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The purpose of this paper is to investigate success factors pertinent to the management of Indigenous businesses through the identification of points of intervention at the systemic and structural levels. Through this approach, the economic and social values that First Nations communities attach to intangible Indigenous cultural heritage (ICH) and Indigenous cultural intellectual property (ICIP) may be both recognised and realised as assets.

This paper adopts a multidisciplinary approach to address a global issue of economic and social significance to First Nation peoples, their businesses and the Australian Aboriginal communities. The authors adopt a First Nation epistemological standpoint that incorporates theoretical perspectives drawn from a diverse range of fields and theories (Preston, 2013), as well as advocate the use of Indigenist methodology for research with First Nation peoples as it is underpinned by critical race theory.

The authors argue conceptually that accounting, accountability and auditing consideration are required to fully identify what is impacting the successful management of Indigenous enterprises. Specifically, in relation to accounting, Elders should be included to assist in valuing the intangible ICH and ICIP assets. Furthermore, the authors emphasise the need to improve the financial and commercial literacy levels of Indigenous entrepreneurs.

The authors prescribe the use of tools for the accounting treatment of ICH and ICIP as intangible assets within an Australian regulatory environment and define an auditing process and accountability model incorporating cultural, social and environmental measures. A central tenet of this model relates to improving levels of personal and commercial financial literacy in the First Nation participants. Collectively, these factors promote informed participation and decision-making, and may promulgate more sustainable outcomes.

Integrated thinking requires all these factors to be considered in a holistic manner, such that a First Nation enterprise and the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can understand, and make decisions based on, the overall impact it has on all their stakeholders and generally on the society, the environment and the economy.

This paper contributes to Australia’s strategic research priorities of maximising social and economic participation in society and improving the health and well-being of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The authors address the inability of current Western accounting standards, practices and models to suitably account for communally held and protocol-bound intangible Indigenous cultural heritage and Indigenous cultural intellectual property assets.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks have the potential to negatively impact financial returns, yet few superannuation funds integrate these considerations into their investment selection. The Cooper Review (2010) identified a lack of member demand as a key impediment to ESG investing by superannuation funds. Given this problem, the aim of this study is to explore superannuation fund members’ perceptions of ESG investing by their funds in order to identify reasons for the lack of demand.

An on-line survey was developed and distributed to assess possible reasons why members do not select ESG investment options. In total, 549 Australian superannuation fund members responded to the survey.

Results indicate that the majority of superannuation fund members are interested in ESG investing. Members lack awareness of their fund’s approach to ESG investing, and they do not perceive there to be a financial penalty from ESG investing. Finally, members show a preference for consideration of governance issues over both social and environmental issues.

Respondents are well educated and the majority did not choose their superannuation fund. There was no measure of financial literacy included in the research instrument. There is also a general limitation in surveying superannuation fund members when they lack knowledge about superannuation.

The results indicate that superannuation members are interested in both superannuation and ESG investing. Given the low take-up of ESG investment options, this finding raises the question of how effectively funds are engaging their members.

The results should be of interest to superannuation funds and may lead to renewed interest in promoting ESG products.

This is the first study to examine superannuation members’ attitudes and behaviours towards ESG investing in the context of superannuation. The study also adds to our understanding of member decision-making in the $1.8 trillion superannuation industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative predictive ability of earnings, cash flow from operations as reported in the cash flow statement, and two traditional measures of cash flows (i.e. earnings plus depreciation and amortisation expense, and working capital from operations) in forecasting future cash flows for Australian companies. Further, an empirical investigation of the extent to which firm size, as a contextual factor, influences the predictability of earnings and cash flow from operations is presented.

The authors' sample includes 323 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2004 (3,512 firm‐years). They employ the ordinary least squares and fixed‐effects approaches to estimate their regression models. To evaluate the forecasting performance of the regression models, both within‐sample and out‐of‐sample forecasting tests are employed.

The authors provide evidence that reported cash flow from operations has more power in predicting future cash flows than earnings and traditional cash flow measures. Further, the predictability of both earnings and cash flow from operations significantly increases with firm size. However, the superiority of cash flow from operations to earnings in predicting future cash flows is robust across small, medium and large firms.

