R. Saravanan, Firoz Mohammad and Praveen Kumar
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of IFRS convergence on annual report readability in an emerging market context, with an emphasis on the contents of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of IFRS convergence on annual report readability in an emerging market context, with an emphasis on the contents of management discussion and analysis (MD&A), notes to the accounts (Notes) and the whole annual report.
Design/methodology/approach
The study performs firm-fixed effect regression on a sample of 143 Indian listed companies over a period spanning from 2012 to 2021 to examine the influence of IFRS convergence on readability. This assessment primarily focuses on broader spectrums of readability dimensions, namely annual report length and complexity, wherein complexity is measured using the Gunning Fog, Flesch Reading ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade index.
Findings
As Indian firms shift to IFRS reporting, the findings suggest that annual reports have become significantly lengthier and more complex, causing deterioration in readability. The Notes section, in particular, exhibits the most significant increase in length and complexity, followed by the entire annual report and MD&A section. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that the complexity of the Notes section is instrumental in the observed complexity growth of the whole annual report in the post-IFRS period.
Research limitations/implications
The current study employs readability indices rather than directly taking into consideration the opinions of actual users of annual reports to determine readability. As a result, the study does not provide direct evidence on how information in annual reports affects users' readability.
Practical implications
The findings provide insightful information to managers and policymakers about the difficulties stakeholders may encounter while reading IFRS-based annual reports, which ultimately impact their investment decisions. Thus, there is an important managerial implication from this, depending upon the severity of complexity corporations participate in while complying with IFRS in the post-IFRS period.
Originality/value
Analyzing the influence of exogenous information shock, such as IFRS convergence, on readability is critical, particularly for emerging markets like India, where a lack of financial literacy and weaker enforcement already have detrimental effects on the capital market. In light of this, the current study provides a comprehensive examination of the impact of IFRS convergence on annual report readability and contributes to the growing IFRS literature in the less explored emerging market context.
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Saravanan R., Mohammad Firoz and Sumit Dalal
This study aims to empirically investigate the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convergence on corporate risk disclosure, with a particular emphasis on…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to empirically investigate the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convergence on corporate risk disclosure, with a particular emphasis on the quantity and coverage of risk information. The research also conducts economic benefit and cost analysis to investigate the economic implications that may arise from the transition to IFRS reporting.
Design/methodology/approach
A content analysis approach is used to measure two broader dimensions of risk disclosure, namely, risk disclosure quantity and risk topic coverage. Furthermore, using firm-fixed effect regression on a sample of 143 Indian-listed companies, this study investigates the variations in these risk disclosure dimensions before (2012–2016) and subsequent to (2017–2021) the convergence with IFRS.
Findings
The empirical results of this research demonstrate that IFRS convergence has led to a significant improvement in firms’ risk disclosure across several dimensions. Particularly, during the post-IFRS period, firms’ usage of risk-related words and sentences has considerably surged in MD&A, Notes and whole annual reports. In addition, upon IFRS convergence, firms’ risk descriptions have become more extensive and evenly distributed across risk topic categories. Moreover, the in-depth benefit and cost analysis revealed that firms reporting under IFRS benefit from decreased cost of equity capital, but they also incur a higher cost of audit fees.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, this is the only study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to conduct a broader examination of the impact of mandatory IFRS convergence on corporate risk disclosure, with a major focus on quantity and coverage of risk information. Second, by conducting economic benefit and cost analysis, this study provides novel insights into the critical role of IFRS risk disclosures toward multiple economic outcomes.
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Saravanan R. and Mohammad Firoz
This study aims to investigate the effects of IFRS convergence on market liquidity and to analyze the firm-level heterogeneity in liquidity effects based on reporting incentive…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effects of IFRS convergence on market liquidity and to analyze the firm-level heterogeneity in liquidity effects based on reporting incentive, firm size, ownership structure and firm leverage.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis is based on firm-fixed effect regression using several proxies of market liquidity as dependent variables. The sample consists of 337 firms listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) who shifted to IFRS from the financial year 2016–2017.
