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The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study carried out to determine the use of Management Accounting Practices (MAPR) in Ugandan secondary schools. The study also sought to determine whether MAPR and governing boards (board size, gender diversity and frequency of board meetings) influence the perceived competitive advantage.

This study is cross-sectional and correlational. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 200 secondary schools. The data were analysed through ordinary least squares regression using Statistical Package for Social Scientists.

There are wide variations in MAP in terms of the extent to which the schools employ management accounting techniques. Also, MAP and governing boards have a predictive force on the schools’ competitive advantage. However, governing board’s size has no effect on competitive advantage. In terms of the control variables, the results suggest that while government school ownership has a positive effect on competitive advantage, the school’s size has no effect. There are intertwining relationships of frequency of board meetings, board size and school size.

The present study was limited to the secondary schools in Uganda which limits generalisability. Still, the results offer important implications for secondary schools’ governing boards, owners and for similar African governments who are a major stakeholder in the secondary school education system. The exact mechanism by which intertwining relationships of frequency of board meetings, board size and school size impact competitive advantage is not been explored in this paper. Future researchers may direct research effort in this endeavour.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate use of MAPR in secondary schools and to provide evidence of their efficacy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of internal audit function and audit committee effectiveness on accountability in statutory corporations (SCs).

This study is cross sectional and correlational. Data have been collected through a questionnaire survey of 52 SCs in Uganda through their Chief Internal Auditors and Chief Finance Officers. Data have been analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

The internal audit function significantly contributes to accountability of SCs in Uganda and audit committee effectiveness is not where effective internal audit is present in such organisations. However, audit committee effectiveness significantly contributes to accountability when an internal audit function is not present.

The use of hierarchical regression is prone to problems associated with sampling error. However, the likelihood of these problems is mitigated by the interface with data.

Whereas hitherto both internal audit function and audit committee effectiveness had been viewed as explanations of accountability, this study only confirms the internal audit function as a significant predictor of SCs’ accountability relative to audit committee effectiveness.

This study’s purpose is twofold: First, to investigate the relationship between managerial competences and Integrated Reporting (IR) practices; Second, to test whether all the managerial competences attributes are significantly related to IR practices.

This study adopts a correlational research design, and is also cross-sectional. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey of 188 manufacturing firms in Uganda. Data were analyzed with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

The study finds that significant associations between managerial competences of knowledge and experience exist with IR practices except for skills. However, experience is the most significant predictor of IR practices. This experience is manifest, among others, in the managers’ ability to get the word out to the public including why the public should be proud of what the company does and about what the company offers and works to make it better.

This study did not control governance variables and yet governance and IR are inextricably associated. Future research should aim at testing the efficacy of investing in governance aspects potentially improving IR. This is because Environmental, Social and Governance investing is predicted to make capitalism work better and deal with the grave threat posed by climate change. The study also focuses on manufacturing firms, and these results may be only applicable to the manufacturing firms in Uganda. More research is therefore needed to further understand the effect of managerial competence attributes on IR in manufacturing firms in other contexts. Well, the results imply that more experienced managers are better placed to embrace IR practices than their less experienced counterparts.

The authors find that managerial experience explains IR practices more than competences and this makes intuitive sense since, for example, better experiential communication potentially minimizes the challenges such as lack of comparability, difficulty in communicating entity-specific information, information not available in a usable format and data errors normally encountered by IR (especially electronic) users. Hence, this study enhances our understanding of the role of managerial competences in the improvement of IR practices using perceptions of report preparers from a developing country where IR is voluntary and where the size of the stock market is small.

This study aims to examine the contribution of audit committee effectiveness (ACE), internal audit function (IAF) and firm-specific attributes to internet financial reporting (IFR). It also seeks to understand which ACE and IAF attributes contribute to variances in IFR.

Data are collected through a questionnaire survey of 40 financial services firms.

The analysis shows that ACE and IAF significantly contribute to positive variances in IFR. It also shows that among the firm-specific attributes, only capital structure significantly contributes to positive variances in IFR. Audit committee meetings and authority contribute significantly to positive variances in IFR unlike audit committee expertise and independence. In terms of the IAF attributes, the risk management role and the regulatory compliance role contribute significantly to positive variances in IFR as compared to the governance processes role and evaluation of the internal control role.

This study enhances our understanding of the relationship between ACE, IAF, firm-specific attributes and IFR in an environment where IFR is not mandated and where corporate governance practices are very much in infancy. This is especially so given that for the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the contribution made by ACE, IAF and firm-specific attributes in IFR using evidence from an African developing country (Uganda) is now documented in a single study.

Despite the advancement of the assumptions of agency and institutional theories whereby monitoring structures and controls form the basis of management, inadequate public finance regulatory compliance among public entities has continued to be a challenge. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to break out of the apparent cycle of failures to comply with public finance regulations.

A cross-sectional study that integrates two approaches (cooperative and coercive models) drawing from the view that in central government agencies, there may be stewards and also agents motivated by self-interest, suggesting that the most promising framework is that which renders the traditional ways of achieving regulatory compliance to be supplemented with the stewardship model. Thus, the authors focus on four variables: management mechanisms, ethical climate, deterrence measures and public finance regulatory compliance all drawn from agency, institutional and stewardship theories. The authors collect data from 67 central government agencies in Uganda using a structured questionnaire.

