PurposeNew Zealand regulatory bodies guided preparers and auditors of financial statements to deal with potential COVID-19 impacts on the financial statements and audit procedures. This study provides evidence of auditors' response to the impact of COVID-19 on the reporting of key audit matters (KAMs) in audit reports of listed companies in New Zealand. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 50 New Zealand listed companies was selected to compare the KAMs in 2019 (pre-COVID-19) and 2020 (during COVID-19). The study uses content analysis to evaluate the KAMs’ disclosures and descriptive analysis to examine the differences between 2019 and 2020 in terms of the auditor type, industry sector and accounting standards.FindingsAuditors responded positively to the request from regulators to communicate the impacts of COVID-19. The findings show an increase in the amount and length of KAMs in 2020 compared to 2019, with 82% of companies and 61% of KAMs reporting the impact of COVID-19. The real estate and information technology sectors disclosed more on the impact than other sectors. In analysing the KAMs, accounting standards for inventories, property plant and equipment, impairment of assets, investment property, revenue from contracts with customers and leases were highly affected by COVID-19.Practical implicationsThe findings support regulators to evaluate how well auditors communicated matters relating to COVID-19 in the audit report. Also, the findings will help standard setters to identify key accounting standards affected by COVID-19 of KAMs and provide insights to users on how the KAM reporting enhances communicative value during the pandemic.Originality/valueThe current study captures the impact of COVID-19 on the reporting of KAMs by comparing changes before and during the pandemic.

Purpose This study aims to examine how different combinations of firm determinants enhance environmental reporting (ER) in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach This study collects data from annual and sustainability reports of 145 listed companies in New Zealand. This study uses content analysis to examine the extent of ER and then the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA) to determine the configurations of determinants of reporting. Findings The findings reveal ten configurations of determinants showing that ER relies on the existence or non-existence of other firm determinants such as firm size, profitability, ownership and presence of an environment committee (EC). Among ten configurations, ER*∼ROE (ROE denotes return on equity; firms with no profitability but with ECs) stands out, indicating that ER is strongly influenced by the presence of an EC when no profitability exists. Research limitations/implications The configuration analysis in this study extends the current ER literature. Practical implications The findings provide insight into the management to look for new paths when they make environmental-related strategies based on the existence and non-existence of firm determinants. The findings also support policymakers considering multiple combinations of criteria when mandating ER to promote better climate risk reporting in New Zealand. Originality/value Previous studies on determinants of ER mainly use regression analysis to analyse their data. In contrast, the current study uses configuration analysis.

The performance of world class manufacturing companies is not only based on equipment, material, and processes but also human capital. Thus, this research contributes and extends the existing knowledge on human capital to provide a comprehensive understanding by exploring following questions: "How do human capital effect on productivity and efficiency?" and "How do human capital and its role on productivity and efficiency in the banking sector in Sri Lanka differ from that in New Zealand?". This research employed a qualitative case study as a research approach. Data is collected, via conducting in-depth interviews, and gathering information from available secondary sources from 10 banks in two nations, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Data analysis is done through content analysis which resulted in a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between HC and the productivity and efficiency in the banking sector in a developing country, Sri Lanka and a developed country, New Zealand. This study revealed that HC has the potential to enhance overall productivity and efficiency in thebanking sector in both contexts. Comparative analysis suggests that although some differences existed, views on the importance of having HC to enhance productivity and efficiency in these two countries were consistent.

This paper examines New Zealand listed firms’ compliance with Global Reporting Initiative-environmental reporting standards (GRI 300) and the impact of environmental reporting determinants on the level of sustainability reporting. The author collected data from annual and sustainability reports of the top and bottom 30 firms listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX). The author then conducted content analysis to measure the extent of each firm’s environmental reporting score. The study findings indicate that large firms report only one-thirds of the relevant information, whereas small firms neither adopt international reporting frameworks nor report on the environment. Additionally, we found that firm size and profitability are positively associated with the extent of environmental reporting in New Zealand, whereas industry-specific differences play a minor role. This study further finds that firms, which explicitly referred to the “Global Reporting Initiatives” or “GRI” terms in their annual or sustainability reports, outperformed in environmental reporting compared with those that did not. This study uses GRI 300 standards to assess the level of environmental reporting of each firm. Finally, the study compares environmental reporting practices between top and bottom-listed firms in New Zealand. The findings emphasize the desirability of making the environment reporting mandatory in all companies to ensure the New Zealand Government’s latest enforcement of climate risk reporting.

Businesses around the world proclaim their employees as being the corporation's most valuable resource. The field of human capital (HC) is not a new one and, studies focussing specifically on HC and its importance to organisations have been published in the academic press for several decades (

Purpose This study aims to demonstrate how Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction is used to examine the motivations of banks for reporting human capital (HC) information. Design/methodology/approach The authors use semi-structured interviews of senior bank employees at eight large New Zealand banks. They analyse the managers’ views using a constructive mapping of responses applying Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction. The findings are interpreted from a stakeholder theory perspective. Findings The authors find that the New Zealand banks report on HC to manage reputation, strengthen employee relationships and achieve competitive advantages. The results suggest that banks engage in opportunistic reporting to distract external stakeholders while advancing their interests. Research limitations/implications The study will guide researchers in the use of Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction in analysing qualitative data. Practical implications This study provides insights for businesses to improve the consistency and quality of HC reporting and ensure that the information needs of broader stakeholder groups are met. Originality/value Some previous voluntary reporting studies analyse their data using inductive analysis. The authors use Carney’s ladder of analytical abstraction as a framework to guide our inductive analysis.

Facial injuries play a significant role when it comes to medico-legal interpretation, category of hurt, cause of death and for compensation purposes. Road traffic accidents had been identified as a major contributor towards facial injuries. The main objectives were to identify the different facial injuries such as abrasions, contusions, lacerations and fractures, injury pattern, the distribution and to correlate the facial injuries with vulnerable road users. A pre-prepared questionnaire was used to extract information from the autopsy reports of road traffic accidents involving 59 victims covering a period from 2005 to 2014. Majority of the victims were males (79.7%) and belonging to the age group of 21-30 (22%) and 41-50 (22%). The vulnerable road users were mostly pedestrians (39%), followed by motorcycle riders (28.8%). Only few (6.8%) of the victims had teeth injuries. Most of the victims had injuries on the right forehead (44%) and right periorbital area (37.3%). The commonest type of facial injuries were abrasions which were 44 (grazed abrasions 30.5% and other types of abrasions 44.1%) followed by lacerations 38 (64.4%). The most common injuries on the right forehead were abrasions (20.3%) and lacerations (16.9%) while on the right peri-orbital area it was contusions (18.6 %). Majority of the victims were pedestrians and motor cycle riders. Most of the injuries were observed on the right forehead and right peri-orbital region and the commonest facial injury type was abrasions. A specific type of injury pattern was not identified to retrospectively suggest the involvement of a pedestrian or others.

Even though life expectancy among the elderly has been improving health hazards due to unnatural causes are a significant medical and social issue among this group. The objective was to determine the causes and epidemiological aspects of unnatural deaths in the elderly. A retrospective descriptive study conducted for a period of 3 years, at a tertiary care hospital of Sri Lanka where information was collected from hospital records and post mortem reports of persons above 60 years of age, who died due to unnatural causes revealed that a majority of deaths were due to road traffic accidents of pedestrians.