Narrative disclosures in annual reports

This paper explores a methodology for evaluating the content of narrative data. The method is applied to the president's letter and management analysis portions of annual reports in three industries. Comparisons of the narrative themes identified by the method are made to economic factors of sample firms that could alter perception of management performance. Results confirm hypothesized linkages between performance and narrative disclosure consistent with attribution theory.     

An exploratory study of the understandability of listed companies’ annual reports

In order to investigate the comprehension difficulties arising from the highly-specialized writing formats of listed companies’ annual reports, this research evaluates investors’ comprehension of annual reports and discusses ways to improve their understandability. The Cloze method is employed in this experimental study involving university students and preliminary testing. This research concludes that the understandability of Chinese listed companies’ annual reports is close to the comprehension capacity of semi-professional investors but beyond non-professional investors. The extensive use of a great number of accounting jargons is likely the main cause for comprehensive difficulties for non-professionals. Translated from Kuaiji Yanjiu 会计研究 (Accounting Research), 2004, (12): 23–28     

Identifying financially illiterate groups: An international comparison

Targeted policy interventions are more effective than one‐size‐fits‐all initiatives. This paper proposes the use of k‐means cluster analysis to identify vulnerable groups with respect to financial literacy. Using a rich sample of 12 countries, we distinguish 4 groups with varying financial literacy levels, and examine their socio‐economic characteristics. The results suggest that individuals in the most vulnerable financially illiterate groups are on average, single, less‐educated and unemployed with low incomes. This contrasts with those in the strongest group: individuals with the highest financial knowledge, financial behaviour and financial attitudes scores are on average highly educated males who live together with a partner. They earn a high income and hold several financial products. Integrating these insights into national strategies which promote financial literacy will not only lead to more effective but also to more efficient policy initiatives by focusing on the particular weaknesses of certain subgroups and using the appropriate transmission channels.     

The re-emergence of small-scale production: An international comparison

During the 1970s the long standing trend towards centralisation in the organisation of business ceased, and was reversed in many advanced industrialised countries as the share of employment in small enterprises and establishments began to increase. The article documents the important developments in the size distribution of production of the six largest OECD countries, and examines various explanations for the changes, such as the business cycle, the sectoral recomposition of the economy, labor cost advantages in small firms, and the spread of flexible specialisation. It also discusses potentially unfavourable effects of these changes on wages, working conditions, and industrial relations, and proposes institutional reforms to mitigate, or avoid, such effects.On the basis of an analysis of the small firm sector in the larger economic, social, and institutional context it is argued that the individual small firm lacks sufficient resources to compete effectively with large firms. To overcome these deficiencies it either has to depend on resource transfers from large enterprises, i.e., on a foster relationship, or be linked to a community of small firms, such as the industrial districts in Italy, in which productive resource are jointly procured, developed, and utilised, commercial services shared, and intermediary institutions created to elicit and maintain interfirm cooperation. In this way small firms can become parts of big organisations, enjoy many of the advantages possessed by large firms, and consequently offer jobs of comparable quality.This paper is a revised version of the introductory chapter to The Re-emergence of Small Enterprises — Industrial Restructuring in Industrialized Countries, edited by the Authors and Michael Piore, and published by the International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva, 1990. The paper draws heavily on country reports for Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Norway, Hungary and Switerland. The first six report are included in the book.     

The portrayal of women in Canadian corporate annual reports

We assess the inclusion of women in Canadian corporate annual report (CAR) photographs and on boards of directors at TSX100 firms and evaluate whether either is related to financial performance. We find that women are underrepresented in CAR photographs and on boards. In CAR photographs women are frequently portrayed as outsiders or less powerful organizational members than men. Higher return on equity (ROE) was found at companies that more frequently depicted women in their CAR photographs. However, no association was observed between the inclusion of women on the board and the ROE of the firm. The applied and theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transparency in non‐tariff measures: An international comparison

We construct an index of non‐tariff measures (NTM ) transparency based on notifications to the WTO under the sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade agreements, the existence of a trade portal giving ready access to trade‐relevant regulations, the existence of NTM data collected under the MAST classification, and the results of an experiment conducted between 2015 and 2016 where we asked for specific regulations concerning the import of a particular product on behalf of a private company. The resulting country ranking shows that OECD countries are, by and large, the most transparent, but also shows that ASEAN countries score well compared to other developing countries.     

Fuzzy evaluation of risk management profiles disclosed in corporate annual reports

The most common measures of risk have traditionally been based on quantitative financial and accounting information. However, new information on risk management disclosed in companies' annual reports is generally qualitative or linguistic. As such, exploitation by decision makers becomes difficult. In this study, a fuzzy analysis approach is applied to risk information disclosed by 217 firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The results provide some evidence that these fuzzy measures are reasonable proxies for traditional financial and accounting measures. They also show that fuzzy measures can predict a significant amount of systematic risk. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An international comparison in the general food trade. Cases of structural change

The paper considers general trends of structural change in terms of averages in the general food trade. It gives an international comparison of trends concerning average shop size, number of shops per 1,000 inhabitants, the share of independents and concentration. On the basis of the evidence, three stages are proposed for the development of retail structure.     

