Buchhaltung und Marketing

Intellectual Capital (IC) has become a prominent feature of business transactions and discourse. The rising interests in IC and Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD) issues in both developed and developing countries have necessitated insightful studies. This study explores ICD in Ghana and seeks to contribute to fill the dearth in the literature on ICD from the perspective of developing countries. The study examines the ICD of 25 companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) over a five-year period (2006-2010) through content analysis of their corporate annual reports. The study revealed that the ICD level in annual reports in Ghana is quite high and descriptively reported and though disclosure of IC is improving but at a relatively marginal rate. Therefore looking at the trend of ICDs by the companies, the study recommends the need for accounting regulatory bodies and oversight agencies (local and global) to develop specific standards or guidelines on identifying, measuring and reporting IC. This paper is one of the few studies to have investigated the disclosure of IC in corporate annual reports in Ghana.

This study examines whether earnings surprise management is related to the time-series property of historical earnings series (i.e., earnings persistence). The findings from my analysis indicate that firms with a higher level of earnings persistence are less likely to manipulate the earnings surprise to achieve meeting or beating earnings expectations (MBE) than firms with a lower level of earnings persistence. Further, I find that, while the market discounts the managed earnings surprise, it is less likely for firms with higher earnings persistence. This suggests that the capital market understands the role of earnings persistence in mitigating the manager’s incentive for managing the earnings surprise to attain MBE.

This research has showed the relationship between the Libyan context regarding to sociocultural context, political context and economic context with corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD). The research has been used the literature review related this topic by books, papers, and master degree and PhD research. This research has covered the stage between 1970 until 2010. The results of this research revealed that the sociocultural context, political context and economic context can influence corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) in Libya.