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This research explored the intersection of cognitive processes, emotions and their impacts on digital game-based vocabulary learning (DGVL) among university students. Recognizing the scant research in this area, especially with integrating innovative technologies, this study aims to understand the influence of these elements using advanced monitoring tools.

This inquiry was carried out as an observational study involving 44 university students segmented into three English language proficiency levels: high, intermediate and low based on their English course scores. The methodological tools included a portable eye tracker to observe visual behaviors and deep learning technology to identify and analyze the participants’ emotional responses and engagement with the DGVL during the learning process.

The results showed that distinct fixation sequences and variations in visual attention during DGVL were correlated with different levels of competency, suggesting a direct correlation between visual engagement and language competence. In addition, emotional transitions, predominantly from engagement (“flow”) to challenge (“frustration”), were common among participants, reflecting the emotional dynamics of learning. Furthermore, all participants consistently focused on the English vocabulary definitions, indicative of their targeted approach to understanding and test preparation. These findings highlighted the intricate dynamics between emotions and cognitive processes in learning environments.

Contribution of this study shows the interplay of cognitive engagement and emotional experiences in the context of DGVL. It underscored the complex nature of these factors and their collective influence on learners’ visual and emotional engagement, offering valuable implications for educational strategies and technological applications in language learning.

Myopic going concern practice refers to the current audit going concern opinion that a firm is rewarded a favorable going concern opinion as long as it has the capability to satisfy its debt obligation in the following year. We show, via a structural agency problem we develop in the paper, that such a practice has a potential economic cost to the firm. We study Lucent Technologies Inc. in detail for its loss in economic value and also measure the magnitude of this impact with 500 companies. We find that Lucent should have lost its going concern status in 2002 as it had to sell off its assets to meet debt obligations and nearly 18% of the 500 firms suffer some degree of economic loss due to the agency problem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the transition from self-regulation to heteronomy has changed the gap in audit quality between Big Four and non-Big Four auditors.

This study analyzes publicly held companies in the USA between 1999 and 2012 using univariate analysis, multivariate analysis and quantile regression analysis. Audit quality is measured with discretionary accruals.

This study shows an insignificant difference in audit quality between the clients of Big Four and non-Big Four auditors after Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (hereafter, PCAOB) began its operations. In the analysis of the effects of PCAOB inspections on the audit quality of audit firms that are inspected annually and triennially, the findings show that the inspections have more positive effects when carried out annually. This suggests that the frequency of inspection is positively associated with audit quality. Overall, these results provide evidence that recent improvements in audit quality have been caused by changes in regulatory standards.

The paper provides three major original contributions. First, the authors add to the literature on audit quality by further demonstrating a reduced gap in audit quality between Big Four and non-Big Four audit firms due to heteronomy. Secondly, this study contributes to the debate as to whether independent inspections on audit firms are beneficial or not and suggests that the PCAOB inspections help increase audit quality. Finally, the results of this work contribute to the growing literature examining discretionary accruals.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the predictions in Titman (1984) and Berk et al. (2010) which indicate that firms with higher leverage will pay chief executive officer (CEO) and employee more. In addition, this paper examines whether financial distressed firms utilize leverage as a bargaining tool to reduce labor costs.

This paper conducts ordinary least squares regression analysis to investigate: CEO compensation which represents critical employees and lower-level employee compensation which represents less critical employees. Empirical data consist of US publicly held companies during the period between 2006 and 2013.

This paper finds that firms with higher levels of leverage tend to compensate employees for their human capital risk and that financially distressed firms consider leverage a bargaining tool by which to depress labor costs, which leads to lower employee compensation as compared to that of financially healthy firms.

This paper highlights the importance of keeping balance between human capital and labor costs. In the case that human capital risk might not be fully compensated by firms facing financial distress, vicious cycle could occur because a failure of considering human capital might invite unrecoverable consequence. This could be done in future research.

This paper has three contributions. First, this paper supports the Titman (1984) and Berk et al. (2010) by empirically documenting that high-leveraged firms compensate their employees for potential human capital risk. Second, this paper adds to the literature by empirically providing that human capital risk might not be fully compensated if the firms are facing financial distress. Finally, this paper contributes to the authorities by showing that employees’ interests may be sacrificed if the firm is under financial distress.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether financial institutions, which are highly regulated entities, experience fewer sanctions and have lower penalties (mandatory and regulatory) if they have better corporate governance performance (voluntary).

This study uses unique corporate governance data endorsed by the authorities and sanction information for financial institutions in Taiwan from 2014 to 2020 to examine whether regulatory compliance is associated with corporate governance for financial institutions. This study also examines the moderating effects of shareholding concentration, governmental shareholding and foreign institution shareholding on this relationship.

The positive association between compliance and governance is found. In addition, partial results show that the positive relationship is less profound when the shareholder concentration is higher and more profound when government shareholdings are higher.

The findings of this study support the premise that a well-structured, non-mandatory corporate governance evaluation mechanism, that is actively established and monitored by the appropriate authorities, may influence the compliance performance of financial institutions which is mandatory and minimum social requirements.