Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between the combined roles of chief executive officer (CEO)-chairman titles (CEO duality) and investment efficiency, defined as a lower deviation from expected investment for targeted S-curve firms used to propel an innovation-driven economy. This study also aims to investigate the moderating effect of financial reporting quality on this association.

This paper focuses on the ten targeted S-curve industries – under the definition of the Thailand 4.0 model – listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) from 2000 to 2019. Data related to CEO/chairman titles and investment supports were manually collected from the annual reports, the SET market analysis and reporting tool database and the company websites. Financial data used to estimate investment behaviors and discretionary accruals were extracted from 1999. The study analyzes unbalanced panel data using fixed-effects regressions. Additional tests embrace replacing the sample with nontargeted firms, partitioning into granted and nongranted firms, adding CEOs’ demographic moderators, using alternative variable measures and analyzing for lagged independent variables.

The main findings show that CEO duality reduces overinvestment but worsens underinvestment in targeted firms. Financial reporting quality (FRQ) appears to strengthen CEO duality in mitigating extreme spending but has no impact on the association between CEO duality and underinvestment. Additional results, for example, conclude that CEO duality has no association with both over- and underinvesting at nontargeted firms, but its effect becomes positively significant on overinvestment when financial reporting quality is high. The negative association between CEO duality and overinvestment is found only in government-granted and targeted firms. FRQ encourages CEO duality in lowering overinvestment among targeted firms without grants. CEOs’ female and serviced early years appear to elevate those main findings.

These findings assist innovative corporations in choosing a proper leadership structure to cope with investment inefficiency. The research gives the government and regulatory bodies an insight into the qualifications of the leadership structure and financial information that helps them put forward effective policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is among the first to establish the association between CEO duality and investment efficiency for innovation-driven firms in a transforming economy. The study fills the gap in the literature on management, accounting and finance by unveiling the interplay between dual leadership and financial reporting in affecting the efficiency of investments.

This paper aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature on the quality of integrated reports (IR) and highlight the gaps in the existing research to provide directions and suggestions for future research.

This study was conducted through a systematic literature review using content analysis based on 40 papers from the Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost databases on IR quality. While reading the full-text papers, the authors found six additional papers referenced by the literature being reviewed that were relevant to IR quality. Thus, there were 46 papers in the final review. The analysis begins with the definition and dimension of IR quality and theoretical lenses. Furthermore, this study outlines constructs or variables used in the previous literature.

The authors found that most studies used the quantitative method (41 papers or 89%). Five papers in the literature used qualitative methods (11%). Most researchers (34 papers or 72%) defined IR quality as consistent with the International Integrated Reporting Council framework, specifically the eight content elements. In particular, with the constructs that make up the quality of the IR, variations between researchers were found. Furthermore, there were some gaps that could be the directions for future research.

The literature that provides academic knowledge about IR quality is still limited, and research on IR is still growing. The literature review conducted by this study can provide an overview of the current research positions on the quality of IR and directions for future research in this area.

This study intends to show corporate executives a framework demonstrating the quality of corporate reporting. It can impact not only investors as a specific stakeholder group but also other stakeholder groups.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first literature review to examine the quality of IR, thus providing a map of current research to suggest directions for future research. Most of the previous literature reviews have been focused on integrated reporting (IR) in general and not quality.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of audit quality and environmental auditing on integrated reporting and the effect of environmental auditing on audit quality.

Data was collected from a sample of 300 international companies during the period 2010–2019. The author collected the data from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database, sustainability reports and annual reports. A multiple regression analysis was performed to test the hypotheses.

The finding of this study confirms a positive and significant relationship between audit quality and integrated reporting. It is also found that environmental auditing has a positive and significant effect on integrated reporting. Thus, this study found a positive and significant relationship between environmental auditing and audit quality.

The findings in this paper identify strategies for improving integrated reporting as a crucial element in the processing of financial and nonfinancial information, to help managers and investors and shareholders take a long-term perspective. Therefore, the results encourage companies to invest in economic, environmental and social aspects. This enables accounting professionals, stock exchange authorities and users of environmental and social information to be aware of the factors associated with environmental reporting, to improve the efficiency of those producing the audit service.

