Exploring the Relationship between Sustainability Reporting and Sustainability Management Practices

There has been a dramatic uptake of sustainability reporting (SR) and sustainability management practices over the last two decades, in turn raising questions about the relationship between external disclosure and internal practice of corporate sustainability. Previous literature has emphasized the role of external pressures in driving SR adoption. However, as recent practitioner surveys also identify the existence of internal motives for SR, a more comprehensive analysis of this relationship is needed. In order to address this issue, we develop a framework accounting for four company‐level SR configurations, resulting from different levels of importance of external and internal motives for SR. Then, four exploratory cases serve to illustrate these configurations and to describe the respective roles of SR at the company level. As considerable diversity among these SR practices is found, our findings point to the relevance of both external and internal motives in understanding SR contribution to corporate sustainability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The preparedness of companies to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards: Portuguese evidence

This paper uses ordinal regression, structural equation modelling, and multivariate analysis techniques to investigate the preparedness to adopt IFRS that was exhibited by listed Portuguese companies in August 2003. We find the level of preparedness was significantly associated with company size, commercial internationalization, audit by a ‘Big 4’ accounting firm, and profitability. Our findings will help to indicate the pre-conditions that are likely to spur lagging companies (and countries) to prepare to implement IFRS.     

从可持续发展视角谈“整合报告”对企业价值的贡献

＂整合报告＂代表了企业报告发展的最新趋势。2010年8月,全球报告倡议组织（GRI）与威尔士王子可持续会计项目（A4S）联合成立了国际整合报告委员会（IIRC）,便旨在推动全球建立统一的整合报告框架,该框架建议企业提供一份将财务、环境、社会责任和治理信息经整合的报告,由此掀起了一场关注整合报告的热潮。本文另辟蹊径,从可持续发展理论出发,诠释了整合报告与企业价值创造和可持续发展之间的传导问题。     

对于推进重大事项报告工作提高金融稳定履职能力的观察与思考

2011年5月,中国人民银行长春中心支行按照人民银行总行要求,制定实施了《吉林省银行业金融机构重大事项报告制度》,组织银行业金融机构开展了重大事项报告工作。两年来,在全省各级银行业金融机构大力配合和积极支持下,通过上下联动,大力宣传,组织培训,执法检查等方式,有效促进重大事项报告工作开展,取得显著成效。根据金融稳定工作的新形势、新要求,2013年9月,长春中心支行对《吉林省银行业金融机构重大事项报告制度》进行了修改完善,将适用范围扩大到证券期货业、保险业及资产管理公司。本文分析了推进重大事项报告工作的意义,提出了目前工作中存在的问题,最后提出了提高重大事项报告工作效率的途径与方法。     

碳排放权交易机制下提升企业温室气体排放监测报告能力研究

温室气体排放监测、报告与核证（MRV）制度不仅是获取真实准确温室气体排放数据的重要途径,更是进行温室气体减排政策创新、构建基于市场机制的碳排放权交易体系的核心内容。企业作为市场参与的主体,需要不断提升其在温室气体排放监测报告上的能力,以适应市场发展和政策要求。本文在对监测报告制度的理论基础、内涵要求及运行机理进行全面阐述的基础上,分析了我国企业温室气体排放监测报告能力和管理水平建设的现状及面临的主要问题,并提出若干对策建议。     

Development of accounting regulation in Jordan

This study examines the development of accounting regulation in Jordan with emphasis on the dominant environmental factors that influence it. In order to have a better understanding of Jordan's present accounting practices, and its future development tendencies, we examine the path of accounting in Jordan since the early days of the nineteenth century, and analyze how Jordan's accounting environment — political, economic, legal and cultural — influenced the development of accounting in Jordan. We also examine Jordan's recent move towards full adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and find that Jordan's colonial past has exerted a strong influence. In addition, we conclude that political and economic factors, through privatization and the resulting accounting reforms, contributed more to the development of accounting practices than other environmental factors. Privatization led to reforming Jordan's disclosure regulation and laying down of the corporate-governance policy framework. Our conclusions could be of interest to other countries, particularly developing countries, who want to improve the quality of their accounting disclosures and practices.     

