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Lessons About Best Interests Duty, Aaron Bruhn, Michael Miller

Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal

Financial advice is essentially a credence good, whose value is hard to assess. Yet in the Australian context the need for quality advice is growing, with self-sufficiency a growing trend and individuals facing significant complexity in their financial affairs. Recent regulatory proposals and reforms have been offered as a means to provide some comfort for consumers about the quality advice that they might receive, yet the challenge remains about what is meant by ‘quality’ in this area. By referring to recent high profile collapses, we describe some factors and features that are generally considered as examples of poor quality advice. …

Preference In Presentation Or Impression Management: A Comparison Study Between Chairmen’S Statements Of The Most And Least Profitable Australian Companies, Zilan Cen, Rongchang Cai

Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of impression management in corporate annual reports in an Australian context. To contribute to this topic, a research question is investigated: do the most profitable Australian companies, assessed by percentage change in profit before tax, organise the chairmen’s statements of their corporate annual reports and disclose information in a way that is significantly different from those least profitable companies?

In terms of the methodology, this research has selected the top 50 most and least profitable companies in ASX 500 as at 30th June 2009 respectively. For reference and comparison purposes, …