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1 – 10 of 15Rosalind Whiting and Simon Gilkison
This study tests the relationship between financial leverage and a firm's operational and financial short term responses to poor performance, based on Jensen's (1989) argument…
Abstract
This study tests the relationship between financial leverage and a firm's operational and financial short term responses to poor performance, based on Jensen's (1989) argument that higher predistress leverage increases a firm's incentive to respond more quickly to poor performance. This research is conducted on a sample of 45 poorly performing New Zealand firms between 1985 and 1994. The results indicate that higher leverage increases the probability of firms taking action in the short term. In particular, the evidence suggests that the probability of asset sales is positively associated with long‐term leverage, in addition to its relationship with the firm's stock return. Increased probability of management replacement is related to higher levels of short‐term leverage and surprisingly, the probability of dividend cuts decrease with higher levels of total and short‐term leverage. Poorly performing firms with higher leverage also appear to cut asset levels and dividends more aggressively than those with lower leverage levels.
Mohini P. Vidwans and Rosalind H. Whiting
The purpose of this study is to explore the struggle for entry and career success of the early pioneer women accountants in Great Britain and its former colonies the USA, Canada…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the struggle for entry and career success of the early pioneer women accountants in Great Britain and its former colonies the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Design/methodology/approach
A career crafting matrix guides the analysis of historical information available on five pioneer women accountants in order to understand their success in gaining entry into the profession and their subsequent careers.
Findings
Despite an exclusionary environment, career crafting efforts coupled with family and organizational support enabled these women to become one of the first female accountants in their respective countries. Their struggles were not personal but much broader—seeking social, political, economic and professional empowerment for women.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to utilize the career crafting matrix developed from current female accountants' careers to explore careers of pioneering female accountants. It adds to the limited literature on women actors in accounting and may provide insight into approaching current forms of difference and discrimination.
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Pallab K. Biswas, Helen Roberts and Rosalind H. Whiting
Based on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective and agency theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the introduction of the 2006 Corporate Governance (CG…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective and agency theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the introduction of the 2006 Corporate Governance (CG) Guidelines and family governance affected the level of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting of non-financial companies in Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use multivariate regression to analyse 2,637 firm-level annual observations, from 1996 to 2011 annual reports of Bangladeshi publicly listed non-financial-sector companies, to investigate how firm-level CG quality affects CSR disclosure in family and non-family firms.
Findings
CG quality significantly increases the level of CSR disclosure and this relationship is stronger prior to the new CG Guidelines. Family firms’ CSR reporting levels are significantly lower than non-family firms’, and this effect is stronger after the change in the CG Guidelines. CEO duality, the presence of an audit committee and profitability improve family-firm CSR reporting in Bangladesh, while non-family CSR disclosures are positively associated with board size and firm competition. Board independence is not related to CSR disclosure.
Originality/value
The authors provide evidence of the benefit of the CG Guidelines’ introduction on company CSR disclosure in an emerging economy and the importance of specific governance mechanisms that differentiate family and non-family-firm CSR disclosures in Bangladesh using a SEW framework.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the changes in gender‐biased employment practices that it is perceived have occurred in New Zealand accountancy workplaces over the last 30…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the changes in gender‐biased employment practices that it is perceived have occurred in New Zealand accountancy workplaces over the last 30 years, using Oliver's model of deinstitutionalization.
Design/methodology/approach
Sequential interviewing was carried out with 69 experienced chartered accountants and three human resource managers, and at a later date with nine young female accountants.
Findings
Evidence is presented of perceived political, functional and social pressures cumulatively contributing to deinstitutionalization of overt gender‐biased employment practices, with social and legislative changes being the most influential. Deinstitutionalization appears incomplete as some more subtle gender‐biased practices still remain in New Zealand's accountancy workplaces, relating particularly to senior‐level positions.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds to understanding of how professions evolve. The purposeful bias in the sample selection, the small size of two of the interviewee groups, and the diversity in the interviewees' workplaces are recognized limitations.
Practical implications
Identification of further cultural change is required to deinstitutionalize the more subtle gender‐biased practices in accountancy organizations. This could help to avoid a serious deficiency of senior chartered accountants in practice in the future.
Originality/value
This paper represents one of a limited number of empirical applications of the deinstitutionalization model to organizational change and is the first to address the issue of gender‐biased practices in a profession. The use of sequential interviewing of different age groups, in order to identify and corroborate perceptions of organizational change is a novel approach.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategies that New Zealand chartered accountants use to combine work and family responsibilities, and to relate these strategies…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategies that New Zealand chartered accountants use to combine work and family responsibilities, and to relate these strategies to chartered accountants' career success.
Design/methodology/approach
The study analysed qualitative career history data obtained from interviews with 69 male and female experienced chartered accountants.
Findings
A comprehensive work/family strategy typology for New Zealand chartered accountants was developed. The five types identified were Traditional Men, Traditional Women, Work First Women, Family Balancers, and Stepping Stone Men. In general, those who followed a male linear career model (Traditional Men and Work First Women) demonstrated higher levels of career success. Some notable exceptions showed that career success could be achieved by those with higher levels of family responsibilities, if the employing organisation does not demand rigid conformance with the linear career model.
