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The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.

The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of operation. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations.

We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation in this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audits.

The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both a trainer and an auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides for itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.

This paper aims to review the research on accounting professionalisation in China to develop insights into how the research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date and outline future research directions and opportunities.

This paper adopts a methodological approach of systematic literature review, as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003) and Denyer and Tranfield (2009), to identify, select and analyse the extant literature on the Chinese public accounting profession. In total, 68 academic works were included in the review process.

This paper finds that the extant literature has produced fruitful insights into the processes and underlying motivation of accounting professionalisation in China, demonstrating that the Chinese experience has differed, to a large extent, from the hitherto mainly Anglo-American-dominated understandings of accounting professionalisation. However, due to the lack of common theoretical vernacular and an agreed upon focus, the extant literature illustrates a fragmented and contradictory picture, making attempts to accumulate prior knowledge in the field increasingly difficult.

This paper focusses only on research published in English. Consequently, the scope of review has been limited as some works published in languages other than English may be excluded.

This paper provides one of the pioneering exercises to systematically review the research on accounting professionalisation in China. It explores significant issues arising from the analysis and provides several suggestions for furthering the research effort in this field.

This paper aims to clarify whether assurance on non-financial corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports impacts the perceptions and decisions of banks as capital providers. The authors investigate the effects of the type of assurance provider and the level of assurance provided on decisions by banks to grant credit, make their own personal investments or recommend share purchases to their customers. The study aims to expand the domain of assurance on CSR reports (CSRR) by taking up a call by Cohen and Simnett (2015), who ask for behavioral research on how non-financial report’s intended users interpret and react to assurance.

The paper is based on an experiment case on a fictitious company with a 2 × 2 + 1 between-subjects design. To overcome concerns regarding external validity and to prove results in a real-world setting, the authors selected German bank directors as subjects due to the extremely high relevance of banks to the German economy. The authors investigated the perceptions of 69 bank directors and analyzed the influence of CSR assurance on their decisions.

The findings suggest that assurance positively influences confidence in CSRR and that, consequently, bankers are more likely to make favorable decisions toward the reporting companies, such as approving applications for credit, investing themselves in the company or recommending the purchase of shares to their clients. These effects are stronger when an accounting firm provides the assurance and when the assurance level is reasonable rather than limited.

The arguments presented are, strictly speaking, limited to the case in the experiment and the views held by the bank directors at the time the authors sent out the questionnaires. Moreover, the cell sizes are quite small. Nevertheless, the authors were able to find highly significant results.

The main implication of the paper is that the purchase of CSRR assurance services has a positive effect on bank directors’ perceptions and decisions. They favor the provision of such services by accounting firms and they prefer a reasonable assurance level. Thus, it can be concluded that bank directors perceive quality differences between assurance providers, are able to recognize the difference between reasonable and limited assurance and that the related information is relevant for their decisions.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the influence of CSRR assurance on decisions by bank directors. The observation of a high decisions-usefulness of CSRR assurance suggests that regulators should consider mandating some form of assurance on non-financial reports throughout the EU member states.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.

Food waste is acknowledged as a major environmental issue, but the retail sector has only begun to recognise this in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to answer when, how and why food waste became important for retail in Sweden.

A mixed-methods approach was used that included a literature review, quantitative data from retail, field studies, 11 interviews and a media study consisting of newspaper articles spanning 10 years. The combined methods provided qualitative rigor and saturation.

Results show that the increased interest in the issue stems from several factors working together. These factors include the availability of data, the formation of actor networks working together, increased societal environmental awareness, attitude change amongst consumers and retail, and the role of media as an actor and a method for making the issue visible. In addition, results show how the issue surfaced further, as more data became available. Findings suggest that food waste became an environmental issue, and later, the focus shifted to finding solutions for retail.

The results highlight the importance for policy to implement preventive measures and strengthen incentives for retail to work with reducing food waste. Such incentives should target cheap food, education, routines, legislation and business models throughout the food chain.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which adaptation projects have incorporated ecosystem services, as well as their redesigning options. The projects selected are listed under National Adaptation Programme of Action in West African region.

A desktop survey approach was used to review 168 projects from 13 countries across West Africa. The projects were categorized and analyzed according to their adaptation goal, thematic focus, their implementation duration and level of investment.

The adaptation initiatives are dominated by actions in the agricultural sector accounting for 32 per cent of the total. Further, they were characterized by small grants consideration with 63 per cent falling under US$1m budget, short-term implementation duration with 46 per cent having three years’ execution period. A large portion of projects (55 per cent) mentioned directly one or more ecosystem services, with provisioning services being referred to in 50 per cent of the cases.

Adaptation projects with ecosystem services components are more sustainable and beneficial to the community. Hence, more consideration of nature benefits during project design, more financial consideration and localizing of the projects to realize the global adaptation goal should be considered.

The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the impact of deviations from the long-run sustainable real exchange rate (RER) equilibrium on real economic growth rate applying panel autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) (Pooled Mean Group, Mean Group and Dynamic Fixed Effects estimators) in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting and panel NARDL for the largest database covering 104 countries during 1995–2022 period developed by Couharde et al. (2017).

The EQCHANGE database makes available not only the equilibrium RER but also misalignments according to the Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate approach for each country. One of the main objectives is to examine whether undervaluation or overvaluation RER can imply different responses on economic performance trying to differentiate between short and long run effects. Additionally, the authors consider the World Bank (WB)’s income classifications to compare the asymmetries attending to high-income, upper-middle-income, lower-middle-income and low-income levels.

Applying the panel ARDL technique, the results suggest that the RER misalignments have a negative but not significant effect on the short-run, nevertheless a negative and highly significant impact on real economic growth rate is detected on the long-run. Considering the panel NARDL, the asymmetric relationship between RER misalignment and economic growth rate is supported considering all countries in the long-run (in the short-term is not significant). In the long run is detected that undervaluation can promote economic growth rate, rather than overvaluation which can harm the economic performance. Additionally, the WB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) income’s classifications have been applied and the long-run symmetry test is strongly rejected regardless of income group.

To the best of the author knowledge, this is the first time the non-linear panel ARDL methodology has been applied for analyzing the impact of deviations from the long-run sustainable RER equilibrium on real economic growth. This allows us to see the asymmetric effect not seen before. The panel ARDL estimation can efficiently performed regardless of the integration level of the variables, additionally, it is consistent even in the presence of endogeneity. Besides, another advantage of this method is that it is possible to reflect not only the short but also the long-run dynamics. Moreover, this analysis offers a comparison between linear panel ARDL and non-linear to compare the advantages from the former. Additionally, this study covers the largest database, in particular, 104 countries during the 1995–2022 period implemented with the Couharde et al. (2017) EQCHANGE database. Finally, it is compared the asymmetries attending to different income classifications.