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The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on earnings management (EM) within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. In addition, the impact of firm’s political connections (PCs) on EM is investigated, as well as whether it moderates the relationship between CG and EM.

Fixed-effects model is used on a sample of non-financial firms across the GCC countries to test the hypotheses. Moreover, a two-stage least squares method and a propensity score matching procedure are used to mitigate potential reverse causality and sample selection bias.

This study reveals that CG mechanisms such as board size and board independence are negatively associated with EM, while CEO duality is positively association with EM. In addition, this study shows that institutional ownership and blockholders do not influence EM. Furthermore, PCs are shown to play a moderating role in the relationship between CG and EM. The results of this study are robust to endogeneity testing and to alternative measures of CG.

Because of a lack of data, the authors do not consider additional CG attributes such as tenure, education and age of board members. Future research could explore the impact of these attributes when data becomes available.

This study provides valuable insights for government officials, policymakers, standard-setters, regulators and corporations by presenting new evidence on the relationship among CG, PCs and EM. Moreover, this study underscores that, in the absence of a strong institutional infrastructure and investor protection, relying solely on strong CG and Islamic values and GCC culture may have a limited impact on effective monitoring of opportunistic managerial behaviors.

This study contributes to existing literature with a specific focus on the unique political, legal, institutional, social and cultural setting of the GCC region. Moreover, this study provides new insights that PCs serve as a governance mechanism in mitigating EM because relatively little attention has been given to the impact of PCs in improving accounting outcomes, especially in the context of the GCC region where Islamic ethical norms often shape business practices.

This study aims to understand the dynamics of Australian boards by focusing on the influence of board gender diversity on firms' cash holdings, within the distinctive Australian “if not, why not” regulatory framework.

The study uses ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects, generalized method of moments (GMM) and quasi-experimental methods such as difference-in-differences and propensity score matching to analyze the data.

There is a significantly negative relationship between board gender diversity and corporate cash holdings. This relationship is more pronounced when two or more female directors are on the board, supporting the critical mass theory. The results also reveal that the observed pattern can be attributed to the heightened monitoring intensity of female independent directors. Our quasi-experimental methods and pre-post analysis reveal that the observed effects are genuinely attributable to the increase in board gender diversity following regulatory reforms in Australia.

The findings provide practical insights for companies and policymakers, emphasizing the tangible effects of gender diversity on a company's financial strategy and corporate cash holdings. This information is crucial for organizations aiming to make informed decisions regarding board compositions and governance structures.

This research offers fresh insights into an important relationship between gender diversity on boards and corporate financial strategies in the Australian context, enriching the global conversation on the significance of gender diversity in corporate leadership.

This study aims to examine the influence of board gender diversity on audit quality demand, considering auditor choice and audit efforts within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. It further examines the role of political connections and the impact of gender equality policy initiatives on this relationship.

Fixed-effects regression models are employed in a sample of 1,822 firm-year observations for financial firms across the GCC from 2011–2022 to test the hypotheses. Moreover, the two-stage-least-squares and the propensity score matching methods are used for sensitivity analysis.

The study shows a negative relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, reflected auditor choice and audit efforts. However, the study shows a positive association between firm’s political connections and audit quality demand, which is more pronounced in gender-diverse boards. Policy initiatives for gender equality show no significant effect on the relationship between board gender diversity and audit quality demand.

The results inform governments, policy-makers, regulatory authorities and corporations by providing new evidence on the relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, as well as the moderating role of political connections and policy initiatives in this relationship. To promote the meaningful participation of female directors in board decision-making, the findings indicate that gender stereotypes, both explicit and implicit, that can hinder female directors’ influence in board decision-making need to be addressed. Second, the study underscores for governments, policy-makers regulatory authorities and corporations that the mere appointment of female directors does not necessarily ensure their engagement in board decision-making. The appointment of female directors should go beyond symbolism and translate into meaningful engagement and influence with the board.

This study contributes to the corporate governance literature by offering new insights on the link between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality. Beyond confirming a negative relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for quality audit, this study provides new insights on the moderating role of a firm’s political connections on this relationship. In addition, existing studies are primarily based on firms in Western countries and cannot be generalized due to differences in governance and legal structures. Given that the GCC countries have different cultures, economies, institutions, governance practices and norms compared to developed and emerging countries, our study offers a pertinent discussion on the relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, as well as the moderating role of political connections in this relationship in the GCC countries.

