Purpose: The paper seeks to complement a more conventional PAT-based study of accounting method choice in Egyptian firms (Dey et al., 2007) by examining three alternative computational reasons for depreciation method choice: simplicity; compatibility with industry norm; and suitability for class of asset. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on a questionnaire survey, sent to Egyptian companies, in which managers were asked to indicate their reasons for choosing depreciation methods as well as the actual depreciation methods used. Findings: The paper finds that technical reasons were frequently given in survey responses from managers. However, the available evidence on the actual depreciation methods used by their firms and industries is in fact more consistent with PAT-based theories of accounting choice than with such alternatives. This suggests that the responses to the survey reflected managers’ rationalisations of decisions made for self-interested purposes. Originality/value: Most recent work on managerial decisions concerning accounting choices utilises data gathered from databases of published financial information and is undertaken within a PAT context. This study extends that approach by utilising the results of a questionnaire distributed in Egypt to test some additional hypotheses that reflect possible technical accounting reasons for justifying depreciation methods.

ABSTRACT Financial markets have increasing global power and that power can manifest itself in environmental degradation, social injustice and limitations on the ability of quoted companies to undertake activities which, although experimental and financially fragile, can be seen ,as socially ,and environmentally ,responsible. Markets’ power ,does not seem to be ,balanced by their responsibility. Social and environmental ,disclosure is one possible way ,in which ,markets may ,be re-educated ,towards more ,sustainable modes of behaviour. It is in this context that this paper seeks to explore whether stock market,participants in the ,UK exhibit ,any discernible reaction to the ,social and environmental,disclosures made ,by the ,largest 100 companies. Several tests are

Purpose - This paper aims to complement a more conventional positive accounting theory (PAT)-based study of accounting method choice in Egyptian firms by examining three alternative computational reasons for depreciation method choice: simplicity; compatibility with industry norm; and suitability for class of asset.Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on a questionnaire survey, sent to Egyptian companies, in which managers were asked to indicate their reasons for choosing depreciation methods as well as the actual depreciation methods used.Findings - The paper finds that technical reasons were frequently given in survey responses from managers. However, the available evidence on the actual depreciation methods used by their firms and industries is in fact more consistent with PAT-based theories of accounting choice than with such alternatives. This suggests that the responses to the survey reflected managers' rationalisations of decisions made for self-interested purposes.Originality/value - Most recent work on managerial decisions concerning accounting choices utilises data gathered from databases of published financial information and is undertaken within a PAT context. This study extends that approach by utilising the results of a questionnaire distributed in Egypt to test some additional hypotheses that reflect possible technical accounting reasons for justifying depreciation methods.

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to explore whether there is any relationship(s) between social and environmental disclosure and the financial market performance of the UK's largest companies.Design/methodology/approachTwo data sets were used in the study. The CSEAR database of UK companies provided the social and environmental disclosure component. The second data were the stock market returns earned by the largest UK companies as listed byThe Times1,000. A series of statistical tests was performed to examine whether any relationship could be detected in either the cross sectional or longitudinal data over a period of ten years.FindingsNo direct relationship between share returns and disclosure was found. Neither had such a relationship been expected, in keeping with the prior literature. However, the longitudinal data revealed a convincing relationship between consistently high(low) returns and the predilection to high(low) disclosure. There is no single convincing theoretical explanation as to why this might be.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates the importance of examining a range of hypotheses on longitudinal data when other research suggests that any relationships are unlikely to be unstable year on year. More significantly, this paper is motivated not by a concern to understand better how investors' already‐high returns may be bettered, but rather to explore how the alleged potential of financial markets to contribute to social responsibility and sustainability might be engaged.

Abstract In recent years, the validity of the weak form efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been called into question as several studies have uncovered evidence that technical trading rules have predictive ability with respect to both developed and emerging stock market indices. This study analyses the forecasting power of 2 of the most popular trading rules using index data for a selection of 11 European stock markets over the January 1991 to December 2000 period. The findings indicate that the emerging markets included in this paper are informationally inefficient; these markets displayed some degree of predictability in their share returns, although the developed markets did not. Furthermore, the results point to large differences in the performance of the rules examined; while small size filters consistently outperformed the buy-and-hold strategy in the emerging markets examined even after the consideration of transaction costs, the performance of the moving average rules was erratic and varied dramatically from market to market.

