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In Tunisia, foreign commercial exchanges are predominantly maintained via ocean freight and accomplished through eight major ports. The latter play a critical role in the Tunisian economy, whereby nearly 30.7 million tons of goods were transited in 2018. Maintaining their efficiency therefore remains a very important objective to achieve. In this context, the present study is designed to investigate the technical efficiency of respective Tunisian ports over the 16-year period (2005–2020).

The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method is applied to measure the associated time-invariant and time-varying technical efficiency. Moreover, through technical inefficiency modeling, effects of both rail connectivity and private sector participation in handling activities on technical efficiency have also been accounted for.

The reached results turn out to reveal well that the Tunisian ports appear to operate below their production frontier, noticeably marked by persistent technical inefficiency. Additionally, the relevant estimates tend to confirm the berth variable associated importance in highlighting production related to Tunisian ports. More particularly, our analysis reveals that the private sector’s participation proves to display a significantly negative association with technical efficiency, while the ports’ rail connectivity turns out to demonstrate a significantly positive correlation with technical efficiency.

The findings of this study can provide port authorities and policymakers with insights into the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports by identifying best practices, the main factors influencing their efficiency (such as rail connectivity and private sector’s participation) and areas for improvement in these ports.

The present study stands as a pioneering attempt to examine the efficiency dimension through the implementation of panel data estimation modeling frameworks, particularly the random-effects and the Battese and Coelli (1995) approaches, applied to measure the technical efficiency of the Tunisian port sector. Similarly, the present study also represents an effective attempt, whereby the effects of exogenous variables, notably the rail connectivity and private sector participation, are thoroughly considered in exploring the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports.

In accounting, several studied Arab countries are keen to acquire the dominant Western thinking categories that justify and normalize the exerted domination, especially when it comes to globalized practices. This paper aims to challenge this assumption by examining the dynamics of globalization and its effects through new theoretical perspectives and through new empirical terrain.

It builds on the concept of “globalization from below”, which emerges from the network of individual development of daily routines, systems and practices, far from international institutions pressure. It uses social representation theory to inform the centrality of a particular social group. The study uses a survey, which was on a sample group of 214 Tunisian public accountants and uses the hierarchical evocation method and an attitudinal scale.

The results are twofold: first, Tunisian public accounts lack a stable and common understanding to globalization; second, there are ambivalent positive/negative attitudes towards globalization among accounting professionals.

The dynamic Tunisian context, along with the absence of a stable collective meaning to the concept of globalization among accountants, shows the complexity of such cases, vacillating between international institutions’ domination and the emergence of emancipatory accounting practices inspired by and developed for local socioeconomic entities, if supported by specific factors.

How are social groups unmade? Current theories identify the symbolic power of the state as a primary factor in the creation of social groups. Drawing on Gramsci's The Southern Question, this chapter extends state-centered theories by exploring policies that are critical but under-theorized factors in group formation. These include the concession of material benefits as well as the use of coercive means. Further, while current theories focus on how social groups are made, a Gramscian perspective draws attention to how the state intervenes to prevent or neutralize group-making projects from below. This chapter explores a case of a decrease in national group solidarity. Specifically, this study explains how in the 1990s the Israeli state weakened national group formation among Palestinians by adopting two spatially distinct but coordinated strategies. First, the rearrangement of the military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through the establishment of an authority of self-rule (the Palestinian Authority) demobilized and divided Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories, especially along class-cum-moral lines. Second, state practices and discourses centered on citizenship rights shifted the center of political activism among Palestinian citizens of Israel toward citizenship issues. I argue that these two routes, which I call the indirect rule route and the civil society route, were complementary components of a broader attempt to neutralize Palestinian collective mobilization around nationhood. Despite recent changes and contestations, these two strategies of rule continue to affect group formation and to create distinct experiences of politics among Palestinians under Israeli rule. Analysis of the Palestinian–Israeli case shows that the state can unmake groups through the distribution of interrelated policies that are specific to certain categories of people and places. Understanding the conditions under which certain policies of inclusion or exclusion affect group formation requires going beyond the analytic primacy currently given to the symbolic power of the state.

