国际四大与高审计质量——来自中国证券市场的证据

本文采用2007—2009年沪、深两市A股上市公司公开披露的3874份年报数据,基于盈余管理的视角,对施行新会计准则和新审计准则后国际四大会计师事务所提供审计服务的质量进行了实证研究。结果表明,国际四大与非国际四大在审计质量上并不存在显著的差异,某些年度国际四大甚至比非国际四大更差。最后,借鉴Basu(1997)的思想,构建关于盈余管理的稳健性模型,进一步验证了本文的结论。     

The mystery of the missing members: the first 600 chartered accountants in England and Wales

There are a number of factual errors within the authoritative literature on the history of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and of its five founder bodies. The aim of this article is to outline some of these errors, explain how and why they arose, and attempt to correct them. Its primary concern is to establish the membership of these early professional accountancy bodies at the time of the granting of a royal charter in May 1880.     

Institutional Dances: How the First Accounting Degree in Canada Came to Be at the University of Saskatchewan*/ PÉRIPÉTIES COMPTABLES: LA CRÉATION DU PREMIER DIPLÔME CANADIEN EN COMPTABILITÉÀ L'UNIVERSITÉ DE SASKATCHEWAN

This paper tells how the School of Accounting and the bachelor of science in accounting degree were established at the University of Saskatchewan. Archives, various published histories, and contemporaneous periodicals serve as the main sources of information. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Saskatchewan plays a key role in the history and it is evident that the establishment of the accounting program was critical for the legitimacy of both the University and the Institute. The paper argues that the University of Saskatchewan had the first school of accounting and the first accounting degree in Canada. A brief overview of the development of other business‐oriented degrees and diplomas in universities across Canada is provided in order to support this claim. Based on the history provided and some additional contextual material, some speculation is offered as to why the University of Saskatchewan was the first to offer an accounting degree instead of one of the older, more established universities in eastern Canada. The paper makes three contributions. First, it fills a void in the literature with regard to the history of the School of Accounting and the accounting degree at the University of Saskatchewan. Second, it provides a bird's‐eye view of the establishment of business education programs at other universities in Canada. Third, it adds to our understanding of the relationship between the accounting profession and academe by demonstrating how people and institutions align to create new educational mechanisms.     

Accounting in Babel? Constructing social accounting as a multi-logical performance

All social practices reproduce certain taken-for-granteds about what exists. Constructions of existence (ontology) go together with notions of what can be known of these things (epistemology), and how such knowledge might be produced (methodology)—along with questions of value or ethics. Increasingly, reflective practitioners—whatever their practice—are exploring the assumptions they ‘put to work’ and the conventions they reproduce. Questions are being asked about how to ‘cope’ with change in a postmodern world, and ethical issues are gaining more widespread attention. If we look at these constructions then we often find social practices: (a) give central significance to the presumption of a single real world; (b) centre a knowing subject who should strive to be separate from knowable objects, i.e. people and things that make up the world; (c) a knowing subject who can produce knowledge (about the real world) that is probably true and a matter of fact rather than value (including ethics). Social practices of this sort often produce a right–wrong debate in which one individual or group imposes their ‘facts’ (and values) on others. Further they often do so using claims to greater or better knowledge (e.g. science, facts …) as their justifications.We use the term “relational constructionism” as a summary reference to certain assumptions and arguments that define our “thought style”. They are as follows: fact and value are joined (rather than separate); the knower and the known—self and other—are co-constructed; knowledge is always a social affair—a local–historical–cultural (social) co-construction made in conversation, in other kinds of action, and in the artefacts of human activities (‘frozen’ actions so to speak), and so; multiple inter-actions simultaneously (re)produce multiple local cultures and relations, this said; relations may impose one local reality (be mono-logical) or give space to multiplicity (be multi-logical). In this view, the received view of science is but one (socially constructed) way of world making, as is social constructionism, and different ways have different—and very real—consequences.In this paper, we take our relational constructionist style of thinking to examine differing constructions of foot and mouth disease (FMD)¹ in the UK. We do so in order to highlight the dominant relationship construction. We argue that this could be metaphorised as ‘accounting in Babel’—as multiple competing monologues—many of which remained very local and subordinated by a dominant logic. However, from a relational constructionist point of view, it is also possible to argue that social accounting can be done in a more multi-logical way that gives space to dialogue and multiplicity. In the present (relational constructionist) view, accounting is no longer ‘just’ a question of knowledge and methodology but also a question of value and power. To render accounting practices more ethical they must be more multi-voiced and enable ‘power to’ rather than ‘power over’.     

