Use Of Disclosure Research Articles

A commentary on E-liability: does it bring something new to GHG accounting?

E-liability is a proposed new approach for corporate-level greenhouse gas accounting, winning the 2022 Harvard Business Review-McKinsey Award for “groundbreaking management thinking”. It is actively promoted by the E-liability Institute and piloted by major international companies, such as Hitachi and Tata Steel. The intention is that E-liability should replace the widely adopted GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting & Reporting Standard, which underpins recent regulatory standards including the IFRS Climate-related Disclosures Standard, and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. It is therefore important to ask what is new and what are the merits of E-liability? One positive feature of E-liability that could be adopted or enhanced in the established GHG Protocol approach is the direct requirement for suppliers to disclose cradle-to-gate data to downstream customers. However, one of the major limitations with E-liability is the limited provision of information on downstream emissions, which reduces the usefulness of disclosures for managing the abatement of these emissions, and for assessing company exposure to climate-related risk. Our analysis concludes that much of what is proposed in the E-liability method is not new, and that the key aspects that are new result in a detrimental loss of information.

The metaphysics of financial performance in financial accounting

This paper argues that the metaphysics of financial performance in the conceptual framework employed by accounting standard-setters is incoherent: income and expenses cannot, as the framework holds, both be independent elements of financial statements, identified from underlying events, tested for recognition and measured by discrete acts, separately from the identification, testing and measurement of other elements and satisfy the analytical relationship between performance and position embraced by the framework. An alternative conceptualisation is proposed, under which income and expenses are part of a wider system of classifying all changes in assets and liabilities, measured indirectly. This approach improves the metaphysical coherence, and thus the intellectual strength, of the framework project; while it leaves the measurement of financial performance unchanged, by emphasising the importance of classification, it invites further attention to the presentation of financial performance, with the potential for improving the usefulness of disclosures.

How Do Adolescents Manage Information in the Relationship with Their Parents? A Latent Class Analysis of Disclosure, Keeping Secrets, and Lying

The use of disclosure and concealment strategies by adolescents in the relationship with their parents may have important implications for their adjustment. Few studies of adolescents’ information management have taken a person-centered approach, yet it is a useful way to understand variations in how they regulate information shared with their parents. This study explored adolescents’ information management constellations with their mothers and fathers, and how these patterns differ in terms of perceived need-supportive parenting, autonomous reasons for disclosure, and problematic alcohol use. Three hundred thirty-two Swiss adolescents (45% female; Mage = 15.01 years) reported information management strategies used with each parent (disclosure, keeping secrets, lying), perceptions of maternal and paternal need-supportive parenting (involvement, autonomy support, structure), autonomous reasons for disclosure, and problematic alcohol use. Latent class analyses revealed three classes: Reserved (37%), Communicators (36%), and Deceptive (27%). Comparisons across classes showed that adolescents in the Communicators class reported the highest levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, as well as autonomous reasons for disclosure. Adolescents in the Deceptive class reported the lowest levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, as well as autonomous reasons for disclosure. Associations between classes and problematic alcohol use were also found, such that the likelihood of problem drinking was greater for adolescents in the Deceptive class. These findings underscore the importance of continued information sharing with both parents, and underline how a need-supportive parenting context may encourage adolescents to talk voluntarily.

Leveraging Big Data to Study Information Dissemination of Material Firm Events

ABSTRACTCould real‐time big data help unravel material firm events? How would it compare with firm disclosure and traditional media in terms of timeliness and completeness? Could big data provide incremental value‐relevant information for investors? With these questions in mind, we use a novel data set of cell phone “pings” (i.e., geolocation signals from mobile devices) to track production disruptions (outages)––material events for U.S. oil refineries. We first validate the construct by examining the effects of outages on local gas prices and firms’ accounting performance. Our main analyses show that (1) refining firms do not voluntarily disclose refinery outages identified by cell phone pings; (2) traditional media cover only a small portion of ping‐based outages; (3) the stock market finds ping‐based outages to be value relevant but incorporates the information with delay. Further analysis suggests that given the incomplete media coverage and lack of firm disclosure, investors appear to learn the financial impact of such outages through subsequent earnings announcements. Our evidence has implications for regulators such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission as they continue to evaluate both the compliance and usefulness of disclosures for material firm events such as production disruptions.

