Accounting Quality in Eastern Europe after Communism

Research Question/Issue: This study, in the taxonomy of Schiehll and Martins (2016 Schiehll, E. and H. C. Martins. 2016. Cross-national governance research: A systematic review and assessment. Corporate Governance: An International Review 24 (3):181–99. doi:10.1111/corg.12158.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), examines cross-national corporate governance, within their “legal” category. It rests on the understanding that to fully grasp corporate governance it is essential to understand the embedded institutions. The research question is: Does an increase in legal quality cause an associated increase in the quality of corporate governance in the form of financial reports to investors? If so, this supports the fundamental importance of legal systems to earnings quality. Reliable evidence on whether there is an association between legal quality and financial reporting quality would be an empirical association showing that where legal quality is higher, earnings quality is also higher, and conversely.

Research Findings/Insights: The results show clearly that in 2005 and 2010, when adequate data are available for testing, earnings quality is poor: far more companies show small gains than small losses. A great deal of managerial discretion is exercised in arriving at accounting figures, since many amounts depend on forecasts of future events. A significant number of firms use that latitude to show positive earnings. As to patterns of earnings management among three clusters of countries, the small number of firms generally precludes strong statistically supported evidence of management within the clusters. Nevertheless, the whole is the sum of the parts, and the parts (clusters) indicate the clusters most responsible for the overall result. There is little evidence of small gains exceeding small losses in the Baltics, greater differences in the Visegrád countries, and big differences in southern Europe.

Theoretical/Academic Implications: Based on both (a) the historical background of legal systems and (b) attitudes concerning legal quality measured at the same time as the earnings measures, the accounting results are consistent with the prediction of a strong legal culture driving effective corporate governance.

Practitioner/Policy Implications: The results show that eastern firms, on aggregate, have yet to reach the level of their western counterparts. However, the differences do not seem highly significant, and indicate that convergence is close in this area. This, in turn, should guide and encourage legislators in their work.     

Review: Chinese public administration and finance—a call for a new theory,research and dialogue

In implementing its national strategy to achieve global leadership, China needs a new public administration theory that integrates political administration, economic management and social regulation. Even so, China has already started to promote its brand of political and economic development abroad. Therefore new comparative research and dialogue is called to explore the universality of Chinese and Western public administration ideas.     

Do Boards of Directors Influence Corporate Sustainable Development? An Attention‐Based Analysis

Following the attention‐based view of the firm (ABV), boards of directors’ link to corporate sustainable development (CSD) could be dependent upon certain attention structures: valuation of environmental stimuli, rules of the game and the players. Studying a sample of large Australian firms, the findings indicate that the proposed attention‐directing structures do appear to be linked to CSD in a manner consistent with the ABV. Specifically, creating awareness through scanning efforts links boards to CSD. Stakeholder debate, as a boardroom rule, is also significantly associated with CSD. Furthermore, as a so‐called ‘player’ on the board, women directors have a moderating effect on the relationships between environmental scanning, stakeholder debate and CSD. The findings are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The impacts of governance and institutions on inbound tourism demand: evidence from a dynamic panel data study

This study explores the impact of governance and institutions on inbound tourism demand in Malaysia using a dynamic panel data approach for 45 tourism source countries over the period 2005–2015. The results show that institutions play a very important role in explaining the behaviour of inbound tourism demand. To obtain a better picture, we investigate the response of international tourists to disaggregated institutional quality. We find that international tourists are more concerned about political stability, governmental effectiveness, regulations, laws, and corruption than voice and accountability. Therefore, policymakers should focus on ways to improve institutional quality to significantly increase international tourist arrivals.     

Setting and vetting strategy: Bridging the chasm between CEOs and boards

One of directors’ key fiduciary duties is to set the firm’s direction and then vet the strategy proposed by the CEO. Despite this, McKinsey reports that the majority of directors feel they do not understand their firm’s strategy, and even if they do understand it, they do not feel they have the desired impact on their firm’s strategy. This article argues that this shortfall stems from a failure to cross the chasm between CEOs and directors. We propose a framework to bridge this gap and assist board members to better understand and vet their firm’s strategy.     