Quality of financial reporting: evidence from the listed Saudi nonfinancial companies

This study assesses the quality of information disclosed by a sample of nonfinancial Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange. The study also compares the extent of corporate disclosure before and after the creation of the Saudi Organization of Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). We classify information disclosed in the annual reports into three main categories: mandatory; voluntary related to mandatory; and voluntary unrelated to mandatory disclosure. The sample provided 63% and 66% of the total population of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange in the years 1992 and 1999.In departure from most previous studies conducted in this area of research, we weighted the indexes of disclosure by the mean and median responses of seven users of the annual reports in Saudi Arabia. The results of both unweighted and weighted indexes are reported. The outcome of the analysis indicated a relatively high compliance with the mandatory requirements in all industries covered by the study, with the exception of the electricity sector. As for the voluntary disclosure, whether related or unrelated to mandatory disclosure, the analysis revealed that Saudi companies disclose information more than the minimum required by law. The level of voluntary disclosure, however, is relatively low. The analysis also showed that the creation of SOCPA has had little impact on corporate reporting in Saudi Arabia.     

Social impact measurement: What can impact investment practices and the policy evaluation paradigm learn from each other?

In the past decade, public authorities around the world have fostered an increasing interest for social enterprises and the ways to develop and scale them. Part of this interest has focused on better understanding social enterprises’ impact, especially through practices derived from impact investing and philanthropy such as social impact measurement (SIM). This paper looks at the differences between “traditional” policy (or programme evaluation - PE) as it is carried out by public actors and SIM as it is practiced by impact investors and the stakeholders they support (particularly social enterprises), focusing on what can be learnt from these gaps. We take the case of France, where we compare public praxis for both SIM and PE based on a documentary analysis and complementary interviews. We find that both disciplines are bridged by a common theoretical foundation and, to a certain extent, by participative approaches. We also identify three main gaps, which are (i) the way outcomes are treated in PE and SIM; (ii) how stakeholder participation is managed and how it affects the ownership of the evaluation process by the involved parties; and (iii) how metrics and indicators are approached. We assess the benefits and drawbacks associated with each gap, we determine ways to bridge them and we identify five forces contributing to their creation.     

Ethnographic Accounting Research: Field Notes from the Frontier

Ethnographic fieldwork in accounting is scarce and remains a “frontier” methodology, unfamiliar to most accounting researchers. Building on our field research project on corporate accountability and stakeholder engagement, set in the Canadian Arctic, we illustrate in this article the use and explanatory power of ethnographic methods for studying social groups and individual actors in the broader accounting universe. We share our fieldwork strategies and provide a few practical tips for conducting ethnographic research in both corporate and community environments. We then argue that ethnographies provide accounting researchers with untapped opportunities to discover vast reservoirs of knowledge inaccessible to other research methods, and offer a path to humanize accounting research.     

The unethical practices of accountants and auditors and the compromising stance of professional bodies in the corporate world: Evidence from corporate Nigeria

Investors in Nigeria have lost several billions of dollars through the collusion of accountants and external auditors with companies’ management and directors to falsify and deliberately overstate companies’ accounts. As a consequence of unethical practices by accountants and auditors, which have resulted in the distress or occasionally the closure of companies, some indigenous Nigerian Managing Directors of multinational corporations such as Lever Brothers Nigeria Plc and Cadbury Nigeria Plc have been sacked and replaced with expatriates. Some companies placed under receivership have also lost billions of dollars due to professional misconduct by their official receivers. Contrary to the claim of ‘protecting the public interest,’ accountants and auditors may be partly responsible for cases of distress and closure of companies and banking institutions in Nigeria. However, the various Statutory Provisions and Acts relating to companies and professional bodies all place the responsibility on the accountants and auditors to detect and report to the regulators cases of suspected fraud and accounting malpractice. Through detailed consideration of cases of fraud, falsifications and deliberate overstatement of companies’ accounts, this paper examines the claim that the professional bodies are capable of protecting the public interest. It utilizes archival documents to provide evidence that suggests professional misconduct by accountants, particularly the members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). The paper provides further evidence that ICAN has been reluctant to either investigate or sanction its erring members. The paper posits that the reluctance or inability of the ICAN's “Investigation and Disciplinary Machinery” to either investigate or discipline the erring accountants and auditors suggests that whether by design or default, the ICAN's “Investigation and Disciplinary Machinery” operates to shield the activities of its erring members in accountancy firms from critical scrutiny.     

