我国上市公司内部控制评价与报告体系的构建

我国上市公司内部控制评价与报告制度存在缺乏清晰的工作步骤和程序,缺失内部控制评价工具的相关准则,信息披露的责任机制不够完善等问题。适合我国的内部控制评价与报告框架体系应包括:内部控制自我评价、外部审计师审核鉴证、内部控制报告披露等三部分内容,内部控制自我评价和外部审计师审核鉴证应具有相互独立的工作步骤和业务流程。自我评价报告与鉴证报告共同构成上市公司内部控制披露报告。     

Annual Reporting and Accountability by Municipalities in Canada: An Empirical Investigation*

Prior research regarding reporting and accountability by local governments in several countries has questioned the value of traditional annual reporting and the level of accountability to the public. This article reports on comparable research for local governments throughout Canada. The disclosure index methodology is used to evaluate the quality and quantity of information published in the annual reports and in the financial statements of Canadian local governments in 2003 with a comparison in 2005. Although all municipalities published audited financial statements, less than one‐third of municipalities published a comprehensive annual report in 2003. The results show an overall low disclosure index with significant improvements in 2005 compared to 2003 and significant differences across the country. The results, largely consistent with previously published international studies, raise questions about local government accountability and about the conceptual framework for local government reporting.     

Performance reporting: a comparative study of British and Irish charities

The concept of accountability seems inextricably linked with the view that accounting should provide information to satisfy the information needs of users. The user-needs model is now well established as a useful basis for a conceptual framework for charity reporting, and annual reports are recognised as key documents in the discharge of accountability to external users. It has been suggested that both financial information and also performance information should be disclosed to aid the discharge of accountability. However, previous empirical work conducted in Britain found that while audited financial information was most frequently disclosed by charities, users viewed wider performance information as being of greater importance. No comparable work has been conducted in Ireland. This paper focuses on information outside the financial statements and seeks to identify the type and extent of the reporting of performance information by charities in both Britain and Ireland. The main findings of the research are: performance reporting by British charities, although limited, is considerably better than that of their Irish counterparts; performance reporting by British charities has increased over time; and large charities (both in Britain and Ireland) provide more extensive performance information than small charities. These findings are discussed in both the context of accountability and in terms of conceivable economic incentives for disclosure. In addition, possible reasons for lower disclosure rates by Irish charities are explored.     

Country-specific risks and geographic disclosure aggregation: Voluntary disclosure behaviour by British multinationals

Country-by-country reporting can promote accountability and corporate transparency by highlighting the activities of multinational firms in different countries. We examine the voluntary disclosure behaviour of leading British multinational firms in respect of country-specific risks. Specifically, we consider whether British multinationals' engagement in geographic disclosure aggregation/disaggregation of their country-by-country operations is associated with the country-specific business, economic, and political risks faced by their principal operating subsidiaries. We study the information disclosed in two key sections of corporate annual reports: segment information, and principal uncertainties and risks. Our findings show that British multinationals are less likely to voluntarily report their segment and risk information on a disaggregated geographic country-by-country basis if they are engaged in operations in countries associated with higher levels of country-specific risks. Country-specific risk disclosures are an important case, consistent with voluntary disclosure theory, where costs tend to outweigh benefits from the perspective of what is perceived to be in a multinational firm's best interests.     

Corporate social responsibility reporting: A comprehensive picture?

This study develops a content analysis framework that provides information on the comprehensiveness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, an important aspect of social and environmental accountability. Comprehensive reporting, as defined here, requires three types of information for each disclosed CSR item: (i) vision and goals, (ii) management approach, and (iii) performance indicators. The feasibility of the framework to assess the comprehensiveness of CSR reporting is demonstrated using the 2005 annual reports of a sample of publicly traded Belgian companies. The content analysis reveals a low level of comprehensive reporting. This finding complements those of prior studies on the completeness of CSR reporting and, therefore, feeds the debate regarding the extent to which CSR reporting can be considered a mechanism for discharging social and environmental accountability.     

