Phil Hancock

Factors Influencing Voluntary Corporate Disclosure by Kenyan Companies

There has been considerable research in respect of voluntary disclosure by companies and factors that may explain such disclosure. However, most of the research has been centred in developed countries. This study extends the previous literature by examining voluntary disclosure in a developing country, namely Kenya. Over the last decade, the Kenyan Government has initiated several far-reaching reforms at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) in order to mobilise domestic savings and attract foreign capital investment. These measures include privatisation of state corporations through the stock exchange and allowing foreign investors to own shares in the listed companies. This study provides a longitudinal examination of voluntary disclosure practices in the annual reports of listed companies in Kenya from 1992 to 2001. The study investigates the extent to which corporate governance attributes, ownership structure and company characteristics influence voluntary disclosure practices. Copyright (c) 2006 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Intellectual capital and financial returns of companies

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to investigate the association between the intellectual capital (IC) of firms and their financial performance.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the Pulic framework, has an Asian focus, and draws on data from 150 publicly listed companies on the Singapore Exchange. It is an empirical study using partial least squares (PLS) for the data analysis. The paper tests four elements of IC and company performance.Findings – The findings show that: IC and company performance are positively related; IC is correlated to future company performance; the rate of growth of a companys IC is positively related to the companys performance; and the contribution of IC to company performance differs by industry.Research limitations/implications – The data sample is restricted to 150 companies listed on the Singapore Exchange between the years 2000 and 2002.Practical implications – IC is an area of interest to numerous parties, such as shareholders, institutional investors, scho...

The evolving research on intellectual capital

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to serve as a useful reference for anyone embarking on research into intellectual capital (IC). It provides a succinct summary of the seminal works on this research area.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the seminal literature arranges it into a chronology of the evolving research into IC.Findings – The findings show that IC has undergone a number of development stages from definitions, models through to measures and applications of IC to business and management issues.Research limitations/implications – The review is limited to refereed journals and books published before March 2007.Practical implications – IC is an area of interest to numerous parties, including shareholders, institutional investors, scholars, policymakers and managers. This paper serves as a useful reference on the stages of development of IC and the applications to business and management issues.Originality/value – The study of IC has undergone a number of stages, from early consciou...

A Regional Study Of Listed Companies’ Compliance with International Accounting Standards

The move towards international harmonisation of accounting standards has dominated the work programme of the Australian Accounting Standards Board in the past two years. Some have expressed concern that Australia is moving too quickly towards harmonisation when compared to other countries. This paper examines the extent of compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS) in six countries in the Asia-Pacific region. By providing evidence as to the level of compliance with IAS in financial statements, the paper also indicates the extent of de-facto harmony. The paper also examines various determinants of compliance with IAS and finds that country of location remains the clear driving force.

Desirable generic attributes for accounting graduates into the twenty‐first century: The views of employers

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine the requirements of accounting graduates in relation to generic attributes. Employers have consistently maintained that graduates are deficient in this area. This Australia-wide, all-sector study addresses the issue by examining what employers mean when they make demands for universities and academics to deliver work-ready graduates. Design/methodology/approach - Interviews (recorded, transcribed and analysed with NVivo) with employers, and accounting professional bodies were conducted to ascertain their views of their needs of accounting graduates into the future. Findings - Employers held the generic attributes of communication, team work and self-management to be the most critical for graduates in the three areas of recruitment, training and ongoing employment. Demands on universities to deliver work-ready graduates are not homogeneous. Employers in different sectors construe the meaning of generic attributes in line with their specific needs. Originality/value - The study was an original piece of work that gauged the opinions of professional accounting bodies and employers of accounting graduates across Australia and in all sectors of the accounting profession. The value of the study is to inform academics as to the ranked importance of generic attributes but also alert them to the different meanings that are assigned to these skills by employers in different sectors.

A Brave New World: Australian Learning Outcomes in Accounting Education

During 2010, minimum academic standards for Australian bachelor and master degree programmes in accounting were formulated. These were developed for a new higher education system predicated on expansion, including participation targets and demand-driven funding for public institutions, and a centralised regulatory and quality assurance system to support consumer protection covering all providers. In 2011 a pilot project involving 25% of Australian universities that provide accounting education, is underway to assess achievement of graduating student outcomes against nationally agreed academic standards. The benchmarking process involves double-blind external peer review. It will be expanded in 2012 to embrace other universities and non-university providers including emerging providers from both the private sector and the vocational education sector.

Social moderation, assessment and assuring standards for accounting graduates

Evidencing student achievement of standards is a growing imperative worldwide. Key stakeholders (including current and prospective students, government, regulators and employers) want confidence that threshold learning standards in an accounting degree have been assured. Australia’s new higher education regulatory environment requires that student achievements are benchmarked against intended programme learning outcomes, guided by published disciplinary standards and a national qualifications framework, and against other higher education providers. Here, we report on a process involving academics from 10 universities, aided by professional practitioners, to establish and equip assessors to reliably assure threshold learning standards in accounting that are nationally comparable. Importantly, we are learning more about how standards are interpreted. Based on the premise that meaning is constructed from tacit experiences, social interactions and intentional reflection on explicit information, we report outcomes of three multi-part calibration interventions, situated around judgements of the quality of the written communication skills exhibited in student work and their related assessment tasks. Qualitative data from 30 participants in the calibration process suggest that they perceive that the process both assists them both in developing a shared understanding of the accounting threshold learning standards and in the redesign of assessment tasks to more validly assess the threshold learning standards.

The Determinants of Reserves Disclosure in the Extractive Industries: Evidence from Australian Firms

This paper examines the determinants of reserves disclosure (RD) in the Australian extractive industries. Our regression results indicate that RD are positively associated with variables relating to corporate governance, foreign listing, existence of reserves in foreign jurisdictions, pledging of reserves in debt covenants, leverage and external (Big 4) auditor, after controlling for firm size, subindustry, shareholder concentration and development/production stage. Additional regression testing shows that the existence of reserves in foreign jurisdictions is the most important determinant of RD in Australia. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the extent and rationale behind the RD practices of Australian resource firms.

Empires of the Sky: Determinants of Global Airlines¿ Accounting-Policy Choices

This study quantifies the current level of diversity observed in airline accounting and examines possible determinants that explain accounting-policy choices by the global airline industry. Airlines accounting-measurement policy for unrealized foreign-exchange differences and their disclosure of frequent-flyer information remains diverse. Inferential statistics shows that larger airlines tend to take unrealized foreign-exchange differences directly to equity and tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting policy, while airlines with lower leverage tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting.

Accounting Students in an Australian University Improve their Writing: But How Did it Happen?

Abstract The ability to communicate – orally and in writing – is a graduate attribute that employers in many countries rank as number one in importance, aside from relevant qualifications. This paper reports the implementation and evaluation of a collaborative peer assessment and self-assessment learning and teaching (L&T) initiative, which was designed to improve postgraduate students judgment of writing standards and to improve their own writing – according to that standard. The initiative was embedded in an introductory financial accounting unit in an Australian university. In a mixed methods study, the matched pair design revealed improvements in the written communication skills of students as determined by an independent assessor. There was also statistically significant improvement in the ability of students to apply assessment standards to grammatical, structural and presentation components of written communication. Whereas it was not possible to attribute the improvements entirely to the collaborative peer assessment initiative, our observations and students self-reporting comments suggest that the L&T initiative was effective.