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This paper aims to investigate whether managers use impression management through the presentation of non-financial information in an integrated reporting setting.

The authors performed an experiment with experienced professional controllers and part-time students enrolled in the executive master’s degree in finance and control at universities in the Netherlands. In this experiment, we manipulated the financial performance to test if managers present non-financial information differently based on the firm’s financial performance.

This study found that impression management is not applied by including or excluding non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs) in the integrated report, but by using more prominent presentation forms for positive non-financial performance and non-prominent ones for negative non-financial performance. However, the use of impression management through the presentation form decreased when the firms’ financial performance was positive. In that instance, this study noted that managers statistically significantly more often decided to present poor non-financial performance in a prominent presentation format in comparison to managers who were not aware of the financial performance.

A limitation of this paper is that the authors focused on only two impression management strategies: opportunistic/under-reporting and the presentation form. This analysis shows that the use of impression management mainly seems to occur through the presentation format. Future research could investigate other impression management strategies in an integrated reporting setting.

The results of this study are of importance for users of integrated reports, because it will provide more insight into whether firms are truly transparent in their integrated reports. Furthermore, the theoretical implication of this study is relevant to regulatory authorities, because it sheds light on the different forms of impression management used in integrated reporting and the influence of positively or negatively performing KPIs on the decisions of preparers of integrated reports.

Therefore, in this study, the authors add to prior literature by investigating the concept of impression management in an integrated reporting setting. More specifically, the authors perform an experiment and focus on different forms of impression management (the presentation format and under-reporting) through non-financial KPIs in an integrated reporting setting and link it to firm financial performance.

This paper considers whether the prospective services provided by a football player on behalf of the club holding his registration can be recognised as an accounting asset. The first section of the paper considers the appropriateness of treating these prospective services as intangible assets within the terms of the UK Accounting Standards Board criteria for definition and recognition of assets. In the second section, four valuation methodologies are evaluated using case study data made available by a major Scottish club. Each of the methods evaluated is either currently used in accounting practice by some clubs, or is used in some form in the existing market place for players. The historical cost model involves capitalising players acquired by the club via the transfer market on the balance sheet at their cost of registration. The earnings multiplier model applies a multiplier to a player's earnings to produce a current valuation of that player. The third model involves capitalising players at directors' valuation, while the independent multiple player evaluation model involves obtaining valuations for players from various informed sources, knowledgeable on those particular players. The paper concludes that there are convincing arguments for the conceptualisation of the services provided by football players as accounting assets, and recommends an system of valuation in which players are valued at their realisable value by independent experts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide local environmental information to raise community’s environmental awareness, as a cornerstone to improve the quality of the built environment. Next to that, it provides environmental information to professionals and academia in the fields of urbanism and urban microclimate, making it available for reuse.

The wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of sensor platforms deployed at fixed locations in the urban environment, measuring temperature, humidity, noise and air quality. Measurements are transferred to a server via long range wide area network (LoRaWAN). Data are also processed and publicly disseminated via the server. The WSN is made interactive as to increase user involvement, i.e. people who pass by a physical sensor in the city can interact with the sensor platform and request specific environmental data in near real time.

Microclimate phenomena such as temperature, humidity and air quality can be successfully measured with a WSN. Noise measurements are less suitable to send over LoRaWAN due to high temporal variations.

Further testing and development of the sensor modules is needed to ensure consistent measurements and data quality.

Due to time and budget limitations for the project group, it was not possible to gather reliable data for noise and air quality. Therefore, conclusions on the effect of the measurements on the built environment cannot currently be drawn.

An autonomously working low-cost low-energy WSN gathering near real-time environmental data is successfully deployed. Ensuring data quality of the measurement results is subject for upcoming research.

The choice of accounting policies by a company has implications for the market’s understanding of corporate performance. Whilst the critical areas of choice may change over time with new developments and changes in standards, the underlying issue remains relevant. This paper examines the effect of accounting techniques upon the relationship between accounting variables and UK share prices.

The study investigates the structure of audit fees in an emerging economy, Jordan.

The following regression model will be tested: ADFEES = f (SIZE, AUST, COMP, INDS, PROF, RISK, YEND, TLAG). The model is tested by running a cross‐sectional linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression of the audit fees on corporate size, the status of the audit firm, the degree of corporate complexity, profitability, risk, corporate accounting year end and the lag between the audit report and the end of the accounting year.

The results of the analysis revealed that corporate size, status of the audit firm, industry type, degree of corporate complexity and risk are the main determinants of audit fees. However, variables such as corporate profitability, corporate accounting year‐end (YEND) and time lag between YEND and the audit report date appeared to be insignificant determinants of audit fees.

In order to generalize the outcome of the study, the same study needs to be conducted over a long period of time (five years). Other variables such as the market share of the audit firm and the economic conditions of the country need to be included in the regression model in future research.

The outcome of the study can be used by audit firms to determine audit fees. Companies' management can also use the results of the study to predict the amount of audit fees that they will pay.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the compliance of US‐traded foreign firms with Sarbanes‐Oxley section 404 (SOX 404) by examining recent changes in their material internal control weakness (ICW) disclosures. This study also seeks to explore as a result of compliance, whether large firms can improve their internal controls than small and mid‐sized businesses (SMBs) can.

This study uses a logit regression model to test the data collected from Compustat and AuditAnalytics databases.

