Purpose – The paper aims to examine five assumptions of agency theory: that both investor and investee make rational decisions; future outcomes are predictable; both act in their own best interests; the investee has an information advantage over the investor; and the investee is work‐ and...

Purpose – This essay sets out to introduce the special issue. Design/methodology/approach – The essay introduces the focus of the special issue, the manifestation of the phenomenon of online reporting and the issues it engenders in relation to accounting, and briefly reviews the contribution...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which pension accounting represents an enabling or emancipatory accounting. Design/methodology/approach – Many countries are facing a so‐called “pensions crisis” which is reflected in and arguably, to some extent at least,...

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the social aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by studying a case of organizational downsizing. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a theoretical framework consisting of stakeholder theory and legitimacy...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework (pragmatic constructivism) for a new paradigm for accounting practice. The paradigmatic base of practice is an important element in explaining, understanding, justifying and defending practice. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the paper entitled “Towards a paradigmatic foundation for accounting practice” by Nørreklit, Nørreklit and Mitchell as a way to open a debate about whether a “paradigm of accounting practice” exists and, if so, the...

Investigates the dimensions of accounting information prepared for use in managing non‐corporate pastoral entities in pre‐Federation Western Victoria and the local, time‐specific environmental factors which shaped these dimensions. Based on examinations of 23 sets of surviving business...

There has been limited study to date of the effectiveness of alternative methods of presenting accounting information for financial decision purposes. Explores the relative usefulness of the schematic face, compared with conventional presentation formats, for communicating the multivariate...

Contextualizes some of the issues raised by an article by Courtis in AAAJ 1995. Readability, which measures syntactical difficulty, should be distinguished from understandability, which measures comprehensibility. Courtis’s results, which are suggestive (but not conclusive) of a link between...

By specifying long lists of users of published financial reports, accounting authorities may be raising the expectations of users for corporate accounting information. Discusses whether the raising of these lists creates users’ rights to information. Rights to information has been a theme,...