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The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) is a complex and lengthy statute that is frequently the subject of law reform inquiries. However, the recommendations published in the final reports of those inquiries often appear to receive little or no response from, or to be rarely implemented by, the federal government. In this article, we detail the final reports from inquiries that have recommended reforms to the Act and its underlying regulations, determine the extent to which those recommended reforms have received a response from, or been implemented by, the federal government and consider the consequent implications for corporate law reform. We then put forward a set of proposals that are intended to appropriately enhance the federal government’s engagement with corporate law reform.

Purpose>Through its impact on both demand and supply, the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has profoundly disrupted supply chains throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying drivers of the supply chain vulnerability exposed by COVID-19 and considers potential future directions for global supply.Design/methodology/approach>This paper adopts a case study approach, reviewing the automotive manufacturing sector in Australia to illustrate how neoliberal globalisation policy settings have shifted large tracts of manufacturing from the global north to the global south.Findings>The authors demonstrate the way that neoliberal globalisation policies, facilitated by certain accounting rhetorics and technologies, have consolidated manufacturing in China and Southeast Asia in ways that embed vulnerabilities in global supply chains. The authors present three scenarios for post-COVID-19 supply chains and the accounting techniques likely to garner stronger attention as a result of the pandemic.Research limitations/implications>The paper illustrates how certain accounting rhetorics and technologies facilitate neoliberal globalisation, embedding supply chain vulnerability that has been exposed by COVID-19. It also suggests how supply chain accounting may develop more robust supply chains in a post-COVID-19 world and sets out an agenda for future research in this area.Practical implications>A number of practical supply chain accounting and planning technologies are suggested to facilitate more robust supply chains.Originality/value>This paper draws attention to the neoliberal globalisation policies that have shaped global supply chains as well as how COVID-19, in concert with other geopolitical trajectories, may represent a watershed moment for global supply chains.

Purpose This paper provides a comprehensive and conceptually grounded review of how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are transforming professional judgement in accounting. It clarifies the epistemic foundations of AI and ML, synthesises the expanding accounting literature employing these techniques and provides an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach This study reviews AI and ML applications across auditing and assurance, financial reporting, management accounting, taxation, ESG measurement, financial distress and earnings prediction, and public-sector analytics. Applying Abbott's (1988) system-of-professions framework, it connects methodological developments to broader institutional questions about expertise, authority and governance in an AI-enabled accounting environment. Findings Three insights emerge. First, ML models consistently outperform traditional statistical approaches across prediction-intensive accounting domains by capturing nonlinearities, interactions and high-dimensional structures that conventional methods overlook. Second, ML expands the evidentiary boundaries of accounting by incorporating unstructured, textual, behavioural and alternative data, reshaping what counts as relevant and credible evidence. Third, as ML systems increasingly rival or exceed human predictive judgement, particularly in areas such as fraud detection, accounting estimates and going-concern prediction, they challenge the profession's epistemic authority, necessitating new expertise in model interpretation, governance and error evaluation. Research limitations/implications AI and ML fundamentally reshape the evidentiary basis of accounting, creating new forms of machine-generated knowledge that challenge traditional professional judgement. As predictive models increasingly surpass human experts, research must investigate how authority, responsibility and trust shift within hybrid human–AI decision systems. Future research should examine how algorithmic evidence is validated, governed and integrated into audit and reporting frameworks, and how professional identities, skill sets and jurisdiction evolve as accountants transition from primary judgement-makers to interpreters and overseers of AI-driven inference. Practical implications AI can enhance audit quality through automated anomaly detection, continuous monitoring and ML-driven risk assessment. Firms can use ML to improve accounting estimates, fraud detection, misstatement prediction and ESG analytics. Management accountants can deploy AI for forecasting, planning and real-time cost optimisation. Regulators and tax authorities can apply ML to detect non-compliance and prioritise audits. Across all settings, accountants increasingly focus on interpreting, validating and governing AI outputs rather than generating predictions themselves. Originality/value This paper demystifies AI and ML concepts, mapping empirical developments across the field and offering a theoretically grounded account of how AI reshapes professional judgement and epistemic authority. It also identifies opportunities for future research.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine prominent issues and knowledge contributions from research exploring the nexus between accounting and the business of sport, overview the other papers presented in this AAAJ Special Issue and draw from this work to scope out future impactful research opportunities in this area.Design/methodology/approachA review and examination of the prior literature and the other papers published in this AAAJ Special Issue.FindingsThe paper identifies and summarises three key research themes in the extant literature: financial regulation and assurance; commercialisation and professionalism; and accountability and control. Then it draws from work within these research themes to set out four broad areas for future impactful research.Research limitations/implicationsThe value of this paper rests with collating and synthesising several important research issues on the nexus between accounting (broadly defined) and the business of sport, and in prompting future extensions of this work through setting out areas for further innovative accounting research on sport.Practical implicationsThe research examined in this paper and the future research avenues proposed are highly relevant to administrators and regulators in sport. They also offer important insights into matters of accounting, accountability, valuation and control more generally.Originality/valueThis paper adds to vibrant existing streams of research in the area by bringing together authors from different areas of accounting research for this AAAJ Special Issue. In scoping out an agenda for impactful research at the intersection of accounting and sport, this paper also draws attention to underexplored issues pertaining to the rise of integrity and accountability concerns in sport, strategic choices in financial regulation, valuation issues and practices and the rise of technology in sport.

