Book Review. Luca Menicacci, Book-Tax Conformity in the IFRS era. Evidence from Italian Listed Companies
Giulio Greco / Financial Reporting / 1-2023
Managing cyber risk in the financial sector: Insights from a case study
Chiara Crovini, Pier Luigi Marchini/ Financial Reporting / 1-2023
Purpose: This article focuses on cyber risk as an emerging issue within the risk management process and the internal control system in the financial sector. It in-vestigates whether cyber risk management (CRM) is (dis)integrated into traditional enterprise risk management (ERM) and analyzes the external dynamics affecting the CRM design. Design/methodology/approach: This article draws upon institutional theory and the concept of boundary objects. The research examines a listed Italian bank and gathers the data from semi-structured interviews, direct observations, meet-ings, and archival sources. Findings: The findings underline that cyber risk rationale plays a crucial role in the CRM process. The interplay between institutional complexity and the need to manage cyber risk is critical for a bank to have a stable and flexible infrastructure. The knowledge boundaries related to the cyber risk culture require further cyber risk talk. Originality/value: This research furthers the understanding of cyber risk and CRM as an integral part of the ERM and internal control systems in the financial sector, in which there is a shortage of case studies. The financial sector is highly regulated, and managing cyber risk has become crucial as banks usually deal with enormous amounts of personal and sensitive data stored on networks and in the cloud. Practical implications: This case study emphasizes the crucial role of CRM in the identification and reporting of cyber risk information in annual reports.
Exploring the accounting community perspective on the “Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting”
Cristian Carini, Laura Rocca, Monica Veneziani, Claudio Teodori/ Financial Reporting / 1-2023
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in January 2020 is-sued “Classification of Liabilities as Current or Non-current”, which amended IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements. The main purpose of the amend-ments regards the classification of financial liabilities and how to classify them under particular circumstances. The amendments are proposed to be effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023, with earlier application permitted. Due to feedback received and enquiries about the classification of financial liabilities with financial covenants, in December 2020 the IFRS Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) published a tentative agenda decision in response to such feedback. Subsequently, in October 2022 the International Accounting Stand-ards Board (IASB) published a document titled “Non-current Liabilities with Covenants (Amendments to IAS 1)”. The purpose of this document is to clarify the conditions with which an entity must comply within twelve months after the reporting period affect the classification of a liability. The amendments are ef-fective for reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024. The classification of financial liabilities as current or non-current is an important consideration for financial reporting purposes, as it can have a significant impact on a company’s financial statements and financial ratios. Current liabilities are those that are expected to be settled within one year, while non-current liabilities are those that are expected to be settled beyond that time frame. The purpose of the following review is to analyse the main impacts of the amendments on the classification of the financial liabilities with covenants and the project’s history and timeline.
Determinants of Intra-group Interlocking in European listed business groups
Emiliano Di Carlo, Lucrezia Fattobene, Marco Caiffa/ Financial Reporting / 1-2023
Purpose: The phenomenon of Interlocking Directorship within the same busi-ness group (the Intra-group Interlocks, IgI) has received little attention by scholars, especially when the interlocked affiliated-group companies are listed. Focusing on listed business groups, characterized by the presence of at least two affiliated-listed companies, and following the contingency perspective, this study aims to explore the determinants of IgI. Design/methodology/approach: The study analyses the controlling sharehold-er type (family, State, coalitions), the business ties, and the separation between ownership and control, focusing on 315 business groups listed in different Europe-an countries, i.e., Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The social network analysis is applied to these groups, to compare the networks that originate from the corporate board of directors. Findings: In groups controlled by the State the density of social links is lower than in those controlled by families and coalitions. The strength of IgI is also relat-ed to the degree of correlation of firms’ industries, even if this correlation is influ-enced by the separation between ownership and control and by the country regula-tion that protects minority shareholders. Overall, the results show that for listed groups the agency theory better explains the determinants of the IgI phenomenon. Originality/value: This study contributes to the understanding of why board members of listed parent companies sit (or do not sit) in the listed subsidiary boards. Relying on agency theory and resource dependence theory, it also propos-es a theoretical framework.
