Motivated by the growing concern for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and behaviours among corporations, this study descriptively explores the voluntary environmental disclosures among public-listed plantation companies in Malaysia. As one of the most polluting industries, the plantation offers an interesting setting for a study on corporate environmental disclosure practices. Using a content analysis of the audited annual reports of these plantation companies, we categorized the plantation firms' environmental disclosure into fourteen categories, with each category having distinct preidentified items. We then employed binary coding for each disclosure item, assigning a score of 1 if the item is disclosed and 0 otherwise. Overall, this study documents an upward trend of environmental disclosure over the sample years (i.e., 2015 -2019). Environmental Policy appears to be the most prevalent type of disclosure among the fourteen categories, while the least disclosed environmental category is Financial Data. Further analysis of our data according to the 'hard' and 'soft' classifications reveals that the environmental reporting among listed plantation firms in Malaysia is still very much dominated by soft information. Hard disclosure items (i.e., governance structure and management systems related to environmental protection, the credibility of the environmental disclosure, environmental performance indicators, and environmental spending) are difficult to be mimicked by the poor environmental performing firms. They hence are usually disclosed only by good environmental performers. On the other hand, soft items cover vision and environmental strategy claims, environmental profiles, and environmental initiatives. Our results suggest that most of the listed plantation firms in Malaysia are still at the early stage of their strategic move toward environmental protection.

Globally, the world economy has consistently experienced organisational failures, mainly arising from poor organisational governance. These organisational failures resulted in financial losses being suffered by millions of people worldwide. Whilst many scholars argue that good organisational governance promotes successful organisations, others have argued that the governance culture adopted by several organisations may not have had the positive effect of achieving optimal performance. Scholars have argued that public sector governance has consistently failed to deliver the required public goods to the communities. Global service delivery protests evidence these arguments. Scholars have also suggested that poor public sector governance resulted in several international crises, including the global economic meltdown in 2008. Recent economic crises have also been noted in several countries, including Sri Lanka and Ghana. This study was therefore conducted in national departments in South Africa adopting organisational performance management (OPM) as a tool to assist in effective service delivery. The study also explored national departments adopting internal auditing as a mechanism to improve OPM. A sequential mixed methods approach was followed in conducting this study. During the quantitative phase, eighteen national departments responded to a survey questionnaire. The quantitative phase was followed by the collection of narrative qualitative data through fourteen interviews with employees from four national and two monitoring departments. The interviews included deputy directors-general, chief directors, directors, deputy directors and a senior internal auditor. Focus group discussions were held with twenty-two internal auditors from the four departments participating in seven sessions. Thus, 38 officials, in total, participated in the interviews and focus group discussions. In addition, sixty-four documents were subjected to content analysis. The study found that whilst the public sector has implemented appropriate governance measures to achieve optimal organisational performance, several factors inhibited optimal OPM. The main findings from the study were the creation of multiple governance structures, poor consequence management, planning and budgeting non-alignment, outcomes rather than impacts focused, divergence in management’s expectations and actual internal auditing services rendered, and skills deficiency within the internal audit activity. Multiple governance structures have resulted in ineffectiveness and over-governance, resulting in governance and reporting fatigue experienced by organisational employees. Governance and reporting fatigue has led to employee lethargy with a resultant negative influence on organisational performance. KEYWORDS: Coordinated Governance; Governance Fatigue; Internal Auditing; Monitoring and Evaluation; Organisational Performance, Reporting Fatigue

The primary categories of occupational fraud are misappropriation of assets, corruption and financial statement fraud, which detrimentally affect the economy. The majority of internal fraud schemes involve the misappropriation of assets and include the misuse of organisational assets. Past research discovered that the misappropriation of assets occurs when an individual uses official vehicles, internet connections, computers, stationery, and other organisational facilities for personal benefit. The misappropriation of assets also includes theft or abuse of inventory, equipment, supplies, information, and securities. The issue of misappropriation of assets has been increasing and is considered the most common among other types of fraud. If left untreated, the issue will become an incurable disease that will cause major leakages to organisations. Thus, this research aimed to investigate the misappropriation of assets awareness among undergraduate university students. The primary data was collected through a questionnaire survey distributed to 167 respondents comprising undergraduate students. The findings revealed that the incidence of misappropriation of assets occurred when the undergraduate students used the hostel's utilities, library equipment, classroom utilities, and university facilities for personal interest. The research discovered that a significant positive relationship exists between the misappropriation of assets, namely, hostel utilities, library equipment, classroom utilities, and university facilities, and the awareness of undergraduate students. This research provides students with a better understanding and helps increase the awareness level of the misappropriation of university assets.

