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The current paper examines the impact of Audit Committee Staffing, Independence, Background and Skills, Size and Operation based on the number of committee meetings on the
performance of listed companies from Greece and Italy. The study uses research data derived from the stock market, while the analysis was based on a static panel model. The statistical analysis has shown that the Audit Committee Independence and the Number of Audit Committee meetings have a negative impact on the corporate performance. Regarding the Audit Committee Background and Skills, there are no results indicating the existence of a statistically significant relationship with performance. The survey’s hypotheses are based on the majority of the academic research concerning this subject. Although these outcomes are different from the underlying hypotheses, the cultural issues and the structure of social and economic environment indicate that there is an impact on the company’s decision making process.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, Audit Committee, Profitability.

The digital ecosystem has a new value proposition that ensures provenance and audit evidence gathering. Blockchain technology introduces a shared consensus distributed ledger
system that is immutable and built upon principles of trust. This allows provenance for evidence gathering and audit guarantee as alteration of data is not possible on a distributed ledger. As such the technology provides trust based accounting that will always be grounded on the principle of true and fairness. The research question addressed in this paper is: How does Blockchain create value for audit and accounting professionals particularly in the context of trust, compliance, as well as true and fairness of reporting? This study presents discrepancies of an inefficient centralized financial ecosystem. The study further highlights push factors for value creation on Blockchain to overcome these discrepancies. The main highlight of this paper is the taxonomy of value creation which is depicted via nine significant use cases for trust, compliance and true-fairness. Distinctly showcasing how a Trusted Third Party (TTP) platform can be achieved on an untrusted setting. The paper is divided into five sections. The first section illustrates the reasons for a growing digital ecosystem for accounting processes and why a TTP is much desired. The second section highlights push factors that correspond to the accounting value creation activities which are often regarded as the driving force for Blockchain. In the third section, nine significant use cases for Blockchain that creates value for accounting and audit are presented. In the fourth section,value that can be realized via controls (preventive and detective) within tax, audit and overall financial reporting is discussed. In the fifth section,the paper highlights issues and challenges of rolling out this technology for accounting in general.

Keywords: Digital ecosystem, FinTech, Blockchain, Trusted Third Party, Audit, Value Creation

This study focuses on the relationship between ESG disclosure transparency (via ESG scores) and executive compensation in firms in Malaysia. Data from 30 firms are collected over a total of 11 years from year 2006 to 2016 resulting in a total of 103 firm-year observations. OLS regression analysis of the data shows that ESG disclosure score has a highly significant negative impact on executive compensation. The results seem to suggest the impact of commitment costs due to increased disclosure on executive compensation. This study contributes to the growing literature on ESG disclosure and reporting quality as so far, to the author’s knowledge, hardly any study has investigated its impact on executive compensation. Since the planning and design of ESG activities are the responsibilities of the management team, its impact on executive compensation should be studied.

Keywords: ESG disclosure; executive compensation; Malaysia

This study analyses the effectiveness of the two board system mechanism implemented in Indonesia in condition of financial distress. The governance system of Indonesian companies with family business characteristics separates management functions, namely the board of directors (BD) and supervisory functions run by the board of commissioners. Since the members of the board of commissioners are partly not independent of the board of directors, the role of independent commissioners (IND) is critical important, especially in conditions of financial distress. The sample of this research is companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange in the period of 2014-2017. The logistic regression model was employed for 1,168 observations to analyze the influence of the BD and IND on financial distress. The results showed that the BD has a significant effect in reducing the likelihood of financial distress. Although IND have shown independency, it has not been significant in reducing the likelihood of financial distress.

Keywords: Board of Director, Independent Commisioner, Corporate Governance, Financial Distress

In this paper, we synthesize and critically assess empirical research on the relationship between social/environmental performance (SEP) and social/environmental disclosure (SED). We, therefore, use literature synthesis and critical assessment in conducting our review, focusing on theory selection and application, methods used and results reported by the empirical studies included in our sample of 77 studies. Empirical evidence documented to date in the area is still mixed ranging from positive, negative, nonlinear to neutral relationship. We found various reasons attributable to the persistent mixed-findings. These include issues on measurements of performance and disclosure variables; inconsistencies concerning the choice and application of econometric measures of association and the rather unsystematic way in which some researchers employ theories. We posit that mixed findings are here to stay because positive, negative or nonlinear relationship may appear consistent and appropriate depending on the research circumstance of a study, theory used and the kind of method employed. As a comprehensive literature review, this paper identifies some inconsistencies in the research area and proposes a road-map giving suggestions for future research focusing on purpose, location, nature of the study, methods and systematic choice of theory/theories.

Keywords: Social and environmental performance; Social and environmental disclosure; Legitimacy theory; Stakeholder theory; Voluntary disclosure theory.

Notably, the Human Capital (HC) development and connected index (Human Capital Development Index) becomes vital for all economies. Also, it is observed that all the factors of production except the labour (i.e., HC) are accounted for and reported by entities. The major reason for non-reporting the HC in financial statements is argued to be the ignorance of this domain by standard setters. This paper sheds light on this fact through content and theoretical thematic analysis of relevant international and national accounting standards employing critique research method. The paper concludes the significance of the inclusion of Human Capital Reporting (HCR) in the standard setting and financial statements.

Keywords: Keywords: Human Capital; Human Capital Reporting; Standard Setters