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This study examines the information content of firms’ operations-related disclosures (ORDs) and the importance of these disclosures as an information source to stock markets relative to other commonly examined sources of information. I find that ORDs constitute a large portion of corporate press releases. These disclosures are associated with significant stock price reactions and trading volume. The stock price reactions to ORDs are greater than the reactions to 10-K/Q reports and are of similar magnitudes to the reactions to 8-K filings. On average, ORDs explain variation in firms’ quarterly returns to a similar degree as management earnings forecasts and 10-K/Q reports for the full sample and to a greater degree for small firms and firms with lower earnings quality.

This research develops a set of specific modern slavery disclosure principles for organisations. It critically evaluates seven legislative Acts from five different countries and 16 guidelines and directives from international organisations. By undertaking an in-depth content analysis, the research derives an index comprising nine principles and 49 disclosure items to promote best-practice disclosure in tackling modern slavery. We promote nine active principles for organisations to implement and disclose: recognising modern slavery practices, identifying risks, publishing a modern slavery risk prevention policy, proactive in assessing and addressing risks, assessing efficacy of actions, garnering internal and external oversight, externally communicating modern slavery risk mitigation, implementing a suppliers' assessment and code of conduct to ensure transparency and specifying consequences for non-compliance. The research is motivated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8, which focusses on economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work. The research findings will assist practitioners seeking to discover and disclose evidence of modern slavery practices and their mitigation to minimise and encourage the elimination of this unethical and illegal practice in domestic and global supply chains and operations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and detect disclosure on the legitimacy identity of Sukuk structure in Shariah pronouncements. The study also examines the role of Shariah supervisory board on disclosure of legitimacy in Shariah pronouncements.

A total of 54 Islamic Sukuk in Malaysia representing the whole population were selected. Secondary data were used and sourced from Shariah pronouncements on Sukuk. Using descriptive statistics, the existence and the extent of existence of legitimacy disclosure on Sukuk in Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia were ascertained.

Using descriptive statistics, the existence and the extent of existence of legitimacy disclosure on Sukuk in Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia was ascertained. The research found that there is empirical evidence showing the effect of Shariah supervisory board on disclosure of legitimacy identity in Shariah pronouncements.

This study offers significant contribution to existing legitimacy of Sukuk structure literature. The study added a new discussion, i.e. legitimacy disclosure on the Sukuk. The study is intended to increase public awareness for legitimacy identity of Sukuk in the importance of Shariah compliancy not only in the form but also in substance. In addition, this study will give more benefits for Islamic financial institutions in the sense that they should amend some of their regulatory frameworks to push the Sukuk market investors to move toward asset-backed structure.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception of accountants in relation to the complexity of accounting for financial instruments and in relation to the disclosure of financial instruments in annual reports. Both aspects are relevant for the external users, and for the firms’ internal management.

The database comprises questionnaires answered by accountants from Brazil and Chile. Data were analyzed based on reliability statistics and multivariate regression analysis.

The main results indicate that accountants perceive the accounting for derivatives, hedge accounting, fair value measurement of financial instruments and the respective disclosure of these operations as a complex issue. These findings are interesting considering that there are detailed accounting standards relating to financial instruments.

The results indicate that education and gender affect the perception of complexity about accounting of derivatives.

Findings from this research show that accountants do perceive derivatives as complex items for accounting, particularly accounting for hedges.

The results can motivate some initiatives for training activities and for teaching academic content about financial instruments in undergraduate courses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that tests some personal characteristics of accountants (namely, professional experience, education and gender), in contrast to their perceptions about complexity of accounting for derivatives.

This study aims to explore how Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed companies manage their statutory continuous disclosure (CD) obligations.

Employing aspects of Gibbins et al.'s corporate financial disclosure framework, this study conducts semi-structured interviews with 22 experienced senior managers from diverse companies to examine in depth the key antecedents, structures and issues influencing the CD process.

The findings indicate that companies' preference to deal with CD as a commercial or legal issue, managers' practical CD experience, who assumes responsibility for CD, owners' and market expectations, third parties, environmental uncertainties and media are important antecedents in the CD process. The importance of these is contingent on company characteristics. Large companies primarily use structured processes and responsive communication networks whereas small to medium companies rely on informal processes and interpersonal communications. Despite following best practice guidelines, companies face multiple issues in managing CD.

Prior disclosure beliefs and personal biases may have a disproportionate impact on CD behaviour. Future research can examine more closely how these behavioural characteristics influence companies' disclosure policies.

This study offers insights for managers interested in managing CD more effectively. The findings suggest the importance of experience, behaving in a proactive manner and educating employees on companies' CD obligations. It offers insights for regulators on aspects of guidance that could be improved.

The study draws on Gibbins et al.'s theoretical framework to furnish a more complete and refined understanding of the CD process.