Accountability and transparency in relation to human rights: A critical perspective reflecting upon accounting, corporate responsibility and ways forward in the context of globalisation

In this paper we critically theorise accountability and transparency, and accounting, in relation to human rights. Consistent with our perspective, we articulate human rights as a complex and very important construct. We link human rights to notions of accountability and transparency (and hence to accounting) and elaborate how theoretical debates and developments in the humanities and social sciences refine but do not displace the argument that governance for human rights is a meaningful pursuit and policy. Indeed, they in some ways promote the mobilisation of accounting in the context. We go on to elaborate further how accounting (we especially focus upon corporate accounting and reporting) may come to the service of human rights. Developing our critical perspective more concretely and positively, we reflect, giving consideration to real world happenings and relevant illustrations, upon the interface of accounting, various actors (especially corporations) and human rights in the context of globalisation. And we reflect upon ways forward.     

Back to basics: What do we mean by environmental (and social) accounting and what is it for?—A reaction to Thornton

This paper seeks to explore whether mainstream financial accounting when it appears to genuflect to the ‘environment’ actually has anything substantive do with – or to say about – the natural world. It seems important to remember that conventional financial accounting is a predominantly economic – and not very internally logical – practice which has no substantive conceptual space for environmental or social matters per se. It has no space for what Thielemann calls ‘market alien values’ – values such as environmental concern. The paper re-examines why we might account at all and revisits why accounts which explicitly recognise environmental (and social) issues can be potentially very important indeed. What seems clear is that whilst any account that sought to reflect environmental and social exigencies might choose to use the technologies of accounting – notably debits and credits – there is no essential reason why they must do so. If we wish to account for an environment, we almost certainly would not start with the somewhat bizarre and tortured foundations of conventional financial accounting.     

Social justice in a cold climate: Could social accounting make a difference?

Building on the argument that justice should be the transcendent principle in accounting, we argue that social accounting invokes notions of community, shared social values, and fairness in the distribution of social resources. These ideas are elaborated in relation to local government, which provides a window on how communities make decisions about distributing their social resources and the accounting processes which guide these decisions. Fieldwork in two large but contrasting English local authorities suggests that the potential of social accounting is not reflected in the predominant accounting systems in local government organisations, but in more subtle and successful forms of ‘enacted social accounting’. Its utility relates to the achievement of short-term social goals where social injustices persist and accountants, managers and politicians seek to accommodate financial pressures to protect the most vulnerable members of the community. We identify local government accountants as morally responsible for the further development of social accounting which envisions a future for local government, and establishes links between social justice, environmentalism and localism.     

Interaction between tax and accounting practice: Accounting for stock-in-trade

This paper studies the issue of interaction between tax and accounting practice through an examination of the process followed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) when formulating Recommendation on Accounting Principles (RoAP) No. 22 as a replacement for RoAP No. 10. We show that the ICAEW had a clear intention of persuading the Board of Inland Revenue of the legitimacy of replacement cost as a basis of stock valuation, and that the preparation and publication of RoAP 22 succeeded, to a significant extent, in achieving that outcome. We also reveal that RoAP 22 appears to have affected the way in which some companies valued their stock and how their bases of stock valuation were disclosed in corporate published accounts.     

区域性会计师事务所行为研究——来自中国市场的经验证据

利用2007～2009年沪深两市上市公司样本,以国内"十大"为比较对象,对区域性事务所的行为进行研究。结果发现,相对于国内"十大",区域性事务所提供了更高质量的审计服务。经验证据表明,在脱钩改制以后,随着审计环境的变化,区域事务所重塑了自身的独立性,并且利用自身的地域优势,形成了地域专门化竞争能力。     

Analyzing the state-accounting profession dynamic: Some insights from the professionalization experience in China

The dynamic nature of the state-accounting profession relationship has been mostly explored within a western democratic and capitalist context. Taking into account the unique culture and the system of power in China, this paper contributes by examining the influence of the state over the Chinese public accounting profession during the 1990s. Utilizing a corporatist framework and combined with Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, this paper provides insights into the power relation between the state and the accounting profession, as well as illuminates the ideological influence of the state in the development of the profession. The empirical investigation also pays particular attention to the intra-professional conflicts that took place in the 1990s and provides further insights into the dynamic of the state-accounting profession relationship in that era.     

