Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive and critical overview of the theoretical perspectives used in the accounting disclosure literature including economic theories, political and social theories. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews and discusses in details the positive accounting theory (PAT), agency theory, signalling theory, political economy theo…
Purpose – The paper aims to provide a longitudinal view of successful turnaround phases and of how management accounting practices played a significant role in improving performance in one company. Design/methodology/approach – The company provided internal documents to cover the period of the study and permitted access to key individuals who were able to elaborate and clarify the motiv…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of the contributions of multiple theories to accounting and organizational research, which is often referred to as “theoretical triangulation” or “theoretical pluralism”, with a particular focus on the manner in which chosen research methods have informed these efforts at theoretical triangulation. Design/methodol…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of articles published in three highly ranked interdisciplinary accounting journals. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on articles published during 2010 in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ), Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) and Critical Perspectives on Accounting (CPA). The …
Purpose – This editorial aims to consider the global accounting academic and the environment in which we research and teach, including consideration of the challenges that confront us now and into the future. Design/methodology/approach – Document review, personal reflections and argument. Findings – The paper acknowledges that the accounting academic has an important role to play in …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the “Kyocera approach” to business, i.e. the relationship between the Kyocera philosophy, the amoeba management system (AMS) and the associated management accounting system. Design/methodology/approach – Utilising a variety of secondary sources, including semi-autobiographical works written by Inamori, the archite…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the historiographic writings for accounting concerned with the craft of researching and writing history, published in the English-language, across a period of 30 years from 1983 to 2012. The study’s aim is three-fold: first, to review the literature pertaining to the writing of accounting history and to identify key developments and trend…
Purpose – The authors expect major shifts in thinking about the transnational regulation of accounting and how it will develop. This is a time for ideas as well as action. The global accounting profession must take a leading role in developing and presenting the case for the transnational regulation of accounting, in identifying new regulations, new ways of regulating, and new compacts bet…
Purpose – Opposition to transnational calls for the adoption of accrual-based accounting in the public sector may stem from arguments that it is associated with poor earnings quality. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether state owned enterprises (SOEs) operating under accrual-based accounting manage their earnings, whether it is more prevalent vis-a`-vis privately owned enterprise…
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the influence of academics who are members of the profession on academic institutions. Design/methodology/approach – An analytic autoethnography of the influence of accounting academics who are members of the profession on South African universities, supported by publicly available information, such as policy and other documents, web sites, and publi…
Purpose – Concomitant with the trend towards specialisation in UK accountancy and the rise of relatively separate formal spheres of professional work along formal specialisms such as tax, audit and management consultancy, women entered the profession in unprecedented numbers, but not evenly distributed across those specialisms. This paper aims to draw on the sociology of accountancy and f…
Purpose – The accounting regulation literature has recently devoted a significant degree of attention to delineating the roles of accounting firms as key professional actors in the transnational policy arena. Such a heightened level of scholarly engagement with firms seems to have shifted the focus away from the roles of the national professional institutes. The purpose of this paper is to…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the life of Tony Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the University of Sheffield, who died on 5 March 2014. It celebrates Tony Lowe’s considerable direct contributions to accounting knowledge and, possibly more significantly, his indirect contribution through his enabling of a range of those associated wi…
Purpose – The study aims to explore the use of alternative measures of “understandability” on accounting texts. This includes the meaning identification test (MIT) and the sentence verification technique (SVT), which have not previously been used by accounting researchers, as well as variants on the traditional Cloze tests such as the C-Test. Design/methodology/approach – This study…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically assess integrated reporting so as to “broaden out” and “open up” dialogue and debate about how accounting and reporting standards might assist or obstruct efforts to foster sustainable business practices. Design/methodology/approach – The authors link current debates about integrated reporting to prior research on the conteste…
Purpose – The last four decades have seen the rise of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the core locus of transnational accounting regulation. Initial steps of associational cooperation were superseded by establishing a standard setting organization that heavily draws on consultation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on recent changes in governance and …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which sustainability reporting can be viewed as a simulacrum used to camouflage real sustainable-development problems and project an idealized view of the firms’ situations. Design/methodology/approach – The method was based on the content analysis and counter accounting of 23 sustainability reports from firms in the ener…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature on accounting change in explaining a decade-long effort by the FASB and IASB to develop a set of global accounting standards accepted by markets worldwide. This research studies the effort as one of “convergence” in accounting standards and aims to bring theoretical and empirical clarity as to how we can conceptualize the …
