{"title":"On Earnings and Cash Flows as Predictors of Future Cash Flows","authors":"R. Ball, Valeri V. Nikolaev","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3842963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3842963","url":null,"abstract":"Do accruals-based earnings provide better information about future operating cash flows than do operating cash flows themselves, as predicted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board's conceptual framework (FASB, 1978}? While this is a foundational issue in accounting, because it addresses the information added by accrual accounting methods, testing it remains unsettled. We show that when comparing the predictive abilities of operating cash flows with equivalent variables calculated on an accruals basis, earnings outperform operating cash flows. The result becomes more pronounced when allowance is made for cross-sectional differences in the relation between firms' earnings and future cash flows. In fact, even \"bottom line\" earnings then have similar explanatory power as operating cash flows.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114525952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constrained by Accounting: Examining How Current Accounting Practice is Constraining the Net Zero Transition","authors":"A. Watson, T. Zochowski, R. D. McGarvey","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3811577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3811577","url":null,"abstract":"In February 2020, BP made a commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050, creating an obligation to society and investors. We explore how accounting practice constrains BP’s transition plans. While BP can achieve much of its net zero obligation through technical innovation, these investments will typically be expensed through the income statement, whereas capital expenditures on hydrocarbon projects would tend toward capitalization and slow depreciation through the income statement. And whereas internally-generated innovation will be expensed, intangibles acquired in M&A will be capitalized. Accounting's logic must support BP's net zero obligation as a social imperative and reward its acceleration. Normative accounting for intangibles provides a promising solution to overcome these challenges and restore accounting for net zero decision-making and reporting.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117181553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why is Corporate Virtue in the Eye of the Beholder? The Case of ESG Ratings","authors":"Dane M. Christensen, George Serafeim, A. Sikochi","doi":"10.2308/TAR-2019-0506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/TAR-2019-0506","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the rising use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, there is substantial disagreement across rating agencies regarding what rating to give to individual firms. As what drives this disagreement is unclear, we examine whether a firm's ESG disclosure helps explain some of this disagreement. We predict and find that greater ESG disclosure actually leads to greater ESG rating disagreement. These findings hold using firm fixed effects, and using a difference-in-differences design with mandatory ESG disclosure shocks. We also find that raters disagree more about ESG outcome metrics than input metrics (policies), and that disclosure appears to amplify disagreement more for outcomes. Lastly, we examine consequences of ESG disagreement and find that greater ESG disagreement is associated with higher return volatility, larger absolute price movements, and a lower likelihood of issuing external financing. Overall, our findings highlight that ESG disclosure generally exacerbates ESG rating disagreement rather than resolving it.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130983217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Empirical Evidence From Ghana","authors":"M. Pobbi, E. Anaman, Richmond Sam Quarm","doi":"10.31014/aior.1992.03.03.256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31014/aior.1992.03.03.256","url":null,"abstract":"Global concerns have over the years, been raised over the impact that business operations have on the environment. In response to these growing concerns, companies have begun to provide comprehensive disclosures on the environmental and social impact of their business operations. In this study, we sought to review the trends in disclosure practices as well as examine the extent to which companies are complying with the sustainability reporting guidelines in Ghana. The contextual data from the Akoben special audit on industrial operations supplemented with face-to-face interviews with important stakeholder groups served as the main data source for the study. The findings of this study showed that, even though the general trend in the environmental disclosures has increased over-time, the overall performance ratings of business operations did not meet the standards required for environmental disclosures. Based on the findings, we recommend that in the design and implementation of the rating programme, a broad consultation and active participation of all stakeholder groups must be encouraged to ensure the effectiveness of the programme. Additionally, the regulatory institutions need to be adequately resource by the government in order to strengthen their enforcement and monitoring roles.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115428862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Agency of Greenwashing","authors":"M. Ghitti, Gianfranco Gianfrate, L. Palma","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3629608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3629608","url":null,"abstract":"As climate change increasingly challenges business models, the disclosure of firm environmental performance casts growing attention by corporate stakeholders. This creates wider opportunities and incentives for greenwash behaviors. We propose a novel set of measures to capture greenwashing and we investigate the association between greenwashing and corporate governance features that traditionally mitigate agency problems. We show that board characteristics are variously associated with the apparent degree of corporate greenwashing. Firms with more independent directors tend to greenwash more, the presence of female board directors seems to have a positive impact on the degree of greenwashing, while the effect of board size on greenwashing remains ambiguous. Importantly, we find that greenwashing reduces firm value.