Accountability and risk governance: a scenario-informed reflection on European regulation of GMOs

Regulating risks in the face of scientific uncertainty poses a particular challenge to policy-makers. Such problems are amplified when decisions are taken in a multi-level framework of supranational governance. The genetically modified organism (GMO) regulation in the European Union constitutes an especially salient issue of risk governance in a multi-lateral arena, as the topic is politically highly visible and decision-making is slow and contested. Furthermore, as authority is dispersed among multiple actors, European risk governance is in need of adequate mechanisms ensuring that decision-makers justify and account for their behavior. While legitimacy aspects of GMO governance have widely been examined, accountability relations within the field of GMO risk governance have hitherto only weakly been explored. Hence, this paper analyzes the question of who can be held accountable under the complex system of supranational risk governance. This paper claims that mere adherence by actors to the regulatory procedures during the decision-making process does not necessarily imply that overall accountability can be secured, resulting in ‘organized irresponsibility’. Although certain piecemeal accountability may exist, establishing overall accountability is complicated, precisely as a result of the complex system of interwoven rules.     

Financial and external reporting research: the broadening corporate governance challenge

This study provides a critical examination of contemporary financial and external reporting research from a corporate governance perspective. Adopting Hines' social constructionist approach to financial reporting, the study investigates research into accounting publishing patterns, published reviews of major subject areas within financial and external reporting research, and interviews a sample of accounting professors in British universities. The findings reveal a strong North American economics and finance-based positivist influence, a largely uncritical acceptance of accounting's subservience to the demands of the market, a reluctance to engage major policy questions and broader reporting constituencies. These appear to be conditioned to a large degree by internal features and pressures within the academic research community. Evidence is presented for greater attention to major environmental shifts impacting accounting and communities globally, a reinvigoration of researchers' direct engagement with reporting constituents in the field, a revisiting of major accounting, business, social and environmental policy questions, and a preparedness to address today's major corporate governance concerns of communities and governments.     

Professional accountants and the development of a management accounting service for the small firm: barriers and possibilities

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study examining the potential for the provision of a management accounting service for smaller companies by accountants in professional practice. The study aimed to determine the management information needs of owner-managers, the type and frequency of information preferred and the capacity of professional accountants to contribute to these needs. The owner-managers of 15 smaller companies were asked to participate in semi-strucutured interviews during which their use of computers to provide management accounts, their relationship with their accountant and their financial skills were discussed. The respondents were presented with a range of management information including statutory final accounts, interim accounts, cash statements, ratios and graphical comparisons of monthly turnover figures in order to assess their financial information skills and needs. The study found that companies used computers for the preparation of management accounting information, but usually not to their full potential. The financial awareness of owner-managers varied considerably. There was a favourable response to the presentation of ratios and graphs, however, it was felt that an explanation or interpretation of financial information by their accountant would be a useful addition to improve their understanding and therefore aid their business. The study concludes that there appears to be significant potential for accountants to expand the management accounting services they provide to smaller companies, especially where information is presented as ratios or graphs and accompanied with an appropriate narrative interpretation. This would also increase the financial skills of their clients and result in an increased demand for management accounting services.     

Management accounting and corporate governance: An institutional interpretation of the agency problem

Challenging the dominant economic agency theory of corporate governance with a new discourse drawn from institutional theory, the paper analyses how management accounting is implicated in corporate governance. The proposed institutional theory of agency links the micro-institutions of the organization that are informed by the practices of management accounting with external institutional players and stakeholders. The paper identifies emerging narratives in which the management accounting profession has recognised a distinctive, post-Enron set of sensibilities. Although techniques drawn from strategic management accounting can be adapted to embed better corporate governance practices, the institutional theory of agency identifies tensions between the heroic CEO narrative and the routinization of strategy implicit in strategic management accounting.     

宜宾小企业公司治理现状及对策分析

研究发现宜宾小企业内部治理结构不合理以及外部治理结构的缺失消减了企业应有的价值增长.因此,改造宜宾小企业的内部治理结构,培育形成有效的外部治理结构,让内部治理机制和外部治理机制联动,从满足公司利益相关者利益的角度,制定公司价值增长战略,根据公司价值驱动因素,不断地进行技术创新和管理制度创新,优化价值创造链,形成可持续的核心竞争能力,方可实现宜宾小企业的价值包容性增长.     

Ethics and accountability: from the for-itself to the for-the-other

Expanding global markets have resulted in renewed concern with accountability by transnational corporations and other economic agents. Reflections on economic accountability, however, often inadequately theorize necessary ethical presuppositions regarding the moral status of economic collectivities, including the scope of the moral community and the good that this community seeks. This essay addresses these ethical considerations. Taking as my starting point Schweiker's [Schweiker, W. (1993). Accounting for ourselves: accounting practice and the disclosure of ethics. Accounting Organizations and Society, 18(2/3), 231–252] claim that economic entities are properly accountable to a wider scope of good than their own by virtue of the accounts that accountants render of such entities, I argue that the discourse in terms of which the accounts are rendered serves to negate the very relation of obligation from which this accountability derives. Specifically, I argue that the discourse of neoclassical economics that informs accounting practice constructs the identity of the accountable entity such that it is obligated to pursue only its own good. Consequently, extant accounting practices are inadequate to meet the demands for accountability that are legitimately entailed by the act of rendering an account. I explore the implications of this conclusion for understanding economic accountability and related social accounting practices, and I propose the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas to establish a broader accountability on the part of economic entities.     