Is the global reporting initiative suitable to account for university social responsibility? Evidence from European institutions

PurposeRecognising the importance of universities in the achievement of social and global objectives, this paper aims to study the relevance of the global reporting initiative (GRI) methodology for reporting University Social Responsibility (USR) activities, taking into account the specificity of higher education institutions (HEI).Design/methodology/approachAfter a review of the literature and background, the European HEI reports prepared according to the latest version of GRI standards are selected and a comparative study is carried out. The analysis focusses on comparing to what extent the standards are responding to the information needs generated in the field of higher education.FindingsGeneral issues, common to all types of organisations, are adequately reported by HEIs, but difficulties are encountered in integrating a vision that incorporates the role of their missions in standards related to economic, social and environmental aspects.Research limitations/implicationsThere are few GRI reports with this format and further research is encouraged as the number of reports increase. So far, major limitations have been found by HEIs to account for their societal missions when using the GRI.Practical implicationsThe debates on USR are promoting an increase in the number of reports on sustainability. This paper provides some examples of the use of disclosures that can be adapted in this context, to move towards the systematisation of these practices.Originality/valueThis is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first comparative study on the application of GRI to sustainability reports at a European level, focussing on the adequacy between disclosures and missions.

Sharing Native Advertising on Twitter: Content Analyses Examining Disclosure Practices and Their Inoculating Influence

ABSTRACT Based upon a 3-year data set of Tweets linking to native advertising from leading U.S. news publications, this study provides human content analyses (n = 1,527) of the practice of native advertising disclosure in the field – both on publisher websites and when shared on Twitter – and explores whether disclosures serve the inoculating function of resistance to persuasion. Leveraging the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and Wright [1994]. “The persuasion knowledge model: How people cope with persuasion attempts.” Journal of Consumer Research 21 (June): 1–31) and inoculation theory (McGuire [1964]. “Inducing resistance to persuasion: Some contemporary approaches.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by L. Berkowitz, 191–229. New York: Academic Press.), results show a) regular use of disclosures on publisher landing pages, b) the absence of disclosures in over half of publisher Twitter Cards, and c) the presence of disclosures corresponded to an increased likelihood of negatively-valenced Twitter posts.

BENTUK DAN FUNGSI KATEGORI FATIS DALAM KOMUNIKASI LISAN BAHASA MELAYU DIALEK SUNGAI ROKAN

In daily communication of among Native speakers of Malay language of Rokan dialect, which is very special because fatis can create and keep mantain the social relationship in communication. The importance of fatis in the communication of Malay dialect clearly seem that the position of fatis in many aspects namely, religion, customs, culture and manners. The theory uses is about Fatis category by Kridalaksana (1994), Malinowski in Sutami (2004. The method used in this study is a qualitative approach with descriptive research types. The research method is aimed at obtaining a description of the use of disclosure in the communi- cation of the Rokan River Malay Language. Forms of categorization of languages: Malay, Sungai Rokan dialect, District of regency, Regency of Rokan Hulu, consisting of 25 particles, 20 in the form of words, 15 in the form of form and 6 in the form of a square and a sentence The number of syrups will be added to follow the development and the need for discussion of the Spread community itself. The function of the anti-religious in the language The Malay Sungai Rokan dialect is not only to start, greet, confirm and maintain, in this thesis, researchers find 10 functions that are commonly used by the community of Sungai Rokan , including; pharynx functions to start, maintain, confirm, terminate, affirm, convince, admonish, praise, and fear / bully. From a group of forms, fatism in the language of living in the Sungai Rokan is very dominant using the particle, and functions, the dominant use of which is the function and ridicule. Based on the data analysis, it can be concluded that the Malay language of the Rokan River Dialect has 60 forms of phisic categories and the phisic form of the particle is phatic which is often used. In terms of function, the Malay language of the Rokan River Dialect has 10 phatic functions and the dominant one is the affirmative and mocking function.

Patterns of Institutional Change the case of accounting regulation in BRICS countries

This leximetric study covers trends in a broad range of disclosure and enforcement activities in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries from 1991 to 2017. Using institutional theory, we find increasing similarities between the five countries, explained by isomorphism. We also distinguish a pattern between the countries' use of disclosure and enforcement regulation. Disclosure leads enforcement, and enforcement remains less intense and more varied. Institutional rigidities and associated costs serve as an explanation.