This study aims to explore COVID-19-related accounting disclosures using sociological disclosure analysis (SDA) within the context of the developing economy of Bangladesh.

COVID-19-related accounting disclosures from listed banks’ annual reports have been examined using three levels of SDA: textual, contextual and sociological interpretations. Data were gathered from the banks’ 2019 and 2020 annual reports. The study uses the legitimacy theory as its theoretical framework.

The research reveals a substantial shift in corporate disclosures due to COVID-19, marked by a significant increase from 2019 to 2020. Despite regulatory and professional directives for COVID-19-specific disclosures, notable non-compliance is evident in subsequent events, going concern, fair value, financial instruments and more. Instead of assessing the implications of COVID-19 and making disclosures, companies used positive, vague and subjective wording to legitimize non-disclosure.

The study’s insights can inform regulators and policymakers in crafting effective guidelines for future crisis-related reporting like COVID-19. The research adds to the literature by methodologically using SDA to explore pandemic-specific disclosures, uncovering the interplay between disclosures, legitimacy and stakeholder engagement.

This study represents a pioneering effort in investigating COVID-19-specific disclosures. Moreover, it uses the SDA methodology along with the legitimacy theory to analyze accounting disclosures associated with COVID-19.

Prior literature provides empirical evidence that financial performance improves for core remaining operations after a firm discontinues some of their operations. This study aims to examine whether the association between discontinued operations and future financial performance improvement is affected by a regulatory rule (i.e. Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 144 [SFAS 144]) that significantly altered the reporting requirements of discontinued operations. This study also examines whether the association is dependent on the profitability of the operations discontinued.

Ordinary least square regressions are used to test the association between discontinued operations and financial performance improvement, conditional on the profitability of operations discontinued in the pre-SFAS 144 and SFAS 144 regulatory regimes. Data on profitability of operations discontinued is hand-collected.

Results suggest that firms experience improvement in financial performance following the reporting of discontinued operations in the pre-SFAS 144 era. Using hand-collected data on the profitability of operations discontinued, this research study also shows that improvement in performance is stronger for firms that discontinue loss operations compared to those that discontinue profitable operations.

This study explores the impact of regulatory change on the association between discontinued operations and future performance. Furthermore, unique hand-collected data is used to understand whether financial performance improvement is conditional on the profitability of the operations discontinued. Results documented in this paper should be of interest to investors, regulators and analysts in understanding the long-term strategic implications of discontinued operations.

This study aims to assess the effect of material internal control weaknesses (MICW) on the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure.

A total number of 197 firms were assessed in this study during 2014–2021. Two measures were used for MICW. First, the number of existing MICW was assessed in independent auditors’ reports. In Iran, the maximum number of weaknesses is 13. Second, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used as a dummy variable, 1 for a firm with MICW and otherwise 0. Moreover, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used to measure the level of future-oriented disclosure of 13 indicators.

The findings showed that institutional ownership and managerial ownership have a significant positive effect on future-oriented disclosure, whereas the MICW have a significant negative effect on future-oriented disclosure. In addition, MICW played a moderator role in the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure. The robustness checks confirmed the results.

As the studies conducted on future-oriented disclosure and the contributing factors are limited, and also the effect of MICW on future-oriented disclosure is not explored, the present findings can show the importance of the study, and fill the gap in this field. This study offers theoretical and practical implications to drive policymakers and managers to the effectiveness of internal control and future-oriented transparency.

The authors investigate the relation between employee treatment and the likelihood of discontinuing business operations.

The authors use regression analysis to investigate the relation between employee treatment and the likelihood of discontinuing business operations.

The authors find a significant negative relation between employee treatment and the likelihood of discontinuing business operations, suggesting that firms with better employee treatment are less likely to discontinue operations.

This study contributes to two distinctive steams of research: discontinued operations in accounting literature and employee welfare in human resources management literature.

This paper aims to examine Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX)-listed companies’ society disclosures.

Year-ending 2012 annual report disclosures of 75 IDX-listed companies are analyzed. The widely acknowledged Global Reporting Initiative guidelines are used as the disclosure index checklist.

The results show a relatively low level of voluntary society disclosure (40.27 per cent). The highest level of communication is for issues related to society programs. Very few companies disclosed information about public policy, donations to political parties and actions taken in response to corruption incidents. Statistical analysis reveals that company size is a positively significant predictor of “society” communication. Ethical stakeholder theory partially explains the variability of these disclosures.

The main implication of the findings is that Indonesian companies are not involved in the public policy-making process. Companies also probably attempt to hide certain information regarding corruption issues to protect their image and reputation.

This paper provides insights into the disclosure practices of society issues, a specific social disclosure theme which is rarely examined in prior literature, within the framework of ethical stakeholder theory. The research also includes corruption issues to be investigated in the disclosure analysis.