...Disclosure Analysis Paper General Motors, one of the largest cars and trucks manufacturer, is more than a century old and has a large scope of the industrial activities, mostly focusing on the motorized transportation with engineering and manufacturing to make all possible. GM was founded in 1908, by William Durant, as a holding company for Buick and McLaughlin Stocks. Global headquarters are located in Detroit, Michigan with manufactures located throughout 35 countries. GM designs, builds and sells trucks, cars and automobile parts around the world, also providing financing services with General Motors Financial Company, Inc. Analyzing results of the business with five segments: GM International Operations, GM North America, GM South America, GM Europe and GM Financial. Consolidated financial statements include accounts and the subsidiaries that are controlled by ownership with a majority voting interest and consolidated interest entities, which are the primary beneficiary. Continuing evaluations with involvement with variable interest entities determines whether GM still have interest that are variable and are primary beneficiaries. When criteria gets met, GM requires consolidation of the VIE’s. Share of earnings or the losses of the nonconsolidated affiliates are included in the consolidated operating using the equity method for accounting when able to exercise significant influence over operating and financial decisions, using the cost method of accounting...
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...Disclosures About CSR Practices: A Literature Review Kavitha W * and Anita P ** Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now prominent and evident more than ever due to the emphasis laid on businesses regarding environmental, social and ethical issues. The level of CSR activities of the firms is made known to public only through the disclosures. This paper reviews the literature on CSR disclosures and the effect of these disclosures. There are various factors which determine the extent of disclosures like the size of the firm, industry, high visibility, etc. Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now prominent and evident more than ever due to the emphasis laid on businesses regarding environmental, social and ethical issues. This is because over the recent years, there have been social, political and economic pressures on corporate management to pay attention on social and environmental consequences of corporate activities. These pressures motivated the corporate management to actively participate in a wide range of social welfare activities. CSR now-a-days covers almost all issues like the use of child labor; inequality of employment; environmental impact; involvement in local community; products’ safety; company cultures; brand image and reputation. Apart from this, companies are now disclosing these activities in their annual reports, and one of the parameters to judge the performance of a company is CSR reporting. Corporate Social...
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...of quantitative and qualitative methods can enhance a study on the environmental reporting decisions made by Malaysian companies using the emergent stakeholder theory. Methodology/approach: The paper provides an illustration of how the descriptive, exploratory and explanatory type of research is entrenched with the objectives of the research and how the combination of quantitative (statistical regression and weighting/mean ranking) and qualitative (archival analysis, qualitative interviews) methods may enhance accounting research not only from results that corroborate. Findings: The three-fold objective of this study, corresponding to its three phases, illustrates that combining qualitative and quantitative methods involves considerations at each phase of the investigation. The research design shows that when the researcher work with different types of data within the same project, the way data is used varies according to the objective and type of each phase (descriptive, explanatory and/or explanatory) of the research project. Each phase may have a particular aim and may address different concerns. However, taken together, the quantitative and qualitative findings may either corroborate, elaborate, complement or even contradict each other. Originality/value: The paper claims that the enhancement of...
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... The primary purpose of this essay is to comparatively analyze information disclosure of intellectual capital in the UK and China, using the content analysis method on company annual reports. In contemporary society, the importance of intellectual capital (IC) and the popularity of using IC to value a company’s competitiveness have been increasing. The definition offered by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (2001) is probably one of the most comprehensive definitions: “…the possession of knowledge and experience, professional knowledge and skill, good relationships and technological capacities, which when applied will give organizations competitive advantage.” Predicting a company’s future market performance is one of the key functions of IC information disclosure (Roslender and Fincham, 2004). Consequently, IC will have a significant role in the future value creation process. This study has some limitations, such as the small sample number, which has implications for how representative the data are. Ten companies in the respective stock markets were selected in the UK and China (total twenty) and content analysis was performed. A larger sample would have made the calculations too complex for the time available. The following paper reports the results of empirical research indicating that the trend of IC information disclosure is steadily increasing in both China and the UK, indicating that British companies had a better approach...