Generational accounting: an international comparison

With rapidly rising government debt and ageing populations implying high contingent liabilities in public pension systems, the issue of longer-term fiscal developments is gaining importance. The question arises whether, and to what extent, future generations will be burdened by current policies. Generational accounting is a new approach to examining such issues and it is used more and more in the policy debate.     

商誉会计处理方法的国际比较

本文阐述了商誉会计理论的现有模式,对商誉会计处理方法进行了国际比较,并对各国倾向于采用购买法确认与计量商誉、采用减损测试对其进行日后处理进行了原因分析.     

国际工程项目风险防范系列报道之三投标风险分析与防范

在承包国际工程项目的过程中,除了系统性风险外,还存在承包商因各种原因,如市场定位不准、信息来源不确切、代理选择不当、技术方案和设备选择存在问题、设备及材料质量没有把好关、合同不严谨存在严重漏洞、商务操作不当、组织管理措施不力而造成项目利润下降、亏损或严重亏损等后果的非系统性风险。这种风险包括项目前期、投标阶段、合同履约、施工完毕四个阶段的风险。     

An information-based theory of international currency

This paper develops an information-based theory of international currency based on search frictions, private trading histories, and imperfect recognizability of assets. Using an open-economy search model with multiple competing currencies, the value of each currency is determined without requiring agents to use a particular currency to purchase a country's goods. Strategic complementarities in portfolio choices and information acquisition decisions generate multiple equilibria with different types of payment arrangements. While some inflation can benefit the country issuing an international currency, the threat of losing international status puts an inflation discipline on the issuing country. When monetary authorities interact in a simple policy game, the temptation to inflate can lead optimal policy to deviate from the Friedman rule. The calibrated model can produce a welfare cost of losing international status for the issuing country larger than previous findings, though estimates depend critically on inflation rates and information costs.     

Consumer knowledge and its consequences: an international comparison

By far the theories of consumer knowledge are mainly estimated in the western countries. It is important and necessary to assess theory generalizability and model equivalence across different culture contexts. This paper intends to gain a preliminary understanding of the relationship between two consumer knowledge components and four product‐related task performances, with a focus on the influences of two psycho‐linguistic differences in cognition. Based on the results of our empirically multi‐group comparison of Chinese and French wine consumers, we find that consumer knowledge is a multidimensional construct in both cultural contexts. It appears that psycho‐linguistic differences largely affect the consumption task performance. Consequently different consumer knowledge components play different roles in consumption tasks and lead wine consumers to employ dissimilar information processing strategies in various cultural contexts.     

An information approach to international currencies

Models of currency competition focus on the 5% of trading attributable to balance-of-payments flows. We introduce an information approach that focuses on the other 95%. Important departures from traditional models arise when transactions convey information. First, prices reveal different information depending on whether trades are direct or though vehicle currencies. Second, missing markets arise due to insufficiently symmetric information, rather than insufficient transactions scale. Third, the indeterminacy of equilibrium that arises in traditional models is resolved: currency trade patterns no longer concentrate arbitrarily on market size. Empirically, we provide a first analysis of transactions across a full market triangle: the euro, yen and US dollar. The estimated transaction effects on prices support the information approach.     

An institution-based view of international entrepreneurship: A comparison of context-based and universal determinants in developing and economically advanced countries

The objective of this paper is to investigate the institutional characteristics of different geographic contexts that affect the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study focuses on three categories of factors: (a) sociocultural, (b) political/legal, and (c) economic. Under economic factors, it examines competitive pressures in international markets, the nature of demands in international markets, domestic resources advantages, and domestic general economic characteristics. The paper identifies universal factors that influence the internationalisation of SMEs regardless of the location of the firm. These universal factors are distinguished from context-based factors, which are specific to the particular conditions of the people/location of the firm. A comparative analysis of cases from Italy and Iran allow us to find factors that are universal, others that are Iranian context-based, and one factor specific to the Italian context. Also, our analysis suggests the existence of some factors without significant influence in either country.     

中国两会在西语国家的反馈及深层对比

贫富差距和就业问题以及水电问题的深层改革成为各国亟待解决的问题,也是今年两会热议的话题.文章在现有研究基础上分析各国背景异同,进一步借鉴拉美国家发展经验教训.     

The role of female directors in promoting CSR practices: An international comparison between family and non‐family businesses

This article analyzes a panel of 550 international firms, for the period 2004 to 2010, to compare the role of female directors in family and non‐family firms in promoting responsible practices. Many studies have associated the presence of women on the board with a higher degree of socially responsible commitment. However, we found that this is much less so in family firms than in non‐family firms. In family firms, corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment does not vary significantly with the presence of female directors, as the latter tend to behave in accordance with the family orientation toward CSR. This orientation depends on the stakeholders being addressed, with greater social responsibility shown toward external stakeholders than internal ones.