The purpose of this research is to ascertain the impact of audit committee (AC) activism and independence on the quality and quantity of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures for energy sector firms in Australia. This paper aims to understand how AC attributes such as meeting frequency, and the number of independent directors influence the compliance with the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines and quantity of ESG disclosures.

Bloomberg ESG disclosure scores and company reported AC attributes are collected and analysed using the pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression framework with Petersen’s (2009) technique by using a two-dimensional cluster at the firm and year level. Further, this paper uses a lagged independent variable and two-stage least square approach to address endogeneity concerns.

The results show a significant positive effect of AC activism and independence on the level of compliance with the GRI guidelines, indicating the favourable effect of AC attributes on ESG reporting quality. Likewise, AC attributes positively affect the quantity of ESG disclosures. Notably, the impact of AC attributes is more pronounced on environmental disclosures.

This paper validates the significance of the management control mechanism in improving the quality and quantity of ESG disclosures for an environmentally sensitive sector, hence offering a potential answer to reduce agency and legitimacy issues for the sensitive industry firms.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the asymmetric effect of oil production on environmental degradation in OPEC member countries from 1970–2019.

The authors build a nonlinear panel ARDL–PMG model using the Shin et al. (2014) nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach in panel form to assess both the short- and long-run impact of positive and negative oil production movements on CO₂ emissions.

The result demonstrates that the variables are cointegrated. According to the linear long run coefficients, oil production, FDI inflows and economic growth both have a positive and significant relationship with CO₂ emissions, implying that they deteriorate environmental quality in OPEC countries, while renewable energy has a negative relationship with CO₂, implying that increasing renewable energy improves environmental quality. The asymmetric findings prove that positive and negative shocks of oil production exert a positive effect on carbon emissions in short run and long run.

To begin with, the empirical assessments do not include all OPEC member nations; researchers are advised to resolve this constraint by looking at the economies of other OPEC members. Albeit the lack of data for other energy sources may serve as another constraint of this research, future research is expected to broaden the current framework via other energy sources such as nuclear, electricity, biomass, solar as well as wind.

The research adds to the body of knowledge as many of the prevailing studies in the literature failed to look at the asymmetric effect of oil production on the quality of environment. This is another gap in the literature that the current study is set out to fill. This study adds oil production as an explanatory variable and helps to extend the existing literature for OPEC countries, which could propose a solution to deal with ensuing environmental issues.

Australia is one of the ten largest emitters of greenhouse gases but stands out from the others due to its economic growth without recession for 26 consecutive years. This paper aims to focus on the energy-growth nexus and the effects of energy consumption on the environment in Australia.

This analysis is performed using annual data from 1965 to 2015 and the autoregressive distributed lag model.

The paper finds empirical evidence of a trade-off between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO₂) intensity. The results show that increased gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia increased investment in renewable energy sources (RESs), although the renewable technology is limited and has no impact on reducing CO₂ intensity in the long run. In contrast to investment in RES, fossil fuels, coal and oil, are decreased by GDP. However, oil consumption increased renewable energy consumption, and this reflects the pervading effect of the growing economy.

Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by analysing the behaviour of both energy consumption and the environment on the growing Australian economy. In addition, this paper goes further by studying the impact of economic growth on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, as well as on CO₂ emissions. The study is conducted on a single country for which literature is scarce, using a recent approach and a long time period.

This study aims to examine the association between fair value accounting and the cost of corporate bonds, proxied by bond yield spread. In addition, this study explores the moderating role of auditor industry expertise at both the national and the city levels.