The authors provide an overview of their research into the attitudes of UK managers to risk and uncertainty. They find that, when it comes to decision making, managers in UK enterprises tend to focus on loss aversion rather than risk aversion. They found that managers’ personal attitudes to risk were often more important than risk management systems and their appropriateness.

This paper is concerned with the attempts to explain the disclosure of social and environmental information in the annual reports of large companies by reference to observable characteristics of those companies. An extensive literature has sought to establish whether variables such as corporate size, profit and industry segments can explain corporations' disclosure practices. The results from that predominantly North American and Australasian literature are largely inconclusive. This paper provides an extension of that literature by considering a more disaggregated specification of social and environmental disclosure and by employing a detailed time‐series data set. By so doing, the paper tests two possible explanations for the inconclusiveness of prior research: namely that any relationships between corporate characteristics and disclosure are dependent upon the type of disclosure and that any such relationships are not stable through time. The results provide support for these explanations as sufficient, if not necessary, conditions for explaining the inconsistency in prior results.

The FINESSE project (Finance Education in a Scalable Software Environment)(1) addresses problems associated with the teaching of finance courses in the UK Higher Education sector by constructing a networked, computer-based portfolio management game. The FINESSE consortium consists of finance lecturers at the Universities of Dundee, Strathclyde, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Glasgow Caledonian University, and members of the Computer Sciences division at the University of St Andrews. Subject-specific resources were developed to exploit access to real-time stock-market data thereby allowing students to explore portfolio management strategies in a new and exciting way, This paper focuses on the need for a mix of methods when evaluating a CAL project, and on the desirability of including evaluation as part of the design stage and of the development process. We describe the various approaches employed to evaluate different aspects of FINESSE throughout the first 2 years of its use, and present the results of a student questionnaire. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper reviews the results of two U.K. surveys of activity-based costing (ABC) in the U.K.’s largest companies. These provide an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in the ABC adoption status of companies over a recent 5-year period. For the ABC users, some comparative information is provided on the nature of the ABC systems in use, their designers, the uses to which they have been put and the levels of success and importance that participants attribute to them. For the non-users, the reasons for their lack of commitment to ABC are explored.

This paper reports on an exploratory study across three universities which was intended to help inform us about why students make the options choices that they do. More particularly, why do students choose—or choose not—to take social and environmental accounting courses? Based upon a series of interviews, a survey was drawn up and applied across the three universities. The data analysis reveals that whilst many initial expectations were not incorrect, the reasons for student choice are more complex than social and environmental accounting teachers and researchers have tended to assume. This exploratory study points to a wider range of possible explanations for student choice that might be employed as foci in further work on why students do what they do.

Over the last decade a number ofstudies have examined the costs and benefits ofinvesting in equities traded in emerging markets. Many ofthese studies havefocused on aggregate index data supplied by the IFC. By contrast, the present investigation employs disaggregated weekly returns data for the top 20 shares, by market value, from 17 emerging markets between 1991 and 1996. It examines the possible gains from international diversification into these markets and determines whether knowledge of the country in which a selected company is located is more important than knowledge ofthe industry in which it operates.

This chapter presents volatility assessment for stocks or portfolios. It presents an analysis, which may be of interest to fund managers as well as academics in three ways: (1) it examines a number of risk measures that are relevant to the portfolio appraisal of fund managers as well as a number of non parametric equivalents, and applies them to an internationally diversified share portfolio; (2) it analyzes relevant risk-return combinations at three levels o f disaggregation, as country index, industrial sector index, and company share; and (3) it constructs risk triangles, which are a method of presenting risk-return information that is designed to facilitate share appraisal and selection procedures in a way that reflects the individual attitude to risk o f the user.