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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.

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 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.

The main goal of this study is to investigate the impact of total quality management (TQM) on the three pillars (economic, environmental and social) of sustainable performance in the Palestinian construction industry. More specifically, it first assesses the current implementation levels of TQM practices and the socio-economic and environmental sustainable performance metrics in the industry. Then, it specifies the correlational relationship between the implementation of the TQM practices and the sustainable performance in the construction industry in Palestine.

To this end, a quantitative research approach via a self-administered questionnaire approach was adopted, where six TQM practices have been obtained from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), with some adjustments made in accordance with their importance in the literature review. The targeted population is the construction firms in Palestine, where the data have been obtained from a sample of 66 supervisor engineers working in these firms through a quantitative questionnaire. Regarding the analysis of the conceptual framework and testing the proposed hypotheses, the structural equation modeling (SEM) has been adopted through Smart-PLS software.

The results indicate a positive and significant relationship between TQM practices and sustainable performance. More specifically, it has been found the levels of implementation of TQM practices and sustainable performance metrics were moderate. Also, it has been revealed that TQM practices positively impact the economic, environmental and social sustainable performance in the Palestinian construction industry.

Investigating the impact of TQM on sustainable performance in this unique challenging context provides a set of valuable implications that extend existing theories and practical guidelines for practitioners and policy makers in the construction industry. More specifically, the study highlights the TQM theory by proving its applicability and effectiveness in conflict-influenced and resource-limited contexts. It also contributes to the sustainable performance theory by integrating the three pillars of sustainable performance in the construction industry in a developing country. Practically, the study offers different stakeholders in this industry with practical actions and insights to facilitate the implementation of TQM to enhance sustainable performance.

This research bridges the gap between TQM and the three pillars of sustainable performance, especially in the construction industry in a developing country context with a unique particularity represented by complicated political instability, never-ending conflict and constrained-resources scarcity and access. This research also supports the TQM advocate’s argument that effective TQM deployment can dramatically improve sustainable organizational performance. Additionally, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that addresses the impact of TQM and sustainable performance in the Palestinian construction industry and the one that adopted the PLS-SEM approach for analysis.