{"title":"Idiosyncratic volatility and return: A finite mixture approach","authors":"Zhuo (June) Cheng , Jing Fang , Yinglei Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2023.101261","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2023.101261","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using finite mixture normal regressions, we find that the relation between idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) and realized return is negative for one latent group and positive for the other latent group. The intercept is larger for the group with a positive relation than for the group with a negative relation; the negative relation concentrates in firms with large negative realized return in the bottom two quintiles and the positive relation concentrates in firms with large positive realized return in the top two quintiles; the likelihood of having a negative relation is positively related to price-to-value ratio estimates. Realized return has a prominent mispricing-correction component that is negative (positive) for overvalued (undervalued) firms and decreases (increases) with the degree of overvaluation (undervaluation) corrected. Overall, our findings are consistent with the positive relation between IVOL and mispricing. Our findings suggest that an overall negative relation between IVOL and realized return is driven by the negative relation between IVOL and the mispricing-correction component from overvalued firms. Rationally determined expected return cannot be negative. Evidently, an overall negative relation between IVOL and realized return does not contradict the prediction of rational asset pricing theories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101261"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46398669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Management accounting and artificial intelligence: A comprehensive literature review and recommendations for future research","authors":"Khalid Abbas","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101551","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101551","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to disrupt and transform the management accounting domain and the role of accountants. The study systematically reviews 91 articles, synthesizing scholarly work on digitalization, AI, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), explainable AI, generative AI, and large language models (LLMs) in management accounting. In this context, the value of the paper is multi-fold. First, we argue that these technologies transform accounting information and organizational structures, affecting the accounting function's relationship with other organizational functions. Second, they present new challenges for management accountants, including data privacy, confidentiality, security and ethical concerns. Third, digital technologies automate basic accounting tasks and decision-making processes, potentially reshaping management accountants' roles and skills in terms of job elimination, upskilling, deskilling and reskilling. Fourth, these technologies create new opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration and redefine professional boundaries. This paper contributes by discussing the impact of digitalization and the latest AI technologies on management accounting, illustrating how they can create business value, and highlighting associated challenges and risks for the profession. It proposes research agendas and potential research questions for future studies, providing insight into the potential impacts and implications for the accounting profession and the role of accountants.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101551"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147425894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xu Feng , Mingya Hu , Cong Luo , Jiaquan Yao , Kunpeng Zhang
{"title":"Labor litigation and corporate cash holdings: Insights from the textual analysis of judicial documents","authors":"Xu Feng , Mingya Hu , Cong Luo , Jiaquan Yao , Kunpeng Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101541","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101541","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Labor litigation involves disputes between a firm and its employees over the latter's rights and obligations, and it may increase the uncertainty of firms' business operations and thus affect their financial decisions. Using textual analysis of judicial documents on labor and personnel disputes obtained from a specialized dataset, we find that labor litigation prompts firms to increase their cash holdings. Further analysis indicates that this effect mainly occurs in firms with higher labor adjustment costs, in regions where labor regulations and labor protection are strongly enforced, and in firms with high corporate social responsibility and high financial constraints. Finally, we find that increasing corporate cash holdings after labor litigation improves both firm performance and the market value of cash.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101541"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142816561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring dimensions of governance for different types of blockchain systems","authors":"Rina Dhillon, Prabhu Sivabalan","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101588","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101588","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapid evolution of digital technologies has significantly reshaped governance. While much existing literature focuses on public blockchain governance, fewer investigate governance mechanisms of private and consortium blockchains, increasingly prevalent in society. We explore how blockchain systems enact governance using Beck et al.’s (2018) framework examining decision rights, accountability, and incentives. Interviews with eighteen blockchain experts reveal that public blockchains offer greater decision rights, less accountability and emphasise intrinsic incentives. In contrast, private and consortium blockchains adopt hierarchical governance where central entities regulate access, decision-making and behavioural norms. These systems prioritise extrinsic incentives and accountability than public blockchains. Our findings challenge the view of blockchain as purely decentralised, instead offering evidence of hybridised structures in practice. We also extend Beck et al.’s framework by studying three blockchain types and propose a systems and structure-based rationale for control in blockchains, as opposed to trust-based mechanisms (Pflueger et al. (2022)). Finally, we offer a variation on how responsibility and accountability depart, beyond extant MA studies (Burkert et al., 2011; Giraud et al., 2008) - suggesting that openness does not necessarily equate to enhanced accountability. These