mojtaba ghanbarzadeh

The term business model (BM) is one of the topics that has recently been addressed in the area of ​​accounting literature and seeks to explore how to improve the information content of financial statements. The present study is a qualitative research, in the first step in order to collect qualitative data, a framework for semi-structured queries with experts was developed after examining the scope of financial reporting literature and business model.  Subsequently, 23 well-known academic and executive experts in the field of financial reporting and business were selected through purposeful sampling (snowball). The transcribed interviews were coded in the second phase using inductive thematic analysis. In inductive theme analysis, patterns emerge during the analysis by placing open source or sub-themes together in one main theme.  In summary, in the current study out of a total of 350 open source codes and 24 sub-themes, 6 main themes were identified as transparency and narrative, social accountability, users, key drivers, justice and fairness in reporting and presentation and disclosure. All of these are as components of financial reporting based on the concept of business model. Financial reporting and information disclosure are important management tools for effectively transferring information to stakeholders.  Reliable and timely financial reporting enables individuals to accurately assess their future prospects.  Therefore, by re-engineering the financial statements, six key components of financial reporting, inspired by the business model approach, can be a major step in re-engineering financial statements to improve the information content of financial statements.

Business model is one of the available structures of organizational management for developing competitive advantage. The purpose of this study is an analytical scrutiny with fuzzy approach on the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA)' business model ontology. To study the cause-and-effect relationships and prioritize the dimensions and components of the proposed framework, fuzzy DNAP method (combination of DEMATEL and Analytic Network Process (ANP) in a fuzzy environment) has used. A pairwise questionnaire of dimensions and components dispatch among 13 experts aware of management accounting and business models issues. The experts were selected using the judgmental and purposeful sampling method. The results show that the dimensions of value delivery, value capture, value creation and value definition ranked first to fourth, respectively. The value definition dimension also has a greater impact than other dimensions and the value delivery dimension has a greater impact intensity. In the general evaluation, it was found that the component “Explaining how to use technology in presenting the created values” and the component of “Determining the value propositions” are of the highest and lowest level, respectively. According to the research findings, Management accountants, as consultants and business partners, should be on the ontology of the business model of the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) in order to provide better guidance to management, emphasis and pay more attention to priority dimensions and components.

Corporate reporting, in its general sense, refers to all the communication channels between companies and stakeholders and is the main mechanism for sending information to the users. There has been an increasing concern in recent years with the insufficiency of traditional corporate reporting. Professional accounting institutes have proposed the concept of a business model to mitigate the weaknesses of the current reporting mechanism. Disclosure of business model information can reduce the information gap, enhance the validity of financial reports along with the contents of financial statements. The mission of the present study is to conduct an analytical explanation of business model financial reporting using fuzzy logic.

The present study is of applied and survey-descriptive nature in terms of purpose and methodology, respectively. The statistical population consists of university professors and executive experts who have sufficient knowledge and experience in the fields of financial reporting and business model. Due to flexibility, higher content validity, and applicability of the research in interdisciplinary studies, the methods of Fuzzy Delphi (FD) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) were used for the evaluation, ranking, and prioritization of various aspects and components of business model financial reporting. Therefore, a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 43 items was prepared using the 5-point Likert scale, and the items were evaluated through the dispatch of questionnaires among experts and the application of Fuzzi Delphi (FD). The ranking of the validated components was done through the dispatch of pairwise comparison questionnaires between 18 experts and the application of the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process.

The findings of the present study showed that all the components and aspects of the business model financial reporting – including transparency and narrative, social accountability, stakeholders, key stimuli, justice and fairness in the distribution, and methods of representation and disclosure – were approved by the experts. The results revealed that the proposed theoretical model for the business model financial reporting has acceptable validity and can be cautiously extended to further applications. Moreover, the results demonstrate the importance of transparency and narrative, and social accountability. Overall, practitioners must pay specific attention to the role, importance, and weight of the aforementioned components for the successful implementation of business model financial reporting.

