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The usefulness of risk disclosures (RDs) to support equity investors’ investment decisions is highly discussed. As prior research criticizes the extensive aggregation of risk information in existing empirical research, this paper aims to provide an attempt to identify disaggregated risk information associated with cumulative abnormal stock returns (CARs).

The sample consists of 2,558 RDs of companies listed in the S&P 500 index. The RDs were filed within 10 K filings between 2011 and 2017. First, this study automatically extracted 35,685 key phrases that occurred in a maximum of 1.5% of the RDs. Second, this study performed stepwise regressions of these key phrases and identified 67 (78) key phrases that show positive (negative) associations with CARs.

The paper finds that investors seem to value most the more common key phrases just below the 1.5% rarest key phrase threshold and business-related key phrases from RDs. Furthermore, investors seem to perceive key phrases that contain words indicating uncertainty (impacts) as a negative (positive) rather than a positive (negative) signal.

The research approach faces limitations mainly due to the selection of the included key phrases, the focus on CARs and the methodological choice of the stepwise regression analysis.

The study reveals the potential for companies to increase the information value of their RDs for equity investors by providing tailored information within RDs instead of universal phrases. In addition, the research indicates that the tailored RDs encouraged by the SEC contain relevant information for investors. Furthermore, the results may guide the attention of equity investors to relevant text passages whose deeper analysis might be useful with regard to investors’ capital market decisions.

Integrated reporting (IR) aims to provide disclosures of the connectivity of non-financial and financial value creation aspects. These disclosures are defined as the disclosed connectivity of the capitals resulting from integrated thinking. This paper aims to investigate the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals in integrated reports and its underlying managerial discretion by drawing on economic-based theories.

Regression analyses are applied to examine the associations between economic firm-level characteristics and the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals. The analyses are based on a content analysis of 169 integrated reports disclosed in 2013 and 2014 by Forbes Global 2000 companies.

This paper finds high heterogeneity in the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals in current IR practice. This heterogeneity is related to drivers arising from economic-based theories. Firms’ non-financial and financial performance and the importance of strategic shareholders and debt providers are positively associated with the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals. The complexity of the business model and a highly competitive environment are negatively associated with the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals.

This paper extends qualitative IR studies on the disclosed connectivity of the capitals by quantitative results from a content analysis for a cross-sectional and global sample. Additionally, this study adds to prior IR literature on the drivers of the binary decision to disclose an integrated report by focusing on the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals.

For report preparers, users and standard setters, the results reveal that perceived cost-benefit considerations (signaling vs. direct and proprietary costs) may explain managerial discretion regarding the connectivity of the capitals within integrated reports.

This paper examines integrated reports, which are intended to inform providers of financial capital and other stakeholders about the connectivity of the six capitals of the IR framework.

This paper develops a metric disclosure measure of the extent of disclosed connectivity of the capitals. It provides initial evidence of how the IR framework’s focus on this key characteristic is realized in disclosure practice. Concerns about competitive disadvantages and preparation costs limit this key characteristic of integrated reports.

Credibility concerns regarding integrated reports can harm the intended decrease of information asymmetry between a firm and its investors. Therefore, it is crucial to examine whether voluntary third-party assurance enhances the credibility of integrated reports and, thus, decreases information asymmetry. Furthermore, this study aims to investigate the interaction effect between assurance quality and the disclosed connectivity of the capitals, a distinguishing feature of integrated reports.

Content analysis is performed of the 176 assurance statements included in the 269 integrated reports of Forbes Global 2000 firms disclosed from 2013 to 2015 and the 269 integrated reports themselves. Regression analyzes are applied to examine the associations between assurance, the disclosed connectivity of the capitals and information asymmetry.

The presence of an assurance statement in an integrated report significantly decreases information asymmetry. Surprisingly, assurance quality is not significantly associated with information asymmetry. However, an interaction analysis reveals that combining high assurance quality with high disclosed connectivity of the capitals allows a significant decrease in information asymmetry.

The paper demonstrates that the connectivity of the capitals of integrated reports and assurance quality are connected and together are associated with information asymmetry.

The results imply, both for report preparers and standard setters, that assurance quality is advantageous only when combined with disclosed connectivity of the capitals.

More information on non-financial information measured by the connectivity of the capitals of integrated reporting has an interaction effect together with assurance quality on information asymmetry.

This paper builds on a unique data set derived from the contents of integrated reports and accompanying assurance statements. Furthermore, it extends the integrated reporting literature by investigating the interaction between assurance quality and the disclosed connectivity of the capitals, which had not previously been examined in combination.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of organizational culture (OC) on a firm’s environmental performance (EP) via the mediating variable of environmental management control systems (EMCS).

Data were collected from 314 Pakistani manufacturing firms via the questionnaire survey, and the structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships.

