Accounting Perspectives最新文献

While sustainability has been a subject of growing inquiry in the accounting literature, biodiversity loss, an issue of critical societal importance, has not received the same attention. Furthermore, despite corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and the public sector all having distinct influences on biodiversity loss, the role of the public sector remains largely unexamined. Mobilizing Cuckston's (2022) framework for analyzing disclosures as calculative spaces, our study examines the framing of public sector reporting on biodiversity conservation. Specifically, through discourse analysis, we scrutinize the mandatory annual reports prepared by the Canadian federal government under the 2002 Species at Risk Act (SARA), which is aimed at preventing species extinction. The disclosures within these reports present discussions on the government's administration of SARA, thereby offering insights into the government's efforts to discharge accountability over the protection of species at risk. Our findings examine the significance of public sector reporting in enabling accountability for species conservation and discuss the ways in which mandatory disclosures contribute to this process.

This paper explores firms traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) Venture Exchange and their voluntary disclosure practices by focusing on earnings press releases (EPRs). We compare the characteristics of EPR issuers and non-issuers and investigate how the former group uses headline impression management in their EPRs to highlight firm performance. More precisely, we examine emphasis and tone management techniques in the headlines of over 1,300 EPRs by TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) firms. Our results show that the main determinants of the EPR disclosure choice are the achievement of positive revenue, an increasing trend in firm market value, and industry type. We find that EPR issuers reinforce and repeat positive results in the headlines of EPRs and use positive tone management to highlight positive financial performance. Our results confirm the association between firm performance and strategic placement of performance results, while illustrating that the strength of this association varies by industry and by EPR characteristics such as EPR length and numerical intensity. Overall, this paper sheds light on TSX-V firms, their disclosure practices, and potential violations of recommendations from regulators regarding avoiding exaggerated or promotional language in press releases.

In the context of an accredited CPA program, we investigate whether an immersive case delivered over several weeks in a team-based environment in the Performance Management elective module improves student performance on Day 1 examinations and whether all students benefit equally from the immersive case. Results show that using an immersive case prior to Capstone 1 significantly improves student performance on practice Day 1 examinations and Day 1 of the Common Final Examination (CFE). Although high-ability students and non-English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students with co-op experience perform better regardless of whether an immersive case is used, ESL students benefit from using an immersive case when evaluating performance on Day 1 of the CFE. In addition, spending six to eight weeks preparing extensively for the CFE after graduate classes end in July seems to contribute to closing performance gaps between students. This study benefits the education process by identifying a tool that educators can use to improve performance on the CFE. It provides insights that may prove useful to CPA Canada and accredited post-secondary institutions as they revamp their programs to align with Competency Map 2.0.

This paper adopts a governmentality framing to examine how form-based practices and counter-conduct measures that permeate the banking industry are employed by bank executives who wish to be governed differently in a way that results in the control of customer conduct. Using the data set of the HSBC Case History Hearing released by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on July 17, 2012, the paper shows how rationalities, programs, and technologies of governance are reproblematized, resulting in changed program policies and technologies. The study also makes two contributions to the literature. First, the paper contributes to our understanding of form-based practices in the banking industry as a governance mechanism—specifically, how particular practices such as risk management, staff training, and customer training can be coupled with counter-conduct to circumvent the rules. And second, by looking at rationalities, programs, and technologies, the paper suggests how executives problematize issues in a manner that leads to program changes and to changes in the governmental technologies that depart from the overarching rationalities of the industry.

This commentary provides insights on the issues faced by women and/or caregivers in accounting academia at Canadian postsecondary institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Personal reflections from 23 contributors across Canada were compiled and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Results show that COVID-19 has adversely impacted research, teaching, and other areas of work and life for this demographic. Research stopped or slowed, lower productivity was experienced, concerns over academic integrity increased, interactions with students decreased, academics left the profession, mental health was adversely impacted, and academics lost dedicated work time. In addition, the contributors provide suggestions to address these issues moving forward to help equity-seeking groups. Suggestions include support from postsecondary institutions at all levels, additional funding, adjustments to tenure and promotion criteria, and the option for a reduced workload.