Abstract
Nowadays, traditional sources of wealth are becoming more and more intangible (i.e., knowledge, customer relationships, etc.). The traditional accounting systems are no longer considered able to adequately support the management (see strategic or managerial control/reporting systems) and the disclosure (see financial statements) of intangibles and, indeed, of the whole organisation. The studies developed by the Department of Management concern both financial and non-financial disclosure. Regarding the former, research is focused on whether and how it would be possible to improve the quality of the disclosure of intangibles, leveraging on the degree of freedom provided by the law and national and international accounting standards. As regards the latter, research is focused both on the reporting of intangibles/intellectual capital and, more recently, on integrated reporting frameworks and on the assurance of non-financial information.
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1 Introduction
Since the 1980s companies have been called to face a radical change in the financial and commodity markets and their competitive dynamics. In particular, the increasing importance of key success factors like innovation, customer satisfaction, personnel competencies, product and process quality, timeliness, information management, etc., has fostered the birth of ideas and concepts such as knowledge economy, information economy and network economy where knowledge, information and relationships are considered necessary elements for survival. Accordingly, companies have changed their business models, their strategic processes and their way of interacting with their stakeholders. In sum, over the last 20 years, both the markets and companies had to undergo a revolution, i.e. a shift from an economy based on tangible items to a one focused on intangibles.
This revolution also impacted accounting studies. In fact, one of the most profound effects was that the most widespread tools used by companies for internal (managerial) or external (disclosure) purposes, ones predominantly focused on financial information, were unable to fully capture the value of the abovementioned new sources of value creation. More in-depth, financial statements were being criticized as they were not able to fully account for a large part of a firm's intangibles or for their performance; this has led (and it is still leading) to a significant gap between market values and book values and, consequently, to a relevant loss of financial accounts. Similarly, measurement of organisational performance for managerial purposes through financial indicators alone was considered inadequate support for managers making value creation-oriented decisions, because numerous strategic resources and activities cannot be represented to their full extent solely in monetary terms. In short, the need to make the invisible visible has arisen and, consequently, new accounting concepts, methods, and tools have been proposed.
Moving on from these considerations, we look at how scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have developed their activities along two main pathways. The first adopts a value realisation perspective, and it is related to the widening of the boundaries of financial statements and to how it is possible to report the financial value of a firm's reliably and to provide investors with more useful information. The second, instead, is focused on the idea of value creation and on the design of reporting methods and tools useful for measuring and disclosing the stocks and flows related to the organization's non-financial capital, such as its human, relational, organisational, natural, or social capital, that cannot be represented adequately in financial statements. As evidenced in extant studies, these two research streams have been developed considering business reporting both from a production perspective and from a consumption one, according to the phases of the development process of a measurement system (Bourne et al. 2000; Ferreira and Otley 2009; Neely and Bourne 2000; Roslender and Fincham 2004). The production perspective regards the design and implementation of the reporting model, while the consumption perspective concerns the actual application and use of the designed and implemented system by company actors to obtain the expected outcomes.
This chapter aims to present the latest scientific contributions offered by the research conducted by the Department of Management scholars in the fields of financial and non-financial reporting; in addition, future research avenues will be proposed.
The structure of this chapter is the following. The next section offers an overview of past, current, and future research in the field of financial reporting. Section 3 presents the state of the art and the work in progress in the field of non-financial reporting. The last section summarises the main insights gleaned and draws some conclusions.
2 Financial Reporting: Past, Present, and Future
Financial reporting is probably the most traditional and relevant area of research in the field of accounting; consequently, financial statements and interim reports have been the object of a plethora of national and international publications.
According to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) framework and the Italian GAAP, the objective of financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, performance, and changes in the financial position of an enterprise that is useful to a wide range of users that need to make economic and/or financial decisions. In other words, the idea underlying the practice of financial disclosure is to provide useful information to the stakeholders of a firm (e.g. investors, partners, suppliers, customers) about the financial performance and the value of the firm itself.
Due to the evolution of the competitive arena and to the internationalisation and globalisation processes, the standard setters have defined and implemented a rich agenda in the aim of defining accounting standards able to improve the usefulness of financial statements.