Purpose – The paper aims to extend research which has sought to explain Britain’s early success as an industrial power by identifying the influence of religious doctrine of the Dissenting Protestant churches on the development of accounting practices in the factory. The concern is not with specific accounting practices but with the social and moral environment which provided the incentiv…
Purpose – This study examines social reporting by Islamic banks with special emphasis on themes related to social justice. By using critical theory and “immanent critique”, the study attempts to explain and delineate reasons for disclosures and silences in Islamic banks’ annual reports and web sites vis-a` -vis social justice. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken was a…
Purpose – This paper seeks to problematise “accounting for biodiversity” and to provide a framework for analysing and understanding the role of accounting in preserving and enhancing biodiversity on Planet Earth. The paper aims to raise awareness of the urgent need to address biodiversity loss and extinction and the need for corporations to discharge accountability for their part in th…
Purpose – The paper seeks to respond to calls by Jones for more studies exploring the possibility of operationalising accounting for biodiversity. Design/methodology/approach – Archival data are used to produce a natural inventory report for the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest declared as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2007. Findings – The study extends prior re…
Purpose – The paper aims to analyse accounting rationalities and practices which lie behind biodiversity offsetting. The way in which accounting functions as a technology of government through the practice of biodiversity offsetting is to be considered and its effects examined. Design/methodology/approach – Governmentality is drawn upon to examine ways in which power and authority are e…
Purpose – This paper seeks to examine how the biodiversity comprising a tropical forest ecosystem is being protected as a result of having its conservation brought into financial accounting calculations by constructing a greenhouse gas emissions offset product to sell on the voluntary over-the-counter carbon markets. Design/methodology/approach – The research examines a single embedded …
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the application of standard environmental accounting practices for estimating long-term discount rates is likely to lead to the rejection of biodiversity-sensitive projects that are in the greater societal good. Design/methodology/approach – The authors combine estimates of marginal ecosystem damages from two forestry case studies, …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between management controls and the work-life balance (WLB) of junior accountants working in four multinational accounting firms using semi-structured interviews. Design/methodology/approach – The authors interviewed junior accountants, asking them about their firms’ time budgeting process, their views on organisationa…
Purpose – Arguing that the print media act as a claims-making forum for the social construction and contestation of crises, the aim of this paper is to explore how the print media mediated two audits commissioned following a high-profile salary cap breach in the National Rugby League (NRL) in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis to e…
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to identify and gain insights into the significance of barriers contributing to the purported “gap” between academic management accounting research and practice. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on diffusion of innovations theory, this study collects and analyses data from a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with 19 representatives …
Purpose – An effective management accounting information system (MAIS), as well as the accounting discourse related to it, can support, facilitate, enable, and constrain diverse business discourses. This paper aims to examine the discursive and organisational effects of an organisation accounting upon absent accounting artefacts, i.e. accounting without accounting. Situated within the dis…
Purpose – This paper aims to suggest that companies have ethical reasons to report about biodiversity issues and to investigate whether companies act on these reasons by examining the extent of biodiversity reporting in Denmark. Design/methodology/approach – For the first purpose, desk research was conducted using consequentialist ethics, while for the second purpose, data were gathered…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze and examine the role of accounting conservatism on firm investment behavior in China. Design/methodology/approach – By combining a developed theoretical framework and empirical study, this paper examines the impacts of accounting conservatism on firm investment. The sample and data are all collected from Wind and CAMAR databases. Findin…
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the association between accounting standards, legal framework and the quality of financial reporting by the Ministry of Water and Environment in Uganda. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a self-administered questionnaire to survey 120 staff and stakeholders of the Ministry of the Water and Environment. Correlation analysis wa…
