Purpose
This paper aims to investigate internet reporting and social media strategies by Australian firms. This study looks at the extent of internet reporting and considers firm characteristics ...associated with disclosing information on the internet. This research is timely as in the past decade, this paper has witnessed the rapid growth of technologies such as the internet and social media and their subsequent impact on business and the economy.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper constructs a disclosure index featuring a wide range of both financial and non-financial disclosures including social media strategy. This study then investigates the firm characteristics associated with the level of internet disclosure.
Findings
This paper finds that a firm’s internet reporting is associated with firm size, financial performance and analysts’ coverage but not associated with the percentage of independent board members. A firm’s social media strategy is associated with firm size and its environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) ranking.
Practical implications
The findings can help firms improve their internet reporting disclosures by providing a comprehensive list of disclosures that could benefit users of financial reports. It also helps standard setters and regulators understand some of the firm factors related to internet reporting and provide guidance for standard setters to consider in developing best practice internet reporting standards.
Originality/value
The research features the top 100 Australian companies’ internet disclosures in 2018 and also includes social media strategy. The results highlight that there is room for improvement with firms’ internet disclosure. By constructing a comprehensive index, this study provides guidance for standard setters to consider in developing best practice internet reporting standards.
Business education continues to be very popular among students across the globe, however, business schools have been criticised for not preparing 'work-ready' graduates. This paper investigates how ...business schools enhance organisational reputation, and in particular, how relatively younger and non-accredited business schools compete with longstanding business schools and those with established reputations. In so doing, the paper investigates the reputation drivers that are perceived to give business schools a competitive advantage. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with academics, experts and students. The results of this paper indicate that engagement with industry and the community is considered the key to achieving quality business programmes and to producing quality business graduates. In addition, we found that the two emerging themes of work placement (WP) and transnational education (TNE) programmes also contributed to quality business programmes but not without some risks.
We examine stakeholders’ comment letters regarding the Hong Kong Exchange’s (HKEX) 2015 Consultation Paper, which proposed mandating ESG reporting in Hong Kong. We test for significant differences in ...responses between stakeholder groups and whether the HKEX’s decision was consistent with stakeholders’ preferences in the consultation process. Examining comment letters submitted by six lobbying groups—preparers, investors, the accounting profession, NGOs, other institutions and individuals—we analyze survey responses using textual analysis software and statistical tests. We find that users and the accounting profession participated more than preparers. We also find that preparers and users took different positions on mandating ESG reporting when lobbying the HKEX, whereas preparers and the accounting profession advocated similar positions. Moreover, we find a significant association between stakeholder groups’ preferences and the HKEX’s decision on most proposed changes.
Purpose
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an internet-based interactive form of reporting language that is expected to enhance the usefulness of financial reporting (Yuan and Wang, ...2009). In the UK and the USA, XBRL is mandatory, and in Australia, it is voluntarily adopted. It has been reported that in the not too distant future, XBRL will be the standard format for the preparation and exchange of business reports (Gettler, 2015). Using an experimental approach, this study assesses the usefulness of financial reports with XBRL tagged information compared to PDF format information for non-professional investors. The authors investigate participants’ perceptions of usefulness in relation to the qualitative characteristics of relevance, understandability and comparability.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses an experimental approach featuring a profit-forecasting task to determine if participants perceive XBRL-tagged information to be more useful compared to PDF-formatted information.
Findings
Results reveal that financial information presented with XBRL tagging is significantly more relevant, understandable and comparable to non-professional investors.
Originality/value
The authors address a gap in the literature by examining XBRL usefulness in Australia where XBRL adoption will be mandated within the not too distant future. Currently, the voluntary adoption of XBRL by preparers and users is low, possibly, because of a lack of awareness about XBRL and its potential benefits. This study yields significant implications for the accounting regulators in creating more awareness on the benefits of using XBRL and to create an impetus for XBRL adoption.
