XBRL Implementation: A Field Investigation to Identify Research Opportunities

Abstract

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently mandated that publicly traded companies furnish their financial statements in XBRL format. However, researchers and practitioners question whether companies are adequately prepared to implement XBRL, and whether software tools and guidance exist to lead preparers through the process of creating XBRL-related documents. This paper describes how early mandate adopters implemented XBRL reporting. Four themes emerged from our analysis: management support and involvement, implementation approach, organizational readiness or expertise, and control over the XBRL reporting process. Our study contributes to a more complete understanding of how companies implement XBRL by providing a basis for accounting researchers to identify current implementation issues and future research opportunities. Furthermore, we provide educators with a characterization of how companies implement XBRL, thereby facilitating their classroom coverage of this important topic. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from the authors upon request.

Integrated Reporting in an Internet and Social Media Communication Environment: Conceptual Insights

“…The use of tags provided by XBRL can guide consistent disclosure practices (Arnold et al 2012), leading to a common format for online disclosure that would enable comparability and extended analysis of integrated information. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has mandated that publicly traded companies furnish their financial statements in interactive data format, specifically XBRL format (Janvrin and No 2012;SEC 2013a). The interactive data format is intended to improve the usefulness of financial statement information to investors, a key integrated reporting stakeholder (SEC 2009;IIRC 2013).…”

The financial close process: Implications for future research

“…Lacity et al (2011);Janvrin and No (2012) quick response may cause managers to become overly focused on short-term goals (i.e., the short-termism hypothesis) that are not in the best interests of the company (Gigler et al, 2012). Interestingly, earnings research suggests that analysts' expectations can be poor indicators of expected results because of lack of publicly-available information, errors in analysts' model specifications, and/or differences in estimation among analysts (Abarbanell et al, 1995).…”

“…Prior outsource/in-house research provides mixed direction on how outsource vs. in-house may impact processes (Desai et al, 2011;Lacity et al, 2011). In general, research indicates that while outsourcing may be less expensive, particularly in the short run, in-house processing increases organizational knowledge (Lacity et al, 2011;Gray and Yoon, 2012;Janvrin and No, 2012).…”

An International Comparison of the Determinants and Financial Information Quality in XBRL Reporting Environment

“…As XBRL studies is considered as a new area and still huge rooms available for further research (Alles and Debreceny, 2012;Apostolou, Dorminey, Hassell, and Watson, 2013;Janvrin and No, 2012;Chunhui Liu, 2013a;Niels Müller-Wickop, 2013), this study may contribute to the body of knowledge on the effect of XBRL mandating towards the quality of information shared through the internet. This research also contribute another dimensions of IFR as study on IFR in XBRL mandated environment is yet to be explored.…”