The majority of unemployed South Africans reside in townships. Many individuals who start informal businesses do so because of their employment status. Budgets are generally recognised as management tools that possesses the capability to support the planning process and ensure efficient administration of assets. The aim of the study is to explore if small formal and informal business owners in the retail and service sectors in the township of Sharpeville make use of budgets as part of the managerial process. The first objective is to explore the usage and purpose of budgeting within small formal and informal businesses in Sharpeville. The second objective is to establish an understanding of whether budgeting is viewed as a tool for achieving business goals within small formal and informal businesses in Sharpeville. The third and final objective is to identify possible reasons for not using budgets by these small businesses in Sharpeville. The study is quantitative in nature where data were collected from 100 respondents through convenience sampling. A self-administered questionnaire was used as collection tool. IBM SPSS was applied to analyse and summarise the collected data. The results of this study revealed that formal and informal small business owners who operate in the retail and service sectors of Sharpeville, do not make use of budgets due to a lack of knowledge on how budgets should be prepared. This study indicates that small business owners do not possess the necessary knowledge to set budgets and stresses the need for accounting education for small formal and informal business owners. The findings in this study fill the knowledge gap with regards to the use of budgets by small businesses, concentrating on the retail and service sectors operating within the township of Sharpeville.

The present organisational and business landscape makes the quest for sustainable transformative performance an urgent imperative. Because of this, it is crucial to synthesise and understand the many facets of sustainable transformative performance, with a focus on the need for governance and accountability. This paper reviews the relationship between corporate governance, accountability, and sustainable transformative performance imperatives. The paper draws on the knowledge from several research papers submitted to the Issues in Social and Environmental Accounting Journal special issue publication. It thoroughly analyses various perspectives on sustainable transformation, ranging from environmental sustainability and disclosure practices to the function of governance, organisational culture, and responsible investing. Alongside these issues, the paper also explores the integration of technological governance, its impact on innovation, and the nuanced relationship between financial performance, firm size, and corporate practices. Through these thematic lenses, this paper highlights the significance of aligning governance frameworks, fostering accountability, and embracing responsible practices to drive sustainable transformative performance. The findings of the paper provide valuable insights to practitioners, policymakers, and researchers, shedding light on the complex nature of sustainable transformation and the imperative of effective governance and accountability. The conclusion drawn from the study highlights the transformative power of ethical decision-making, creative governance models, and responsible behaviours in promoting sustainability, good governance and value-driven performance.

The traditional approach to financial performance reporting has experienced a significant shift as stakeholders increasingly demand greater transparency regarding firms' environmental and social impact. This has elevated the importance of environmental reporting due to its potential influence on firms' financial strength. This study investigates the relationship between environmental reporting and the value of manufacturing firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. The study conducted a content analysis on 250 annual integrated reports from 50 manufacturing firms listed on the JSE between 2016 and 2020 and utilized a multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed a negative relationship between environmental reporting and firm value, suggesting that adopting environmental reporting may involve additional financial resources, which are perceived as an outflow of funds in an economic context. Consequently, this study recommends that manufacturing companies analyse their stakeholders' characteristics and information needs to present relevant environmental reporting in their annual integrated reports. By doing so, companies can enhance their legitimacy with stakeholders, maximise shareholder value, and ultimately increase firm value. This research contributes to the existing literature on environmental, social, and financial reporting, particularly in South Africa, by focusing specifically on manufacturing firms listed on the JSE.

