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The paper analyses the concept of ‘user needs’, which has been widely adopted by official bodies as the basis of a conceptual framework for financial reporting, including the ASB in the UK, following the lead of the FASB in the US. The user needs approach is essentially deductive: if users of the financial statements are identified, together with the decisions such users want to make with the information such statements contain, then the required information can be specified in the appropriate form. The paper attempts to follow this logic, to test its viability, making reference to the literature and the conceptual framework statements of FASB and the ASB. The paper concludes that the approach throws up such serious problems that no clear conclusions can be drawn from it. FASB and the ASB do not explicitly face these problems, and effectively abandon the user needs criterion. User needs can only serve a rhetorical function within conceptual framework documents.

The paper aims to study the effects of introducing oxypropyl segments into the trimethylolpropane (TMP) esters along with lowering the linear chain length from C₅‐C₉ to C₅‐C₆ on the properties of base lubricants.

Various amounts of oxypropylene segments were introduced into the TMP skeleton and obtained polyols subsequently esterified by pure C₅‐, C₆‐, and mixture of C₅‐C₆‐ aliphatic monocarboxylic acids of normal structure (SFAc mixture).

Introducing oxypropylene segments into TMP skeleton, along with lowering the carboxylic acid chain length from C₅‐C₉ to C₅‐C₆, ester base lubricants obtained improved mechanical and wear preventive characteristics.

Because of complexity of obtained mixture, it was impossible to study the structure and composition of the obtained products by modern techniques such as high field NMR spectroscopy.

The obtained materials have high boiling points under reduced pressure (2 mmHg). Producing higher vacuums will make the distillation process easier.

This paper fulfils detail information on the experimentally preparation of oxypropylated TMPs as synthetic base lubricants. The synthesized compounds showed improved properties such as high viscosity at 100°C, low pour point, high flash point, and totally excellent viscosity‐temperature properties than simple TMP esters and some literature reported ester base lubricants.

Financial reporting standards require that many future‐oriented expenditures for intangibles, such as development costs and personnel training, be expensed in the current period. These standards cause such expenditures to be indistinguishable from expenditures for current revenues, and penalize the earnings of firms making future‐oriented expenditures for intangibles. The current focus on earnings encourages firms to sacrifice long‐term economic objectives for higher reported earnings. This paper analyzes the need for improved reporting for future oriented expenditures. Improved accounting for future‐oriented expenditures would enhance the market’s ability to value stocks, improve company performance, and benefit investors and creditors.

This paper investigates the debate as to whether employee share options (ESOs) should be expensed in an entity’s financial statements as required by the IASB’s IFRS 2 – Share‐based payment (2004). The paper presents arguments for and against expensing ESOs, demonstrating that compensation of employees via ESOs is a bona fide expense in terms of the recognition and measurement criteria of the IASB Framework. It concludes that, the substance of an ESO transaction is that the entity pays an employee for his services, albeit with a different financial instrument. Consequently, the accounting treatment of such compensation should be the same as for any other payment of services of an employee.

This study examines the market valuation of the unearned revenue liability reported by a sample of newspaper and magazine publishers. The evidence indicates that stock prices behave as if the unearned revenue liability represents an economic asset overall. It is further shown that the market valuation of the unearned revenue “asset” is increasing in the magnitude of advertising relative to circulation revenue. After controlling for advertising revenue inflows, reported unearned revenue is negatively related to stock price, indicating that the economic asset is valued in part on its liability characteristics. These results have direct implications for the FASB's current deliberations on revenue and liability recognition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the requirement that non-profit organizations recognize unconditional promises to give as assets and revenues in the year promises are received as mandated by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 116.

Using the adoption of SFAS No. 116 and financial information reported on Internal Revenue Service Form 990, the study examines the requirement that non-profit organizations recognize unconditional promises to give as assets and revenues in the year promises are received. Combining insights derived from a model developed by Dechow, Kothari and Watts (1998) with the rationale applied by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in mandating recognition treatment, it adopts the view that information about promises to give is relevant if it useful in assessing probable future cash inflows. The study also employs relative tests of predictive ability to assess competing specifications.

The study finds that recognizing unconditional promises to give as assets and as revenues in the year received improves predictions of next period’s cash inflows. It also finds that accrual-based contribution revenue consistently provides information content that is incremental to cash-based contribution revenue.

This paper has implications for several other lines of research as well. First, an ancillary concern expressed by many organizations in the non-profit sector was that the recognition of multi-year promises to give would adversely affect trends in long-term giving. In this regard, another promising line of inquiry would be to empirically test the Standard’s impact on the time-series properties of contributions and short- and long-term giving trends. Second, future research might consider conducting tests after partitioning by NTEE/NAICS classification, as well as substituting or supplementing the SOI data with financial statement data. Third, future research might consider applying the approach used in this study to other industries or groups for which market prices are not readily ascertainable. Data constraints, including the calculation of cash flow information indirectly from the balance sheet, impose limitations on this study.

