This paper studies the role of publicly available accounting information in class conflict between capital and labour in Victorian Britain. The company investigated – the Staveley Coal & Iron Company Ltd – is one of the earliest industrial enterprises registered under the Companies Act 1862. The period studied is 1863, when the company was incorporated, through to 1900 by which time the workforce comprised

(2021). Special section editorial: Enforcement of financial reporting. Accounting and Business Research: Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 237-245.

(2021). Value and profit; an introduction to measurement in financial reporting. Accounting and Business Research: Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 298-302.

(2021). Thank you to reviewers. Accounting and Business Research: Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 303-305.

In its recently revised conceptual framework, the IASB re-affirms decision-usefulness as the objective of financial reporting, disregarding claims about its lack of coherence. In this paper, we examine how this notion of decision-usefulness works in practice by focusing on the case of fair value measurement. In particular, we explore how decision-usefulness is perceived and experienced by financial

UK national museums and galleries (MaGs) are organised as non-departmental public bodies to enable them to pursue their desired socio-cultural objectives with minimal interference from the government. This study examines how the UK government controls heterogenous UK national MaGs to insidiously influence their objectives. It uses data collected from published sources and from interviews conducted

We provide insights into how the market processes going concern audit opinions based on the trading of some well-documented sophisticated investors – short sellers. We find that abnormal short selling increases significantly upon impending going concern disclosures. While prior literature attributed much of short selling around some corporate events to private information, we find evidence that pre-going-concern

This paper examines the effects of friendships with the CEO on the decisions of directors of non-profit organisations. Participants in the experiment are active non-profit directors. Results indicate that non-profit directors with no corporate director experience manage earnings less for the benefit of a CEO when they are friends of the CEO, relative to when they do not have a friendship with the CEO

We posit that investors and social media users place more weight on cash flows than on earnings for innovative small cap firms and that, in turn, innovative small cap firms (i) manage cash flows more than earnings, and (ii) disclose more cash flow than earnings information on social media. Using a matched sample of innovative and non-innovative small cap firms listed on the London’s Alternative Investment

This paper is a historical account of the founding, organisation and early operation of the International Auditing Practices Committee (IAPC), which was one of the committees of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), from 1978 onwards. It examines the debates and disagreements attending the most controversial of the IAPC’s 29 International Auditing Guidelines (IAGs), dealing with the auditor’s

Prior research documents that financial capacity could be positively or negatively associated with the demand for audit quality. We re-examine this relation using changes in local real estate prices as exogenous shocks to corporate financial capacity. Using auditor size, auditor industry specialisation, and auditor fees as measures of audit quality, we find robust evidence that an increase (decrease)

Building on semi-structured interviews and publicly available documents in the realm of accounting, auditing and capital market regulation in Romania, this paper reviews and reflects on the prerequisites for, and conditions affecting the development of a financial reporting enforcement system (FRES) of Western origin in an emerging economy. It does so by examining institutional factors within and across

From October 2013, UK law and regulations (the Reform) require periodic binding shareholders’ approval of executive directors’ remuneration policy, as well as enhanced disclosure in remuneration reports. These requirements supplement an ongoing requirement for an annual non-binding vote on compensation outcomes that are detailed in the remuneration report. Using a large sample of listed companies from

This study examines the effect of income shifting on the implied cost of equity capital (ICOE) for US multinational corporations (MNCs). We find that income shifting is significantly positively ass...

This study examines the association between the political corruption of a local government and the readability of firms’ annual reports. Based on a sample of 12,742 firm-year observations during th...

(2020). Correction. Accounting and Business Research. Ahead of Print.

