Disclosure of liquidity and cash flow statements by Australian superannuation funds before Covid-19

The Commonwealth's stimulus package required the unexpected distribution of cash by superannuation funds to members during the Covid-19 pandemic. We focus on disclosure and maintenance of an operational risk financial reserve and reporting of the statement of cash flows in annual reports by Australian superannuation funds. These disclosures represent mandated sources of information providing evidence of liquidity levels for meeting cash payouts and disclosure adherence. Many funds did not meet their statutory reporting requirements. More members and higher union board membership as measures of stakeholder power explain higher disclosure in support of managerial stakeholder theory.     

Valuing intangible outcomes from the Cooperative Research Centres-Projects program

The growing use of triple helix arrangements to stimulate national systems of innovation (NSIs) for broader economic benefits has largely focussed on quantifiable and compliance-based metrics to evaluate the ‘success’ of industry-university strategic collaborative research ventures. This metrics-focus largely ignores secondary, and even tertiary, outcomes of the collaborative ventures that are difficult to capture by research and innovation administrators with traditional metrics. A research project conducted on the Cooperative Research Centres—Projects (CRC-P) Program in Australia found that, in a number of cases, secondary and tertiary outcomes were highly valued by participants, and provided important but hitherto officially unacknowledged socio-economic benefits to the Australian NSI. This discussion proposes a typology of collaborative research outcomes beyond traditional compliance-based metrics, and challenges policy makers and research and innovation administrators to consider the development of an ‘Innovation Ecosystem Body of Knowledge’ to inform future collaborative research projects and enhance the ability of actors to access this ecosystem in an efficient and productive manner in order to ensure that potential economic gains from collaborative research are maximised.     

Investor reactions to key audit matters: Financial and non-financial contexts

We investigate how a disclosed risk item and key audit matter (KAM) relatedness combine to affect investors' riskiness assessment in financial and non-financial contexts. When management disclose a high-risk item, we find that investors react the same way across contexts with KAM relatedness having no effect. When management disclose a low-risk item, investors react differently in each context. When a KAM is related to the disclosed financial (non-financial) low-risk item, investors assess investment riskiness higher (lower) than when a KAM is unrelated to the low-risk item. Our findings indicate the varying communicative value of KAMs across financial and non-financial contexts.