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It is difficult for corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) to provide accountability to stakeholders. This paper assesses whether accountability-based CSR systems can be created through the application of Spotlight Accounting and WikiRate as a hybrid forum.

The current paper explores the utility of Spotlight Accounting for CSR through assessing its application to a hybrid forum, WikiRate. This process involved engaging student researchers to collect CSR data from the United Nations Global Compact's (UNGC) corporate action group (CAG) and recording this information into the WikiRate platform. Aggregate analysis was conducted to assess the limitations and challenges of the data to inform decision-making.

Spotlight Accounting exposes challenges within traditional applications of CSR. These challenges impact comparability, decision usefulness and accountability of CSR data for stakeholders.

This paper provides recommendations to enhance the accessibility and relevance of company information to assist in the provision of Spotlight Accounting. In doing so, it highlights the usefulness of CSR to leverage greater accountability between corporations and society.

This paper applies the emerging practices of Spotlight Accounting and presents it as an alternative way to research and conceptualise external accounts, reporting and accountability. This form of accounting has the potential to enhance communications and partnerships between companies and society as well as challenge dominate power dynamics held by corporations.

Fundamental changes in market dynamics and organizational structures under way in the 1990s demand new and more flexible working behaviour. Looks at how a major UK information technology company, faced with a significant shift in the marketplace, introduced a team‐based culture to move aggressively into value‐added services. The approach is notable for its speed of implementation and how management was used in the change process. The success of the programme, called Teamwork, led to its adoption as a model by other European affiliates of the company.

The “metaverse” is the new buzzword. With the phenomenal growth of the metaverse comes accounting, taxation and jurisdictional challenges, which business and governments have yet to fully address. This paper aims to highlight and rationalise the lack of regulatory framework and multiplicity of jurisdictions on metaverse transactions. This paper addresses some of the complications with respect to accounting and taxation in virtual environments.

This study relies on secondary data and emerging literature to understand the multiplicity of jurisdiction and complexity of the accounting transactions. The concept of the metaverse is rapidly evolving, and this study uses extant literature to provide the foundation for understanding the key challenges relating to accounting and taxation.

Concepts of revenue recognition and deferment are challenged by the transactions in the metaverse. There are novel applications, underpinned by emerging technologies and blockchain supporting new crypto assets, such as non-fungible tokens and other decentralised finance (DeFi) tools; however, the caveats of anonymity and jurisdictional issues persist. The paper suggests that the industry must adapt to the unique reporting requirements of these assets and develop new standards for evaluating their value for financial reporting purposes. The paper emphasises the need for a case-based approach in the absence of standardised regulations for the accounting industry in the metaverse.

This paper adds original contributions to extant literature of the metaverse and advances ongoing debates into the accounting and taxation issues pertinent to the metaverse and DeFi.

The case is appropriate for courses in financial accounting and reporting, audit and assurance, forensic accounting, accounting practice and regulations and corporate governance. After studying the case, students should be able to explain the concept of control and power under IFRS; explain the concept of economic; discuss audit committee and external auditor independence issues and ways to strengthen auditor’s independence; assess the usefulness of the new extended audit report; and evaluate the role of gatekeepers such as financial analysts, audit committee, external auditor, institutional investors and regulators in enhancing the quality of financial reporting.

This case focuses on the accounting policy choices of the foreign associates of AirAsia Berhad. AirAsia Berhad is a phenomenal success, from a debt laden company to having been voted as World’s Best Low-Cost Airline in the annual World Airline Survey by Skytrax for eight consecutive years from 2009 to 2016 and the World’s Leading Low-Cost Airline in the annual World Travel Awards for four consecutive years from 2013 to 2016. In June 2015, an analyst report was leaked, and it led to heated discussion and exchanges in the market. The report questioned the non-consolidation of AirAsia Berhad associates. The share market also reacted. Various players in the market came into foray with their statements and opinions on the merit of the accounting policy choice by AirAsia Berhad. Whose views actually reflect the nature of accounting policy choice that is true and fair? Are these gatekeepers attesting to the accounting crux of substance over form?

Senior undergraduates; MBA; EMBA

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CSS: 1: Accounting and Finance

To provide accounting practitioners and educators some of the reasons for the decreasing trend of students majoring in accounting and describe some of the activities that can be undertaken by accounting educators and practitioners to reverse the trend.

A range of published (1995‐2005) publications, which aim to show the reasons for the decreasing trend of students majoring in accounting, are reviewed. A study was conducted at a regional US university identifying – when student made the decision to major in accounting; the influence accounting instructors had on their decision to major in accounting; and the influence of the courses Managerial and Financial Accounting on their decision to major in accounting.

The majority of students majoring in accounting decide their major prior to their first university accounting course. A significant percentage of accounting majors rate accounting instructors as having no or minimal influence on their decision to major in accounting. A majority of students rate the Managerial and Financial Accounting courses as significantly impacting their decision to major in accounting.

This paper identifies the importance of accounting practitioners and educators working together to more actively recruit students to major in accounting. The paper provides suggestions for accounting practitioners and educators to become more active in recruiting students to major in accounting.

