Public entities are faced with the problem of increasing the interest of stakeholders in their annual reports. The aim of this study was to identify the stakeholders of AISA who use the annual report, to investigate their perceptions of the AISA annual report and to determine whether it is used for decision making or accountability purposes. Data was collected by using questionnaires sent to a representative sample of the stakeholders and minutes of meetings and audio recordings of the interrogation of the annual report by the parliamentary accountability and oversight body over DST. The study found that the AISA stakeholders use the annual report for accountability purposes and not for decision making and it has a small readership as it is read mainly by internal stakeholders. The study recommends that public entities need to do much to inform the stakeholders of the availability of their annual reports. / Business Management / M. Com. (Accounting)

År 2005 infördes regeln om att samtliga noterade bolag inom Europeiska Unionen (EU) skulle uppföra sin koncernredovisning enligt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)med start räkenskapsåret 2005. Målet med IFRS är att världsekonomin ska bli mertransparent, ansvarsfull, jämförbar och effektiv. IFRS ska även bidra till att världsekonomin får förtroende, tillväxt och långsiktig finansiell stabilitet. Detta införande har setts som en revolution inom den finansiella ekonomin. Flera länder tog efter EU:s implementering men den nya regeln har dock inte implementerats lika smärtfritt i alla länder. Ryssland är ett land med ett redovisningsregelverk som skiljer sig väsentligt mot IFRS, men också från andranationella regelverk. Studiens problemdiskussion visar på att Ryssland har haft och har stora problem med implementeringen av IFRS till skillnad från EU-länderna vilket har lett fram tillstudiens syfte. Syftet med studien är att undersöka de skillnader som finns mellan IFRS och ryska redovisningsstandarder för att påvisa hur väl Ryssland framgångsrikt har lyckats implementera IFRS jämfört med ett av medlemsländerna i EU, i detta fall Sverige. Syftet medstudien är också att undersöka hur Rysslands kultur kan ha påverkat dess utveckling och implementering av nationella och internationella regelverk inom redovisningen. Studien har ett abduktivt tillvägagångssätt och syftar till att göra en komparativ studie. En granskning sker av tidigare forskning samt av koncernredovisningar enligt både IFRS och RAS från de 25 största företagen i Ryssland, baserat på jämnviktiga mätningar av intäkter, vinster, tillgångar och marknadsvärde. Därefter görs analyser och jämförelse mellan de olika regelverken. Detta görs även ur ett kulturellt perspektiv. Slutsatsen av studien visar att rysk redovisningspraxis har många väsentliga brister vilka påverkar dess förmåga att implementera IFRS. Bristerna existerar dels i regelverkets grundstenar men även i landets kulturella värderingar, vilket gör landets förutsättningar att framgångsrikt implementera IFRS väldigt små. Studien visar på stora skillnader i innebörden av likartade standarder mellan Rysslands nationella regelverk RAS och det internationella regelverket IFRS vilket försvårar harmoniseringen. Två stora skillnader är att IFRS är principbaserat och RAS är regelbaserat men även att IFRS fokus i rapporterna är tillaktieägarna och andra intressenter medan RAS främst är till för skattehantering. De största anledningarna att harmoniseringen mellan IFRS och RAS försvåras är den okunskap och bristfälliga utbildningen som råder hos ryska revisorer och upprättare av finansiella rapporter. Företagen känner sig obekväma och omotiverade och väljer därför inte att frivilligt uppföra finansiella rapporter enligt IFRS. Ur ett kulturellt perspektiv visar studienäven att Rysslands bristande utveckling inom redovisningssystem kan hänvisas till landetsdimensioner inom kulturella värderingar vilka är: lagstadgad kontroll, enhetlighet, konservatism och sekretess. Detta i motsats till IFRS värderingar: professionalism, flexibilitet, optimism och transparens. Länder, såsom Ryssland, med kulturella värderingar inom redovisningspraxis vilka är avlägsna gentemot IFRS värderingar måste övervinna högre hinder för att framgångsrikt implementera och fortsatt kunna använda IFRS. / In 2005, a new rule was introduced. The rule demanded that all listed companies within the European Union (EU) were to maintain their consolidated financial statements in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), starting in the fiscal year of2005. The objective of the IFRS is to make the world economy more transparent, responsible, comparable, and effective. Additionally, the IFRS also was designed to bring confidence, growth, and long-term financial stability to the world economy. The introduction of IFRS has been seen as a revolution in the world of global economy. Many countries all over the world followed the EU and implemented their own new legislation, but many countries were not quite as successful with their implementations or had drastically different approaches to handling the economy. For instance, the Russian Federation is a state with an accounting framework that differs significantly from that of the IFRS and other national accounting frameworks. The discussion of this study shows that, unlike the countries within EU, the Russian Federation has major problems with the implementation of their own IFRS, which led to the purpose of this study. The purpose of this study is to examine the differences between IFRS and the Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), while also comparing how much the Russian Federation implemented IFRS into their economy practices compared to that of a country within EU. In this case, Sweden. Another purpose of this study is to examine how Russian culture can affect the progress and implementation of national and international rules