In this study, the authors investigate a pressing concern: how auditors react to their clients facing repercussions due to environmental violations. More specifically, this study aims to examine how environmental engagements, which carry potential risks and liabilities, influence auditors’ decision-making and fee structure.

This study uses unique, reliable and actual violation data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) from 2000 to 2015, focusing on clients involved in environmental violations that led to legal prosecution and penalties and those who subsequently engaged in voluntary supplemental environmental projects (SEPs). The authors use the ordinary least squares method to test the authors’ main research question and later use propensity score matching and alternate data source (ASSET4) to check the robustness of the authors’ results.

The authors find that firms with environmental violations are more susceptible to auditor resignation. Moreover, the environmental violator firms that maintain their engagement with auditors pay significantly higher audit fees compared to non-environmental violator firms. Furthermore, these environmental violator firms also face extended audit report delays and take longer to appoint a new auditor.

This study provides an additional consequence of environmental violations, namely, increased chances of auditor resignation and higher audit fees, alongside the penalties imposed by the US-EPA. Moreover, the authors’ findings position environmental violations and participation in SEPs as important factors in auditors’ business risk assessment.

This study aims to holistically explore the academic literature on female leaders to identify the key topics and dynamics of the field.

The authors systematically review 532 papers to explore the research on female leaders; based on objective and replicable criteria, the authors identify relevant papers and thus ensure the quality of the analysis. The bibliometric analysis and visualization support us in recognizing trends in this topic.

This study outlines the state of the art over the past decade by synthesizing theoretical contexts and critically discussing the main streams of research on sustainability, firm outcomes and barriers preventing women from reaching the upper echelons. The authors also explore empirical issues and highlight areas that entail new paths for future scholars.

The research provides novel evidence of the attempt internationally to increase female participation at the top of the firm hierarchy by analyzing firm outcomes, sustainability and the constraints faced by women in achieving these careers.

The results show that the participation of women in leadership roles is not (only) a matter of compliance with current regulations. Through their ability to monitor key social and environmental issues from a long-term perspective and their attention to the internal control systems, companies more effectively pursue their financial and nonfinancial aims.

Using bibliographic and narrative analyses, this study reviews the literature on women at the top of the firm hierarchy with a focus on business research. The authors extend prior studies by investigating a larger pool of firm roles to provide a comprehensive understanding of this widely discussed topic.

This paper explored the socioeconomic factors affecting green cities development. Extant literature have highlighted green cities as a major path towards sustainability in the construction industry but very little is known on the socioeconomic aspect of green cities and its bid in promoting sustainability in the construction industry; hence, the premise of this study which highlights the socioeconomic factors affecting green cities development in Ghana.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the socioeconomic factors affecting green cities. A quantitative research strategy was adopted to collect primary data from respondents who have the requisite understanding and knowledge in green cities using questionnaires. The data gathered was then analysed using descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis viz principal component analysis.

The socioeconomic factors affecting green city development comprised: Green support mechanisms (i.e. innovation and technology, green city planning (urban planning), stakeholder engagement, awareness, city planning (transportation) and environmental regulations); green inhibitors (i.e. population, culture, housing and policy implementation); green market and finance (i.e. digital finance, green market mechanism, green investment finance, risks and uncertainties, income levels of clients). It was evident that socioeconomic factors are significant to the development of green cities in Ghana and hence policy makers and various stakeholders should prioritize socioeconomic factors in the bid to achieve sustainability through green cities in the construction industry.

This paper presents a foremost and comprehensive study on the socioeconomic factors affecting green cities in Ghana. The study results showed that even though the path to sustainability in green cities has pivoted mainly on environmental factors, socioeconomic factors are also significant to green city development, hence, policy makers and the construction industry should keenly consider the socioeconomic factors affecting green city development in the bid towards sustainability for cities.

The purpose of this study is to develop and assess the effects of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT 2) constructs – effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) and hedonic motivation (HM) – on behavioural intention (BI), as well as the impact of innovation resistance theory (IRT) constructs – usage barrier (UB) and tradition barrier (TB) – on innovation resistance (IR) behavior in the context of digital zakat payment in Aceh. In addition, this study also examines how knowledge of fiqh zakat influences both BI and IR.

