Audit Committee Regulation in Australia: How Far Have We Come?

This paper presents a synopsis of the major developments in corporate governance regulations and recommendations for Australian audit committees, categorised into three distinct periods of regulation from 1976 to 2004. Earlier Australian research on audit committee formation, composition and diligence is summarised and compared. The research is then extended by presenting the results of an empirical study of 188 of the top 300 ASX listed companies with a financial year end of 30 June 2004, the first year of the third period of regulation. The results indicate that compliance with corporate governance regulations and recommendations had improved substantially with respect to: audit committee formation; the number of audit committee members, non‐executive directors on the audit committee; financial expertise of audit committee members; and the frequency of audit committee meetings. However, the number of independent directors on audit committees was well below ASX best practice guidelines.     

Perceptions on the Causes of Individual and Fraudulent Co-offending: Views of Forensic Accountants

In this paper, we review the literature on moderators and mediators in the corporate sustainability (CS)–corporate financial performance (CFP) relationship. We provide some clarity on what has been learned so far by taking a contingency perspective on this much-researched relationship. Overall, we find that this research has made some progress in the past. However, we also find this research stream to be characterized by three major shortcomings, namely low degree of novelty, missing investment in theory building, and a lack of research design and measurement options. To address these shortcomings, we suggest avenues for future research. Beyond that we also argue for a stronger emphasis on the strategic perspective of CS. In particular, we propose future research to take a step back and aim for an integration of the CS–CFP relationship into the strategic management literature.