Corporate social responsibility: The disclosure–performance gap

As increased stakeholder pressure requires companies to be transparent about their CSR practices, it is essential to know how reliable corporate disclosure mechanisms are, testing the gap between corporate social responsibility claims and actual practice. This study benchmarks corporate social responsibility policies and practices of ten international hotel groups of particular importance to the European leisure market. We found that corporate systems are not necessarily reflective of actual operations, environmental performance is eco-savings driven, labour policies aim to comply with local legislation, socio-economic policies are inward looking with little acceptance of impacts on the destination, and customer engagement is limited. Generally larger hotel groups have more comprehensive policies but also greater gaps in implementation, while the smaller hotel groups focus only on environmental management and deliver what they promised. As the first survey of its kind in tourism, both the methodology and the findings have implications for further research.     

征信体系的作用与效率——基于信息不对称随机有限重复博弈的分析

征信体系的意义可以用重复博弈理论来加以解释.本文建立了一个信息不对称随机有限重复信用博弈模型,证明如果存在征信体系实现的信息共享机制,那么不论借款者的类型是什么,诚实守信是可以作为序列均衡的结果在有限重复博弈的绝大多数时期中出现的.如果不存在信息共享机制,信贷市场有可能消失,即便引入资产抵押,信贷市场仍是不完全的.基于上述序列均衡分析,本文进一步阐释了全面征信、法律保障、市场结构对征信体系效率运行的重要性.就发展中国家而言,成立中性、独立、信息全面的国家信用局和鼓励民营信用公司积极竞争,完善义务征信的法律体系是较为理想和可行的选择     

What Drives Quality of Firm Risk Disclosure? : The Impact of a National Disclosure Standard and Reporting Incentives under IFRS

This paper examines the impact of a detailed national disclosure standard on the quality of firms' overall risk reviews under IFRS. We use data from a sample of listed Finnish firms around the introduction of the standard and find that national regulatory bodies have been able to raise the quality of risk disclosure on several dimensions even under IFRS. We find increases in the quantity of risk disclosure with more extensive and more comprehensive information. We do not, however, find a corresponding increase in quantitative disclosures and therefore there is some question regarding the influence of the standard on the substance of the risk information provided. In addition to the coercive effect of the standard, several important reporting incentives, such as firm size, profitability, and foreign listing status are documented. We also find some evidence that the impact of the standard on quality is more pronounced among less profitable firms. Additional findings are that larger firms and firms reporting under the requirements of the SEC disclose more quantitative risk information, and that the quality improvements are permanent in the subsequent years. The findings have implications for standard-setters evaluating different strategies with the aim to increase the quality of the narratives in annual reports.     

Does Integrated Reporting Matter to the Capital Market?

Integrated reporting (<IR>) is an emerging international corporate reporting initiative to address limitations to extant corporate reporting approaches, which are commonly criticized for being both voluminous and disjointed. While <IR> is gaining in popularity, current momentum has been limited due to a lack of clear evidence of its benefits. Utilizing the most suitable setting currently available, being discretionary disclosures made by listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, this study provides evidence that analyst forecast error reduces as a company's level of alignment with the <IR> framework increases. Further, the improved alignment is associated with a subsequent reduction in the cost of equity capital for certain reporting companies. The results are obtained after controlling for factors relating to financial transparency and the issuance of standalone non‐financial reports, which suggests that <IR> is providing incrementally useful information to the capital market over and above existing reporting mechanisms.     

George Hudson's financial reporting practices: putting the Eastern Counties Railway in context

George Hudson was the most important railway promoter of his time. He had a particular aptitude for visualizing and arranging spectacular company and line amalgamations and his activities helped to bring about the beginnings of a more modern railway network. In 1849 he exercised effective control over nearly 30 per cent of the rail track then operating in the UK, most of it owned by four railway groups, the Eastern Counties Railway, the Midland, the York, Newcastle and Berwick, and the York and North Midland, before a series of scandalous revelations forced him out of office. The economic, railway and accounting literatures have treated George Hudson as an important figure in railway history, although concentrating largely on the financial reporting malpractices of the Eastern Counties Railway, while Hudson was its chairman, which were incorporated into the influential Monteagle Committee Report of 1849. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to events at Hudson's other major companies. This paper analyzes the available evidence, particularly that produced by the Committees of Investigation established at all four railway groups, in order to provide a more balanced assessment of George Hudson's approach to financial reporting and thereby place events at the Eastern Counties Railway in a broader context.     