This study first examines the effect of the use of fair value on yield spread by estimating firm-level regression model, where fair value is the testing variable and yield spread is the dependent variable. To test the differential impact of the three levels of fair value inputs, this paper divides the fair value measures based on the three-level hierarchy, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3, and replace them as the test variables in the regression model.

This study finds that the application of fair value accounting is generally associated with a higher bond yield spread, primarily driven by Level 3 estimates. The results also show that national-level auditor industry expertise is associated with lower bond yield spreads for Level 1 and Level 3 fair value inputs, whereas the impact of city-level auditor industry expertise on bondholders is mainly on Level 3 fair value inputs.

The paper innovates by exploring the impact of fair value accounting in a setting that extends beyond financial institutions, the traditional area of focus. Moreover, most prior research considers private debt, whereas this study examines public bonds, for which investors are more likely to rely on financial reporting for their information about a firm. Finally, the study differentiates between city- and national-level industry expertise in examining the role of auditors.

This research has several practical implications. First, firms seeking to raise debt capital should consider involving auditors, with either industry expertise or fair value expertise, due to the roles that auditors play in safeguarding the reliability of fair value measures, particularly for Level 3 measurements. Second, from standard-setting and regulatory perspectives, the study’s findings that fair value accounting is associated with higher bond yield spread cast further doubt on the net benefits of applying a full fair value accounting regime. Third, PCAOB may consider enhancing guidance to auditors on Level 2 fair value inputs, to further enhance audit quality. Finally, creditors can be more cautious in interpretating accounting information based on fair value while viewing the employment of auditor experts as a positive signal.

First, the paper extends research on the role of accounting information in public debt contracting. Second, this study adds to the auditing literature about the impact of industry expertise. Finally, and more generally, this study adds to the ongoing controversy on the application of fair value accounting.

Unacceptable behaviour in retailing – negative customer deviance (NCD) is rising, damaging retailers financially. Current research investigates forms of NCD by addressing its impact on employees but overlooks its effects on bystander-customers and their retail channel preferences. As channel switching within retailing is increasing unprecedentedly, this research investigates its correspondence with NCD encounters.

This research uses structural equation modelling, based on data collection administered through a web-based survey of 1,008 customers of at least 16 years of age, to analyse the research model.

The findings reveal unexplored forms of NCD perceived by bystander-customers in retailing and their consequences, linking it to bystander-customers' ill-being, dissatisfaction with the shopping experience, a decrease in store commitment and an increase in their retail channel-switching intentions. Additionally, the research uncovers moderating variables.

This research tests NCD dimensions and effects on bystander-customers, which indicate the need for retailers to address shopping values, attitudes and commitment through corrective, proactive and long-term strategic actions.

As one of the first studies to investigate the impact of NCD on bystander-customers' intentions to switch from store-based to online shopping, strategies for retailers are developed to help diminish and control NCD-induced threats to bystander-customers.

The study of developed capital markets suggests that information provided in financial statements has lost its value relevance to equity holders. The purpose of this paper is to explore this issue in the emerging market of Qatar.

Following other studies in the literature, the study examines the value relevance of earnings and book values using the price valuation model provided by Ohlson (1995). A total of 215 observations were collected from all firms listed on the Qatari Stock Exchange over a period of five years (2012–2016).

This study suggests that the value relevance of both earnings and book values has noticeably decreased over the sample period. However, its results show that the decline in the value relevance of earnings favored book values.

Like other studies, this one has limitations that suggest areas for future research. For example, in Qatar, like other emerging markets, a lack of data prevents the performance of deep analysis. Additionally, the authors only use Ohlson’s (1995) model as a framework for evaluation. It would be interesting to explore the changes when examining alternative valuation models. Another limitation is that the authors examine only two accounting measures: earnings and book values. Further research could explore changes in the value relevance of other measures, such as cash flow.

These findings provide empirical evidence regarding the value relevance of earnings and book values in an emerging market.

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper provides the first empirical evidence regarding the value relevance of earnings and book values in the emerging capital market of Qatar.