Aspects of the motivation for voluntary disclosures: evidence from the publication of value added statements in an emerging economy

This paper investigates the motivation for the voluntary disclosure of financial information by companies in their annual financial statements, by examining aspects of the usefulness of the value added statement. The value added statement is published voluntarily with the annual financial statements and is currently experiencing high levels of publication in South Africa, which is evidently brought about by the high political costs and significant legitimacy threats that companies operating in South Africa are facing. It was found from the literature and from a survey among management that the value added statement was primarily aimed at the employees. Employees have also been regarded as users of financial information in the literature. However, a survey among trade unions in South Africa found that almost no use is made of the value added statement even though the unions make use of other financial information. This indicates that voluntary disclosures do not necessarily satisfy the information needs of their intended audience. The research also indicates that the trade unions might not use the value added statement because they suspect that the statement is being used to reduce political costs and legitimacy threats, and is therefore not reliable. This is a major shortcoming of voluntary disclosures

The value added statement: bastion of social reporting or dinosaur of financial reporting?

South Africa is at present experiencing the highest incidence of publication of the value added statement reported anywhere in the world to date. In addition research investigating the predictive ability of value added information has been conducted in the USA since 1990, even though the value added statement has not been published there. The research reported in this paper sets out to establish whether the value added statement is a disclosure worth considering by companies around the world, by investigating the South African experience with the value added statement. The social accounting theories of organisational legitimacy and political costs were found to be best suited to explain why the value added statement is published. Surveys among the companies publishing the value added statement indicated that management had the employees in mind when they published this information. However, a survey among users has indicated that very little use has been made of the value added statement. The main reason for this seems to be that the unregulated nature of the value added statement allows for inconsistencies in disclosures, which eventually caused users to suspect bias in the reports. The USA evidence that the information has additional predictive power is not confirmed by a South African study, and is complicated by the limited additional information contained in the value added statement. The South African experience with the value added statement does not make a convincing case for publication. Rather, it highlights the need for unbiased and verified social disclosures that will be useful to all the stakeholders of the company. In addition, it has implications for other voluntary social and environmental disclosures

The corporatisation of local body entities: A study of financial performance

The New Zealand electricity industry provides us with a unique opportunity to examine how entities responded to major restructuring of the industry. This research studies the financial performance of three entities, each with a different ownership structure, over a 15 year period from 1988 to 2002. The aim is to examine the possible influence of ownership type and corporatisation on the development and financial performance of the entities by examining the changes that took place from the pre-corporatisation period to the post-corporatisation period and comparing and contrasting the performance and funding of the three entities over that time. In this way an assessment is made of the possible influence of ownership type on financial performance. This research can be framed to some extent by agency theory aspects of positive accounting theory. In addition legitimacy theory has been used to explain the behaviour of managers and the process of organizations adapting to a changing environment. Both theories acknowledge the interaction of organizations and their environment. The comparison shows that at the end of the study period the council owned company was the smallest, in terms of total assets, of the three companies examined (although it was similar in size to the biggest one at the outset). The council owned company also returned most capital to its shareholders and is the most conservatively financed one of the three with only 10% debt at the end of 2002 compared to 28% for the trust-held company and 87% for the listed company. The listed company ended up being the biggest and the one with the highest gearing, the highest ROA and the highest profit margin. The study concludes that ownership structure did have an influence on financial performance and level of debt funding

Web assisted teaching: an undergraduate experience

The emergence of the Internet has created a number of claims as to the future of education and the possibility of dramatically changing the way in which education is delivered. Much of the attention has focussed on the adoption of teaching methods that are solely web-based. We set out to incorporate web-based teaching as support for more traditional teaching methods to improve the learning outcomes for students. This first step into web-based teaching was developed to harness the benefits of web-based teaching tools without supplanting traditional teaching methods. The aim of this paper is to report our experience with web-assisted teaching in two undergraduate courses, Accounting Information Systems and Management Accounting Services, during 2000. The paper evaluates the approach taken and proposes a tentative framework for developing future web-assisted teaching applications. We believe that web-assisted and web-based teaching are inevitable outcomes of the telecommunications and computer revolution and that academics cannot afford to become isolated from the on-line world. A considered approach is needed to ensure the integration of web-based features into the overall structure of a course. The components of the course material and the learning experiences students are exposed to need to be structured and delivered in a way that ensures they support student learning rather than replacing one form of learning with another. Therefore a careful consideration of the structure, content, level of detail and time of delivery needs to be integrated to create a course structure that provides a range of student learning experiences that are complimentary rather than competing. The feedback was positive from both extramural (distance) and internal students, demonstrating to us that web sites can be used as an effective teaching tool in support of more traditional teaching methods as well as a tool for distance education. The ability to harness the positives of the web in conjunction with more traditional teaching modes is one that should not be overlooked in the move to adopt web based instruction methods. Web-based teaching need not be seen as an all or nothing divide but can be used as a useful way of improving the range and type of learning experiences open to students. The Web challenges traditional methods and thinking but it also provides tools to develop innovative solutions to both distance and on campus learning. Further research is needed to determine how we can best meet the needs of our students while maintaining high quality learning outcomes

Greywater: What can we do?

