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Winning the Australasian Reporting Awards: An analysis of accounting and economic outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Christofer Adrian

    (Department of Accounting, Monash University, Caulfield East, VIC, Australia)

  • Ka Wai (Stanley) Choi

    (Australian National University, ACT, Australia)

  • Mukesh Garg
  • Cameron Truong

    (Department of Accounting, Monash University, Caulfield East, VIC, Australia)

Abstract

Despite the intuition that winning reporting awards should be primarily based on reporting quality, we find no evidence that Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed firms winning the Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA) over the period 2003–2016 exhibit higher financial reporting quality. However, we find that winning reporting awards is associated with higher annual report readability. Next, firms winning the ARA neither show superior future accounting performance nor higher market valuation. We also find that investors are not compensated with higher stock returns. Taken together, our findings suggest that the criteria applied to decide the ARA winners capture higher levels of readability but do not correlate with common academic signals of financial reporting quality. Users of the ARA outcomes should also be cautious with the immediate interpretation that the ARA are reliable signals of superior corporate performance. JEL Classification: D82, L15, M41

Suggested Citation

  • Christofer Adrian & Ka Wai (Stanley) Choi & Mukesh Garg & Cameron Truong, 2022. "Winning the Australasian Reporting Awards: An analysis of accounting and economic outcomes," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 47(4), pages 630-663, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ausman:v:47:y:2022:i:4:p:630-663
    DOI: 10.1177/03128962211038637
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

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