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The purpose of this study is to investigate the voluntary disclosure of accounting ratios in the corporate annual reports of manufacturing firms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and determines whether an association exists between voluntary disclosure and firm-specific characteristics namely, size, profitability, leverage, liquidity and efficiency.

A sample of 53 GCC listed manufacturing firms and 263 firm-year observations were observed over the period 2011 to 2015. A count data regression (Poisson) with incident rate ratios was used to identify the relationship between firms’ voluntary disclosures of accounting ratios and other firm-specific characteristics.

During the period under review, the voluntary disclosure of accounting ratios provided in annual reports of GCC firms were found to be exceedingly low. On average, a GCC company discloses at most two accounting ratios in its annual reports. The results also show that the profitability ratios are the most popularly reported ones. Controlling for family board domination, the results also reveal that structure-related variables (firm size and leverage) are positively associated with accounting ratio disclosures. However, performance-related variables (profitability, liquidity and efficiency) have no significant effect on disclosures. The authors conclude that signaling theory as implied in the performance-related variables is not strongly supported in the GCC region.

This is the first known study to investigate the disclosure of accounting ratios and its determinants within the context of GCC. The findings of this study could be beneficial to both agents and principals in assessing the associated risks. The study provides regulators and market participants an understanding of the corporate reporting activities of manufacturing firms in the GCC and who accordingly will be able to consider associated policy implementation.

Recent public policy initiatives seek greater transparency in financial reporting through an honest, balanced and thorough management discussion of company performance in the annual report. Management’s discussion invariably includes key performance indicators, such as financial ratios, relevant to external stakeholders. We model the impact of accounting estimates, assumptions, choices and errors on the risk of misleading financial ratios. This framework is illustrated through good and bad examples of financial reporting practices and by simulation of financial data of public companies. We provide a structured approach to inform policymakers, auditors and other stakeholders of the incremental financial reporting risk that accompanies current regulatory efforts.

This chapter aims at examining financial distress issue by designing a comprehensive model to explain and predict financial distress in Egypt. This comprehensive model incorporates accounting ratios, market-based ratios and macroeconomic ratios. The sample of the existing research includes all the listed firms in two main sectors: basic resources and chemicals. Using logistic regression model, the results showed that adding market ratios and macroeconomic ratios enhances the predictability of the model and accounting information are not sufficient to explain financial distress.

This paper aims to extend an earlier analysis of the profitability of an individual firm operating in the professional services industry from the perspective of the triple‐entry framework of the momentum accounting theory of Yuji Ijiri.

The paper presents a “common‐size‐format” model of balance‐sheet momentum, an approach typical of financial statements' mathematical analysis.

Common‐size‐format momentum ratios offer an alternative measurement of (the change of) business performance. They model stabilizing phenomena that might develop very differently from ratios like return on total assets or return on equity and thus provide important informational signals to the analyst of financial statements. The common‐size‐format ratio of net wealth momentum herein discussed is proposed as a supplemental measurement for business performance analysis.

The paper discusses a new method for performance measurement and risk analysis.

This study aims to examine the economic consequences of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Saudi Arabia. More specifically, the study examines the impact of the mandatory adoption of IFRS on the accounting-based performance measures.

Data on study variables were obtained manually from the published financial statements of 67 of listed companies in the Saudi stock market during the period 2014–2019. The study addressed the research hypotheses by comparing the accounting-based performance measures computed under the Saudi accounting standards for three years (2014–2016) before the mandatory adoption of IFRS and the corresponding three years (2017–2019) after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. The Mann–Whitney U Test was used to investigate the significance of differences between the values of performance measures in the pre- and post-mandatory adoption periods.

The findings of the study revealed that there were no significant differences between the values of accounting-based performance measures related to the three performance categories (i.e. profitability, liquidity and leverage) in the post-mandatory adoption period (IFRS) compared to the values of these measures in the pre-mandatory adoption period (Saudi accounting standards).

The results of the study indicated that there is a good convergence between the Saudi accounting standards that were implemented before 2017 and the IFRS that began to be applied starting from 2017. This convergence resulted in a low significant impact of IFRS on the financial statements of companies and then on the accounting-based performance measures calculated from them. However, this study suffers from some limitations, the most important of which is the small sample size as a result of the small number of listed companies in the Saudi market during the study period.

Although the impact of the adoption of IFRS have always been a subject of intense research in developed countries, the study of the impact of the adoption of IFRS in developing countries still limited. This study contributes to the literature by examining the economic consequences of adopting IFRS in Saudi Arabia as one of developing countries.

Annual changes in financial ratio values are susceptible to ambiguous interpretation because of different applications of generally accepted accounting principles and different numerator/denominator component selections. The paper investigates financial ratio disclosure within annual reports, and the extent to which the underlying ratio components vary within and between companies, within industries and over time. Financial ratios disclosed voluntarily within the annual reports of 101 listed public companies in Hong Kong between 1988–1992 were examined. Findings indicate numerator‐denominator inconsistency between companies and industries at a point in time, but generally consistent within companies across time. Also, sets of ratios reported between years are not constant. Ten potential research questions about financial ratios have been identified.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the expected effect of diverging accounting requirements and practices on firms in two industries – construction and retailing – which typically undertake different types of leases, namely, equipment and real estate, respectively. The paper also discusses how the new standards will provide expanded disclosures to aid this financial statement analysis.

The research demonstrates how to estimate information comparable to that produced under IFRS from US GAAP financial statements and estimates the significance of the impact on key financial statement ratios.

Key profitability ratios – return on assets and return on equity – generally improve over the time period 2007-2013 while interest coverage drastically deteriorates particularly for retailing firms. This finding contrasts with what some view as the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s reason for its choice of income statement presentation – to avoid the front-end loading of costs that ensues from accounting for leases as one would any other long-lived asset acquired through long-term financing.

Current IFRS and US GAAP requirements do not provide sufficient information to estimate lease accounting changes for those firms which have no long-term debt other than long-term leases. Therefore, the estimates presented in this analysis are limited below what will be possible to do under new accounting requirements.

The research covers a current topic of new divergence between US GAAP and IFRS requirements for leases. In addition, improvements over analysis techniques currently required that will be possible with new financial statement disclosures also are discussed.

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.

Firms in different countries operate in different business environments and prepare financial statements following, by necessity, their own countries' accounting standards. Benchmarks for assessing financial ratios of firms in different countries are likely to be different. In conducting financial ratio analyses, each country's unique cultural, business, financial, and regulatory characteristics have to be taken into consideration, for these external factors may exert significant effects on measurements of financial data. This study aims to investigate challenges in comparing financial ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms.

This study compares ten major financial ratios of 75 Chinese firms with financial ratios of 75 matched sample Japanese firms to determine if a common benchmark for each of the financial ratios can be applied to firms in both countries.

The results show significant differences in liquidity, solvency, and activity ratios between firms from these two countries. Further examination of differences in accounting standards, economic, and institutional environments between these two countries suggests that these external factors have significant effects on financial ratios and may have contributed to the observed differences.

This study is among the first to investigate the comparability of ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms to uncover potential challenges and warn investors of such challenges.