Prospects: A Missing Piece of Current Selling Price Reporting

This article seeks to provide insights about a conceptual objection to current selling price reporting: that, in its determination of asset amounts, such reporting ignores the reporting entity's prospects (potential, promise, outlook) for achievement of possession of or of access to consumer general purchasing power beyond its achievement to date of such possession or access. The article argues that financial reports should provide (a) information that is helpful to the users to evaluate the prospects of the reporting entity, including financial statement information based on current selling price reporting, (b) a section of the income statement presenting amounts spent during the reporting period to enhance the reporting entity's prospects, and (c) various kinds of supplementary information to aid the evaluations, such as the kinds discussed in this article.     

论我国政府财务报告制度的构建——基于财政透明度的考察

政府向公众提供政府财务报告,是提高财政透明度、强化政府公共受托责任的内在要求.目前,我国尚未建立真正意义上的政府财务报告制度,财政透明度与国际货币基金组织的基本要求相比尚存在较大差距.为了提高财政透明度,必须要建立和完善政府财务报告制度.具体而言,应当从报告目标、报告主体、会计基础、核算范围等方面对现有的预算会计制度进行全方位的改革,以逐步建立我国的政府会计和政府财务报告制度.但是,政府会计改革和政府财务报告制度的构建是一项综合性的改革工程,应当采用分阶段、逐步推进的方法来进行.     

Perpetual securities and stock prices: Korean evidence

Perpetual securities are classified as equity under the International Financial Reporting Standards, but various contract terms embedded in the securities create additional debt- and equity-like characteristics. This study examines whether stock market investors differentiate between diverse contract attributes. Using quarterly data on listed non-financial firms in the Korea Exchange that issued perpetual securities during 2012–2020, we document the following findings. First, perpetual securities are positively associated with stock prices. Second, the positive association is driven by perpetual securities convertible to stocks rather than non-convertible ones. Third, when further decomposing convertible perpetual securities based on whether the conversion price is fixed or floating, only fixed-priced convertibles show a positive association with stock prices. Overall, our findings suggest that equity investors consider the detailed contract attributes important for financial instruments.     

Genetic engineering in agriculture: New approaches for risk management through sustainability reporting

Genetically modified crops and foodstuff have been highly controversial for environmental, health, and ethical reasons. The controversies have been worldwide, but most prominent in the European Union, for reasons that include distrust of the regulatory authorities, scientists and technocratic decision making. An informal moratorium in the EU came recently to an end, without solving the underlying problems. In response to the criticisms, the European governments have attempted to improve the risk assessment methods and their scientific basis, and to tailor public policies to the growing demand for transparency, accountability, and public participation.This paper proposes a novel approach to including the public in evaluating the impacts of food and agricultural biotechnology and present and future applications modeled after the growing practice of sustainability reporting by companies. The most visible among those, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), when implemented properly, includes a wide range of stakeholders, including the financial institutions, companies, NGOs and the civil society, in an interactive multi-stakeholder discourse and collaboration. The reporting exercise would open the discussion about the R&D around new GMO products, and could mitigate potential adverse effects in an early stage (Constructive Technology Assessment). We specifically propose initiating a broadly based societal initiative aimed at developing of a new sectoral supplement of GRI Guidelines, specifically designed for the food and agricultural biotechnology sector.This approach can be conceptualized as experimentation on a small scale with a multitude of stakeholders involved (Bounded Socio-Technical Experiment or BSTE) which is an effective venue for higher-order learning among participants. Sustainability reports and BSTEs have been so far applied in limited cases, none of which included highly controversial technologies such as biotechnology; they need further elaboration and testing to become possibly highly effective concepts and tools for mitigating conflicts on the societal implications of emerging technologies, and to lead to better public policies and greater social trust.