The joint impact of accountability and transparency on managers’ reporting choices and owners’ reaction to those choices

We report the results of an experiment designed to investigate the fundamental conflict of interest between managers and owners in a financial reporting setting. In our setting, owners seek accurate reports of financial performance whereas managers have incentives to distort performance reports in a self-serving fashion. Regulatory responses to such conflicts often call for improved disclosure, including more accountability and transparency (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Dodd-Frank Act). We use the term accountability to imply answerability—wherein managers are required to reconcile the difference between reported and actual performance. We predict and find that when managers’ incentives are transparently disclosed, accountability does not rein in managers’ opportunistic reporting. By comparison, when managers’ incentives are less transparently disclosed (opaque), accountability dampens managers’ propensity to misreport. However, this reduction in opportunistic reporting due to accountability comes about because managers offset higher reporting bias in compensation periods with lower reporting bias in other periods. Therefore, not only are the benefits of accountability restricted to the setting where managers’ incentives are opaque, but the reduced reporting bias might arise due to window-dressing. Although managers seem to care enough about accountability to engage in window-dressing, financial incentives seem to dominate accountability, at least in our setting. We also find that managers’ payoffs are higher when their incentives are opaque, but owners’ payoffs are invariant regardless of whether incentives are transparent or opaque. Our analyses suggest that owners may be relying on accountability to curb opportunistic reporting by managers—a reliance that may be misplaced. Our findings have implications for regulatory responses aimed at addressing conflicts of interest.     

How can the public trust charities? The role of performance accountability reporting

Charities rely on public trust to exist. However, that trust has diminished, with a perceived lack of accountability seen as a key reason. This study draws on case studies of two New Zealand charities to examine their performance accountability reporting practices and potential implications for public trust. The findings surface the day‐to‐day agency of charity actors in shifting performance accountability practices towards modes of disclosure that are relevant and accessible to the public. This paper contributes to the literature by extending understandings of how charities produce accountability information that can enhance public trust and, thus, support their mission achievement.     

Corporate silence: environmental disclosure and the north american free trade agreement

This paper uses the highly politicized passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its environmental side agreement as a venue to explore the nature of accountability and environmental disclosure. The components of accountability (account-giver, relationships, power and conduct that matters) are outlined. While notions of accountability would lead us to expect a modicum of relevant disclosure, the empirical results are otherwise. Environmental disclosure was drawn from the database, Disclosure, for US and Canadian companies for year ends covering the period 1990 to 1995. Only nine references to the effect of NAFTA on the ecological environment were found. The conclusion is reached that managers and companies do not see themselves as accountable for or liable to speak about their environmental performance in connection with NAFTA. Aspects of power and accountability are discussed and a few comments are offered on a way forward.     

Shareholder Requirements for Compulsory Environmental Information in Annual Reports and on Websites

Growing general concern regarding the natural environment may cause shareholders to require more accountability for environmental issues from the companies in which they invest. We do a survey of shareholders in three major Anglophone countries (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to determine whether they require compulsory environmental disclosure and where they would prefer companies to disclose such information. In all three countries, shareholders prefer compulsory environmental disclosure in annual reports (preferably in a separate section addressing the issue), as well as disclosure on websites, whereas separate environmental reports are less popular as a disclosure medium. Overall, legislation is preferred as a method to mandate environmental disclosure, with accounting standards more popular among American shareholders. The implication is that regulators may have to reconsider their current stance regarding corporate environmental disclosure.     

Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in regulatory space: Reporting and disclosure by community interest companies

In 2005, the British parliament passed legislation to make available the first new legal form of incorporation in over a century: the Community Interest Company (CIC). This initiative represented an important element within a larger set of public policy measures that aimed to create a more enabling environment for the accelerated growth of social entrepreneurship and, specifically, social enterprises. In an exploratory study, this paper presents an analysis of the regulatory space within which the reporting and disclosure practices for CICs were negotiated. Three elements within the regulatory space are identified as having explanatory value: regulatory boundaries that set and limit the terms of negotiation around regulatory practice; the key actors that engage in a process of negotiation around the establishment of actual practice; the range of debate and conflicting ideas that inform regulatory negotiation and legitimating consensus. The analysis suggests that a normative logic of light touch regulation was of particular importance within the wider UK policy context from within which CICs emerged and that the CIC Regulator acts as a mediator of disclosure information across multiple user constituencies. Empirically, this paper draws upon a sample of 80 published CIC annual reports to consider two aspects of CIC reporting: the quantity of information provided and the type of data presented. These data demonstrate the limitations and challenges of current CIC regulatory disclosure practices for key users of reporting information, particularly in terms of perceptions of organizational legitimacy. Conclusions are drawn concerning these limitations, particularly in terms of their implications for public policy.     

