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The purpose of this paper is to assess whether multiple directorships have an influence on earnings management for Australian publicly listed firms. This paper attempts to determine whether boards with multiple directorships are effective monitors and are able to constrain earnings management activities.

The study adopts resource dependency theory on the relationship between multiple directorships and the extent of earnings management. Data analysis is based on publicly listed firms on Australian Stock Exchange utilising SIRCA database with a final pooled sample of 1,815 firm-year observations from 2008 to 2012.

Using different measures of multiple directorships, it is found that firms having board of directors with multiple directorships exhibit lower levels of earnings management. The results validate the applicability of resource dependency theory on the relationship between multiple directorships and the extent of earnings management suggesting that directors with multiple board seats by sharing experiences, skills, information and other resources limit the extent of earnings management by firms. Evidence also suggests that earnings management behaviour is more pronounced in larger firms compared to smaller firms and as predicted, industry audit specialists restrain earnings management activities.

This study introduces methodological enhancements to the literature as it measures the multiple directorships in a number of different ways. Firms may be encouraged to actively seek board members with diverse backgrounds, international exposure/experience and pertinent skill-sets with multiple board memberships. These benefits will assist firms to determine the optimal board composition that will enable it to function effectively.

Empirical studies on the association between multiple directorships and earnings management in Australia are scarce and this paper provides an update of the effect of multiple directorships on earnings quality in Australia.

Countries globally have implemented policies or regulations promoting greater gender diversity in boardrooms. We investigate whether gender diversity on corporate boards leads to higher Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) commitment through these disclosures.

Using 16,659 firm-year observations across 42 countries for the years 2019 and 2020, we use disclosure data from the Refinitiv database to measure the sample firms’ stated commitment to sustainable development.

Our data provide useful comparative information on the countries, legal jurisdictions and types of SGDs currently being disclosed. Our analyses reveal that gender diverse boards are associated with greater levels of SDG disclosures, with such commitment being more significant when there is more than one woman on the board. We also find that women board members are associated most with the PEOPLE and PLANET groups within the SDGs, and our results are robust to additional analyses and endogeneity concerns.

Although gender diversity has been examined within a corporate social responsibility and ethical, social and governance lens, this examination needs to be extended to the SDGs, given the latter’s multi-year horizon and involvement from governments, the private sector and a very broad cross-section of the global community. Our results reinforce global calls for increasing gender representation at the highest levels of organisations to meet the expectations of a greater range of stakeholders in terms of SDG commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether there is an association between CEO age and analysts forecast properties (particularly forecast accuracy and bias/optimism). CEOs, having the central role in managing firms, can significantly influence the financial and non-financial decisions in an organisation. Furthermore, having been identified as key culprits in past major accounting scandals, it is also important to identify the CEO characteristics that affect financial reporting decisions.

This study adopts the upper echelon theory on the relationship between CEO age and analysts forecast properties. The authors use a sample of 2,730 Australian firm-year observations for the period 2004–2013 drawn from IBES, Connect 4 and SIRCA databases.

The authors find that analyst forecast accuracy increases and bias (optimism) reduces with the CEO age. The authors conclude that earnings and related information provided to analysts improves with the CEO age, which increases the forecast accuracy and reduces bias (optimism). Additional results suggest that the positive (negative) effect of CEO age on forecast accuracy (bias) remains until the CEOs reach the age of their retirement age (65 years). The results remain consistent with a number of sensitivity tests and provide implication for stakeholders such as firms, analysts, auditors, financial statements users and regulators.

The authors demonstrate that the relationship between CEO age and analyst forecast properties is not linear but is, in fact, curvilinear substantiating concerns that CEOs that are much younger or much older do not help increase the quality of the information environment. Consequently, firms hiring CEOs in the right age bracket also benefit by having higher-quality information environment leading possibly to reduce costs such as those relating to debt and/or equity ultimately increasing firm value.

Empirical studies on the association between CEO age and analysts earnings properties in Australia are scarce and this paper contributes to the determinants of the analysts forecast accuracy and bias (optimism) and the CEO age literature.

The paper aims to examine the direction of the relationship between a firm's internal audit function and its external audit fees, extending a previous study by Goodwin‐Stewart and Kent, which used data from 2000.

The paper uses publicly available information to analyse the relationship between internal audit and audit fees.

The findings support Goodwin‐Stewart and Kent's result that the existence of an internal audit function in a firm has a significantly positive relationship with audit fees. In fact, the strength of this relationship has increased since 2000.

