Marek Reuter and Martin Messner
The purpose of this paper is to examine formal participation in the early phase of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) standard-setting. The objective of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine formal participation in the early phase of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) standard-setting. The objective of the paper is to shed light on the characteristics of lobbying parties and the determinants of their lobbying behavior toward the IIRC. Additionally, the most important points of contestation regarding the IIRC’s initial proposal for integrated reporting are identified and discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze comment letters issued toward the IIRC’s 2011 discussion paper on the basis of a content analysis. The analysis is guided mainly by Sutton’s (1984) rational-choice model of lobbying and by findings from extant financial accounting lobbying research. The analysis of the data is both quantitative and qualitative.
Findings
The paper improves the understanding of the political nature of standard-setting in the context of integrated reporting. Among other things, the authors find that comment letters toward the IIRC’s discussion paper are mainly written by large multinational firms (as opposed to small- and medium-sized ones) and by preparers (as opposed to users). The authors also observe active lobbying by sustainability service firms and professional bodies which tend to take a critical position vis-à-vis the discussion paper’s emphasis on investor needs and shareholder value creation. Moreover, the qualitative analysis reveals that respondents voice different concerns regarding, for instance, the scope of audience of integrated reporting, issues of materiality and the relationship between integrated reporting and other existing reporting frameworks.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is limited to a consideration of the 2011 discussion paper of the IIRC. The IIRC’s more recent and forthcoming proposals will likely provide a basis to extend the paper’s findings and allow investigation of the role of lobbying for the further development of the framework.
Originality/value
The paper is, to the best of the knowledge, the first one to explore lobbying behavior by means of comment letters in the context of integrated reporting.
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Kai Michael Krauss, Anna Sandäng and Eric Karlsson
By mobilizing the empirical setting of a megaproject, this study problematizes public budgeting as participatory practice. The authors suggest that megaprojects are prone to…
Abstract
Purpose
By mobilizing the empirical setting of a megaproject, this study problematizes public budgeting as participatory practice. The authors suggest that megaprojects are prone to democratic legitimacy challenges due to a long history of cost overruns, which provides stakeholders with a chance to dramatize a budgetary controversy.
Design/methodology/approach
Through article and document data, the authors reconstructed a controversy that emerged around the budget of Stockholm/Åre’s candidature for the Olympic Winter Games 2026. The authors used Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006) orders of worth to systematically analyze the justification work of key stakeholder groups involved in the controversy.
Findings
This study illustrates that a budgetary controversy was actively maintained by stakeholder groups, which resulted in a lack of public support and the eventual demise of the Olympic candidature. As such, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of public budgeting as a controversy-based process vis-à-vis a wider public with regard to the broken institution of megaprojects.
Practical implications
This study suggests more attention to the disruptive power of public scrutiny and the dramatization of budgeting in megaprojects. In this empirical case, the authors show how stakeholders tend to take their technical concerns too far in order to challenge a budget, even though megaprojects generally provide an ill-suited setting for accurate forecasts.
Originality/value
While studies around the financial legacies of megaprojects have somewhat matured, very few have looked at pitching them. However, the authors argue that megaprojects are increasingly faced with financial skepticism upon their approval upfront.
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Allegations of bribery and corruption against the former chairman of Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), the financial sector regulator, have stoked both political and…
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB240518
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Erik Girvan and Heather J. Marek
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it proposes a basic organizing framework for when a plaintiff’s race, ethnicity, or sex may impact civil jury awards. The framework…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it proposes a basic organizing framework for when a plaintiff’s race, ethnicity, or sex may impact civil jury awards. The framework takes into account psychological and structural sources of bias and the ways in which they may interact when jurors have more or less discretion. Second, the paper employs a methodological innovation to overcome one of the primary barriers to empirical field research on bias in civil legal decisions: the absence of plaintiff demographic information.
Design/methodology/approach
The data set is comprised of jury verdicts in tort cases combined with information from the US Census Bureau regarding race and ethnicity. Statistical tests measure the relationships between race, ethnicity, sex, and awards for economic damages and pain and suffering.