This study documents that by recognizing unconditional promises to give as assets and revenues in the period received, donors, creditors and other users gain useful information about probable future cash inflows – a fundamental element of the accrual process and one of several important factors used to evaluate an organization’s ability to sustain future operations. This information is valuable to stakeholders and practitioners who rely on this information to make informed decisions. It is also helpful to standard setters in establishing guidelines that improve the usefulness of financial reporting for non-profits.

The paper contributes to existing literature by operationalizing, in a non-profit setting, a model that describes the relationship among revenues, accruals and cash flows. It fills a gap in the accrual literature regarding the relevance of non-profit revenue accruals. The study is the first to employ a relative information content approach to assess non-profit standards, which provides useful input to policy makers and end users. It affirms that many of the key conventions and elements embodied in the FASB Concepts Statements apply to non-profits as well, which heretofore has not been studied extensively. The results are also consistent with Accounting Standards Update 958, Not-for-Profit Entities, which requires that non-profits provide users with information about liquidity, including how they manage liquid resources needed to meet cash requirements for general expenditures within one year of the date of the statement of financial position.

Reporting cash flows is a relatively recent development in college and university financial reporting. An examination of the purported usefulness of cash flow information to the users of college and university financial statements including an examination of the relationship between accrual-based change in net assets and cash provided by operations found private universities have implemented the cash flow reporting requirements with a relatively high level of compliance employing the indirect format for reporting operating cash flows. The principal areas of deficiency were the reporting of split-interest, restricted gift activities and the required disclosures of cash outflows related to interest and taxes. The discussion of the compliance deficiencies and display findings leads to needed disclosure guidance and future research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the preparation of asymmetric mixed esters of methylolcyclohexanols in order to decrease the pour point and increase the thermal stability of base oils.

The aldol condensation reaction of cyclohexanone with paraformaldehyde is modified to give mixture of alicyclic polyols. The obtained mixture was subsequently esterified by different pure and mixed linear mono carboxylic acids to give asymmetric mixture of esters of methylolcyclohexanols/ones.

The obtained base lubricants showed better wear preventive characteristcs (four‐ball rolling contact test) compared with previously reported and commercially available ester base lubricants.

Because of the complexity of the obtained mixture, it was impossible to study the structure and composition of the obtained products by modern techniques such as high field NMR spectroscopy.

The obtained materials are slightly acidic and should be neutralized before use or formulation.

The paper presents a new process for obtaining synthetic ester base lubricants from mixed polyols of neo structure, which was obtained from aldol condensation reaction of cyclohexanone and paraformaldehyde, and linear aliphatic monocarboxylic acids. The key step in this process is modifying the reaction condition for obtaining mixture of polyols, and not pure 2,2,6,6‐tetramethylolcyclohexanol. This allows one to obtain asymmetrical and complex mixture of esterification products, which is favored in the production of synthetic ester base stocks, having excellent viscosity‐temperature properties, decreased pour point, and increased thermal stability. The synthesized ester base lubricants also show excellent viscosity‐temperature properties compared with ester base lubricants of the same family.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between financial statement informativeness (FSI) and intellectual capital disclosure (ICD).

While FSI was measured as the explanatory power of financial information in explaining market value, ICD was collected through content analysis of annual reports. A sample of 126 US companies, divided into two groups – high-tech and low-tech companies – were used in this study. Empirical analysis was carried out using the Poisson regression method.

The results show a negative (substitutive) relationship between FSI and ICD, especially in high-tech companies. This indicates that companies with low FSI disclose more information about their IC in annual reports.

This study confirms the role of voluntary ICD as a solution towards mitigating the problem of the distortion of financial information due to the lack of accounting recognition of IC as an asset in the financial statements.

This is the first empirical study to analyse the relationship between FSI and ICD. Therefore, it serves as feedback to the regulators and standard-setters that recently published recommendations on voluntarily disclosing IC.

Fundamental shifting of the world toward intangible intensive economy raised an apprehension regarding value relevance of internally generated intangible assets. In the previous studies, research and development (R&D) expenditure is recognized as a significant accounting item, which can indicate potential internally generated intangible assets. This study aims to examine whether investors consider nature of intangible intensity of a firm for the evaluation of R&D expenditure to determine equity values in India.

The authors compared value relevance of capitalized and the expensed portion of R&D expenditure between intangible- and non-intangible-intensive firms. They adopted empirical model grounded on the generalized version of Ohlson’s (1995) model.

The findings of the study indicate that, in intangible-intensive (non-intangible) firms, the capitalized portion of expenditure is positively (negatively) significant and the expensed portion of R&D expenditure is negatively (positively) significant to explain equity values.

The findings of this study may have potential implication for the discussion on the accounting treatment of internally generated intangible assets based on the nature of intangible intensity of the firm. The study also suggests that while setting standards, standard-setters should consider nature of intangible intensity of the firm, which could disseminate the discrepancy between the market and book value of the equity.

The study provides evidence, how value relevance of R&D reporting is affected by the nature of intangible intensity of a firm.