insights are crucial for understanding blockchain governance and have important implications for digital systems integration in organisations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101588"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uncovering interfirm links through textual topic similarity: A comomentum analysis in financial markets","authors":"Zhiyu Zhang , Zheng Qiao , Yao Ge , Zhe Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101446","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101446","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using an unsupervised topic modelling methodology, we construct a cross-firm similarity measure based on the various topics extracted from Management Discussion and Analysis texts. Our findings indicate that the returns of firms with similar textual topics predict the focal firms’ future stock returns. A long-short portfolio constructed on this basis yields an annualised alpha of 17.03%. Further analyses show that the return predictability is stronger for stocks subject to limited investor attention and limits to arbitrage. Additionally, our textual linkage measure can also predict future earnings surprises. Overall, mispricing due to sluggish information incorporation acts as a potential explanation for return predictability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101446"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141994713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Harnessing ChatGPT for predictive financial factor generation: A new frontier in financial analysis and forecasting","authors":"Yuhan Cheng, Yuming Zeng, Jie Zou","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101507","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101507","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><span><span>The search for predictive financial factors in stock pricing of companies has long been a key focus in accounting and </span>finance<span>, but traditional methods often require complex, subjective inputs. This paper introduces a method using ChatGPT-4 to generate financial factors based on the structure of financial statements and key variables, eliminating the need for </span></span>numerical data<span>. Leveraging GPT’s natural language processing capabilities and extensive knowledge base, our approach efficiently generates factors that are highly predictive of future returns and exhibit robustness over time, unaffected by variations in different conversational windows. Regression analysis demonstrates that these factors cannot be linearly explained by traditional financial factors. This paper highlights AI’s potential in revolutionizing financial analysis and decision-making.</span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101507"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander C.A. van Slooten, Paula M.G. Dirks, Sebastian Firk
{"title":"Digitalization and management accountants’ role conflict and ambiguity: A double-edged sword for the profession","authors":"Alexander C.A. van Slooten, Paula M.G. Dirks, Sebastian Firk","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101460","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101460","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the relationship between the anticipated digitalization of the finance and control function and management accountants' (MAs') role conflict and ambiguity. Drawing on role theory, we argue that digitalization is associated with increases in MAs' role conflict and ambiguity because digitalization leads to adaptations in the established role templates of MAs and also introduces new templates for the digital age. We further argue that digitalization is associated with a stronger (weaker) increase in role conflict and ambiguity the more MAs have a watchdog (business partner) orientation. The reason is that the role templates for the digital age are less coherent and clear for watchdog-oriented MAs than for their business partner counterparts. We test our predictions using survey data from 242 MAs in Dutch for-profit firms. While we do not find that digitalization is associated with MAs’ role conflict and ambiguity per se, it is associated with more (less) role ambiguity and conflict for MAs with a relatively stronger watchdog (business partner) orientation. Digitalization may thus act as a double-edged sword for the management accounting profession. MAs focusing on the watchdog role may struggle in the digital age, while their business partner counterparts are set to benefit from digitalization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101460"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141994710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What happens at the interface of digitalisation and accounting?","authors":"Alnoor Bhimani , Lino Cinquini , Teemu Malmi","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101742","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2025.101742","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Organisations adopting digital technologies are seeing alterations in the structure and nature of data they track and process. Within this landscape of change, accounting systems tend to focus on the collection and aggregation of financial transaction data and the provision of quantitative and non-financial information to support decision-making processes. Evidence is, however, emerging that accounting controls and financial reporting are being reshaped in digitalising environments. We consider a number of accounting issues tied to the intersection of digitalisation and organisational processes highlighting the control implications of these changes. We identify related research possibilities and discuss the value of methodological pluralism in studying accounting in digitalising contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101742"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accounting research for the digital age","authors":"Bin Ke","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101443","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101443","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this commentary I provide a high-level overview of the impact of the ongoing digital revolution on management practices and its implications for accounting as a branch of management. I articulate why the accounting academic community needs to embark on its own digital transformation. I highlight the challenges and opportunities that the digital revolution presents to accounting scholars and call for a new model for accounting research, teaching, and industry outreach for the digital age.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47996,"journal":{"name":"British Accounting Review","volume":"58 2","pages":"Article 101443"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141841987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}