We examine the role of industry-level product market competition on non-GAAP disclosure decisions. We consider traditional measures of industry competition (concentration, price-cost margin, and set up costs), and large reductions in import tariff rates that identify an exogenous increase in competition. We find that competition intensity influences the likelihood of non-GAAP disclosure and the magnitude

This study adopts an institutional lens to explore enforcement as a complex and nuanced phenomenon shaped by the dynamics of its social context. It examines an IFRS regulatory incident that fails to conclude with any decision or resolving action in the context of the European Union, and as such invites serious questioning of enforcement functions. From our analysis accounting enforcement emerges as

I examine whether the informativeness of income smoothing varies with the extent to which the CEO holds inside debt (i.e. pension benefits and deferred compensation). I document that for firms where the CEO holds less inside debt, income smoothing reduces stock price informativeness. This result suggests that CEOs with lower inside debt smooth earnings to conceal firms’ underlying economic performance

In this study, we examine how a CFO’s social ties with non-CEO senior managers in the same firm affect the likelihood of financial restatements. We categorise social ties as either professional or ...

Financing and investment decisions occur across a vast range from top corporate executives considering acquisitions of plant, property and other companies, to retail investors running their own portfolio, private equity investors looking to acquire a stake in a business, be that a small first-time buy-out at around a million pounds or Apollo’s recent purchase of the materials division of General Electric

This paper discusses two real effects of financial reporting on pay and incentives: (1) Better earnings leads to better incentives, and (2) If pay is mismeasured, pay can be misused. The first real effect follows from the fact that incentives are often based on earnings, and the effectiveness of earnings-based incentives is positively related to the quality of earnings. Greater use of earnings in incentives

This paper reviews the literature on the real effects of financial reporting and disclosure on corporate innovation, highlighting both the possible channels of influence and the potential challenges that researchers face when attributing causal effects. We discuss the concept of innovation, emphasising the specific characteristics that make investments in innovation difficult to report. We then provide

In this paper, I provide an overview of the research on the real effects of financial reporting on investing and financing decisions made by firms. Accounting can improve investment efficiency and affect nearly every aspect of the financing decision by reducing information asymmetry and improving monitoring. However, limitations in the financial reporting system, specifically distinguishing liabilities

I am a partner at Mercer, in the executive reward team. My day job is to advise companies and boards on everything that is mentioned in John Core’s paper, in particular how to make incentives work for a company, and how to make incentives work for shareholders. Core (2020) mentions that we need good-quality earnings to help ensure incentives are effective. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I would

This article seeks to initiate research around the potential roles of the accounting profession for tackling the challenges of the vulnerable. Its backdrop is the current consideration of the profession’s public interest role. The importance of dialogue around the public interest role is evidenced by the increasing levels of vulnerability, even within developed countries. Accounting underpinned by

In this 50th anniversary year for Accounting and Business Research, I am pleased to introduce the 15th issue of the International Accounting Policy Forum (IAPF) – the annual special issue of ABR. The first four academic papers in this issue are based on presentations from the 2019 ICAEW Information for Better Markets conference. The fifth and final paper formed the basis of the 2019 P.D. Leake Lecture

International Financial Reporting Standard 15 (IFRS 15) Revenue from Contracts with Customers has significantly changed the philosophy of revenue recognition, not only to provide a fairer representation of corporate revenues, but also to inhibit the use of revenues for ‘earnings management’ purposes. We provide a framework to analyse the various effects of new and amended accounting standards. Changes

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between managerial overconfidence and write-offs following CEO turnover. Incoming CEOs often engage in big bath accounting as they dispose of poorly performing projects. Overconfident managers overestimate their abilities and consequently have upwardly biased expectations concerning future firm performance. I hypothesise that overconfident CEOs are

This study investigates the effects of releasing embedded value (EV) reports and EV report disclosure quality on life insurance companies’ credit risks, using issuer credit rating and bond yield spread data from 2001 to 2010. Results show that releasing an EV report and EV report disclosure quality are both significantly and negatively associated with life insurance companies’ credit risks. In addition

This paper continues the reflections on transition set out in Peasnell (2020). He has described the academic transition ‘from ABR’s origins as a very British journal to one that could be a force to...

This paper celebrates the contribution of this journal, over its first 50 years, to research on international financial reporting, defined as comprising writings on comparative or harmonisation top...

I am delighted to have been presented with this opportunity to provide some reflections on my time as past editor of Accounting and Business Research (ABR) as part of the conference being organised...