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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to consider the effectiveness of insolvency law given the increase in companies facing financial distress. Current insolvency law was not designed in the context of the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. Therefore, it may not provide the framework needed to assist the rehabilitation of distressed companies that is important to economic recovery. The purpose of this paper is to briefly discuss the rethinking of insolvency law policy with a view to maximising opportunities for rescue and rehabilitation.

The commentary offers suggestions on how insolvency law can maximise opportunities for rehabilitation. The approach is to consider competing theoretical perspectives on the objective of insolvency law and provide commentary on rethinking key insolvency law provisions to better meet the needs of distressed businesses in the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic and into the future.

This paper concludes that in the context of the pandemic insolvency policy that is value-based and debtor-friendly is needed to promote rehabilitation. Insolvency law should refocus on debtors and rehabilitation rather than being excessively focussed on the interest of creditors.

This paper offers a unique and timely commentary on the capacity of insolvency law to respond to the unforeseen COVD-19 pandemic.

This study was designed to be an agonistic encounter between two pre-service teachers from different academic disciplines and with opposing climate change beliefs. The purpose of this study was to create an opportunity for this pair of future educators to voice, acknowledge and engage their differences, rather than avoid or skirt them.

Using a paired interview approach, two pre-service teachers discussed online sources about climate change. The analysis focuses on critical literacy practices of textual critique and reader reflexivity, considering how students from different beliefs and perspectives engage in agonism and negotiated practices.

While there was evidence of the two students engaged in critical literacy practices of textual critique, most of this engagement with the sources remained more at a surface level with somewhat superficial criteria to evaluate the sources. The two students engaged reflexively during the interview discussion in terms of their academic disciplines and climate change beliefs. This reflexive work produced the most compelling exchanges during the interview discussion and pointed to two rich sites for agonistic engagement: their differing conceptions of reliability and their competing perspectives about the intersection of science and politics.

Agonism offers a lens that helps ensure we understand that all pursuits toward facts and truth are necessarily contested as we engage with respected adversaries, not enemies we need to vanquish. There is an urgent need for dialogue across difference, especially for people in the increasingly polarized USA with complex topics and challenges such as climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of voluntary governance mechanisms in Australia.

This study identifies similar choices of corporate governance by Australian firms and tests the effectiveness of the choices made based on the earnings quality of reported firms. Cluster analysis is conducted using governance best practice variables, firm size and an earnings quality variable.

This paper’s results support the voluntary governance approach for smaller firms, but suggest that mandatory governance requirements could be beneficial for larger firms. Evidence suggests that a benefit accrues for larger firms with the adoption of governance best practice. Cluster analysis indicates that larger firms tend to exhibit higher levels of adoption of governance best practice than smaller firms.

This paper adds to the literature by providing important information regarding the suitability of adoption of voluntary governance mechanisms in Australia.

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between trade credit supply and financial distress outcomes, considering the role that trade credit plays as a substantial source of liquidity for distressed companies. Specifically, it examines whether there is an association between trade credit supply and the outcomes experienced by companies that undergo the voluntary administration (VA) insolvency procedure under Australian corporate law.

The study examines a sample of companies that were listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and entered VA between 2002 and 2019. Ordered logistic regression is used to determine the relation between trade credit and VA outcomes. The VA outcomes considered are as follows: (1) company liquidation, (2) orderly dissolution through an agreement with creditors, or (3) an agreement with creditors for reorganization of all or part of the company's business.

The findings show that trade creditors' willingness to supply credit is influenced by their rational expectations about the future prospects of financially distressed customers. Higher levels of trade credit and an increase in trade credit supply prior to VA are associated with a greater probability of achieving a reorganization versus a liquidation or dissolution outcome.

There is no apparent prior study investigating the connection between trade credit supply and outcomes for distressed companies entering insolvency administration. Therefore, this study provides novel evidence on the role of trade credit in the context of financial distress. Understanding the relationship between trade credit supply and outcomes is particularly significant considering that many jurisdictions offer distressed companies the opportunity to pursue reorganization under their insolvency laws. Examining financial distress and trade credit in the Australian creditor-friendly context expands on existing research. Prior research has predominantly relied on data from the United States, which has debtor-friendly bankruptcy law. Consequently, these studies may lack generalizability to jurisdictions with creditor-friendly law such as Australia.

This study explores the association between institutional investors’ stewardship activity, disclosed under Japan’s Stewardship Code, and the R&D investments of their investee companies.

Recognizing the pivotal role of R&D investment in long-term value creation, this study uses comprehensive data from institutional investor disclosures to assess the impact of stewardship activity on their investee companies.

The findings show that investor stewardship activity is a factor that influences strategic R&D investment. Specifically, a positive association is found between code-compliant institutional investor shareholding and R&D investment, contingent on high levels of stewardship activity.

By using stewardship disclosures to measure stewardship activity, this study sheds new light on institutional investors’ role in promoting R&D investment. The findings suggest that stewardship regulation is a valid governance policy mechanism to the extent that it promotes stewardship activity. Moreover, the findings show that stewardship disclosures provide valuable information about the potential value enhancement associated with institutional shareholding.

This paper examines whether the adoption of Japan’s Stewardship Code by institutional investors influences their preference for investee companies' governance quality. The Code, introduced by the Financial Services Agency in 2014, promotes constructive engagement between institutional investors and investee companies. Engagement with investees should improve institutional investors' ability to assess governance quality across their portfolios. The paper examines if this results in a positive relationship between the levels of Code-compliant institutional shareholding and investee governance quality.

