Title: Which factors affect the timeliness of private companies’ accounting reports?Level: Bachelor’s Thesis, Business AdministrationAuthors: Lucinda Jonsson and Sarah EdlundSupervisor: Fredrik HartwigDate: 2024 - JanuaryAim: To study which factors affect the timeliness of private companies regarding thepublication of accounting information. Timeliness is a decisive qualitative criterion thataffects the usefulness of financial reporting. Information that is not current is less relevant tostakeholders. The majority of previous studies regarding the timeliness are made on listedcompanies. This is despite the fact that the proportion of private companies in Sweden aresignificantly greater than the public ones, that 99% of all European companies are private andthat private companies account for more than half of Europe's GDP. There are alsodifferences between unlisted and listed companies.Method: In this quantitative study, secondary data have been used from previous scientificarticles concerning the timeliness of private companies, in order to do a meta-analysis. Theeight articles used in the meta-analysis were suggested by our supervisor. Some articles weregathered by independent searches and chain searches. To present and interpret the resultsfrom the meta-analysis, a forest plot was generated for each result.Result & conclusion: Companies with high debt ratio will to a greater extent submit theiraccounting reports late, rather than companies with low debt ratio. Larger companies will to agreater extent submit their accounting reports late, compared to smaller companies. Therewas no significant relationship regarding audit, gender on the board and bankruptcy risk (taxdebt). Size and debt ratio do not affect the lead time.Contribution of the thesis: Doing a meta-study on private companies regarding factors thataffect timeliness, which has never been done before.Suggestion for future research: Doing a meta-analysis with values from both private andpublic companies in one meta-analysis. It’s only been done separately before. Anothersuggestion is to do this study again, but to use raw data directly from the researchers insteadof data from published articles. It’s not the same information that appears in publishedarticles, which can contribute to more precise results.Key words: Timeliness. Accounting information. Private firms. Determinants. Financialaccounting regulation. / Titel: Vilka faktorer påverkar aktualiteten gällande onoterade företagsredovisningsrapporter?Nivå: Examensarbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomi.Författare: Lucinda Jonsson och Sarah EdlundHandledare: Fredrik HartwigDatum: 2024 - januariSyfte: Att studera vilka faktorer som påverkar aktualiteten för onoterade företag gällandeoffentliggörandet av redovisningsinformation. Aktualitet är ett avgörande kvalitativtkriterium som påverkar den ekonomiska redovisningens användbarhet, då information sominte är aktuell är mindre relevant för intressenter. Majoriteten av tidigare studier är utförda pånoterade företag. Detta trots att andelen onoterade företag i Sverige är betydligt större än denoterade, att 99% av alla europeiska företag är onoterade samt att de onoterade företagen stårför mer än hälften av Europas BNP. Skillnader finns mellan onoterade och noterade företag.Metod: I denna kvantitativa studie har sekundärdata använts från tidigare vetenskapligaartiklar rörande aktualiteten i onoterade företag, för att kunna utföra en metaanalys. De åttaartiklar som är använda i metaanalysen är föreslagna av handledare. En sökning av artiklarhar sedan gjorts på egen hand genom kedjesökning och självständig sökning. För attpresentera och tolka resultaten från metaanalysen genererades en forest plot för respektiveresultat.Resultat & slutsats: Företag med högre skuldsättningsgrad lämnar in sinaredovisningsrapporter sent i större utsträckning än företag med låg skuldsättningsgrad. Störreföretag kommer i högre utsträckning lämna in sina redovisningsrapporter för sent, jämförtmed mindre företag. Det fanns inget signifikant samband gällande revision, kön i styrelsenoch konkursrisk (skatteskuld). Storlek och skuldsättningsgrad påverkar inte ledtiden.Examensarbetets bidrag: Att utföra en metastudie på onoterade företag gällande faktorersom påverkar aktualiteten, vilket aldrig har utförts tidigare.Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Att utföra en metaanalys med värden från både onoteradeoch noterade företag i en och samma metaanalys. Ett annat förslag är att utföra denna studieigen, men att använda rådata direkt från forskarna istället för data från publicerade artiklar.Nyckelord: Aktualitet. Redovisningsinformation. Onoterade företag. Determinanter.Finansiell redovisningsreglering.

