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This study empirically examines the nonlinear effects of mimicking peer firms' cash holdings on shareholder value, with consideration of macroeconomic conditions.

An instrumental variable approach for nonlinear models is estimated for a large sample of US firms over the period 1991–2019. This approach addresses the reflection problem in examining peer effects, whereby it is impossible to separate the individual's effects on the group, or vice versa, if both are simultaneously determined.

The authors find an inverted U-shaped association between shareholder value and mimicking intensity of peer firms' cash holdings. This result suggests that mimicking peer firms' cash holdings is subject to diminishing returns. It is more beneficial at lower levels of mimicking intensity but less so or suboptimal at higher levels. Further evidence indicates that this inverted U-shaped shareholder value-mimicking intensity nexus is asymmetric. Specifically, it is salient for decreases relative to increases in cash holdings and, more importantly, in good relative to bad macroeconomic states. The findings are robust to several concerns and have important implications for liquidity management policies.

The authors provide new empirical evidence of the nonlinear effects of mimicking peer firms' cash holdings on shareholder value, which varies with macroeconomic conditions.

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.

Using data for 86 Chinese listed companies which issued both A‐ and B‐shares, the authors employ the price model to test for the association between CAS‐based and IFRS‐based accounting information, and A‐share and B‐share prices. The J‐test was employed to determine the relative value relevance of the information based on the two sets of accounting standards.

Overall, the authors find that for both the A‐share and B‐share markets, both CAS‐based and IFRS‐based accounting information are value relevant, but IFRS‐based information is more value relevant than the CAS‐based information. However, the magnitude of the differences between the explanatory powers of the CAS‐ and IFRS‐based accounting information narrowed significantly in the 2001‐2004 period in both the A‐share and B‐share markets. The results are robust to the deflator used and the stock exchange on which the companies are listed.

The results have implications for China and other transitional economies attempting to integrate IFRS with a uniform accounting system.

The paper provides the first comprehensive empirical evidence as to whether or not the progressive harmonization of CAS with IFRS improved the value relevance of CAS‐based accounting in China and contributes to the debate on the (ir)relevance of IFRS in emerging and transitional economies.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance structures of French initial public offering (IPO) firms and the likelihood of failure and involuntary delisting from the stock exchange in the long run.

A matched-pairs research design was used and 36 delisted IPO firms were compared to an equal number of control IPO firms matched in terms of time, size and industry. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed, and it was found that corporate governance structures in delisted IPO firms were relatively weak compared to control IPO firms.

A significant negative association was found between the likelihood of exchange delisting and the proportion of independent directors. A positive and significant relationship was also found between the likelihood of exchange delisting on the one hand and the chief executive officer/Chair role duality and the retained ownership by insiders after the IPO on the other hand. However, no relationship was detected between IPO failure risk and board size at the IPO time.

Retained ownership and failure risk of French IPO firms.

COVID-19 has affected the lives and well-being of frontline workers including Social Workers and Social Auxiliary Workers. The purpose of this chapter was to explore the experiences of social workers and social auxiliary workers in the COVID-19 working environment. This chapter adopted a critical discourse analysis whereby articles were purposively selected to explore the challenges faced by the selected group of workers in executing their duties in the COVID-19 environment. The findings of this chapter revealed that Social Workers and Social Auxiliary Workers in South Africa are experiencing critical shortages of personal protective clothing and this has affected their capacity to effectively render services to individuals, groups and families. The findings indicated further that, Social and Auxiliary Workers experienced mental health issues that include stress, anxiety, fear, role conflict and work overload which was detrimental to quality service provision to their clients. The chapter calls for the National Department of Health to increase access to personal protective clothing to enable frontline workers to execute their mandates in a safe environment. The chapter also recommends for the government of South Africa to enhance its social welfare role through the access of the COVID-19 Relief Packages via the Department of Social Development to support struggling communities during COVID-19.

This paper aims to develop a corporate financial distress model for Indian listed companies using financial and non-financial parameters by using a conditional logit regression technique.

This study used a sample of 96 companies, of which 48 were declared sick between 2014 and 2016. The sample was divided into a training sample and a testing sample. The variables for the study included nine financial variables and four non-financial variables. The models were developed using financial variables alone as well as combining financial and non-financial variables. The performance of the test sample was measured with confusion matrix, sensitivity, specificity, precision, F-measure, Types 1 and 2 error.

The results show that models with financial variables had a prediction accuracy of 85.19 and 86.11 per cent, whereas models with a combination of financial and non-financial variables predict with comparatively better accuracy of 89.81 and 91.67 per cent. Net asset value, long-term debt–equity ratio, return on investment, retention ratio, age, promoters holdings pledged and institutional holdings are the critical financial and non-financial predictors of financial distress.

