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This paper explores the relationship between earnings management and firms' value through the moderating effect of the missing elements – corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and state ownership in Russian companies. The main argument of the paper is that CSR disclosure can be used as a mitigating mechanism to weaken the negative relationship between earnings manipulation and market value. Additionally test whether state ownership is an important moderating factor in this relationship are conducted as state has always played an important role in the emerging Russian market.

The hypotheses are tested on panel data for 223 publicly listed Russian firms for the period 2012–2018. A number of robustness tests are used to check the obtained results for consistency. Following previous research GMM method is employed to address endogeneity concerns.

Supported by stakeholder theory, it is observed that firms that disclosed more CSR information experience a weaker negative relationship between earnings management and market value because investors and other stakeholders positively evaluate a positive CSR image. This negative effect of earnings management on market value is even weaker for state-owned companies as market participants appreciate involvement of state-owned companies in CSR activities and place greater expectations on these firms to be responsible without clear understanding whether these actions are “window dressing” for this type of companies or not.

The study results provide new insights into the relation between earnings management, firm's value, CSR disclosure and state ownership in emerging-market firms. The paper highlight the importance of considering country-specific factors, such as state ownership, while analysing the market reaction on CSR disclosure and earnings management since the institutional peculiarities may help to explain differences in the obtained results.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether specific corporate governance mechanisms, such as board size, board composition, leverage and firm size, tend to mitigate agency cost occurrence in the USA, Russia and Norway.

The authors analyze the sample of 243 US, 196 Russian and 175 Norwegian joint stock companies for the period 2004-2012. The regression analysis is applied to test the models.

It is revealed that larger boards increase agency costs (measured by asset utilization ratio and asset liquidity ratio) in all sample companies. The proportion of female members has a very slight positive effect in US companies, a negative influence on agency costs in the Norwegian sample and is not significant in the Russian market. The authors find that the big Russian and US companies in the samples of this paper have lower agency costs.

The results of this paper show which agency-mitigation mechanisms work more effectively in companies operating in the analyzed countries characterized by specific corporate governance models.

The main contribution of this paper to the empirical literature is that it extends the stream of agency research by introducing new, emerging markets: represented by Scandinavian (depicted by the Norwegian sample) and Russian companies. Considering that each market – US, Norwegian and Russian – represents significant distinguishing features in their institutional framework, the paper provides an important research setting in which corporate governance mechanisms can be analyzed from the perspective of a country’s peculiar characteristics. Unlike other agency cost studies, this paper accounts for the gender diversity component in the companies and contributes to gender diversity issues.

This paper provides a structured literature review of blockchain in accounting. The authors identify current trends, analyse and critique the key topics of research and discuss the future of this nascent field of inquiry.

This study’s analysis combined a structured literature review with citation analysis, topic modelling using a machine learning approach and a manual review of selected articles. The corpus comprised 153 academic papers from two ranked journal lists, the Association of Business Schools (ABS) and the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), and from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). From this, the authors analysed and critiqued the current and future research trends in the four most predominant topics of research in blockchain for accounting.

Blockchain is not yet a mainstream accounting topic, and most of the current literature is normative. The four most commonly discussed areas of blockchain include the changing role of accountants; new challenges for auditors; opportunities and challenges of blockchain technology application; and the regulation of cryptoassets. While blockchain will likely be disruptive to accounting and auditing, there will still be a need for these roles. With the sheer volume of information that blockchain records, both professions may shift out of the back-office toward higher-profile advisory roles where accountants try to align competitive intelligence with business strategy, and auditors are called on ex ante to verify transactions and even whole ecosystems.

The authors identify several challenges that will need to be examined in future research. Challenges include skilling up for a new paradigm, the logistical issues associated with managing and monitoring multiple parties all contributing to various public and private blockchains, and the pressing need for legal frameworks to regulate cryptoassets.

The possibilities that blockchain brings to information disclosure, fraud detection and overcoming the threat of shadow dealings in developing countries all contribute to the importance of further investigation into blockchain in accounting.

The authors’ structured literature review uniquely identifies critical research topics for developing future research directions related to blockchain in accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to define the contribution of intellectual capital (IC) of the board of directors (BDs) in generating IC of a company, to develop a definition of the IC of the BDs, as well as two of its major elements: human capital (knowledge, skills, and experience of board members, etc.), and social capital (relationships and networking opportunities of board members), and to clarify the relationship between these elements and financial performance indicators of companies based on a literature review on the topic.

A literature review and analysis was applied as this study’s research design.

