A Conceptually-Based Empirical Analysis on Quality Differences Between UK Annual Reports and US 10-K Reports

The International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） and the Financial Accounting Standards Board （FASB） stress the importance of high-quality ＇financial reports. From a scientific point of view, however, major methodological drawbacks can arise when trying to arrive at a comprehensive assessment and evaluation of the decision usefulness of financial reports. In this conceptually-based exploratory study, the authors construct a 33-item index aimed at operationalizing decision usefulness in terms of the fundamental and enhancing qualitative characteristics laid out in the conceptual framework （CF） of the IASB （2010）. Using a matched-pairs sample design, which includes 70 UK annual reports and 70 US 10-K reports for 2010, the results of test-retest and inter-rater reliability tests show that these multiple items, which were based on items used in previous research, can be measured in a reliable manner. At the same time, the results of an exploratory factor analysis indicate that the IASB qualitative characteristics cannot be measured separately when the 33-item index is applied. At an aggregate level, the results of paired-sample t-tests reveal that UK reports score on average higher than US 10-K reports, which suggests that the overall quality of UK reports is better. The findings of this study add to the existing literature on the empirical evaluation of the effects of international accounting standards, showing that, as compared with 10-K reports, UK annual reports provide more information on topics such as corporate social responsibility （CSR）, corporate governance, and annual bonus schemes. On the other hand, US reports outperform UK reports with respect to the content of fair value information, cash flow statements, off-balance financing, and audit reporting.     

University-Business Cooperation in Education： Real and Perceived Performances

The purpose of this paper is to describe and demonstrate the validity of a methodology to distinguish, in the performances of high education institutions （HEIs）, real from perceived performances. The extension of accountability to the evaluation of educational programs involves significant topics concerning the gap between perceived and real performances. It means that, since many actors such as teachers, students, and external stakeholders are involved in the process, the research on methodologies to distinguish subjective from objective parameters is still on the floor. Debate about performance evaluation in this collaboration is still in progress particularly as it concerns the proposal of several parameters and indexes to quantify the topic and reduce the subjectivism in the assessment and the gap between real and perceived performances. After describing and discussing an evaluation model based on three interdependent typologies of indexes, this will be tested in two Tempus projects having the purpose of activating Ph.D. and masters courses. The results encourage deepening researches in this direction and disseminating this methodology and extending and enriching the validation process.     

Value Creation of Business Process Management （BPM） and Managerial Accounting System （MAS）： A Case Study

This paper explores the value creation of business process management （BPM） and managerial accounting system （MAS） using a case study. The findings show that BPM shortens the management chain and increases the connections among functions in the organization by right reassignment. Accounting indicators in MAS provide necessary information about business processes, which assists performance evaluation in BPM, and meanwhile, incentive schemes give enough motives, which guide employees to take actions in accordance with the organizational strategies and processes＇ goals. The information effect and motive effect of MAS increase employees＇ work satisfaction and their cooperation with each other. In the end, the integration of BPM and MAS improves the organizational economic performance, thus creating value for the organization. The results explain the reason why so much BPM fails in practice, because right assignment, performance evaluation system, and incentive schemes constitute organizational architecture, which is critical to organizational value. Additionally, the value creation of BPM and MAS depends on their coordination with the external environment, the internal situation, and the organizational strategy. From the view of managerial accounting perspective, MAS not only changes with the organization development but also facilitates the organization development.     

Effectiveness of Budgetary Entities

This paper acquaints readers with the practice of effectiveness evaluation in the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to study performance measurement according to the changes in public sector reform by focusing on performance-based budgeting in Russia. This paper suggests that the construction process of performance measurement should be aligned with outputs and outcomes of budget policy. The main research materials for this paper are based on data from a survey and follow-up interviews of budgetary managers and accountants. The survey result sets priorities and weighted some indicators to the measurement of effectiveness in the public sector. The data of this study were not large, but the study led to understanding how effectiveness is seen by budgetary managers and how measurement systems should be structured. Texts and contents from different sources such as financial annual reports and budgetary entities＇ websites provided insightful and interesting findings.     