Purpose – The aim of this study is to explore whether there are statistically significant differences in the influence that various career-choice factors may have on a decision to choose accounting and non-accounting majors in Iran. The findings derived from this study could assist accounting educators and professional accounting bodies to understand the reasons why students may want to ch…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative value relevance of accounting measures based on Chinese Accounting Standards (CAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in relation to both A-share and B-share markets during three distinct phases (1994-1997, 1998-2000 and 2001-2004) over which CAS were progressively harmonized with IFRS. Design/methodolo…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the accounting development process and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in small island economies (SIEs), with particular reference to Mauritius. SIEs are different from large economies in terms of economic and political dependence, colonial influences and international pressures, as well as vulnerability to natural shocks…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that determine the choice of multiple accounting methods in Tanzania. The study investigates managers’ decisions to choose accounting methods in a positive accounting theory perspective using panel data covering 60 years from 15 companies listed on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. Design/methodology/approach – Data were ex…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to trace the rise and fall of accruals in the Nepalese central government, contributing to the literature on accrual accounting by looking at the developments in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas of institutional theory have provided a theoretical setting through which to trace the country’s journey toward the accrual …
Purpose – This study aims to investigate in-depth, and explain the issues related to, the implementation of IAS/IFRS in an emergent country that recently adhered to the European Union, i.e. Romania. Design/methodology/approach – An institutional and structuration theory perspective is used to discuss two stages of IAS/IFRS implementation in Romania. Both primary (11 in-depth semi-struc…
Purpose – The paper seeks to examine the evolution of regulatory accounting within the context of the Brazilian electricity sector reforms. The paper traces the process of the reforms and the development of the regulatory accounting system. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on data collected from various documents including those published by the regulator (such as laws, …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope of applications and benefits of sustainability accounting for the production and industrial use of biomass as an energy source and substitute for fossil-fuel use. As environmental degradation and unacceptable social impacts not only increase from the production and use of fossil-fuel based energy, but also from alternative energy …
Purpose – The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is a specific example of life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to legislative measures that have far-reaching implications for economic operators. This paper aims to analyze LCAlimitations for biofuels based on REDfroman environmental accounting perspective. Design/methodology/approach – LCA limitations are identified on the basis of a literature…
Purpose – The paper aims to explore the role of management accounting practices as facilitators of the environmental management. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with environmental and accounting managers from six Spanish factories has been carried out to analyse how four management accounting practices commonly used at operational leve…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to raise a selection of issues and questions that have begun to face academics and business professionals in the technically complex field of greenhouse gas accounting. Design/methodology/approach – This paper drew on accounting, audit and assurance-based field work whilst the author was employed with a “Big 4” accounting firm and undertaken wit…
Purpose – This paper aims to identify changes in regulatory requirements that will lead to improved transparency on sustainability and corporate responsibility issues and the impact this may have for stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explored the relationship between new regulations governing the types of sustainability information this is likely to generate and who…
Purpose – In responding to prior critiques, the paper seeks to re-examine social accounting as a problem focused, multi-disciplinary field and explores some of the possible directions the emerging field might take. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is a discursive, polemical essay. Findings – The very nature of social accounting as a problem-based field seems to encoura…
Purpose – The paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of ethics courses provided to Malaysian accounting students and their impact on ethical judgement-making ability. Design/methodology/approach – Third-year accounting students from six Malaysian universities participated in a pre- and post-ethics course study. The sample consisted of four universities which provide an ethics course (…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore several contingency variables, namely environmental uncertainty, business strategy, technological advancement, market to book ratio, size, profitability and industry type in the context of management accounting and the availability of internal intellectual capital (IC) information. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was develo…
Prior to the adoption of an IFRS based reporting framework in Malaysia, no binding standard governing goodwill had ever been implemented. After several decades in which a laissez faire approach to the problem represented the dominant paradigm, the highly prescriptive and technical provisions of FRS 136 – Impairment of Assets represent a very substantial variation from past practice. This in …
This study aims i) to assess the quest for tax education among working adults that pursuing off-campus non-accounting program, ii) to analyze the level of tax knowledge among the working adults, iii) to elicit the relevant tax topics to be taught should tax education be integrated into non-accounting curriculum in higher education. We surveyed 450 working adults pursuing off-campus non-acc…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance on auditor quality choice by IPO companies in an emerging market setting. It seeks to identify whether efficiency or opportunism is the driving force behind the choice of auditors in Bangladeshi firms going public. We try to see whether ownership concentration in the hands of a owner-CEO wins over foreign …