Comparative analysis of environmental,social, and governance disclosures

We examine the level of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability disclosure by firms between two regimes where disclosure is mandatory versus voluntary. We use the regulatory environment between the United States (US) and European Union (EU) to compare ESG disclosures. Firms in the US are currently under a voluntary disclosure regime. In contrast, EU members are under a mandatory disclosure regulatory regime that began in 2017. We find that EU firms outperform US firms under voluntary disclosure requirements (2007–2016), and the ESG disclosure of EU firms further improves relative to US firms after the implementation of the mandatory disclosure in Europe in 2017. Our results suggest that the 2017 adoption of disclosure guidelines in the EU is associated with improvements in EU firms' ESG disclosure. Our results regarding the value-relevance of ESG disclosure support a move toward mandatory ESG disclosures. Results support current initiatives that have been taken by global regulators and stock exchanges in recommending and requiring globally listed companies to disclose their ESG sustainability information to portray accurate and comprehensive corporate reporting. The results further our understanding of how firms from different institutional environment settings may have disclosed their ESG practices, thus providing opportunities for future research.     

Charity performance reporting,regulatory approaches and standard-setting

Internationally, there are strong calls for charities’ formal annual reporting to include non-financial performance information. Without the international standards common in other sectors, national accounting standard-setters often regulate charities’ reporting. Lacking evidence on approaches to encouraging/mandating charity performance reporting, and the effectiveness of these approaches, we ask: “How have different jurisdictions responded to calls for increasing performance reporting?”We conduct a benchmarking study that indicates differences in current reporting practices between Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. By discussing both current regimes and proposed projects, we develop and illustrate a typology of regulatory approaches to performance reporting. These range from command and control, where standard-setters mandate specific performance reporting standards, through to market regulation, where charities and/or sector bodies acting as regulatory entrepreneurs determine what is to be reported. Between these extremes, the typology describes new governance approaches, with standard-setters partnering and collaborating with other actors. These approaches lead to different requirements with potentially significant implications for performance accountability in the respective jurisdictions. We argue that our regulatory typology contributes useful insights for the many jurisdictions grappling with how to regulate their charity sector and encourage performance reporting.     

The dark side of transparency: Does the Nigeria extractive industries transparency initiative help or hinder accountability and corruption control?

This study explores the dark side of transparency by problematizing the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) as a transparency, accountability and anti-corruption initiative in Nigeria. It does this by interrogating the underlying assumptions that transparency in the form of increased information disclosure inevitably leads to enhanced accountability and reduced corruption. Theoretic insights are drawn from the transparency literature as well as from the International Accounting Standards Board's framework for financial reporting. The findings enable a more nuanced understanding of transparency – where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to unintended outcomes. They show how increased information disclosure conceals and legitimises the weak and corrupt reporting systems and practices of government agencies. They highlight the importance of understandability of information disclosed as a key requirement of transparency. They illustrate that transparency is a complex social process by highlighting the means by which the government tries to gain control of the NEITI organisation and how NEITI's ability to operate effectively is dependent on the political will of the government in power. The findings also demonstrate that the instrument through which transparency is enacted is itself a central actor in the transparency process as historical corruption within the NEITI bureaucracy as well as the opacity of NEITI as an organisation lead to outcomes of distrust, uncertainty and doubt amongst NEITIs target audience.     

Mandatory Environmental Disclosures by Companies Complying with IASs/IFRSs: The Cases of France,Germany, and the UK

This study investigates whether the adoption of a single set of accounting standards, such as IASs/IFRSs, guarantees the harmonization of accounting practices within a country and across countries, or whether differences in reporting practices persist because of dissimilarities in reporting habits and institutional settings. To this end, we investigate whether the level of environmental disclosure under IFRSs is related to the size of the reporting firm, and the strength of legal and regulatory constraints on environmental disclosures in the country where the firm is domiciled. Results indicate (1) that environmental disclosures imposed by IFRSs increase with firm size, and (2) that firms domiciled in countries with constraining environmental disclosure regulations (i.e., France and the UK) report more on environmental issues than firms domiciled in countries with weakly constraining regulations (i.e., Germany). This suggests a strong impact of national regulations on IFRS reporting. Taken as a whole, our results support the view that IFRSs are not applied consistently across firms and across countries, notably because of persistence of reporting traditions and discrepancies in national legal requirements.     