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Data sensing and retrieval in WSNs have a great applicability in military, environmental, medical, home and commercial applications. In query-based WSNs, a user would issue a query with QoS requirements in terms of reliability and timeliness, and expect a correct response to be returned within the deadline. Satisfying these QoS requirements requires that fault tolerance mechanisms through redundancy be used, which may cause the energy of the system to deplete quickly. This dissertation presents the design and validation of adaptive fault tolerant QoS control algorithms with the objective to achieve the desired quality of service (QoS) requirements and maximize the system lifetime in query-based WSNs. We analyze the effect of redundancy on the mean time to failure (MTTF) of query-based cluster-structured WSNs and show that an optimal redundancy level exists such that the MTTF of the system is maximized. We develop a hop-by-hop data delivery (HHDD) mechanism and an Adaptive Fault Tolerant Quality of Service Control (AFTQC) algorithm in which we utilize "source" and "path" redundancy with the goal to satisfy application QoS requirements while maximizing the lifetime of WSNs. To deal with network dynamics, we investigate proactive and reactive methods to dynamically collect channel and delay conditions to determine the optimal redundancy level at runtime. AFTQC can adapt to network dynamics that cause changes to the node density, residual energy, sensor failure probability, and radio range due to energy consumption, node failures, and change of node connectivity. Further, AFTQC can deal with software faults, concurrent query processing with distinct QoS requirements, and data aggregation. We compare our design with a baseline design without redundancy based on acknowledgement for data transmission and geographical routing for relaying packets to demonstrate the feasibility. We validate analytical results with extensive simulation studies. When given QoS requirements of queries in terms of reliability and timeliness, our AFTQC design allows optimal "source" and "path" redundancies to be identified and applied dynamically in response to network dynamics such that not only query QoS requirements are satisfied, as long as adequate resources are available, but also the lifetime of the system is prolonged. / Ph. D.

本研究之目的在於探討公司治理機制對盈餘保守性之影響。在經營權及所有權分離的情況下，代理問題因此而生，公司適當的採用保守原則可以緩和代理成本的問題。同樣的，公司治理機制之強弱與治理風險的高低也與代理成本息息相關，因此，本研究藉由檢視盈餘對訊息反映之不對稱性與公司治理機制間之關係，以探討治理機制是否會影響公司盈餘之保守性，本研究亦探討近年來我國整體外在訴訟環境之轉變，對於公司盈餘保守性之影響。 本研究結果顯示，我國公司盈餘之保守性隨著外部法律環境漸趨嚴格，而日益增高。在先天治理風險較高的情況下，例如：董監質押比率、大股東持股比率愈高，公司盈餘之保守程度愈高。另一方面，董事及經理人整體權益誘因較高的情況下，盈餘保守程度較低。在外部治理機制方面，機構投資人持股愈高，盈餘偏向不保守；負債比率較高之公司，其盈餘則偏向保守。在董事會治理機制對盈餘保守性之影響方面，除董事會規模愈大，盈餘愈趨保守外，監察人規模及獨立董監對盈餘保守性之影響並不顯著。 整體而言，我國公司運用保守原則來緩和代理問題的情況確實存在。但我國公司治理機制對盈餘保守性之影響，可能主要來自於先天治理風險之差異，後天治理機制之影響效果則尚不顯著。 / Past research shows that accounting conservatism produces earnings that reflect bad news faster than good news. This study investigates the role of accounting conservatism in corporate governance. More specifically, we use several variables, including board and ownership structures, outside shareholders and independent director and supervisor, to assess a company’s characteristics in corporate governance. Our results show that the sensitivity of earnings to bad news is significantly higher (lower) for strong (weak) governance risk firms and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings is significantly higher for the sample firms in recent year. More specifically, we find that (i) the number of board directors, the percentage of outside directors’ shareholdings and the pledge rate of directors’ shareholdings are positively related to conservatism, and (ii) the percentage of institutional ownership is negatively related to conservatism. There is no evidence to support that a company’s independent directors and supervisors can improve the conservatism in its earnings. Our results hold after controlling for firm size, growth opportunities, industry, and audit quality. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion in Watts (2003) that accounting conservatism plays a role in corporate governance.

