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The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether two major stakeholder groups – customers and employees – consider third party-reviewed corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and assurance on the quality of internal controls as value determinant in their decisions, and how their decisions influence financial performance through the halo effect of these reports.

Using Compustat North America and Global Reporting Initiative data, the authors used first-order autoregressive models over the period from 2006 to 2012.

The results indicate that the impacts of customers and employees on financial performance are influenced by third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control. Moreover, it is found that the third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control enable the persistence of financial performance.

The findings have implications for stakeholders in terms of third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control. The findings are important due to the influence that these stakeholders (customers and employees) have on the financial performance of firms and the impact that CSR actions can have on society as a whole.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that contributes to the literature by demonstrating that information about third party-reviewed CSR reports and internal control reviews may influence the perceptions of firms by two primary stakeholders – customers and employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between integrated reports, external assurance and financial performance for North American firms between 2011 and 2016.

Corporate websites were examined for disclosures which included both financial and non-financial information. Compustat North America and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) websites provided additional data for the analysis.

Using a panel data analysis, the results provide evidence that there is a significant positive association between integrated reports and multiple measures of financial performance. Moreover, this positive effect is enhanced when integrated reports are assured by accounting firms.

There are relatively a small number of firms that do this kind of reporting. A major limitation of the study is the small sample size.

As stakeholders find information in integrated reports relevant, there needs to be standardization on their content and level of assurance. Standard setters and regulators should be involved in setting these standards and assurance guidelines.

Although it is clear that there is a cost to firms which produce integrated reports, the benefits to society may outweigh these costs. This may go beyond the benefits to shareholders as they make investment decisions.

According to the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study that examines the impact of integrated reports and external assurance on financial performance for North American firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), types of foreign direct investment (FDI) – greenfield investments (GFIs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&As) – and economic growth in 49 African countries between 2003 and 2017.

In the study, panel data fixed effects and generalized method of moments estimation techniques are used in order to test the hypotheses.

Using country-level data obtained from the World Development Indicators, The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and World Governance Indicators websites, the authors find that IFRS and the types of FDI are significantly related to economic growth. Moreover, our results provide evidence that the effect of GFIs and M&As on growth is influenced by IFRS positively.

With a handful of exceptions, most African countries do not have active stock markets. Therefore, the authors were unable to determine the effect of capital markets on growth.

FDI has the potential to contribute to economic growth and quality of life. Our findings suggest that policymakers should create incentives for attracting FDI and effective enforcement of IFRS in order to unleash the benefits of FDI on their economies.

The study provides important insights into the effects of types of FDI on the economic growth of African countries and into the role that IFRS play on this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of sustainable development in businesses with corporate social responsibility (CSR) and accounting, in 53 developed and emerging economies over the period 1997‐2008.

The authors test the relationship of sustainable development in businesses with CSR and accounting using ordinary least squares estimation technique for country‐level panel data.

The results of the analyses provide evidence that sustainable development is strongly related to CSR and accounting standards, even after controlling for a variety of macroeconomic variables such as inflation, foreign direct investment, and unemployment. Moreover, the authors find that sustainable development is strongly and positively associated with customer satisfaction and the availability of senior managers.

Conclusions that have been drawn are important for a large group of stakeholders such as investors, companies' managers, employees, customers, suppliers, governmental and private regulatory agencies, and the general public, indicating that socially responsible firms and good accounting standards are likely to contribute to sustainable development in businesses in developed and emerging countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first country‐level study of its kind that attempts to explore the association of sustainable development in businesses with CSR and accounting standards.

This paper aims to examine the relation between the proportion of direct investment to US total – direct and portfolio – investment abroad and their country‐specific determinants in developed and developing countries between 1997 and 2005, emphasizing the role of high‐quality accounting standards and corporate governance.

The study covers 46 developed and emerging market countries that are classified into four groups: Advanced, Asian, Central and Eastern European and Latin American. In order to eliminate the adverse effects of possible outliers in some observations on regression results, fixed effect robust regression (RR) techniques were conducted, in addition to fixed effect ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation using panel data.

It was found that the proportion of direct investment to US total investment abroad is strongly and negatively related to both high‐quality accounting standards and effective corporate governance, even after controlling for a number of variables found in previous research to be important: inflation, stock market capitalization, per capita gross domestic product, openness of destination countries’ economies and tax rates.

One major problem in international accounting research is the difficulty in obtaining of data. This problem was encountered in this study, too. Therefore, some emerging market countries are necessarily excluded from the sample.

The main focus is the contributions of accounting standards and corporate governance to explaining tradeoffs between US direct and portfolio investment in developed and developing countries. In this sense, this is – to the authors’ knowledge – the first study in this area.