Isabel Martínez Conesa

Relationship between corporate social responsibility and competitive performance in Spanish SMEs: Empirical evidence from a stakeholders' perspective

In a financial economic scenario in which the corporate survival of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is more conditioned than ever by competitive performance, this paper aims to show that the strategic incorporation of socially responsible actions, more concerned and engaged with stakeholders, contributes to improve the competitiveness of these organizations. Thus, the existence of a direct or mediated relationship between the development of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices and competitive performance has been analyzed from a multi-stakeholder perspective. To accomplish this task, data were collected from a sample of 481 Spanish SMEs and the technique of partial least squares (PLS) was used. Outcomes show that the development of CSR practices contributes to increase the competitive performance both directly and indirectly, through the ability of these organizations to manage their stakeholders. This study, therefore, supports the social impact hypothesis and offers evidence about some intangibles such as the relational capacity mediate the causal effect between CSR and competitive performance.

Environmental reporting in Europe: an analysis of UK and Spanish developments

The interdependence of ecology and the economy has become a highly significant feature in contemporary European business society. This degree of interdependency emphasizes the need for compatibility of the goals of economic growth, environmental protection and the rational management of natural resources. The issues are not predominantly centred on economic growth versus environmental sustainability, but rather on the pragmatic acknowledgement that there needs to be recognition and compromise between competing aims. Seeks to examine European Union regulations relating to business environmental issues and to analyse the legal, political and professional adaptation processes of environmental regulation in Spain and the UK.

Manipulación Contable y Calidad del Auditor. Un Estudio Empírico de la Realidad Española

RESUMEN Las prácticas para manipular la información contable suscitan en la actualidad un gran interés. La literatura, básicamente anglosajona, se ha referido con profusión a la figura del auditor, y específicamente a la calidad del auditor como factor limitador de estas prácticas. El objetivo del trabajo es constatar la existencia de manipulación contable en España a través de la realización de ajustes por devengo discrecionales, de forma que se pueda poner en relación este tipo de prácticas con la calidad del auditor; con ello se pretende determinar, si una elevada calidad puede constreñir las citadas prácticas. Igualmente, también se analiza con qué otros factores guarda relación el registro de devengos discrecionales. Las evidencias encontradas, si bien apoyan la existencia generalizada de prácticas de alisamiento del resultado en el ámbito de las empresas españolas cotizadas, en cambio, no respaldan que en nuestro país, a diferencia del ámbito anglosajón, la calidad del auditor disminuya la manipulación contable.

Análisis empírico de la prima por riesgo de negocio en el mercado de auditoría de pequeñas y medianas firmas auditoras en España

RESUMEN El objetivo de este estudio es analizar en una muestra de pequeños y medianos auditores españoles si los precios que cargan a su cliente por la prestación de su servicio cubren el riesgo de negocios. De acuerdo al modelo de precios definido por Simunic (1980), el precio de la auditoría es función del esfuerzo y del perfil de riesgo del cliente. En este estudio utilizamos diversos subrogados para inferir el riesgo de mercado percibido por el auditor en su cliente, tal como son el riesgo financiero del cliente y el nivel de riesgo de auditoría. Al objeto de verificar la cuestión de investigación de si los pequeños y medianos auditores cargan primas para cubrir el riesgo de negocios que soportan, en este trabajo se utilizan datos de 607 empresas, usando datos de honorarios para el periodo 2001–2009. Nuestros resultados revelan que existe una relación estadística significativa entre el riesgo financiero del cliente y el nivel de riesgo de auditoría que este genera y los honorarios cargados, lo cual aporta evidencia empírica que los honorarios contienen una prima por riesgo de negocios. Análisis adicionales revelan que la prima por riesgo de negocios resulta dependiente a la duración del contrato, si bien no a que los clientes adquieran junto con los servicios de auditoría otros servicios adicionales voluntarios. Nuestros resultados resultan robustos ante diferentes especificaciones en la estimación del modelo de precios.

