Home, by George Hodan, Public Domain
Increasingly, people who work for the good of humanity speak the language of business (G8, 2014). Social impact reporting has become best practice for many social enterprises, which use metrics such as ‘social return on investment’ as a means of quantifying their success. ‘Social impact’ can be seen as the social sector analogue of ‘profit’ in […]
Financial reporting and auditing are vital elements for global capital markets. The confidence in the financial market’s efficiency is bolstered by the trust placed in auditing being able to operate as an external controlling function, something that has led to the audit profession being perceived as the “guardians of truth in markets”. However, concerns over the guardians’ trustworthiness are […]
You are sitting on an airplane, enjoying the end of a flight back home. The flight lands ok, the pilot and crew thank you for choosing airline X – persuasively saying that they look forward to seeing you again on board – the doors open ok and you can happily disembark the aircraft. It happens for thousands of flights […]
Every time I see corporate accounting irregularities in the news I recall how a key finding in my doctoral research some time ago has remained relevant. The research showed support for a spillover effect between slack resources and managerial time horizon. Kind of like a ‘whack-a-mole’ effect. Slack refers to securing more resources (such as during an organization’s annual […]
The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by European listed firms in 2005, accompanied by similar regulatory action worldwide, represents one of the most influential accounting rule changes in history. The switch from a diverse set of domestic financial reporting regulations to a common set of accounting standards has affected thousands of companies that differ in terms […]
Innovation is the adoption of an idea or behaviour pertaining to a product, service device system, policy or programme that is new to the adopting organisation. Innovation has been recognised as a significant aspect of corporate survival. This has become particularly apparent in recent years as firms are increasingly operating in highly competitive markets where technologies are constantly developing, […]
Social accounting is a broad term describing a range of company reports on community or wider stakeholder engagement. It is often viewed as a simple process of one-way communication as a company seeks to put forward an account of its social impact. It is less regulated in form than financial accounting, and its purpose is usually framed as winning […]
The first picture shows the distribution of actual earnings in our study on target setting (see the study in brief box below) and replicates a well-established finding that reported earnings exhibit a ‘discontinuity at zero’ (meaning that there are disproportionally fewer firms with small losses compared to small profits), which one might surmise perhaps suggests that firms ‘manage’ earnings […]
Some time ago I was asked to comment on a study that found that the use of accounting return measures and non-financial measures in bonus plans was associated with managers’ long-term focus. This suggests that proper performance measurement systems can affect managers’ horizon and alleviate myopia.
Myopia is indeed a pervasive issue in business, as the Kay Review suggests (amongst countless others). The blame is often squarely […]
Here is one diehard maxim of business: don’t overshoot your performance target this year, because before you know it the one for next year will be tougher yet. This is target ratcheting at work: when you do better than the established goal, your next objective will be even higher; but the converse is not true. If you do worse, the company will […]
The recent box office success of Jurassic World, the latest Jurassic Park sequel, reminded me of my study about the use of real options in the motion picture industry*, which examined the application of this accounting tool to movie sequels.
A real option is the right, but not the obligation, to undertake a business decision. More importantly, a real-options approach to […]
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