Since post-apartheid, South Africa has made great strides in increasing its investment through foreign cash inflows and domestic investment. This research tries to establish the effects of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and domestic investment on economic growth in South Africa. Guided by the unit root test results, this study uses the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration technique and the vector error correlation model to investigate the effect of FDI and domestic investment on economic growth in South Africa from 1990-2019. To assess the validity of a model used, a number of diagnostic tests were conducted, including heteroskedasticity, multicollinearity and normality tests. The study found a statistically significant positive long-run relationship between domestic investment and economic growth. Conversely, the study found a negative relationship that is not statistically significant between FDI and economic growth. This finding is in line with a number of studies, including those conducted in South Africa. Possibly due to high levels of unemployment in South Africa, the study found a negative relationship between population growth and economic growth. The study concludes that policymakers should implement investment policies and promote strategies that will reduce linkages in investment to foster and promote job creation, political and social stability, and sustainability in encouraging economic growth.

The high-profile corporate collapses and failures in early 2000s changed the image of accounting, auditing, and regulatory environments. As a result, the need for implementing effective corporate governance practice (CGP) in corporate financial institutions has gained significant attention worldwide. Effective CGP paves the way for access to finance, lower cost of capital, better corporate financial performance (CFP), and favourable treatment by all stakeholders. This study examines the relationship between corporate governance variables and financial performance in the Ethiopian banking industry. The board size, independence, educational level of board and audit committee characteristics were employed as measures of corporate and return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as financial performance metrics. The study involves a census of all major financial institutions supervised by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) for six years, 2015-2020. The main finding of this study revealed that the existence of board independence, the presence of an audit committee, the financial leverage ratio and financial institution size have a positive significant influence on CFP. Therefore, this study offers an important implication for developing corporate governance and capital structure to support underdeveloped financial institutions. This makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by addressing the specific context of Ethiopian banking industries, filling a gap in knowledge regarding the relationship between corporate governance and financial performance in this sector.

Formulating organisational objectives and strategies such as 'growing the firm' and 'improving financial performance' is a common practice. This paper reiterates that the concepts of 'firm size' and 'financial performance' are not singular ideas. The study aimed to answer the research question: Is there an association between firm size and the financial performance of selected companies? A descriptive research design was applied, and quantitative analysis was performed. Secondary data were extracted from financial statements through IRESS. The research set out predetermined sampling criteria for sample selection. Correlations were measured between financial ratios and different proxies of firm size. Frequencies of the different significant correlations were counted. The findings indicated that firm size proxies and measures of financial performance were either directly or inversely related. Profitability measures were inversely related to total assets and sales. Liquidity measures were associated with sales, while solvency measures were associated with sales and number of employees. Measures of market performance were inversely associated with market capitalisation. This paper contributes to academic knowledge by indicating that financial data of sampled South African companies deliver associations between firm size proxies and financial performance measures. These associations are not identical to the findings obtained by other researchers in different locations. The practical implications of this research entail that managers of South African companies need to select financial performance indicators and base the firm size estimation on proxies associated with such financial performance indicators. Limitations included that findings cannot be generalised, that the researchers relied on the integrity of audited financial statements and that IRESS did not make a full set of data available for all sampled entities. Limitations may inspire further research as the methodology may be mimicked by selecting another research sample. Keywords : financial performance; ratio analysis; firm size; JSE listed companies; financial ratios

Foreign direct investment flows have grown rapidly as the global economy has become more integrated. Developing countries consider FDI as a driving force to economic growth as it contributes to technology transfer, infrastructure improvement, employment creation and trade performance. However, it has been of great concern to many economists on how FDIs affect the economic growth of the host country. The study examines the effect of FDIs on South Africa's economic growth using annual time series data for the period 1980 to 2021. The autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration was used to test the long run relationship between economic growth, foreign direct investment, and exchange rate. The study found that FDI has a positive effect on economic growth rate thus validating the FDI-induced growth nexus in the South African economy, while exchange rate had a negative significant impact on economic growth. This study suggests that policymakers adopt policies aimed at infrastructural development that will attract more FDIs and enhance the country's economic growth. Though there is a prime need to attract more foreign investors in South Africa, it is important to concede that attracting inward FDIs alone is not enough for sustainable economic growth and development. The government will have to undertake reforms with clear objectives and commitments.