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The purpose of this study is to examine both the responses of auditees to corporate governance audit (CGA) regulation and the practices of CGA auditors.

The study used a mixed method. Content analysis of 200 annual and CGA reports was carried out for 13 years, from 2008 to 2021, split into voluntary disclosure and mandatory disclosure periods. Quantitative analysis was also conducted using Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn's tests. Data gathered were interpreted through the lens of isomorphism and Oliver's (1991) strategic responses to institutional processes.

The study revealed that in the voluntary disclosure period, auditees responded mainly with acquiescence, motivated by mimetic isomorphic pressure. In the mandatory disclosure period, auditee responses ranged from acquiescence to dismissal of corporate governance regulation (i.e. coercive isomorphic pressure). Auditor reporting of CGA findings was found to be heterogeneous, suggesting that normative and mimetic isomorphism did not homogenize auditor practices.

The absence of uniform auditee responses to CGA regulation during the mandatory disclosure period suggests that the purpose of mandating the regulation has not yet been achieved and may signal inadequate coercive isomorphic pressure from the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN). Similarly, heterogeneous reporting of CGA findings by corporate governance auditors inhibits the comparability of audit findings, limiting their value for information users.

This study examines corporate governance auditor practices and auditee responses to corporate governance audit regulation.

The study aims to tackle Egypt's rising electricity consumption due to climate change and population growth, focusing on the building sector, which accounts for up to 60% of the issue, by developing new energy-efficient design guidelines for Egyptian buildings.

This study comprises six key steps. A literature review focuses on energy consumption and efficiency in buildings, monitoring a single-family building in Cairo, using Energy Plus for simulation and verification, performing multi-objective optimization, comparing energy performance between base and controlled cases, and developing a localized version of the Passive House (PH) called Energy Efficiency Design Criteria (EEDC).

The research shows that applying the (EEDC) suggested by this study can decrease energy consumption by up to 58% and decrease cooling consumption by up to 63% in residential buildings in Egypt while providing thermal comfort and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This can benefit users, alleviate local power grid strain, contribute to Egypt's economy, and serve as a model for other countries with similar climates.

To date, no studies have focused on developing energy-efficient design standards tailored to the Egyptian climate and context using the Passive House Criteria concept. This study contributes to the field by identifying key principles, design details, and goal requirements needed to promote energy-efficient design standards for residential buildings in Egypt.

Sustainable development requires companies to achieve a long-term balance between the economic, environmental and social spheres in their development process, and is not limited to long-term commercial success. Enhancing corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance plays a critical role in achieving sustainable economic and social development. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the influence of short-selling on corporate ESG performance and unravel the mechanisms involved.

The authors use the data from Chinese A-share listed companies spanning from 2010 to 2021 as the research sample and conduct empirical research using mediating effect model, instrumental variables and difference-in-differences methods.

The findings suggest that short-selling has a positive impact on ESG performance, thus, contributing to the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and achieving a balanced development of economy, environment and society, rather than only promoting corporate longevity. This can be attributed to short-selling’s ability to strengthen supervision constraints on firms, improve firms’ intrinsic capabilities and promote firms’ green technological innovation. Furthermore, the ESG-enhancing effects of short-selling are contingent upon the internal and external governance levels of the firms. That is, short-selling has a more significant effect on ESG performance enhancement for firms with weaker internal and external governance. The extended analysis finds that concerning firms’ market advantage, the positive impact of short-selling on ESG is more pronounced for firms with weak monopoly power and those facing intense industry competition. In addition, when examining firms’ individual characteristics, the ESG-enhancing effect of short-selling is more potent for nonstate-owned firms, those with a shorter listing history and those facing a heightened risk of resource mismatch.

This study provides theoretical support and empirical evidence from the perspective of short-selling to help boost corporate ESG development and improve corporate contributions to sustainable development. ESG is the concrete projection of sustainable development concept at the firm level. Good ESG performance contributes to the realization of the SDGs by influencing the strategy, operation and management of the enterprise, and promoting the enterprise to more actively create the comprehensive value of the economy, society and environment.

The results of this study show that short-selling can significantly enhance corporate ESG performance and strengthen corporate sustainability initiatives, thereby promoting the realization of SDGs at the firm level. These findings carry substantial implications, not only foster the improvement of China’s capital market system but also provide empirical evidence from China for capital market policy-making and sustainable development practices in other emerging markets.

This study not only addresses the gap in studying ESG performance from the perspective of short-selling behavior but also enriches the research on the economic consequences of short-selling and enriches the literature on the determinants of ESG performance.

This study introduces a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the foreign direct investment (FDI) literature by multinational corporations (MNCs) focusing on emerging economies to identify the most influential authors, journals and articles in FDI research and reveals the fields' conceptual and intellectual structures. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

The study analyzed 533 articles published between 1974 and 2020 in 226 academic journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. We used the R language for statistical computing to map author collaboration, co-word and develop a conceptual and intellectual map of the field.