The authors suggest that IC is generated not only by company staff, but also by governing bodies, particularly the BDs, whose members are not always under contract with the company in the traditional sense. Members of the board use their knowledge, experience, and networking opportunities to build IC for effective monitoring, advising, and providing the company with resources. In this sense, the BDs serves as a source of IC for a company, being the main internal corporate governance mechanism that leads to value creation in a company, taking into consideration the interests of all stakeholders.

The research indicates that the personal characteristics of board members may influence the performance of a company. Therefore, companies should be recommended to carefully select candidates for nomination to the board.

This study contributes to further development of the concept of IC of the BDs by bringing together the theory in the field and the empirical results of studies on the various elements of board capital in a company’s value creation.

This study contributes to intellectual capital (IC) disclosure research. Focussing on reducing the information asymmetry associated with agency theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which managers and owners disclose IC in initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses. In particular, it examines the influence on post-issue stock performance based on the IPOs of technology companies listing on the NASDAQ from 2002 to 2013. Parallels are drawn to integrated reporting (<IR>), which was developed after the global financial crisis (GFC) because of the perceived shortcomings of regulated forms of financial reporting.

The authors apply a two-stage methodology, using content analysis of prospectuses to determine the extent of IC disclosure, then combining this data with market data using regression analysis to determine the influence of IC disclosure in IPO prospectuses on post-issue stock performance.

According to the content analysis results, these IPO prospectuses contain significant amounts of IC disclosure for the subsequent analysis. The authors find that after the GFC technology companies disclose more IC information. The econometric analysis also reveals that IC disclosure has a higher influence on post-issue stock performance after the GFC than before.

The research shows how IPO prospectuses are a valid form of disclosure to investigate the impact of reducing IC information asymmetry because they contain significant amounts of forward-looking non-financial information about the company’s development. Additionally, the results are relevant to discussions about the impact of <IR>. If IC and non-financial disclosures contained in an integrated report are forward-looking and reduce information asymmetry then <IR> may have value relevance to a firm.

The research confirms that more IC disclosure information in prospectuses may positively influence companies’ post-issue stock performance, especially in the long run. However, the authors caution that disclosing IC information to investors is not the panacea for increased post-IPO share performance.

This paper is novel because it shows the value relevance of IC disclosures to reduce information asymmetry through its focus on prospectuses, which helps to understand of the potential impact of <IR>.

Intellectual capital (IC) has been argued to be the key element of value creation in contemporary economies and this argument has been widely supported by empirical research, but mainly based on data from developed markets. The question of how IC and its elements work in other contexts remains under-researched and the limited empirical evidence that exists contradicts the conclusions drawn from developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight into the relationship between three main elements of IC (human, relational and structural) and organizational performance in the particular context of Russian manufacturing companies.

The sample comprises 240 Russian manufacturing companies. The data are collected by survey using the scales already validated in the international context. The authors use a two-step analysis – factor and regression analyses – to answer the research questions.

The findings demonstrate that structural and human capitals positively influence organizational performance, explaining a quarter of its variation, while relational capital does not.

The core managerial implication of this study is that developing structural capital is of particular importance for Russian manufacturing companies.

The paper contributes to further development of IC theory by investigating its application in the new institutional and cultural context of Russia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine intellectual capital research (ICR) methods and critically analyse how they have been utilised. The data set for this analysis is based on examining IC papers published in specialist IC and important generalist accounting journals from the years 2000 to 2011.

The basis of the analysis is Alvesson and Deetz's critical management framework of “Insight”, “Critique” and “Transformative redefinition” with the goal of widening the discourse about how to research IC. This paper is motivated by Guthrie et al., who identify a third stage of ICR which is “based on a critical and performative analysis of intellectual capital (IC) practices in action”.

This paper argues that there is an increasing performative research agenda however many researchers appear caught in an “evaluatory trap” (Olson et al.) whereby the researchers’ approach to ICR remains stuck in an ostensive approach (see Mouritsen) that characterises second stage ICR (see Petty and Guthrie). The paper also identifies how many accounting researchers are impacted by a “dominance structure” and suggests that they need to break free from the dominance of “accounting” practice before they can understand and realise the potential of IC.

The implication of this paper for ICR and practice is to create a continued discourse about evolving approaches to ICR so we can continue communicating leading edge, third wave ICR, which develops IC theory in practice and effective IC management through praxis.

From 2004 onwards, Guthrie et al. claim the third stage was gaining impetus and thus this paper is novel because it investigates how ICR has transitioned and how ICR might continue to develop.