Incentives for risk reporting — A discretionary disclosure and cheap talk approach

This paper adopts and reviews discretionary disclosure and cheap talk models to analyze risk reporting incentives and their relation to regulation. Given its inherent discretion, risk reporting depends on disclosure incentives. To assess these incentives the analytical models consider risk reporting as an endogenous feature, thereby providing a benchmark to discuss regulatory attempts. Particularly, discretionary disclosure models refer to verified disclosure, e.g., on risk factors or risk management, whereas cheap talk models refer to unverified disclosure, like managerial forecasts on the impact of risk factors. This provides an analytically-based framework for discussion. Unlike prior literature, which focuses on disclosure cost, I argue that uncertainty of information endowment and issues of credible communication can explain restricted risk reporting observed empirically. Linking regulatory attempts to these restrictions implies that regulation may mitigate the incentives-driven restrictions to some extent, but can have adverse effects on risk reporting. I particularly discuss the link between effective risk monitoring and the precision of risk reporting; the ex post assessment and usefulness of managerial forecasts on impacts of risk factors; the claimed decreasing cost of capital by mandatory risk reporting; and the threat of self-fulfilling prophecies. While the discussion has implications for both specific risk reporting requirements and empirical research, overall results suggest that we should not overestimate the informativeness of risk reporting even in a regulated environment.     

Discretionary compliance with mandatory environmental disclosures: Evidence from SEC filings

We examine the determinants of adherence to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated disclosures of environmental sanctions. Our sample includes non-superfund U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sanctions between 1996 and 2005. Our results suggest that firms are more likely to provide sanction disclosures if they operate in environmentally sensitive industries, are subject to larger penalties and are voluntarily participating in a supplemental environmental project. Our results also suggest that firms are less likely to disclose sanctions involving judicial proceedings. Overall, we find that voluntary disclosure incentives impact compliance with mandatory reporting requirements. Although incentives exist for firms to comply with mandatory disclosures, our results suggest that increases in mandatory environmental accounting disclosures may not be effective under the current regulatory system despite the use of bright-line materiality thresholds. Our study contributes to the current and ongoing debate about the role and effectiveness of environmental risk disclosure mandates in providing information to the marketplace, as well as “mandated disclosure” rules in general. The value attributed to current and potential environmental disclosure regulations cannot be thoroughly understood without examining disclosure compliance with existing regulations. From an environmental and sustainability disclosure perspective, our findings are particularly germane since these disclosures focus on risks, liabilities, or other reputational shortcomings of the firm.     

Corporate Social and Environment‐related Governance Disclosure Practices in the Textile and Garment Industry: Evidence from a Developing Country

We investigate the social and environment‐related governance disclosure practices of a sample of textile and garment companies operating within Bangladesh. Using content analysis we find that the disclosure of governance information lags behind general corporate social responsibility disclosures, and the textile and garment companies of Bangladesh disclose information about their governance practices in order to secure/maintain legitimacy and/or to meet community expectations. However, the governance disclosures still fall short of what would appear to be expected by the international community, and despite ongoing international concerns about workplace conditions and associated safety, the results suggest limited accountability and transparency in relation to social and environment‐related governance practices within a developing country context.     

Infrastructure assets disclosure in Australian public sector annual reports

Recent Australian public sector reforms have raised concerns about the disclosure of infrastructure asset information as a basis for improved accountability. This paper examines whether specific infrastructure asset information identified in relevant literature is disclosed in practice. A cross-sectional, content analysis of 1999 annual report disclosures made by 73 Australian public sector entities operating in economic infrastructure industries revealed a low level of, and considerable diversity in, disclosures, particularly relating to the physical condition of infrastructure assets, their maintenance and performance measurement. Such disclosure was found to be driven by government reporting guidelines rather than the use of corporate form.     

The Public Accountability Value of a Triple Bottom Line Approach to Performance Reporting in the Water Sector

Global water resources are subject to increasing supply constraints. We respond by exploring how novel public sector performance reporting can service public accountability. Here our focus is an exploration of the drivers and utility of a unique ‘sustainability’‐focused, publicly disclosed, performance reporting initiative undertaken by a water agency in Australia. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a range of individuals from 2013 to 2014. A disclosure index was also constructed to assess the quality of the disclosures. While the key purpose of the reports was to provide managerial accountability with intra‐governmental stakeholders, they were also drawn on to serve a secondary public accountability purpose with external stakeholders. We argue that the prioritisation of internal stakeholders could threaten utility for public accountability purposes. However, in this case, the reports were also found to be largely relevant to the general public. The study demonstrates that reporting developed for managerial accountability purposes can be designed and targeted also to contribute usefully to ancillary public accountability objectives. Our engagement with the public sector to explore the role and effectiveness of novel reporting strategies in support of sustainability and accountability objectives is topical, and contributes to understanding potential solutions in other contexts.