in their reporting sectors. This study will increase the understanding of accounting within the Russian Federation and its development from a cultural perspective. This work is done to facilitate trade between different countries and to increase the comparability of the accounting reports. This study has an abductive approach and the goal is to make a comparative study. An examination of previous research and consolidated financial statements, according to both the IFRS and RAS, can be scrutinized. The examination is limited to the 25 largest companies in the Russian Federation, based on facts of consistent measurement of revenue, profits, assets and market value. When the selection of companies is done, there will be an analysis comparing between the different regulations. An additional cultural perspective will be added contrasting Sweden to Russia. The results of this study show that Russian accounting has a lot of shortcomings in different aspects, which affects the ability to implement IFRS. The issues do not solely exist in the fundamental part of RAS, but also in the cultural values of the country. This makes it difficult for the companies of the Russian Federation to fully implement IFRS. The study demonstrates the big differences between the meaning of similar standards in the RAS compared to IFRS, which complicates the harmonization. One major difference between IFRS and RAS, is that IVIFRS is based on principles and RAS is based on rules. Another important difference is that IFRS put the focus on the reports to the shareholders and other stakeholders, while the RAS primarily focuses on tax management and the government. The main reason why the harmonization between the IFRS and RAS is so complicated is due to the fact that the Russian accountants’ lack both the proper knowledge and education. The companies feel insecure and unjustified, and therefore choose not to voluntarily set up financial reports according to the IFRS. From a cultural point of view, this study also shows that the Russian Federation’s lack of progress in the accounting system can be referred to the cultural basic values of the country, which are: statutory control, uniformity, conservatism and confidentiality. Contrary to this, IFRS basic values are: professionalism, flexibility, optimism and transparency. Countries such as the Russian Federation, with cultural values that differ radically compared to IFRS values, must overcome bigger barriers to successfully implement and continue to use IFRS properly.

År 2005 blev det obligatoriskt för noterade bolag inom EU att upprätta sin koncernredovisning enligt IFRS. Dessa internationella redovisningsstandarder har som mål att skapa jämförbara, transparenta, relevanta, tillförlitliga och begripliga finansiella rapporter vilka behövs för att fatta ekonomiska beslut. Användandet av IFRS ökar inte bara inom EU utan också länder utanför EU, så som Kanada, Ryssland och Japan. Vid införandet av IFRS gick många bolag från att redovisa avskrivning av goodwill, till att göra nedskrivningstest enligt IAS 36 p. 134 och skriva ned goodwill vid behov. Användningen av nedskrivning av goodwill istället för avskrivning kan ge en klarare bild av företagen för intressenter. Det existerar dock kritik mot hur IAS 36 p. 134 och dess föreskrivningar för nedskrivningar tillämpas i redovisningspraxis. Tidigare studier i ämnet harmonisering, har visat att arbetet med att skapa jämförbarhet i praxis inte alltid lyckas. Samtidigt är differentieringen mellan anglosaxiska och kontinentala redovisningssystem inte lika tydliga idag som de varit i det förflutna. Detta gör det intressant att undersöka harmoniseringen och jämförbarheten i redovisningspraxis i företag, med länder som inte är medlemmar i EU. Genom en komparativ studie mellan länderna Kanada, Ryssland och Japan undersöks till vilken grad de tillämpar IFRS och vilken skillnad som existerar mellan de olika länderna.Studien använder sig av ett abduktivt förhållningssätt och syftar till att göra en komparativ studie över hur 85 företag redovisar nedskrivning av goodwill i länderna Kanada, Japan och Ryssland. En kvalitativ ansats, med en komparativ design används i första hand eftersom denna studie syftar till att undersöka harmoniseringsprocessen och dess kontinuerliga utveckling.Resultatet i studien visar att företagen i de tre länderna skiljer sig åt i vilken utsträckning som de redovisar enligt IAS 36 p. 134, som behandlar nedskrivning av goodwill. De kanadensiska företagen följer i genomsnitt paragraferna under IAS 36 p. 134 bättre än de andra länderna, medan resultatet för de företag som tillämpar nedskrivning av goodwill visar att de japanska företagen följer underparagraferna bäst.Slutsatsen som kan dras är att beroende på ett lands redovisningstradition samt vilka redovisningsprocesser som länderna använder, så kommer företagen följa internationella redovisningsprinciper i olika utsträckning. / In 2005, it became mandatory for listed companies within the EU to prepare their consolidated financial statements in accordance with IFRS. These international accounting standards aim at creating comparable, transparent, relevant, reliable and comprehensible financial statements that are needed to make financial decisions. The use of IFRS increases not only within the EU but also in countries outside the EU, such as Canada, Russia and Japan. When introducing IFRS, many companies failed to write impairment tests under IAS 36, p. 134, and write down goodwill if necessary. The use of goodwill write-downs instead of depreciation can provide a clearer picture of the companies for stakeholders. However, there is criticism of how IAS 36, p. 134, and its provisions for impairment are applied in accounting practice.Earlier studies in the subject of harmonization have shown that the work of creating comparability in practice does not always succeed. At the same time, the differentiation between