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This study locates one surprisingly powerful ally of neoliberalism enabling its proliferation in certain contexts, the discursive notion of the “long term” (LT). Earlier literature has shown that neoliberalism is concerned with investors' decision-making that has been claimed to be based on LT forecasts. This research explains this focus on the “long term.”

Share-based compensation (SBC) is investigated in one case company. The data consist of interviews with executives, board members, analysts and owners and also of archival data on the executives' performance measurement and compensation.

Much research equates “share-based compensation” with “long-term compensation,” and the present study terms this relation “the myth of long-term compensation.” It is demonstrated that multiple features of share-based plans, characteristics of the management in question and contextual factors of the company and its governance tie in with the time orientation of such compensation. Multiple contradictions and irregularities in the literature on SBC are analyzed, undermining the claim that SBC is invariably LT oriented. Relying on Barthes' work, the study illustrates how LT SBC is a myth contributing to the ideology of neoliberalism.

It is proposed that the terms “share-based compensation” and “long term” be distinguished from each other for analytical and practical purposes. SBC, and thus neoliberalism, can sometimes be linked to the short term.

“Long term” is illustrated as a significant instrument for deploying ideologies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact on selected financial performance indicators of Indian firms adopting employee stock option (ESO) schemes, if they recognize expenses and adopting fair‐value method of accounting pursuant to International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 2.

The CMIE Prowess database was searched for Indian firms having stock option schemes and issue of shares pursuant to that scheme during the years ended 31 March 2007 and 31 March 2008. The data on financial performance were hand picked from the annual report of the sample companies. The impact of expense recognition on financial performance indicators were computed by using memorandum disclosures in directors' reports on use of fair value methods for ESO accounting. A non‐parametric Kruskal‐Wallis test was employed to find out the statistical significance of the impact. The role of firm growth characteristics on impact of expense recognition was also investigated.

The impact of recognizing expenses associated with stock option compensation varies considerably by entity and such recognition would have a material impact on key performance measure for at least 22 percent of the sample companies. Contrary to expectation, firm growth characteristics were found to have no statistical significance in explaining impact of expense recognition.

The sample is restricted to India and may not be reflective of other countries. Also, this study considers the impact of expense recognition as if the requirements of IFRS 2 were adopted in 2006‐2007/2007‐2008 financial year and accordingly, may not be reflective of the situation that may prevail in 2011 when transition to IFRS set of standards will be applicable to Indian companies, as those entities may have altered their compensation contracts.

Indian firms will be required to prepare financial statements based on IFRS set of standards w.e.f. April 2011. IFRS 2, share‐based payments is not yet adopted in India. Overall, the significance of accounting changes associated with the adoption of IFRS 2 may not be very alarming for Indian companies with ESO schemes.

This study attempts to enrich empirical research in the field and provides an insight into the potential contractual and valuation implication of the adoption of one of the IFRS set of standards on Indian firms and also provides contrary evidence of the role of growth characteristics in explaining the impact of expense recognition.

This study aims to investigate the post-implementation impact of expensing share-based payment transactions on basic earnings per share. In recent years, IFRS 2 was one of the most opposed and controversial standards issued by the IASB.

The sample relates to the period immediately after implementation (2006-2009) and consists of the 531 firm-year observations where share-based payments were present among Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies. The effect of share-based payments on basic earnings per share is assessed.

The findings of this study show a statistically significant impact on basic earnings per share, but the results are more modest than suggested by prior studies. The number of companies reporting a share-based payment expense increased over the five-year period 2005-2009.

The introduction of IFRS 2 caused small but not necessarily immaterial changes to the income profile of companies. This is important for analysts and general users of financial information who need to be aware of these changes. The results also suggest that IFRS 2 did not merely cause accounting policy changes, but has impacted on the way share-based payment transactions are used by companies.

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.

Enhanced business reporting (EBR) seeks to address the information needs of investors when making company valuations for investment decisions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relevance for market valuation of EBR disclosures that are directly related to firm valuation (value-based reporting (VBR)).

Data are hand collected from annual reports of German publicly listed companies over five years. The content analysis is based on the valuation-related disclosure framework of the German Schmalenbach Society of Business Administration. A 2SLS approach accounts for potential endogeneity.

