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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of choice of accounting standards on the value relevance and accrual quality of reported earnings and book values under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) versus US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

The authors examine the effect of choice of accounting standards on the value relevance and accrual quality of reported earnings and book values under IFRS versus US GAAP using 404 firms from 37 countries listed in the USA. They use the modified Jones (1991) model to measure accruals.

The authors find that value relevance of the book value of equity is increasing (significantly) when the sample firms use IFRS to prepare their financial statements. They also find some evidence in support of the mediating effect of the choice of accounting standards on the accrual quality of the sample firms. The results of this paper indicate that sample firms with lower accrual quality (larger discretionary accruals) experience higher returns during the fiscal year. However, the authors also find that the positive association between size of discretionary accruals and returns is decreasing in the use of IFRS by the sample firms.

This paper adds to prior literature on the harmonization of accounting standards and emphasizes the role of accounting standards in the quality of financial reporting. By using the financial data of all foreign registrants listed in the USA, the authors are able to provide deeper and more representative evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what is weighted more by the investors when valuing a dual-class firm’s stock – greater agency costs or better accrual quality of the dual-class firm in contrast to the single-class firm.

Using the financial data of firms issuing multiple classes of stock (hereafter dual-class firms) and firms issuing single class of stock (hereafter single-class firms), the authors measure the effect of firm’s ownership structure (dual class versus single class) on the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of prior, current and future period earnings.

The authors find that investors care more about agency costs than the quality of accruals in evaluating the earnings of dual-class firms. Specifically, the authors find that current annual returns of the firm are negatively associated with dual-class ownership structure and that earnings informativeness and predictability are decreasing in dual-class ownership of the firm as reflected in decreasing ERCs.

This study adds to prior literature on dual-class ownership which reports greater agency costs and better accrual quality at dual-class firms in contrast to single-class firms. This study contributes to the literature on earnings informativeness and predictability by evaluating the effect of ownership structure on the ERCs of the firm. Investors should be careful when valuing a dual-class firm and should consider agency costs in addition to accrual quality of reported earnings at such firms.

Prior literature has established the theoretical and statistical linkages between monetary compensation and firm performance, yet little is known about how the association between monetary compensation and firm performance is moderated by companies’ engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Further, compared to executive compensation, non-executive compensation remains an underexplored topic. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how workforce-oriented CSR moderates: first, the association between non-executive compensation and firm performance; and second, the association between executive compensation and firm performance.

Using a sample of 181 from the largest 3,000 US companies for the years 1991-2011, the authors investigate how workforce-oriented CSR moderates the association between compensation and firm performance. Compensation is examined at two levels – non-executive versus executive compensation. The workforce-oriented CSR score is constructed as total strengths minus total concerns in Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini’s employee relations dimension.

The authors find an improvement in firm performance with increases in both non-executive and executive compensation. Further, workforce-oriented CSR positively moderates the association between non-executive compensation and firm performance, and negatively moderates the association between executive compensation and firm performance.

This study adds to the literature of the compensation-performance linkage by including both non-executive and executive compensation as important determinants of firm performance and incorporating workforce-oriented CSR as a moderator on the compensation-performance linkage. It also provides new angles for CSR scholars.

This study helps managers understand the importance of fulfilling employees’ social emotional needs and the potential of workforce-oriented CSR in shaping employees’ perceived distributive justice. The findings also help managers make critical decisions regarding the allocation of limited corporate resources and prioritization of investment options. In addition, the findings are also useful to boards of directors and human resources managers who are in charge of hiring executives, building top management teams, and deciding executive compensation.

This study helps advance our understanding of the compensation-performance linkage. The results suggest that the relationship between compensation and financial performance is contingent on other organizational factors. In addition, the findings provide practical implications on how CSR engagement moderates the association between non-executive compensation and firm performance differently than the association between executive compensation and firm performance and how to allocate corporate resources and prioritize strategic options effectively.

With the growing awareness about the environment and climate, sustainability has gained increased attention of investors. Many investors now factor in the long-term sustainability of successful and responsible companies when making their investment choices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not the sustainability performance of a company affects the informativeness of its earnings by exploring the mediating effect of sustainability performance on the association between stock returns and earnings changes.

Using a sample of firms for the period 2009–2016 with available sustainability data from TruValue Labs' database, the authors investigate how the sustainability performance of a firm mediates the relationship between stock returns and earnings (changes). The authors use ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to test their hypotheses.

Consistent with the voluntary disclosure and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance literature, the authors find that higher sustainability performance improves the stock price informativeness of earnings. The authors find evidence in support of increased earnings response coefficient with increased sustainability performance.

This study adds to the literature supporting the notion of sustainability investing indicating that sustainability performance of a firm affects the stock price informativeness and predictability of earnings (changes) of the firm.

This study has value for, both, investors and managers regarding the importance of sustainability performance of the firm. Sustainability performance of the firm sends signals to market participants, increasing the informational content of the reported earnings as well as predictability of future earnings.

This paper aims to make a systematic study on the factors that hinder the development of China’s intelligent automobile manufacturing industry; based on comprehensive understanding of these obstacles and by optimization means, ultimately, the healthy and sustainable development of intelligent automobile manufacturing industry in China can be promoted.

Based on a questionnaire survey of intelligent automobile manufacturing listed companies in China, first, fuzzy semantic scale was adopted to collect respondents’ choices, the fuzzy score function is used to calculate the fuzzy score value and these data are used as the basis for subsequent model analysis. Then, structural equation modeling (SEM) was adopted to analyze the causal relationship between influencing factors to explore the main hinder factors.

It is found that, in the short term, the backwardness of technological industrialization is the main reason leading to low permeability of intelligent automobile; in the medium term, the imperfect industrial R&D ability and the insufficiency of infrastructure are major causes for high manufacturing cost and low competitiveness of intelligent automobile manufacturing industry; in the long term, the lack of national policy and industrial strategic planning is the main factors affect intelligent automobile manufacturing cost and the industry competitiveness.

The research conclusion has important policy implications for promoting intelligent automobile manufacturing sustainable development. In recent years, China’s intelligent automobile manufacturing industry has gradually stepped out of breeding period; therefore, the role of government should be gradually transformed from participants to managers and regulators. Considering the fact that intelligent automobile cost is very high, and still higher than the cost of fuel vehicle, government should focus on the issues such as improving R&D capabilities, infrastructure construction, policy framework system, legal system and technological industrialization. Specifically, in short-term planning, improving technological industrialization level is the key to development; in medium-term planning, policymakers should focus on the improvement of R&D capabilities and infrastructure; considering the long-term development, establishing appropriate national policies and dealing with the adverse impact of imperfect strategic planning are the most sensible choice.

This paper analyzes the factors that hinder the development of China’s intelligent automobile manufacturing industry for the first time, and provides the basic logic of integration factors at different levels with the development of intelligent automobile to reveal the uniqueness and facts of China’s economic development.