Anglo-Saxon and Continental accounting systems is not as clear today as they have been in the past. This makes it interesting to investigate the harmonization and comparability of accounting practices in companies, with non-EU countries. A comparative study between Canada, Russia and Japan examines the extent to which they apply IFRS and the difference that exists between the different countries.The study uses an abductive approach and aims to make a comparative study of how 85 companies report goodwill impairment in the countries of Canada, Japan and Russia. A qualitative approach, with a comparative design, is used primarily because this study aims at examining the harmonization process and its continuous development.The result of the study shows that companies in the three countries differ to what extent they report in accordance with IAS 36, p. 134, which deals with write-downs of goodwill. Canadian companies, on average, follow the paragraphs of IAS 36, paragraph 134, better than the other countries, while the results of the goodwill impairment show that the Japanese companies comply best with the under-paragraphs.The conclusion that can be drawn is that depending on the country's accounting tradition and the accounting processes used by the countries, companies will comply with international accounting principles to a varying degree.

"The promotion and protection of human rights is important both at the national and international level. However, at the national level, several factors including government excesses tend to negatively affect the status of implementation of human rights. This has led to national human rights situations being measured against international standards. In this regard, different strategies have been developed to ensure compliance with international norms, the most basic of which is that of state reporting. ... This procedure is found in international and regional human rights instruments. Examples are treaties in the United Nations (UN), European, Inter-American and African human rights systems. In the African system, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is the core human rights instrument. The African Charter is seen as a 'unique' document that represents the 'African' concept of rights. ... Under article 1 of the Charter, state parties undertake to adopt legislative and other measures to give effect to the rights in the Charter. Article 62 obliges each state party to submit every two years, from the date the Charter comes into force, a report on the legislative or other measures taken with a view to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the Charter. The organ responsible for evaluation of reports is the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission). ... It should be noted from the outset that the African Commission's competence to ensure effective implementation of the African Charter by member states has been affected due to various problems affecting the state reporting system. The most endemic of these include infrequent and inadequate reporting. ... Chapter one introduces the study, the framework of the problem that the study seeks to address and the methodology to be employed. Chapter two discusses the concept of state reporting, how the system works under the African Charter and the challenges therein. A comparative analysis of other international and regional reporting systems is also made with the chief objective of identifying how they deal with state reporting problems. Chapter three presents an overview of the APRM which includes an analysis of the human rights aspects of the mechanism. Chapter four critically analyses how the APRM can be utilised to help the African Commission address the problems of infrequent and inadequate reporting under the African Charter, and chapter five contains the conclusion and recommendations of the study." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Alejandro Lorite at the Department of Law, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

To increase medicine safety, researchers use adverse event reports to assess causal relationships between drugs and suspected adverse reactions. VigiBase, the world's largest database of such reports, collects data from numerous sources, introducing the risk of several records referring to the same case. These duplicates negatively affect the quality of data and its analysis. Thus, efforts should be made to detect and clean them automatically.  Today, VigiBase holds more than 3.8 million COVID-19 vaccine adverse event reports, making deduplication a challenging problem for existing solutions employed in VigiBase. This thesis project explores methods for this task, explicitly focusing on records with a COVID-19 vaccine. We implement Jaccard similarity, TF-IDF, and BERT to leverage the abundance of information contained in the free-text narratives of the reports. Mean-pooling is applied to create sentence embeddings from word embeddings produced by a pre-trained SapBERT model fine-tuned to maximise the cosine similarity between narratives of duplicate reports. Narrative similarity is quantified by the cosine similarity between sentence embeddings.  We apply a Gradient Boosted Decision Tree (GBDT) model for classifying report pairs as duplicates or non-duplicates. For a more calibrated model, logistic regression fine-tunes the leaf values of the GBDT. In addition, the model successfully implements a ruleset to find reports whose narratives mention a unique identifier of its duplicate. The best performing model achieves 73.3% recall and zero false positives on a controlled testing dataset for an F1-score of 84.6%, vastly outperforming VigiBase’s previously implemented model's F1-score of 60.1%. Further, when manually annotated by three reviewers, it reached an average 87% precision when fully deduplicating 11756 reports amongst records relating to hearing disorders.