Findings
The empirical findings indicate that IFRS convergence has contributed to the significant increase in market liquidity in a weaker enforcement country, i.e. India. Additionally, when the study performs the heterogeneity test of IFRS impact, the results indicate the presence of significant cross-sectional differences in such liquidity effects across firms. Thus, altogether the findings suggest that both accounting convergence and firm-level factors are likely to be the mechanism underlying the observed improvement in market liquidity.
Originality/value
In the current literature, there is an ongoing debate about whether the observed post-IFRS effects are driven by the change in accounting standard per se or by other related factors. Therefore, by studying the liquidity effects of IFRS convergence in India, this study provides evidence regarding the sources of the documented IFRS effects. Moreover, the study indicates the significance of firm-level factors in determining the observed liquidity outcomes around IFRS adoption, which is unique to the literature.
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Renu Devi, Mohammad Firoz and R. Saravanan
This study aims to investigate redundant information in mandatory non-financial reports (NFRs) demanded by regulators, focusing primarily on overlapping disclosures in a new…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate redundant information in mandatory non-financial reports (NFRs) demanded by regulators, focusing primarily on overlapping disclosures in a new Indian sustainability reporting (SR) framework.
Design/methodology/approach
The study sample comprised NIFTY100 listed entities that published SR voluntarily during 2021–2022. The authors used content analysis and cosine similarity techniques to conceptually compare redundancy in SR disclosures with non-financial disclosures.
Findings
The findings reveal an information overlap in SR disclosure with other NFRs disclosures. The disclosures of Directors’ Report have higher cosine similarity scores at the firm level with SR, followed by the Management Discussion and Analysis report, Corporate Governance report and Corporate Social Responsibility report. The additional analysis reveals that qualitative disclosures and disclosures comprising governance factors overlap more in SR.
Practical implications
Policymakers should look to establish relevant disclosure guidelines in the SR system, and thereby, shed light on fundamental issues to enhance future SR framework reforms.
Social implications
The study highlight the need for integration and amendment in the disclosure guidelines of NFRs to improve the overall transparency of the reports.
Originality/value
Previous studies have examined the redundancy in annual reports and SRs from the point of view of overlapping information. To the best author’s knowledge, this is possibly among the first studies to offer insights into the repetition of disclosures required by regulators in statutory NFRs based on environmental, social, and governance factors through the lenses of the institutional theory.
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R. Saravanan, S. Subramanian, S. SooriyaPrabha and S. Ganesan
Generation scheduling (GS) is the most prominent and hard-hitting problem in the electrical power industry especially in an integrated power system. Countless techniques have been…
Abstract
Purpose
Generation scheduling (GS) is the most prominent and hard-hitting problem in the electrical power industry especially in an integrated power system. Countless techniques have been used so far to solve this GS problem for proper functioning of the units in the power system to dispatch the load economically to consumers at once. Therefore, this work aims to study for the best possible function of integrated power plants to obtain the most favourable solution to the GS problem.
Design/methodology/approach
An appropriate method works in a proper way and assures to give the best solution to the GS problem. The finest function of incorporated power plants should be mathematically devised as a problem and via that the aim of the GS problem to minimize the total fuel cost subject to different constraints will be achieved. In this research work, the latest meta-heuristic and swarm intelligence-based technique called grey wolf optimization (GWO) technique is used as an optimization tool that will work along with the formulated problem for correct scheduling of generating units and thus achieve the objective function.
Findings
The recommended GWO technique provides the best feasible solution which is optimal in its performance for different test cases in the GS problem of integrated power plant. It is further found that the obtained solutions using GWO method are better than the former reports of other traditional methods in terms of solution excellence. The GWO method is found to be unique in its performance and having superior computational efficiency.
Practical implications
Decision making is significant for effective operation of integrated power plants in an electrical power system. The recommended tactic implements a modern meta-heuristic procedure that is applied to diverse test systems. The method that is proposed is efficient in providing the best solutions of solving GS problems. The suggested method surpasses the early techniques by offering the most excellent feasible solutions. Thus, it is obvious that the proposed method may be the appropriate substitute to attain the optimal operation of GS problem.
