Powerful players: How constituents captured the setting of IFRS 6, an accounting standard for the extractive industries

This paper illustrates the influence of powerful players in the setting of IFRS 6, a new International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for the extractive industries. A critical investigative inquiry of the international accounting standard setting process, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), reveals some of the key players, analyses the surrounding discourse and its implications, and assesses the outcomes. An analysis of small cross-section of comment letters submitted to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) by one international accounting firm, one global mining corporation and one industry group reveal the hidden coalitions between powerful players. These coalitions indicate that the regulatory process of setting IFRS 6 has been captured by powerful extractive industries constituents so that it merely codifies existing industry practice

Genetically Determined Plasma Lipid Levels and Risk of Diabetic Retinopathy: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Results from observational studies examining dyslipidemia as a risk factor for diabetic retinopathy (DR) have been inconsistent. We evaluated the causal relationship between plasma lipids and DR using a Mendelian randomization approach. We pooled genome-wide association studies summary statistics from 18 studies for two DR phenotypes: any DR (N = 2,969 case and 4,096 control subjects) and severe DR (N = 1,277 case and 3,980 control subjects). Previously identified lipid-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms served as instrumental variables. Meta-analysis to combine the Mendelian randomization estimates from different cohorts was conducted. There was no statistically significant change in odds ratios of having any DR or severe DR for any of the lipid fractions in the primary analysis that used single nucleotide polymorphisms that did not have a pleiotropic effect on another lipid fraction. Similarly, there was no significant association in the Caucasian and Chinese subgroup analyses. This study did not show evidence of a causal role of the four lipid fractions on DR. However, the study had limited power to detect odds ratios less than 1.23 per SD in genetically induced increase in plasma lipid levels, thus we cannot exclude that causal relationships with more modest effect sizes exist

The Effect of Computerised Accounting on the Understanding of Accounting Concepts: Some Preliminary Results

Accounting Information Systems students from an Australian University were tested to see whether the use of a computerised accounting package (sybiz Plus, rev L) enhanced their understanding of accounting concepts. A five part test was given to students of Accounting Informations Systems of a Bachelor of Commerce degree. A similar five part test was given after a five week Sybiz section of lectures and workshop and an assignment. Each part of the test tested specific accounting concepts. The results of the before and after tests in specific accounting concepts differed. There was a significant improvement in their overall performance in an accounting concepts test and particularly in their understanding of internal controls. There was no difference in the performance in concepts of short - term liquid assets and inventories. However, there was a deterioration of performance in tests on business income & adjusting entries and completing the accounting cycle. It is this difference which is surprising and which makes these preliminary results interesting, despite the lack of controls. These preliminary results suggest that specific testing of the impact of specific packages is useful in attempting to address whether the use of computerised accounting in AIS meets the objectives of integrating computers in accounting education

Standard setting for the extractive industries: A critical examination

This study identifies the players involved in the international accounting standard setting process for the extractive industries. Publicly available data is used to expose connections between key constituents involved in the process, to enhance understanding of how the international accounting standard setting process occurred, and to identify future research possibilities

Commentary: Reflections on the Critical Accounting Movement: the Reflections of a Cultural Conservative

The editors described this as provocative and I was eager to be informed and challenged. O\u27Regan\u27s claim to be sympathetic to Critical Accounting and his promise to articulate in sober terms gave way to O\u27Regan\u27s frustration, distain and ultimately to reveal his confusion. If previous authoritive writers have failed to inform or enlighten, what contribution could I make? Do I respond the emotive phrases used. Do I sensor me responses? Or should I be amused and have some fun too? I have decided to do all three by offering two commentaries; one which takes O\u27Regans\u27s paper seriously and I also offer an uncensored commentary which is playful and indulges in stretching the concept of poetic licence . O\u27Regan refers to the Critical Accounting Movement and I shall refer to this as the movement hereafter

Will the Social Housing Profession Be Politically and Socially Influential Or Irrelevant? Lessons From Other Professions

The emerging social housing profession in Australasia is poised to be an empowered base for influence or to it can be irrelevant. The information of the Australasian Housing Instutute (AHI) represents a new phase in social housing, offering a unique opportunity to re-define the notion of professionalism

Organizational change and the participation of accounting information systems: a critical reflexive ethnography of the South Australian Housing Trust

This is a critical reflexive ethnography of the South Austrahan Housing Trust (SAHT) between 1991-1994. The SAHT was estabhshed as a statutory authority with dual roles, which were to provide affordable housing to low income earners and to do so in a manner which contributed to the state\u27s overall social and economic welfare. These dual roles influenced the culture of the organization and act as a context in which to analyse and understand a number of events. The SAHT\u27s internal predisposition to change helped it to respond to reduced government funding and a change in general managers by undergoing structural changes. LaughUn\u27s (1991) organizational change model is used to identify and classify these changes as first order, re-orientation. LOCM accommodated the use of reflexivity to expose and understand the processes by which accounting information systems influenced the changes to the SAHT\u27s structure and culture. By contrast the changes resulting from the implementation of the pubhc sector reforms were externally imposed and spht the organization into two separate entities, thus decoupUng the SAHT\u27s humanitarian and business roles. The rhetoric of manageriahsm to procure change claimed objectivity and used accounting information systems to achieve the imperatives of accountabihty and transparency. The ideological impact of economic rationahsm was disguised as merely offering functional clarity in order to understate the significance of these changes. LOCM was used to demonstrate the significance of this colonization as it had the consequence of disempowering the organization

Rehabilitation Of Mining Sites: Do Taxation And Accounting Systems Legitimize The Privileged Or Serve Community Interests?

Accounting and taxation systems are considered as two coexisting institutional practices which claim to be neutral and to function for the benefit of society. These claims are examined with reference to the natural resources industry and the treatment of rehabilitation costs in Australia, as the impact of this industry, both economic and environmental, is significant. By comparing the practice of accounting in financial reporting and in taxation, the use of calculative and representational practices is exposed to identify contradictions, conflicts and disparities

Policy instruments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes’ and a significant body of the scientific literature including the IPCC have indicated that the climate change problem has become such a pressing issue that we now face a stark choice between the premature death of hundreds of millions of the people on this planet (from storm, flood, starvation, war or pestilence) and the use of taxation or other financial strategies to change the relative cost of carbon intensive sources of energy compared to the cost of ‘green’ sources of energy. A change in the relative cost of ‘green energy’ will not itself solve the problem, but it is a necessary (though not sufficient) step if there is to be the required behavioural change which will support the application of engineering solutions to the problem which has been signaled by a large group of climate scientists. This paper addresses possible approaches to solving the problem of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). It considers the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) as an example of a market and government failure to achieve a reduction in emissions through a neoliberal approach to pricing emissions. The discussion then focuses on the design features of a carbon tax and some alternative policy instruments that could contribute to a solution to the problem and it raises the main advantages of a carbon tax over an ETS