Company Characteristics and Occupational Health and Safety Disclosures: A quantitative review of Australian annual reports

This paper uses binary logistic regression to develop two models of firms’ Occupational Health and Safety disclosures, one based on disclosure / non-disclosure, the other based on above / below the median levels of disclosure. Industry and auditor are found to be important components of both models, whilst operating revenue contributes to the former and company age to the latter. These findings support to some extent previous studies into Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure, but also identify new factors that need to be further investigated. The paper contributes to our current understanding of Corporate Social Disclosure through its focus on the little considered area of Occupational Health and Safety and also raising the possibility of non-parametric statistics as a better statistical methodology for such research

Communication at the Edge: Voluntary social and environmental reporting in the annual report of a legitimacy threatened corporation

This paper examines the voluntary social and environmental disclosures made in the annual reports of Rothmans Ltd between the years of 1955 and 1999. The first part of the paper focuses on defining legitimacy theory as it has been used in accounting research and discusses the potential of a resource based approach to testing the theory. The study then considers legitimacy theory in light of the disclosures made by Rothmans. An initial qualitative analysis certainly provides examples of expected attempts to legitimatize the corporation given the threat posed by the smoking and health debate. Initial quantitative findings contradict those expected when compared to previous studies. However, it is concluded that when the fairly extreme circumstances faced by the tobacco industry are taken into account, legitimacy theory does provide a good explanation to both the nature and amount of the disclosures observed

The impact of low input DNA on the reliability of DNA methylation as measured by the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip

DNA methylation (DNAm) is commonly assayed using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip, but there is currently little published evidence to define the lower limits of the amount of DNA that can be used whilst preserving data quality. Such evidence is valuable for analyses utilizing precious or limited DNA sources. We used a single pooled sample of DNA in quadruplicate at three dilutions to define replicability and noise, and an independent population dataset of 328 individuals (from a community-based study including US-born non-Hispanic Black and white persons) to assess the impact of total DNA input on the quality of data generated using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip. We found that data are less reliable and more noisy as DNA input decreases to 40ng, with clear reductions in data quality; and that low DNA input is associated with a reduction in power to detect EWAS associations, requiring larger sample sizes. We conclude that DNA input as low as 40ng can be used with the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip, provided quality checks and sensitivity analyses are undertaken

The dialectic of the university in times of revolution echoes of the Industrial Revolution?

Men* make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past (Marx cited in Feuer, 1969, Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, p.360). This paper provides a background against which to begin to understand the future of the university in these times. It examines the university during the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom. The methodology and approach are essentially Marxist, focussing on the interface of conflict between technological change, society and industry, and where the university fitted into this class conflict. Marx’s own observations, along with others, of the time are drawn on to frame the social change wrought by the Industrial Revolution. English universities are then examined to see how they responded and legitimated their position within society. “The object of education within the colleges was to produce intellectuals and gentlemen who could be relied upon in a world constantly threatened, it was thought, by revolution (Kearney, 1970, Scholars and Gentlemen: Universities and Society in Pre-Industrial Britain, p.22). Based on past records, and a comparative social examination, discussion of the possible future directions of the university can be better framed. * Important note: This paper draws heavily on citations of original documents produced during the last two centuries. As was the nature of the times the language employed in places in this article is not what could necessarily be termed “gender neutral . The use of “male-centric language does not reflect the author’s own belief about gender roles or importance. In this present debate on the future of the university it is vital that views from all sections of the community are equally considered and acknowledged

The edge of legitimacy: Voluntary social and environmental reporting in Rothmans\u27 1956-1999 annual reports

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the voluntary social and environmental disclosures made in the annual reports of Rothmans Ltd between the years of 1955 and 1999. The first part of the paper focuses on defining legitimacy theory as it has been used in accounting research, extending the current model of legitimacy that predominates, and discussing the potential of a resource-based approach to testing the theory. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative and quantitative approach to analysing annual report disclosures is presented, and this is one of the few studies to operationalise the variables under study as measures of resource flows. Findings – The paper considers legitimacy theory in light of disclosures made by Rothmans. An initial analysis provides qualitative examples of expected attempts to legitimatise the corporation given the threat posed by the smoking and health debate. Further analysis conducted using a quantitative measure of resource flows controlled by one stakeholder group, contradicts those expected when compared with previous studies, and as a result of this an alternative conceptualisation of legitimacy theory is proposed. Research limitations/implications – The paper considers one company in one industry and provides evidence from limited stakeholders groups. The results have implications for further research on social and environmental reporting that use a legitimacy framework. Originality/value – The paper provides one of the few studies to attempt to measure resource flows in order to proxy stakeholder influence on reporting. This therefore provides an alternative to the more common measures of legitimacy used in previous studies. These have predominantly been based on researcher judgement of the categorised text to determine whether they fit certain “legitimacy” criteria