The expert's views on the validity and priority of various aspects and components in business model financial reporting demonstrate the role, importance, and ranking of reporting parameters. Practitioners in the field of accounting and financial reporting must consider the aforementioned elements in their plans for enhancing the validity of financial reporting and richening the content of financial statements.

The term business model (BM) is one of the topics that has recently been addressed in the area of accounting literature. The weaknesses in current reporting, including failure to meet social responsibility goals, have led the researcher to identify the components of the financial reporting based on the theoretical foundations associated with the concept of business model (BM). Since the present study is a qualitative research, in the first step in order to collect qualitative data, a framework for semi-structured queries with experts was developed. Subsequently, 23 well-known academic and executive experts in the field of financial reporting and business were selected through purposeful sampling (snowball). The transcribed interviews were coded in the second phase using inductive thematic analysis. In inductive theme analysis, patterns emerge during the analysis by placing open source or sub-themes together in one main theme. In summary, in the current study out of a total of 350 open source codes and 24 sub-themes, 6 main themes were identified as transparency and narrative, social accountability, users, key drivers, justice and fairness in reporting and presentation and disclosure. Financial reporting and information disclosure are important management tools for effectively transferring information to stakeholders. Reliable and timely financial reporting enables individuals to accurately assess their future prospects. Therefore, by re-engineering the financial statements, six key components of financial reporting, inspired by the business model (BM) approach, can be a major step in re-engineering financial statements to improve the information content of financial statements.

Recent empirical studies show that the accounting information contained in the current financial statements does not have a reliable basis for predicting the future performance of companies and key indicators affecting the value of the company such as business model in the traditional accounting model are not reported. The aim of this study was to analyze and evaluate the fit of the measurement and structural model the criteria for disclosure of information of business models. In this descriptive correlational study, 196 people were selected from university professors and experts in the field of finance and business by Cochran sampling method. Data analysis algorithm by partial least squares method was used which includes: measurement models fitting, structural model fitting and the overall fit of the model to assess the criteria for disclosure of information of business models. Fitting of all three parts of the data algorithm and the results of confirmatory factor analysis also showed the desirability and acceptability of the latent structure at the level of criteria. According to the results of the present study, it can be said that the criteria of information disclosure of business models have an appropriate measurement and structural model fit and it can be used to measure and identify the criteria of information disclosure of business models. The results of the research can be considered in the long-term and accurate planning of actors and players influencing the accounting profession to improve the financial reporting system of companies and promote the profession in the future.

In this article, we are going to look at Schmidt's point of view on the one hand and compare it to Edwards and Bell's point of view (E&B) on the other.The main motivation in writing this article is the existence of some differences and similarities between the theories and views of these two scientists, and while expressing their views, a comparative comparison between theories has been tried and the views of these two scientists.Although Schmidt is of Germanic descent and Edwaders and Bell are of American descent, and financial reporting systems can be very different from these two geographical areas, the formation of World War I and its economic effects on Germany and the emergence of inflation the effects of World War II and some inflationary economic events in the United States, such as Black Monday or the Six-Day Arab War, have led researchers and economists in both regions to address inflation accounting and the impact of inflation on financial statements, specially. Schmidt, Edwards, & Bell (E&B) focus on input values ​​(replacement prices), but the main difference is their view on value-added and asset-retaining profits and Edwards and Bell (E&B) emphasize the use of real financial capital.

With the increasing need for information about the operations of business units, the presentation of financial statements in the traditional way does not meet all the needs of users. Traditional financial reporting has been criticized for presenting insufficient strengths and weaknesses of a business unit. Accordingly, in order to eliminate the shortcomings of current (traditional) financial reporting and increase the quality of accounting information, in the last decade, the term business model has been used by many researchers in accounting and management research. On the other hand, stakeholder evaluation of business models can play a key role in explaining and evaluating company performance. Many people believe that the success or failure of a business is due to the model for which it is intended. This is why they consider the business model as a single structure to explain the company's competitive advantage and performance. What is important is that the business model of the business unit can't create a competitive advantage for the business unit without considering all the stakeholders and understanding the relationships between them. Therefore, evaluating business model stakeholders of business models requires having financial and non-financial information of business models. The participation of all stakeholders and the maximum use of their potential capacities in designing and implementing an effective business model, requires accountability and providing useful information to the business unit. It is expected that accounting can play its main role in this regard by disclosing business model information as the most important source of information to reflect the results of performance, financial condition and cash flows of business units and improve the content of accounting information.