Delving into the changes brought to accounting standards can be approached from different research perspectives, such as analyzing how the accounting standards have been applied in practice, examining the convergence process between the Italian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), investigating the value relevance of financial information, examining the practice of earnings management, and analyzing the use of financial information.
The contributions in the field of financial reporting, made in recent years by scholars of the Department of Management, will be discussed in the following sub-sections.
2.1 Financial Reporting: The State of the Art
The research developed up to now in the field of financial accounting mainly regards the production of financial information from a practice-based perspective.
The first stream of research developed by the scholars of the Department of Management regards the disclosure and valuation of intangibles. Intangibles represent one of the Department's main areas of research and they are analysed in terms of visualisation, measurement and disclosure. More specifically, concerning the valuation of intangibles, the research shows that the value of intangibles tends to present a limited level of objectivity, consistency, comparability and understandability. Nevertheless, the valuation of intangibles is essential, if one is to make the invisible visible; in other words, it can be considered an opportunity to visualise and understand the influence of intangibles on financial performance (Giuliani 2014, 2016a; Giuliani and Marasca 2011; Marasca and Giuliani 2009). The disclosure and use of the information related to intangibles have been examined from several aspects. Research has been focused on how and to what extent intangibles can be disclosed in financial statements (e.g. in the management commentary, in the notes in the balance sheet or the income statement); it has also delved into the influence of culture and national accounting practices on the disclosure and the effects generated by the disclosures (Brännström and Giuliani 2009a, b; Brännström et al. 2009; Giuliani 2003, 2006, 2016a; Giuliani and Marasca 2017, 2018a, b).
The second stream of research concerns the issues of accounting regulation and the gap between de iure and de facto accounting, i.e. the difference between what companies are expected to do and what they actually do. Due to the Department's cultural roots and the widespread strong belief that scientific research should also have an impact on society, scholars have analysed the practice of accounting to understand what firms do and suggest what they should do to improve the usefulness of financial disclosure. Moreover, it is worth mentioning several studies regarding the application of the Italian GAAP both by industrial, trade, and service companies and by banks and financial companies. These studies have shown that firms are generally compliant with the accounting standards, but they tend to provide as little information as possible and adopt the easiest solution offered by the standards rather than the best one. This implies that the information asymmetry that accounting standards aim to reduce tends, instead, to persist in practice. Furthermore, it emerges that even in case of a change in the accounting standards companies tend to maintain as much as possible the previous approach in order not to change the accounting procedures. In other words, the phenomenon of accounting inertia tends to dominate accounting practice and to impede companies from taking advantage of the disclosure opportunities offered by the new accounting standards (Brännström and Giuliani 2009a; Giuliani and Brännström 2011). In this context, the studies developed with reference to the concept of materiality and how it is applied in practice (Branciari and Poli 2009; Branciari et al. 2007; Poli 2013a) as well as the research on the impairment of tangible assets (Poli 2008, 2012a) and on the impact of taxation rules on financial reporting/accounting choices (Poli 2015a) also bear noting.
Another stream of research regards the practice of earnings management, i.e., a strategy used by the management of a company to deliberately manipulate the company’s earnings so that the figures match a pre-determined target. These studies regard, in particular, the so-called earnings minimization practices and earnings change minimization practices in Italian SMEs. The aim is to understand how widespread these practices are, what their determinants are (e.g. variables related to ownership structure, corporate governance, gender, etc.), and whether they present some specificities in comparison to the ones examined in other studies (Branciari and Poli 2017; Poli 2013b, c, 2015b, 2017a, b).
Auditing has also been the object of attention. Research in this area has regarded the practice of financial auditing, i.e., how auditors perform their activity (what and how they audit) in their everyday life, how policymakers and clients perceive the role of auditors, and how the auditors themselves interpret it. It also investigates the idea of reciprocal affinity between clients and auditors (Branciari and Giuliani 2005; De Santis and Giuliani 2014, 2015; Giuliani 2010).
Accounting history has also been investigated in the last decade. In this area, the focus has been on how accounting technologies have been applied in the past to induce specific behaviours or support specific managerial or governmental practices (Gatti and Poli 2011, 2014, 2018; Poli 2011, 2012b).