The association between Code-compliant institutional shareholding levels and a governance quality score is examined for Nikkei 500 companies.

A positive association is observed between shareholdings by Code-compliant institutional investors and investee governance, with board independence playing a key role. Analysis shows that the association between institutional shareholding and governance is stronger for the Code-compliant shareholding than for overall institutional shareholdings. In addition, no significant relationship is found between the levels of shareholding by non-Code-compliant institutional investors and the governance quality score of investee companies. Taken together, the results suggest that Code adoption strengthens institutional investors' preference for high-quality investee governance.

Despite the introduction of stewardship regulation worldwide, there is a scarcity of empirical research that examines its operation. The study contributes to the existing literature by providing insights into how compliance with stewardship regulation influences institutional investor decision-making.

The UK Stewardship Code was the first voluntary governance code specifically for institutional investors. The Code sets out the principles of effective stewardship by institutional investors toward their investee companies with the aim of improving long-term risk-adjusted returns to shareholders. This paper aims to examine whether compliance by institutional investors with UK Stewardship Code is related to the earnings quality of their investee companies.

The association between institutional investor Code compliance and Code compliance quality and investee company accruals quality is investigated.

For a sample of large UK listed companies from 2013, the authors find reasonably high levels of compliance with the Code by institutional investors. The analysis does not suggest that Code compliance is positively related to investee company earnings quality. Rather, the finding is that substantial or long-term investments are more likely to result in effective stewardship regardless of Code compliance.

This study offers valuable insights regarding the efficacy of the Stewardship Code’s policy approach to improving corporate governance by institutional investors.

This paper aims to examine if compliance with the Japanese Stewardship Code by institutional investors is related to the earnings quality of their investee companies. It extends the study by Lu et al. who considered this question for large UK companies with high-quality board governance and a rich information environment. This study provides new insights by exploiting the contrasting Japanese setting.

The association between Code-compliant institutional investor shareholding and discretionary accruals is examined for Japanese companies in the Nikkei 225 Index. The study period is from the introduction of the Code in 2015 to 2017.

A negative association is found between the level of institutional investor Code-compliant shareholding and discretionary accruals, which is robust to tests that address endogeneity. The findings suggest Code-compliant institutional investor shareholding mitigates opportunistic income-increasing earnings management and promotes conservative accounting. Consistent results are found for benchmark beating and accruals quality as alternative earnings quality measures.

This study offers new insights regarding the efficacy of the Stewardship Code’s policy approach. The findings suggest the stewardship regulatory model is effective when internal governance is weak and external monitoring by institutional investors is a viable substitute or complement.

This study uses content analysis of disclosures under the Japanese Stewardship Code to examine how investee company audit fees are influenced by institutional investor governance.

Scores are developed based on objective and verifiable Code disclosures made by the top-five institutional investors of Nikkei 225 index companies. The scores are related to management of conflicts of interest, monitoring actions and resource availability connected with stewardship.

The results show that higher scores on monitoring and resource availability are associated with lower audit fees. The extent of resources that institutional investors allocate to playing an effective stewardship role is found to be the primary determinant of their influence on audit fees. Overall, the findings are consistent with governance by institutional investors reducing audit risk and audit effort, which leads to lower audit fees.

The study offers new insights because there is no apparent prior research that uses Code disclosure content to measure institutional investor governance. This provides new information on the open question of the relation between audit fees and institutional investor governance.

The purpose of this study is to examine if partner cross-contagion in audit offices is associated with client reporting quality. To this end, the authors test if the presence in an audit office of a partner with a highly aggressive style is associated with the reporting quality of other partners’ clients. Partners with a highly aggressive style are identified by their tendency to approve favorable client reporting. The authors add to the existing literature that provides limited and equivocal evidence on audit office cross-contagion.

Partner style is determined in an estimation period from 2010 to 2014. Aggressive style is identified when partners tend to approve favorable client reporting, which is shown by a positive value for their clients’ median discretionary accruals. Partners are considered to exhibit a highly aggressive style if they have positive median client discretionary accruals within the 90th percentile. Cross-contagion analysis is then conducted in a test period from 2015 to 2019 by determining if the presence in an office of a partner with a highly aggressive style is associated with the reporting quality of other partners’ clients. Two measures of client reporting quality used. These are the accuracy of current-period accruals in predicting period-ahead cash flows and earnings management related to benchmark beating.

This study finds partner cross-contagion of highly aggressive style in Big 4 offices that is associated with lower client reporting quality for non-Metals and Mining industry clients. This cross-contagion only occurs when the contagious partner has a very high level of aggressive style. This study finds Big 4 partners are susceptible to aggressive style cross-contagion regardless of their own idiosyncratic style. The results of this study show more cross-contagion in small Big 4 offices and mitigation of cross-contagion for economically important clients. Cross-contagion in non-Big 4 offices is observed for Metals and Mining industry clients.

By determining style from partners’ past clients’ discretionary accruals, this study extends prior cross-contagion research that relies on restatements to identify style. This study examines several other cross-contagion issues not addressed in prior studies. These include differences in cross-contagion for Big 4 and non-Big 4 offices and for large and small Big 4 offices, partners’ susceptibility to cross-contagion and the influence of client importance.