The authors find that management mechanisms dimensions of leadership support and organisational commitment significantly associate with public finance regulatory compliance and so too are deterrence measures particularly oversight organs, penalties and procedural justices.

Public finance regulatory compliance can be improved through management mechanisms and deterrence measures.

The study generates empirical evidence on the applicability of stewardship theory in the management of public entities for regulatory compliance

The increasing environmental challenges require efforts to expand the scope of accounting to better evaluate organizations’ behaviour/practices. This paper aims to report the results of studying the link between environmental management accounting (EMA), board role performance (BRP), company characteristics and environmental performance disclosure (EPD) of Ugandan manufacturing firms.

The study was correlational and cross-sectional. The results are obtained through content analysis of company reports, websites and a questionnaire survey of 102 large and medium manufacturing firms in four districts of Uganda.

Results indicate that EMA causes significant variances in EPD in manufacturing firms. Also, BRP and firm size explain variances in EPD through EMA.

The research does not control for industry type. Still, the results offer hope on how the reliability of environmental performance information that companies voluntarily provide outside financial statements, can be improved.

Results potentially extend available literature by providing a mechanism through which the environmental performance information is obtained for onward disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the relationship between corporate governance, ethical culture, Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (ICFR) and compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by microfinance institutions (MFIs).

This is a cross-sectional survey based on a sample of 85 MFIs in Uganda. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares (PLS) analysis technique. An unweighed IFRS compliance index to capture the level of compliance with IFRS was constructed. Yet to capture corporate governance, ethical culture and ICFR variables, the perceptions of top management of MFIs have been taken into consideration.

Corporate governance, ethical culture and ICFR, each makes a significant contribution to compliance with IFRS. Also both corporate governance and ethical culture are significantly associated with ICFR. However, compliance with IFRS by MFIs is better enhanced by corporate governance and ethical culture through ICFR.

Results support the idea that in terms of agency and virtue ethics theories, the board should support ICFR to minimize egocentric managers and other employees and also inculcate an ethical culture to achieve better compliance with IFRS because corporate governance and ethical culture are associated with sound ICFR which in turn lead to compliance with IFRS.

Boards of MFIs should encourage investments that improve ICFR. At the same time, regulators should ensure that boards are composed of members with financial expertise, with no conflict of interest and introduce mechanisms that encourage boards to perform their roles.

The study contributes towards a methodological position by showing that the behavioural perspective of corporate governance can be an alternative to the boards’ structural variables in investigating compliance with IFRS. A direct association of ethical culture and compliance with IFRS and an indirect association through ICFR can be envisaged.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the mediating role of local government delivery system (here after delivery system) in the relationship between local governance (hereafter, governance) and financial distress of local governments in Uganda.

This study is correlational and cross-sectional. It uses a questionnaire survey on a sample of 109 local governments (districts) of Uganda. The data are analysed using SPSS, partial least squares structural equation modelling and Jose’s MedGraph.

Results indicate that government delivery system mediates the relationship between governance and financial distress. Delivery system in terms of capacity development and community participation causes positive variances in local government’s financial distress. Also, governance in terms of political clientelism significantly contributes to financial distress more than oversight mechanisms and audit quality. The study finds that delivery system causes more variance in financial distress than governance.

This study applies the new public management and network governance theory and tests the efficacy of delivery system and governance on financial distress in one-go and succeeded in explaining financial distress of local government using Uganda as the setting; the authors join previous scholars that root for multi-theoretical approaches. Also, this study’s design has allowed for the consideration of more than simply the main effects of governance and delivery systems by exploring the mediating role of delivery systems in the link between governance and financial distress. As such, the authors may now have a more accurate and detailed description of the relationships between governance, delivery system and local government financial distress.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of and impact of gender diversity and intellectual capital on compliance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting standards by Uganda manufacturing companies.

Data were collected from manufacturing firms in Uganda using a questionnaire survey to find out their perception of compliance with the GRI standards. Data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences, Microsoft Excel and smart partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM).

The results indicate that on average, manufacturing firms in Uganda comply with GRI sustainability reporting standards to the extent of 59%. The results further indicate that manufacturing companies comply more with the GRI 200 (economic performance disclosures) to the extent of 63% as compared with 55% for GRI 300 (environmental performance disclosures) and 58% for GRI 400 (social performance disclosures). The results also indicate that intellectual capital has a significant impact on the GRI-based sustainability performance disclosures in Uganda. However, board gender diversity has no significant effect. In terms of the control variables, only firm size is significant, while firm age, capital structure and auditor type are not.

This study provides first time evidence of the extent of compliance with the GRI sustainability reporting standards using evidence from Uganda – an African developing country. This study widens the understanding of the usage of GRI standards in the preparation of sustainability reports by manufacturing firms in an emerging economy. This study also provides first-time evidence on the role of gender diversity and intellectual capital in GRI-based sustainability performance disclosures using evidence from Uganda's manufacturing sector.