Purpose>The authors examined how squad members within an Australian state police force perceived and attached enabling or coercive meanings to a suite of management control system (MCS) changes that were new public management (NPM) inspired.Design/methodology/approach>The authors conducted a longitudinal case study of a large Australian state police department utilizing an abductive research design.Findings>The authors found that identification processes strongly conditioned the reception of the MCS changes introduced. Initially, the authors observed mixed interpretations of controls as both enabling and coercive. Over time, these changes were seen to be coercive because they threatened interpersonal relationships and the importance and efficacy of squads in combating serious and organized crime.Research limitations/implications>The authors contributed to MCSs literature by revealing the critical role that multifaceted relational and collective identification processes played in shaping interpretations of controls as enabling–coercive. The authors build on this to elaborate on the notion of employees’ centricity in the MCS design.Practical implications>This study suggests that, in complex organizational settings, the MCS design and change should reckon with pre-existing patterns of employees’ identification.Originality/value>The authors suggested shifting the starting point for contemplating the MCS change: from looking at how what employees do is controlled to how the change impacts and how employees feel about who they are. When applied to the MCS design, employee centricity highlights the value of collaborative co-design, attentiveness to relational identification between employees, feedback and interaction in place of inferred management expectations and traditional mechanistic approaches.

Technology used in online marketing has advanced to a state where collection, enhancement and aggregation of information are instantaneous. This proliferation of customer information focused technology brings with it a host of issues surrounding customer privacy. This article makes two key contributions to the debate concerning digital privacy. First, we use theories of justice to help understand the way consumers conceive of, and react to, privacy concerns. Specifically, it is argued that an important component of consumers' privacy concerns relates to fairness judgments, which in turn comprise of the two primary components of distributive and procedural justice. Second, we make a number of prescriptions, aimed at both firms and regulators, based on the notion that consumers respond to perceived privacy violations in much the same way they would respond to an unfair exchange.

Many jurisdictions have put regulatory strategies in place to provide incentives and safeguards to whistleblowers to encourage whistleblowing on corporate wrongdoings. One such strategy is the provision of a financial incentive to the whistleblower if the complaint leads to a successful regulatory enforcement action against the offending organization. We conducted an experiment using professional accountants as participants to examine whether such an incentive encourages potential whistleblowers to report an observed financial reporting fraud to a relevant external authority. We also examine the effect of perceived seriousness of the wrongdoing on accountants' intention to whistleblow. We find that a financial incentive results in a higher intention to whistleblow to a relevant external authority. We also find that perceptions of the seriousness of the wrongdoing are significantly and positively associated with accountants' intention to whistleblow to a relevant external authority. We find a significant interaction between the provision of a financial incentive and the perceived seriousness of the wrongdoing on the intention to report the wrongdoing externally. The intention to report the financial reporting fraud externally is higher when the level of perceived seriousness is higher, regardless of the availability of a financial incentive. However, when the perceived level of seriousness is lower, the presence of financial incentive results in a higher intention to report the financial reporting fraud externally. These findings indicate that the impact of a financial incentive on the intention to whistleblow is moderated by perceptions of the seriousness of the wrongdoing.

PurposeOnline ratings and reviews have recently emerged as mechanisms to facilitate accountability and transparency in the provision of goods and services. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and outcome of the accountability that online ratings and reviews create in the sharing economy.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on 30 face-to-face and Skype interviews with Airbnb guests and hosts as well as on secondary materials, including content from Airbnb data analytic reports.FindingsThe authors demonstrate that face-saving practices widely condition user ratings and comments. Face saving occurs when individuals attempt to preserve their own identity and the identity of others during a social interaction. At Airbnb, the authors find that reviewers adopt three distinct face-saving strategies: the use of private reviewing channels, the creation of tactful reviews and refraining from reviewing entirely. The authors also find that users are sceptical of rating metrics and public comments and draw upon a wide range of alternative sources, such as private messaging and other publicly available resources, in their decision making.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the overwhelmingly positive character of Airbnb ratings and reviews. It proposes the concept of crowd-based accountability as a limited, partial form of assurance for sharing economy users. Guests and hosts alike prioritise face-saving practices over reviewer responsibilities to provide authentic, reliable accounts to the public. Consequently, reviewers effectively remove the risk of sanctions for those in the network who underperform.

Purpose – Arguing that the print media act as a claims-making forum for the social construction and contestation of crises, the aim of this paper is to explore how the print media mediated two audits commissioned following a high-profile salary cap breach in the National Rugby League (NRL) in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis to examine the media coverage of the two audits by the two major Australian media organisations, News Limited and Fairfax Media Limited. The analysis is based on a qualitative study complemented by quantitative techniques that explore critical incidents and representations in the daily press. Findings – The paper illustrates the way in which News Limited, the owner of the infringing club, mobilised its media platform to promote favourable viewpoints and interpretations and how these were challenged in the Fairfax press. Evidence of both coverage bias and statement bias in the treatment of the two audits is produced. Originality/value – This paper provides evidence that commercial interests of owner/publishers coloured media coverage of the two audits, which were central pillars of the crisis management strategy of News Limited and the NRL. Implications for the media's contribution to public accountability, accounting outputs and impression management, and the growing commercial diversification and reach of media outlets are considered.