Search results

This study examines the role of integrated reporting (IR) and earnings management (EM) practices on the combined assurance model (CA) and the firms’ capital market liquidity (FCML) performance nexus. Based on a moderated mediation analysis, it examines the channels through which CA quality influences FCML performance.

The study uses data from the top 100 firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) based on market capitalisation, and a bootstrap moderated mediation model through Hayes Process Macro was adopted.

The findings show that although IR quality mediates the CA quality and FCML performance nexus, the mediation is conditional on firms’ practices of EM, implying that the value of CA through IR to capital market participants is more pronounced for firms engaged in high EM practices.

The findings emphasise the importance of the CA model in streamlining assurance processes, reducing assurance costs and enhancing the credibility of financial and sustainability reports, thereby improving capital market performance. Hence, it is a valuable assurance framework for International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 and S2 compliance.

This study uniquely lines up the CA model, IR quality and EM practices to project the value relevance and channel(s) through which the effective communication of the CA model influences FCML performance.

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.

The outset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions of all forms in the supply chain globally for almost two and a half years. This study identifies various challenges in the effective functioning of the existing supply chain during COVID-19. The focus is to see the disruptions impacting the energy storage supply chains.

The procedure entails a thorough analysis of scholarly literature pertaining to various supply chain interruptions, confirmed and verified by experts working in an energy storage company in India. These experts also confirmed the occurrence of more disruptive factors during their interviews and questionnaire survey. Moreover, this process attempts to filter out the relevant causal disruption factors in an energy storage company by using the integrated approach of qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

The results provide practical insights for the company management in planning and devising new strategies to manage supply chain disruptions. Supply chains for companies in other industry sectors can also benefit from the proposed framework and results in making them more robust to counter future disastrous events.

The study provides an easily adaptable decision framework to different industries by closely examining supply chain disruptions and identifying associated causes for building a robust supply chain focused on the energy storage sector. It examines four disruption dimensions and investigates possible outcomes and impacts of disruptions.

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 research aims to explore the influence of leadership skills (technical, human and conceptual) on organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) with the mediating role of organisational culture in Vietnamese libraries.

A quantitative methodology was selected to achieve the objective of this research. Data were gathered through paper/pencil surveys from 201 participants working in various Vietnamese libraries. The convergent validity, consistency reliability and discriminant validity of measures were validated challenged via Stata 15.1 software. The findings of the proposed hypotheses were examined via regression analysis.

The results partially supported the hypothesis that leadership skills significantly predict OCB. Regarding the relationship between leadership skills and organisational culture, only human skill significantly affected bureaucracy culture. In turn, only bureaucracy culture significantly affected the OCB of individuals (OCBI) and OCB of organisations (OCBO). Finally, bureaucracy culture significantly mediated the relationship between human skill, OCBI and OCBO.

This study opens the scope of research on leadership skills in Vietnamese libraries by exploring three main gaps in the extant studies of leadership approach, namely, the influence of three leadership skills on OCB, the role of leadership in promoting organisational culture and the underlying mechanism through which leadership skills contribute to OCB with the mediation of organisational culture. The implications of the research are discussed.

This study aims to test the first and second-stage moderating effects of tourists’ past travel experiences on the relationships between national responses, destination trust and tourists’ willingness to pay in the post-pandemic recovery era.

The proposed model was tested with a sample of 398 tourists in Vietnam. The path analysis was applied to investigate the mediating and moderating effects.

The findings emphasise the mediating effect of destination trust in the relationships between national responses and tourists’ willingness to pay. With the moderating effect of past travel experience, all the first-stage indirect effects are significant, but the second-stage indirect effects are significant only at a high level of past travel experience.

This study provides theoretical implications for solving the puzzle about the paradox of trust in the government’s responses in the post-pandemic era. Practical implications for destination marketing organisations in the post-pandemic recovery era are then discussed.

The relationship between corporate-level green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) and the implementation of cleaner production practices (CPPs) is to a great extent unexplored in previous literature. This study aims to connect them with the corporate-level green supply chain learning and organizational competitive aggressiveness, presenting a novel interpretation of social ethics and morality in CPPs.

To thoroughly explore this novel relationship, this study has used PLS-SEM for examining the moderated-mediation of competitive aggressiveness and green supply chain learning.

