中东变局之乱

资本市场的重大投资决策,在很大程度上取决于大势。2011年以来,国际金融界关心两件大事：主权债务和市政债务危机以及中东动乱     

我国上市公司内部审计之趋势与公司治理

当今国际经济环境下,我国上市公司面临着诸多困难和挑战,如何完善公司治理提升持续发展能力成为现代企业管理研究的热门课题,内部审计已将公司治理纳入其重要实践范围。本文对内部审计参与公司治理的现实问题做分析,就如何在公司治理领城恰当定位实现创新型内部审计进行了探讨。     

内部公司治理与内部控制

公司治理与内部控制是目前会计界讨论的较多的两个话题。但对于公司治理,尤其是内部公司治理,与内部控制之间到底是什么关系,人们的认识上并不一致,甚至一定程度上存在混乱。本文认为内部控制与内部公司治理是两个既相互区别又紧密联系的概念。     

浅谈公司内部财务管理

财务管理是公司内部组织机构加强资产安全完整与合理有效使用，以达到保值增值目的强有力的管理活动之一，通过学习各种理论知识和规范制度以及实际工作中总结的各项经验，我认为公司加强内部财务管理应包含以下几个方面。     

如何收拾房价猛涨之乱?

如何有效地为发烫的房价泼些凉水,吃些去火药?药方有很多,各路"大仙"出的点子也不少。在此,笔者化繁为简,砍出"三板斧"以解决问题。当然,各级相关部门若只作李逵"凶相",却不愿真实出招,那么,明晃晃的大板斧也吓不着房价。     

内部审计、内部控制与公司治理

随着经济全球化的不断发展,经济环境也发生了剧烈的变化,生产要素在全球范围内进行重组和配置的程度不断提高,企业面临越来越激烈的竞争压力和挑战,良好的公司治理和内部控制不仅是企业生存和发展的关键,而且也是公司治理重要的两个方面。本文首先介绍了内部控制、内部审计与公司治理的内涵,其次界定了三者之间的关系,最后阐述了企业利用内部控制与内部审计提高公司的治理水平的相关措施。     

试论国有商业银行内部公司治理与内部控制

2004年新年伊始,国务院决定将中国银行和建设银行确定为实施股份制改造的试点,并动用450亿美元的外汇储备为其补充资本金.随之而来的是数家国际评级机构上调两家商业银行信用评级的积极反应,以及规模最大的工商银行向有关部门提出发行次级债券以优化资本结构的申请.……     

内部控制之内部牵制创新

一、管理需要是内部控制发展的内在动因
　　（一）内部控制起源于以“职责分工”为特征的内部牵制
　　公元前3600年,在当时原始的会计实践活动中,开始出现“点、勾、圈”之类的简单对账符号,用于当时简单的数据核对工作,这标志着内部牵制的萌芽。     

Internal control reporting and market liquidity

We investigate the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) on information asymmetry by analyzing the relation between SOX Sections 302 and 404 control reports and market liquidity using bid-ask spreads. Lower market liquidity indicates higher levels of information asymmetry implying that market participants perceive financial statement misstatement risk is higher. If SOX disclosures contain relevant information, then one would expect firms reporting internal control material weaknesses to have lower market liquidity. Accordingly, we find that market liquidity is lower (i.e., bid-ask spreads are higher) for firms reporting ineffective control compared to firms reporting effective control using either annual SOX 404 internal control reports or quarterly SOX 302 disclosure control reports, which suggests that SOX 302 and 404 reports provide useful information for identifying firms with a higher risk of financial statement misstatement. However, we do not find consistent results using two alternative liquidity measures: trading volume and market quality indices. We then examine whether changes in control reports are associated with changes in market liquidity. We generally do not find that firms with improved (deteriorated) control reports experience a larger decrease (increase) in bid-ask spreads or larger increases (decreases) in trading volume and market quality indices compared to other firms, suggesting that market participants do not discern a change in information asymmetry when the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting changes.     

Corporate reporting of intellectual capital: Evidence from UK companies

This paper reports the results of an empirical investigation into the intellectual capital reporting practices of UK companies in four distinct sectors. It differs from prior intellectual capital reporting studies in that it analyses a wide range of corporate reports for their intellectual capital content. It finds major differences between the elements of intellectual capital reported in each sector studied. The study also finds that a range of different types of corporate reports were used for communicating intellectual capital information, and that the annual reports were not a good proxy for the proportion of disclosures across all corporate reports analysed in this study.     

Standalone CSR reporting by U.S. retail companies

We investigate first-time use of standalone CSR reporting in the U.S. retail industry. We find it is limited to publicly traded companies and that environmental rather than other social disclosures are most prominent. We document that firms focus on discussing CSR initiatives and programs as opposed to providing performance data, suggesting the reports are more about image enhancement than transparent accountability. We explore impacts of the choice to disclose, and our findings suggest that standalone CSR reporting by the retail companies appears to positively influence perceptions of company reputation, and may be leading to increased appeal to socially responsible investors.     

Keeping it private: financial reporting by large proprietary companies in Australia

Since 2010, proprietary companies have had a choice of preparing three types of financial reports that vary in scope. We find that between 2010 and 2015, most proprietary companies in our random sample chose the lowest scope option, with very low quality financial reports. Few adopted the new option provided by AASB 1053 Application of Tiers of Australian Accounting Standards. The characteristics of the firms that adopted each type of report are consistent with the regulator's intention. Our findings should provide a better understanding of how accounting standards impact practice, and should assist regulators to reform private company financial reporting.     

