The three pillars of institutional theory and IFRS implementation in Nigeria

This study explores the effects of the three pillars of institutional theory in shaping the activities of institutional entrepreneurs and other social actors during IFRS implementation in Nigeria. This study uses document analysis method to achieve the objectives of the study. This study finds that IFRS implementation in Nigeria witnessed some progression from regulative to normative to cognitive pillar building. The regulation on IFRS implementation was initiated top-down rather than through lobbying from professional accounting bodies and the public. Changes in the regulatory framework brought some improvement to corporate financial reporting practices such as the timing of corporate filings of audited financial reports. However, the implementation process is laden with conflicts and power struggle among institutional actors. These conflicts and power struggles led the President of Nigeria to sack the Board of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), the reconstitution of the Board and appointment of a Chairman for the Board of the FRC. IFRS implementation process resulted in power redistribution among institutional actors, which led to resistance, tensions, and conflicts among institutional actors. The conflicts arise from the need of actors to legitimate their activities and secure their positions. The three institutional pillars are key components of a change process and the actor’s social position affects their capability to act as an institutional entrepreneur. This finding should provide foundational knowledge that will inform practitioners, researchers, and regulators in developing countries on how institutional actors shape the approach to corporate reporting regulations

The determinants of IPO firm prospectus length in Africa

This paper studies the differential impact on IPO firm listing prospectus length from increasing proportions of foreign directors from civil as opposed to common law societies and social elites. Using a unique hand-collected and comprehensive sample of 165 IPO firms from across 18 African countries the evidence suggests that increasing proportions of directors from civil code law countries is associated with shorter prospectuses while the opposite is true for their common law counterparts. Furthermore increasing proportions of directors drawn from elevated social positions in indigenous society is related to increasing prospectus length in North Africa while being insignificant in SSA

Sensemaking in an online community after financial loss: Enterprising Jamaican investors and the fall of a financial messiah

Online communities are popular sites for collective sensemaking. This study explores sensemaking in one such community following the closure of Olint Corp, a highly successful Jamaican investment club. After Olint’s disbanding, Jamaicans reconnected through online communities to make sense of their financial losses, to make sense of Olint – seen variously as an altruistic endeavour, a global currency trader, or Ponzi scheme – and to make sense of themselves as enterprising investors. This narrative inquiry unveils their rich, multi-voiced, fragmented storying of Olint and its founder, once praised as a ‘financial messiah’

Electricity portfolio innovation for energy security: the case of carbon constrained China

China’s energy sector is under pressure to achieve secure and affordable supply and a clear decarbonisation path. We examine the longitudinal trajectory of the Chinese electricity supply security and model the near future supply security based on the 12th 5 year plan. Our deterministic approach combines Shannon-Wiener, Herfindahl-Hirschman and electricity import dependence indices for supply security appraisal. We find that electricity portfolio innovation allows China to provide secure energy supply despite increasing import dependence. It is argued that long-term aggressive deployment of renewable energy will unblock China’s coal-biased technological lock-in and increase supply security in all fronts. However, reduced supply diversity in China during the 1990s will not recover until after 2020s due to the long-term coal lock-in that can threaten to hold China’s back from realising its full potential

Decision-making processes of public sector accounting reforms in India—Institutional perspectives

While International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convergence has been the face of the global accounting standardisation movement for the past few decades, accounting reforms in the public sector had started to gain momentum from the late 1990s. This paper examines the reasons for the adoption of public sector accrual accounting reforms in India. It explores the various sources of pressure influencing these reforms and the ways in which these pressures are balanced and addressed by key decisionmakers in the national and transnational contexts of an emerging economy like India. This study finds that demands for greater accountability from the public in the national context (demand pressures) as well as requests for greater transparency from international financial institutions in the transnational context (supply pressures) are two major sources of pressure that are balanced by the state in its quest for greater legitimacy. This is demonstrated through a triggering event such as political scandals evoking responses from the government to reinforce its weakened legitimacy by adopting public sector accounting reforms. Extant literature on public sector accounting reforms, mostly focuses on the phases where the standards are being actually implemented by the country. Studies exploring decision-making processes that lead to actual implementation of accrual accounting reforms are limited. This study contributes to existing literature by examining the decision-making process that ensues before the actual use of international standards in public sector accounting reforms and demonstrates the significant role that institutional influences play in defining such decision-making processes. The role of these institutional influences also draw attention to the probable disparities between rationales and actual reasons for government accounting reforms undertaken by developing countries