Despite the existing interest and increasing attention of standardizers and accounting researchers to the business model of companies, scientific research on this issue is in its early stages. Over the past decade, the disclosure of business model information has been considered by professional accounting institutions. At present, there is no specific requirement and framework for Iranian companies to report and disclose their business model information, and financial and non-financial information of the companies’ business model is being published incompletely in their annual reports. The purpose of this study is to propose a model for voluntary disclosure of financial and non-financial information of business models. The present study is application-oriented. The multi-dimensional structuring method was used to index the disclosure of financial and non-financial information of business models. To implement this method, three stages of index creation, scale development and scale evaluation were performed. Based on library studies and interviews with some experts, 36 indicators were identified in six dimensions. The statistical population of this study consisted of three groups: A) professors and academic experts, B) executive managers and auditors, and C) financial experts and analysts who were familiar with the concept of the business model and company information disclosure. Using the Cochran sampling method, a researcher-made questionnaire was provided to 286 experts and was used as the basis for analysis. Inferential tests were used to analyze the data. The Results of the binomial test showed that experts had much more consenting opinions than dissenting ones, and respondents have commented on the indicators with high confidence, and the validity of each indicator of voluntary disclosure of business model information Based on a single sample t-test was more than average. In addition, the results of Friedman test showed that among the proposed indicators, "business model canvas" and "non-financial value propositions in the business model" have not been as well received by experts as expected. Also, the economic consequences, the preparation of separate and consolidated profit and loss statements and the disclosure of key drivers of operating income of business models were of considerable importance. Considering that the proposed model in this study is based on the consensus of financial and business reporting experts and has been confirmed by accurate scientific methods, so the results of this study can underline the role, importance and rank of indicators of voluntary disclosure of financial and non-financial information. It is expected from managers and policy, executive, and regulatory agencies to adopt a structure that encourages companies to disclose accurate financial and non-financial information of their business models and provide greater transparency in their reports.

During the last decade, some researchers and accounting professional associations have expressed their interest in applying the concept of business model in their research in order to eliminate the shortcomings and weaknesses of the existing financial reporting. Considering the role and importance of financial reporting as one of the important sources of the available information in capital markets and consequently the researchers’ efforts to increase the quality of financial reporting as a tool for social responsibility and business environment, the present study seeks to provide a model of financial reporting based on the concept of business model with the aim of practically eliminating the weaknesses of the existing financial reporting and increasing the quality of financial reporting.

The present study is a synthesis study in terms of the nature of data and methods of analysis based on consecutive exploratory strategy. Using this strategy, three general steps have been taken: 1) extraction of the dimensions and components affecting financial reporting based on the concept of business model (qualitative method) using thematic analysis method; 2) determining the indicators of the reporting model and their screening using fuzzy Delphi technique (quantitative method); and 3) introducing the common indicators among the experts and proposing the ultimate model.

After reviewing the results of the qualitative and quantitative stages of the research, the ultimate model was proposed which includes six dimensions of transparency and validity, social accountability, key stimuli, stakeholder management, justice and fairness in the distribution of reports, as well as the presentation and disclosure of information which entails 24 components and 50 indicators that can be used as a native and innovative model for financial reporting.

With the increasing need for information about the operations of business units, it seems that traditional financial reporting can not meet all the demands of the users. The results of the fuzzy Delphi technique in this study also showed that none of the 62 indicators were observed in the financial reporting and are not currently disclosed. In other words, the existing financial reporting has not met the needs of stakeholders in disclosure of the business model indicators including social responsibility and accountability of the corporates. Accordingly, the proposed financial reporting model based on the concept of business model in this study, not only meets the needs of the stakeholders of the business unit, but can also play an important role in improving the content of the financial reportings.