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This study aims to investigate how external auditors properly classify the requirements of ISA 701 for key audit matters (KAM) compared with an emphasis of matter or other matters (EOM) in ISA 706 and going concern (GC) in ISAs 706 and 570. Such investigation is important to assess whether the explanatory matters included in ISAs 701, 706 and 570 are appropriate for external auditors so they can properly classify identified audit matters as either KAM, EOM or GC matters and considering the relationship among them.

The research used questionnaires sent to a sample of external auditors in five audit firms with international affiliations including two of the Big 4 audit firms. The Z-test for two proportions is conducted to assess whether external auditors were confused when interpreting the explanatory matters included in the ISAs.

The research suggests that the current ISA 701 explanations may not adequately help some auditors in their aim of properly identifying all KAM from among the different matters they reach during their audit. When classifying EOM and GC, most of the external auditors misclassified them as KAM.

This is a timely study. The results have implications for standard setters and regulators through revising the explanations included in the different audit reporting standards including ISA 701 and considering the relationships among them.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is considered among the first that surveyed the appropriateness of the explanations included in ISAs for KAM, EOM, GC and how auditors perceive such explanations when forming their opinion about their clients’ financial statements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of qualitative materiality factors on auditors’ assessment of materiality and the determination of the type of the auditors’ reports. This paper also analyzes whether differences in personal characteristics of auditors can influence their use of qualitative materiality factors in assessing material misstatements.

A questionnaire and experimental case studies were undertaken to determine whether differences in personal characteristics of auditors can influence their degree of reliance on qualitative factors in assessing the materiality of detected misstatements. Descriptive and statistical tests were used to analyze the data collected.

The results of this paper show that qualitative materiality factors strongly influence the auditor’s materiality judgments. However, no significant differences were found regarding the effects of auditors’ personal characteristics on the degree to which they rely on the qualitative factors in their materiality judgments. Also, in certain situations, auditors considered factors other than the income for assessing certain misstatements as material and consequently modified their audit reports.

This paper examines the influence of qualitative factors on auditors’ materiality judgments and develops a list of qualitative factors to be considered by auditors when assessing materiality. It also concludes that the nature of misstatement is the least important qualitative factor considered by auditors when assessing materiality of detected misstatements and that the existence of more explicit or standardized qualitative materiality guidelines would lead to a more uniform judgment among auditors.

This paper aims to investigate how auditors’ characteristics affect key audit matters (KAMs) in the new audit report. It also provides an understanding of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on different audit reporting decisions and audit quality in specific industries.

The paper uses a survey based on actual audit case studies extracted from the management letters of clients in an audit firm with international affiliation to test the proposed hypotheses. Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests are conducted to analyze variance in responses among different groups of auditors regarding their selection of audit report sections required for each audit matter. The Wilcoxon signed rank test analyses difference in the auditors’ responses pre- and post-COVID-19 implications.

Most of the developed hypotheses were only partially accepted where industry specialization, professional qualifications of the auditors and the effects of COVID-19 had some effects on the ability of auditors to recognize and disclose KAMs. Auditor position is the most factor that significantly influenced the recognition of KAMs in the new audit report resulting in higher audit quality. This was specially the case with auditors specializing in manufacturing and financial institutions.

The current research illustrates that during the pandemic, auditors were more effective in recognizing KAMs compared to other audit matters, thus enhancing users’ confidence in both the audit and the financial reporting processes. The results are useful to regulators and auditors as they provide a better understanding of the factors that may impact communicating KAMs in the new audit report under COVID-19.

This study aims to investigate the implications of audit industry specialization on auditor’s retention and growth within an emerging economy. Factors such as whether the firm is a Big 4, a firm with international affiliation, a local firm and the type of industry were studied to analyse the reasons behind audit firm retention and growth.

This research is based on a field study related to audit firms providing services to listed companies in an emerging economy. The sample includes the top 100 publicly held companies’ in the Egyptian stock market during 2006-2011 for which their annual reports are analysed to determine the audit firms’ retention and growth. An assessment of the continuity of the auditors and the increase in the number of audit clients were also measured.

The results confirm that industry specialization has an important effect on the auditor’s retention, especially for industries where capital investment is significant such as buildings, construction, financial services, housing and real estate. Big 4 audit firms retained their clients because of their industry specialization and brand name. Evidence was found that good knowledge of accounting and auditing standards resulted in audit firms with international affiliation competing with the Big 4 for clients’ retention and growth.

This study contributes to the existing literature, as it is among the first to provide empirical evidence on auditor retention, growth and auditor’s dominance in an emerging economy such as Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a microeconomic-based approach to support fund-allocation decisions for a large number of assets. Under the prevailing financial constraints and rapid deterioration of facilities, arriving at optimum fund allocation for capital renewal projects has become very challenging. Due to the complexity of modeling multi-year life cycle cost analysis, existing fund-allocation methods have serious drawbacks when handling a large portfolio of assets, and their results are difficult to justify.

This paper adopts well-established theories from microeconomics and proposes a new microeconomic-based decision support framework that has two novel components: a heuristic procedure to optimize and justify fund-allocation decisions by balancing the funding among the different asset categories; and a visual what-if analysis approach inspired by the economic indifference maps.

Applying the proposed framework on a real case study of 800 building components proved that optimum decisions can be achieved through an equilibrium state at which fair and equitable allocations are made such that the utility per dollar is balanced for all asset categories. The visual what-if analysis approach presented a powerful graphical tool to visualize decisions, along with their costs and benefits, and facilitate sensitivity analysis under changes in budget levels.

