

The findings highlight the importance of CSR regulation to properly monitor manager’s’ opportunistic use of CSR information and regulate the assurance activities (regarding standards, their profession or even the scope of assurance) to guarantee the proper credibility reliability of CSR information.

The study makes two major contributions. First, it extends and modifies the model used by Chih et al. (2010). Second, drawn on the new institutional sociology, this study develops a theoretical framework that combines the multilevel model of the dynamic process of institutionalization, transposition and deinstitutionalization of organizational practices developed by Dillard et al. (2004) with Campbell’s (2007) theoretical framework of socially responsible behavior. This theoretical framework incorporates a more inclusive social context, aligned with a more comprehensive sociology-based institutional theory (Dillard et al., 2004; Campbell, 2007), which has never been used in the CSR reporting literature hitherto.

The purpose of this paper to analyze the risk reporting practices and its determinants of commercial banks during the period of the adoption of the Basel II Accord in Portugal.

The paper conducts a content analysis of the risk and risk management sections included in the management reports and the notes of the annual reports of Portuguese commercial banks, for the years 2007, 2010 and 2013.

Findings show that theoretical frameworks underpinned in agency and legitimacy theories continue to provide valid explanations for risk reporting by Portuguese banks. More specifically, findings indicate that agency costs, public visibility and reputation are crucial drivers of risk reporting. Findings also indicate that younger banks with lower risk management skills use risk reporting either as an informational process or as a channel to manage organizational legitimacy.

The content analysis does not allow readily for in-depth qualitative inquiry. The coding instrument is subject to coder bias. Information about risk can be provided in sources other than annual reports. Additionally, not all banks disclose information on corporate governance-related variables that could also influence risk reporting.

The current research setting has never been studied hitherto. In this sense, this study seems to be of great relevance given the scarcity of literature on the subject in Portugal.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it intends to assess the level of comparability of the fair value-based valuation criteria for biological assets of Portuguese dairy farms after the adoption of the Portuguese Accounting Standardization System. Second, it presents an innovative valuation model to assess the fair value of dairy herds.

The paper conducts a multiple case study at dairy farms in the central region of Portugal which had adopted the new Accounting Standardization System. Data were captured through interviews to assess how dairy farms were using the new valuation criteria required by this recent accounting frame of reference. A proposal for a model to measure fair value is presented.

Main findings indicate that market values for dairy production animals are inconsistent, reducing financial information comparability levels. To solve these problems, the authors propose a new model to assess fair value based on the net present value (NPV) of future cash-flows. This is a possible method to measure bovines that are in a breeding stage and it will assure the comparability of financial statements among dairy farms.

The study is confined to one case study and one country, not allowing generalization.

Results indicate the need to harmonize one possible method for measuring cattle that are in a breeding stage. In order to overcome these shortcomings, a model was designed to calculate the fair value of dairy production based on the NPV of future economic benefits.

The present chapter tries to assess the state of art of enterprise risk management (ERM) among Portuguese non-financial companies regarding two main aspects: the ERM background in Portugal and the level of disclosure of ERM practices by non-financial listed companies. Since the analysis of disclosures is useful to understand the level of evolution and adoption of ERM framework we tried to assess the ERM practices disclosed by 26 Portuguese non-financial listed companies at the Euronext Lisbon Stock Exchange regulated market, during the period of 2006–2016. Main findings indicate that regulation on ERM in Portugal emanates from three main Codes (The Portuguese Companies Code, The Stock Exchange Code, and The Corporate Governance Code). The ERM professionalization in Portugal is its infancy and has been promoted mainly by the Institute of Portuguese Internal Auditors. Moreover, research on topics such as risk reporting and risk management/ERM is very scarce. Overall, findings of prior literature are consistent with results from our exploratory study. We conclude that Portuguese non-financial listed companies still disclose very little information on ERM activities. However, over the period of analysis, the disclosure practices evolved positively. Findings show that ERM disclosure can still be extensively improved in the future.

The present study aims to identify the determinants of the capital structure of restaurants firms in Portugal, as well as to analyze the application of capital structure theories in those companies.

In order to reach the objectives, a sample of 400 companies belonging to the restaurant sector was used. The analysis was carried out between 2008 and 2017, and multiple linear regression, based on panel data, was applied.

The obtained results allowed to verify that the considered variables have different effects on the capital structure of the companies under study and that the restaurant sector partially applies the trade-off, pecking order and signaling theories.

Drawn on social psychology theory of impression management (IM), the purpose of this paper is to assess the way Portuguese managers build their narratives in chairman’s statement (CS) to manage stakeholders’ perceptions on corporate image, in a period of time of scarce resources.

The paper’s theoretical framework draws on elements of social psychology theory of IM developed by Leary and Kowalski (1990). Through the use of the two-component model of IM (impression motivation and impression construction) the 45 CSs of Portuguese non-finance companies were content analysed to understand how managers build their voluntary communication strategies.

Results indicate that organisational outcome does not influence the adoption of IM strategies. But public visibility and consumer proximity are crucial factors in explaining them. Larger companies with high consumer proximity present themselves in a favourable way, but consistent with an overall reading of the annual report. These companies show a higher level of verbosity, consistent to the argument of retrospective rationality.

The present study goes beyond Merkl-Davies et al. (2011) work and obtains insightful knowledge on the influence of goal relevance of impression in three different perspectives: company’s public visibility, company’s dependency from debtholders, and consumer proximity. Moreover, the analysis uses a period of scarce resources and a European Latin country, with no tradition in publishing CSs, but that recently has changed its financial reporting practices from an institutional code-law logic to an institutional common-law logic. A research setting like this has not been studied hitherto.