In summary, the studies presented in recent years have undertaken to analyse the different significant dimensions of financial reporting using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, in the aim of taking an active role in the international and national scientific debate.
2.2 Financial Reporting: Future Research Avenues
Recently, several national and international accounting laws have been modified to improve the quality of financial statements and carry out the accounting harmonisation process, i.e., a convergence process among national and international accounting settings. Consequently, accounting standards have been deeply revised.
In Italy, Decree 139/2015 eliminated many of the previously existing differences with IAS/IFRS. For example, the notion of fair value was introduced as a method for recognising and measuring derivative financial instruments and that of amortised cost as a criterion for measuring receivables, payables, and securities. In addition, financial statements are required to provide greater emphasis to related parties' transactions, to cash flow statements, to the substance over form principle, and to a consistent presentation of hedging transactions. The reason for all these innovations is to allow transparent, qualified, and up-to-date information to be provided, information that is suitable for expressing the status of investments and sources of funds and the company's ability to raise and absorb financial resources. In sum, this will improve the transparency of financial information and facilitate access to financial markets for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the IASB has defined a rich working agenda, the purpose being to update the extant accounting standards IAS/IFRS and regulate the accounting of new business phenomena. Also in this case, the underlying goal is to improve the quality of financial reporting and, consequently, its usefulness for investors, in the hopes of, ultimately, increasing the effectiveness and efficacy of financial markets.
Moving forward, the Department's research will be focused on understanding the impact of the new accounting standards on organisational processes and the dynamics of financial markets. In addition, as the option of adopting international accounting standards instead of the national ones was introduced ten years ago, it is now possible to develop a diachronic analysis in order to understand the concrete internal (organizational) and external (market related) impacts of the adoption of international accounting standards in Italy on a mandatory or voluntary basis. In developing these studies, particular attention will be devoted to the emerging accounting and valuation practices related to intangibles and organizational non-financial capital.
Another recent reform concerns bankruptcy and insolvency procedures in Italy (Law 155/2017). Seeking to ensure the best interest and satisfaction of creditors, the New Code prioritises procedures aimed at overcoming the crisis by keeping the business as a going concern (even if under new ownership). The new measures introduced by Law 155/2017 include: (a) an alert system (procedura di allerta) based on an early warning procedure to be exercised on a confidential basis and completed within reasonably short timeframes, to improve the efficiency and speed of reaction to a financial crisis; (b) out-of-court crisis settlement procedures to ensure early disclosure of economic distress and facilitate negotiations with the distressed company’s creditors; (c) incentives for business continuity; (d) provisions aimed at coordinating the management of a crisis affecting a group of companies; (e) incentives for the early disclosure of facts or events that are reasonable indicia of distress or insolvency; (f) an increase in the duties and responsibility of internal and external auditors with reference to situations of potential or actual financial distress.
Several investigations have been conducted to develop bankruptcy prediction models (Altman and Hotchkiss 2010; Bellovary et al. 2007; Fejér-Király 2015). Although they are generally considered to be efficient and effective, the current prediction models present some criticalities such as: (a) the excessive focus on accounting data and the lack of forward-looking information; (b) the focus on American large (listed) firms; (c) the lack of industry-specific or country-specific dimensions; etc. Several scholars and practitioners have performed studies referred to the Italian context, but they present and recognize some relevant scientific and practical limitations such as the identification of a very large area of uncertainty and the lack of adequate background or validation procedures. In summary, there is the need to develop a large-scale study to reconsider the existing prediction models in order to adapt them to the Italian context and to make them compliant with the requisites indicated by the law.
The scholars in the Department of Management will carry out research that aims to analyse the accuracy and effectiveness of bankruptcy prediction models concerning Italian SMEs, given that the extant studies are mainly referred to large American firms. Moreover, studies regarding the quality and effectiveness of restructuring business plans will be developed, considering both the perspective of the preparers and of the users. Finally, investigations regarding the earnings management practices of financially distressed companies will also be carried out.
