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This study aims to demonstrate how Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction is used to examine the motivations of banks for reporting human capital (HC) information.

The authors use semi-structured interviews of senior bank employees at eight large New Zealand banks. They analyse the managers’ views using a constructive mapping of responses applying Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction. The findings are interpreted from a stakeholder theory perspective.

The authors find that the New Zealand banks report on HC to manage reputation, strengthen employee relationships and achieve competitive advantages. The results suggest that banks engage in opportunistic reporting to distract external stakeholders while advancing their interests.

The study will guide researchers in the use of Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction in analysing qualitative data.

This study provides insights for businesses to improve the consistency and quality of HC reporting and ensure that the information needs of broader stakeholder groups are met.

Some previous voluntary reporting studies analyse their data using inductive analysis. The authors use Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction as a framework to guide our inductive analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the effects of online learning on student engagement as a result of a shift from face-to-face to online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown in New Zealand.

The reflection expresses the accounting lecturers’ observations and experiences of student engagement in online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown focussing on the three facets of student engagement; social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence.

The focus on social and teaching presence in online learning by Unitec academic staff had a positive impact on cognitive presence as student course success rates and course ratings were similar to rates achieved from face-to-face delivery despite a rapid transition to online learning.

This reflection is based on the experiences of three academic staff in one tertiary organisation.

The findings of this study can be helpful for tertiary institutions that are planning to adopt blended learning in the future. Academic staff may revisit teaching pedagogies to design new strategies and institutions may develop blended learning guidelines and tools to support academics to embrace blended learning.

The reflection shows the respect, support and care provided by academics to students building a sense of belongingness and supporting students’ mental well-being in a period of fear and anxiety about COVID-19.

This is a reflection on students’ online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has not been addressed previously in the academic literature.

This paper aims to examine motivations for the reporting of generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP)-adjusted earnings by New Zealand companies.

The study uses multivariate analysis of data from New Zealand company annual reports for the period from 2004 to 2012.

Evidence suggests that management of some New Zealand firms are motivated to use GAAP-adjusted earnings to provide a more favourable impression of earnings. However, across firms, these adjusted earnings provide a better predictor of future earnings and provide more value-relevant information to the market than GAAP earnings. Thus, a desire to disclose a more accurate indicator of permanent earnings appears to be a strong factor in the reporting of GAAP-adjusted earnings.

The study uses firms listed on the New Zealand share market. The number of firms examined is small, but we compensate by studying the entire population, thus avoiding sampling issues. The results suggest that New Zealand’s regulatory response of recommending guidelines for reporting alternative earnings measures is appropriate.

The study contributes to the literature on the relationship between reporting statutory earnings and non-GAAP earnings. It uses a period that includes three major events in the New Zealand economy and reporting environment: the adoption of international financial reporting standards, a change in tax law and the global financial crisis. Recognition of these events allows us to better interpret the GAAP-adjusted reporting practices taken by managers.