Suchergebnisse

PurposeExploiting the mandatory provision of integrated reporting in South Africa, this paper aims to investigate whether this regulatory switch from the conventional annual report is associated with differences in the level of textual risk disclosure (TRD). This paper also examines the economic usefulness of this regulatory change by observing the impact of TRD on the complying firms' market values.Design/methodology/approachArchival data are collected and examined using time-series difference design and difference-in-differences design.FindingsThe authors find that the level of TRD within the mandatory integrated reporting is significantly lower than that of annual reports. The authors find that the impact of TRD in integrated reporting on market value compared to that of annual reports is statistically not different from zero. The authors' further analyses suggest that corporate governance effectiveness is not a moderating factor to the study results. The results are robust to comparisons with the voluntary adoption of integrated reporting in the UK.Originality/valueCollectively, the study results suggest that managers' adherence to the mandatory provision of integrated reporting has significantly decreased the level of (voluntary) TRD they tended to convey within the conventional annual reports, resulting in a trivial impact on market value. These unintended consequences should be of interest to the International Integrated Reporting Council and other bodies interested in integrated reporting.

There is a stream of research that has introduced strategic investment decision-making (SIDM) through case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, a systematic theorisation around SIDM processes and practices still under-presented in the literature. This research aims to show how strong structuration theory (SST) could be used as an appropriate theoretical lens to explore how SIDM studies are theorised and conducted. Through employing the parameters and the concepts of SST within the SIDM context, we found that SID is a judgemental decision that is constructed by various influences. SIDs are not isolated from the social, political, and economic aspects. Subjective judgements and the decision-makers' intuition are crucial throughout the process of SIDM. Therefore, SIDs cannot be abstracted as an objective decision-based on applying investment appraisal technical methods. The theoretical lens presented in this paper will enable researchers to drill down into the 'ontic' level to empirically explore in-depth the complex interrelationships between various agents and structures which, arguably, fits the SID context. Furthermore, this paper will help scholars understand how SID is made from SST perspective and guide them to conduct future research to build on and also help executives to be guided by.

PurposeDrawing on legitimacy theory, this study aims to investigate whether the benefits of the external assurance process pass beyond the current period and help firms improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the subsequent periods. Furthermore, the authors examine whether corporate governance (CG) and firm visibility moderate the relationship between assurance and CSR performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors retrieved data from Thomson Reuters from 2002 to 2019 and executed a fixed-effects (FE) panel regression analysis. The country-level sample distribution includes 63 countries with 4,625 unique firms and 29,054 data points within these countries. The authors run several robustness tests using an alternative subsample, instrumental variable regression analysis, country-industry-year FE regression analysis, excluding the financial sector and including additional control variables and regression analysis based on propensity score matching.FindingsThe findings indicate that external assurance helps firms achieve greater CSR performance in the current period and the subsequent two periods following external assurance. However, external assurance exerts its strongest positive impact on CSR performance in the current period, and its influence extends, albeit at a weaker level, to the following two periods. Furthermore, the first moderation analysis reveals that governance structure helps firms translate the assurance process into the greater social performance but does not help to achieve higher environmental performance. The second moderation analysis reveals that firm visibility/size positively moderates between the assurance process and governance and social performance but not between the assurance process and environmental performance.Originality/valueDespite the concurrent association between CSR performance and assurance being examined before, the lag-lead relationship is the novelty of the study to highlight the long-term effect of assurance on CSR performance. Besides, although the direct effect of both CG practices and firm visibility on CSR performance and the external assurance process has been investigated before, the authors extend the literature by examining the moderating effect of CG practices and firm visibility on the external assurance and CSR performance relationship. This provides a better explanation of the extent to which the effect of external assurance on CSR performance is constructed and conditioned by CG practices and firm visibility, thereby drawing attention to contingencies' role in firms' practices.

Accepted Date: 16/12/2015; Version: Author Manuscript / Post-Print; Exceptions: None ; This study focuses on processes employed by organisational managers making strategic investment decisions (SIDs) in an environment of extreme uncertainty in post-revolution Egypt. Our study illustrates how significant social, political and economic uncertainty impacts upon the utility of capital investment appraisal techniques employed in management accounting decision-making. To engage in this analysis, we employ strong structuration theory as a lens to examine how local Egyptian managers (agents-in-focus) respond to the impact of emergent structures that emanate from the post-revolutionary context in their strategic investment decision-making (SIDM). Our empirical evidence includes focused interviews with twenty-one local managers to understand the experience of accounting for decision-making under extreme uncertainty. Our analysis demonstrates that non-financial considerations and objectives take precedence over the technical 'accounting' measures, for example net present value (NPV) in post-revolution SIDM processes. In particular, recognising and responding to shifting labour power and short-term sacrifices (such as rejecting merger opportunities) become comparatively more important than the pre-supposed rationality of the NPV criteria. However, as multi-national corporations insist on the calculation of NPV by their Egyptian subsidiaries, local managers reproduce the imperfect NPV as a communication tool in relation to capital investment decisions, whilst resisting its persuasiveness in favour of more qualitative criteria.