The US Rejection of the Composite Protocol: A Huge Mistake Based on Illogical Assessments

Ye

The Resumed Fifth BTWC Review Conference: Maximizing the Benefits from the Final Declaration

Ye

Two Decades of Strengthening CBW Prohibitions: Priorities for the BTWC in the 21st Century

Ye

The predictive ability of corporate narrative disclosures: Australian evidence

The mam objective of this study is to contribute to the academic literature by investigating the relationship between narrative disclosures and corporate performance based on Australian evidence. The research design takes as its starting from the content analysis of discretionary narrative disclosures conducted by Smith and Taffler (2000), and extends their research by combining thematic content analysis and syntactic content analysis. This study focuses on the discretionary disclosures (the Chairman\u27s Statement) of· · Australian manufacturing companies. Based on the Earnings per Share (EPS) movement between 2008 and 2009, 64 sample companies are classified into two groups: good performer and poor performer. This study is grounded on signalling theory and agency theory, and links with the impression management strategy. Based on two branches of impression management (rationalisation and enhancement), six groups of variables are collected to examine narrative disclosures from both quantity ( what to disclose ) and quality ( how to disclose ) perspectives. Manual coding and two computer-based software programs are employed in this study. This study finds that the word-based and theme-based variables based on discretionary disclosures are significantly correlated with corporate performance. Moreover, word-based variables can successfully classify companies between good performer and poor performer with an accuracy of 86%. However, there is no significant relationship between corporate performance and report size, use of long words (as a proxy for jargon), FLESCH readability score, or persuasive language. The main value of this study is to build a classification model based on Australian evidence for continuing companies, since most prior research focuses on UK, US and New Zealand companies and is based on a healthy/failed distinction

Assessing Pauling's Wide-Ranging Life

Book Review of ‘Linus Pauling in his own words’ edited by Barbara Marinacci, Simon & Schuster,1995, "Linus Pauling: A Life in Science and Politics," by Ted Goertzel and Ben Goertzel, Basic Books, 1995, "Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling," by Thomas Hager, Simon & Schuster, 1995

Sovereignty by Subtraction: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment

The proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAl) represents a major step in the evolution of sovereignty, which includes the power of a nation-state to govern without external controls. A panelist at the 1998 Cornell International Law journal Symposium introduced the MAl as an example of multilateral sovereignty to achieve commonly held goals of global economic integration. This perspective posits that the MAl is an exercise in sovereignty by subtraction, aiming to limit governing power rather than promote its joint exercise. Its critics call the MAl a slow motion coup d\u27etat, a bill of rights for investors, a threat to sovereignty, and a corporate rule treaty, because it (1) empowers foreign investors to challenge the law-making authority of nation states and subnational governments, (2) is composed of a fifty-page text of fourteen investor-protection standards that exceed the scope of any existing agreement/ (3) and acts through an international forum with the power to award monetary damages against the offending government. U.S. negotiators counter that the MAl protects foreign investors from discrimination by giving them rights analogous to those they already enjoy under the U.S. Constitution. In addition, U.S. negotiators maintain that an agreement that poses significant limits on U.S. sovereignty is unacceptable. This article suggests a more modest analogy than a virtual coup d\u27etat. It simply seeks to explain that the MAl would have a greater impact on U.S. law making power than acknowledged by MAl supporters, who claim that it merely repeats domestic principles of non-discrimination. For example, the MAl aims to limit U.S. States\u27 traditional powers to discriminate. The first objective of this article is truth in advertising: the MAl would disrupt state and local lawmaking capacity. The capacity of cities, counties, and states to serve as our laboratories of democracy hangs in the balance. States act as successful laboratories for testing future national policy in virtually every sector of governance, including banking regulation, economic development, government purchasing, consumer protection, working conditions, health and medical insurance, and environmental law. The second objective is to bring some order to the MAl sovereignty debate. Previous writers have brought conceptual order to the comparison of state sovereignty and international law under NAFTA and the WTO agreements. This article extends the analysis to the MAl to (1) inform the bottom-up view of the MAl from the perspective of those who would lose power if it is implemented, and (2) shape positive policy options to maintain the constitutional balance between federalism and private investor protection

The development and application of text-focused methods for evaluating accounting narratives, with a view to investigating impression management

This study responds to a call in the literature for methodological and empirical studies to advance research into accounting narratives. The primary contribution is methodological, drawing on the literature of applied linguistics and that of managerial business communications, in developing for accounting applications three text-focused methods for evaluating accounting narratives. This expansion in the portfolio of approaches available to the accounting researcher offers the potential for a richer empirical analysis, demonstrated in this study through an illustrative empirical application. The methods are developed in light of acknowledged areas of weakness and gaps in the accounting literature and with a view to investigating impression management. A general line of critique in the accounting literature points to a lack of emphasis on the syntactic dimension, with a particular focus on the weaknesses of readability formulas as the dominant method of syntactic analysis. The particular orientation towards the investigation of impression management recognises the increasing importance in the literature of issues associated with impression management in accounting narratives. The aptitude of the methods developed for investigating impression management is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical application in tests of differentiation between `good performers' and `poor performers'. A texture index and a transitivity index go some way towards redressing the general lack of emphasis on the syntactic dimension, exhibited in the existing portfolio of approaches. The texture index is developed as an alternative to readability formulas, is response to the particular focus of critique. The texture index analyses text across a number of dimensions or indexicals and embodies a number of features, which render it attractive to accounting researchers. The transitivity index measures the number of passive constructions in a text, a textual dimension associated with causation and attribution, with a particular relevance to the investigation of impression management. The third approach outlined in this study is DICTION analysis, a computerised content analysis program, which examines a text for its verbal tone, measured across five variables: `certainty', `optimism', `activity', `realism' and `commonality'. This approach is selected principally because of its relevance and applicability to the investigation of impression management. The texture index is drawn from the applied linguistics literature. It has not previously been used in an accounting related application. The transitivity index and DICTION analysis are developed from the managerial business communications literature where both approaches have been applied, albeit to a limited extent, in accounting applications. Both of these approaches have a sound theoretical basis in linguistics. In developing these approaches from the managerial business communications literature, there are two main areas of contribution. First, the methods developed here have hitherto only been exploited to a limited extent in accounting applications. This study advocates the development of the methods in accounting related applications towards their full potential. Second, the methods are developed and adapted as appropriate with the expressed intention of investigating impression management in accounting narratives. In addition to the methodological contribution, the study also yields an empirical contribution through the empirical application. The study finds mixed results in relation to an investigation of differential reporting patterns in the Chairman's statement and `OFR type' Manager's report of `good performing' and `poor performing' investment trust companies. Extending the analysis beyond the traditional focus on the Chairman's statement to include the Manager's report, recognises the increasing importance of such `OFR type' documents and the relative lack of attention they have received hitherto from accounting researchers. The results are reported in light of a detailed synthesis of the empirical impression management literature that is included in this study. As far as the author is aware, this is the first detailed review of this nature in the literature. The study also finds mixed results in relation to differentiation between the Chairman's statement and Manager's report. Finally, the study fosters an ethos of interdisciplinarity between research communities in accounting and the communities of applied linguistics and managerial business communications. Such interdisciplinarity offers the accounting researcher insights and usable methods of analysis, developed in disciplines whose specialism is the evaluation of narrative