Research limitations/implications
The purposeful bias in the sample selection and the diversity in the interviewees' workplaces decrease the study's generalisability. But those factors contributed to the ability to identify a wide range of current work/family strategies.
Practical implications
The paper provides a basis for the accountancy profession to adapt to the feminisation of the profession and the increasing demands for work/life balance by developing policies and practices targeted at enhancing career progression for a more diverse range of work/family strategic types than is currently recognised.
Originality/value
There are no prior data describing the diversity in New Zealand chartered accountants' work/family strategies.
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Martin Clarke, Dyna Seng and Rosalind H. Whiting
This study aims to examine the effect intellectual capital (IC) has on firm performance of Australian companies.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effect intellectual capital (IC) has on firm performance of Australian companies.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative data are collected for Australian companies listed between 2004 and 2008. IC is measured using Pulic's value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) and its components (human, structural and capital employed efficiencies (HCE, SCE, CEE)). Direct and moderating relationships between VAIC, HCE, SCE, and CEE and four measures of performance are statistically analysed.
Findings
The results suggest that there is a direct relationship between VAIC and performance of Australian publicly listed firms, particularly with CEE and to a lesser extent with HCE. A positive relationship between HCE and SCE in the prior year and performance in the current year is also found. However evidence also suggests the possibility of an alternative moderating relationship between the IC components of HCE and SCE with physical and financial capital (CEE) which impacts on firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
There are some missing data and some transgression of the assumptions of OLS regression.
Originality/value
This paper presents the first study of the IC relationship with firm performance in Australia. Inconclusive results from prior studies in developing countries suggested the need for a study from a developed country such as Australia. The paper is also the first to investigate whether IC moderates the relationship between CEE and firm performance.
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Rosalind H. Whiting and James Woodcock
This study seeks to examine the presence of voluntary intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) in Australian company reports and the influence of company characteristics (industry…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to examine the presence of voluntary intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) in Australian company reports and the influence of company characteristics (industry type, ownership concentration, listing age, leverage and auditor type) on ICD.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an empirical quantitative study that statistically tests a theoretically motivated explanatory model of ICD. ICD data were gathered from the annual reports of 70 Australian publicly listed firms using content analysis (CA).
Findings
Presence of ICD was low, with external capital being the most frequently disclosed category. Correlation and regression analysis demonstrated that companies that operate in high technology‐based or knowledge‐intensive industries, and companies with large Big Four auditing firms show more extensive ICD than those in other industries and without Big Four auditors. A company's ownership concentration, leverage level and listing age did not influence the occurrence of ICD.
Research limitations/implications
Data collection is limited to one year (2006) and only from annual reports.
Originality/value
This is the first Australian study to test the explanatory relationship between a large number of firm‐specific characteristics and ICD for a diverse group of industries. Rigorous manual CA is applied.
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Rosalind H. Whiting and James C. Miller
The paper's purpose is to describe the extent and type of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) in New Zealand, and to test for a relationship between “hidden value”…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper's purpose is to describe the extent and type of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) in New Zealand, and to test for a relationship between “hidden value” (difference between firm's market and book value), and its relationship to voluntary IC disclosure in the annual reports of New Zealand companies. The study aims to incorporate the effect of revaluations and growth expectations.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis of 70 publicly listed New Zealand firms, and database retrieval of independent variable data. Correlation and regression analysis is undertaken.
Findings
Only revaluing firms show a significant positive relationship between their levels of hidden value and their voluntary disclosure of IC and its components of external and internal structure. Explanatory power is increased when an interaction term involving hidden value and growth expectations is introduced.
Research limitations/implications
Further developments in the growth expectation and market value measures are suggested. A need for qualitative interviews is identified in order to further develop theoretical explanation of the observed relationship.
Practical implications
This paper may help external users assess levels of IC in revaluing firms.
Originality/value
The study extends the work of Brennan by increasing the sample size, quantitatively recognising the impact of revaluations and growth expectations, providing a discussion of the theoretical underpinnings for the proposed relationships, and by utilising reliability testing in the content‐analysis process, several measures of hidden value and IC disclosure, and statistical testing.
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Pirjo Ståhle, Sten Ståhle and Samuli Aho
The purpose of this study is to analyse the validity of the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) method as an indicator of intellectual capital.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse the validity of the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) method as an indicator of intellectual capital.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper describes VAIC through its calculation formulae and aims to establish what exactly it is that the method measures. It also looks in detail at how intellectual capital is understood in the method, and discusses its conceptual confusions. Furthermore, the paper tests the hypothesis according to which VAIC correlates with a company's stock market value, and reflects the contradictory results of earlier studies.
Findings
The analyses show, first, that VAIC indicates the efficiency of the company's labour and capital investments, and has nothing to do with intellectual capital. Furthermore, the calculation method uses overlapping variables and has other serious validity problems. Second, the results do not lend support to the hypothesis that VAIC correlates with a company's stock market value. The main reasons behind the lack of consistency in earlier VAIC results lie in the confusion of capitalized and cash flow entities in the calculation of structural capital and in the misuse of intellectual capital concepts.
Practical implications
The analyses show that VAIC is an invalid measure of intellectual capital.
Originality/value
The result is important since the method has been widely used in micro and macro level analyses, but this is the first time it has been put to rigorous scientific analysis.
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