CSR disclosure in banking: A qualitative literature review
Pablo de Andrés, Salvatore Polizzi, Enzo Scannella, Nuria Suárez/ Financial Reporting / 1-2023
Purpose: This paper reviews the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in banking to identify the most relevant aspects analyzed to date and avenues for future research. The CSR concept is key in the banking industry and banks are pushed to improve their social and environmental performance, and to disclose information about CSR in their financial and non-financial reports. Design/methodology/approach: This paper adopts a mixed literature review approach, based on a qualitative analysis of the literature and complemented by some structured systematic analyses. The theoretical frameworks employed in the literature, the time and geographical distribution of the samples analyzed, and the main findings of the studies indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and EBSCOhost are also examined. Findings: The findings show that (i) there is a significant gap between the liter-ature focusing on the financial dimension of bank disclosure and that exploring the CSR dimension; (ii) the time horizons analyzed in the empirical literature are concentrated around the 2008-2009 global financial crisis; (iii) the empirical litera-ture mainly focuses on the most developed European, North American and Asian countries. Originality/value: This study contributes to extant literature by describing the state of the art on CSR disclosure in banking and paving the way for future re-search on this topic. A call for research is raised on corruption-related disclosure and the relationship between national economic development and bank transpar-ency, with specific reference to CSR disclosure.
Book Review. Nicola Dalla Via, XBRL for Business Reporting: Reference Framework, Network Analysis, and New Trends, FrancoAngeli, 2020
Andrea Tenucci / Financial Reporting / 2-2022
Dialogue with standard setters. The impairment test in contexts of socio-economic and financial turbulence
Marco Vulpiani, Simone Chirchiglia, Claudio Rossetti/ Financial Reporting / 2-2022
Accounting and Big Data: Trends, opportunities and direction for practitioners and researchers
Gianluca Gabrielli, Alice Medioli, Paolo Andrei / Financial Reporting / 2-2022
Big Data, the Internet of Things and Machine Learning are only today starting to be widely used but are already attracting interest. They can generate a significant impact on business management. This article analyses use and exploitation of Big Data by business management, focusing on its role in reshaping accounting information systems. The Internet of Things and Machine Learning play a key role in obtaining insights and value in this complex world. Like other areas of business, the accounting function is showing growing interest in their possible applications. We analyze, from three perspectives, how big data impacts on the accounting role in supporting managers and decision-making process, also with the aim to define future research lines that scholars could explore. An internal perspective focuses on how big data can impact management accounting; an external perspective focuses on a new dimension of financial accounting and disclosure of information; and a third perspective, the control one, focuses on the impact of big data on internal and external audit procedures.
Minorities’ Representativeness on the Board and their Effect on the Level of Compliance with the Italian RPTs Regulation
Pietro Fera, Rosa Vinciguerra / Financial Reporting / 2-2022
The definition and regulation of related-party transactions (RPTs) depend mainly on the conceptual framework underlying the interpretation of such a phenomenon. While the conflict of interests hypothesis focuses on opportunistic behaviours, the efficient transaction hypothesis suggests that RPTs lead to more efficient. In such a scenario, instead of providing opposite interpretations, the contingency hypothesis considers the potential risks and benefits associated with specific RPTs, i.e. other contex- tual factors and corporate governance mechanisms. Among the latter, independent directors, empowered by the majority of national legislations worldwide, should play a crucial role in spotlighting opportunistic behaviours to the detriment of minorities. However, in light of the many corporate scandals that have stressed the RPTs’ issues, practitioners and academics have questioned their effectiveness, especially in contexts characterized by high ownership concentration, while leaving room for the so-called minority directors, i.e. independent directors appointed by minority shareholders. On this matter, aiming to analyse the potential impact of minority directors on the level of procedural compliance for the RPTs’ implementation, this empirical study, based on a data set, shows that they represent a more effective tool for the full and strict adoption of the current RPTs regulation, while independent directors fail in their monitoring role and are ineffective in bolstering corporate transparency with regard to RPTs.
Does the Adoption of Planning and Control Tools Influence Performance? Opinions of Grantors and Grantees About Non-profit Projects
Giacomo Boesso, Fabrizio Cerbioni, Andrea Menini / Financial Reporting / 2-2022
This study analyzes whether a positive association exists between foundations’ adoption of accounting control tools and the perceived economic and social perfor- mance. Data are collected through a survey addressed to both decision-makers of Italian banking foundations (IBFs) and grantees that received project-related dona- tions from the same IBFs. Results show a positive association between the adoption of selected planning and control tools (i.e., definition of project budget, in-progress monitoring, and utilization of operating performance indicators) and performance. Meanwhile, a second set of more complex tools (i.e., ex-post valuation of activities, direct operative support offered from foundations to their grantees, and social key performance indicators) records a mixed association with social performance and a negative association with economic performance.