This was a quantitative study including 350 Acehnese persons who paid zakat online. This research used a Likert scale, and the sampling technique was purposive sampling applied for the Acehnese people. The research respondents were civil servants, private employees, BUMN employees (employees of State-Owned Enterprises), merchants, restaurant owners, professionals and other occupations who had paid professional zakat through a digital system mechanism. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

This research found that the constructs built through the theory of UTAUT 2 explained the position of the EE variable, which had a significant effect on BI. On the other hand, the variable of SI and HM did not significantly affect BI in digital zakat payment. This finding demonstrated that BI significantly influenced actual usage (AU). UB and TB had no impact on IR, according to the theoretical framework developed by IRT. Yet, the knowledge about the fiqh zakat (KFZ) significantly affected the AU. In terms of the moderation role, the KFZ variable moderated the relationship between BI and AU. However, the KFZ variable did not moderate the relationship between IR and AU.

This research had limitations and could still be investigated further by involving a larger sample. This study does not include all UTAUT 2 and IRT constructs, but only involves UTAUT 2 and IRT constructs based on the phenomenon of digital zakat paying behavior in the people of Aceh.

This research had a managerial contribution and an evaluation of the use of digital zakat collection services in Aceh and zakat management institutions in various countries. The existence of significant EE should be a reference for zakat institutions to produce continuous payment applications with a higher level of convenience in the future. In addition, the government should encourage more organised fiqh zakat education in society to plan a more optimal zakat collection. The reason for this is that KFZ has been shown to moderate zakat intentions towards actual digital zakat payment behaviour.

The results of this study were then accommodated by the government to design a digital zakat collection system so that it resulted in optimising the collected zakat funds. The greater the zakat funds collected, the greater the economic impact and social resilience of the community was in the midst of the post-covid and global crisis.

This research provided an essential value in the aspect of collecting zakat funds, especially in the study of the behaviour of paying zakat digitally. The theory of planned behaviour predominated in earlier studies that investigated zakat-paying behaviour. Yet, this research was even more focused as it used the constructs of UTAUT 2 and IRT theory and applied the involvement of a moderator variable like fiqh zakat knowledge that was barely discussed.

The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous industries worldwide, with a higher number of fatalities and injuries each year. The safety and well-being of workers at a job site are paramount as they face both immediate and long-term risks such as falls and musculoskeletal disorders. To mitigate these dangers, sensor-based technologies have emerged as a crucial tool to promote the safety and well-being of workers on site. The implementation of real-time sensor data-driven monitoring tools can greatly benefit the construction industry by enabling the early identification and prevention of potential construction accidents. This study aims to explore the innovative method of prototype development regarding a safety monitoring system in the form of smart personal protective equipment (PPE) by taking advantage of the recent advances in wearable technology and cloud computing.

The proposed smart construction safety system has been meticulously crafted to seamlessly integrate with conventional safety gear, such as gloves and vests, to continuously monitor construction sites for potential hazards. This state-of-the-art system is primarily geared towards mitigating musculoskeletal disorders and preventing workers from inadvertently entering high-risk zones where falls or exposure to extreme temperatures could occur. The wearables were introduced through the proposed system in a non-intrusive manner where the safety vest and gloves were chosen as the base for the PPE as almost every construction worker would be required to wear them on site. Sensors were integrated into the PPE, and a smartphone application which is called SOTER was developed to view and interact with collected data. This study discusses the method and process of smart PPE system design and development process in software and hardware aspects.

This research study posits a smart system for PPE that utilises real-time sensor data collection to improve worksite safety and promote worker well-being. The study outlines the development process of a prototype that records crucial real-time data such as worker location, altitude, temperature and hand pressure while handling various construction objects. The collected data are automatically uploaded to a cloud service, allowing supervisors to monitor it through a user-friendly smartphone application. The worker tracking ability with the smart PPE can help to alleviate the identified issues by functioning as an active warning system to the construction safety management team. It is steadily evident that the proposed smart PPE system can be utilised by the respective industry practitioners to ensure the workers' safety and well-being at construction sites through monitoring of the workers with real-time sensor data.