The stable and flexible values of OC affect the effectiveness of formal and informal EMCS. Informal EMCS mediates the relationship between flexible values and EP, whereas formal EMCS mediates the stable values and EP. Overall, the data reveal that the integration of environmental culture within an organization’s culture and control systems leads to improve EP.

The study is one of the first, to the author’s knowledge, that links OC, EMCS, and EP in a developing economy, in this case Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to take into account Simons’ (1994) formal levers of control framework and more informal processes to examine how organizations implement and manage corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities through management control systems (MCSs).

A multiple-case study was conducted in ten large French organizations. Qualitative data were collected during in-depth semi-structured interviews with the managers who were best informed on CSR practices and MCSs. The authors then performed within-case and cross-case analysis.

The study shows that organizations use different MCSs to manage CSR activities directed toward their salient stakeholders – that is, employees, customers, suppliers and community. Specifically, the authors found that social MCSs are used to communicate CSR values, manage risk, evaluate CSR activities, and identify opportunities and threats. In addition, the use of MCSs to implement CSR activities is mainly driven by the need to satisfy salient stakeholder demands, manage legitimacy and reputation issues, and meet top management expectations and enhance their commitment. Last, the use of social MCSs is hindered by a lack of clear strategic CSR objectives and action plans, a lack of global standards and measurement processes for CSR, and a lack of time and financial resources.

The study addresses recent calls in the literature for research into the ways formal and informal control systems are used to implement CSR activities and provides insight that may stimulate further research.

Accounts manipulation has been the subject of research, discussion and even controversy in several countries including the USA, Canada, the U.K., Australia, Finland and France. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature and propose a conceptual framework for accounts manipulation. This framework is based on the possibility of wealth transfer between the different stake‐holders, and in practice, the target of the manipulation appears generally to be the earnings per share and the debt/equity ratio. The paper also describes the different actors involved and their potential gains and losses. We review the literature on the various techniques of accounts manipulation: earnings management, income smoothing, big bath accounting, creative accounting, and window‐dressing. The various definitions of all these, the main motivations behind their application and the research methodologies used are all examined. This study reveals that all the above techniques have common elements, but there are also important differences between them.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the discrepancy between ethnohistorical accounts on north-western Kalahari San of the nineteenth to early twentieth century and recent ethnographic accounts, the former depicting the San as intensely warlike, the latter as basically peaceable.

Review of historical, ethnohistorical and ethnographic source material (reports, journal articles, monographs).

The warlike ways of the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were reactions to settler intrusion, domination and encapsulation. This was met with resistance, a process that led to the rapid politicization and militarization, socially and ideationally, of San groups in the orbit of the intruders (especially the “tribal zone” they created). It culminated in internecine warfare, specifically raiding and feuding, amongst San bands and tribal groupings.

While the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were indeed warlike and aggressive, toward both intruders and one another, this fact does not warrant the conclusion that these “simple” hunter-gatherer people have an agonistic predisposition. Instead, of being integral to their sociality, bellicosity is historically contingent. In the absence of the historical circumstances that fuel San aggression and warfare, as was the case after and before the people's exposure and resistance to hegemonic intruders, San society and ethos, in conformity with the social structure and value orientation of simple, egalitarian band societies, is basically peaceful.

A setting-the-record-straight corrective on current misunderstandings and misinformation on hunter-gatherer warfare.

The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples.

At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture.

The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies.

This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity.

This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.

This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental scanning on organizational resilience through the mediation of organizational learning and innovation based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) within Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study adopted a cross-sectional design to collect the data used to carry out mediation analysis. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample consisting of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The smart partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was adopted to test the hypotheses.

Environmental scanning does not have a direct effect on organizational resilience. However, organizational learning and innovation fully mediate the relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience.

The sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may differ in the service sector and other countries. The study was cross-sectional which is limited to tracing the long-term effects of environmental scanning, organizational learning and innovation on organizational resilience. Accordingly, a longitudinal study may be undertaken.

Managers in Egyptian SMEs should use signals from environmental scanning activities as input for learning and transforming business processes through innovation to develop organizational resilience.

This study is the first to investigate the role of environmental scanning in building organizational resilience through organizational learning and innovation based on the perspective of OIPT within Egyptian SMEs during the COVID-19 crisis.

This study presents theoretical and empirical analyses to suggest a previously‐unknown size‐related contingency in the relationship between market variables and various commonly‐used financial ratios, including Net Income/Total Assets, Current Assets/Sales, Current Assets/Current Liabilities, Current Assets/Total Assets, Cash/Total Assets, Long‐Term Debt/Total Assets, Accounts Receivable/Sales. The size contingency in this relationship is shown to be due to the cross‐sectional variability of the ratios themselves. Moreover, simply adding a size dummy to the model will not correct for the problem. Empirical results show that the effect is very strong and subjects to severe misinterpretation any study that uses financial ratios on the right‐hand‐side of a linear model.