{"title":"A real effects of climate-related shareholder proposals: Diversification","authors":"Greg Tindall","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101450","url":null,"abstract":"To date, the literature has not discovered diversification to be a firm policy that shareholders can influence through their proposals at annual meetings but has explained contexts in which diversification can defend. I contemplate and test diversifying responses to shareholder proposals made in the context of climate change. By following 440 shareholder-initiated proposals in the United States that contain “climate change” – from the first instance in the 1994 proxy season until 2020 – I find that firms in receipt of such proposals diversify more, mostly into related industries. Further, diversification prompted by climate proposals generally leads to wealth enhancements. Beyond correlations and the main results of ordinary least squares regressions, I address the endogenous nature of corporate policies in a variety of ways: a matching estimator, fixed effects, and an instrumental variable, along with a placebo and a GMM estimator. Robustness tests confirm prior results and expose a subtle difference between sales and asset diversification. Climate-related proposals appear to influence sales diversification slightly more than asset diversification, suggesting that agents may be less responsive to owner concerns than customers. Overall, shareholder proposals related to climate change can have the real effect of prompting firms to diversify.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141910572","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":"Accounting research for the digital age","authors":"Bin Ke","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101443","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"133 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141841987","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}
Ly Pham, David Hay, Antti Miihkinen, Emma-Riikka Myllymäki, Lasse Niemi, Jukka Sihvonen
{"title":"Climate risk disclosures and auditor expertise","authors":"Ly Pham, David Hay, Antti Miihkinen, Emma-Riikka Myllymäki, Lasse Niemi, Jukka Sihvonen","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101439","url":null,"abstract":"Many jurisdictions are establishing requirements for corporations to disclose climate-related risks, and for those disclosures to be audited. One of the first jurisdictions to do so is Australia, where the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) issued a Joint Bulletin in 2018 stating that both preparers and auditors should consider the impact of climate risks on the company's financials. Utilising the Australian setting, this paper introduces a new measure of audit partner expertise, namely , and examines whether it is associated with the client company's climate risk reporting. We define audit partner expertise in climate-related issues based on their client portfolio composition in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We find that the likelihood and quality of climate risk disclosures is higher when the audit partner has climate risk expertise, and this finding is driven by clients in industries with material climate risks.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141783765","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":"Does analyst ESG experience matter?","authors":"Anastasia Kopita, Zacharias Petrou","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101438","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the relationship between analysts' task-specific experience in the context of ESG information and the informativeness of their stock recommendation revisions. While sell-side analysts incorporate ESG information in their valuation process and research reports, previous studies have indicated that the increased availability of ESG information in the market poses challenges for analysts to issue incrementally informative reports. Building upon existing literature that highlights systematic differences in analysts' performance that is attributed to their experience, we introduce a measure of financial analysts' ESG experience. We document a positive association between our proxy of analyst ESG experience and market reactions to their recommendation revisions. Our findings also show that analysts' ESG experience contributes to the interpretation of information included in firm ESG reports. We further find support for a stronger association between the market reaction and our ESG-experience proxy when firms exhibit lower levels of ESG disclosure and when they face higher external scrutiny due to their exposure to ESG-related risks. Our results are robust when considering analysts' innate and forecasting ability and when additional specifications are applied.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141783766","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 do banks acquire FinTech? The role of board cultural diversity","authors":"Reghezza Alessio, Chrysovalantis Vasilakis","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101424","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the role of cultural diversity in bank boardrooms for the acquisition of innovation financial technology – or “FinTech” – firms. Using a sample of 808 banks from 2008-18 in 65 countries, we find that culturally diverse boards are more likely to pursue the acquisition of FinTech firms. We also show that bank-, country- and corporate governance-specific characteristics matter for FinTech acquisition. In particular, banks with older and more gender diverse boardrooms are more likely to acquire FinTech firms. Our paper assumes particular relevance for banks seeking to invest in digital technologies and to adapt to the new digital era.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141615186","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 information content of rating action reports: A topic modeling approach","authors":"John (Xuefeng) Jiang, Jing Kong, Michael Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101435","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the information content in Moody's rating action reports, which Moody's releases concurrently with its rating actions. Using a topic modeling approach, we identify two informative topics after controlling for rating characteristics and report tones. We find that unfavorable discussion of the topic (about issuers' financial performance) generates a significant positive market reaction, while unfavorable discussion of the topic (about issuers' liquidity profile) generates a significant negative market reaction around rating actions. Together, these two topics increase the explanatory power of market reaction around rating actions by over 10%. Further analysis reveals significant associations between these two topics and future default likelihood and debt-paying ability, and the associations are consistent with market reaction to these topics. Although investors have less confidence in rating reports following the Dodd-Frank Act, these two topics are more predictive of future default probabilities. Overall, we find that rating reports topics provide important information to investors as they significantly predict future default likelihood and financial performance.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"2012 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141615185","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}
García-Meca Emma, Ruiz-Barbadillo Emiliano, Martínez-Ferrero Jennifer
{"title":"High-quality assurance, ESG legitimacy threats and board effectiveness","authors":"García-Meca Emma, Ruiz-Barbadillo Emiliano, Martínez-Ferrero Jennifer","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101385","url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to investigate whether companies engage high-quality assurance in response to legitimacy threats caused by media coverage of negative sustainability events. Since responsive strategies designed to maintain or repair legitimacy directly emanate from boards, the paper also analyses whether board effectiveness reinforces defensive strategies to maintain a company's reputational capital and public image under environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns by supporting high-quality sustainability assurance. Using a sample of STOXX Europe 600 index firms from 2015 to 2020, the empirical results confirm the substantive role of assurance. When a company's legitimacy is at risk due to media coverage of ESG misconduct, the assurance of sustainability information is employed as an instrument to aid in repairing the company's legitimacy. In addition, our results confirm that boards with desirable attributes of independence and activity act jointly with assurance quality to legitimise companies. In addition, this paper also brings evidence about the mediating effect of board effectiveness; the impact of negative media ESG coverage on sustainability assurance quality appears to be justified by the effectiveness of the board. The evidence also points to interesting findings concerning controversial industries and countries with tight cultures, where the assurance quality seems not to respond to the legitimacy threats associated with media coverage of undesirable ESG. However, and after studying how the European Directive 2014/95/EU affected the symbolic use of assurance, results confirm that there are no significant differences in the legitimising use of assurance quality after irresponsible ESG actions before and after the directive, and neither, depending on the level of sustainability performance or public enforcement.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140643294","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":"Dynamics of carbon risk, cost of debt and leverage adjustments","authors":"Doulgas Cumming, Geeta Duppati, Ruwani Fernando, Shivendu Pratap Singh, A. Tiwari","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2024.101353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2024.101353","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"250 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139819215","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}