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Audit firms have a strong historical tradition of professionalism, but they are also commercial entities. This study aims to investigate the relationship between auditor cash compensation and office-level financial performance.

This study uses proprietary compensation expense and financial performance data from audit offices in China. Using the ordinary least squares regressions, this study tests the association between per capita compensation and office-level financial outcomes.

This study provides evidence that audit offices offering higher compensation achieve more profitable performance, as reflected in increased market share, higher return on assets and greater operating profit margins. Mechanism tests suggest that reductions in auditor turnover, driven by compensation incentives, partially account for this performance improvement. Additional tests show that the benefits of compensation incentives are particularly pronounced in audit firms licensed to conduct listed firm audits or when accompanied by staff training and technical development. Furthermore, both partner-level and staff auditor compensation significantly enhance office-level financial performance. The results might be of interest to both practitioners and regulatory bodies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relationship between auditor cash compensation and audit-office profitability. The findings highlight important policy implications for audit firms seeking to retain high-caliber auditors and maximize their economic benefits through human capital investments, including compensation, education, training and technical development.

This study critically examines research done in the accounting field to uncover the determinants of unethical conduct by professional accountants. It seeks to determine the current state of knowledge of the factors driving the unethical decision-making process of professional accountants.

This study adopted a qualitative narrative approach using non-probability sampling in the form of non-purposive sampling to select the relevant articles to use. These articles were analysed using a thematic approach to determine what conclusions were arrived at.

Many studies have examined factors that influence unethical behaviour. However, many studies do not use a holistic approach in analysing the relative influence of each of the factors, and hence there are conflicting conclusions. Within the African context, political, social and legislative factors that appear to have a significant influence have not been thoroughly explored.

This study contributes a more precise understanding of the current state of knowledge determinants of unethical behaviour by professional accountants while identifying potential areas for future research and policy development.

This paper aims to examine the influence of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on corporate tax avoidance (CTA). In addition, this study aims to explore whether family ownership moderates the impact of IFRS adoption on CTA.

The authors used a sample of 1,856 firms from various countries around the world, covering the period between 2010 and 2022. To estimate the proposed econometric models, the authors applied both fixed and random effects regression methods.

The present findings show that IFRS adoption has a negative impact on CTA, as measured by the effective tax rate and book-tax differences. This negative impact is more pronounced in “common law” countries than in “civil law countries.” Additionally, the authors found that family ownership plays a moderating role by positively affecting the impact of IFRS adoption on CTA.

The findings have practical, regulatory and academic implications for fostering accountability and fairness in taxation. This study suggests that implementing IFRS reduces tax avoidance and emphasizes the need for firms to evaluate the implications of IFRS adoption on their tax-planning strategies. It highlights the importance of aligning financial reporting practices with international standards to enhance transparency and minimize tax avoidance opportunities. The differential impact of IFRS adoption between “common law” and “civil law” countries underscores the role of legal and regulatory frameworks. In addition, family ownership plays a significant role in shaping tax-planning strategies. From an academic perspective, this research provides a foundation for further exploration into the relationship between IFRS adoption and tax avoidance.

The existing literature has predominantly concentrated on examining the effect of IFRS adoption on CTA, and the empirical findings have been inconsistent. This study introduces a novel perspective by considering the moderating influence of family ownership in determining the impact of IFRS adoption on CTA.

This study aims to investigate the impact of auditor industry specialization (AIS) on clients’ tax planning at the audit firm level and individual auditor level, respectively.

The study’s sample consists of 44,637 firm-year observations of Chinese firms listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges during the period from 2002–2020. The data are collected from the Taiwan Economic Journal. Panel regression is used to test hypotheses. Additionally, a two-stage least squares model is used to address concerns about possible endogeneity.

The relationship between tax planning and AIS is significantly positive at the audit firm level, while it is significantly negative at the individual auditor level.

The authors use manually collected data to investigate the distinct impacts of two AIS metrics on tax planning: the number of clients and the scale of clients.

This paper examines the organizational resilience of audit firms during the early stages of COVID-19. The unexpected restrictions placed on travel and on-site working created unanticipated barriers for auditors in Hong Kong. The authors expect that auditors with greater organizational resilience can respond to unexpected situations and restore expected performance levels relatively quickly.

The authors utilize a sample of 1,008 companies listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) with a financial year-end of December 31. The authors identify five proxies contributing to organizational resilience: auditor size, industry specialization, diversity, geographic proximity to the client and auditing a new client. The authors use audit report timeliness as this study's main dependent variable.

This study's full-sample results suggest that larger auditors, industry specialists and auditors with closer relationships to clients issued more timely audit reports during the pandemic. The analysis of a subsample of companies that initially published unaudited financial statements reveals that industry expertise and longer auditor-client relationships significantly reduced the need for year-end audit adjustments. Finally, the authors find that larger auditors were more likely to offload clients, whereas industry specialists were more likely to retain clients.

The results of the paper suggests that audit firm characteristics associated cognitive abilities, behavioral characteristics and contextual conditions are associated with audit firm organizational resilience and, consequently, helps auditors respond unexpected changes in the audit environment.

The findings of the paper are informative for those involved in audit firm management or auditor hiring and retention decisions.