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...board of directors’ characteristics on corporate social responsibility disclosure by Islamic banks: evidence from Gulf Cooperation Council countries Abdullah Awadh Bukair and Azhar Abdul Rahman Abstract Corporate social activities have become major subjects because of their effects on the quality life of citizens, in particular, and on the society at large. Therefore, today, there is an increase awareness of social responsibility due to the challenges meeting the financial institutions (particularly, Islamic banking) around the world. This paper examines the influence of the board of directors’ characteristics, consisting of board size, board composition, and the separation roles of CEO and chairman, on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in 53 annual reports of Islamic banks of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries after controlling of bank size, financial performance and relevant public. Based on the framework of legitimacy theory, the findings show that CSR disclosure has a negative and insignificant relationship with board composition. On contrast, the study found insignificantly and positive association between CSR disclosure and other characteristics of board of directors (board size and the separation roles of CEO and chairman). With regards control variables, the study indicates that bank size and financial performance have a positive and significant influence on CSR disclosure, while relevant public has no effect. Therefore, the results indicate that...
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...of Culture on International Banking Disclosures George Hooia* aGriffith University, Australia Abstract This paper investigates the influence of national culture on banking disclosures. Seventeen developed and developing countries with a representative sample of 37 listed domestic commercial banks were examined in 2004. Long-term orientation is found to be a non-significant cultural value with banking disclosures. The explanatory power for banking disclosures is found to be similar to the findings in Gray and Vint (1995) with a cross-section of industries. More importantly, this study recommends that long-term orientation should not be used as part of the cultural framework for disclosures due to bias data. Hence, Gray’s (1988) hypothesis on the secrecy / transparency dimension should be maintained with respect to the original four cultural values. JEL Classification: G21, M41, O57 Keywords: Culture, banking disclosures, transparency 1. Introduction The objective of this paper is to report on the empirical findings of the two research questions proposed by Hooi (2004) that may improve the Gray and Vint (1995) model of cultural influence on accounting disclosures. The first proposal was that extending the Gray and Vint study with the new inclusion of Hofstede and Bond’s (1988) cultural value of long-term orientation gives the opportunity to better understand the association between national culture and accounting disclosures. The second proposal was that by focusing ...
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...net/risk/ Abstract. We measure and compare the performance of the vulnerability handling and patch development process of Microsoft and Apple to better understand the security ecosystem. We introduce the 0-day patch rate as a new metric; being the number of patches a vendor is able to release at the day of the public disclosure of a new vulnerability. Using this measure we can directly compare the security performance of Microsoft and Apple over the last 6 years. We find global and vendor specific trends and measure the effectiveness of the patch development process of two major software vendors over a long period. For both vendors we find that major software development projects (such as a new OS release or Service Pack) consumes resources at the cost of patch development. Our data does not support the common belief that software from Apple is inherently more secure than software from Microsoft. While the average number of unpatched vulnerabilities has stabilized for Microsoft, Apple has bypassed Microsoft and shows an increasing trend. We provided an insight into the vulnerability lifecycle and trends in the insecurity scene based on empirical data and analysis. To properly plan, assess, and justify vulnerability management knowledge of the vulnerability ecosystem is important. Keywords: security, 0-day patch, vulnerability lifecycle, vulnerability ecosystem 1 Introduction The constant discovery of new vulnerabilities and exploits drives the security risks we are exposed...