The changing place of fraud in seventeenth-century public debates about international trading corporations

Abstract

This article surveys the changing role of fraud (dishonest and immoral commercial practices) in public justifications for corporate management of overseas trade in England across the seventeenth century. It argues that the perceived likelihood of fraud in international commercial settings played a critical role in public justifications for trading corporations at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The article suggests that these justifications were challenged from the 1690s. It explores three aspects of this challenge: first, the ways in which agents of the East India Company convinced the Company to liberate private trade (an activity previously defined as fraudulent by the Company and the Courts); second, the arguments from the 1680s that depicted the joint-stock corporation as an unaccountable, soulless entity whose claim to public trust looked less credible; third, how decades of accumulated experience of international trading contexts (and interactions with non-European merchants) prompted pamphleteers to promote the possibility (and reality) of unregulated trade in those settings. All three helped to erode the former association between private individual trade in international contexts as likely to encourage dishonesty, immorality, and fraud. This change therefore led to the corporate body itself becoming a possible vehicle for fraud rather than the individual international merchant (who the corporation was meant originally to regulate). The article analyses public deliberations about fraud and corporations to make interventions in the history of economic thought, the history of trading companies, and the history of economic crime (and especially its rhetorical role in debates about the regulation of trade).     

Contextualising capability development: configurations of knowledge governance mechanisms in project-based organizations

Given the project-based organization’s (PBO) strong focus on autonomy and temporary decentralisation, it faces unique challenges with regard to long-term organisational learning and capability development. To address how PBOs cope with these challenges, we address the role of knowledge governance (KG) mechanisms to foster capability development. The present paper reports on a multiple case study comprising 23 PBOs and demonstrates the importance of ‘configurations of KG mechanisms’ for facilitating learning and capability development. This paper develops four distinct configurations (balanced, formalistic, interactive, and fragile) that promote three principal organisational-level learning processes: shifting, leveraging and adapting. This research underscores the close relationship between knowledge governance mechanisms and capability development and the importance of designing the appropriate configuration of KG mechanisms to foster capability development.     

Debt contract strictness and auditor specialization

The conflicts of interest among managers, shareholders and creditors resulting in agency costs, can be mitigated by restricting managers’ adverse behavior, through financial covenants to better align the various stakeholder interests. Thus, debt contract strictness represents an important aspect of agency costs between creditors, shareholders, and management that is not always captured by interest rates. The contract setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate how creditors may rely on auditors to alleviate information uncertainty stemming from reliance on management's financial reporting and thus alleviate the creditor's potential loss of invested capital. After controlling for borrower risks, loan characteristics, and audit factors, we show that auditor industry specialization is significantly associated with a reduction in the strictness of debt contracts, consistent with creditors viewing certain industry expert auditors as effective monitors against financial reporting manipulation aimed at the avoidance of debt covenant triggers that protect creditors against potential loss. Further, we find that the association between loan strictness and auditor specialization is attenuated by stronger corporate governance systems, external monitors, and prior lender relationships.     

Determinants of materiality disclosure quality in integrated reporting: Empirical evidence from an international setting

This study examines determinants of materiality disclosure quality (MDQ) in integrated reporting (IR) in an international setting. To this purpose, we constructed a novel, hand‐collected MDQ score in line with the <IR> guiding principles introduced by the International Integrated Reporting Council. On the basis of a cross‐national sample consisting of 359 firm‐year observations between 2013 and 2016, we find that MDQ is positively associated with learning effects, gender diversity, and the assurance of nonfinancial information in the integrated report. On the other hand, we find that IR readability, listing in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and earnings management do not affect MDQ. Our results are robust to different statistical models. We expand on earlier empirical findings on IR disclosure quality and provide valuable insights for research, practice, and standard setting.     

Value relevance of multinational directorship and cross-listing on MNEs national governance disclosure practices in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Nigeria

We draw on institutional isomorphism literature to develop a conceptual framework which uncovers how emerging market MNEs manage institutional tensions and complexity in corporate governance (CG) regulations within and across economic environments. Using a sample of 400 firm-year observations (2011–2015) from Nigeria, we show foreign directorship and cross-listing as significant avenues for governance isomorphism. MNEs employ these mechanisms to manage and reconcile foreign and Nigerian CG regulations whilst overcoming institutional weaknesses at home. Specifically, governance isomorphism leads to improvement of home country CG disclosures practices because of associated linkages with international CG systems through cross-listing and employment of multinational directors.