This study is the first to link organizational resilience to the performance of audit firms in a time of unexpected events. The authors connect three auditor and two auditor-client dimensions to the organizational resilience of the audit firms.

This study explores the diversity and compatibility of leadership in a local context. It aims to understand the interface between traditional and democratic leadership in local governance.

Following a qualitative approach, the researchers collected data through unstructured interviews and utilised thematic analysis for data interpretation.

The study demonstrated that the emergence of democratic local leadership has not supplanted traditional leaders but rather gained legitimacy and effectiveness by collaborating with them. This study illustrated how traditional and modern democratic leadership can coexist and effectively manage community affairs.

The study emphasises the potential for traditional leaders to take part in local governance activities, offering a practical tool to improve the effectiveness of local governance. Its findings also underscore the need for collaborative governance to deal with local issues.

This research study contributes to the literature on collaborative governance at the local level. It helps us understand the different types of leaders and their collective efforts in meeting local challenges. It is the first study of its kind in South Asia.

This paper aims to examine whether the audit committee moderates the relationship between audit quality and market reactions.

Using fixed effects and the GMM model for robustness, the study used 472 publicly listed firms on South Africa’s Johannesburg stock exchange spanning a period of six years from 2014 to 2019.

Results obtained show that audit quality impacts market reactions through share price and adjusted market returns. And, that the audit committee moderates the relationship between audit quality and market reactions in South Africa’s publicly listed firms. An effective audit committee is expected to play a crucial role in overseeing the audit process, ensuring the independence of auditors and promoting transparency and accountability which in turn impacts asset prices.

The study implies that governments and regulatory bodies in other developing economies could strengthen regulations about companies’ Acts, how firms regulate themselves and more so audit committees. Firms can also strive to make sure that audit committees are staffed with experts to promote higher audit quality and investor attention to get access to the much-alluded capital.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study adds value by being the first to explore the subject matter of the importance of audit committees in defining audit quality and market reactions in publicly listed firms. The research adds to the body of knowledge on corporate governance and audit quality. It provides a case study specific to the South African context, contributing to the global literature on these topics.

This paper aims to investigate whether audit partners can signal their audit quality to the market by having, gaining or losing large prestigious audit clients.

A hedonic audit fee model is estimated on a sample of 19.702 firm/years of Australian listed companies for the period 2013–23 with variables added to code for partners who have, gain or lose large clients at various fee thresholds.

Non Big-4 partners who have, gain or lose large clients can earn significant fee premiums from their smaller clients However, there are no significant fee premiums for Big-4 partners. The results for non Big-4 are partially explained by a “trading up” effect.

The results show that audit firms, particularly non Big-4 firms, can market their partners based on the prestigious clients they audit and can earn fee premiums for doing so. They also show that the market values partners who prune their client portfolios.

This paper shows smaller clients can make judgments about audit partner quality based on the ability of partners to attract and retain large clients and willingness to prune their client portfolios and that this will influence their willingness to pay fee premiums to be audited by such partners.

This study aims to understand the patterns of content-sharing behaviour on major social media platforms by young adult users with reference to how these sharing patterns are influenced by two main sociocultural factors in their lives, religiosity and social conformity.

Online surveys including both the ATSCI test for social conformity as well as the Hoge test for religiosity were filled out by 590 participants. In-depth interviews with six participants representative of the same population were conducted to deepen analysis of key variables explored in the surveys. The design of the interviews was semi-structured, whereby the focus was to achieve a general overview of participants' intentions and habits regarding sharing information via social media.

The findings show a significant positive impact of religiosity and social conformity on users' sharing intention which, in turn, affects their inclination towards verifying the content they share.

The authors' findings emphasise how users bear the onus of correcting the online information space. It paves the way for future research by recognising the value of independent corroboration amongst users.

This study lends key support to the growing body of research on social media use in societies in which shared religious and cultural values tend to clearly impact everyday social interaction.

Value-based healthcare suggested using patient-reported information to complement the information available in the medical records and administrative healthcare data to provide insights into patients' perceptions of satisfaction, experience and self-reported outcomes. However, little attention has been devoted to questions about factors fostering the use of patient-reported information to create value at the system level.

Action research design is carried out to elicit possible triggers using the case of patient-reported experience and outcome data for breast cancer women along their clinical pathway in the clinical breast network of Tuscany (Italy).

The case shows that communication and engagement of multi-stakeholder representation are needed for making information actionable in a multi-level, multispecialty care pathway organized in a clinical network; moreover, political and managerial support from higher level governance is a stimulus for legitimizing the use for quality improvement. At the organizational level, an external facilitator disclosing and discussing real-world uses of collected data is a trigger to link measures to action. Also, clinical champion(s) and clear goals are key success factors. Nonetheless, resource munificent and dedicated information support tools together with education and learning routines are enabling factors.

Current literature focuses on key factors that impact performance information use often considering unidimensional performance and internal sources of information. The use of patient/user-reported information is not yet well-studied especially in supporting quality improvement in multi-stakeholder governance. The work appears relevant for the implications it carries, especially for policymakers and public sector managers when confronting the gap in patient-reported measures for quality improvement.