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...The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0268-6902.htm MAJ 23,4 The impact of government and foreign affiliate influence on corporate social reporting The case of Malaysia Azlan Amran School of Management, University Science Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, and 386 S. Susela Devi Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the influence of government and foreign affiliates, particularly; multinational companies on corporate social reporting (CSR) development in an economy, where CSR awareness is low coupled with weak pressure group activism. Design/methodology/approach – This is a cross sectional study that focuses on the information contained in the annual reports for year 2002/2003. This research uses content analysis as method to measure the extent CSR. Findings – Based on regression analysis, the study evidences on the impact of government influence. However, the impact of foreign affiliation variables is not evident. Institutionalisation of the government’s aspirations and commitment to CSR is perhaps the most appropriate description for Malaysian CSR practice. Research limitations/implications – There are two main limitations of this study. Firstly, this study examines the annual reports for one year. Secondly, this study is annual reports centric. It does not examine any other stand alone reports that the respondents might...
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...Human Resource Accounting Human Resource Accounting Literatur Review To measure human value as a part of the goodwill, HRA was introduced in the accounting literature in the 1960s (Flamholtz, 1985). In 1968 Brummet, Flamholtz & Pyle used the term “human resource accounting” for the first time. In 1973 the American Accounting Association’s Committee on Human Resource Accounting defined HRA as “the process of identifying and measuring data about human resources and communicating this information to interested parties. It provides information about human resource costs and values, serves to facilitate to decision making, and motivates decision makers to adopt a human resource perspective (Sackmann et al., 1989,). Research to examine the way in which human resource variables affect the efficiency of firms could be performed in a number of ways including analyzing the association between different aspects of human resources and firm performance (Bassi & McMurrer, 1998; Boudreau & Ramstad, 1997; Grojer, 1998). Looking at different proposals (Conner, 1991), the resource theory considers human resources in a more explicit way. This theory considers that the competitive position of a firm depends on its specific and not duplicated assets. The most specific (and not duplicated) asset that an enterprise has is its personnel. It takes advantage of their interdependent knowledge. That would explain why some firms are more productive than others. With the same technology, a solid human...
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...of Commerce - Papers Faculty of Commerce 2006 Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in Developing Countries: Evidence from Bangladesh M. Hossain Hail Community College, Saudi Arabia, monirulhossain@yahoo.com K. Islam University of Wollongong, mksi747@uow.edu.au J. Andrew University of Wollongong, jandrew@uow.edu.au Publication Details This conference paper was originally published as Hossain, MA, Islam, KS and Andrew, J, Corporate social and environmental disclosure in developing coutries: evidence from Bangladesh, in Proceedings of the Asian Pacific Conference on International Accounting Issues, Hawaii, October 2006. Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: morgan@uow.edu.au. Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in Developing Countries: Evidence from Bangladesh Abstract This is an exploratory study designed to investigate the extent and nature of social and environmental reporting in corporate annual reports. Specifically, we examine the relationship between social and environmental disclosure and several corporate attributes in a developing country, Bangladesh. In order to do this, we have developed and utilized a disclosure index to measure the extent of disclosure made by companies in corporate annual reports. This study reports significant differences in levels of social and environmental disclosure, as measured by...
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...Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Corporate social reporting and reputation risk management Jan Bebbington Carlos Larrinaga Jose M. Moneva Article information: Downloaded by University of Strathclyde At 07:57 17 October 2014 (PT) To cite this document: Jan Bebbington Carlos Larrinaga Jose M. Moneva, (2008),"Corporate social reporting and reputation risk management", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21 Iss 3 pp. 337 - 361 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09513570810863932 Downloaded on: 17 October 2014, At: 07:57 (PT) References: this document contains references to 70 other documents. To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 10839 times since 2008* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: Jeffrey Unerman, (2008),"Strategic reputation risk management and corporate social responsibility reporting", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21 Iss 3 pp. 362-364 Carol A. Adams, (2008),"A commentary on: corporate social responsibility reporting and reputation risk management", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21 Iss 3 pp. 365-370 Pekka Aula, (2010),"Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38 Iss 6 pp. 43-49 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 117974 [] For Authors If you would like to...