The originality of this study lies in its consideration of a particular aspect of auditing, namely, environmental auditing. However, despite the large body of research on auditing and integrated reporting, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between environmental auditing and integrated reporting. Furthermore, in this research, the author has emphasized the importance of the role played by environmental auditing on audit quality. This design has been neglected in previous studies. Finally, the choice of the field of investigation for the reliability of the data used and the generalization of the results obtained, enables us to make important contributions to the user of the information.

Japan applies a quasi-mandatory approach to corporate environmental reporting by defining the desired norm through formal law and guidelines and pushing large companies to be role models regardless of their sensitivity to environmental impacts. This study aims to analyze the change in Japanese companies reporting quality to justify this approach’s capability to produce normativity of environmental reporting.

This study examines the change in corporate environmental reporting quality and the effect of company characteristics on it. The analysis focuses on 88 companies for 2008, 2013 and 2018, resulting in 264 company-year observations.

The result shows a continuous upward trend, although it is unsatisfactory regarding the comparability and free from error characteristics. Then, company size positively affects the quality, and sensitivity to environmental impacts does not. Overall, the findings indicate that Japan is moving toward normativity through the quasi-mandatory approach and the norm entrepreneurship of its large companies, regardless of their sensitivity to environmental impacts.

This study could relieve the belief that it is necessary to apply a mandatory approach to improve reporting quality and enrich views on the effect of company characteristics which mainly used only the legitimacy perspective.

This study proposes a more comprehensive measure of environmental reporting quality. The measure is based on the qualitative characteristics of useful information from the most influential accounting standard-setting bodies. In addition, the effect of company characteristics on the quality is explained based on the norm entrepreneurship view instead of the legitimacy perspective.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and measures of financial reporting quality.

The authors explore the link between CSR and several indicators of firms’ financial reporting quality. Estimation with firm and year fixed effects is based on a sample of US publicly traded firms covering the period from 1991 to 2018.

Empirical results demonstrate that firms with higher CSR scores are associated with higher accuracy of financial forecasts, fewer earnings surprises and greater coverage by financial analysts. This positive relationship is more profound for firms that face low agency concerns, firms that have a higher level of customer awareness, firms that have more long-term institutional ownership or firms that do not face financial constraints.

The study contributes to the ongoing debate on the value of CSR. The results support the stakeholder value maximization view of CSR and identify the impact of several factors on its relationship with the quality of financial reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a firm's internal audit function (IAF) and the quality of its financial reporting. Since regulations on corporate governance were introduced, numerous national and international bodies have emphasized the fundamental role of the IAF in the financial reporting process, especially since it generally leads to higher quality reporting.

The paper uses questionnaires sent to internal audit directors of Spanish banks.

Banks with high quality financial reporting have greater collaboration between internal and external auditors in the annual audit. Greater involvement of internal audit in reviewing financial reporting leads to improved quality financial reporting.

Besides the usual caveats of survey research, there are limitations to this study. First, the problem of response bias may exist. Second, the 66 per cent survey response rate may mean that respondents have larger or better‐developed internal audit functions, affording them more opportunity or motivation to respond to the survey. Hence, the results obtained through the survey may not be generalizable to non‐respondents.

The findings are relevant for bank regulators, management, boards of directors, and investors. In the current discussion on transparency, integrity and quality of financial reporting, these findings help define the issues.

Previous empirical studies analyse the quality of financial reporting with actors in the corporate governance mosaic (board of directors, audit committee and external audit), but they do not do so directly with the IAF. This paper extends prior banking literature that analyses quality financial reporting along with other variables, but not internal audit.

This study aims to mainly explore the impact of business strategy and annual reports readability on financial reporting quality in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).

The sample comprised 160 companies listed in TSE from 2014 to 2020. Five proxies (including two accounting-based attributes and two market-based attributes) were used to measure financial reporting quality. In this study, cost leadership and differentiation strategies were considered and Fog index was used to measure the annual report readability.