Findings based on the data collected from 176 German firms have largely confirmed our propositions. Suggesting that there is a strong positive relationship between corporate level GEO and CPPs. Furthermore, our findings have confirmed that green supply chain learning mediates the macro-level relationship between GEO and CPPs. Moreover, it is also confirmed that the mediation of green supply chain learning in the macro-level relationship between GEO and CPPs is negatively moderated by competitive aggressiveness.

This study offers a first-hand view of negatively moderated-mediation of competitive aggressiveness. Therefore, its findings are extremely relevant for policymakers in the domain of morality, social ethics, corporate-level GEO, sustainability, corporate-level green supply chain learning and CPPs.

This study aims to examine the impact of board gender diversity on sustainable growth by considering the mediating role of investment efficiency (INVEFF) in this relationship and the threshold effect between board gender diversity and INVEFF. This investigation focuses on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, which is characterized by rapid socio-economic transformations and a recent emphasis on gender diversity.

Panel data regressions are applied to estimate the impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF using companies listed in the GCC in 2013–2022 as a sample. The estimations consider subsamples of underinvestment and overinvestment, as well as the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods.

The empirical results show a nonlinear impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF, a relationship that is more pronounced in the underinvestment subsample. The results indicate that INVEFF mediates the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate sustainable growth, which helps companies optimize their board composition to enhance their sustainable growth strategies.

These findings could inform GCC regulators in mandating further increases in women’s presence on boards of directors to improve INVEFF. This study examined only GCC-listed companies. Future research should investigate other factors influencing INVEFF and conduct comparative studies across Middle Eastern and North African countries to consider different regulatory and economic contexts and to examine compliance with international standards.

This study reveals the significant nonlinear impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF and the mediation of INVEFF in the relationship between board gender diversity and sustainable growth. These findings will help companies optimize their board of directors’ composition by increasing the presence of women on boards to improve their INVEFF and sustainable growth. This study aims to develop knowledge that will not only benefit companies regarding the potential impact of board gender diversity but also help international communities create better gender equality within companies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to explore the relationship between board gender diversity and INVEFF in the emerging economies of the GCC region. It is also the first to examine the nonlinear relationship between board gender diversity and INVEFF and the mediating role of INVEFF in the relationship between board diversity and sustainable growth. This study contributes to the understanding of the financial impact of board gender diversity in improving corporate INVEFF and sustainable growth.

The chapter explored the critical components, challenges, and technological advancements in construction supply chain management (CSCM), focusing on stealth construction (STC). It delved into STC encompassing nature, highlighting its unique challenges in its supply chain management and the necessity for adaptive technologies. It further discussed the benefits of tailoring supply chain management specifically for STC, emphasising the importance of developing the building’s cross-section, managing visibility, controlling energy transmission, and implementing countermeasures. Practical applications of CSCM in STC are also examined. This chapter sheds light on the complexities of managing supply chains in STC contexts and offers insights into strategies and technologies to address these challenges effectively.

The health and environmental hazards associated with synthetic dyes have led to a revival of natural dyes that are non-toxic, environmentally benign and coupled with various functions. The study aims to investigate and develop the potentiality of a popular herb called Chromolaena odorata (C. odorata) as a sustainable and stable dyestuff in textiles.

Natural colorant extracted from C. odorata leaves is used to dye the worsted fabric, which is one of the premier end-use of wool in fashion, via the padding method associated with pre-, simultaneous and post-mordanting with chitosan, tannic acid and copper sulfate pentahydrate. The effects of extraction, dyeing and mordanting processes on fabric’s color strength K/S and color difference ΔE_CMC are investigated via International Commission on Illumination’s L*a*b* color space, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, color fastness to washing, rubbing, perspiration and light.

The results obtained indicate extraction with ethanol 90% with a solid/liquid ratio of 1:5 within 1 h, and coloration with a liquor ratio of 1:5 (pH 5) within 2 h under padding pressure of 0.3 MPa are the most effective for coloring worsted fabric.

The C. odorata’s application as a highly effective dyestuff possessing good colorimetric effectiveness has expanded this herb's economic potential, contributing partly to economic growth and adding value to wool in global supply chain.

C. odorata dyestuff has prevailed over other natural colorants because of its impressive color fastness against washing, rubbing, perspiration and especially color stability for pH change.