The edge of legitimacy: Voluntary social and environmental reporting in Rothmans' 1956-1999 annual reports

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the voluntary social and environmental disclosures made in the annual reports of Rothmans Ltd between the years of 1955 and 1999. The first part of the paper focuses on defining legitimacy theory as it has been used in accounting research, extending the current model of legitimacy that predominates, and discussing the potential of a resource-based approach to testing the theory. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative and quantitative approach to analysing annual report disclosures is presented, and this is one of the few studies to operationalise the variables under study as measures of resource flows. Findings – The paper considers legitimacy theory in light of disclosures made by Rothmans. An initial analysis provides qualitative examples of expected attempts to legitimatise the corporation given the threat posed by the smoking and health debate. Further analysis conducted using a quantitative measure of resource flows controlled by one stakeholder group, contradicts those expected when compared with previous studies, and as a result of this an alternative conceptualisation of legitimacy theory is proposed. Research limitations/implications – The paper considers one company in one industry and provides evidence from limited stakeholders groups. The results have implications for further research on social and environmental reporting that use a legitimacy framework. Originality/value – The paper provides one of the few studies to attempt to measure resource flows in order to proxy stakeholder influence on reporting. This therefore provides an alternative to the more common measures of legitimacy used in previous studies. These have predominantly been based on researcher judgement of the categorised text to determine whether they fit certain “legitimacy” criteria.Annual reports, Corporate social responsibility, Disclosure, Tobacco

Epigenetic clocks and research implications of the lack of data on whom they have been developed: a review of reported and missing sociodemographic characteristics

Epigenetic clocks are increasingly being used as a tool to assess the impact of a wide variety of phenotypes and exposures on healthy ageing, with a recent focus on social determinants of health. However, little attention has been paid to the sociodemographic characteristics of participants on whom these clocks have been based. Participant characteristics are important because sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors are known to be associated with both DNA methylation variation and healthy ageing. It is also well known that machine learning algorithms have the potential to exacerbate health inequities through the use of unrepresentative samples - prediction models may underperform in social groups that were poorly represented in the training data used to construct the model. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a review of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants whose data was used to construct 13 commonly used epigenetic clocks. We found that although some of the epigenetic clocks were created utilising data provided by individuals from different sexes/genders and racialized groups, sociodemographic characteristics are generally poorly reported. Reported information is limited by inadequate conceptualization of the social dimensions and exposure implications of gender and racialized inequality, and no socioeconomic data is provided by any of the clock papers. It is important for future work to ensure clear reporting of tangible data on the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of all the participants in the study, to ensure other researchers can make informed judgements about the appropriateness of the model for their study population

Use of incorrect and correct methods to account for age in studies on epigenetic accelerated aging: implications and recommendations for best practices

Motivated by our conduct of a literature review on social exposures and accelerated aging as measured by a growing number of epigenetic "clocks" (which estimate age via DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns), we report on 3 different approaches in the epidemiologic literature-1 incorrect and 2 correct-on the treatment of age in these and other studies using other common exposures (i.e., body mass index and alcohol consumption). Among the 50 empirical articles reviewed, the majority (n = 29; 58%) used the incorrect method of analyzing accelerated aging detrended for age as the outcome and did not control for age as a covariate. By contrast, only 42% used correct methods, which are either to analyze accelerated aging detrended for age as the outcome and control for age as a covariate (n = 16; 32%) or to analyze raw DNAm age as the outcome and control for age as a covariate (n = 5; 10%). In accord with prior demonstrations of bias introduced by use of the incorrect approach, we provide simulation analyses and additional empirical analyses to illustrate how the incorrect method can lead to bias towards the null, and we discuss implications for extant research and recommendations for best practices