Findings
Overall, the results were consistent with the psycho-structural framework. Where jurors had discretion (i.e. pain and suffering damages), they awarded less to black plaintiffs than to white plaintiffs, indicating potential psychological bias. Where jurors had little discretion (i.e. lost income) they awarded less to female plaintiffs and more to Asian plaintiffs than to male and white plaintiffs, respectively, a potential reflection of structural income disparities. Thus, the framework and method have promise for exploring relationships between structural and psychological bias and differential civil jury awards.
Originality/value
Because demographic information is not easily available, there is very little research on race and gender bias in civil cases. This study introduces and provides a conceptual test of a novel framework for when bias is most likely to impact damage awards in these cases and tests it using advances in social demography that can help researchers overcome this barrier.
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The president’s statement reflects a widespread crisis of trust in the government a week after investigative journalist Jan Kuciak was found shot dead with his fiancee Martina…
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB230186
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Leopold Djoutsa Wamba, Eric Braune and Lubica Hikkerova
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the mechanisms of corporate governance on the volatility of companies’ financial profitability.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the mechanisms of corporate governance on the volatility of companies’ financial profitability.
Design/methodology/approach
For the period 2002-2014, the authors evaluate the relations linking various indices involved in corporate governance with the systematic risk supported by these companies for a sample of 355 firms domiciled in Europe. To empirically test these relationships, the authors calculated a synthetic index of corporate governance quality (QGI) based on the 53 items of assessment of the companies’ governance proposed by the database ASSET4. Following the method used by Boncori et al. (2016), the authors first reduced the number of dimensions of corporate governance by performing a principal component analysis of the sample, which resulted in the following five components: management’s shareholder commitment, shareholder rights, characteristics of the board of directors, transparency of the financial information and independence of the audit.
Findings
The results of the tests indicate that the synthetic index of governance that the authors have built is only significant at the 10 percent threshold. The impact of this variable on the systematic risk of the company is of the order of one-tenth of a point. The decomposition of this index into five variables shows that management’s commitment to shareholders and the effectiveness of the board of directors in carrying out its supervisory tasks are likely to reduce, but again to a limited extent, the risk borne by the company.
Research limitations/implications
This observation guides the future work in introducing variables that reflect the social responsibilities of the companies in the sample in order to distinguish the effects of social responsibility from those of purely shareholder-oriented governance on systematic risk.
Practical implications
This paper demonstrates the interest of good governance on the risk of firms and identifies certain characteristics upon which to act.
Originality/value
Although the relations between corporate governance mechanisms and profitability expectations have been the subject of numerous studies, few authors have examined the influence of governorship on the volatility of this profitability, particularly in Europe. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the rare work on this topic relates to only a limited number of countries.
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Hungary thereby regains investment-grade status, albeit at the lowest level, from being downgraded to 'junk' because of doubts about the government's policies and the high public…
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB211253
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
The pick-up in growth contrasts markedly with the sharp falls in inflation across Central Europe (CE). With CE government bond markets under renewed pressure, monetary policy is…
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB199544
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
The present article analyses the effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBM&As) on targets' total factor productivity (TFP), employment, wages and intangible-asset…
Abstract
Purpose
The present article analyses the effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBM&As) on targets' total factor productivity (TFP), employment, wages and intangible-asset investment. The author investigates whether the impact of CBM&As differs depending on the origin of the investing multinational (MNE). The author distinguishes between CBM&As from European countries, other developed countries and emerging countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The author makes use of a unique firm-level data set of foreign direct investment in the French manufacturing sector. The authors applies propensity score matching and difference in differences to estimate the effect of CBM&As.
Findings
The results show that the consequences of CBM&As differ strongly depending on the origin. CBM&As from European MNEs have a positive impact on TFP, wages and intangible-asset investment, and those from emerging countries seem to increase wages and intangible-asset investments. In contrast, CBM&As that originate from MNEs from other developed countries do not have a significant effect.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the growing literature on the effects of foreign direct investment that highlights the relevance of accounting for the MNEs' origin. In particular, it is the first to address the impact of emerging-country MNEs' CBM&As in Europe.