JAMAR Information

Table of Contents

EDITORIAL

Business Landscaping for Strategic Advantage: Evidence from a Multi-Sector Study

Authors: Themin Suwardy, Janek Ratnatunga

This paper sets out to make a significant contribution to research both by introducing a quantitative approach to landscaping the intensity of industry competition, and then demonstrating its applicability using cross-industry data. The underlying framework is Porter’s Five Forces Model, which has wide acceptance in landscaping competitive intensity because of its simplicity, adaptability and flexibility, but is frequently hard to operationalise because it does not specify procedures for quantifying competitive factors. This paper presents a multivariate approach (i.e., the ICM framework) that enables the operationalisation of Porter’s model in a quantitative manner, both at a firm and industry level. This framework is then applied to a total of 19 Australian industries.  The results indicate that the degree of competition varies widely among Australian industries, characterized by high intensity of rivalry, low bargaining power of buyers, minimal bargaining power of suppliers, high threat of new entrants and wide-ranging threat of substitutes.

ARTICLES

The Impact of IFRS Adoption on Real Activities Manipulation: Evidence from China

Authors: Chan Lyu, Desmond C.Y. Yuen, Xu Zhang, Nini Zhang

This paper studies the relationship between IFRS adoption and real activities manipulation, and investigates whether IFRS reduces earnings management and improves the quality of accounting information. As China steps into the era of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standard) adoption, it is important to focus on this issue and its implementation in such emerging markets.

The paper finds that real earnings management is primarily driven by abnormal production costs, and that more companies manipulate earnings through operational transactions after IFRS adoption. Our findings suggest that real activities manipulation is positively related with IFRS implementation, and that such an association is stronger for real estate firms, especially in the case of abnormal cash flows of operations.

Altering Rationality: The Impact of Group Support Systems and Style of Leadership

Authors: Ertambang Nahartyo, Intiyas Utami

This study focuses on the mitigating effect of group interaction using a group support system (GSS) and a leadership style on individual self-interest in a resource allocation setting. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, individuals’ decisions when group members communicate via computer that allows synchronous communication are examined; where all comments are stored in a single location and updated in real-time.

The research also focuses on the effect of leadership style on the individual resource allocation decisions by considering if the effects of GSS will be different depending on the style of leadership. This study contributes to behavioural management accounting literature in two ways. First, it considers the impact of GSS in directing personal perceptions regarding resource allocation decisions. The expected findings allow the conclusion that both self-interest and social preferences are guiding motivational factors of individual behaviour. Secondly, this study sheds light on the process of how leadership style provides logical explanations on how employees undertake activities motivated by their self-interest or their care for organisations to which they belong.

Cost Benefit Analyses of Organic Waste Composting Systems through the Lens of Time Driven Activity-Based Costing

Authors: Davood Askarany, Alexander William Franklin-Smith

Time Driven ABC (TDABC) which tries to address some of ABC’s shortcomings still remains unexplored in academic research.

This paper focuses on the adoption of TDABC to assess the economic viability of two commonly used composting systems for organic wastes in New Zealand. The results support previous studies in terms of what TDABC model can do in practice. As with ABC, TDABC can provide two types of information for decision making: (1) it can determine the costs of objects (but with less accuracy) and (2) and can provide a link between resource pools and cost pools/cost hierarchies.

The results further show that differences in mass density and production duration/time are among the main factors influencing the economic superiority of the two composting systems investigated in this study. The results suggest that composting of organic waste is a commercially viable approach for cleaner production of farming and agricultural products. It is also a valuable alternative to landfilling, thus reducing dependence on landfill for the disposal of organic waste.

Predictability of Share Prices through Corporate Annual Reporting: A Focus on the Dhaka Stock Exchange

Authors: Anup Kumar Saha, Ashiquer Rahman Bhuiyan

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate performance indices found in corporate annual reports and stock price fluctuations in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

The study analyses disclosures regarding Earnings Per Share, Net Asset Value per Share, Price Earnings ratio, Net Profit After Tax, Declaration of Dividends, and Dividend Yield Ratio made by companies in their corporate annual reports and investigates the relationship of these indices to the stock price fluctuation of those companies.

This research found that Dividend Yield Ratio (1% sig.) and Earnings Per Share (5% sig.) are positively related with share price. This paper concludes that share prices in the DSE rarely have any relationship with disclosures of the above corporate performance indices (r2 = .184) and as such these indices should not be the sole criteria on which to base stock investment decisions.