The Value Relevance of Direct Cash Flows under International Financial Reporting Standards

This study examines if there has been a change in the value relevance of direct cash flow components since the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Australia. Our results show that for both industrial and extractive firms direct cash flow statements are value relevant under Australian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (AGAAP) and remain so after the adoption of IFRS. In addition, for industrial firms there is a significant increase in the value relevance of direct cash flows after IFRS, along with an increase in the value relevance of accruals. These results are consistent with the proposition that direct cash flows play a reinforcing role that complements the more complex IFRS accounts. Consequently, if the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) were to mandate direct cash flow statements it would, in all likelihood, provide users of accounts with a valuable incremental source of hard transaction information.     

Monitoring and corporate disclosure: Evidence from a natural experiment

Using an experimental design that exploits exogenous reductions in coverage resulting from brokerage house mergers, we find that a reduction in coverage causes a deterioration in financial reporting quality. The effect of coverage on disclosure is more pronounced for firms with weak shareholder rights, consistent with a substitution effect between analyst monitoring and other corporate governance mechanisms. The effects we uncover using our experimental design are an order of magnitude larger than estimates from ordinary least squares regressions that do not account for the endogeneity of coverage. Overall, our results suggest that security analysts monitor managers and entrenched managers adopt less informative disclosure policies in the absence of such scrutiny.     

Does the XBRL Reporting Format Provide Incremental Information Value? A Study Using XBRL Disclosures During the Voluntary Filing Program

This study investigates whether the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) reporting format provides incremental information value beyond the same 10K/10Q filings previously provided in HTML format. Using a sample from the XBRL Voluntary Filing Program, we document a significant increase in stock price variance on the day when voluntary XBRL reports are filed. We find market response is stronger when more content is filed on the same day. To evaluate relative information value, we decompose the quarterly return variance for three primary news announcements related to earnings including earnings announcement, HTML filing, and XBRL filing. We find XBRL filings have larger relative information value than HTML filings. Our results indicate that the XBRL reporting format provides incremental information content.     

Insights into accounting choice from the adoption timing of International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper collects survey evidence on the costs and benefits of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It also examines the motivations for the timing of IFRS adoption. Significant differences exist between early and late adopters for three of nine benefits and for one of six cost measures. No significant differences exist in terms of firm size or the impact of IFRS on contracts. Early adopters perceive themselves as market leaders. They are more certain about the manageability of implementing IFRS and are more specific with regard to the impact of IFRS adoption. Late adoption decisions are motivated by adverse consequences and uncertainty.     

The roles of book‐tax conformity and tax enforcement in regulating tax reporting behaviour following International Financial Reporting Standards adoption

This study investigates whether increasing the level of tax enforcement can potentially offset the primary cost of a reduction in the level of book‐tax conformity (BTC) following International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption – increased tax avoidance. We find that after the decrease in BTC and the concomitant increase in tax enforcement that followed IFRS adoption in Israel, tax avoidance declined significantly. Our results imply that one of the primary costs of reducing BTC can be avoided. Moreover, the results suggest that rather than one strict regulatory approach to deal with reporting manipulations, a combination of trust and control is more effective and less radical.     

基于财政透明度视角的政府财务报告初探

财政透明是公共财政的本质特征,财政透明度的实现离不开政府财政信息建设。我国现行以预算会计报告为核心的财政信息过于简单且缺乏系统性,使财政与经济政策的选择乃至预算的编制缺乏充分依据。笔者认为,深入研究我国政府财务报告体系的构建问题,使政府财务报告成为沟通政府与民众间的重要信息源和体现政府财政透明度的重要载体,具有十分重要意义。     

Meeting user information needs: The impact of major changes in FASB and GASB standards on financial reporting by colleges and universities

This longitudinal study reports the impact of changes in generally accepted accounting principles on financial statement disclosures for 100 public and private institutions of higher education. Disclosures from the period when all colleges and universities followed the same accounting standards are compared with disclosures in periods after major changes in accounting and reporting standards were made by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for private institutions and by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) for public institutions. We find that an importance-weighted disclosure index shows that user needs are better met using the new reporting standards for public but not private institutions. An expanded unweighted index, however, shows improvement for both public and private colleges and universities. Using this disclosure index, the improvement for universities reporting under GASB standards exceeded the improvement for those reporting under FASB standards.     

The moderating effect of innovation on the relationship between environmental and financial performance: Evidence from high emitters in Australia

This study examines whether environmental-related innovation moderates the association between environmental and financial performance measured respectively as carbon emissions and return on assets (ROA). The sample comprises 119 companies subject to Australia's National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act (NGER) for the period 2009–2017. The results show that environmental innovation positively moderates the relationship between environmental performance and financial performance. The findings also imply that the impact of environmental innovation in improving environmental performance is observable with a 1-year lag. The results are robust to the alternative financial performance measures of Tobin's Q and Altman's Z score. The findings have important implications for company managers and policymakers and provide useful information on innovation's role in enhancing environmental and financial performance.     

Diffusion of integrated reporting,insights and potential avenues for future research

This study reviews the diffusion of integrated reporting (IR) research. The systematic literature review method is used to review the effects of IR at the organisational level, determinants of IR adoption and integrated report quality (IRQ), assurance on IR, economic consequences of IR/IRQ, and research design issues to set agendas for future research. The review covers 119 peer-reviewed IR articles published in 36 journals between 2012 and 2021. It finds that the IR literature is dominated by organisational-level studies, but there is limited research on the economic consequences of IR/IRQ, and the findings are inconclusive to date. Further, the factors that determine IR adoption/IRQ are not conclusive, and there is scarce research on IR assurance. This review contributes to the emerging IR literature and provides valuable insights to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) in establishing the IR framework as a global reporting norm in practice.