Purpose This paper analyses the use of marketing metrics and marketing information and metrics contained in 2006/7 annual reports of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The assumption is that the annual reports are the vehicle whereby listed companies communicate to their shareholders and other stakeholder constituencies. Methodology The assessment criteria is based on Ambler’s (2003) suggested marketing metrics and qualitative data is based on a checklist compiled from various academic sources. The elements which are assessed pertain to brand equity, other customer metrics, segmentation, competition, innovation and environmental and strategic aspects. The information obtained is compared to information required by investors and rating is done based on a grand total maturity. Findings Research results indicate that the use of quantitative metrics and qualitative data is very limited. The majority of companies display a lack of information pertaining to marketing. The results reflect a bi-modal tendency. Half (53%) of the companies do not provide any or poor information on their brand whereas 26% of companies supplied good and excellent information. The grand total score indicates that nearly two thirds (60%) of companies obtain a score of less than 50%, providing insufficient information. On the other hand, 27% of companies provide good and excellent information. Segmentation metrics are generally not reflected in annual reports, neither are competitors. Innovation and environmental aspects influencing market trends are covered by two thirds, however a third provides insufficient information. Other findings include that no standard reporting format exists. Information pertaining to marketing is spread throughout the annual reports. None of the companies provide a glossary of marketing definition or brand terminology. Research implications More in-depth research needs to be conducted on various industry sectors and amongst investors as to their needs. Originality/ value The paper is of value to corporate executives, marketing and communication practitioners who seek to improve communication and to convey optimal information for the investment community. The aim is to stimulate executive management to revise their relationship towards customers, the brand, marketing strategy and investors. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

Patient safety has progressed in 15 years from being a relatively insignificant issue to a position high on the agenda for health care providers, managers and policymakers as well as the general public. Sweden has seen increased national, regional and local patient safety efforts since 2011 when a new patient safety law was introduced and a four-year financial incentive plan was launched to encourage county councils to carry out specified measures and meet certain patient safety related criteria. However, little is known about what structures and processes contribute to improved patient safety outcomes and how the context influences the results. The overall aim of this thesis was to generate knowledge for improved understanding and explanation of influences on patient safety in the county councils in Sweden. To address this issue, five studies were con-ducted: interviews with nurses and infection control practitioners, surveys to patient safety officers and a document analysis of patient safety reports. Patient safety officers are healthcare professionals who hold key positions in their county council’s patient safety work. The findings from the studies were structured through a framework based on Donabedian’s triad (with a contextual element added) and applying a learning perspective, highlight areas that are potentially important to improve the patient safety in Swe-dish county councils. Study I showed that the conditions for the county councils’ patient safety work could be improved. Conducting root-cause analysis and attaining an organizational culture that encourages reporting and avoids blame were perceived to be of importance for improving patient safety. Study II showed that nurses perceived facilitators and barriers for improved pa-tient safety at several system levels. Study III revealed many different types of obstacles to effective surveillance of health care-associated infec-tions (HAIs), the majority belonging to the early stages of the surveillance process. Many of the obstacles described by the infection control practi-tioners restricted the use of results in efforts to reduce HAIs. Study IV of the Patient Safety Reports identified 14 different structure elements of patient safety work, 31 process elements and 23 outcome elements. These reports were perceived by patient safety officers to be useful for providing a structure for patient safety work in the county councils, for enhancing the focus on patient safety issues and for learning from the patient safety work that is undertaken. In Study V the patient safety officers rated efforts to reduce the use of antibiotics and improved communication be-tween health care practitioners and patients as most important for attaining current and future levels of patient safety in their county council. The patient safety officers also perceived that the most successful county councils regarding patient safety have good leadership support, a long-term commitment and a functional work organisation for patient safety work. Taken together, the five studies of this thesis demonstrate that patient safety is a multifaceted problem that requires multifaceted solutions. The findings point to an insufficient transition of assembled data and information into action and learning for improved patient safety.