This paper, using the proposed microeconomic framework, sheds a new light on how fund-allocation optimization problems can be simplified, from an economic perspective, to arrive at accurate and justifiable decisions for a large portfolio of facilities.

This review aims to provide an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of forensic accounting education and profession.

This paper reviews published forensic accounting studies to explore forensic accounting strengths and weaknesses.

The strengths of forensic accounting are its benefits to students and accounting professionals, the significant need and increasing demand, the new career channels and the reduction of fraud. The weakness factors are the lack of regulation, the lack of control over the profession entry, the lack of agreement on how to teach forensic accounting, the lack of specialized research journals, the misconception of its intrinsic aim, the lack of highly qualified practitioners and educators and the lack of public recognition and occupation reputation.

It is hoped that this structured investigation of the factors relevant to the current and future status of forensic accounting education and profession will provide a sufficient overview of the critical issues and concerns that are important to be known for understanding and advancing the vital application of forensic accounting on the Socio-Economic Development. It is anticipated that this paper has an impact on future policy that ultimately contributes to improving business and limit fraud incidents, thus, it can contribute to business and socio-economic development.

The literature on forensic accounting is extensive and varied. However, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of forensic accounting. This study provided policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of forensic accounting.

In this work, the design problem of hydrodynamic plain journal bearings is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem to improve bearing performance under different operating conditions.

The problem is solved using a hybrid approach combining genetic algorithm and sequential quadratic programming. The selected state variables are oil leakage flow rate, power loss and minimum oil film thickness. The selected design variables are the radial clearance, length-to-diameter ratio, oil viscosity, oil supply pressure and oil supply groove angular position. A validated empirical model is adopted to provide relatively accurate estimation of the bearing state variables with reduced computations. Pareto optimal solution sets are obtained for different operating conditions, and secondary selection criteria are proposed to choose a final optimum design.

The adopted hybrid optimization approach is a random search algorithm that generates a different solution set for each run, thus a different bearing design. For a number of runs, it is found that the key design variables that significantly affect the optimum state variables are the bearing radial clearance, oil viscosity and oil supply pressure. Additionally, oil viscosity is found to represent the significant factor that distinguishes the optimum designs obtained using the implemented secondary selection criteria. Finally, the results of the proposed optimum design framework at different operating conditions are presented and compared.

The proposed multi-objective formulation of the bearing design problem can provide engineers with a systematic approach and an important degree of flexibility to choose the optimum design that best fits the application requirements.

This paper aims to present a graphical comparison method for construction schedules, which illustrates the differences for each individual activity. The method overlays the observed differences on a bar chart creating a representation of whether each activity is ahead, on or behind schedule at a given date.

The method is implemented using a Microsoft Project add-in (plug-in). The paper demonstrates the method and its potential uses with three illustration cases: a time impact analysis, an alternative analysis for the selection of subcontractors and a multi-baseline analysis of an as-built schedule.

The cases included in the paper show that the proposed method uses a simplified and familiar attribute comparison for each activity in a schedule. The method affords flexibility in presenting differences between schedules such as the start/finish dates or duration. As the method does not rely on a specific software application or analysis method, it can be implement to different software applications as well as performance or delay analysis techniques. The method also makes it possible to present multiple and selective baseline comparisons overlaid on an updated or as-built schedule.

The method graphically presents a comparison of start dates, durations and finish dates for each activity that can be integrated with any schedule. The method can be used for forensic analysis as well as project control measures during construction. As the method does not rely on any specific performance or delay calculation method, it can be applied to any forensic analysis technique and delay analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Cattaneo-Christov heat flux model for an Oldroyd-B fluid.

Cattaneo-Christov heat flux model is utilized for the heat transfer analysis instead of Fourier’s law of heat conduction. Analytical solutions of nonlinear problems are computed.

The authors found that the temperature is decreased with an increase in relaxation time of heat flux but temperature gradient is enhanced.

No such analysis exists in the literature yet.

Purpose: To examine the effects of Industry 5.0 on distance education.

Need for the study: As educational institutions worldwide strive to adapt to rapid technological advancements and shifting educational demands, this research provides actionable insights on integrating these technologies to not only augment learning outcomes but also to ensure inclusivity and accessibility in education. Exploring the convergence of Industry 5.0 and distance learning is imperative for shaping future educational practices and policies.

Methodology: Systematic analysis: 18 articles obtained from ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), ERIC, and Google Scholar databases.

Findings: The findings highlight the need for in-depth research into the relationship between Industry 5.0 and distance education, revealing the importance of technological integrations and educational methodologies in these fields. It has been determined that certain countries, such as Indonesia, are pioneers in this field, but a global spread and participation has not yet been realised. Frequently used keywords and methodological trends in the studies indicate that the research field needs to expand and diversify. The codes and categories obtained from the studies were categorised under the following themes: (1) Transformation in Education, (2) Technological Innovations and Applications, (3) Pandemic and Digital Transformation, and (4) Next-Generation Communication Networks.

Practical implications: Implications of this study are profound, offering educators, policymakers, and technology developers a blueprint for integrating Industry 5.0 technologies into distance learning frameworks. Demonstrating how artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and human–machine interfaces can be leveraged to tailor educational experiences, this research highlights pathways to enhance learner engagement and achievement across educational contexts.