Empirical Research on Accounting Profits and Net Cash Flow of Chinese Public Companies ——Analysis Based on Profitability

In traditional analysis, enterprises＇ performance evaluation largely depends on profits indices, which results in the public companies＇ strong pursuit of accounting profits and neglect of net cash flow. It is of great significance to study this phenomenon in public companies for it can help to evaluate their profitability correctly. By making an empirical research on the status quo of the medical public companies＇ accounting profits, net cash flow, receivable and prepaid items, it is found that the phenomenon that the current accounting profits and net cash flow are inconsistent universally exists in the public companies; the current growth rates of accounts receivable, notes receivable, other accounts receivable and accounts prepaid in the companies which the phenomenon exists in are higher than those in other companies and the industrial average, especially for the latter two items; this phenomenon in economically developed areas is more obvious than in other areas. How to avoid the contradiction of accounting profits and net cash flow in the public companies？ Firstly, the credit risk awareness and management should be strengthened. Secondly, cash budget management should be enhanced. Finally, the index system of evaluation of the public companies＇ operating performance should be improved.     

Evaluation of Several Phases in the Development of Management Accounting

This paper discusses three issues, raised by Relevance Lost （Johnson ＆ Kaplan, 1987）, about historical evaluation of the development of management accounting. The first issue is when management accounting system was formed; the second is how to evaluate its development in subsequent decades; the third is how to evaluate the development of practice and research of management accounting in almost twenty years after Relevance Lost was published. The role of Relevance Lost in practice and theoretical research of management accounting is widely recognized, and the disagreement with it in this paper is in the specific area of the development history of management accounting. The authors of this paper believe that the development, through having its ups and downs over time, is generally speaking a continuous process, not separated by disconnected phases, leaping from one to another. Along with the progress in practice and research, researchers and practitioners are deepening their understanding about the theoretical foundation and practical development of management accounting. The history of development of management accounting is consistent with the process people gradually understand it.     

The Design and Study on CEO Financial Monitoring Index System Based on Stakeholder Theory

This paper summarizes the current financial monitoring theory and the design of index system, analyzes the possible monitoring indexes relative to stakeholders to achieve their own interests, and then categorizes these indexes into five aspects： the finance, the customer, the process, the employee and the society. After a deep analysis of these indexes, we use the Analytic Hierarchy Process to conform the weight of every index, subsequently build up an effective financial monitoring index system.     

英文摘要

Is There Any Auditor＇s Trust to the Clients in Audit Zou Jing Xia Qing Zhou Sheng （Zhongnan University of Economics and Law; Military Economics Academy,Wuhan, Hubei 430073） Abstract： Professional skepticism is an essential important accomplishment for the auditor who is engaged in auditing work. Is there any auditor＇s trust to the clients in the the field of audit which is in contrast to the Professional skepticism？ Using data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2011, this paper explor the relation between the intensity index of trust and the audit fees, and then explains whether there is auditor＇s trust to the clients in the auditing activities. On the whole,the result of study reveals that there is a significant negative correlation between the auditor＇s index of rational trust and the audit fees, but there is no significant positive association between the auditor＇s index of individual trust and the audit fees.Thus it can be thought that, there exists auditor＇s trust to the clients stemming from the rationality in the auditing activities, but there is no evidence showing that the auditor has individual turst to the clients in the audit because of the long familarity with the clients. Keywords： Auditor Trust Audit fees     

The audit expectation gap： A review of the contributing factors

The audit expectation gap is critical to the auditing profession because the greater the unfulfilled expectations from the public, the lower is the credibility, earning potential and prestige associated with the work of auditors. The aim of this paper is to uncover the causes of an audit expectation gap. It is revealed that the existence of an audit expectation gap is due to complicated nature of an audit function; conflicting role of auditors; retrospective evaluation of auditors＇ performance; time lag in responding to changing expectation; and self-regulation process of the auditing profession.     

Annual risk reporting of listed companies in Malaysia

This study examines risk reporting in annual reports of Malaysian listed companies. The mandatory and voluntary disclosures of risk information are analyzed and the authors examine whether a relationship exists between company size, leverage, and industry type and risk disclosure levels. 150 listed companies from five industries are selected as sample. Content analysis and risk disclosure index of dichotomous measurement are used in data collection. Overall the results indicate that level of risk information disclosed in the annual reports is still minimal. OLS （Ordinary least squares） regression analysis indicates that the level of risk information disclosure is positively associated with size and not with leverage. However, a mixed result has been found for industry type; where only property industry shows a significant relationship with level of risk disclosure, and not for the other industries. This study contributes to financial reporting literature in relation to risk reporting, particularly the practice of Malaysian companies. Findings from this study are also useful to regulators and accounting standard setting body to assess the level of compliance to regulations and standards relating to risk reporting by these companies. More studies are required to further understand the importance of risk information disclosure, such as risk disclosure within specific industry, cross-country studies and usefulness of risk information disclosure from the stakeholders＇ perspectives.     