The contribution of accounting research to the space sector has arguably been less discernible, less visible and less appreciated than that made by STEM disciplines. This paper aims to ascertain the nature and extent to which management accounting can contribute to interdisciplinary advancements of the space sector. This is accomplished by investigating possible contributions realised by management accounting research to the space sector and identifying the opportunities and challenges facing interdisciplinary accounting researchers in making a contribution.

This qualitative empirical study draws on interviews with 25 academic researchers and practitioners from Australia, the USA, the UK, Canada, Europe, India and China, with research or practitioner experience on accounting issues germane to the space sector. The purpose is to seek their perceptions of how interdisciplinary management accounting research can solve contemporaneous problems in the space sector.

The potential contribution that management accounting research can make in the space sector is grounded in the inherent interdisciplinary of the discipline. The propensity to draw on other disciplines, theories, methodologies and methods is a strength of management accounting, as it is arguably by such interdisciplinarity that “wicked problems’ such as those presented by space exploration, policy and research can be solved.

This is one of the first papers to explore the role and contribution management accounting research can offer to what has traditionally been a STEM-dominated field. In so doing, it underscores the central importance and value-added by an interdisciplinary approach to management accounting research.

The literature on the influence of audit committees (AC) and cosmetic accounting (CA) is scarce. AC plays a unique and vital role in boosting earnings reliability in countries with weaker application of accounting standards or weaker legal protection for investors. AC, therefore, are considered to be one of the essential tools available to directors in supervising management decisions regarding financial reporting. This paper aims to examine the influence of AC characteristics (ACC) on CA and how this relationship is moderated by the audit fee.

This study used probit regression to analyze 1,218 firm-year observations of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2020.

The results show that AC financial accounting expertise, AC independence, female AC membership and AC tenure were negatively related to CA. The negative relationship is highly pronounced when a firm incurs higher audit fees, and audit fees moderate the relationship between ACC and CA. Results for the robustness checks show that only AC independence was significant, and the results of other characteristics were not significant.

This research was conducted in an Iranian setting where the formation of ACs is on the verge of regulation; therefore, the data used for the study only contains the seven-year period of ACs’ statutory activity. In addition, a lack of consensus on the precise measures of an AC’s effectiveness could be considered as a restrictive factor.

The findings provide an initial insight into the effect AC on CA and moderating effect of audit fee on the relationship between ACC and CA.

Teaching ethical decision making can be distinguished from teaching decision making in other settings by its juxtaposition of students’ affect with their intellect (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001); as Griseri (2002, p. 374) aptly points out, “effective business ethics teaching should involve a combination of…two aspects of ethical situations – their emotional and intellectual elements.” To engage students’ affect, research suggests the use of multiple teaching modalities (e.g., films, case studies, journals, and role-play) (McPhail, 2001). To develop students’ ethical intellect, research recommends using appropriate, individual-specific cognitive stimulation (Massey & Thorne, 2006). Yet, in designing courses, faculty typically preselect course teaching methods independently of the particular students who enroll in the course, often teaching their courses using methods that are consistent with their own personal learning styles (Thompson, 1997) even though those methods may not be effective for (m)any students in their classes. Nonetheless, investigating each student’s preferred learning style and tailoring the course accordingly is impractical (cf., Montgomery & Groat, 1988). Thus, as highlighted in the ethics literature (McPhail, 2001) and suggested in the education literature (Nilson, 2010a), faculty should utilize a variety of approaches to effectively teach ethics to their accounting students. To facilitate these efforts, this paper presents and evaluates various strategies accounting faculty can use to teach accounting ethics in ways that correspond to students’ varying learning preferences. As such, the strategies this paper provides can be used to create an accounting ethics course that affectively impacts and cognitively stimulates a diverse student body that, in turn, can lead to improved ethical reasoning skills.

The purpose of this paper is to examine earnings management practices in local governments (LGs). The implementation of accrual accounting in LGs opens the way for empirical research on the topic, as reporting high surpluses or high deficits can be negatively interpreted by the central government, monitoring authorities, citizens and political opponents. According to public choice theory, the conflicting interests between politicians, who pursue re-election, and voters, who observe politicians’ actions to assess their alignment with social welfare, create fertile ground for earnings management practices.

The study calculates discretionary accruals, by using the Jones (1991) model, and relates them to several political variables. It employs a large sample of Greek and Italian LGs. The Greek database covers the period from 2002 to 2015 with about 4,300 observations, and the Italian database includes the period from 2008 to 2015 with about 1,130 observations.

The findings from the analysis give evidence that LGs engage in earnings management. The principal factor is the electoral cycle, as earnings management seems to be greater when the mayor is re-elected than when the mayor is elected for the first time. Furthermore, the period before elections create conditions that cultivate earnings management attitudes.

Previous studies have principally investigated earnings management in the private sector. Considering that many public-sector entities have implemented accrual accounting systems, this study intends to examine earnings management behaviour at the LG level, providing interesting findings for researchers and policy makers.

A better understanding of the political factors and the financial conditions, which act as obstacles or facilitators, should work hand in hand with the accounting reforms. The usefulness of financial statements for decision making and control presupposes that they are of high quality, an attribute that can be impaired by earnings management.

This study investigates the influence of political factors on earnings management behaviour in public-sector contexts where self-interest and accountability pressures coexist.