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German Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia 2003Medpharm Scientific PublishersStuttgart, Germany3-88763-095-5Volumes 1 and 2, 1 500 pages, loose leaf price [email protected]://www.medpharm.de

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A practical course on filter assessment for water treatment plant operators

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A standard test for filter media cleanliness

Abstract: Rapid sand filters are expected to produce clean, safe water, without interruption, for many years. Unfortunately, filters very often develop some problems during this time, most of which only become apparent when the damage is already done. Routine measurement of filter media cleanliness could provide the necessary early warning, which is the reason why the American Water Works Association (AWWA) suggested a media cleanliness test for inclusion in a structured filter assessment programme at drinking water treatment plants. After performing such assessments at 3 South African water treatment plants, the authors found that the results were not consistent, the turbidity could not be measured easily and the guideline values seemed to be excessively conservative. This led to an investigation to find a method for stripping the filter deposits from the media grains with an easy, reproducible method, and for characterising the stripped deposits. After a series of tests on various filter media, using 6 stripping methods, 2 methods were identified that met the criteria in the first objective. The first, a magnetic stirrer method is a mechanical agitation method and the second, referred to as the cylinder inversion method, is a manual agitation method. Each of these methods was chosen on the basis of their operator and speed-ofagitation independence. The criteria in the second objective were met by an in-depth suspended solids (SS) analysis performed on the filter media residue, with the total mass of solids removed from the media quantitatively separated on the grounds of acid solubility and volatility at 550°C. Standard Methods (1985) 209C and 209D were applied to the sample, with and without acid addition, in order to characterise the total filter media residue using 4 groupings: Soluble, non-volatile; soluble, volatile; non-soluble, non-volatile; and non-soluble, volatile. By meeting the criteria of these 2 objectives, the previous non-specific suggestions in the literature have been improved to suggest the performing of tests in a well-specified, uniform way, the results of which can be internally compared

Technical note: Measurement and expression of granular filter cleanliness

The problem of dirty filter media at water treatment plants, despite having good backwash systems, is a serious challenge that requires constant monitoring and maintenance. To aid the systematic analysis of filter media and the troubleshooting of problem filters, this paper firstly proposes a standard procedure for quantification of the specific deposit on filter media, including tentative guidelines for the interpretation of the results. Secondly, a standard procedure is proposed for the characterisation of the specific deposit, based on its volatility and its acid solubility. These fractions are helpful to trace the origin of excessively dirty filter media. Thirdly, the utility of the proposed procedures is demonstrated by the results of a South African treatment plant survey. This confirms some earlier observations that there often is a real problem with recalcitrant specific deposits that cannot be readily removed by backwashing, a fraction that correlates with the organic fraction in the specific deposit.Keywords: backwashing, specific deposit, filter media, filter cleanlines

Phytotoxicity evaluation of six fast-growing tree species in South Africa

AbstractVachellia sieberiana, Albizia adianthifolia, Buddleja saligna, Combretum kraussii, Halleria lucida and Rapanea melanophloeos are fast-growing, indigenous tree species in South Africa. They are usually found growing alongside other plants in agricultural systems. In this study, the comparative phytotoxic activity of aqueous leaf extracts of these tree species at different concentrations was investigated using lettuce seeds (Lactuca sativa L.) in a laboratory bioassay. To simulate natural situations, seeds were germinated under 16h light/8h darkness in a growth chamber using distilled water as control. The results showed that germination, chlorophyll accumulation and growth indices (plumule and radicle lengths) were significantly inhibited with increasing concentration of plant extracts. The treated lettuce seedlings experienced lipid peroxidation at high extract concentrations (1.0% and 2.0%) as evidenced by increased concentration of malondialdehyde (MDA). In response to this, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) increased at low extract concentration but significantly dropped as concentration increased. These results suggest that aqueous extracts of the studied tree species may produce growth inhibitory substances. Thus, our study revealed that these trees possess phytotoxic activity which could be exploited in the management of weeds in agroforestry systems