The Terminal Value （TV） Performing in Firm Valuation： The Gap of Literature and Research Agenda

The uncertainty about the future of firms must be modeled and incorporated in the valuation of enterprises outside the explicit period of analysis, i.e., in the continuing or terminal value （TV）. There is a multiplicity of factors that influence the TV of firms which are not being considered within current evaluation models. This aspect leads to the incurring of unrecoverable errors, thus leading to values of goodwill or bad will far away from the substantial value of intrinsic assets. As a consequence, the evaluation results will be presented markedly different from market values. There is no consensus in the scientific community about the method of computation of the TV as a forecast in an infinite horizon. The size of the terminal, or non-explicit period, assumed as infinite, is never called into question by scientific literature, or the probability of business bankruptcy. This paper aims to promote a study of the existing literature on the TV, to highlight the fragility of the evaluation models of companies that have been used by the academic community and by financial analysts, and to point out lines for future research to minimize these errors.     

Performance Evaluation of Enterprise Knowledge Management based on Multiple Attribute Group Decision Making

Given that the classical performance evaluation models can not deal with the group decision making problems since they simply average the index, we propose an enterprise knowledge management evaluation model based on multiple attribute group decision making （ MAGDM ）. Find the differences between Ordered Weighted Averaging （ OWA ） and methods for uncertain decision making. Also, analyze the multiple attribute group decision making process and implement the algorithm. Finally, apply the method on performance evaluation of four enterprises and make sensitivity analysis towards the evaluation results.     

Malmquist indices of productivity growth for Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia

This paper studies the total factor productivity （TFP） of banks in Malaysia with the emphasis on comparing the relative productivities of Islamic and Conventional banks. The Malmquist index approach is used to decompose productivity growth into technical efficiency and technological change. The productivity growth is measured and decomposed into technical change and efficiency change. The efficiency change is further decomposed into pure efficiency change and scale efficiency. It is found that Islamic banks＇ productivity growth is limited by its lack of technological change compared to its conventional counterparts. Nonetheless, both types of banks are operating at the correct level in terms of scale or size.     

Application of International Public Sector Accounting Standards in Vietnam in Current Conditions

The objective of improving the state accounting system is to build a state accounting system based on a single and complete database which is applied uniformly across all public authorities and agencies from central to local. Such an accounting system must ensure a reliable and smooth flow of information among all the entities that take part in the preparation, allocation, execution, and finalization of the state budget. In order to improve the quality of financial information, to harmonize, and to develop accounting profession globally, the trend of international economic integration requires the standardization of accounting legislative framework among countries and first of all, the harmonization and unification of the preparation, presentation, and disclosure of financial information. Financial statements of each business in the private sector and financial statements of the government in the public sector in different countries should be transparent and presented in accordance with the accounting standards and principles and in line with international practices so that the financial information will be able to be compared and evaluated. Therefore, financial statements of each entity in the public sector and the consolidated financial statements of public sector entities issued by the government in different countries must be prepared and presented in a unified form to suit the international public sector accounting standards. Accordingly, with the application of the interview method in research, the main objective of this article is to focus on searching for the bases and consideration for the application of international public sector accounting standards in Vietnam in current conditions. This article consists of eight sections： （1） what are international public sector accounting standards？ （2） accounting entities of the public sector; （3） the limitations of current public sector accounting in Vietnam; （4） financial information to meet the requirements of state management and to comply with international practices; （5） the advantages of applying international public sector accounting standards in Vietnam; （6） the difficulties and challenges of applying international public sector accounting standards in Vietnam; （7） learning experiences from other countries; and （8） conclusion.     

Harmonization of financial reporting of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic

A current problem of the present-day accounting and financial reporting consists in aligning the accounting in small and medium enterprises. In July 2009 the International Financial Reporting Standard for small and medium-sized enterprises was issued, which extended the aligning possibilities also to small and medium enterprises considerably. If the standard is adopted by the national legislation, problems connected with the standard implementation in the national legislation will have to be solved as well as practical issues connected with making financial statements. At present the yields and the problems which can arise in connection with the standard application have to be focused on. A contribution of the standard application will be a better informative ability of financial statements on the international level. At small and medium enterprises this can contribute to better comanunication with banks, with investors, rating application are： parallel reporting according to national agencies etc. The problems connected with the standard regulations, differences between the national legislation and the standard, wide practice at keeping accounts and making financial statements and limited approach of small and medium enterprises to obtaining information and to training of their employees. Another problem can be a tight link between the trading income and the tax base, when small companies prefer rather the tax point of view.     

