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This paper provides evidence on the impact of regulatory environment on financial reporting quality of transitional economies. This study compares the financial reporting quality of Hong Kong firms which are cross-listed in mainland China with those of Hong Kong firms cross-listed in China using specific earnings management metrics (earnings smoothing, timely loss recognition, value relevance and managing towards earnings targets) under pre- and post-IFRS regimes.

The financial reporting quality of Chinese A-share companies and Hong Kong listed companies are examined using earnings management measures. Using 2007 as base year, the study used a cumulative of −5 and +5 years of convergence experience which provide a total of 3,000 firm-year observations. In addition to regression analyses, we used the difference-in-difference analysis to check for the impact of regulatory environments on earnings management.

Through the lens of contingency theory, our results indicate that the adoption of the new substantially IFRS-convergent accounting standards in China results in better financial reporting quality evidenced by less earning management. The empirical results further shows that accounting data are more value relevant for Hong Kong listed firms, and that firms listed in China are more likely to engage in accrual-based earnings management than in real earnings management activities. We established that different earnings management practices that are seemingly tolerable in one country may not be tolerable in another due to level of differences in the regulatory environments.

The findings show that Hong Kong listed companies’ exhibit higher level of financial reporting quality than Chinese listed companies, which implies that the financial reporting quality under IFRS can be significantly different in regions with different institutional, economic and regulatory environments. The results imply that contingent factors such as country’s institutional structures, its extent of regulation and the strength of its investor protection environments impact on financial reporting quality particularly in transitional and emerging economies. As such, these factors need to be given appropriate considerations by financial reporting regulators and policy-makers interested in controlling earnings management practices among their corporations.

This study is a high impact study considering that China plays a significant role in today’s globalised economy. This study is unique as it the first, that we are aware of, to compare real earnings activities against accrual-based earnings management in pre- and post-IFRS adoption periods within the Chinese and Hong Kong financial reporting environments, distinguishing between cross-listed and non-cross-listed firms.

Purpose: This paper aims to study the impact of adoption eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) on earnings management.

Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a sample of all firms listed on the Indonesian stock exchange, except for finance and real-estate sectors from 2012 to 2019, with a total of 2,560 firms–years with panel data analysis.

Findings: Four findings in this study are listed as follow. First, the surprising result is that accrual earnings management increase after the adoption of XBRL. Second, after the adoption of XBRL, there was an increase in real earnings management. Third, the results of the study prove that the use of Big 4 auditors will weaken the increase in real earnings management after the adoption of XBRL. Finally, this study shows that after the adoption of XBRL, it turns out that both accrual and real earnings management experienced an increase.

Originality/value: This study contributes to providing an evaluation note to IDX regulators that the goals they want to achieve have not been achieved. This study provides empirical evidence for the debate over whether the adoption of XBRL is beneficial.

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.

A long-time ethical issue in financial accounting is earnings management. Two popular ways that earnings are managed include use of accruals (Kothari et al., 2016) and real activities management (RM). This study examines the association between RM and short selling and an association between short sellers and RM behavior related to earnings management. Instead of using accruals, RM is accomplished by timing investment or financing decisions and thereby alter reported earnings. Our results show that short sellers avoid targeting firms with a high level of RM, but this only holds for those firms that just meet analysts’ forecasts. This result suggests that short sellers interpret RM as a signal used by companies to convey their “good news” and confidence in their future performance. On the other hand, the authors document that heavily shorted firms engage in a lower amount of RM, which is consistent with the notion that short selling plays an external disciplinary role in constraining firms’ RM behavior for earnings management. This chapter would be of interest to anyone concerned with earnings management, such as financial market analysts, investors, academic researchers, and, in particular, regulators, who are involved in setting rules on short selling.

This chapter reports on the “CEO’s-eye-view” of the 1990 financial crisis at Citibank using unique data from CEO John Reed’s private archives. This qualitative analysis sheds light on questions that have perennially plagued executives and intrigued scholars: How do organizations change routines in order to overcome inertia in the face of radical change in the environment? And, specifically, what is the role of the CEO in this process? Inertial behavior in such circumstances has been attributed to ingrained routines that are based on cognitive and motivational truces. Routines are performed because organizational participants find them to cohere to a particular cognitive frame about what should be done (the cognitive dimension) and to resolve conflicts about what gets rewarded or sanctioned (the motivational dimension). The notion of a “truce” explains how routines are “routinely” activated. Routines are inertial because the dissolution of the truce would be inconsistent with frames held by organizational participants and fraught with the risk of unleashing unmanageable conflict among interests in the organization. Thus, the challenge for the CEO in making intended change is both to break the existing truce and to remake a new one. In this study, I uncover how the existing organizational truce led to the crisis at Citibank, why Reed’s initial attempts to respond failed, and how he ultimately found ways to break out of the old truce and establish new routines that helped the bank survive. These findings offer insight into the cognitive and motivational microfoundations of macro theories about organizational response to radical change.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

I examine patterns of making or deferring strategic repatriations that firms can use to either meet analysts' forecasts or defer to maintain future reported earnings flexibility. First, I examine the extent to which firms repatriate earnings from high foreign tax subsidiaries to decrease US tax expense, resulting in increased net income and lower cash taxes. Using federal tax return information, I find evidence that firms strategically repatriate these earnings to meet or beat current analysts' forecasts. Next, I find evidence that firms that are able to obtain current year tax reductions defer these repatriations in an attempt to build cookie-jar reserves. Lastly, I find that firms do not disclose high foreign tax repatriations (HTRs), even when required by SEC rules. This study contributes to the earnings management, tax avoidance, and disclosure literature by examining a discretionary tax planning strategy.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.