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This study aims to provide insights into US and Australian analysts' views regarding the relative importance of disclosing the direct method (DM) or indirect method (IM) statement of cash flows and forecasting firm performance.

Evidence is collected from responses to 104 surveys and 52 interviews completed by US and Australian analysts from 2017 to 2022. The survey and interview questions are developed with reference to the literature.

US and Australian analysts believe that the DM format provides incremental benefits compared to the IM for (1) confirming the reliability of earnings; (2) improving earnings confidence; (3) more accurate ex ante forecasts of operating cash flow and earnings; and (4) identifying opportunistic accruals manipulation. Analysts view that DM disclosure can lower firm-level cost of equity, although US interviewees more uniformly expect lower costs of equity under DM disclosure when firms yield low earnings quality. DM disclosure is also more important during unstable economic periods, as proxied by COVID-19.

Limited research currently exists regarding disclosure of the DM or IM and its impact on analysts' forecasting accuracy, earnings quality, economic uncertainty and cost of equity. Previous research has relied on archival research to examine differences between the DM and IM methods and are limited by data availability. Our findings are particularly relevant to the US market with few US firms reporting the DM format.

I seek to identify whether cash flow management can affect the performance and risk of the Greek listed companies.

This study examines the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using a sample of 80 non-financial companies listed in the Athens Exchange. The study covers the period 2018–2022, and panel data analysis is applied. Both financial performance and stock return are taken into consideration, while risk concerns the volatility of the companies’ share prices. The various explanatory variables used include the net cash flow, free cash flow, cash conversion cycle days, cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, cash flow from financing activities, inventory days, customer days and supplier days.

The empirical results provide evidence of a positive relationship between financial performance and net cash flow and free cash flow. In addition, operating cash flow is positively related to financial performance. The opposite is the case for investing and financing cash flow. Finally, some evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and inventory and customer days is provided too. On the other hand, stock return and risk are not related to the cash flow management variables at all.

To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the few studies to examine the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using data from the Greek stock market. The results can form an effective selection tool for investors seeking Greek companies with the highest financial performance potential, which may reward them with higher dividends.

The study examines the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

The study employs Dickinson's (2011) cash flow patterns to classify firm years under various life-cycle stages. Cash flow classification is employed to measure a firm's classification shifting (CS) practices. The study includes Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange during 2012–2020, an ordinary least squares regression model, a fixed-effect model and a panel corrected with standard error regression method.

Firms face different opportunities and challenges at different stages of the firm's life cycle and therefore adopt cash flow CS. The results show that firms adopt cash flow CS during introduction, growth and decline stage of life cycle either to boost or to reduce operating cash flows.

This study is one of its kind to study the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

To understand the specificities of Cash-flow bullwhip in the context of major crises similar to that of COVID-19, to identify its financial impacts on the Moroccan FMCG companies, to establish the profile of the companies most affected by this CFB and finally to propose internal control mechanisms that should be put in place to mitigate the effects of Cash flow Bullwhip in such a context.

The authors chose to conduct descriptive research on companies operating in the fast-moving consumer goods sector in Morocco. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on a target population during the period from December 2020 to March 2021. To answer the different research questions, a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) has been conducted on the 21 variables obtained from the survey questions.

Small and medium-sized companies are those that have been the most financially impacted. Indeed, the instability of the cash flow conversion cycle increased their working capital requirements and limited their self-financing capacity. To face this situation, those companies used alternative means to finance their operational activity by using their equities or bank loans.

Due to the originality of the COVID 19 context, this study gives a different angle of view to analyze the cash flow bullwhip and its implications on the financial health of companies.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate over the desirability of introducing an accrual-based accounting system in the public sector by examining whether accrual-based accounting information is superior to cash-based information in the context of public sector entities.

This paper applies a quantitative research method to assess the degree of smoothness and relevance of the accrual components of income recorded by 302 entities of the Italian National Health Service (INHS) over the period 2014–2020.

The analysis reveals that net income is smoother than cash flows as a summary measure of economic results and that accounting for accruals improves the predictability of future cash flows. However, the authors' novel disaggregation of accrual accounts reveals that those accounts that contribute the most to making income smoother than cash flows – noncurrent assets and liabilities – are also those that contribute the least to predicting future cash flows.

The disaggregation of accrual accounts allows to identify the sources of the informational benefits of accrual accounting, and to document the existence of an informational “trade-off” between smoothness and relevance in the context of public sector entities.

The practice of real earnings management (REM) or earnings manipulation through the company’s real activities is increasingly widespread. Companies that want to achieve profit targets have switched from accrual-based to REM, especially in the firm family owner, who is an active manager. Our study aims to determine whether family ownership in a company will be a factor in the existence of greater REM practices. The authors collected 2,613 observational data from non-financial companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) during 2013–2018 using a purposive sampling method and then analyzed using panel random effect (RE) regression. The results show that family ownership significantly negatively affects abnormal operating cash flow which means that family firms are more likely to reduce operating cash flow to report higher income than non-family firms. Thus, it can be concluded that family firms in Indonesia are more likely to be involved in REM than non-family firms.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in the first quarter of 2020 has caused a severe decline in stock markets worldwide. While prior studies in developed markets found that workplace closure can negatively impact the capital market (e.g. Ozili and Arun, 2020), lesser is known about how it impacts emerging capital markets, which may have different characteristics and behaviour (Harjoto et al., 2021). Hence, this study seeks to uncover stock performance around workplace closure dates of firms incorporated in ASEAN countries and investigates the role of accounting fundamentals in mitigating workplace closure policy's effects on stock performances.

Using an event study methodology, the authors measure the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around workplace closure dates. The authors then use cross-sectional analysis to analyse whether the accounting fundamentals, specifically profitability, cash flow, and leverage, are associated with the CAR. This cross-sectional study involves 1,720 firms that are incorporated in the ASEAN countries.