Another important accounting reform is the one that has changed the auditing regulation. In particular, the reform (Decree 39/2010) made the adoption of the International Standards of Auditing obligatory, and it made deep changes to the profession of auditor in order to bring Italian auditing activity into alignment with international auditing and increase the quality of auditing procedures. Decree 135/2016 modified the rules introduced by Law 39/2010 in order to make the Italian rules compliant with the European regulations and the new auditing standards. This reform offers the opportunity to understand to what extent the auditing profession has changed in practice and the effects of the auditing reform on the dynamics of financial markets.
The studies on accounting history will continue following the research lines that have been at the core of research conducted by the Department in recent years.
3 Non-financial Reporting: Past, Present, and Future
3.1 Non-financial Reporting: The State of the Art
Similarly to the financial reporting discourse, the non-financial one has also been influenced by the change of context outlined above. In fact, over the last 20 years, several new concepts, methods, and tools have been proposed in order to improve non-financial reporting for internal or external purposes, in the aim of better supporting the managerial decision process and of offering the stakeholders a complete representation of the organisational value creation process.
Within the field of non-financial reporting, the research developed to date by Department of Management scholars regards both the production and consumption of reports for internal and external aims. This research has mainly adopted a practice-based perspective, as done for the financial reporting field.
Regarding non-financial reporting for managerial purposes, a first stream of research was devoted to the analysis of the design, implementation, and use of management accounting tools able to ensure a broader view of company performance. Particular attention was devoted to strategic performance measurement tools, like the Balanced Scorecard, showing how they can ensure a multidimensional measurement of a company’s performance and highlighting the costs and benefits which may arise when they are implemented in different contexts, for-profit and also non-profit (Gatti 2011a, 2015; Gatti and Chiucchi 2017; Marasca and Chiucchi 2008; Marasca and Del Bene 2009; Montemari 2018a). Moreover, a large part of the research was focused on the way financial and non-financial information could and should be combined in order to support managers’ decision-making processes (Gatti 2011b, 2013) as well as on analyzing how information technology tools and management accounting systems interact and influence each other, thereby creating synergies which favour the production and consumption of non-financial and multidimensional information (Chiucchi et al. 2012; Del Bene and Ceccarelli 2016; Nespeca and Chiucchi 2018).
Parallel to the studies about multidimensional measurement systems, other studies have focused on a specific dimension of organisational performance, i.e., intangibles. Indeed, this area can be considered the main research stream pursued by the Department of Management. Under the term intangibles, research paths also focus on intellectual capital, intended as the whole system of a company’s intangible resources.
Accounting studies about intellectual capital have developed over time, following an ideal path made up of three stages: (1) raising awareness on intellectual capital relevance and creating frameworks to measure it; (2) gathering empirical evidence and building intellectual capital theories; (3) developing a critical and performative analysis of intellectual capital in action. The Department of Management has followed this path and developed research that contributed to each of the stages. We now take a more in-depth looks at the progression of Department research.
At first, attention was focused on the design of measurement tools that could deliver external and internal reports, i.e., intellectual capital reports, able to supplement information included in the financial statement and provided by traditional (financial) performance measurement systems (Chiucchi 2004, 2005, 2008; Chiucchi and Marasca 2004). Responding also to the call for research approaches which could favour the osmosis between theory and practice and fill the gap between these two realms, an interventionist research approach and, more specifically, a constructive research approach (Chiucchi 2012; Jönsson and Lukka 2007) was adopted. This choice was made as it allows for the development of innovative constructions (e.g. intellectual capital measurement systems, intellectual capital reports) geared to solving real-world problems (practical relevance) to which no theoretical solution had previously been found, and able to also contribute to theory advancements (theoretical relevance). Using this approach also requires the implementation of the proposed solution to test its applicability (practical functioning). By focusing on the production of intellectual capital reports, the Department of Management scholars contributed to the first two stages of the intellectual capital discourse.