This study contributes to the financial distress prediction literature in different ways. First, there have been, until now, few studies in the area of financial distress prediction in the Indian context. Second, business failure studies in the past have used only financial variables. The authors have combined financial and non-financial variables in their model to increase predictive ability. Thirdly, in most earlier studies, variable institutional holdings were found to affect financial distress negatively. In contrast, the authors found this parameter to be positively significant to the financial distress of the company. Finally, there have hitherto been few studies that have used promoter holdings pledged (PHP) or pledge ratio. The authors found this variable to influence business failure positively.

The authors examine the relationship between credit default swaps (CDS) initiation and managers’ earnings forecast choices with different corporate governance structures. The authors expect that corporate governance plays a significant role in managers’ disclosure behavior as well as CDS initiation. The findings suggest that CDS initiation and managers’ earnings forecast behavior are positively associated. Firms with a strong monitoring mechanism issue a higher number of earnings forecasts and also issue forecasts more frequently when there is a traded CDS contract in the market. Additionally, the results suggest that managers issue more accurate earnings forecasts. Overall, these findings imply that the role of managers is important to mitigate the information asymmetry between individual and institutional investors when there is a new financial instrument because the development of the regulations and market rules for these instruments takes a longer time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate as to whether post‐Apartheid South African (SA) listed corporations voluntarily comply with and disclose recommended good corporate governance (CG) practices and, if so, the major factors that influence such voluntary CG disclosure behaviour.

The paper constructs a broad voluntary CG disclosure index containing 50 CG provisions from the 2002 King Report using a sample of 169 SA listed corporations from 2002 to 2006. The authors also conduct regression analysis to identify the main drivers of voluntary CG disclosure.

The results suggest that while compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG practices varies substantially among the sampled companies, CG standards have generally improved over the five‐year period examined. The authors also find that block ownership is negatively associated with voluntary CG disclosure, while board size, audit firm size, cross‐listing, the presence of a CG committee, government ownership and institutional ownership are positively related to voluntary CG disclosure.

These findings have important implications for policy‐makers and regulators. Evidence of improving CG standards implies that efforts by various stakeholders at improving CG standards in SA companies have had some positive impact on CG practices of SA firms. However, the substantial variation in the levels of compliance implies that enforcement may need to be strengthened further.

There is a dearth of evidence on the level of compliance with the King Report. This study fills this gap by providing evidence for the first time on the level of compliance achieved, as well as contributing generally to the literature on compliance with codes of good governance and voluntary disclosure.

This paper seeks to understand the processes of setting accounting standards in a developing country in transition, namely Egypt. It explores the social, political as well as economic forces that underlie the development of financial accounting regulations implemented throughout two longitudinal periods; starting with the beginning of socialism and extending to liberalism.

The paper is based on in‐depth interviews and an analysis of documents. It relies on the institutional theory notions of coercive, mimic and normative isomorphic mechanisms to link the changes in the financial accounting regulations to the changes in the wider social and institutional context wherein organizations operate, while, at the same time, exploring the legitimation processes underlying the development of domestic accounting standards similar to the International Accounting Standards (IASs).

The paper finds that the major changes in the state's political philosophy, the regulators' motivations and the processes of the accountancy profession provided a momentum to the formulation of Egyptian Accounting Standards (EAS). Though similar to IASs, they were acted upon to overcome the pre‐existing socialist accounting practices, while, at same time, increasing organizational members' adherence to the processes of privatization.

Although the empirical findings suggest that “globalization forces” through technical as well as financial assistance programmes created pressures during the standard‐setting processes, a full investigation and explanation of such pressures are an area of future research.

The paper contributes to the understanding of how IASs are diffused in a country in transition and the role of these standards during that country's transformation processes towards the market economy.

The paper investigates attitudes towards and perceptions of the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia, immediately before and during the period of adoption.

The study adopts an interpretive approach, using a new institutional theory framework, drawing on concepts of institutional isomorphism and institutional logics. Research was undertaken using extensive interviews of business owners and managers, accountants, auditors, regulators and others. Interviewees were identified using snowball sampling, and the paper discusses the appropriateness of this method for research in management in MENA countries.

The adoption of IFRS, and in particular IFRS for SMEs, in Saudi Arabia can be understood best as an example of mimetic isomorphism, as many respondents suggested that the country adopted these standards in order to emulate other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the G20 group of countries.

The study examines issues relating to the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in an emerging economy where adoption was not imposed by international financial institutions.

In addition to being the first study of the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in Saudi Arabia, the paper examines snowball sampling as a particularly useful method in MENA countries.