The study focuses on the top 300 public companies from a market capitalisation perspective and, therefore, the results may not be generalisable to other smaller public companies or to private firms. Second, the dichotomous experimental variable used in the study (existence of internal audit) might not be an ideal measure of internal audit usage since it may not be sensitive enough to capture all the variation in external audit fees. The findings suggest that companies use internal audit and audit fees in a complementary way to strengthen their overall control/operating environment.

Although the study extends and validates work already completed by Goodwin‐Stewart and Kent, the true value of its result is that users can use publicly available information to determine that firms with an internal audit function are more likely to use it in a complementary way with audit fees, thereby potentially indicating a commitment by that firm to a stronger monitoring/control environment.

This paper aims to propose that the development and use of intellectual capital (IC) elements by firms is contingent on the effect of the strategic environment on them.

The paper is a case study of the Indian banking industry, and considers how different banks responded to deregulation and industry reforms in terms of developing and exploiting their IC.

Government‐, private‐ and foreign‐owned banks used and developed different elements of IC (structural, human and relational capital) in response to the change in their strategic environment due to the reforms. These responses appear to be contingent on firm history and the initial endowments of IC.

A reliance on print archival sources and context specificity limits the generalizability of the findings.

The paper complements Kamath's cross‐sectional estimation of VAIC™ in the Indian banking industry, and seeks to introduce consideration of the strategic environment of firms.

The paper is one of the first systematic studies on the post‐liberalization strategies of banks in India, an important emerging economy.

The primary objective of this paper is to examine the association between the seven human‐resource features (spanning three major themes: qualifications and credentials; business and initial public offering (IPO) launch experience; and diversity) of independent audit committee members and the level of underpricing.

A sample of 410 Singapore IPOs listing on the stock exchange of Singapore from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2006 was used.

Empirical results overall suggest no overwhelming association between the human‐resource features of IPO audit committees and underpricing. Rather, the findings suggest only some specific human‐resource features (e.g. presence of an independent audit committee member with accounting qualifications and credentials) are of significance. Others (e.g. gender diversity of independent audit committee members) have little or no association. Also, results do not suggest a major category of human‐resource features (i.e. qualifications and credentials, business and IPO launch experience, or diversity) is associated with underpricing. Time also does not appear to affect the results.

As human‐resource features tended to increase rather than lower an IPO's cost of capital, or had not influence at all, our findings generally do not support some policymakers' arguments for the introduction of mandated uniform audit committee structures. Rather, the results support flexibility to determine the properties of the audit committee.

This study is one of the first (particularly outside the USA) to investigate linkages between audit committee human‐resource features and underpricing. Whilst acknowledging some caveats associated with this study, such as focusing on a single nation, this paper contributes relevant insights to the debate about audit committee effectiveness.

This paper is a Conference Report (ICDT-2019) organized by Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala, Punjab, India

The whole conference is articulated in the form of a Conference Report.

The conference provided an opportunity for participants to share ideas, reach some consensus, agree on differences of opinion and create a future action agenda. All the participants from all different backgrounds were able to bring new things to light and deliberate on contemporary issues related to knowledge trends and digital strategies that will lead to smart future.

The International Conference on Digital Transformation-2019 on the theme of “A Cognitive learning towards Artificial Intelligence” was convened by Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala, Punjab, India during September 6-8, 2019 in Patiala, Punjab, India.

The purpose of this study was to explore patient’s perception of their disorder.

This study used a phenomenographical approach within a qualitative research paradigm. A total of 21 patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) were recruited for the study, and data were collected through open-ended face-to-face interviews. The interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed. The transcribed verbatim was analyzed for themes.

The themes developed reflected the patients’ perceptions about the disease process. Thematic analysis revealed three themes: Knee OA is a degenerative disease, Knee OA is an age-related disease and Knee OA is caused by certain activities of daily living. The patient’s information varied and was limited to what had been provided by the health-care practitioner. The knowledge was more biomedical in orientation and was limited and not supported by the evidence.

There is a need to provide evidence-based information that the patient must understand. Health-care providers must use a biopsychosocial framework to discuss the disease knowledge with patients.

This study helps us in identifying disease perceptions that can be used to design education programs for knee OA patients. It also highlights the need for delivering educational programs to knee OA patients.

This study lays a foundation for further research. To the author’s best knowledge, this is the first study to explore disease perceptions using a qualitative approach conducted among patients from a lower middle-income country.