Submitted by Onia Arantes Albuquerque (onia.ufg@gmail.com) on 2018-10-08T14:21:29Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Natália Alves Martins - 2018.pdf: 4568534 bytes, checksum: 15ff32b11b6f167376c8b048da337f7c (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2018-10-09T11:01:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Natália Alves Martins - 2018.pdf: 4568534 bytes, checksum: 15ff32b11b6f167376c8b048da337f7c (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-09T11:01:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Natália Alves Martins - 2018.pdf: 4568534 bytes, checksum: 15ff32b11b6f167376c8b048da337f7c (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / INTRODUCTION: Many countries have reported outbreaks of immunopreventable diseases, posing vaccination monitoring at a timely age as a strategic indicator for immunization programs to estimate actual protection. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the timely vaccination of the primary series of the pentavalent vaccine in children under 12 months of age, vaccinated in health units to the Unified Health System. METHODS: A population-based retrospective cohort study with children born in 2014 in the city of Goiânia, Goiás. Data from the Ambulatory Care Control System (SICAA) containing data from vaccines and the Live Birth Information System (SINASC) containing maternal and child data were used. The SICAA and SINASC databases were linked and re-structured through a deterministic linkage to identify the records of the same child. The follow-up time for each child was 365 days after the birth. Only doses and intervals between doses valid for analysis were used. The 10-valent pneumococcal vaccine (PCV10) was used as a vaccine to compare the receipt of the pentavalent vaccine. The timely endpoint vaccination of the three doses in the primary series was defined as the dose of vaccine given up to 30 days of the recommended age. Poisson regression was used to identify predictors of timely vaccination of the primary series of the pentavalent vaccine. RESULTS: Of the 13,523 children included, 77.0% (CI95% 76.3-77.7) and 79.1% (CI95% 78.4-79.8) received three valid doses of the primary series of the pentavalent vaccine and PCV10, respectively. Only 47.1% (95% CI 46.2-48.0) and 47.6% (CI 95% 46.8-48.4) received timely the three doses of pentavalent vaccine and PCV10, respectively. The predictive factors for timely vaccination of the pentavalent primary series and PCV10 were the same: married mother; 7 or more prenatal visits and the mother's age equal to or greater than 20 years. CONCLUSION: Almost 80% of children received valid three primary doses of pentavalent and PCV10 vaccines, but fewer than half of the birth cohort received them on time. New efforts are needed to improve timely vaccination and get the maximum benefit from vaccination. / INTRODUÇÃO: Muitos países têm relatado surtos de doenças imunopreveníveis, colocando o monitoramento da vacinação em idade oportuna como indicador estratégico para os programas de imunização estimarem a real proteção. OBJETIVO: Analisar a vacinação oportuna da série primária da vacina pentavalente em crianças menores de doze meses de idade, vacinadas em unidades de saúde ao Sistema Único de Saúde. METODOLOGIA: Estudo de coorte retrospectiva de base populacional com crianças nascidas em 2014 no município de Goiânia, Goiás. Foram utilizados dados do Sistema de Controle do Atendimento Ambulatorial (SICAA) que contém dados de vacinas e do Sistema de Informação de Nascidos Vivos (SINASC) que contém dados maternos e da criança. As bases de dados SICAA e SINASC foram vinculadas e reestruturadas por meio de linkage determinístico para identificação dos registros de mesma criança. O tempo de seguimento de cada criança foi de 365 dias. Foram utilizadas apenas doses e intervalos entre doses válidos para análise. A vacina pneumocócica 10-valente (PCV10) foi empregada como vacina de comparação do recebimento da vacina pentavalente. O desfecho vacinação oportuna das três doses da série primária foi definida como a dose de vacina administrada até 30 dias após a idade recomendada. Utilizou-se regressão de Poisson para identificar os fatores preditores da vacinação oportuna da série primária da vacina pentavalente. RESULTADOS: Das 13.523 crianças incluídas, 77,0% (IC95% 76,3-77,7) e 79,1% (IC95% 78,4-79,8) receberam três doses válidas da série primária da vacina pentavalente e da PCV10, respectivamente. Apenas 47,1% (IC95% 46,2-48,0) e 47,6% (IC95% 46,8-48,4) receberam oportunamente as três doses da vacina pentavalente e da PCV10, respectivamente. Os fatores preditores à vacinação oportuna da série primária da pentavalente e da PCV10 foram os mesmos: mãe casada; 7 ou mais consultas de pré-natal e idade da mãe maior ou igual a 20 anos. CONCLUSÃO: Quase 80% das crianças receberam três doses primárias válidas de vacinas pentavalente e PCV10, mas menos da metade da coorte de nascimento receberam oportunamente. Novos esforços são necessários para melhorar a vacinação oportuna e obter o máximo benefício da vacinação.

