The Introduction of the Special Issue

Scope of the special issue Financial reports are extremely helpful and valuable to decision makers, either investors or other interested parties. This information, which can be numerical and nonnumerical in nature, can be analyzed and subsequently utilized to predict future firm value or to determine market reaction(Slattery, 2014). Quantitative information contained in annual financial reports does not provide a complete picture for investors about the firm’s expected value. This gives way to the need to analyze the effect of narrative disclosures as well(Tailab & Burak, 2018). Despite the fact that the narrative disclosures (mandatory, voluntary) impacta myriad of individual decisions in numerous ways, in recent years, the SEC and the FASB have begun to examine the extent to which corporate disclosure volume has become unduly excessive (Cazier & Pfeiffer, 2017, p. 107).Nowadays, researchersinvestigateda varietyof additional financial disclosure, including management forecasts, conference calls, management discussion and analysis (MD&A) disclosure, press releases, and social media outlets (Guay & Verrecchia, 2018). Therefore, academic researchers in general, and market participants in particular, focus on narrative information for many reasons. First, anecdotal evidence suggests that most databases for large American firms (90%) are qualitative in nature (Gangolly & Yi-Fang, 2000). Second, narrative disclosures help investors understand the quality and variability of earnings and cash flows; this directly affects the interoperation of financial statements (Bochkay,2014). Third, the language style used in narrative disclosures offers a choice of managers’ disclosure and it does not require information on the specific event or any condition (Davis & Tama‐Sweet, 2011). Moreover, an important reason for studying the effect of financial disclosures on the market environment is that financial reports have a unidirectional impact on return volatility or other market environment measures (Kothari, Li, & Short, 2009). According to investing experts who made comparisons between today’s market and the economic statistics proceeding past stock market crashes, including Paul Tudor Jones who is credited with predicting the October 1987 crash, a recession is expected within the next few years (Derousseau, 2018). Stock market in both developed and developing economies is a very sensitive discipline and is especially prone to reacting to speeches either by Chief Executive Officers (CEO) or top management. Management writers recognized this fact; therefore, they try to manipulate shareholders by wordplay in a company’s annual report. The common way for firms whose financial performance is low to paint their outcome positively is the tone disclosures. Investors attach very different connotations to the words, rely more on intuition than hard data, and they react more to the verbal tone (Tailab and Burak, 2018). In addition, analyzing narrative disclosures is more easily understood than quantitative data, but at the same time it offers a different perspective. Not only can textual analysis help companies to predict future firm value, financial crisis, but also it can be used to detect suspicious or questionable transactions (that might be indicative of fraud) which is very essential for companies and stakeholders at the same time. The significance of textual analysis also is to investigate the sincerity of the financial annual reports to shareholders. The special issue of Probe-Accounting, Auditing and Taxation focuses mostly upon the corporate narrative disclosures (mandatory, voluntary) and modeling the ability of textual information content in annual reports to predict future firm value and market reaction, reduces information asymmetry to help investors to be cognizant / awareif management uses narrative disclosures to manipulate them. Therefore, they will not be misled. The special Issue seeks manuscripts that address a specific area of business communication including but not limited to mandatory/ voluntary disclosures, technical writing, management communication, speeches by Chief Executive Officers (CEO). In addition, the special issue welcomes submissions concerning the role of written, verbal, nonverbal and electronic communication either by either by profit or nonprofit organizations  

The Research Scope of the Special Issue

·Narrative Disclosures

·Mandatory, Voluntary Disclosures

·All areas of accounting, auditing and taxation.

·Empirical studies

·Multidisciplinary Studies

The Article Title of the Special Issue

1:Tone disclosures and financial performance.

2:The sincerity of corporate disclosures

3:The association between disclosure and firm performance

4:The interactions between the corporation and its external environments

5:The impact of CSR Disclosure Structure on Corporate Financial/Accounting Performance

6:Using textual analysis to predict Financial Crises

7:Identifying fraud using restatement information

8.The association between financial reporting and leadership traits

9.Beyond the numbers

Submission guidelines

All papers should be submitted via the Probe - Accounting, Auditing and Taxation submission system: http://probe.usp-pl.com/index.php/AAT

Submitted articles should not be published or under review elsewhere. All submissions will be subject to the journal’s standard peer review process. Criteria for acceptance include originality, contribution, scientific merit and relevance to the field of interest of the Special Issue.

Important Dates

Paper Submission Due: September 30 , 2019

The Lead Guest Editor

Mohamed M Tailab

Mohamed M. Tailab is an assistant professor of Accounting and Finance at Lincoln University. He joined Lincoln University as an instructor in August 2014. Prior to coming to Lincoln University, Tailab was a lecturer in the Accounting Department at Al-Jable Al- Gharbi University, Libya for more than nine years. During his academic journey, Tailab taught various undergraduate and graduate business classes, published two textbooks and various research papers in peer-refereed local and international academic journals, and participated in diversity conferences. His primary research interests are in the fields of Accounting and Finance, analyzing the effect of narrative disclosures on firm performance and on stock market reaction. In addition, his specialization also includes the application of PLS-SEM (partial least squares structural equation modeling) in business researches.

Guest Editors

Prof. Nassr Saleh Mohamad Ahmad

Prof. Nassr Ahmad is a professor in accounting at University of Gharyan, Gharyan, Libya. He acted as the head of Libraries and Press Administration. He has held teaching experience at AAU (Libya), Libyan Academy (Libya), Al-Zawia University (Libya), National Institute of Management (Libya), College of Applied Financial and Management Sciences (Libya) and Sultan Qaboos University (Oman). He has taught various undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Financial Accounting, Social Accounting, Management Accounting, Islamic Accounting and Auditing Discussion Circle in Accounting, Auditing Theory, Advanced Issues in Accounting and Research Methodology. He is a member of the editorial board and ad-hoc reviewer of various academic journals. He has got the Outstanding Reviewer for World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development in the Emerald Literati Network 2015 Awards for Excellence. He has published around fifty research papers in local and international academic journals. He has as well published four textbooks name: Auditing Theory, Management Accounting, ABC costing system and Salary and Social Security Accounting.. He is a member of numerous local and international professional committees such as Libya Accounting and Auditing Association (LAAA), Libyan Islamic Financial Association (LIFA), World Association for Sustainable Development (WASD), Middle Eastern Knowledge Economy Institute (MEKEI), The Society of Interdisciplinary Business Research (SIBR), and Quality Assurance and Accreditation at the Arabic Universities Union. He has an excellent professional experience.

Dr. Nivo Ravaonorohanta

Nivo Ravaonorohanta has a PhD in Accounting and currently works at University of Sherbrooke. Her primary research interests are in the fields ofcorporate governance, the quality of financial and non-financial information disclosures and the links between corporate disclosures and performance. She pays particular attention to discretionary narrative disclosures, examines if those are used for impression management rather than incremental information purposes, and assessesits relevance to stakeholders. Shehas developed ahigh degreeofexpertise in mergers and acquisitions.