ABSTRACT
The recent implementation of IES 2 and AACSB 7 has reinforced the importance of the development of ICT skills in accounting students and ensuring that they are work-ready for the demands of ...today's profession (AACSB 2020; IFAC 2019). This paper provides an overview of an assignment that we have introduced in an online graduate accounting course, which encompasses Excel, Xero, and Tableau software. Excel provides our students with the opportunity to develop skills in spreadsheets and applying formulas to work with financial data. Xero provides our students with an opportunity to get first-hand experience with a commercial cloud-based accounting software product and, finally, Tableau provides our students with skills in the utilization of visualization software. Our assignment features both team and individual components. An online course featuring a computer-based assignment provides a unique learning environment for the student.
We identify and predict circumstances where the direct method statement of cash flows is expected to provide more value relevant information to financial statement users. We predict the direct method ...is more informative when earnings are of lower quality (earnings are less permanent or companies report losses), companies are in a more stable state (proxied by small absolute changes in accruals/operating cash flow), and when cash flows/accruals are measured with more error using the indirect method. Direct method disclosure is also predicted to be more useful for small companies, where investors have fewer alternative sources of information beyond financial statements. We analyze Australian companies because they are required to report the direct and indirect method, and we further decompose the sample into industrial, mining, and company size to account for unique features of the Australian market. Our results are consistent with our predictions. This suggests the indirect method is as informative as the direct method on average but the direct method incrementally informs stock returns in specific circumstances. We also identify operational factors that significantly increase estimation error when estimating direct method line items for cash receipts and cash payments.
This article documents the use and disclosure of derivatives in the Australian extractives industry. We find that derivatives are used by 23 per cent of our sample, with mitigation of commodity risk ...and foreign exchange risk being the most common purposes for which derivatives are used. The most common types of derivatives used in the sector for hedging purposes are forward rate agreements and options. Results indicate that derivative use is positively associated with financial risk and firm size. We also examine the relation between firm characteristics and the extent of financial instrument disclosure, using a disclosure index based on the additional requirements in IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures. Empirical results reveal that large firms with higher leverage, which use derivatives, and are audited by a Big 4 auditor provide more extensive disclosure of financial instruments.
Current lease accounting standards classify leases as either operating or finance leases. Operating leases do not require recognition of lease assets or lease liabilities on the balance sheet. ...Proposed changes to lease accounting would require a lessee to recognise assets and liabilities for most leases over 12 months and may improve the quality and comparability of financial reporting of the entity. In this paper we summarise the literature that can be related, directly or indirectly to the proposed changes by the IASB and the FASB on lease accounting. In summary, the literature highlights that the proposed changes would potentially have economic implications for both preparers and users of accounting reports; including changes to financial ratios, assessment of risk and providing an audit of the accounting reports.
The education literature suggests a student‐focused teaching strategy to improve students’ engagement in a lecture. However, in traditional accounting lectures students take the role of passive and ...anonymous recipients of knowledge. This paper reports on two cycles of an action research project, developing and refining a blended learning model, with the purpose of enhancing students’ engagement in the lectures of a large management accounting course. Results of our study find that engagement was enhanced with the implementation of this model. This study contributes to the accounting education literature through reporting evidence from action research and the effective implementation of a blended learning model that accounting educators can use.
A firm's incentive to disclose has been linked empirically to a range of variables, including information asymmetry, agency costs, political costs, and proprietary costs. While the intuition ...underlying each of the variables seems plausible, Verrecchia (2001) argues that disclosure models can be characterized as an eclectic mingling of highly idiosyncratic economic-based models, and challenges researchers to take the first steps to unification. First, we investigate the role of ownership and competition variables in explaining voluntary segment disclosures in Australian firms and find support for both these variables. Second, drawing on theory supported by the corporate governance, strategic management and industrial organization literatures, we introduce a new economic variable that unifies both ownership and competition variables. We find that the unifying variable performs better than our model focusing on ownership and competition variables alone. We conduct a series of robustness tests on the model and find that its significance is not affected by the inclusion of disclosure control variables identified in prior literature, the change in standard, and acquisitions and disposals of physical assets.
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