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-11-07T10:07:02Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Polyana Maria Pimenta Mandacarú - 2012.pdf: 2660702 bytes, checksum: 150c94c5dbf4b1bfc9553e20afc00509 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-11-07T12:13:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Polyana Maria Pimenta Mandacarú - 2012.pdf: 2660702 bytes, checksum: 150c94c5dbf4b1bfc9553e20afc00509 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-07T12:13:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Polyana Maria Pimenta Mandacarú - 2012.pdf: 2660702 bytes, checksum: 150c94c5dbf4b1bfc9553e20afc00509 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-28 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / Epidemiologic surveillance has among its goals to provide information for diseases control. In this context, surveillance activities should be systematic, timely and simple to produce adequate data. According to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control surveillance systems present essential attributes to perform properly, being timeliness one of these attributes. This work aims to evaluate the timeliness of the surveillance systems for dengue, meningitis, exanthematic diseases and tuberculosis based on the data available from two versions of the National Notifiable Diseases Information System (Sinan) between 2005 and 2008. The analysis of notification timeliness for tuberculosis cases has shown that more than 50% of the cases were notified on the same day of the diagnostic, reaching 90% after 40 dias. For the other diseases evaluated, the median time for notification was up to 3 days, with 90% of the cases being reported within 13 to 17 days. There was no difference in the timeliness of notification according to sex. The analysis of investigation timeliness highlighted that 90% of the cases initiated this process on the same day of the notification. The analysis of the interval for data entry in Sinan presented a significant loss of timeliness with a median of 10 to 14 days after the notification for the acute diseases and 25 to 31 days for tuberculosis. The analysis of treatment timeliness for tuberculosis showed that 70% of the cases started their treatment at the day of diagnostic. The timeliness of case closing was adequate for all evaluated diseases, except for the dengue and the exanthematic cases in 2007 and 2008. The national surveillance system presented adequate timeliness of notification and investigation for all the diseases evaluated in this study, regardless of the version of Sinan. However, it is necessary to improve the timeliness of data entry, treatment and completion of the investigation of the cases. / A vigilância epidemiológica tem entre seus objetivos o fornecimento de informações para a execução de ações para controle de doenças e agravos. Nesse contexto, é fundamental que o sistema de vigilância seja sistemático, oportuno, simples e corretamente alimentado para produzir dados com maior qualidade. De acordo com o Centro de Prevenção e Controle de Doenças, os sistemas de Vigilância possuem atributos essenciais para o funcionamento adequado sendo um destes a oportunidade. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a oportunidade do sistema de vigilância epidemiológica da dengue, meningites, doenças exantemáticas e tuberculose a partir dos dados registrados em duas versões do Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação (Sinan) entre 2005 e 2008. A análise da oportunidade de notificação para os casos de tuberculose observou que mais de 50% dos casos notificados no mesmo dia do diagnóstico, atingindo 90% após 40 dias. Para os demais agravos, a mediana de tempo para a notificação foi de até 03 dias, com 90% dos casos sendo notificados entre 13-17 dias. A oportunidade da notificação foi semelhante de acordo com o sexo. Na análise da oportunidade de investigação observamos uma excelente oportunidade do sistema, com 90% dos casos apresentando o início desse processo no mesmo dia da notificação. Para o intervalo de digitação, ocorreu uma perda de oportunidade significante com mediana dos casos entre 10-14 dias para eventos agudos e 25 e 31 dias para tuberculose. Na análise da oportunidade de tratamento cerca de 70% dos casos de tuberculose iniciaram o tratamento no mesmo dia do diagnóstico. Na avaliação da oportunidade de encerramento da investigação, apenas os casos de dengue e doenças exantemáticas não apresentaram encerramento oportuno nos anos de 2007 e 2008. O sistema de vigilância nacional apresentou oportunidade adequada para a notificação e investigação de todos os agravos do estudo, independente da versão do Sinan. Entretanto, são necessárias melhorias na oportunidade de digitação, tratamento e encerramento dos casos.

