Pension accrual management and research and development investment

This study investigates whether discretion in reporting pension expenses mitigates research and development (R&D) manipulation. Using a sample of Japanese manufacturing firms during the fiscal years 2001–2011 where both pension costs and R&D expenditures have large impacts on the bottom‐line earnings, I find that higher discount rates are associated with higher R&D investment among firms in which pension expenses could have large impacts on reported earnings. I also find that this relationship is found only among firms in high‐tech industries. These results suggest that pension accrual management substitutes costly R&D manipulation that may hurt future competitive edge.     

Dividends,research and development expenditures,and the value relevance of book value for UK loss-making firms

We extend prior research on the value relevance of accounting information for loss-making firms by allowing the coefficient of book value to vary across three distinct set of loss-making firm observations in our valuation model. Our key findings are, first, that book value is a less important determinant of equity value for either high R&D-intensive firms or dividend-paying firms, relative to firms with low R&D-intensity and zero dividends. Prior literature suggests that book value is a strong indicator of firm value for loss-making firms. This reasoning stems from book value's role as: (i) a proxy for the value of the possibility of abandoning or adapting the firms' net assets; and/or (ii) a proxy for expected future normal earnings. Our work suggests that this prior literature does not fully capture the valuation role of book value for loss-making firms. Second, we also find that dividends are value relevant, but generally only when the valuation role of book value is contextualised by allowing its coefficient to vary across high R&D-intensive firms, and dividend-paying, loss-making firms.     

Critical reflections on research approaches, accounting regulation and the regulation of accounting

The design and choice of research approaches, the nature of accounting regulation and the reactions to these regulations in organisations, involving, in effect, the regulation of accounting, are three themes of considerable importance in accounting research. They are the three themes that have dominated the research agenda of the author throughout his academic career. This paper explores the nature of these three key research themes developing some critical reflections on what has been discovered about each of these themes using the author's sole and joint research and publications as a vehicle for this analysis.     

Researcher perceptions and choices of interview media: the case of accounting research

This study offers foundational insights into the ways in which perceptions of different interview media—principally, face‐to‐face, telephone and videoconferencing channels of communication—may influence researcher choices and practices. Informed by the reflections of 23 senior accounting researchers, our evidence identifies a duality of practices in the usage of different interviewing media, influenced primarily through the role played by experience, which informs perceptions upon which practices are based. We discuss this duality of practices in terms of information richness theory and channel expansion theory and offer further insights into the factors that influence and shape researchers’ perceptions of the contextual suitability of particular media available to interview‐based accounting research.     

Attitudes to the development and implementation of social and environmental accounting in Thailand

Motivated and shaped by a concern to realise the potentiality of accounting communication in relation to social and environmental issues in Thailand, this paper evaluates perceptions of current accounting as well as attitudes to social and environmental accounting among Thai accounting professionals. Making use of empirical data generated by questionnaire study and interviews, this paper aims to shed more light on the development and implementation of social and environmental accounting in Thailand. It argues that any change of accounting in future is likely to involve a change in the nature of the Thai accounting profession itself. The paper suggests ways in which the future development of social and environmental accounting practice might be given further impetus in the Thai context.     

Theoretical studies of the historical development of the accounting discipline: A review and evidence

Many existing studies of the development of accounting thought have either been atheoretical or have adopted Kuhn's model of scientific growth. The limitations of this 35-year-old model are discussed. Four different general neo-Kuhnian models of scholarly knowledge development are reviewed and compared with reference to an analytical matrix. The models are found to be mutually consistent, with each focusing on a different aspect of development. A composite model is proposed. Based on a hand-crafted database, author co-citation analysis is used to map empirically the entire literature structure of the accounting discipline during two consecutive time periods, 1972-81 and 1982-90. The changing structure of the accounting literature is interpreted using the proposed composite model of scholarly knowledge development.     

The influence of culture and transparency on global research and development intensity: An overview across Europe

Culture and transparency can be described as a set of beliefs, norms, and actions, which drive the human action into innovativeness. Over the centuries, those pillars have driven individuals, groups, organizations, and nations, into the most complex networking schemes. It seems now unquestionable that those beliefs and policies, affect both private and public organizations, driving them across innovation wages in a more incremental or radical way. The dependent variable in this research (R&D) embodies the disbursements in research and development, carried out by business enterprise and public sector, and by education institutions. Thus, this research aims to mainly explore the effect of culture and transparency, as drivers of business attractiveness, on global R&D intensity. Using information from 31 European countries over the period 2010–2014, total R&D expenditures were regressed against several variables such as the Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the public sector transparency index, and other aggregated variables. Most of the theoretical assumptions are now supported by our empirical outcomes. Culture and transparency can act as attractiveness drivers, for business sector organizations and for other private and public institutions, toward the implementation of knowledge transformation mechanisms and intellectual capital achievements.     

An empirical study of research and development top managers' perceptions of short-term pressures from capital markets in the United Kingdom

It is often argued that capital market pressures are increasingly directed towards short-term performance evaluation of managers and their operations. Whether these external capital market pressures actually exist or not, short-term pressures on firms are influenced by managers' own perceptions of these external pressures. If managers perceive the existence of these external pressures it is likely that this will lead to short-term behaviour on their part. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine (a) research and development (R&D) managers' perceptions of short-term behaviour in capital markets in the UK, and (b) patterns of behaviour relating to R&D which may be influenced by these perceptions. The findings of this study indicate that approximately half of the UK research and development managers perceive capital markets as responsible for putting inappropriate short-term pressures on their companies' management. However, an even larger proportion report short-termist behaviour relating to R&D and its evaluation, suggesting that some at least of the problem of ‘short-termism’ is internally generated.