Pub Date : 2026-02-19DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101849
Ashley A. Austin, L.Tyler Williams
{"title":"Isn’t It Ironic? The Unintended Consequences of Audit Firm Efforts to Increase Auditor Awareness of Blockchain","authors":"Ashley A. Austin, L.Tyler Williams","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101849","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"104 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146778884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101870
Matthew Bamber, Philippe Lassou, Daniela Senkl
Corporate failure and financial scandal draw attention to the ambiguities of accounting numbers and their relation to economic reality. We analyse the views expressed by key stakeholders during oral evidence sessions from two parliamentary-led public inquiries regarding high-profile corporate collapses. We focus on the accounting treatment for goodwill and explore the differing ontological and epistemological perspectives and assumptions presented. We focus on how stakeholders set out their beliefs vis-à-vis two fundamental philosophical questions, namely: ‘What is goodwill?’ and ‘What is the nature of this knowledge?’ While investors challenge the existence of goodwill, casting doubt on its underlying (economic) reality, preparers and auditors advocate for the current treatment. Members serving on the inquiry committees challenge the latter position and instead suggest that the reported goodwill balances fail(ed) to reflect economic reality. They claim that this is evidenced by the collapse of the companies, despite balance sheets showing high carrying values of goodwill and a lack of impairment. Regulators are unwilling to provide a response to the question ‘What is goodwill?’ and instead argue that attempts to understand the goodwill numbers are impeded by overly complex rules. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer avenues for future research.
{"title":"Goodwill on trial: Reflections on its fundamental nature and epistemology","authors":"Matthew Bamber, Philippe Lassou, Daniela Senkl","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101870","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101870","url":null,"abstract":"Corporate failure and financial scandal draw attention to the ambiguities of accounting numbers and their relation to economic reality. We analyse the views expressed by key stakeholders during oral evidence sessions from two parliamentary-led public inquiries regarding high-profile corporate collapses. We focus on the accounting treatment for goodwill and explore the differing ontological and epistemological perspectives and assumptions presented. We focus on how stakeholders set out their beliefs vis-à-vis two fundamental philosophical questions, namely: ‘What is goodwill?’ and ‘What is the nature of this knowledge?’ While investors challenge the existence of goodwill, casting doubt on its underlying (economic) reality, preparers and auditors advocate for the current treatment. Members serving on the inquiry committees challenge the latter position and instead suggest that the reported goodwill balances fail(ed) to reflect economic reality. They claim that this is evidenced by the collapse of the companies, despite balance sheets showing high carrying values of goodwill and a lack of impairment. Regulators are unwilling to provide a response to the question ‘What is goodwill?’ and instead argue that attempts to understand the goodwill numbers are impeded by overly complex rules. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147279999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-13DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101846
Zhonghao Jiang, Yukun Shi, Lu Xing
Using a sample of U.S. firms and a text-based measure of managerial and analyst attention to climate change issues during earnings calls, we document a negative association between firms’ climate change exposure and changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership, suggesting U.S. mutual funds’ cautious investment approach to climate change. We further provide causal evidence for this relation using the staggered adoptions of state-level climate change adaptation plans and renewable portfolio standards. Additional analyses show that our finding is driven by climate-related opportunities and regulatory risks, rather than physical risks. Changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership reflect concerns over firms’ transition risks and stock performance pressures. Extending the analysis to non-U.S. mutual funds, we find similar results among funds domiciled in countries with strong environmental norms.
{"title":"Climate Change Exposure and Mutual Fund Ownership","authors":"Zhonghao Jiang, Yukun Shi, Lu Xing","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101846","url":null,"abstract":"Using a sample of U.S. firms and a text-based measure of managerial and analyst attention to climate change issues during earnings calls, we document a negative association between firms’ climate change exposure and changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership, suggesting U.S. mutual funds’ cautious investment approach to climate change. We further provide causal evidence for this relation using the staggered adoptions of state-level climate change adaptation plans and renewable portfolio standards. Additional analyses show that our finding is driven by climate-related opportunities and regulatory risks, rather than physical risks. Changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership reflect concerns over firms’ transition risks and stock performance pressures. Extending the analysis to non-U.S. mutual funds, we find similar results among funds domiciled in countries with strong environmental norms.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146208850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While accounting students’ engagement in internship is widely considered pivotal for developing their employability skills, its implications for student agency have largely been undertheorised in the accounting education literature. Using social cognitive theory (SCT) and a qualitative research approach involving interviews with accounting students, this study investigates the dynamic processes and mechanisms by which students experience and exercise agency. Our findings reveal various personal, environmental, and behavioural processes that support or inhibit student’s agency during internship. Whilst motivational factors such as expected outcomes, self-efficacy, and goal mechanisms create the initial conditions and impetus for goal pursuit, it is the enactment of self-regulatory capabilities that enables students to effectively achieve those goals. Accounting students’ agentic behaviour is further shaped by self-evaluative mechanisms, guided modelling, and socially mediated forms of agency, highlighting their workplace supervisors’ roles in supporting student agency.