Both US firms and US‐traded foreign firms from developed countries experienced a significant descending trend of material ICW disclosures from 2004 to 2006. US SMBs, like large US companies, improved internal controls.

Prior studies asserted that the environment of corporate governance is more favourable for firms in developed countries. This study documents that US‐traded foreign firms from developed countries adjust to SOX 404 more quickly than do those from developing countries, resulting in fewer material ICW disclosures.

Although SOX 404 imposes vast costs on US‐traded foreign firms, investors can benefit from the improved internal control over financial reporting, as the Securities and Exchange Commission asserts. This paper contributes to the literature that US‐traded foreign firms from developed countries adjust to SOX 404 more quickly than those from developing countries. Although the significant fixed cost of implementing SOX 404 impacts SMBs disproportionately, US SMBs, like larger firms, still show an improvement in their internal control systems over time.

This paper aims to investigate management auditing, a thorough examination of an organization and the management in place, through an empirical research to gather data about how management audits are perceived and implemented among Geneva’s (Switzerland) business community. The board of directors is in charge of a corporation’s overall supervision. The internal auditing function works under the aegis of the board to ensure that the directors will properly execute their responsibilities as defined by corporate governance rules. Management auditing could thus be used to improve corporation performance. However, management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance. Findings enable the authors to both explain why management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance and generate related research hypotheses.

In this paper, the authors rely on an ethnographic study aimed at exploring perceptions of management audits in service companies from the Geneva region. This study is based on transcripts from 85 semi-directed interviews, conducted over a three-year period, of professionals with managerial and auditing backgrounds. The economic context during these three years was consistently characterized by the Swiss and international financial crises, ensuring that the findings remain comparable over this time period.

This paper identified three main factors that influence the integration of management audits into corporate practices: the degree of acceptance of the tools and requirements of management audits, the national culture and values embodied in the practice and the degree of corporate governance maturity. This paper presents the findings in the form of hypotheses that can be tested on any adoption of good corporate governance practices – not on management audits alone.

Notwithstanding the limitations due to its nature and extent, this study’s main limitation is its lack of validation of the hypotheses. In further research, the authors intend to use a quantitative survey to validate the research hypotheses and make statistical inferences.

This paper contributes to the literature because it is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study to empirically examine the significant link between management audits and corporate governance. The findings could be interesting for an international audience because they indicate possible action points that boards of directors can leverage to carry out management audits. The findings also bridge a gap between the literature on management audits and the expanding role of the internal audit function. This study also examines the way companies – in the Swiss context – understand, perceive and may be ready to apply management audits as a good corporate governance practice.

This study aims to examine the underlying determinants that may influence external audit fees paid by Emirati nonfinancial companies listed on Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

Data used in this study are mainly collected from the 2011 annual reports and corporate governance reports published by the Emirati nonfinancial companies listed on DFM. Backward regression analysis is used to measure the impact of a set of company characteristics on Emirati non-financial listed firm’s audit delays.

The findings pointed to a significant and positive association between audit fees and each of corporate size and audit committee independence variables. A significant and negative relationship has been detected between external audit fees and business complexity. The findings also revealed that audit fees are not significantly associated with company’s profitability, risk, industry type, status of audit firm and audit report lag.

The paper helps in expanding limited existing literature about the determinants of audit fees in the Arab and Middle East countries generally and in the UAE context particularly. No prior attempt had been made to investigate the determinants of audit fees paid by Emirati firms listed on DFM because the disclosure of audit fees services provided by external auditors only became effective after April 30, 2010. The findings of the study may be generalized to other Arab countries, particularly neighboring Gulf Cooperation Council states, that have a similar socio-cultural environment.

The objective of this study is to rank some factors as handicaps that create diversity and incertitude in international financial analysis. It is an important subject when discussing the adoption of International Accounting Standards as one unique set of standards in capital markets around the world. Although it is necessary to reach homogeneity in the field of accounting standards because of the costs, barriers and lack of comparability that they create, the handicap imposed by accounting diversity is not the most important. This assertion has been proved through statistical methodology: Dual Scaling. The most important factors creating differences between net income and shareholders’ funds prepared according to domestic (Spanish, German, and British) and US‐GAAPS are the industry in which the company operates, the country from where the company comes and finally differences due to different accounting standards used in the calculation of net income and shareholders’ funds.

The authors aim to exploit a natural experiment in which voluntary replace mandatory joint audits for Danish listed companies and analyse audit fee implications of using one or two audit firms.

Regression analysis is used. The authors apply both a core audit fee determinants model and an audit fee change model and include interaction terms.

The authors find short-term fee reductions in companies switching to single audits, but only where the former joint audit contained a dominant auditor. The authors argue that in this situation bargaining power is more with the auditors than in an equally shared joint audit, and that the auditors' incentives to offer an initial fee discount are bigger.

The number of observations is constrained by the small Danish capital market. Future research could take a more qualitative research approach, to examine whether the use of a single audit firm rather than two has an effect on audit quality. The area calls for further theory development covering audit fee and audit quality in joint audit settings.

Companies should consider their relationship with their auditors before deciding to switch to single auditors. Fee discounts do not seem to reflect long-lasting efficiency gains on the part of the audit firm.

Denmark is the first country to leave a mandatory joint audit system, so this is the first time that it is possible to study fee effects related to this.