The results show that, although the FDI literature has many authors, few dominate the field. The International Business Review (IBR) and International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM) are the main sources of the publications. Moreover, bibliometric laws show that our dataset follows the Lotka law of scientific productivity and Bradford law of scattering, identifying the core journals. Finally, FDI by MNCs in emerging economies research is divided into four sub-research themes related to (1) FDI determinants, (2) entry mode, (3) MNCs and FDI performance and (4) the internationalization process.

The current article provides several starting points for practitioners and researchers investigating FDI. It contributes to broadening the vision of the field and offers recommendations for future studies.

Using bibliometrics, this study aims to explore the intellectual structure of social segregation research, key contributors, thematic areas and hotspot topics.

A bibliometric analysis was performed for more than 15,000 research papers listed in one of the famous, rich and widely used scientific databases: Web of Science (WoS). This review approach was used to identify social research hotspots on segregation, intellectual structure, borders and development trends. VOSviewer and Gephi software were employed for mapping and analysis.

The study indicates a marked increase in segregation research, particularly from a spatial/urban perspective. The study reveals the interrelationship between segregation and many other social concepts, such as social equality, cohesion, integration and inclusion. In conclusion, addressing the ramifications resulting from the multiple forms of segregation will help in implementing social policies and evaluating their impact on achieving inclusive social development in general and the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in specific.

This study remains limited to the precision and thoroughness of the bibliographic data gained from WoS.

This study is valuable for readers to gain rich insights into the state of research on social segregation. It also provides ideas for future research that prospective authors and interested research and academic institutions can investigate.

This study aims to investigate the impact of market competitiveness on investment efficiency, and the moderating role of ownership and regulatory structures.

In this study, the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), Lerner Index (LI) and industry-adjusted Lerner Index (LIIA) were used to measure market competitiveness. The research population consisted of companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Using a systematic elimination, 199 companies were selected within eight years during 2014–2021.

The results showed that market competitiveness (based on the LI, LIIA and HHI) positively affected investment efficiency. Moreover, institutional ownership and managerial ownership affected the relationship between market competitiveness (based on all proxies of market competitiveness) and investment efficiency. Blockholders’ ownership also moderated the relationship between market competitiveness (based on LIIA and HHI) and investment efficiency. The hypothesis testing had robustness based on additional analyses.

In recent years, competitive environment and the ownership structure of companies have changed to a certain degree, paving the way for the private sector to enter many areas of activity especially in emerging Asian markets. Moreover, investment drivers and investment efficiency in developed markets may not be generalized to emerging Asian markets. Therefore, the present findings can show the significance of this research to fill the existing gap in the literature and provide insights into ownership and regulatory structures as a governance mechanism in market competitiveness and investment efficiency.

Accurate solar photovoltaic models (SPVM) are critical for optimizing solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity to convert sunlight into electricity. The simulation and design of PV systems rely on estimating unknown constraints from solar photovoltaic (SPV) cells. Each parameter plays a crucial task in the output properties of an SPV under actual environmental conditions. Optimizing the unknown constraints of the SPVM is not an easy task due to the nonlinear characteristics of the PV cell. This study aims to develop a novel metaheuristic algorithm, enhanced dynamic inertia particle swarm optimization (EDIPSO) algorithm with velocity clamping, to establish all the seven and five constraints of the two-diode model (TDM) and one-diode model (ODM).

In complex parameter spaces, the conventional particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach typically leads to poor convergence because it fails to balance exploration and exploitation. The proposed approach is an EDIPSO with velocity clamping to minimize the possibility of overshooting possible solutions and improve stability. Velocity clamping is also used to prevent particle velocities from rising over specified limitations. Beginning the process with a large inertia weight to promote exploration and progressively decreasing it to improve exploitation, leading to a thorough analysis of the search space. The algorithm is implemented to investigate the accuracy of estimated constraint values of RTC-France (RTC-F) solar cell, Photo watt-PWP 201 SPV module (PWP 201 SPV), KC 200GT SPV module (KC 200 GT SPV) for ODM and TDM.

The proposed approach is used to extract the seven and five constraints of the TDM and ODM under standard test conditions for three different SPV modules. Thorough simulation and statistical analysis indicate that the EDIPSO with velocity clamping may outperform other cutting-edge optimization algorithms exclusively regarding accuracy, computational time and reliability.

An enhanced dynamic inertia PSO is suggested for determining the parameters of the TDM and ODM in SPV modules. This method specifically accounts for the recombination saturation current within the p–n junction’s depletion region, without overlooking or assuming away any parameters, thereby achieving greater accuracy. When comparing the estimated constraints of TDM and ODM for various SPVs, EDIPSO almost precisely aligns the data from the proposed model with the practical data. Thus, the proposed method for calculating the SPV model parameter may exhibit to be a feasible and efficient solution.