Disclosing Product Placements of Fast Food to Children: The Importance of Reinforcing the Use of Disclosures and the Age of Children

ABSTRACT Product or brand placement, the integration of brand/products into TV programs/films, is one of the most controversial forms of promotion. Based on its embedded character, the European Union promulgated in 2010 a norm that obligates broadcasters to disclose the presence of placement. Taking the case of fast food marketing, this paper examines the effects of using disclosures and reinforcing their use during a program (only at the beginning vs. at the beginning and after a commercial break) on children at different ages (9,12 and 15) in terms of the awareness of the nature of placement, and brand effects (recall and preference). The results showed that (1) reinforcing the use of disclosures increased the awareness of placements; (2) both forms of disclosures (single and reinforced) raised brand recall and limited brand preference of the advertised brand; older children (3) increased the awareness of placements and decreased their brand preference; and also (4) enhanced the effect of disclosures on awareness and brand preference.

The Transparency Trap: Non‐Financial Disclosure and the Responsibility of Business to Respect Human Rights

This article examines the potential for transparency programs to improve corporations’ human rights performance. The primary focus is on “general” transparency programs such as the inclusion of human rights issues in sustainability reports. Regulators increasingly rely on such programs, one of which is the EU Directive on the Disclosure of Non‐financial Information, which many commentators view as a model for legislation in other countries and for a business and human rights treaty. This article identifies several problems with this approach. The human rights metrics used in current sustainability reporting standards often lack validity or are based upon data that is most easily collected, rather than most important. Moreover, the empirical evidence on sustainability reporting shows continued problems of selective disclosure, impression management, incomparable disclosures, and the use of disclosure as an end in itself (as opposed to a process that leads to organizational change). To move forward, regulators should shift focus to a model grounded in regulatory pluralism. Under this approach, regulators would combine a selection of targeted transparency mechanisms to create a more complete regulatory system that corrects for one disclosure mechanism's weaknesses by including others that have complementary strengths.

Investors’ perception on the usefulness of management report disclosures

Purpose This paper aims to examine the usefulness of disclosures provided by Egyptian firms in the management report from the viewpoint of financial analysts and institutional investors. Design/methodology/approach Institutional investors are surveyed to determine whether disclosures are meeting the needs of these financial statements’ users. The final sample consists of 78 financial analysts who work at stockbrokerage firms and 36 institutional investors who work in Egyptian banks and insurance companies. Findings The main findings reveal that investors view mandatory and voluntary disclosures differently. Some voluntary disclosures are more useful than mandatory disclosures, which highlights a gap between the regulations and users’ information needs. Moreover, the findings show that respondents consider information related to ownership structure more important than information on risks and firms’ future performance. Research limitations/implications This study enriches the scientific debate on the usefulness of disclosures provided in the management report. It might also encourage other researchers to focus on investigating different types of information that may have a significant influence on the decision-making process. Practical implications The findings will be useful to regulators to improve the current rules of disclosures. In addition, these results will also be helpful to managers because they highlight the disclosure items that are considered important by users. Originality/value This study provides evidence on how users perceive the usefulness of information disclosed in the management reports for their decision-making in an emerging capital market. Even though previous studies investigated the usefulness of management reports, no one of them emphasized the users’ viewpoint.

Sharing Native Advertising on Twitter: Content Analyses Examining Disclosure Practices and Their Inoculating Influence

Based upon a large data set of Tweets linking to native advertising from leading U.S. news publications, this study provides human content analyses of the practice of native advertising disclosure in the field and explores whether disclosures serve the inoculating function of resistance to persuasion. Leveraging the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad & Wright, 1994) and inoculation theory (McGuire, 1964), results show a) regular use of disclosures on publisher landing pages, b) the absence of disclosures in over half of Tweeted publisher Twitter Cards, and c) the presence of disclosures corresponded to an increased likelihood of negatively-valenced posts.

The decision to disclose: Employment after prison

Despite awareness that a criminal record negatively affects employment prospects and that releasees are likely to internalize the stigma of their criminal history, the ramifications of such processes remains underresearched in the context of labor force participation after imprisonment. Building on past scholarship on disclosure, we examine how disclosure serves as a form of stigma management—thereby allowing people to exert some semblance of control over how they are viewed by others, particularly in light of new media technologies. Unique to our study is that we followed releasees (although there was attrition due to death, parole revocation, and recidivism) over three years. This opportunity provided insight into how releasees’ use of disclosure changed with experiences on the job market and over time as participants increasingly disassociated their current identity from their prison experiences and criminal history.