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122847641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the Influence of Auditor Quality on the Magnitude of Sustainability Disclosure During a Disclosure Regime Change","authors":"Mitchell Van der Zahn, L. Cong","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3459892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3459892","url":null,"abstract":"Our study examines the proposition that auditor quality was a significant determinant of the magnitude of sustainability disclosure during the transition from a ‘voluntary’ to ‘comply or explain’ mandated disclosure regime in the Singapore context. In addition, we also examine the influence of auditor quality features on (a) the annual change in sustainability disclosure and (b) the option after enforcement of the ‘comply or explain’ mandate for a firm to issue a standalone or integrated sustainability report. The observation period for our study is from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2019, with data collected from 436 SGX public firms listed continuous during the observation period enabling empirical analysis to be based on 1,744 firm-year observations. Evidence presented in our paper indicates that the extent and range of sustainability disclosure in the annual reports of SGX publicly listed companies increased significantly across the entire observation window. Regression and fixed-effects panel data analysis indicates firms engaging a Big4 audit firm and/or industry specialist disclosed significantly more sustainability information. Meanwhile, we find a significant negative association between the delay in issuing the independent audit report and the magnitude of sustainability disclosure. Auditor independence is found to be insignificant. Auditor quality features, meanwhile, did not appear to be significant determinants of the annual change in sustainability disclosure during the observation window, or the decision of a firm to issue a standalone sustainability report versus an integrated sustainability/annual report.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"226 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124469630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"¿Cómo vincular la información que brinda la contabilidad de gestión ambiental con los proyectos de inversión? (How to Link the Information Provided by Environmental Management Accounting With Investment Projects?)","authors":"Daniel Isaac Roque, Marlene Cañizares Roig","doi":"10.18601/16577175.N23.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18601/16577175.N23.02","url":null,"abstract":"La información que brinda la contabilidad de gestión se manifiesta en gran medida en el sector productivo, sin embargo sus aplicaciones pueden ser empleadas en los diferentes sectores de la economía, contribuyendo al desarrollo sostenible desde el punto de vista empresarial, al vincular los aspectos económicos, sociales y ambientales. La presente investigación tiene como objetivo evidenciar la relación que existe entre la contabilidad de gestión ambiental y los proyectos de inversión, mediante la articulación de la información que utilizan estas, para el proceso que desempeñan en el área o sector de la economía. Se muestran resultados sobre el auge de las investigaciones relacionadas con la contabilidad de gestión ambiental que evidencia su desarrollo y pertinencia.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115356239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Role of Professional Organizations in Improving the Disclosure Performance of Corporate Houses at the Global Level","authors":"A. N., D. M. S., B. V","doi":"10.9734/AJEBA/2018/46740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.9734/AJEBA/2018/46740","url":null,"abstract":"Every country has its own economic feature. The economic feature of the country may be private or capitalized, centralized or controlled by the government, mixed it is the combination of both. In the private economy, the major player is private owners who are the central point of market operations and the factor for variations in prices. Individuals of the business organizations who want to involve in the transactions created by the private owner’s needs information which influence their behavior in the market. The present paper is conceptual in nature with secondary sources of data collected through websites, journal, and other published reports to analyze the role of international organizations in improving the corporate reporting at the global scenario. And concludes that there is necessity of having co-operation among these organizations in setting standards and the future can be with single competitive standards which encompass the need of all the stakeholders.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116798288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Performance Disclosure Practices in Indian Oil Companies - An Analysis of GRI-G4 Guidelines","authors":"A. N., M. Ashok, D. M. S.","doi":"10.9734/jemt/2018/45814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.9734/jemt/2018/45814","url":null,"abstract":"Business is one of the members of the society because it starts and ends its operation within the society so it has to consider its obligations and responsibility towards the society in which it is established. Business organisations having a special interest on the society along with its \u0000operational performance will sustain in the society for the long-run. There are several people who are having a direct and indirect association towards society such as owners, workers, consumers, financial institutions, and the public at large. For this group of interested people, business must \u0000communicate the information regarding to financial, environmental and societal performance of the business. The present study is intended to analyse the disclosure practices of social performance by the Indian oil companies. For the purpose of the study data was collected based on secondary sources and collected data is analysed with the help of content analysis technique, cooke’s compliance index, t-test. The study found that there is a difference in social disclosure of Indian oil companies and GRI-G4 guidelines and also found that there is an improvement in disclosure level of social information over the period of time.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"70 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134100842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constructing ExxonMobil's First Integrated Report: An Experiment","authors":"R. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3145369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3145369","url":null,"abstract":"While interest in integrated reporting is growing, the number of listed companies issuing such reports remains a very small minority. Common concerns expressed by companies include complexity, cost, and litigation risk. To address these concerns, we decided to conduct an experiment answering the question of “Is it possible and, if so, how difficult would it be to construct an integrated report for a company based on information from documents the company has placed in the public domain?” For our experiment we chose ExxonMobil. We were able to construct a decent integrated report for the year 2016 in about 40 hours. This suggests that the concerns companies have about integrated reporting are exaggerated. We are working to develop an “Integrated Report Generator Tool (IRGT)” that will use natural language processing and artificial intelligence technologies to produce an integrated report for any listed company in the world. These reports would be freely available. If we are successful in developing such a tool, an interim technology solution will solve the problem of the dearth of integrated reports. Ideally, these freely available integrated reports will encourage companies to produce their own.","PeriodicalId":240153,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Corporate Reporting (Topic)","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132530100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}