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the objectives of corporate reporting is the communication of information on a company's performance to all stakeholders. The traditional financial statements (balance sheet, income statement and the cash flow statement) do not sufficiently meet all of the above requirements. In view of this, the study project acknowledges the need for corporate reporting beyond the traditional conventional financial reports. This therefore necessitated the use of a Value-Added Statement (VAS) as one of the financial statements that is regarded to have the ability to enhance corporate reporting. A VAS is based on an economic concept and, therefore, a contribution of a specific company towards the Gross Domestic Product (GOP) can be directly measured. Although a VAS does not solely disclose all of the information pertaining to the economic performance of business enterprise, it is believed that the statement can assist interested parties in making well-informed economic decisions. However, the publication of a VAS is still not a statutory regulation in South Africa. The findings indicate some limitations in the manner in which a VAS is published. The format is not statutory and is not audited, but there are opportunities for further research and improvement. This aspect has unfortunately led some users to mistrust the statement. For example, it almost always indicates that the labour component takes most of the value added (Hird, 1983). Statistical tests (e.g. Shapiro-Wilk's W Spearman R Test, histograms) have been conducted. These tests show a weak negative relationship between change in number of employees and change in value added by each employee. This suggests that value added per employee is not the only factor that contributes to productivity. There is therefore not enough evidence to conclude that companies that reduce the number of employees improve productivity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Een van die doelwitte van korporatiewe verslaggewing is om inligting oor die prestasie van 'n maatskappy aan alle belangegroepe te kommunikeer. Die tradisionele finansiële state (balansstaat, inkomstestaat en kontantvloeistaat) voldoen nie heeltemal aan bogenoemde vereistes nie. In die lig hiervan erken die studieprojek die behoefte aan korporatiewe verslaggewing bo en behalwe die tradisionele finansiële verslae. Dit het dus die gebruik van die toegevoegdewaardestaat (TWS) genoodsaak as een van die finansiële state wat daartoe kan bydra om korporatiewe verslaggewing te verbeter. 'n TWS is gebaseer op 'n ekonomiese konsep. Daarom kan 'n bydrae van 'n spesifieke maatskappy tot die Bruto Binnelandse Produk (BBP) direk gemeet word. Hoewel 'n toegevoegdewaardestaat nie op sy eie al die inligting oor die ekonomiese prestasie van 'n besigheidsonderneming blootlê nie, kan dit belangstellende partye help om ingeligte ekonomiese besluite te neem. Die publikasie van 'n toegevoegdewaardestaat is egter nog nie 'n statutêre regulasie in Suid-Afrika nie. Die bevindinge dui op 'n aantal beperkinge in die wyse waarop 'n TWS gepubliseer word. Die formaat is nie statutêr nie en word nie geouditeer nie, maar daar is geleenthede vir verdere navorsing en verbetering. Hierdie aspek het ongelukkig daartoe gelei dat sommige gebruikers die staat wantrou. Byvoorbeeld: Die VAS dui feitlik altyd aan dat die arbeidskomponent die meeste van die toegevoegde waarde opneem (Hird, 1983). Statistiese toetse (bv. Shapiro-Wilk se W Spearman R Toets, histogramme) is uitgevoer. Hierdie toetse dui op 'n swak negatiewe verhouding tussen verandering in die aantal werknemers en verandering in die waarde wat deur elke werknemer toegevoeg word. Dit dui daarop dat die waarde wat per werknemer toegevoeg word nie die enigste faktor is wat bydra tot produktiwiteit nie. Daarom lewer dit nie genoegsaam bewys om tot die gevolgtrekking te kom dat maatskappye wat hul aantal werknemers verminder terselfdertyd produktiwiteit verhoog nie.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine if underlying psychological factors have an impact on shareholders' investment decisions and if forecasting quarterly reports have an impact on shareholders' investment decisions. Methods: The study combines an application of two different methods, survey and an event study. The purpose of the survey was to investigate if psychological factors interfere with shareholders' investment decisions. The Event study is designed to measure equity market reaction to the forecasts and if any changes occurred in the companies' share price. Theoretical: This study is based on established theories in the fields of behavioral finance, the efficient market hypothesis and the economic man. Conlusion: Underlying psychological factors have a certain impact on the shareholders' investment decisions. Both events study and survey, in particularly the part of the survey, which includes forecasts, showed that the shareholders are not affected by the forecasts published by market analysts.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work