{"title":"Accounting students’ internship experiences: an agentic perspective","authors":"Amrinder Khosa, Esin Ozdil, Steven Burch, Shawgat Kutubi, Merideth Guy, Jacqueline O’Toole","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101850","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101850","url":null,"abstract":"While accounting students’ engagement in internship is widely considered pivotal for developing their employability skills, its implications for student agency have largely been undertheorised in the accounting education literature. Using social cognitive theory (SCT) and a qualitative research approach involving interviews with accounting students, this study investigates the dynamic processes and mechanisms by which students experience and exercise agency. Our findings reveal various personal, environmental, and behavioural processes that support or inhibit student’s agency during internship. Whilst motivational factors such as expected outcomes, self-efficacy, and goal mechanisms create the initial conditions and impetus for goal pursuit, it is the enactment of self-regulatory capabilities that enables students to effectively achieve those goals. Accounting students’ agentic behaviour is further shaped by self-evaluative mechanisms, guided modelling, and socially mediated forms of agency, highlighting their workplace supervisors’ roles in supporting student agency.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146208848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-13DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101848
Ivar Friis, Allan Hansen, Tamas Vamosi
When cost information is biased by incentive systems, it speaks directly to a central debate in management accounting research: the tension between decision-making and control in organizations. Prior literature on how control initiatives bias cost information—and thereby impair decision-making—has primarily focused on the incentives of divisional managers, while largely overlooking the consequences of employee incentives. This study addresses this gap through an in-depth single case study of an incentive system for shopfloor workers in a manufacturing firm, examining how its design leads to biased cost information. Our findings contribute to the literature in two ways. First, the study extends our understanding of how an incentive system, serving a control role, can bias cost systems, serving a decision-making role, by demonstrating that not only managers’ but also employees’ incentives matter and showing how the design of the systems explains the bias effect. Second, it complements the cost accounting literature on time estimation, which has already shown how employees’ cognitive bias can distort time estimation while paying little attention to the bias that arises from employees’ incentives.
{"title":"When Employee Incentives Bias Cost Information: On the Tension Between Decision-Making and Control","authors":"Ivar Friis, Allan Hansen, Tamas Vamosi","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101848","url":null,"abstract":"When cost information is biased by incentive systems, it speaks directly to a central debate in management accounting research: the tension between decision-making and control in organizations. Prior literature on how control initiatives bias cost information—and thereby impair decision-making—has primarily focused on the incentives of divisional managers, while largely overlooking the consequences of employee incentives. This study addresses this gap through an in-depth single case study of an incentive system for shopfloor workers in a manufacturing firm, examining how its design leads to biased cost information. Our findings contribute to the literature in two ways. First, the study extends our understanding of how an incentive system, serving a control role, can bias cost systems, serving a decision-making role, by demonstrating that not only managers’ but also employees’ incentives matter and showing how the design of the systems explains the bias effect. Second, it complements the cost accounting literature on time estimation, which has already shown how employees’ cognitive bias can distort time estimation while paying little attention to the bias that arises from employees’ incentives.","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146208849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-09DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101843
Wenting Chen, Weilong Liu, Wenxin Liu, Gary Gang Tian
{"title":"Network Contagion and Post-M&A Default Risk: Interpretable Machine Learning Evidence from an Emerging Market","authors":"Wenting Chen, Weilong Liu, Wenxin Liu, Gary Gang Tian","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101843","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101843","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-30DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101842
Dennis De Widt, Shuo Sun, Richard Baylis
{"title":"Innovation in capital funding by public hospitals during austerity: Evidence from the English National Health Service","authors":"Dennis De Widt, Shuo Sun, Richard Baylis","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101842","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-28DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101841
Mahmoud Delshadi, Ahmad Hammami, Michel Magnan
{"title":"Does Options Trading Reduce the Demand for Conditional Accounting Conservatism?","authors":"Mahmoud Delshadi, Ahmad Hammami, Michel Magnan","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101841","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101841","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146071789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-18DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101840
Wolfgang Breuer, Marcos Andrés Follonier, Andreas Knetsch
{"title":"Rhetorical Big Baths Following CEO Turnovers","authors":"Wolfgang Breuer, Marcos Andrés Follonier, Andreas Knetsch","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101840","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"270 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145995222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2026.101838
Muhammad Adnan, Muhammad Zubair Khan, Naimat U. Khan
{"title":"More Than Money: Venture Capital Allocation in National FinTech Innovation Systems","authors":"Muhammad Adnan, Muhammad Zubair Khan, Naimat U. Khan","doi":"10.1016/j.bar.2026.101838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2026.101838","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501001,"journal":{"name":"The British Accounting Review","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145962440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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