Social implications
Renewable energy sources are discontinuous and infrequent in nature, and it is tough to predict them in general. Further, integrating renewable energy source-based plants with the conventional plant is extremely difficult to operate and maintain. Operation of integrated power system is full of challenges and complications. To handle those complications and challenges, the GWO algorithm is suggested for solving the GS problem and thus obtain the optimal solution in integrated power systems by considering the reserve requirement, load balance, equality and inequality constraints.
Originality/value
The proposed system should be further tested on diverse test systems to evaluate its performance in solving a GS problem and the results should be compared. Computation results reveal that the proposed GWO method is efficient in attaining best solution in GS problem. Further, its performance is effectively established by comparing the result obtained by GWO with other traditional methods.
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Saravanan R., Vijayshankar S., Sathyaseelan and Suresh K.
This paper aims to propose Hidden Converter (H-Converter) combined with dual port 3Ø inverter for energy storage application to produce wide range of voltage. Some of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose Hidden Converter (H-Converter) combined with dual port 3Ø inverter for energy storage application to produce wide range of voltage. Some of the application required wide range of voltages, but problem from E-chopper is either boost or buck mode of operations, both modes are not possible. To overcome this drawback, H-Converter is combined with dual port 3Ø inverter controlled by carrier-based pulse width modulation (CB-PWM) technique is added with zero sequence injection.
Design/methodology/approach
Hidden converter is a bidirectional DC-DC chopper used to convert fixed DC to variable DC and vice versa in both buck and boost modes of operations. Dual port inverter is combined with hidden DC-DC converter can produce wide range of voltages.
Findings
The bidirectional DC-AC converter requires less power for processing and consumes less power losses by using modest carrier built- pulse width modulation scheme through proposed zero structure addition.
Originality/value
By using this proposed strategy H-Converter can produce wide range of voltage in both the sides and mostly power is processed in the 3Ø inverter with a one stage conversion with less power loss. As a result, with one stage power conversion has more efficiency because of less power loss. This proposed converter has designed by analysis, and the real time result is tested in an experiment.
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The purpose of this paper is to show that a popular conception among the practitioners is that Total Quality Service (TQS) has a long‐range perspective and the organizations that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show that a popular conception among the practitioners is that Total Quality Service (TQS) has a long‐range perspective and the organizations that have adopted TQS could be able to see the results of their quality improvement initiatives only after a long duration. Hence firms that have been practicing TQS are interested to know the time duration before which they can get back the returns on investments in quality improvement programmes.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study attempts to empirically investigate the impact of TQS age on quality and operational performance. In order to examine the impact of TQS age on the different dimensions of TQS, out of the 12 critical dimensions of TQS, the two outcome constructs, namely Customer Focus and Satisfaction and Employee Satisfaction, have been considered for measuring quality performance while the other ten dimensions have been considered for measuring operational performance.
Findings
The results imply that the firms can get back their returns on investments in their quality management initiatives within three years of TQS implementation. The ways, commitment and the competence with which the TQS implementation is carried out are more important rather than the duration of TQS implementation. Further, among the successful firms, it has been observed that as TQS age increases, quality and operational performance also increases, since firms get more and more experienced in effective implementation of TQS in a continuously improving environment.
Originality/value
The impact of TQS age on quality and operational performance has been investigated in a developing economy with respect to the automobile service industry. Primarily this is a research paper and the results and findings will be of immense use to the business executives of service firms.
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Saira Faisal, Shenela Naqvi, Muhammad Ali and Long Lin
Among various metal oxide nano particles, MgO NPs and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) in particular are gaining increasing attention due to their multifunctional characteristics, low cost…
Abstract
Purpose
Among various metal oxide nano particles, MgO NPs and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) in particular are gaining increasing attention due to their multifunctional characteristics, low cost and compatibility with textile materials. Each type of nanoparticle excels over others in certain properties. As such, it is often crucial to carry out comparative studies of NPs to identify the one showing higher efficiency/output for particular applications of textile products.
Design/methodology/approach
In the investigation reported in this paper, ZnO NPs and MgO NPs were synthesised via sol-gel technique and characterised. For comparative analysis, the synthesised NPs were evaluated for multiple properties using standard procedures before and after being applied on cotton fabrics by a dip-pad-dry-cure method.