Share-based compensation, leverage, corporate size, and share volatility are significant determinants of VBR. The level of VBR is significantly associated with market values and provides additional market value explanatory power, indicating its relevance to investors in the process of valuation and decision making. Also, the relevance of book value and earnings for explaining market values increases for firms with better VBR. The findings are robust to the exclusion of banks and assurance companies and to alternative model and variable specifications.

The research contributes to the literature on voluntary disclosures by testing an EBR framework explicitly derived from valuation theory. The results provide indirect evidence of the investors’ use of respective valuation techniques in decision making. A contribution is made to the value relevance literature by showing that valuation-related disclosures constitute a suitable proxy for “other information” in the Ohlson’s (1995) model. Such disclosures complement traditional accounting metrics, i.e. book value and earnings, as basis for valuations. Potential caveats relate to the content analysis of annual reports and the endogeneity of voluntary disclosures.

This paper informs the debate on further developments of EBR in helping to identify important components thereof.

One stream of research has claimed share price to be long‐term oriented, whereas, in contrast, another has found it to be short‐term oriented. Through in‐depth analysis, this study aims to reveal the grounds for each of these two claims by studying the time‐related constructs of two parties: executives of a company and outsider commentators of that company.

The study employs a social constructionist approach and incorporates the sociology of time in the analysis of case data focused on a publicly quoted company. Data drawn from outsider commentators provide additional focus.

The executives studied in the publicly‐quoted company construct share price as long‐term oriented through three processes: linguistic, practice‐oriented functional, and morality‐related functional. However, these executives construct time through a present‐based rationality, which means that effective and efficient present actions are assumed to form the basis for a successful future. Outsider commentators indicate two myopia‐related risks in this rationality: current, present day pressing issues are not deliberated upon in a wider framework of long‐term plans, and it is not possible to relinquish the present and focus only on the future, free from present concerns. The long‐term orientation of share price is constructed by executives as instrumental through processes that are tied to the present‐based rationality with its myopia‐related risks.

By showing the long and short time orientations of share price, the paper provides grounds for a subsequent analysis of the origins of these orientations within the minds of actors.

The study provides guidance on avoiding myopia when using share price‐related compensation systems.

The study contributes to the performance measurement and corporate governance literatures by analysing, for the first time, share price from the perspective of executives themselves. In addition, the views of outsider commentators are considered.

To review the evolution of SFAS No. 123R, “Accounting for Share Based Compensation,” and examine the economic consequences of the standard for the first group of filers impacted by its provisions.

The sample was the population of firms in the Russell 3000 having June 30, fiscal year‐ends.

The study's findings suggest that the provisions of SFAS No. 123R remain controversial and that compliance with the standard had significant economic consequences for the sample of companies.

This study provides evidence that SFAS No. 123R had significant economic consequences but that some of the standard's effects differed from earlier predictions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide Australian evidence on both the extent and key determinants of discretionary disclosure in company annual reports of information about top executives' share rights, options and termination entitlement. Such information has value‐relevance to shareholders and the public, but prior evidence is lacking about the factors that influence top managements' decisions to voluntarily disclose or withhold personally sensitive details about their own remuneration.

The extent and nature of executive remuneration disclosure are obtained from the content analysis of annual reports of 191 Australian listed companies for the years 2003 and 2004, prior to a more detailed prescriptive regulatory environment occurring in this area when international financial reporting standards became effective in 2005. To explain the factors that could influence managements' decisions about the extent of discretionary disclosure details concerning their own remuneration, the perspectives of legitimacy theory and corporate governance structures are invoked. Relationships are hypothesized and tested between the extent of remuneration disclosure and the following variables: shareholder activism, media attention, company size, board composition and existence of a remuneration committee.

Regression results reveal significant relationships between these determinants and the extent of disclosures of rights, options and termination benefits of executives. These results suggested that, under a relatively unregulated environment, corporate management will react to community and shareholders' expectations by revealing personally sensitive information when their company is placed in a situation of higher shareholder and public scrutiny and when it is structured to meet expectations of good corporate governance.

This study advances knowledge of the influence that companies' legitimation circumstances and corporate governance structures can have on public disclosure decisions by management about the level of detail of their remuneration – information that is of high interest to shareholders and personally sensitive to management.