PERFORMANCE AUDITING AND THE NARRATING OF A NEW AUDITEE IDENTITY

This paper analyzes how performance auditing affects the auditee in different and sometimes unexpected ways. On the basis of a detailed case study of the Danish Ministry of Transport's encounter with performance auditing we argue that performance audit is a practice that generates multiple effects and that some of these effects can be characterized as a reconfiguration of the organizational identity of the auditee. In this process, accountabilities are reformulated and reallocated which sometimes lead to ‘blame games’ and strong feelings of discomfort. We draw on actor‐network theory and a narrative approach to study how performance audit reports produce narratives that picture new possible identities that the auditee in question must take into consideration. We argue that auditee identities are partly shaped by relations to ‘significant others’, such as the National Audit Office, the politicians and the press who all give accounts of who the Ministry is and ought to be. Furthermore, we argue that accounting and management information systems are enrolled as important ‘nonhuman’ actors that enable the suggested identity positions.     

Asymmetric positioning and emerging paths

Emerging technologies give rise to speculation, new strategies and a redistribution of roles. A broad range of actors anticipates to future developments on the basis of commonly available expectations. These anticipations allocate roles to selves, others and imagined future artefacts. The allocations of roles can hamper future developments. In this paper we investigate the dynamics of the allocation of roles and their importance for emerging technological fields. We draw on positioning theory as developed by Harré and Van Langenhove.In this paper we compare speech-acts from relevant actors in the emerging field of Lab-on-a-chip technology for medical application. Data was collected by conducting 50+ interviews throughout the innovation chain. In these interviews we elaborated interactively socio-technical scenarios of which speech-acts were derived. In the analysis we focus on about 300 speech-acts that relate to the story-line of Point-of-Care testing. Analysing the resulting patterns gives insight in the self-restricting effects that result from asymmetric positioning. Asymmetry results from the lack of overlap in positionings of selves, others, and future artefacts. We will show asymmetric positioning in our data and will show how our analysis contributes to an understanding of the state of emerging technological fields and to positioning theory.     

A dialogical framing of AIS–SEA design

Previous literature has proposed dialogical accounting as a means wherein accounting information systems can support competing, and potentially incompatible, information needs of various interested constituencies (Dillard and Yuthas, 2013). Here we extend that work by focusing on the design of social and environmental accounting (SEA) information systems that take pluralism seriously. We theorize the challenges of designing such systems wherein they are expected to address the needs of multiple users with different interests that may emerge from different economic, social, political and/or cultural perspectives, as they relate, for example, to sustainability reporting, ethical investment, participatory development studies and indigenous resource management. Using dialogic engagement, we attempt to move beyond traditional, and often highly constrained, conceptualizations of “stakeholder engagement” and propose a framework for undertaking systems design that can facilitate high quality and relevant SEA information systems that meet the needs of a wide range of actual and/or potential users. We provide an example of how the framework might be enacted using a framing methodology.     

Effects of the institutional environment on public-private partnership (P3) projects: Evidence from Canada

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the institutional environment on project outcomes in order to contribute to the accumulating accounting literature on P3s. Based on an empirical study of Alberta’s institutional environment, using Edmonton’s Anthony Henday Highway P3 projects, we analyze how the: a) political environment enables or disenables P3 outcomes; b) policy/business environment impacts project development and implementation; and c) organizational capacity affects P3 outcomes and vice versa.Adopting a neo-institutionalism perspective and a case study approach, we investigate the effects of the institutional environment on P3 project outcomes. This research is based on 35 semi-structured interviews of public sector executive managers, political actors, senior industry executives, project consultants/advisors, labour union, media specialists, community advocates and public policy analysts in the P3 industry who participated in Alberta’s P3 projects from 2004 to 2016.We find that the institutional environment has significant influence on project performance, and program permanence/continuity. Our study suggests that P3 enabling environments present: 1) relevant P3 policy measures and committed political support by field actors; 2) a path-dependent response to project outcomes; and 3) institutional environment elements that are mutually re-enforcing with synergistic effects.In effect, we document that a strong political leadership support for P3s, a favourable policy environment, and effective organizational capacity are pre-requisite factors for the successful implementation of P3s. Given the unsettled debate about various methodological approaches to value for money (VfM) determination for assessing P3s, we are unsure whether our findings are partly influenced by inconsistent accounting standards for P3s across jurisdictions.Our study highlights critical P3 enabling attributes that would be beneficial to accounting researchers interested in institutional environment studies and co-operative arrangements, accountants, public sector policy managers, regulators, and private sector partners saddled with the task of developing and implementing P3 projects in various institutional and/or contextual settings.