El proceso de armonización contable en latinoamérica: camino hacia las normas internacionales

Nowadays, after the agreement signed between the IASB and the IOSCO in 1995, together with the actual convergence plan between the IASB and the FASB in 2002, the harmonisation process is in a state of effervescence, advancing in order to establish just one set of accounting standards that could be used for both domestic and cross-border financial reporting. For decades, leading accounting theories have advocated the harmonization of accounting principles world-wide to end the confusion and lack of comparability. In recent years, there has been a clear trend towards International Accounting Standards (now known as International Financial Reporting Standards-IFRS) as the single body of internationally accepted accounting standards. In this context, the objective of this article is to analyze the efforts made in the accounting harmonization process in Latin America to achieve the convergence of accounting standards. This research focuses on the Economic, Accounting, and Administration MERCOSUR Integration Group - GIMCEA and on the American Free Trade Agreement Committee for Cooperation on Financial Reporting Matters - AFTA. The article studies the four major economies in this region: Argentina, Brazil (countries from GIMCEA), Chile and Mexico (countries from AFTA), because they have already achieved results. To progress toward the elimination of significant differences in accounting standards, we analyze and compare the standards of these four countries with global standards, IFRS and US-GAAP, to determine areas of significant discrepancies where progress might be made in harmonizing accounting standards.

International financial analysis and the handicap of accounting diversity

Financial analysis at international level has to overcome a lot of obstacles that increase the uncertainty which the financial analyst is used to handling. It is commonly argued by accounting regulators, academics, and so on, that different accounting standards are one of these handicaps. For this reason European listed companies will be required in year 2005 to elaborate consolidated financial statements according to International Accounting Standards. Will it be a solution for the handicaps that face financial analysts? The objective of this study is to see how accounting diversity can be resolved and what are the conclusions of financial analysts in capital markets. The prior hypotheses will be: first, that accounting diversity is not what introduces the most important uncertainty in the international financial analysis, and second, that accounting diversity is avoided instead of being corrected. It is evidenced that the most important factors of diversity are strategies of the company and that analysts try to reduce the impact of accounting diversity, for example, using less biased ratios such as Enterprise Value/EBITDA.

Influencia del cambio contable en la comparabilidad de los estados financieros bancarios y sus ratios de gestión.: un estudio empírico en la primera aplicación de la CBE 4/2004

RESUMEN La nueva CBE 4/2004 establece un modelo de información bancaria acorde con las NIIF, sin embargo avanza más alla de lo contenido por éstas para este sector de actividad, estableciendo un modelo de gestión de riesgos uniforme y apostando por la transparencia tanto a nivel individual como grupal, en previsión de lo contenido en el nuevo acuerdo de Basilea (conocido por BIS II). El objetivo de este trabajo es evidenciar si este cambio normativo tiene influencia en el performance de la compañía. Partimos de la hipótesis de que el cambio normativo, por afectar al concepto de resultado y las hipótesis de valoración sobre la base del fair value, tendrá un impacto significativo en la imagen de la compañía. Para ello, seleccionamos una batería de indicadores y calculamos un índice de comparabilidad que sometemos a test inferenciales. Entendemos que el efecto sobre los indicadores puede depender del tamaño del grupo, y por ello realizamos también las mismas pruebas considerando este criterio. Los resultados confirman que la normativa empleada en la elaboración de los estados financieros de las entidades bancarias españolas ejerce una influencia significativa sobre la imagen del grupo. Asimismo, es en las entidades bancarias de mayor tamaño donde este efecto es más relevante.

Analyzing Foreign Financial Statements: A Dual Scaling Approach to the International Ratio Analysis

Foreign companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are required by its supervisor organism (Securities Exchange Commission, SEC), to restate their reported net income and shareholders’ equity calculated according to domestic accounting standards, into US General Accepted Accounting Principles (US-GAAPS), as a part of a Form 20-f filing. Using these restatements and dual scaling methodology we will be able to distinguish if there are really so important differences among accounting standards around the world, or on the contrary, some other effects, such as the country in which the company is located, also affect financial information in the most important way than the own accounting standards.