The results showed that in all methods of calculating financial reporting quality, cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy and annual report readability had a positive and significant impact on financial reporting quality. Also, only at the high level of the differentiation strategy, the annual reports readability influenced financial reporting quality. In addition, at all levels of high and low annual report readability, cost leadership strategy affected financial reporting quality, but only in companies with a high annual report readability, the differentiation strategy affected financial reporting quality. Only for companies with a low readability, the annual report readability affected financial reporting quality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study had examined the impact of business strategy and annual report readability on financial reporting quality at the core of the present study. Furthermore, little was known about the strategic choices made in Iran. So, the research filled this gap in TSE. This study provided insights for policymakers to enhance the readability and reduce the complexity of annual reports.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting quality and to determine whether the evolution of reporting quality is linked with the type of information reported based on the “search”, “experience”, and “credence” typology.

The method is based on the content analysis of GHG reporting in 245 sustainability reports by 45 oil and gas companies between 1998 and 2010. The content analysis disclosure index developed links GHG reporting requirements with seven quality dimensions. The information associated with each item on the content analysis index is classified as “search”, “experience” or “credence”. Statistical analysis is used to determine whether any significant change occurred in either overall GHG reporting quality or in the quality of reporting in any of the individual dimensions of quality over the period of the study.

GHG reporting quality has not improved significantly between 1998 and 2010. The quality of reporting is not the same in each of the seven dimensions of quality and this can be explained by information typology.

This paper provides the first longitudinal analysis of the quality of GHG reporting. The methodology developed advances current measures of reporting quality by linking reporting requirements with particular quality dimensions. The results show that the type of information is important in terms of quality evolution and that this can dictate the measures required to improve quality.

Here, the paper aims to model major corporate characteristics associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting (in particular, its quality). Corporations in China are increasingly expected by the public and government to be more socially responsible. As such, it will be intriguing to ask, what are the characteristics associated with higher quality CSR reporting?

CSR report quality scores are hand-gathered from HEXUN (web site) whilst financial and stock market information from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. A total of 613 CSR reports' quality scores were utilized (Rankins CSR ratings) in the process of developing the model. Reports are hand-gathered from corporations listed on both the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges (SSE).

The results suggest most interestingly, the quality of CSR report (mandatory) to be strongly, positively related with corporate financial characteristics: market capitalization (corporate size), shareholders' concentration of powers, corporate financial leverage (implying bondholders/debtors' influence). Surprisingly, CSR reporting is associated neither with corporate profitability nor by state-ownership. The presence of independent directors (at least in China) seems to have negative influences.

CSR reporting may easily be mandated by government through a regulatory process. However, this does not necessarily lead to reports of a high quality. Instead, orientation towards higher visibility in social responsibility for listed corporations is better explained by financial characteristics: market valuation, ownership and leverage.

This paper utilizes for the first time, in-depth and multi-faceted quality CSR scores (overall, segregated into macro-social, content and technology) for investigating CSR behavior of listed corporations in China. The findings suggest financial characteristics size (market valuation), ownership (shareholders' concentration of powers) and corporate leverage are better predictors of CSR behavior among listed corporations.

Institutional investors use the information disclosed by listed companies to analyze the performance of their investments. The purpose of this paper is to open the “black box” of the construction of financial disclosure by analyzing the internal reporting systems of firms with reference to the information disclosed.

Using indexes, the quality of the financial disclosure and the internal reporting systems are measured, and analyzed with a view to finding some links between them. It is expected that the quality of disclosure is dependent on the quality of the internal reporting.

Complex interactions between internal reporting and financial disclosure are revealed, which leads to the identification of a typology of practices. The dependence of the relationship may be troubled by the willingness of the firm to communicate, or by the internal methods of control. According to the various cases, different levels of usefulness of the information for the investor are expected.

This paper is a first attempt to analyse information disclosed by firms with regards to the internal information at their disposal.