Despite technological advances in public health informatics, the evaluation of infectious disease surveillance systems data remains incomplete. In this study, a thorough evaluation was performed of the West Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System (WVEDSS, 2007-2010) and the West Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System NationalEDSS -Based System (WVEDSS-NBS; March 2012 - March 2014) for Category II infectious diseases in West Virginia. The purpose was to identify key areas in the surveillance system process from disease diagnosis to disease prevention that need improvement. Grounded in the diffusion of innovation theory, a quasi-experimental, interrupted, time-series design was used to evaluate the 2 data sets. Research questions examined differences in mean reporting time, the 24-hour standard, and comparison of complete fields (DOB, gender etc.) of the data sets using independent samples t tests. The study found (a) that the mean reporting times were shorter for WVEDSS compared to WVEDSS-NBS (p < .05) for all vaccine-preventable infectious diseases (VPID) in Category II except for mumps; (b) that the 24-hour standard was not met for WVEDSS compared to WVEDSS-NBS (p < .05) for all VPID in Category II except for mumps, and (c) that most fields were complete for WVEDSS compared to WVEDSS-NBS (p < .05) for all VPID in Category II except for meningococcal disease. Healthcare professionals in the state can use the results of this research to improve the system attributes of timeliness and completeness. Implications for positive social change included improved access to public health data to better understand health disparities, which, in turn could reduce morbidity and mortality within the population.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Introduction: Cancer registries collect tumor-related data to monitor incident rates and support population-based research. A common concern with using population-based registry data for research is reporting timeliness. Data timeliness have been recognized as an important data characteristic by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Yet, few recent studies in the United States (U.S.) have systemically measured timeliness. The goal of this research is to evaluate the quality of cancer data and examine methods by which the reporting process can be improved. The study aims are: 1- evaluate the timeliness of cancer cases at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) Cancer Registry, 2- identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to timely reporting, and 3- reengineer the current reporting process to improve turnaround time. Method: For Aim 1: Using the ISDH dataset from 2000 to 2009, we evaluated the reporting timeliness and subtask within the process cycle. For Aim 2: Certified cancer registrars reporting for ISDH were invited to a semi-structured interview. The interviews were recorded and qualitatively analyzed. For Aim 3: We designed a reengineered workflow to minimize the reporting timeliness and tested it using simulation. Result: The results show variation in the mean reporting time, which ranged from 426 days in 2003 to 252 days in 2009. The barriers identified were categorized into six themes and the most common barrier was accessing medical records at external facilities. We also found that cases reside for a few months in the local hospital database while waiting for treatment data to become available. The recommended workflow focused on leveraging a health information exchange for data access and adding a notification system to inform registrars when new treatments are available.