Detecting accounting fraud in companies reporting under US GAAP through data mining

The accounting fraud detection models developed on financial data prepared under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the current literature achieve significantly weaker performance than models based on financial data prepared under different accounting standards. This study contributes to the US GAAP accounting fraud data mining literature through the attainment of higher model performance than that reported in the prior literature. Financial data from the 10-K forms of 320 fraudulent financial statements (80 fraudulent companies) and 1,200 nonfraudulent financial statements (240 nonfraudulent companies) were collected from the US Security and Exchange Commission. The eight most commonly used data mining techniques were applied to develop prediction models. The results were cross-validated on a testing dataset and then compared according to parameters of accuracy, F-measure, and type I and II errors with existing studies from the US, China, Greece, and Taiwan. As a result, the developed predictive models for accounting fraud achieved performance comparable to those achieved by models built on data from other accounting standards. Moreover, the developed models also significantly outperformed (accuracy 10.5%, F-measure 16.1%, type I error 12.2% and type II error 15.2%) existing studies based on US GAAP financial data. Furthermore, this study provides an extensive literature review encompassing recent accounting fraud theory. It enhances the existing US fraud data mining literature with a performance comparison of studies based on other accounting standards.     

Quality of financial reporting: evidence from the listed Saudi nonfinancial companies

This study assesses the quality of information disclosed by a sample of nonfinancial Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange. The study also compares the extent of corporate disclosure before and after the creation of the Saudi Organization of Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). We classify information disclosed in the annual reports into three main categories: mandatory; voluntary related to mandatory; and voluntary unrelated to mandatory disclosure. The sample provided 63% and 66% of the total population of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange in the years 1992 and 1999.In departure from most previous studies conducted in this area of research, we weighted the indexes of disclosure by the mean and median responses of seven users of the annual reports in Saudi Arabia. The results of both unweighted and weighted indexes are reported. The outcome of the analysis indicated a relatively high compliance with the mandatory requirements in all industries covered by the study, with the exception of the electricity sector. As for the voluntary disclosure, whether related or unrelated to mandatory disclosure, the analysis revealed that Saudi companies disclose information more than the minimum required by law. The level of voluntary disclosure, however, is relatively low. The analysis also showed that the creation of SOCPA has had little impact on corporate reporting in Saudi Arabia.     

IFRS Taxonomy and financial reporting practices: The case of Italian listed companies

XBRL taxonomies have a crucial role in digital financial reporting. On the one hand, they provide a unique set of computer-readable tags to allow the interchange of interactive information. On the other hand, a systematic, agreed-upon convention for naming each taxonomy tag is needed. In this context, the IFRS Foundation is playing a relevant role in developing well-structured taxonomies, which could simultaneously favor both the interoperability and the homogenization of the firms' financial information at the global level. Due to its importance, XBRL is being applied in many countries, but according to different implementation schemas.In this study, we attempt to verify if the IFRS Taxonomy released by the IFRS Foundation adequately reflects the reporting practices of the Italian listed companies for which XBRL is not yet required. The results reveal a general discrepancy between the financial items disclosed by the companies and the taxonomy tags. Specifically, we noticed that the financial statements items are more disaggregated than the taxonomy tags and that this depends on the sector and the size of the companies. Unless the XBRL implementation system explicitly allows companies to use and disclose taxonomy extensions, a loss of detailed information occurs if the taxonomy is applied.     

Risk reporting: A study of risk disclosures in the annual reports of UK companies

The concepts of risk and risk management have received considerable attention lately, but this has yet to be reflected in empirical research examining firms’ risk reporting practices. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature and explores risk disclosures within a sample of 79 UK company annual reports using content analysis. A significant association is found between the number of risk disclosures and company size. Similarly a significant association is found between the number of risk disclosures and level of environmental risk as measured by Innovest EcoValue`21™ Ratings. However, no association is found between the number of risk disclosures and five other measures of risk: gearing ratio, asset cover, quiscore, book to market value of equity and beta factor. The paper also discusses the nature of the risk disclosures made by the sample companies specifically examining their time orientation, whether they are monetarily quantified and if good or bad risk news is disclosed. It was uncommon to find monetary assessments of risk information, but companies did exhibit a willingness to disclose forward-looking risk information. Overall the dominance of statements of general risk management policy and a lack of coherence in the risk narratives implies that a risk information gap exists and consequently stakeholders are unable to adequately assess the risk profile of a company.     

Climate change reporting and multinational companies: Insights from institutional theory and international business

Multinational companies (MNCs) have an important impact on climate change, but knowledge on the greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting practices of MNCs is limited. A theoretical framework is developed to provide an explanation of GHG emissions reporting by MNCs. The framework combines institutional theory with the notion of MNC typology from International Business and explains how institutional pressure acting on each typology of MNC influences standardization of reporting practices and GHG emissions data quality. Propositions are developed and empirically investigated using a case study. Global MNCs are predicted to have better quality GHG emissions reporting compared to multi-domestic or transnational MNCs.     

Measuring the impact of international reporting standards on market performance of publicly traded companies

The decision whether to require publicly traded companies to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) remains in flux. In 2008, the US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a roadmap leading to complete acceptance of IFRS in the US. With the potential replacement of US GAAP with IFRS in the near future, understanding the impact of IFRS on corporate financial reporting is more important than ever. This study examines two factors which are critical considerations in the decision to accept or not to accept IFRS in the US: How different is financial statement information derived under IFRS from information derived under US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP); and how much incremental information value, if any, is provided by IFRS over US GAAP? The present study extends prior research by examining concurrently both differences and their impact on market performance. Findings of this study support the view that differences on financial statement results between IFRS and US GAAP are not significant, thus, supporting proponents of adoption of IFRS in the US, after which all US publicly traded companies would use IFRS and not US GAAP.