Subsequently, attention turned to the actual use of the designed and implemented tools in order to explore, from a critical and performative perspective, what happens in companies when these tools are designed and implemented; the studies focused on the organisational and behavioural dynamics triggered by the design and use of these reporting tools (Chiucchi 2013a; Chiucchi and Dumay 2015). The research that followed aimed to provide insights on what works and does not work when it comes to actually using these tools (Chiucchi et al. 2014, 2016), on how companies make sense of and give sense to intellectual capital indicators (Giuliani 2016b; Giuliani et al. 2016), on the levers and the barriers that can enable or hinder the use of these tools (Chiucchi 2013b; Chiucchi and Montemari 2016; Chiucchi et al. 2018a; Montemari and Chiucchi 2013), on the role played by the different actors involved in the reporting process (Chiucchi and Giuliani 2017; Chiucchi et al. 2018b; Giuliani and Chiucchi, in press), and on how barriers can be overcome (Montemari and Chiucchi 2017). Moreover, it is worthy of mention that much of the performative research was focused on the dynamic aspects of intellectual capital in order to explore how intellectual capital elements combine with each other for the sake of value creation (Montemari and Nielsen 2013, 2014) and how these elements change over time (Giuliani 2015; Giuliani and Skoog 2017). Through these studies, several contributions based on the empirics of practice have been presented to foster a deeper understanding of what intellectual capital reporting does in organisations and markets.
With reference to non-financial reporting for external purposes, the Department of Management scholars have developed research devoted to the analysis of new ways of disclosing corporate performance through voluntary reports, such as social reports, intellectual capital reports and, more recently, integrated reports. In this field, the research has been focused on how organizations have applied the most widespread social accountability standards (e.g. AccountAbility1000, AA1000SES, Italian standard for social accountability in healthcare organisations, and Global Reporting Initiative Framework) (D’Andrea 2012, 2017; Marasca et al. 2018; Montanini and D’Andrea 2012) and followed the most well-known intellectual capital reporting guidelines and models (e.g. DATI, Meritum, etc.) (Chiucchi 2008, 2013b; Chiucchi et al. 2016). In this research arena, too, the research has followed the process of the design and implementation of social reports. The findings have mainly underlined the adjustments needed to apply the different frameworks and to produce non-financial reports as external communication tools, the barriers, and the challenges to its practical implementation in specific contexts.
More recently, attention has been centred on integrated reports (especially in the version proposed by the International Integrated Reporting Council—IIRC) which can be understood as the natural evolution of management accounting tools and research in the field of intellectual capital, social reports, and business models. In fact, integrated reporting is aimed at integrating financial and non-financial information in an attempt to communicate not only the value created by a company but the way it is created, in particular. From this standpoint, integrated reporting research can be considered a synthesis of previous research; at the same time, it has opened another very prolific avenue of research. Studies have been primarily oriented towards the process of design and implementation, highlighting the adjustments needed to apply the IIRC frameworks, the barriers, and the challenges to its practical implementation (Marasca et al. 2017). Subsequently, attention was devoted to the way existing management accounting systems can support the adoption of these new reporting tools and, in a different perspective, to how their adoption can affect management accounting systems and lead to a change of the nature of the information provided or of the role played by the management accountant (Chiucchi et al. 2018a, b; Gatti et al. 2018). The research was conducted in different contexts, to provide a broad overview of the different ways in which new reporting tools can influence, or can be influenced by, management accounting systems.
As an ideal bridge between internal and external reporting, studies about business models have also grown in recent years. The research on business models, i.e., the platform through which companies create, deliver, and capture value, has gained relevance through a combination of conceptual and empirical studies focused on the contribution of business models to performance measurement (Nielsen and Montemari 2012; Montemari and Chiucchi 2017) and on business model innovation (Lüttgens and Montemari 2016; Taran et al. 2016). Moreover, attention has also been devoted to the analysis of how the business model research area has developed over time in order to provide a guide for future research and theorisation (Lambert and Montemari 2017; Montemari 2018b; Nielsen et al. 2018a, b).
It must be noted that the rise of new tools to measure company performance has also stimulated a debate about the methodological approaches through which their adoption and use should be analysed and studied. In this context, the research activity was focused on the contribution that the qualitative approach and the case study method, in particular, can offer to the exploration of these new measurement tools and of the way they work in practice (Chiucchi 2012, 2014).
3.2 Non-financial Reporting: Future Research Avenues
Future research in the field of non-financial reporting will proceed along the path drawn in the past, i.e., reporting for managerial and disclosure purposes.