On FASB Standard Setting:The Role of Funding Structure and Voting Rule

This study develops and tests hypotheses about organizational characteristics of the Financial Accounting Standards Board(FASB)and captures the effects of some recent changes on the operations of the Board in standard setting.I establish a methodology to quantify the complex work of the FASB through factor analysis and condense various proxies into three meaningful performance metrics:thoroughness,timeliness,and consensus.These performance measures are used as dependent variables in a regression analysis to capture how the work of the FASB varies with respect to funding and voting changes.I find evidence that a change in FASB funding from private donations to mandatory accounting support fees is associated with an improvement in Board consensus but no significant change in thoroughness or timeliness.I also find the change in voting rules from supermajority to simple majority is associated with improvements in timeliness but a decline in thoroughness and consensus.Overall,the results suggest that the work of the FASB is multidimensional and that the improvement of one area may come at the cost of another.     

Value of subjective performance evaluation： A theoretical perspective

To break through the academic research tradition of isolating subjective performance evaluation （SPE） with objective evaluation, and enhance the application and explanation power of analytical research findings, this paper adopts a one-period principal-agent model, and solves programming problems by internalizing validity conditions for SPE as constraints according to revelation principle. We find that both SPE and its objectivization can achieve Pareto improvement for both the principal and the agent. Our findings have a general application beyond bonus contracts; it not only explains the pervasive existence of SPE, but also helps to interpret phenomena of the objectification of SPE.     

Global Financial Crisis： Systemic Failure and the Underlying Knowledge Gap

Recently, global financial crisis or meltdown rocked the international financial market. This havoc was the result of the reckless use of financial derivatives that received spontaneous patronization from the financial whiz, but it is strange to discover that those proponents of market economy embarked on policy that was purely Keynesian in principle. The episode started in August 2007 with the collapse of subprime mortgage market and reached its climax during August 2008. Central banks in many countries of the western world intervened in the market to pump additional fund to give buoyancy in the credit market. The crisis encapsulated with the queer idea of financial instruments and multiple origins related to subprime mortgage left its trail in both developed and developing countries. Thus, an elaborate analysis of the causal link among various innovative instruments highlighting a mismatch between academic doctrine and real-life perspective and the inadequacy of the institutional arrangements supposed to tame the volatility of the market may be a useful guide to financial analysts and policy planners. The purpose of this paper is to highlight systemic gaps in the meltdown and redefine the contour of macroeconomics most appropriate to weather such catastrophe in the future.     

Economic Cost-Effectiveness of the Implementation of the Quality Standard ISO 9001 in the Health Sector

The quality standard ISO 9001 helps and enables organizations, regardless of the sector where they exist, to implement the quality management properly. Recent years have attracted attention to the possibilities of implementing this standard in the health sector and the economic viability of that long-term investment. Health care organizations are recognizing the value system that combines all the criteria for managing quality, including management of business, compliance and management of procedural steps, and most importantly, the total quality management. In general, the implementation of ISO 9001：2008 standard for quality in health care institutions is seen as an opportunity to improve the quality of health care, and the entire process is to be completed by reducing costs and improving services in the sector. The implementation of a quality standard is directed towards patients, medical staff, and management in order to achieve reduction and complete relief from the pain, correct and professional services, conducted services with an appropriate skilled and professional care to obtain results that are comparable to known standards, and protection services with appropriate insurance policies, and the management expects the implementation of a quality system to justify and return their investments. The methods used in this paper are based on the quality standard ISO 9001：2008--Quality Management System and the Guidelines for Improving Performance, developed based on ISO 9004：2000： Quality Management System-43uidelines for Continuous Improvement. These guidelines contain a big part of the text in ISO 9004：2000, but they are supplemented with specific guidelines for their implementation in the health sector. The implementation of the system and monitoring guidelines evidently contributes to the overall resolution and closure of problems in over 50% of cases. This not only results in saving money for the institution, but it also globally leads to reduced variations in the healing process. Expected benefits