This analysis indicates that, on average, ASEAN capital markets react negatively to workplace closure policies. The authors then find that the CARs around workplace closure dates are positively associated with the current ratios and are negatively associated with long-term debt ratios. This study’s results thus indicate that firms with a higher liquidity and a higher solvency experience a less adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic than other firms. The authors also find that the associations are more robust for (1) firms in industries more affected by COVID-19 and (2) firms located in countries with more severe cases. Additionally, contrary to this study’s expectation, the authors do not find meaningful associations between CARs around workplace closure dates and firms' cash flow from operation and profit respectively. This study’s results suggest that investors view prior performances related to firms' ability to generate operating cash flow and profit as less relevant to measure firm performance around the workplace closure event.

This study’s results contribute to studies examining fundamental accounting roles during the COVID-19 era, specifically in emerging economies. The findings are critical for investors in understanding the company fundamentals associated with stock price performance in emerging markets during the recent health-related crisis.

Most studies analysing cross-sectional differences in stock returns during the COVID-19 era focus on industry-level differences and use observations from developed markets (Sinagl, 2020; Ramelli and Wagner, 2020). Studies using firm-level analysis in emerging markets are still limited. The authors expand prior studies by using firm-level analysis that spans six countries in ASEAN.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the association of earnings and cash flows with stock prices and returns, and the impact of regulatory changes on the value relevance of accounting numbers.

The authors examine a sample of non-financial firms listed on the Belgrade Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2018 and use three regression models – price, return and differenced.

The authors find evidence that accounting earnings are more value relevant than cash flows. The authors also find negative relation of earnings changes with stock returns and argue that this is due to the lower persistence of negative earnings levels and changes. Finally, the authors find that the value relevance of accounting information in Serbia increases after the improvements in capital market regulation.

Given the empirical focus on a transition economy, the widespread applicability of the study is limited. The findings, however, call for more research on transition economies to better understand the functioning of capital markets and the way information from financial statements is incorporated into stock prices.

The results imply that policymakers in transition economies should improve the accounting and capital market regulation to provide better investor protection and to improve the capital market conditions.

The authors add to knowledge about the value relevance of accounting information in emerging and transition economies. The results could be of interest to standard setters in their efforts to better understand and improve the quality of accounting information in emerging and transition economies.

Recent studies on the securities market’s differential pricing of earnings components have shown that cash flow from operations is more highly valued than total accruals and that moderate cash flow from operations has higher valuation than extreme total accruals. An interesting question that follows is whether these findings hold regarding the differential valuations of cash flow and current accruals. This study aims to extend prior research by addressing this issue in two ways. First, the authors examine the incremental information content of cash flow from operations beyond working capital from operations. Second, the authors assess the effect of extreme working capital from operations on the incremental information content of cash flow from operations. This study aims to extend prior research by addressing this issue in two ways.

This study adopts market-based accounting research to test its hypotheses and to achieve its objectives. Specifically, this study uses statistical associations between accounting data and stock returns to examine the incremental information content (value relevance) of cash flow and working capital from operations and the effect of extreme working capital from operations on the incremental information content of cash flow.

The results show that cash flow from operations is not more highly valued than current accruals (both being valued equivalently). However, moderate cash flow from operations has higher valuation than extreme current accruals (each is valued differently). Overall, these research findings indicate that cash flow becomes more important for valuation as accruals get “extreme”.

As accruals are unlikely to persist to be permanent across the years, these results can be interpreted as indicating that cash flow and accruals information are used jointly by investors, with one being more important than the other depending on the relative “extremeness” of each. Therefore, both are of value to the investor and both should be reported.

The paper contributes to the UK research on determining the preferred level of disaggregation of earnings components, i.e. operating cash flow, current accruals and non-current accruals. This would help investors to improve their investment and credit decisions.

Recent studies on the securities market's differential pricing of earnings components indicate that cash flows from operations are valued more highly than extreme total accruals. However, no previous study has examined whether cash flows from operations have a higher valuation than moderate total accruals. Therefore, this study examines the securities market's differential pricing of cash flows from operations and both moderate and extreme total accruals.

The study's sample is divided into two sub-samples: a moderate total accruals sub-sample; and an extreme total accruals sub-sample. To evaluate whether cash flows have a higher valuation when compared to total accruals, for the entire sample and for each of the two sub-samples, the study examines the statistical significance of the difference between slope coefficients of cash flows and total accruals for regression of returns on both unexpected cash flows from operations and unexpected total accruals.

Consistent with prior research, results from the entire sample show a differential higher valuation of cash flows when compared to total accruals. Another finding, consistent with recent studies, is that cash flows from operations have a higher valuation when compared to extreme total accruals. However, there is no higher differential valuation of cash flows over moderate total accruals. These findings support the decomposition of earnings into the components of cash flows from operations and total accruals only when total accruals are extreme (rather than moderate).

A possible explanation for these results is that since accruals predict cash flows, total accruals – when moderate (i.e. not extreme) – are priced similarly to cash flows. These results reveal that when total accruals are moderate, earnings are a better proxy for the underlying cash flows (over the entire future horizon, not just the current period) than is cash flows. However, since total accruals are unlikely to persist in a permanent way over the years, these results indicate that the decomposition of earnings into the components of cash flows from operations and total accruals is consistent with the information set used to value equity securities. Therefore, separate disclosure of cash flows is value relevant. In addition, users of financial statements certainly need the cash flows information as an ex-post validation of the prior earnings.

This study's contribution stems from its determination of the preferred level of disaggregation of earnings components (i.e. operating cash flows and total accruals). This is expected to help investors in their attempt to enhance the outcome of their informed investment and credit decisions.