The Marketsite: A New Conceptualization of Market Spatiality

abstractEconomic geographers have deployed a variety of spatial categories (e.g., scale, territory and border) to describe and theorize the spatiality of market making and marketization processes. This article supplements these accounts with insights from the work of post-structural geographers oriented toward the site. To this end, the article introduces the notion of the marketsite. Marketsites are points where heterogeneous elements are brought together and assembled in an effort to realize the conditions required for the performance of model markets and market subjectivities. Using the example of smart disclosure, the article argues that the use of disclosure labels to improve consumer decision making has transformed the point of sale and other transactional junctures into incipient marketsites—niches where various behavioral techniques are deployed to summon into being subjects who behave as if they were Homines economici. The behavioral turn in economics has focused the market-making efforts of a variety of actors on the market subject and strategic sites in people’s everyday lives where they can be guided and nudged into alignment with market models. Together such marketsites delineate a new, and largely uncharted, geography of encounter between (behavioral) economic theory and actually existing markets. Drawing on fieldwork developing and testing a fee disclosure box for a prepaid debit card, I show that the production of marketsites, where Homo economicus can survive, is a messy process that rarely succeeds. Regardless, such efforts reveal valuable insights into how the behavioral turn in economics is reshaping the spatiality of market-making processes.

Runs versus Lemons: Information Disclosure and Fiscal Capacity

We study the optimal use of disclosure and fiscal backstops during financial crises. Providing information can reduce adverse selection in credit markets, but negative disclosures can also trigger inefficient bank runs. In our model, governments are thus forced to choose between runs and lemons. A fiscal backstop mitigates the cost of runs and allows a government to pursue a high disclosure strategy. Our model explains why governments with strong fiscal positions are more likely to run informative stress tests, and, paradoxically, how they can end up spending less than governments that are more fiscally constrained.

Short-form disclosure documents—an empirical survey of six jurisdictions

A fundamental principle that underpins the securities and financial markets is that investors, both institutional and retail investors, should be given all information necessary to enable them to make informed decisions about whether to acquire securities or invest in financial products. In conjunction with financial advice and measures to improve financial literacy, a core mechanism for implementing this principle is the use of disclosure documents. These come in a variety of forms, ranging from lengthy prospectuses or offer documents, to short-form documents that are designed to make it easier for investors, particularly retail investors, to read and understand the features and risks of securities and financial products. There are a number of questions that jurisdictions must consider when designing disclosure documents for use with financial products. For example, what is the purpose of the disclosure document and should it be the sole basis for investment decisions? Should the length and format of disclosure documents be prescribed? Should the same approach be adopted for all financial products or only a specified range of financial products? Should any restrictions be imposed for complex financial products as a result of the difficulties that investors, particularly retail investors, face in understanding how such products work? The answers to these questions will inevitably turn on the answers to various threshold questions: Does length matter? Does presentation or format matter? How important are length and format relative to other factors such as content and language? And how useful are devices such as synthetic risk indicators in helping investors to understand risk?

Disclosures of Social Value Creation: A Case Study of Three Global Social Enterprises

This study seeks to fill in gap in the existing literature by looking at how and whether disclosure of social value creation becomes a part of legitimation strategies of social enterprises. By using legitimacy reasoning, this study informs that three global social organizations, Grameen Bank, Charity Water, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provide evidence of the use of disclosures of social value creation in order to conform with the expectations of the broader community — the community that wants to see poverty and injustice free world.

Supervisee Self‐disclosure: A Clinical Psychology Perspective

Clinical supervision is a multi-functional intervention within numerous psychotherapeutic professions, including clinical psychology. It often relies on supervisees' verbal disclosures of pertinent information. There is limited research on supervisee self-disclosure in the UK, and none using clinical psychology populations. This study aimed to address the limitations in the evidence base. It used a constructivist grounded theory methodology to investigate qualified UK clinical psychologists' use of self-disclosure in supervision in order to develop a theoretical understanding of their self-disclosure processes. Ten clinical psychologists from various time points across the career span were recruited to the study. Four core conceptual categories were identified in the analysis as being integral to participants' decision-making processes: 'Setting the Scene', 'Supervisory Relationship', 'Using Self-disclosure' and 'Reviewing Outcome of Self-disclosure'. These four categories are comprised of a number of subcategories. The study's findings are compared with the current literature base, and it is argued that there are tensions with the scientist-practitioner model as it could be interpreted to encourage an expert stance, which may limit the self-disclosure of qualified supervisees. The implications of this perspective are discussed. Supervision is a key process in supporting qualified clinical psychologists and the use of disclosure appears to be important in facilitating useful supervision. It appears that clinical psychologists go through a number of complex processes in deciding whether to self disclose.

