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

Heavy metal contamination in South African medicinal plants: A cause for concern

AbstractThe quality and safety of herbal medicines is becoming a major concern worldwide particularly due to contamination by heavy metals. The present study quantified the levels of heavy metals in frequently used South African medicinal plants and determined the variations in certain biological activities and phytochemical compositions. Eleven plant species were obtained from both muthi shops (MS) (commercial outlets) and from open street markets (OSM) for comparison. Samples were dried, powdered and digested using microwave acid-assisted digestion. The digested solutions were analysed for heavy metals using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Plants were classified based on their elemental composition using chemometric techniques. Powdered plant samples were extracted using 70% acetone and screened for antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus. Phytochemical analyses were carried out to determine total phenolic and flavonoid content. Of the 22 samples analysed, Bulbine natalensis obtained from OSM and Alepidea amatymbica obtained from MS exhibited high levels of Al [5559 and 4392mg/kg dry weight (DW)] and Fe (4164 and 4465mg/kg DW) respectively. Levels of As and Hg were above the World Health Organization permissible limits in most of the samples analysed. Hierarchical cluster analysis classified the samples into four groups based on their metallic analyte concentrations. Group one having low metal content and group four having a high metal content. In general, plant samples with high levels of metals yielded greater antibacterial activity. However, antibacterial activity recorded in this study is not an indicator of high levels of heavy metal contamination as some samples despite the high levels of metal exhibited low antibacterial activity. The variations in the amounts of phenolics and flavonoids in the evaluated samples could have probably been that some of the plant samples may have been harvested from different localities or at different times of the year, perhaps plant age or degree of storage. The results highlighted the need for in-depth risk and quality assessments

Are CSR disclosures value relevant? Cross-country evidence

Using proprietary data that rate corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures of firms in 21 countries, this study examines how the strength of nation-level institutions affects the extent of CSR disclosures. We then examine the valuation implications of CSR disclosures and consider how the relation between CSR disclosures and firm value varies across countries. In contrast to prior studies, we separate CSR disclosures into an expected and unexpected portion where the unexpected portion is a proxy for the incremental information contained in CSR disclosures. We observe a positive relation between unexpected CSR disclosure and firm value measured by Tobin's Q. We also find that, while countries with strong nation-level institutions promote more CSR disclosures, the valuation of a unit increase in unexpected CSR disclosures is higher when nation-level institutions are weak.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rear202017-09-30hb2017Accountin

Genealogical typing of Neisseria meningitidis

Despite the increasing popularity of multilocus sequence typing (MLST), the most appropriate method for characterizing bacterial variation and facilitating epidemiological investigations remains a matter of debate. Here, we propose that different typing schemes should be compared on the basis of their power to infer clonal relationships and investigate the utility of sequence data for genealogical reconstruction by exploiting new statistical tools and data from 20 housekeeping loci for 93 isolates of the bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis. Our analysis demonstrated that all but one of the hyperinvasive isolates established by multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and MLST were grouped into one of six genealogical lineages, each of which contained substantial variation. Due to the confounding effect of recombination, evolutionary relationships among these lineages remained unclear, even using 20 loci. Analyses of the seven loci in the standard MLST scheme using the same methods reproduced this classification, but were unable to support finer inferences concerning the relationships between the members within each complex

Revival of the magnetar PSR J1622-4950: observations with MeerKAT, Parkes, XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR

New radio (MeerKAT and Parkes) and X-ray (XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR) observations of PSR J1622-4950 indicate that the magnetar, in a quiescent state since at least early 2015, reactivated between 2017 March 19 and April 5. The radio flux density, while variable, is approximately 100x larger than during its dormant state. The X-ray flux one month after reactivation was at least 800x larger than during quiescence, and has been decaying exponentially on a 111+/-19 day timescale. This high-flux state, together with a radio-derived rotational ephemeris, enabled for the first time the detection of X-ray pulsations for this magnetar. At 5%, the 0.3-6 keV pulsed fraction is comparable to the smallest observed for magnetars. The overall pulsar geometry inferred from polarized radio emission appears to be broadly consistent with that determined 6-8 years earlier. However, rotating vector model fits suggest that we are now seeing radio emission from a different location in the magnetosphere than previously. This indicates a novel way in which radio emission from magnetars can differ from that of ordinary pulsars. The torque on the neutron star is varying rapidly and unsteadily, as is common for magnetars following outburst, having changed by a factor of 7 within six months of reactivation.Comment: Published in ApJ (2018 April 5); 13 pages, 4 figure

Variation in the Neisseria lactamica porin, and its relationship to meningococcal PorB

One potential vaccine strategy in the fight against meningococcal disease involves the exploitation of outer-membrane components of Neisseria lactamica, a commensal bacterium closely related to the meningococcus, Neisseria meningitidis. Although N. lactamica shares many surface structures with the meningococcus, little is known about the antigenic diversity of this commensal bacterium or the antigenic relationships between N. lactamica and N. meningitidis. Here, the N. lactamica porin protein (Por) was examined and compared to the related PorB antigens of N. meningitidis, to investigate potential involvement in anti-meningococcal immunity. Relationships among porin sequences were determined using distance-based methods and FST, and maximum-likelihood analyses were used to compare the selection pressures acting on the encoded proteins. These analyses demonstrated that the N. lactamica porin was less diverse than meningococcal PorB and although it was subject to positive selection, this was not as strong as the positive selection pressures acting on the meningococcal porin. In addition, the N. lactamica porin gene sequences and the protein sequences of the loop regions predicted to be exposed to the human immune system were dissimilar to the corresponding sequences in the meningococcus. This suggests that N. lactamica Por, contrary to previous suggestions, may have limited involvement in the development of natural immunity to meningococcal disease and might not be effective as a meningococcal vaccine component