Edirin Jeroh
This paper comparatively analyzes the internal determinants of environmental disclosure practices among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To achieve this, secondary data on the characteristics of the measures of the board and the characteristics of the audit committee were obtained from a sample of 60 companies from across the region (20 each from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). The regression technique was used to analyze the data and the results revealed the fact that, while the characteristics of the measures of the board and the audit committee were found to be the significant determinants of the environmental disclosure of firms in Kenya and Nigeria, the same cannot be said of firms in South Africa. The study, therefore, recommends that borrowing from South Africa, environmental management practices should be institutionalized in the entire region. Additionally, standard-setters should make practical efforts by developing new reporting standards which will guide and encourage a full disclosure of environmental concerns by firms.
Biljana Jovković
Without the existence of a internal control system in today’s conditions of business operations, managing a company would be unthinkable. The presence of control allows the performance of business activities according to a plan through the preventive suppression of the deviant phenomena that could jeopardize the realization of defined objectives. If the system were not established, the company would potentially be exposed to significant losses, whose final result could be the failure and disappearance of the company. This paper is aimed at indicating the ranking and significance of the individual objectives of the internal control system in our companies’ business operations practice and, in this regard, the need for the establishment of appropriate control activities as an additional measure for securing the achievement of the proclaimed business objectives of the company. The research has shown that the best-ranked objective of internal control is the improvement of the accuracy and reliability of bookkeeping and operational data, which indicates that companies see regulators’ external responsibility as a priority in their business operations. The lowest-ranked objective – the evaluation of business efficiency, speaks in favor of the secondary position of the needs of internal informing in relation to external report demands. In the paper, an attempt was made to comprehensively analyze the way in which internal control is implemented in a company’s most important functions, namely the functions of sales, supply, production, human resources, and the financial function.
Dragomir Dimitrijević
Financial statements which consist of objective, real and reliable information represent the key basis for making many business decisions. If, when writing financial statements, certain manipulation techniques are used for displaying the best possible results of transactions, the quality of financial reports will be endangered. Many financial frauds have led to a great mistrust in the system of financial reporting and the profession of accounting and auditing, which are often accused of the emergence of fraud and losing trust in the reliability of financial information by many users and economic decision makers. These are the reasons why the paper discusses the techniques of manipulation in financial statements, especially in balance sheets and cash flow statements, since these forms of manipulation are harder to detect and prevent when compared to manipulations of revenues and expenses in the income statement.
Vladimir Obradović
The transformation of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into a single global language of financial reporting is well under way and followed by a problem of their inconsistent application from country to country, with negative consequences for the global comparability of financial statements. Starting from this, the main purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the main causes of the diversity of financial reporting practices between those countries declaring themselves to be the followers of the IFRS, as well as to identify the ways of overcoming this diversity. Applying the qualitative research methodology, it has been found that the flexibility of the IFRS provisions, which is inevitable in many cases, modifications in their incorporation into national regulatory frameworks and the diversity and unequal effectiveness of national mechanisms for their enforcement and the supervision of their implementation stand for the main causes of inconsistent accounting practices. In order to reduce the inconsistency, national financial reporting regulators should increase their engagement and coordination among themselves, and the International Accounting Standards Board should make additional efforts, which should primarily be focused on the global promotion of the fundamental basis of the IFRS.