Does Size Matter? Evaluating Corporate Environmental Disclosure in the Australian Mining and Metal Industry: A Combined Approach of Quantity and Quality Measurement

There are an increasing number of companies in the mining and metals sector disclosing environmental sustainability information in their annual reports, sustainability reports and corporate internet web pages. However, there is ongoing debate about the relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure. That is, does an increase in number equate to an increase in quality? This study investigates the relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure reports. Using content analysis, we examine the environmental disclosure of 55 Australian mining and metal companies which are listed among the Australian Securities Exchange's (ASX) Top 100 mining and metal sector companies. We find that the size of firms influences both the quantity and the quality of corporate environmental disclosure. That is, we find that market capitalization is positively and significantly correlated to the quantity (number of words) and the quality of disclosure. We also confirm that there is a very highly significant, positive correlation between quantity (number of words) and quality of environmental disclosure. In order to investigate any differences between the top performing group and the bottom performing group in terms of environmental disclosure quality, further analysis also confirms that there is a positive relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

从绿诺国际财务事件看海外借壳上市公司的会计和审计问题

借壳上市是中国公司海外上市的一种方式,然而近年来中国公司频频出现的财务问题引发了SEC对中国赴美借壳上市公司展开大规模调查。文章结合绿诺公司财务事件对中国公司海外借壳上市过程中出现的会计和审计问题进行了探讨,并分别从上市公司和监管机构的层面提出了相应建议。     

Labor Unemployment Concern and Corporate Discretionary Disclosure

We investigate how firms strategically vary their disclosure policies in response to labor unemployment concern. Using changes in state unemployment insurance laws as exogenous variations of labor unemployment concern, we show that firms provide more bad news forecasts when unemployment concern is low. This relation is stronger when firms are financially constrained, when CEOs and CFOs have higher equity incentives, and when workers are likely to be affected more by unemployment. Our findings are not driven by earnings management reversal or underlying performance changes, and are robust to a battery of identification tests. Finally, we find a similar effect of unemployment concern on disclosure using the tone of 10‐K and 10‐Q filings as an alternative proxy for corporate disclosure. Overall, our findings suggest that labor unemployment concern is an important consideration for corporate discretionary disclosure.     

Revisiting carbon disclosure and performance: Legitimacy and management views

With corporate disclosure of carbon emissions rapidly increasing, the long-standing question remains whether carbon disclosure has any influence on the improvement of carbon performance. Previous studies of environmental disclosure and performance have predominantly focused on whether disclosure is a substitute for poor performance. Little attention has been devoted to the more important question about how changes in disclosure may lead to subsequent changes in performance over time. Following the rationales taken by the legitimacy and management perspectives, we revisit the relationship between carbon disclosure and performance, with a focus on changes that disclosure may (or may not) create. Using a change analysis of Global 500 companies and their carbon emission and disclosure data released between 2008 and 2012, this study finds that the change in carbon disclosure levels is positively associated with a subsequent change in carbon performance (examined through direct and indirect carbon emission intensities). Thus, regardless of whether disclosure has been used as a legitimising tool for prior poor performance, this study confirms that carbon disclosure motivates companies and creates an ‘outside-in’ driven effect for subsequent change and improvement in carbon performance. However, the association between changes in carbon disclosure and performance is relatively weaker in high energy-intensive firms.     

The Influence of Board Composition on Sustainable Development Disclosure

Despite knowing the potential effect of social reporting on firms' continuity, there is limited research into the influence of the composition of boards of directors on CSR disclosure. This paper adds to the emerging CSR literature empirical evidence by examining how board composition relates to a firm's social and environmental disclosure as well as the implementation of social policies. Using a sample of FTSE 350 firms for the period 2007–2012, the results show that higher board independence facilitates the conveying of firms' good citizenship image through enhancing societal conscience. The results also show that female participation on boards is favorably affecting CSR engagement and reporting as well as the establishment of ethical policies. Hence, the research suggests that boards with higher female participation and independence boost the legitimacy of CSR reporting. Board gender diversity and independence facilitates directing part of the firm's scarce resources toward value maximizing social projects and subsequent reporting on these. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Firm location,political geography and environmental information disclosure

As the subjective and objective factors that influence corporate behaviours, political region and firm location are of great importance to environmental information disclosure (EID). With spatial and political geography as a research perspective, this article makes a study by using the samples of manufacturing listed companies from 2009 to 2011. As a result, we determine that regulatory distance and political geography had negative effects on EID, while political geography weakens regulatory distance’s function. After considering an enterprise’s administrative rank, we determined that when the rank is higher, regulatory distance has negative effects on EID; when the rank is lower, the effects are the opposite. Regarding political geography, it always weakened the regulatory distance’s function. Moreover, the effects are significant only when the enterprises had low governmental regulation. The study shows the effects that firm location and political geography have made on EID. At the same time, this study also gives theoretical and empirical evidence to the necessity of raising governmental regulatory effectiveness.     

会计信息披露过剩:评价与启示

美国财务会计准则委员会的公认会计原则和美国证券交易委员会的系列规则共同构成了美国资本市场的信息披露制度体系。这一体系中存在的披露过剩问题在近20年来不断遭到人们的批评。现阶段,我国有很多准则没有制定出来,完全可以采纳SEC提出的效率化、简单化和现代化的观点,来制定能够反映我国经济实质的准则和信息披露规范。     

关于会计信息披露的问题及治理对策

上市公司会计信息披露的质量对投资者的投资决策起着重要的作用。近年来,由于会计造假事件的频繁发生,使得投资者对上市公司的信任产生了危机。出现这种情况的根本原因在于公司治理结构不合理。为此应以完善公司治理结构为核心,同时加强会计信息披露制度的建设,加大对信息披露的社会和政府的监管力度,提升信息使用者的品质等,逐步形成一个完善的会计信息披露体系。     

浅谈上市公司会计信息披露存在的问题及对策

我国证券市场尚处于逐步发展完善阶段,虽然建立了一些上市公司会计信息披露制度,但还不够健全,存在问题很多,这不利于其健康发展。本文针对上市公司会计信息披露制度中存在的问题,提出了一些对策,进而提高会计信息披露的质量。