Board governance and corporate performance

We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world.     

Irish accounting, business and financial history: a bibliographical essay

Historians have engaged with accounting and business archives primarily in the areas of social and economic history. While much economic and social history draws on macro-economic data, micro-level sources have cast new light on old historical problems such as the Great Famine (1845-51) and the development of trade in Ireland and between Ireland and abroad. This paper traces the contributions of historians of Ireland to our understanding of accounting, business and financial history and maps out potential areas of research for accounting and business historians in the light of earlier and current trends in historical research. Adopting a historians' perspective, the paper will also provide a historical background and suggest potential bibliographical and archival sources to present and future accounting and business historians with a view to enhancing and enriching our understanding of the context in which accounting and business is situated in Ireland.     

公司管理者过度自信、过度投资行为与治理机制——来自中国上市公司的证据

本文从行为金融学视角出发,以2002~2009年中国A股上市公司为研究对象,研究管理者过度自信这一心理因素对公司过度投资行为的影响,并检验了公司内外部治理机制对它的抑制作用。研究表明,中国上市公司的管理者过度自信与公司过度投资行为之间存在显著正相关关系,而现有的公司治理机制并不能对这种非效率行为进行有效约束。本文的研究发现有助于我们更好理解中国上市公司的过度投资行为,也对如何完善中国上市公司治理机制有一定启示意义。     

Downward accountability for a natural disaster recovery effort: Evidence and issues from Australia's Black Saturday

This study provides evidence on the nature and extent of downward accountability rendered by key government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to victims during the extended period of recovery from Australia's 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires disaster. It also provides a critical assessment of the interplay between downward, upward (or hierarchical) and internal (or identity) accountability. It questions whether the concept of ‘downward accountability’ loses meaning when applied to the published special-purpose disaster recovery reports of the organizations leading the recovery effort. Document analysis is undertaken on the traits of downward accountability displayed in the text and images published in the disaster recovery reports of the controlling government authority, a government/NGO partnership coordinating the appeals fund and three separate participating Christian-denominated NGOs. These report traits include readability by, closeness to and empowerment of beneficiaries. Subsequent interviews with senior financial and communications executives of these organizations shed light on the motivation for the preparation of the recovery reports. The findings have implications concerning the problematization of downward accountability. The appearance of downward accountability traits in these reports appears to be an artifact of the motivation for upward and internal accountability. Moreover, downward accountability through the mode of charitable deeds-based recovery actions seems to be devoid of principal–agent expectations. For these reasons, in the context of a natural disaster, downward accountability does not sit well, conceptually, in a stakeholder-oriented accountability typology framework.     

论企业本质、公司治理与财务会计理论的契合:资本保全视角

基于企业本质从价值角度描述为财务资本、人力资本、组织资本与社会资本的一个不完全契约组合,公司治理就是保证这一契约组合有效执行的制度安排,而现代财务会计在理论与实践上更接近于公司治理.本文利用资本保全概念将企业本质、公司治理与财务会计理论整合为一个完整的理论框架.     

Exploring Accounting and Democratic Governance: A Study Comparing a Norwegian and a Russian County

Interpretations and explanations of experience that make consequences interpretable and actions imaginable are said to be given by accounts. Formal accounting systems used in economic, social and political institutions are seen as portraying their political realities. The purpose of this study is to explore connections and tensions between the realities portrayed in the accounting systems and the governance structures of local governments in two counties, one in Norway and one in Russia. The formal accounting and governmental systems of these two counties are described, analyzed and compared using accounting and democratic governance perspectives. The article ends with a discussion of interrelationships and tensions between accounting and democratic governance. Through comparing the democratic governing structures of these two counties with the accounting systems employed, three main conclusions are presented. Firstly, it is shown that principal–agent relations influence accounting procedures that symbolize democratic governance. Secondly, the accounting language applied does not portray local politicians. Thirdly, accounting norms do not reflect democracy and democratic governance. In summary, the study shows that even very formalized accounting offers flexibility by way of giving meaning to processes and structures in organizations characterized by strictly formalized structures.     

Cullen, Lochhead and Brown, architects: the business, financial and accounting history of a non-profit maximising firm, 1902-2002

The study which follows charts the business and financial progress of a Scottish regional architectural practice, Cullen, Lochhead and Brown, from 1902-60 in detail, and from 1960 to the present in outline. It examines the firm's origins, the architectural context in which it has operated and the strategies by which it has survived and prospered over its life to date. Analyses of the firm's fee income and sources of work are given, together with details of its financial progress and accounting arrangements. The study concludes with some observations of relevance to the business strategy and small business literatures. Drawing brief comparisons with a Canadian study by Mintzberg et al. (1986), it also provides empirical evidence to suggest that at least some architectural practitioners are motivated by non-financial as well as financial rewards, and points to financial practices which may be characteristic of such firms.     