The proposed smart PPE system assists in reducing the safety risks posed by hazardous environments as well as preventing a certain degree of musculoskeletal problems for workers. Ultimately, the current study unveils that the construction industry can utilise cloud computing services in conjunction with smart PPE to take advantage of the recent advances in novel technological avenues and bring construction safety management to a new level. The study significantly contributes to the prevailing knowledge of construction safety management in terms of applying sensor-based technologies in upskilling construction workers' safety in terms of real-time safety monitoring and safety knowledge sharing.

This study aims to explore the critical application areas of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for sustainable buildings.

The quantitative research approach was adopted through a structured questionnaire administered to relevant stakeholders of construction projects. The data collected were analysed with the exploratory factor analysis, relative importance index (RII) and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

The study’s results have categorised the crucial areas of application where construction industry stakeholders should focus their attention. These areas are divided into four categories: management technologies, production technologies, sensing technologies and monitoring technologies. The findings from the FSE indicate that monitoring technologies represent the most significant category, whereas management technologies rank as the least significant. Moreover, the RII analysis highlights that tools management stands out as the most important application of RFID, while dispute resolution emerges as the least significant RFID application.

The study establishes the core areas of RFID application and their benefits to sustainable buildings. Consequently, it helps stakeholders (consultants, clients and contractors) to examine the RFID application areas and make informed decision on sustainable construction. Furthermore, it provides systematic proof that can aid the implementation of RFID in developing countries.

The study provides an insight into the possible application areas and benefits of RFID technology in the construction industry of developing countries. It also developed a conceptual frame for the critical application areas of RFID technology in the construction industry of developing countries.

The construction industry is facing an enormous number of challenges due to continuous advancements in construction technologies and techniques. Hence, construction management theories have to confront critical newly issues concerning market globalization and construction innovations. The key factor to address these challenges is to ameliorate the competitive abilities of the competing construction firms. In this context, measuring competitiveness of construction firms is an efficacious approach to amplify their competitive growth and profitability. To this end, the purpose of this research paper is to design a three-tier multi-criteria decision making model for competitiveness assessment and benchmarking of construction companies, meanwhile tackling a wide range of essential factors and attributes that covers broad aspects of the present competitive market.

In the first tier, four new pillars (4P) of competitiveness assessment are introduced for construction firms, namely, organization performance, project performance, environment and client and innovation and development. These pillars are able to aid in construction firms’ management on both long and short term basis. Hence, 21 key competitive factors and eighty key competitive criteria are identified, incorporated and analyzed in this research study. The second tier encapsulates carrying out a questionnaire survey in the Canadian and Vietnamese market to garner two main sets of information. The first set of information incorporates responses of the pairwise comparisons between competitiveness factors and criteria. The second set involves gathering utility scores pertinent to each competitiveness criteria. The developed model then leverages the use of analytical hierarchy process to scrutinize the relative importance priorities of competitiveness factors and criteria. The third tier of the developed model encompasses the use of multi-attribute utility theory to compute competitiveness scores for construction companies through blending criteria’ relative importance weights alongside their respective utility functions. In addition, the third tier comprises conducting a sensitivity analysis to derive the most important criteria influencing the overall competitiveness of construction companies. The developed model is tested and validated using three case studies; one construction company from Canada and two construction companies from Vietnam.

Results demonstrated that the developed model has a potential to render a synthesized and methodical performance evaluation for the competitive ability of a given construction company. Furthermore, it was found that Vietnamese companies are more considerate towards pillars pertaining to environment and client while Canadian companies are more attentive towards innovation and development. The outcome of sensitivity analysis revealed that effectiveness of cost management highly affects the competitive ability of Vietnamese companies while effectiveness of cost management exhibits the most significant influence on the competitive of Canadian companies.

The developed model can benefit construction companies to understand their competitiveness in their market and diagnose their strengths and weaknesses. It is also can be useful in efficient utilization of their limited resources and development of sustainable and long-term strategic plans strategic plans, which consequently leads to maintaining better position in their dynamic business markets.

Literature review manifests that reported competitiveness assessment models and practices are not able to address present challenges, technologies and developments in construction market.