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The Scandinavian boards are known for their “best practices” for corporate governance. This paper aims to examine the management incentives behind corporate disclosure via an empirical study.

Many of the previous empirical work have focused on the US data, but the generalizability of such findings is geographically bounded. The set of management incentives in this paper is examined using a total sample of 123 local annual reports via some of the largest publicly listed firms in the Scandinavian countries between the years 2008-2012.

The findings of this study reveal that a firm’s financial success originates from the different attributes of corporate governance. Correlation and regression analyses reveal that in terms of firm size, leverage ratio, the existence of audit committee and the independence of CEO, there is a correlation between firm-specific factors and the level of disclosure. In contrast to the previous literature, a positive relationship between corporate disclosure and information asymmetry was not found.

The results of this study are valuable to the policymakers when implementing regulations on corporate governance control. The strategic implications of the findings on business decisions and future research are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare in a qualitative way how internal auditors perceive their current role in risk management within US and Belgian companies.

In order to get adequate data, Chief audit executives from 10 different companies were interviewed and relevant documents were analyzed.

In the Belgian cases, internal auditors' focus on acute shortcomings in the risk management system creates opportunities to demonstrate their value. Internal auditors are playing a pioneering role in the creation of a higher level of risk and control awareness and a more formalized risk management system. In the US cases, internal auditors' objective evaluations and opinions are a valuable input for the new internal control review and disclosure requirements mentioned in the Sarbanes Oxley Act.

Given the qualitative nature of this study, generalization to all Belgian and US companies is not possible. The time specific character of the subject is an opportunity for future longitudinal research.

In Belgium, the internal auditing profession is actually in a kind of “transition phase”. In order to survive this transition phase, internal auditors need to assume a “teaching role” vis‐à‐vis the different management levels to make them aware of their responsibilities in risk management. After this transition period, internal auditors will be able to focus more on their core activities.

In addition to a number of quantitative studies, this paper extends in a qualitative and comparative way the understanding of the specific role of internal auditors in risk management within US and Belgian companies.

This study examines how assurors make sense of sustainability assurance (SA) work and how interactions with assurance team members and clients shape assurors’ sensemaking and their actual SA work.

To obtain detailed accounts of how SA work occurs on the ground, this study explores three SA engagements by interviewing the main actors involved, both at the client firms and at their Big Four assurance providers.

Individual assurors’ (i.e. partners and other team members) sensemaking of SA work results in the crafting of their logics of action (LoAs), that is, their meanings about the objectives of SA work and how to conduct it. Without organizational socialization, team members may not arrive at shared meanings and deviate from the team-wide assurance approach. To fulfill their objectives for SA work, assurors may engage in socialization with clients or assume a temporary role. Yet, the role negotiations taking place in the shadows of the scope negotiations determine their default role during the engagement.

Two options are available to help SA statement users gauge the relevance of SA work: either displaying the SA work performed or making it more uniform.

This study theoretically grounds how assurors make sense of SA work and documents how (the lack of) professional socialization, organizational socialization and socialization of frequent interaction partners at the client shape actual SA work. Thereby, it unravels the SA work concealed behind SA statements.