Risk governance and emerging technologies: learning from case study integration

Emerging technologies are underway in a wide array of industrial applications and need fields. When innovating on technologies, one main objective is to improve the management of safety related to their emerging risks. The iNTeg-Risk project undertook 17 case studies covering current key innovations and focusing on their corresponding risks. Thus, a major challenge is to integrate the case study research into a common framework on adequate future risk and safety concepts which might serve policy and stakeholder decision-makers as a background for risk-related decisions in the future. Within this paper, we looked on similarities and disparities on how these case studies assess, manage, and communicate risk issues. A telephone survey with case study task leaders has been carried out in order to identifying the state-of-the-art of how the case studies deal with risk governance issues.     

实体企业金融化行为的逆周期效应及"脱实向虚"风险研究

基于2002-2017年A股上市公司数据,利用面板固定效应回归分析方法,检验实体企业金融化行为.结果显示:实体企业金融化行为具有显著的逆周期效应,但受企业异质性影响,不同类型企业金融化行为逆周期效应具有差异性,属于轻资产、国有制、制造业以及非东部的企业,其金融化行为的逆周期效应较为突出.实体企业金融化行为会抑制固定资产及研发创新的投入,进而挤出实体资产收益.在经济周期不同阶段,实体企业金融化行为的潜在动机表现不同.在经济上行期,企业金融化是套利投资行为;在经济下行期,企业金融化可以起到平滑资金作用,但需防范实体企业过度金融化可能带来的"脱实向虚"风险.     

Corporate governance and the probability of default

We employ Merton's probability of default as a continuous ex‐ante measure of the likelihood of firm failure and dynamic panel generalised method of moments to better characterise the relationship between corporate governance and the chance of default. In doing so, we overcome limitations of discrete proxies widely used in previous studies and more completely account for endogeneity issues permeating this area of research. While initial testing designed to facilitate comparison with previous studies suggests a significant relationship between the probability of default and executive pay, board structure and ownership structure, once endogeneity concerns are accounted for, no such relationship remains.     

The climate change‐related disclosures and accountability practices of NGOs: Evidence from Australia

This paper focusses on non‐governmental organisations’ (NGOs) broader social accountability, investigating their public disclosures on climate change commitment and performance. Using a synthesised disclosure index, we analyse the annual reports of 30 NGOs, all signatories to the Australian Council for International Development's Code of Conduct. Overall disclosure rates from 2008 to 2013 were higher for commitment than performance, but were very low overall. However, the number of NGOs disclosing information rose markedly over the period. Although it is not directly possible to attribute the change in disclosure levels to the implementation of the Code, the enactment of the new Code could be one of the motivating factors for NGOs’ disclosure practices and their demonstrations of greater social accountability.      

Management accounting curricula: striking a balance between the views of educators and practitioners

Management accounting education has been subject of considerable debate since the 1970s, particularly in terms of what topics should be taught. The research reported here set out to ascertain the management accounting topics/techniques and the skills/characteristics that are considered important for a graduate who intends to pursue careers in management accounting. Based on a survey conducted on educators and practitioners, the results indicate that educators viewed behavioural implications, activity-based costing (ABC), performance evaluation and product costing as the top four important topics. In contrast, practitioners' top four important topics were cash flow management, operational budgeting, variance analysis and performance evaluation. Overall, traditional techniques, as compared to contemporary techniques, tend to be more widely used by firms. As regards skills and characteristics, practitioners and educators placed high importance on thinking, problem solving, listening and quantitative skills.     

Government ownership,corporate governance and tax aggressiveness: evidence from China

This study investigates how government ownership and corporate governance influence a firm's tax aggressiveness. Using Chinese listed companies during 2003–2009, we find that compared with government‐controlled firms, non‐government‐controlled firms pursue a more aggressive tax strategy. In particular, non‐government‐controlled firms with a higher percentage of the board shareholdings and with a CEO who also serves as the board chairman are more aggressive. For government‐controlled firms, we find that board shareholding has an impact on tax aggressiveness and it does not differ between local and central government‐controlled firms. However, local government‐controlled firms in less developed regions where the implementation of corporate governance measures is generally less effective are more tax aggressive than those in other regions.     

Corporate governance and the dynamics of capital structure: New evidence

The effects of corporate governance on optimal capital structure choices have been well documented, though without offering empirical evidence about the impact of corporate governance quality on the adjustment speed toward an optimal capital structure. This study simultaneously considers two effects of debt originating from agency theory—the takeover defense and the disciplinary effects of debt—on the speed of adjustment to the optimal capital structure. Corporate governance has a distinct effect on the speed of capital structure adjustment: weak governance firms that are underlevered tend to adjust slowly to the optimal capital structure, because the costs of the disciplinary role of debt outweigh the benefits of using debt as a takeover defense tool. Although overlevered weak governance firms also adjust slowly, they do so because they are reluctant to decrease their leverage toward the target level to deter potential raiders, especially if they face a serious takeover threat. Therefore, this study finds that both overlevered and underlevered firms with weak governance adjust slowly toward their target debt levels, though with different motivations.