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Group reporting, a form of cooperative learning, is a learning tool often employed in residential teaching to facilitate quality learning. Like other cooperative learning methods, it enhances learning in classrooms by allowing students work on activities in small groups to receive rewards based on their group’s performance. However, though group reporting is often done in face-to-face settings, few up-to-date literature has shown its application in online learning. Moreover, the question as to whether online cooperative learning through group reports yields positive or negative response from students has to be studied further. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study focuses on the students’ response to the group reporting activity carried throughout one semester. A course offered by the University of the Philippines Open University on database management systems made use of group reporting to add to the students’ learning experience. Group meetings along with regular online lectures were carried out during the first half of the semester. The output group reports were then presented during the second half and served as the main resource for those weeks’ study modules. An online survey with Likert scales drawing out the student reactions on the learning activity impact was administered to volunteer respondents at the end of classes.

In total, 71.9 percent of 32 respondents observed changes in their behavior after using peer and cooperative learning technologies. The respondents also indicated that they enjoyed the group reporting activity (14 agreeing strongly, 14 agreeing moderately). They also indicated that they were motivated to learn the course through the group reports (8 agreeing strongly, 14 agreeing moderately). However, when asked if they preferred to have all the modules in group report format 9 agreed moderately, 8 disagreed moderately, 7 disagreed strongly, 4 agreed strongly, and 4 neither agreed nor disagreed. Still, overall, online cooperative learning facilitated quality learning based on this study’s results.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by showing how group reporting can be applied online and how students have responded to it. The study also provides recommendations on how to conduct online cooperative learning in order to enhance the quality of courses, with implications for further research to look into variations with respect to the technology used for reporting and its suitability to a given course.

The initial rationale for developing integrated reporting included addressing the failures of traditional reporting to address sustainability issues. Subsequently, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) modified its stated objectives to emphasise integrated thinking and value creation. There has been debate on whether the IIRC’s process for developing its integrated reporting framework was subject to regulatory capture by the accounting profession (Flower, 2015; Adams, 2015; Thomson, 2015). This paper aims to provide additional evidence on the extent to which this regulatory capture occurred, with an update on current developments.

Data from interviews with key participants in the integrated reporting framework’s development and the IIRC’s Council and Working Group meeting minutes were analysed to identify to what extent the change in the IIRC’s focus can be explained by regulatory capture theory.

The findings show that the integrated reporting framework’s development was subject to regulatory capture by accountants. However, the extent of capture was mitigated to some extent by processes adopted in its development. This is consistent with regulatory capture theory.

This paper critically examines the debate on the extent to which the sustainability message has been lost as a result of regulatory capture. It provides an in-depth analysis of the IIRC’s treatment of sustainability which explores the application of regulatory capture theory and examines evidence not considered in previous studies.

This study tests assumptions implicit in many of the policy developments around hate crime reporting that concern the social context and some of the psychological processes behind decisionmaking on victim reporting. Results suggest that official concern over reporting all hate crimes for service planning requirements is not shared by the overwhelming majority of respondents and would not be feasible to deliver. If reporting is to be increased it needs to deliver a more tangible and personally experienced outcome for the individual.

Recently the advances in wireless communication technology and the popularity of portable computers have rendered mobile computing environments from which mobile users with battery‐operated palmtops can access the information via wireless channels, without space and time restriction. In mobile computing environments, mobile users cache the data items to use the bandwidth efficiently and improve the response time of mobile transactions. If the data items cached in mobile users are updated at the server, the server broadcasts an invalidation report for maintaining the cache consistency of mobile users. However, this method has an obstacle that does not guarantee the serializable execution of mobile transactions. The purpose of this paper is to propose the four types of reports for mobile transaction (FTR‐MT) method for ensuring the serializable execution of mobile transactions.

The paper describes the FTR‐MT method, which is composed of four types of algorithms, e.g. group report composition algorithm, immediate commit decision algorithm, cache consistency algorithm, and disconnection cache consistency algorithm. FTR‐MT method for improving the response time of mobile transactions makes a commit decision by using the four types of reports.

With the FTR‐MT method, mobile users can make a commit decision by using the four types of reports. The response time of mobile transactions can be reduced. Furthermore, the FTR‐MT method can improve the cache efficiency in the case that the disconnection of mobile users is longer than the broadcast interval of the window report.

This paper proposes a new method for guaranteeing the serializable execution of mobile transactions, called FTR‐MT, using four types of reports. Also, it can prevent the entire cache dropping, even though the disconnection of a mobile host is longer than the broadcast interval of a window report. Through the analytical model, this method is felt to be superior to other methods, in terms of the average response time and the commit rate of mobile transactions, and bandwidth usage.

This study aims to explore the biodiversity reporting by the largest dairy company in China (the Yili Group). The authors use signalling theory, legitimacy theory, institutional theory and stakeholder theory to understand the Yili Group’s motivations to report biodiversity disclosures.

This study uses content analysis, guided by a biodiversity disclosure index, to explore and investigate the disclosure themes and tone for the stand-alone Yili Group biodiversity reports for the period 2017–2019. The content analysis is supplemented by a selection of interviews used to obtain additional insights into the Yili Group’s biodiversity reporting.

A gradual improvement is noted in the Yili Group’s biodiversity reporting over time, while the need for improvement remains as the Yili Group matures in its reporting. The company tends to report symbolic disclosures rather than substantive ones and is motivated more by external pressures and/or incentives than by morality and/or stakeholder accountability: this pushes the company towards more dominant symbolic biodiversity disclosure practices.

Findings are particularly relevant to the management of Chinese companies planning to publish biodiversity reports or enhance biodiversity disclosure practices as they draw attention to specific aspects of biodiversity reporting which require improvement. Improvements in biodiversity reporting provide a signal that such reporting is maturing and that organizations are recognizing the need for managing their biodiversity impact.