Voluntary Disclosure and Investment*

This paper examines the determinants and economic efficiency of corporate voluntary disclosure. The focus is on the trade-off for an individual firm when the costs and benefits of voluntary disclosure stem from the consequences of its investment decisions and the impact on its share price. Investment and voluntary disclosure decisions are intertwined. First, voluntary disclosure leads to more accurate pricing, which induces more efficient investment decisions. Second, the firm may affect the market pricing in its favor by strategically disclosing or withholding its private information. This opportunistic use of disclosure may cause the real investment to be distorted at the margin. My analysis shows that the efficiency of voluntary disclosure is influenced by both effects. Further, this paper investigates how the investment efficiency and the propensity for providing voluntary disclosure respond to various environmental variables. Two such key variables are the general economic outlook of the investment opportunity and the quality of firm private information.

Should We Put a Price on Free Speech?

kesten.green@unisa.edu.au). Should public policy guarantee First Amendment rights to all citizens at all times? Some of our commentators think not. We argue that there is good reason to hold to rights. Consistent with economic theory and behavioral research, experimental findings show that mandatory disclaimers harm producers and consumers. They are also expensive to develop and to enforce. Perry and Blumenthal (2012) show that similar problems exist with respect to the broader area of mandatory disclosures. Their findings conflict with the common assumption that “more information is better” and demonstrate that confusion occurs even when negative words can be avoided. The problem is that people are overwhelmed with information that has little relevance to their decision making. We do not agree with Perry and Blumenthal’s (p. 1) opinion that experimental evidence is “necessary to examine the effects of disclosures on decision quality” and to improve public policy and consumer protection. The burden of proof should be on those who would deny the right of free speech. Furthermore, sufficient experimental evidence exists, and it favors retaining free speech (Ben-Shahar and Schneider 2011). Kozup et al. (2012) provide a wide-ranging and useful literature review. Then they take a similar position to Perry and Blumenthal, stating that “a wholesale moratorium on disclosure use seems unwarranted” (p. 7). However, they do not provide experimental evidence to support their opinion, or their implicit assumptions that government lawmakers and enforcers will behave more ethically than people working in firms and more effectively than buyers and sellers to maximize welfare. We encountered a similar status quo bias among some of the people who provided unpublished comments on our article. We are not sure why we need to prove to them that it is wrong to deprive businesspeople of First Amendment rights. In addition, we are not sure how it would be possible to do so: They were unable to tell us what evidence would convince them. Typically, it is up to the government to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt when trying to take away a person’s freedom—for example, by putting him in jail. As Sherman (2012) demonstrates, courts have been lax in supporting free speech. They have assumed that government restrictions on free speech are of obvious benefit and thus need no support from evidence. There are exceptions. In R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co et al. v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al. (2012), Judge Leon blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to force tobacco sellers to use visuals (some of which were falsified) and text to persuade people to stop smoking. In this case, the government, armed with a large budget, failed to provide experimental evidence to support the imposition of speech restrictions. In the spirit of evidence-based policy, it would be reasona ble to require that each restriction on speech be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to confer benefits that are greater than all the costs. Because things change, it would also be reasonable to ask that the case be made again (e.g., every five years) with the same requirement for rigorous evidence. While it is reasonable to ask for comprehensive cost–benefit analyses for government policies, we wonder whether it is proper to conduct cost–benefit analyses for the right to free speech. Should we consent to our governments going through each right in the Bill of Rights and deciding whether the potential dangers of freedom outweigh the benefits? To do so would be to ignore the years of struggle and lives spent to obtain and retain basic freedoms. Our ancestors put great value on these freedoms. It seems naive to think they were wrong to do so. Because we were unable to find experimental evidence to support even one successful use of a mandatory disclaimer over the roughly 70 years and thousands of applications of this policy in the United States, we conclude that conducting cost–benefit analyses would support the right to free speech. However, conducting comprehensive and open analyses is enormously expensive, whereas holding to the established right to free speech is, as they say, “free.”