As regards non-financial reporting for managerial purposes, given the huge quantity of research carried out in recent years to explore the full potential of multidimensional measurement systems, it could be useful to deepen the analysis of factors that can make their implementation complex or that, in many cases, can hinder their use (consumption) within companies. This could be done by resorting to interventionist research to fill the gap between theory and practice and favour the osmosis between them and by using an empirical analysis in an attempt to provide useful suggestions to praxis.
Another relevant avenue of research on managerial reporting concerns the contribution that big data and artificial intelligence can give to the functioning of performance measurement systems and the impact they can have on the provision as well as on the use of strategic and non-financial information. In line with this, it would be fruitful to explore how business intelligence systems can promote the adoption and use of performance measurement systems, shedding light on the effects that can arise, in terms of measurement, when these systems are implemented and, at the same time, on the barriers that can limit their actual adoption within organizations. In short, the overall impacts of leading-edge technologies on managerial reporting will be investigated.
As concerns non-financial disclosure, the focus will be on two main types of report: integrated reports and non-financial statements. In fact, the recent EU directive 2014/95/UE as well as Decree 254/2016 have deeply influenced the current reporting practices. Non-financial disclosure is mandatory for some companies, and these regulations implicitly promote the adoption of the reporting standards issued by the Global Reporting Initiative or by the IIRC.
In this context, investigations will be centred on the design and implementation of these reports or statements, with a particular focus on the conditions that could ensure comparability of different reports in space and time and that could enhance the adoption of such reports in peculiar contexts, e.g. SMEs. Furthermore, the use of these kinds of reports will be studied in order to understand the sense making processes they lead to and consequently, how the main organisational stakeholders consume them. Finally, the practice of non-financial assurance will be examined, i.e., how auditors act in order to verify the statements made and the role they play in the non-financial disclosure process.
As mentioned above, research fields that can be considered bridges between internal and external reporting - for instance, business models - will be explored. Considering that business models represent a mature research area, future research will be directed toward providing performative contributions about what happens in companies when business models are designed, implemented, and used. This could be useful to show what works and what does not work, the levers and barriers that can enable or hinder the design of a business model, as well the reasons underlying negative or positive experiences with their use. Additionally, integrated thinking and integrated governance, i.e., the use of integrated reports to support managerial decision-making processes and to promote a holistic managerial approach, also represent bridge areas of research. Future investigations can regard the levers and barriers related to the use of integrated reports for internal purposes as well as the connections between reporting and management.
4 Final Remarks
This chapter aimed to present the most up-to-date scientific contributions offered by the research undertaken by the Department of Management scholars in the fields of financial and non-financial reporting; part of this objective was also to ponder and propose future research avenues.
In the field of financial reporting, the studies have been mainly centred on the practice of accounting, i.e., on how accounting and auditing standards are applied, on earnings management practices, and on how organisations are evaluated. With regard to non-financial reporting, the research has primarily focused on the production and consumption of reports for managerial (such as multi-dimensional performance measurement systems, intellectual capital measurements) or disclosure purposes (such as corporate social responsibility reports, intellectual capital reports, integrated reports, non-financial statements). These studies have mainly adopted an interventionist research approach, and they have involved private and public organisations, especially the ones that can be classified as SMEs as they tend to be overlooked by mainstream research even if they are highly relevant in the Italian and European contexts.
Regarding future research activities, the Department scholars will continue to conduct studies in the fields of both financial and non-financial reporting. More specifically, the goal is to analyse the development of accounting practices as new business phenomena arise and as management and stakeholders’ information needs evolve.
In summary, the fil rouge that connects the different studies produced to date and the ones that will be in the future is the vision of carrying out research that is scientifically relevant and able to improve and enhance practice and of bridging the theory-practice gap. In this light, the Department of Management's accounting scholars will continue developing research studies based on the empirics of practice collected in private and public organisations, with a particular focus on SMEs.
The validity of this approach is upheld by the quantity and quality of scholarly publications emanating from the Department of Management, as well as by the quantity and value of the applied research performed to date and, by reasonable assumption, in the near future.
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Chiucchi, M.S., Giuliani, M., Poli, S., Gatti, M., Montemari, M., Del Bene, L. (2019). Financial and Non-financial Reporting: Examining the Past to Understand the Future. In: Longhi, S., et al. The First Outstanding 50 Years of “Università Politecnica delle Marche”. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33879-4_12
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