Research aim: This study seeks to examine the knowledge and attitudinal factors that influence financial statement usage among Malaysian individual investors. Design/ Methodology/Approach: A survey was conducted on a sample of 399 Malaysian individual investors using self-administered questionnaires. Research finding: The findings reveal that financial statement usage is positively associated with subjective norm, financial statement knowledge, attitude towards financial statement usage, and perceived behavioural control. However, it is negatively associated with trading frequency attitude. Theoretical contribution/Originality: This study seeks to contribute to the very limited research on the factors that influence individual investors' financial statement usage. Additionally, it enriches the literature on financial statement usage among individual investors in Malaysia by showing the extent to which the three main financial statements are utilised by them. Furthermore, this research extends financial literacy research on stock investing to the realm of financial statement usage by highlighting the influence of financial statement knowledge on this behaviour. Thus, the study seeks to bridge the gap between financial reporting and financial literacy. Practitioner/Policy implication: The findings provide useful insights for the providers of investor education programmes in developing more holistic programmes. Research limitation/Implication: Non-random sampling was employed in this study, albeit such an approach is consistent with the literature. Also, respondents comprised individual investors who are proficient in English because the researchers seek to complement Malaysian studies on the readability of English language financial statement narratives.

This paper has two main objectives. Firstly, it reviews relevant literature on the experiences of different levels of governments worldwide in adopting public sector accrual accounting (PSAA). Secondly, it critically analyses these studies and seeks to identify gaps in the extant literature to provide suggestions for future research. We reviewed and analysed 136 peer‐reviewed journal articles on PSAA over a 23‐year period spanning different levels of government worldwide. Our review and analysis suggest that the adoption of PSAA by different levels of government worldwide has been a long and complex process requiring possibly substantial implementation costs that are undisclosed to the public. Owing to the absence of high‐quality research providing empirical evidence of the benefits of PSAA, we conclude that thus far, the benefits of PSAA to government and citizens have yet to be substantiated. A limitation of this paper is that it is confined to the keywords used in the literature search. Nonetheless, the approach of aggregating and analysing these articles collectively allows this paper to not only provide useful insights into understanding the determinants and outcomes of PSAA but also to offer meaningful directions for future research with regards to multi‐level PSAA.

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Purpose To assist Malaysian public-listed companies (PLCs) in preparing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, Bursa Malaysia Berhad (BMB) launched the second edition of the Sustainability Reporting Guide (SRG) in 2018. This new SRG edition has several additional requirements for CSR reporting (CSRR), the most important of which is a chapter on assurance which provides detailed guidance on how it may be carried out. This study aims to determine whether the new SRG edition influences the extent of CSRR, and whether such effect is moderated by the provision of assurance on CSRR. It also aims to identify whether amending CSRR regulations and providing assurance on such reporting indirectly influences firm value through the possible improvement in the extent of CSRR. Design/methodology/approach This study performed a content analysis of the CSRR of a sample of Malaysian PLCs that maintained their positions among the top 100 companies by market capitalization between 2017 and 2020 to determine the extent of CSRR for the two years before and two years after the implementation of the new edition of SRG. This study conducted different statistical analyses to indicate whether the implementation of the second edition of SRG has an effect on enhancing the extent of CSRR, and whether the provision of assurance on such reporting moderates such an effect. This study then used instrumental variable regressions to examine the influence of the predicted extent of CSRR on firms’ value measured by Tobin’s Q. Findings This study found that the implementation of the second edition of SRG has a positive and significant influence on the extent of CSRR. This effect is strengthened by the provision of assurance on CSRR. Instrumental variable regressions also indicate that enhancing the extent of CSRR affected by the second edition of SRG is linked to higher firm value. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to assess the determinants and implications of CSRR among Malaysian companies after adopting the second edition of SRG.