The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement and strategic management system which appears suitable for use by all types and sizes of business. The BSC's greatest strength for most businesses comes from its innate ability to integrate financial and non-financial measures together by measuring both strategic and business performance across four interrelated perspectives. Many studies have shown that the BSC can be successfully implemented within large-scale companies and organizations. However, there is limited empirical evidence regarding the use of the BSC within small companies. This study adds to the existing literature by reporting the results of a comparative investigation of BSC awareness and use within small companies located in the UK and Cyprus. In addition, the study examines the reasons for non-adoption by small companies and whether these companies use performances measures that are similar to those typically contained within the BSC model. The research data was collected from self-completed questionnaires that were distributed to 500 companies in the UK and Cyprus. The findings of the survey suggest that the majority of small companies, especially in the UK, are unaware of the BSC, and consequently levels of BSC usage are extremely low. Certain respondents believed that BSC is an unsuitable tool for small companies and that its implementation is beyond the resources available to such entities. However, the findings also suggest that even though very few small companies actually use the BSC, many such companies appear to use performances measures and indicators similar to those typically included within a BSC model.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to comparatively examine the cost and the overlooked revenue efficiency of Islamic and commercial banks in the aftermath of the crisis, operating in nine MENA-based countries during the 2010-2017 financial period, where the established empirical work is relatively limited. The authors also update the research where they use recent data sets and they provide for a targeted, structured literature review pre- and post-crisis in the Gulf region. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine cost and revenue efficiency of 25 major Islamic banks (IBs) and 25 major conventional banks (CBs). They conduct tests on the determinants of such variables. In the first stage of the analysis, they measure efficiency by using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique. The analysis performs regressions where these also reveal that the bank efficiency index is influenced by various bank type-specific attributes. It also seems that tighter restrictions on bank activities are negatively associated with bank efficiency. Second stage analysis, which accounts for banking environment and bank-level characteristics, confirms these results. Findings Conventional banks are both more cost and revenue efficient than Islamic banks over the period under examination. The analysis also reveals that the bank efficiency index is influenced by bank-type attributes. Greater presence of fixed capital resources has positive effects on growth in both Islamic and conventional banking. The major constraints impeding Islamic banking growth include labour costs. The authors examine whether and how bank-type orientation affects the cost and revenue efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks. They find that post-crisis Islamic banks underperform their conventional counterparts on both accounts within a mixed banking system. Research limitations/implications This study did not include comparative data before the 2008 financial crisis. There is also a great deal of heterogeneity among Islamic banks in the samples that have been examined here and by other researchers and the constructed efficiency scores should be interpreted cautiously as divergent Islamic banks are pooled in the same samples. Practical implications This study identified factors that may help bank managers to improve their financial outlook by controlling revenue and cost efficiency profitability. These factors could as well help to understand how some indicators affect both cost and revenue efficiency, particularly in Islamic banking. It also seems that tighter restrictions on Islamic bank activities are negatively associated with bank efficiency. Islamic banks that directly compete with their conventional counterparts in the aftermath of the crisis are less efficient on both the cost and revenue frontiers. They are potentially hindered by the differential regulations of supervising authorities in dual banking systems. Social implications The authors provide recommendations regarding regulatory and other issues that are relevant to Islamic banking and further research is suggested. Findings are relevant to a variety of stakeholders (managers, policymakers and regulators). Islamic banking authorities could re-examine the benefits of partially moving to a more standardized/conventional system of banking by lifting some trading restrictions. In addition, developing and maintaining managerial skills is an indispensable instrument for the long-term endurance of any system. A related aspect is thus an effort to determine the holistic efficiency (including managerial) of Islamic banks as a guide for policymakers to improve managerial performance. Originality/value There is relatively limited empirical work that investigates the efficiency between Islamic and conventional banking in the aftermath of the crisis in the Gulf region despite the growing importance of this region on political and economic levels. The authors also examine the revenue efficiency measure often under-researched in the literature and particularly important for comparative studies. Overseas-owned banks have attained much higher infiltration levels in middle-eastern countries over the past decade. It has also been suggested that market penetration differences may also be related to bank efficiency concerns among countries and their financial systems as opposed to types of banks.

Among the most important cases considered in financial statements by investors and other users of financial statements is earnings-related information. Given the need of the users of financial statements for the future information of companies and use of past data to predict the future, it seems that earnings forecast is among the favorite items of investors. In fact, earnings forecast by the management provides information about the future of companies. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of surplus free cash flow, corporate governance and firm size on earnings predictability in companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. This research is an applied study and of post-event causal type. For data analysis, OLS regression method has been applied using Eviews‫‬ software. The research results demonstrate that there is a statistically significant relationship between earnings predictability and surplus free cash flow and good corporate mechanisms play a positive role in the relationship between surplus free cash flow and earnings predictability. According to the results, in large companies, good corporate mechanisms enhance the relationship between surplus free cash flow and earnings predictability.

This paper provides empirical evidence that Croatian companies manage reported earnings to avoid losses and earnings declines. Specifically, we find that the cross-sectional distribution of scaled earnings and changes in earnings show high frequencies of small positive earnings and small increases in earnings while the frequencies of small losses and small decreases in earnings are less frequent. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these discontinuities are likely due to discretionary accruals. We examine the frequency distribution of reported earnings after removing discretionary accruals and find that the cross sectional distributions of non-discretionary scaled earnings shows lower frequencies of small positive earnings and higher frequencies of small negative earnings. Additionally, the cross sectional distribution of non-discretionary change in earnings demonstrates mixed frequencies of non-discretionary changes in earnings. Overall, this paper adds new empirical evidence to the benchmark-beating literature by demonstrating international evidence of earnings management around zero earnings and zero earnings changes benchmarks.

This paper assesses the comparative impact of the 2007 global financial crisis on the short and long-term performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Asian-Pacific emerging markets of Thailand, China, South Korea, and Malaysia. Our results indicate that the short-term performance or underpricing of Thai IPOs increased from 19% to 44% between the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods. IPOs in each of the three other emerging markets experienced a reduction in underpricing after the financial crisis. While our results are consistent with previous IPO research, the degree of underpricing in each emerging market exceeded the levels found in studies of IPOs in developed countries. In terms of the long-term performance of IPOs, our results suggest that IPOs in Thailand, China, and South Korea performed better in the post-crisis period, while Malaysian IPOs performed worse. Our overall findings suggest that the 2007 financial crisis affected IPO performance and economic growth in each of the markets studied.