Findings
XRD and FTIR analyses confirmed the successful synthesis of ZnO and MgO NPs. Homogeneous formation of desired NPs and their dense and uniform deposition on the cotton fibre surface were observed using SEM. ZnO NPs and MgO NPs coatings on cotton were observed to significantly enhance self-cleaning/stain removal properties achieving Grade 5 and Grade 4 categories, respectively. In terms of ultraviolet (UV) protection, ZnO or MgO NP coated fabrics showed UPF values of greater than 50, i.e. excellent in blocking UV rays. MgO NPs exhibited 20% cleaning efficiency in treating reactive dye wastewater against ZnO NPs which were 4% efficient in the same treatment, so MgO was more suitable for such type of treatments at low cost. Both NPs were able to impart multifunctionality to cotton fabrics as per requirement of the end products. However, ZnO NPs were better for stain removal from the fabrics while MgO NPs were appropriate for UV blocking.
Originality/value
It was therefore clear that multifunctional textile products could be developed by employing a single type of cost effective and efficient nano particles.
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Kumarasubramanian Ramar and Ganesan Subbiah
This study aims to examine the environmental effects of plastic waste on the atmosphere and its implications for disaster waste management. It focuses on using ammonia, pyrolyzed…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the environmental effects of plastic waste on the atmosphere and its implications for disaster waste management. It focuses on using ammonia, pyrolyzed plastic oil and the effectiveness of alumina nanoparticles as a catalyst.
Design/methodology/approach
The research explores different combinations of conventional diesel and nano Al2O3 derived from pyrolyzed plastic oil (ranging from P10 to P40). Critical performance metrics evaluated include brake mean effective pressure (BMEP), brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency and emissions of CO2, CO and NOx. The study specifically investigates the impact of adding 50 ppm of Al2O3 nanoparticles to these blends.
Findings
The findings indicate that using blended fuels with nanoadditives significantly lowers pollution. Specifically, the P30 blend with 50 ppm of Al2O3 nanoparticles greatly reduced CO emissions. Additionally, the same blend reduced NOx emissions and CO2 emissions. The P30 mix showed improved BMEP and brake thermal efficiency due to its density, calorific value and viscosity (6.3 bar). The P30 blend exhibited higher thermal efficiency due to decreased heat loss, whereas conventional diesel demonstrated the best mechanical efficiency due to its longer ignition delay.
Originality/value
This study highlights the potential of using Al2O3 nanoparticles and pyrolyzed plastic oil to reduce emissions and enhance the performance of internal combustion engines. It underscores the environmental benefits and implications for disaster waste management by converting plastic waste into useful resources and reducing air pollution.
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Deniz Ustun, Serdar Carbas and Abdurrahim Toktas
In line with computational technological advances, obtaining optimal solutions for engineering problems has become attractive research topics in various disciplines and real…
Abstract
Purpose
In line with computational technological advances, obtaining optimal solutions for engineering problems has become attractive research topics in various disciplines and real engineering systems having multiple objectives. Therefore, it is aimed to ensure that the multiple objectives are simultaneously optimized by considering them among the trade-offs. Furthermore, the practical means of solving those problems are principally concentrated on handling various complicated constraints. The purpose of this paper is to suggest an algorithm based on symbiotic organisms search (SOS), which mimics the symbiotic reciprocal influence scheme adopted by organisms to live on and breed within the ecosystem, for constrained multi-objective engineering design problems.
Design/methodology/approach
Though the general performance of SOS algorithm was previously well demonstrated for ordinary single objective optimization problems, its efficacy on multi-objective real engineering problems will be decisive about the performance. The SOS algorithm is, hence, implemented to obtain the optimal solutions of challengingly constrained multi-objective engineering design problems using the Pareto optimality concept.
Findings
Four well-known mixed constrained multi-objective engineering design problems and a real-world complex constrained multilayer dielectric filter design problem are tackled to demonstrate the precision and stability of the multi-objective SOS (MOSOS) algorithm. Also, the comparison of the obtained results with some other well-known metaheuristics illustrates the validity and robustness of the proposed algorithm.
Originality/value
The algorithmic performance of the MOSOS on the challengingly constrained multi-objective multidisciplinary engineering design problems with constraint-handling approach is successfully demonstrated with respect to the obtained outperforming final optimal designs.