Auditors' Affirmations of Compliance with IFRS around the World: An Exploratory Study*

It is widely believed that international financial reporting standards (IFRS) have been adopted in many countries, at least for the consolidated reporting of listed companies. However, in nearly all cases, what the rules require is some national or supranational version of IFRS. This might create problems for investor confidence and comparability. We examine what companies and auditors report concerning compliance with IFRS, focusing on the first full year of IFRS reporting by companies in the stock market indices of four major European countries and Australia. We find that, even when companies were complying with IFRS, they were generally not saying so, which seems to miss part of the point of the 35‐year project on international harmonization. In a small number of cases, auditors provided dual reports: on full IFRS in addition to the mandated reference to national GAAP where the latter corresponds with full IFRS. These cases were found only in Germany and the United Kingdom, and mainly related to companies that filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as foreign private issuers. We propose explanations for the general lack of dual reports and for the exceptions. We call for widespread adoption of dual reporting where a plain report on IFRS is not yet possible.     

Limits to forecasting in personalized medicine: An overview

Biomedical research is generating massive amounts of information about potential prognostic factors for health and disease. However, few prognostic factors or systems are robustly validated, and still fewer have made a convincing difference in health outcomes or in prolonging life expectancy. For most diseases and outcomes, a considerable component of the prognostic variance remains unknown, and may remain so for the foreseeable future. I discuss here some of the main problems in medical forecasting that pose obstacles to personalized medicine. Their recognition may help identify solutions to improve personalized prognosis, or at least understand and cope with the component of the future that we cannot predict. Much prognostic research is stuck at generating “publishable units”, without any interest in conclusively proving their worth, let alone moving them into real life applications. Information is reported selectively and reporting is deficient. The replication record of prognostic claims is poor. Even among replicated prognostic effects, few are convincingly shown to add much information besides what is already known through more simple, traditional measurements. There are few efforts to systematize prognostic knowledge. Most prognostic effects are subtle when traced to the molecular level, where most current research operates. Many researchers, clinicians, and the public are not appropriately educated to interpret prognostic information. We still have not even agreed on what the important health outcomes are that we want to predict and intervene for, and some subjectivity may be unavoidable. Finally, without concomitant effective, affordable, and non-harmful interventions, prognosis alone is of questionable value, and wrong prognosis or a wrong interpretation thereof can be harmful. The identification of these problems also suggests a roadmap on what could be done to amend them. Solutions include a systematic approach to the design, conduct, reporting, replication, and clinical translation of prognostic research; as well as the education of researchers, clinicians, and the general public. Finally, we need to recognize that perfect individualized health forecasting is not a realistic target in the foreseeable future, and we have to live with considerable residual uncertainty.     

Compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards and auditor choice: New evidence on the importance of the statutory audit

We examine the impact of auditor choice on IFRS compliance under the assumption of strict exogeneity of auditor choice. Our results reveal that compliance is positively related to auditor choice after controlling for firm size, profitability, leverage, degree of international diversification, and whether a firm has a U.S. listing or was audited according to International Standards of Auditing. We also find that auditor choice is positively related to firm compliance when controlling for unmeasured, firm-specific effects. The results of our study reinforce the importance of developing institutional mechanisms (e.g., enforcement, auditing, or corporate governance structures) to encourage compliance with IFRS.     

大数据时代线领财务报告变革

财务报告的改进离不开信息技术的发展,可扩展商业报告语言（XBRL）推动了财务报告在互联网时代的发展,而大数据时代的技术变革和思维变革将再次引领财务报告新的突破,在财务报告模式的重构、信息披露制度的改进、网络财务报告方面产生重要的影响。     

Impact of International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） Adoption on Key Financial Ratios＂ The Case of the Czech Republic

This contribution analyzes the impact of new International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） reporting rules on financial ratios prepared in the Czech companies. Using a sample of 16 Czech firms, we attempt to measure the scope and size of the differences in the selected set of financial ratios as calculated with data reported according to the traditional Czech accounting standards （CAS） and under the IFRS provisions. Our study discovers that there are important differences resulting from the two reporting formats. Our research comes to a conclusion that translation of Czech statements to IFRS may cause changes in the values of financial indicators without relationship to the real change in the firms＇ value, performance, and stability. Even though the findings were not statistically significant, the indicative results of our measurements disclosed an important fact that the transition to IFRS could cause deterioration of key indicators and thereby could impact on the overall rating of companies. One needs to be cautious with generalization due to the small sample size.