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...Disclosures About CSR Practices: A Literature Review Kavitha W * and Anita P ** Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now prominent and evident more than ever due to the emphasis laid on businesses regarding environmental, social and ethical issues. The level of CSR activities of the firms is made known to public only through the disclosures. This paper reviews the literature on CSR disclosures and the effect of these disclosures. There are various factors which determine the extent of disclosures like the size of the firm, industry, high visibility, etc. Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now prominent and evident more than ever due to the emphasis laid on businesses regarding environmental, social and ethical issues. This is because over the recent years, there have been social, political and economic pressures on corporate management to pay attention on social and environmental consequences of corporate activities. These pressures motivated the corporate management to actively participate in a wide range of social welfare activities. CSR now-a-days covers almost all issues like the use of child labor; inequality of employment; environmental impact; involvement in local community; products’ safety; company cultures; brand image and reputation. Apart from this, companies are now disclosing these activities in their annual reports, and one of the parameters to judge the performance of a company is CSR reporting. Corporate Social Responsibility ...
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...The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm Intellectual capital disclosure and intangible value drivers: an empirical study Philip Vergauwen Faculty of Applied Economic Sciences, Universiteit Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium ICDs and intangible value drivers 1163 Received February 2007 Revised May 2007 Accepted May 2007 Laury Bollen Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Accounting and Information Management, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and Els Oirbans PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to study the relationship between intellectual capital disclosures (ICDs) and the relative importance of intangible assets as company value drivers. Design/methodology/approach – Annual reports of Swedish, British and Danish firms are analysed to measure the extent of ICD. The level of intellectual capital (IC) in firms, measured with proxies for the categories of human, structural and relational capital. Findings – As to the components of IC, the empirical results indicate that there is a strong significant positive relationship between (the level of) structural capital possession of a firm and the firm’s ICD. Practical implications – This suggests that firms with a relatively high level of structural capital, disclose more information on IC in the annual report. The study found no such significant association between human...
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...Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland Abstract: This paper develops a model of the information intermediation role of analysts in the ‘market for information’ (MFI). It illustrates how the same type of ‘soft’ intangibles information changes as it progresses through analyst information intermediation processes. The latter concern: company disclosure; analyst acquisition and analysis of company information; analyst reporting processes; and market impacts. The common information concerns ‘soft’ or qualitative information about the company intellectual capital (IC) or intangibles in the company business model. Banks and bank analysts are used as examples. Knowledge, social and economic factors in the wider ‘market for information’ (MFI) are shown to be major influences on ‘soft information’ and how it changes in analyst information intermediation processes. Negative knowledge and social factors play a role in weakening and eventually destabilising economic processes in analyst and the MFI. They were important factors in creating knowledge and information problems in analysts and the MFI, both ongoing, and during the crisis of 2007-09. These factors are also part of a solution to the problems. The solutions include improved, transparent knowledge of business models of companies, analysts, and rest of MFI. They also include active use of social forces to create critical and reflexive performativity conditions in the MFI. The empirical analysis is discussed in a novel theoretical...
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...Business KapStone Paper and Packaging Corporation was formed in Delaware as a special purpose acquisition corporation on April 15, 2005 to establish operating business in the paper, packaging, forest products and related industries. The Company operates in one segment, the integrated manufacture and sale of containerboard, corrugated products, and specialty paper for industrial and consumer markets. The Company has been actively and continued to be engaged in evaluating a number of potential acquisition opportunities, in an effort to diversify and/or grow the Company’s business. KapStone’s annual revenues exceed $2.3 billion as of fiscal year ended in 2014, which was comprised of $1.5 billion of containerboard and corrugated products and $0.8 million of specialty paper. KapStone’s business is affected by cyclical industry condition and general economic conditions in the U.S. and in the countries where the Company export their products. Export sales may also be affected by fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and trade policies and relations. Industry KapStone competes in the paper, packaging, forest products and related industries with concentrations in the containerboard, corrugated products, and specialty paper markets. Industry Risks * The paper, packaging, forest products and related industries are highly competitive and comprised of many participants. * The paper, packaging, forest products and related industries are highly cyclical. Fluctuations in the...
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