This study investigates the disclosure practices toward disclosing forecast information in the narrative sections of the annual reports for industrial and service companies for the year 2007. Additionally, this study examines the determinants of disclosing forecast information for the companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) by encompassing information asymmetry, proprietary cost and corporate governance characteristics. The results document that forecast disclosures are positively related to growth opportunities, role duality, and company size, but it is negatively related to competition rate and performance.

This paper examines the possible association between audit committee's effectiveness and Jordanian industrial public shareholding companies' dividend payout policy. Data was collected through two sources; first, a questionnaire survey was distributed to 63 listed Jordanian firms to collect data concerning degrees of audit committees' effectiveness. Second, data concerning dividends payout policies was collected from published data for Jordanian firms. The results of the multiple regressions indicated that there is no significant relationship between audit committees' effectiveness factors and dividends payout policies proxied by both TOBINS Q and ROA. This result implies that other theories might explain the dividend payout policy in the Jordanian firms.

This study investigates the influence of culture on governance, social and environmental sustainability across 59 countries. Hofstede's culture dimensions have been used as a measure of culture, RobecoSAM sustainability measure is used as a proxy for governance, social and environmental sustainability reporting. The results reveal the countries that are characterized by high power distance, masculinity, low individualism and long-term orientation are supposed to be less interested in sustainability reporting. To increase the sustainability reporting, it is essential for the government and decision-makers to give more focus to the culture as an important driver of sustainability.

IAS 39 has been described as being the most difficult standard to be implemented and understand The main aims of this research were to examine the effect of the implementation of IAS 39 on the investment's decisions of individuals and institutions in Jordan; to evaluate the understanding of IAS 39 by Jordanian investors and the effect of their understanding upon their investment decisions; and to examine the effect of some factors such as the degree of knowledge and the nature (individual or institution) of the investor on the degree of understanding of this IAS because. In the current study, Firstly, the results supported the first hypothesis that the implementation of IAS 39 would affect the reported profits of companies and, consequently, Jordanian investors would decrease their investment in these companies. Secondly, no significant differences were found between different fields of education, different professional certificates, and different years of experience with regards to the understanding of the implementation of IAS 39 and its effect; but, statistical differences were found between different levels of education at the 5% level, and between individual and institutional investors at the 10% level.

This study investigates the influence of manager and department variables on budget characteristics in private Jordanian universities. This paper aims to study the relationship between the departments' heads characteristics and department features with the budget participation, information sharing, budget adequacy, goal clarity, and budget feedback in private universities in Jordan. It draws on relevant prior studies in the management accounting particularly budget issues to formulate the research questions and implementing survey method with seventy seven functional managers in five private Jordanian universities to shed light upon the perceptions of proposed budget participants. The results indicate that there is no such a relation between the department type and size with the budget characteristics, and no significant association between most of the manager related variables and budget characteristics. In contrast, the results indicate that the experience earned in the university has a significant strong relation with budget characteristics and weak relation has been found between manager budget experience and budget characteristics. The data suggest that the department factors and the manager factors except the experience earned in the university and the budget experience have no impact on budget characteristics. Hence, the budget characteristics may influence other factors such as the management style, departmental autonomy. Keywords: Budget characteristics, Manager related factors, Department features, Private Jordanian universities 1. IntroductionPrior studies demonstrate that the budget is an important tool of management accounting in terms of control, coordination, and decision-making (Drury, 2008;Covaleski et al., 2003;and Mah'd, 2010). Furthermore, great attention has been given to the influence of budgetary systems in the control of organisations in terms of the size, structure, managerial autonomy, and external environment (Merchant, 1981;Ezzamel, 1990;and Bruns & Waterhouse, 1975). By contrast, little attention appears to be directed to the question of how the budgetary process in university departments varies regarding to manager characteristics and department characteristics. Furthermore, few studies have researched budget participation, information sharing, goal clarity, budget adequacy and budget feedback in private universities in developing countries. This study tends to shed light on the relationship between the demographic variables and the budget characteristics in private Jordanian universities. Budget characteristics in the current research are identified as budget participation, information sharing, goal clarity, budget adequacy and budget feedback. The need for participative budgeting has been clarified in the literature. Great attention in the management accounting literature focuses on the impact of the participative budgetary process on outcome variables such as job performance (Stedry, 1960;Milani, 1975;Kren, 1992;Nouri & Parker, 1998; Fisher et al., 2006;and Parker & Kyj ...