Given that the Yili Group is a pioneer among Chinese firms in publishing biodiversity reports, this paper suggests other companies’ imitation of the Yili Group and helps promote the diffusion of biodiversity reporting in China. In addition, this paper provides a basis for a call for Chinese companies to strengthen their awareness and accountability regarding biodiversity and the conservation thereof.

This study is among the first to explore biodiversity reporting and disclosure in a China-based organization. While the study deals with one company, the findings are broadly applicable for other organizations seeking to undertake biodiversity accounting and reporting. Considering that biodiversity accounting is a research area which is still under-investigated, this paper aims to respond to the call of Jones and Solomon (2013) for pushing the boundaries in biodiversity accounting.

Among the gold standards in human resource development (HRD) research are studies that test theoretically developed hypotheses and use experimental designs. A somewhat typical experimental design would involve collecting pretest and posttest data on individuals assigned to a control or experimental group. Data from such a design that considered if training made a difference in knowledge, skills or attitudes, for example, could help advance practice. Using simulated datasets, situated in the example of a scenario-planning intervention, this paper aims to show that choosing a data analysis path that does not consider the associated assumptions can misrepresent findings and resulting conclusions. A review of HRD articles in a select set of journals indicated that some researchers reporting on pretest-posttest designs with two groups were not reporting associated statistical assumptions and reported results from repeated-measures analysis of variance that are considered of minimal utility.

Using heuristic datasets, situated in the example of a scenario-planning intervention, this paper will show that choosing a data analysis path that does not consider the associated assumptions can misrepresent findings and resulting conclusions. Journals in the HRD field that conducted pretest-posttest control group designs were coded.

The authors' illustrations provide evidence for the importance of testing assumptions and the need for researchers to consider alternate analyses when assumptions fail, particularly the homogeneity of regression slopes assumption.

This paper provides guidance to researchers faced with analyzing data from a pretest-posttest control group experimental design, so that they may select the most parsimonious solution that honors the ecological validity of the data.

Reports on the results of a survey of various groups of annual report users as to the importance, or “materiality”, of environmental information to decisions they may wish to make. Also investigates how environmental information is ranked in importance relative to various other items of social and financial information. The user groups surveyed comprise shareholders, accounting academics, stockbrokers and financial analysts, financial institutions, environmental lobby groups, industry associations and other groups performing a review or oversight function. Reports the results which indicate that the majority of the annual report users surveyed believe environmental information to be material to their decisions, and that they seek the disclosure of this information in corporate annual reports. Although the results show that the users typically believe that environmental information is material, they further indicate that the majority of the user groups rank environmental information behind traditional financial information such as profits, net assets, cash flows, and dividend payments.

This study explores feedback-induced and spontaneous postdecision restructuring in a complex decision environment. We examine the impact of experience, decision norms, and the actual decision on postdecision restructuring tendencies. Experienced and novice auditors performed an aspect rating task as part of a going concern judgment. After a break, all participants were asked to recreate their decision stage aspect ratings, but only the experiment group received outcome feedback. We find that the restructuring tendencies are impacted primarily by experience and the original audit report choice. The post-decision restructuring more often than not is a result of adjustments made by participants lacking outcome feedback. This spontaneous defense is particularly vigorous when the report choice violates perceived experience-group norms and base-rates

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of the evolution of environmental management accounting (EMA) and social and environmental reporting (SER), and the accompanying development of a sustainability programme, in a large family-owned, unlisted corporation.

A longitudinal case study based on semi-structured interviews and documentary data was conducted. The main periods of fieldwork were carried out in 2007 and between 2010 and 2012. Sustainability reports were collected until 2019 when SER appeared to cease. The case analysis draws on the concepts of organisational identity (OI) and internal legitimacy (IL) to examine the decision-making and actions of a range of key organisational actors as they engage with EMA and SER.

The study demonstrates that a gap between an organisation’s identity claims (“who we are”) and its enacted identity (“what we do”) can enable the adoption of constitutive, performative and representational EMA and SER. It illuminates the nature of the role of key actors and organisational dynamics, in the form of OI and IL, in adapting these practices. It also demonstrates that, in giving meaning to the concept of sustainability, organisational actors can draw on their organisation’s identity and construct the comprehensibility of an organisational sustainability programme.

More empirical work is needed to examine the applicability of OI and IL to other settings. It would also be beneficial to examine the potential for OI work to allow organisations to change and reinvent themselves in response to the evermore pressing environmental crisis and the role, if any, of EMA in this process.

The study enriches our understanding of why and how EMA and SER evolve by demonstrating that paying attention to OI and IL can provide further insight into the decision-making and actions of organisational members as they recognise, evaluate, support and cease these practices.

The scope of the study is to analyze an Italian family firm operating in the transformation and marketing of durum wheat to investigate the degree of accountability of the integrated reporting (IR) disclosed by the organization.

The paper uses a case study approach proposing a specific research template to evaluate the implementation of IR depicting the role of three main dimensions: stakeholder involvement, business model and integration.

The paper enriches theoretical conceptualization of the implementation of IR proposing a new conceptual model that adds empirical findings to the literature on IR and at the same time addresses the call for studies of Dumay et al. (2016) to engage more with practice and development on IR.

The use of a specific research framework constitutes both the main strength of the paper and also its main limit, as the dimensions of the framework have been chosen by the authors, and the observations and conclusions are based on the authors’ analysis under an interpretative approach.

The implementation of the same research framework to other organizational IR documents could allow comparisons to be expressed on the quality of the IR disclosed by different organizations and on the same organization in different periods of time.

The main originality of this paper is the creation and the employment of a specific template to analyze the degree of accountability of the case study selected representing a non-listed Italian company operating in the food industry.