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An
Empirical Study of Inventory Valuation and Disclosure Practices
in Listed Indian Companies
-- Manaswee
K Samal
Inventory
valuation plays a significant role in reporting operating
results, as well as the state of affairs of a business entity,
because it serves period accounting and happens to be the
largest single line item in non-manufacturing firms and
public utilities, and the second largest item in many manufacturing
firms. Inconsistent and selective valuation methods would
result in inaccurate and inconsistent financial results.
Empirical literature suggests that inventory valuation is
one of the devices often resorted to smooth out a firm's
operating results. The study aims to find out the prevailing
practices, diversity in such practices, degree of adherence
to mandatory behavioral prescriptions of the Accounting
Standard and possible reasons for a substance-wise departure
from such stipulations. The study is aimed at aiding policymakers
to come out with modified behavioral prescriptions as far
as futuristic compliance is concerned. The findings suggest
that the disclosure of accounting policies regarding inventory
valuation in listed Indian companies is more of a form than
of substance, and there is ample scope for improvement in
fixing the valuation norms.
©
2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Parmalat:
An Analysis of the Key Financial Reporting and Corporate
Governance Issues
-- Giovanni Melis
and Andrea Melis
This
paper examines the Parmalat case, with special focus on
the financial reporting and corporate governance issues
which have caused the collapse. It describes the ownership
and control structure at Parmalat, lending particular attention
to the role of the Tanzi family as the ultimate controlling
shareholder. The roles of the board of statutory auditors,
the auditing firm, and the board of directors have also
been examined to analyze the failure of these gatekeepers.
The paper also investigates the role of the demand side
information agents with a particular focus on the sell-side
analysts. Using company data publicly available at that
time, it examines to what extent a financial analyst could
have been suspicious of Parmalat's reported economic and
financial results.
©
2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Forensic
Accounting: Fighting Frauds with Data Mining Techniques
-- P
K Panigrahi
In
today's knowledge-based society, financial fraud has become
a common phenomenon in most of the organizations. In order
to identify these frauds, accounting and auditing firms
use a technique called `Forensic Accounting', which employs
accounting, auditing and investigative skills along with
some mathematical models. The increasing data volume and
nature of complexities in data as well as in frauds, necessitate
the use of data mining techniques. This paper discusses
the current systems for fraud detection; different data
structures in financial accounting systems, indicating suspicious
cases; and how data mining techniques can be applied to
discover frauds.
©
2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Towards
a Value-added-based Model for
Human Resource Valuation
-- Amit
K Mallik and Debasish Sur
During the last four decades, a number of articles discussing
human resource valuation models have appeared in the journals
that cover accounting literature. Lev and Schwartz (1971),
Flamholtz (1971, 1973) and Jaggi and Lau (1974) are some
of the noteworthy contributors in this field. Indian organizations
have also relied on these models in valuing their human
resources. The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical
soundness of these models and to formulate a suitable model
for human resource valuation on the basis of the concept
of value-added income and present value technique. The proposed
model is expected to present a practical approach towards
the problem, and is especially applicable to the public
enterprises.
©
2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Environmental
Reporting:The Need of the Hour
--
Sumona
Ghosh
Environmental
reporting has caught much of our attention in recent times.
It frames the organizations' environment outlay and further
acts as an important tool of strategic environmental management.
This paper helps in building knowledge regarding environmental
reporting and further deals with its different forms and
reasons adopted by the corporate sector. It also compares
international environmental disclosure with that of the
Indian scenario. It discloses how Indian corporate lags
behind in implementating such disclosures due to a lack
of stringent norms.
©
2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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