The authors' results, in terms of firm size, imply that the users of accounting information should be cautious in assessing the utility of earnings and cash flow measures in forecasting future cash flows as firm size decreases.

In the past decade, there has been strong growth in Islamic finance and banking across the globe, there is little empirical evidence on the impact of religiosity on financial decisions. This paper aims to address this issue.

This paper uses an experimental design to investigate the investment behaviours of a group of Muslims.

The paper finds that Islam does influence investment behaviour, however, the degree to which it does this is influenced by the degree of religiosity of the individual. In addition, evidence is found of “Western style” wealth maximisation amongst Muslim investors as well as a desire to consider sustainable investment principles in asset allocations.

These findings have implications for investors, financial advisors, and policy makers.

The paper is original its use of the experimental design to test the impact of religiosity in the context of investment decisions by Muslims.

In Australia, there are agencies funded by the government to provide support to Indigenous peoples wishing to start a business and to provide ongoing support for their businesses. In this chapter, we highlight the government-funded agencies mentioned by Indigenous small business owners and provide insights into their experiences. Informing this chapter are 36 interviews with 30 Indigenous small business owners and 6 Indigenous business stakeholders from urban, rural, and remote areas of Australia. We explore the practice of support from an axio-onto-epistemological perspective. We use the theory of practice architectures lens to analyse the data, identifying how the practice of support is enabling and constraining Indigenous small business owners. Next, we share how these government-funded agencies are understood to be used according to Indigenous stakeholders. Last, we recommend improvements that may further support and sustain Indigenous small businesses.

This paper aims to examine the contemporary association between accounting information and a number of measures of systematic (beta) risk that incorporate dynamic market features. The goal is to determine the fundamental accounting drivers of beta and to assess whether their explanatory variable power has changed or declined over time.

Beta estimates are calculated using adjustments for thin‐trading, central tendency, leverage, and time variance. Accounting risk variables are derived from theoretical foundations and prior empirical research, and classified as operating, financial or growth.

Results show a strong association between accounting variables (operating and growth) and systematic risk that is consistent over time, but with some industry and size differences and possible country effects. Accounting variables are able to capture dynamic risk shifts and generally are able to outperform naïve M‐GARCH and industry betas in predicting next year's systematic risk.

Internal management and external decision making enable the development of more efficient ex‐post risk measures, isolating actual risk determinants rather than just determining the level of risk, overcoming the problem that conventional ex‐post measures cannot be used for non‐listed entities, initial public offering firms, or those that do not have sufficient trading history, reduces the noise found in traditional risk estimates that rely on historical security returns, and the development of trading and valuation strategies.

This is the first paper that assesses the association between a range of dynamic risk measures and accounting variables and tests whether this long‐run association has changed over time.

Prior learning and prior knowledge are among the most dependable and consistent factors in predicting students’ success (Richardson et al., 2012). Although for UK Higher Education, the traditional A-level (advanced level qualification) remains the principal qualification students use to gain entry to University, there has been a small but significant rise in alternative qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) and vocational qualifications such as that from the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC). The multidisciplinary nature of Psychology means students enter the degree program with a range of qualifications in differing topic areas. The current case study aimed to assess if science qualifications aided student success in the University of Liverpool’s Psychology course. Ordinal regression and correlations were used to examine the impact of prior qualifications on three first-year cohort module scores (Psychobiology, Social psychology, and Research Methods) and the overall degree mark across three cohorts of Psychology students (n = 1,072). University entry grades showed a significant overall and subject specific effect of scientific prior knowledge. However, the effects of previous qualifications were not cumulative and did not persist beyond the first year of study. These findings were strongest for Chemistry in the Psychobiology module suggesting that scientific literacy – the understanding of scientific concepts, phenomena, and processes, as well as an individual’s ability to apply such knowledge to new or non-scientific situations (Schleicher, 2019) – rather than domain-specific knowledge is driving such increase in grades. A negative relationship was seen for those holding BTEC qualifications, suggesting that vocational qualifications, specifically for this Psychology program, were of less use than academic ones, even if topic areas were similar – a finding which may also apply to other academic based courses, and warrants further study. Although the advantage of prior qualifications diminishes across the course of study, this small but distinct advantage suggests that making a science qualification a requirement for a place on a Psychology degree course would be a beneficial step for admissions tutors to consider.