In this thesis, we present a MAC-layer packet scheduling algorithm, called Best-effort Packet Scheduling Algorithm(BPA), for real-time switched Ethernet networks. BPA considers a message model where application messages have trans-node timeliness requirements that are specified using Jensen's benefit functions. The algorithm seeks to maximize aggregate message benefit by allowing message packets to inherit benefit functions of their parent messages and scheduling packets to maximize aggregate packet-level benefit. Since the packet scheduling problem is NP-hard, BPA heuristically computes schedules with a worst-case cost of O(n^2), faster than the O(n^3) cost of the best known Chen and Muhlethaler's Algorithm(CMA) for the same problem. Our simulation studies show that BPA performs the same or significantly better than CMA. We also construct a real-time switched Ethernet by prototyping an Ethernet switch using a Personal Computer(PC) and implementing BPA in the network protocol stack of the Linux kernel for packet scheduling. Our actual performance measurements of BPA using the network implementation reveal the effectiveness of the algorithm. Finally, we derive timeliness feasibility conditions of real-time switched Ethernet systems that use the BPA algorithm. The feasibility conditions allow real-time distributed systems to be constructed using BPA, with guaranteed soft timeliness. / Master of Science

The broad aim of this research was to assess the decision-usefulness of environmental reports produced by South African companies that are listed on the Johanessburg Securities Exchange (JSE) to users of the reports. The study was motivated by a lack of research on the decision-usefulness of environmental reports in South Africa. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase in form of a content analysis evaluated the decision-usefulness of the environmental reports of top 100 JSE-listed South African companies using a control list and a judgement scale. The second phase in form of a questionnaire survey was aimed at determining, the information needs of users of environmental reports produced by South African companies (that are listed on the JSE), the extent to which they read and employ the reports for making decisions. In addition, this phase was meant to ascertain the degree of users' satisfaction with the decision-usefulness of the environmental reports as well as elicit their suggestions on ways of improving the reports. Furthermore, the second phase was aimed at determining the users’ perception of the relative importance of environmental reports as well as ascertaining whether there was an expectation gap between the users and the preparers of the reports with regard to their decision-usefulness. The results of the content analysis phase of the study indicate that the environmental reports of the sampled companies were decision-useful, however their decision-usefulness varied widely. Although decision-useful, the environmental reports of the sampled companies were not comparable. In addition, the environmental reports of companies from sectors with a significant impact on the environment, and those of large companies were more decision-useful than the reports of companies from sectors with an insignificant impact on the environment and those of smaller companies. The results of the questionnaire survey phase of the study indicate that users prefer balanced environmental reports that disclose both negative and positive aspects that identify and describe key relevant issues, that are specific and contain accurate information, and that provide future oriented information. In addition, users prefer environmental reports that identify and address key stakeholders and their concerns, demonstrate the integration of environmental issues into core business processes, and that compare quantitative impacts against best practice. Furthermore, the results also indicate that users do read environmental reports, mostly from companies’ websites Portable Document Format (PDF) annual reports and that they mostly use the environmental reports for research, their own knowledge, and to hold companies accountable. However, users are not fully satisfied with the decision-usefulness of the environmental reports as they feel that there is a need to improve the reports in order to make them more decision-useful. The results also indicate that users perceive environmental reports to be more important than any other type of reports, most notably the financial reports. Comparing the responses of the users to those of preparers on various issues pertaining to the decision-usefulness of environmental reports, significant differences were found between the views of the two groups. These differences provide ample evidence that is consistent with the existence of an environmental reporting expectation gap in South Africa. This study makes several original contributions to environmental reporting literature, most notable of which is that, it is the first study in the South African context to empirically evaluate the quality (decision-usefulness) of environmental reports in line with the accounting conceptual frameworks and the GRI guidelines combined. By so doing, the study introduces to the academic literature an extensive five dimensional qualitative characteristic framework for evaluating the quality (decision-usefulness) of environmental reports. In addition, the study uniquely employs the decision-usefulness theory to provide insights into the environmental reporting practices of South African companies that are listed on the JSE. In so doing, it re-contextualises the theory that is typically employed in explaining financial reporting, and demonstrates its applicability in explaining the decision-usefulness of the environmental reporting practices of South African companies that are listed on the JSE. / Accounting / D. Com. (Accounting)