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This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance (CG) in the earnings management (EM) of affiliated companies in family business groups (FBGs) listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), using principal–principal agency theory.

The sample of 327 nonfinancial firms of the PSX, consisting of 187 group-affiliated firms and 140 nonaffiliated firms has been used in this study for the period of 2010 to 2019. The study uses different regression models for analysis, with robustness tests of various alternative measures of EM and FBG affiliation. In addition, endogeneity is controlled with the propensity score matching method.

The findings show that EM is less prevalent in affiliated firms compared to nonaffiliated companies. The results show a negative and significant relationship between FBGs affiliated firms and EM. Moreover, the results also show a positive relationship between EM and the interaction term of the CG index and group affiliation. It refers to the fact that effective governance cannot reduce EM in affiliated companies of FBGs as well as in the nonfinancial companies of the PSX. In addition, the quality of CG is higher in affiliated companies compared to its counterpart in nonaffiliated firms. The findings support the principal–principal agency theory that CG cannot mitigate the expropriating behavior of controlling shareholders against minority shareholders by reducing EM in emerging markets due to the ownership concentration phenomenon.

This research study has implications for small investors, government agencies and regulators. The findings of the study show that CG code should make it mandatory for companies to reveal information about their complex ownership structure and ownership information about affiliated companies and directors. Furthermore, it is suggested to revisit the code of CG in the Pakistani context of principal–principal conflict instead of the agent–principal explanation of agency theory based on Anglo–Saxon countries.

This research study has contributed to the CG and FBG literature in relation to EM in idiosyncratic settings of Pakistan. One of the prime contributions of the paper is the development of a comprehensive CG index. This research study used detailed, manually collected novel data on affiliated firms of FBGs in Pakistan.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the revised Code of Corporate Governance 2017 (CCG-2017) clauses pertaining to board independence, mandatory inclusion of female directors, audit committee (AC) chair independence and directors’ expertise on earnings manipulation.

Using an unbalanced panel of 323 listed companies from 2015 to 2019, this study uses panel data regression models with a robust methodology called difference-in-differences to tackle the potential endogeneity.

This study’s findings show that, as compared to the pre-CCG-2017 period, board- and AC-related variables increased significantly in the post-CCG-2017 period. Furthermore, financial experts on the board and board independence have a negative effect on discretionary accruals (DAs), whereas female directors and DAs are positively related, as is real activity manipulation. The AC-related variables, such as AC independence, expertise in AC, and AC chair independence, are significantly different from the preperiod to the postperiod, whereas their relationship is not according to the hypotheses of the study. Moreover, these results are robust to additional analysis of the alternative proxies for female directorship and the endogeneity problem.

The findings of this study have implications for regulators and practitioners who are concerned with the functions of the board of directors (BOD). The findings of this research study show that earnings management (EM) may be reduced by independent and expert directors. However, board gender diversity is not reducing the EM. Therefore, the decision to appoint female directors to the board should be based on their business and professional attributes rather than simply filling quotas or blindly adhering to regulations. Moreover, the findings of this research may assist the regulator in encouraging listed firms to enhance board governance via independence, diversity and competency, which are useful for effective monitoring.

This study fills a gap in the literature by providing the first evidence of country-specific regulation (CCG-2017), concerning the BOD and AC-related clauses on EM in Pakistan, which is missing in the relevant literature general and in Pakistan in particular.

This paper aims to examine whether family business groups’ (FBG) having the same network auditor among their affiliates mitigates earnings manipulation (EM).

This paper used unbalanced panel data from the years 2010–2019. The sample of the study is composed of 327 nonfinancial listed Pakistan Stock Exchange firms, consisting of 187 FBG-affiliated firms and 140 nonaffiliated firms. The ordinary least square and generalized least square regressions have been used to check the hypothesized relationship. Furthermore, the propensity score matching technique is used to ascertain comparable companies’ features and to control the potential endogeneity problem. Finally, the results are robust to various measures of EM and FBG’ proxies.

The findings of the study show that the same network auditor is reducing EM in FBG affiliates. In addition, the BIG4 same network auditors are also instrumental in constraining EM as compared to non-BIG4 audit firms. Overall, the results of this study depict that the same network auditor in FBG’s affiliated firms significantly influences EM. These results are robust with respect to generalized least squares and the endogeneity problem.

This research study has two important implications for the interested parties. First, although the authors find in this research study that the same network auditor is negatively associated with EM in the FBG-affiliated firms, however, FBG-affiliated firms might use opportunistically the real activity manipulation. Second, regulators highlight the change in audit partner/firm rotation, though the study findings indicate that regulators and practitioners may consider the benefits associated with the same network auditors for FBG.

This research study adds a new investigation to previous literature by examining the role of the same network auditors in the EM of the FBG’ affiliates. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to bring new knowledge by investigating the role played by the same network auditors along with the BIG4 same network audit firms in constraining EM in FBG.

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study aims to examine the association between interpersonal conflict and task performance as well as the mediating and moderating roles of workplace deviance and emotional intelligence, respectively, in this association.

Two studies were designed to test the authors’ hypotheses using multiwave and multisource data collected from 173 (187) subordinates and their immediate supervisors from Pakistan.

An important reason that interpersonal conflict diminishes employees’ task performance is that employees are engaged in workplace deviance. This indirect effect is less salient when employees are more emotionally intelligent.

One way to improve employees’ task performance could be to reduce and manage interpersonal conflicts, especially through interventions aimed at increasing employees’ emotional intelligence levels.

This research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that employees’ emotional intelligence is a boundary condition that alters the association between interpersonal conflict and employee task performance directly and indirectly via workplace deviance.

Drawing on conservation of resources and social exchange theories, the authors build and test a theoretical model examining the association of environmentally-specific empowering leadership (ESEL) with green creativity as well as the mediating and moderating roles of green knowledge sharing behavior and green psychological climate, respectively, in this association.

Data were collected in three different waves from 265 employees working in three-, four- and five-star hotels located in major cities in Pakistan. EFA, CFA and PROCESS macro were utilized to validate the study's research model and to examine the hypotheses.

The results indicated that ESEL is positively associated with green creativity, and green knowledge sharing behavior is an effective underlying mechanism between the ESEL–green creativity association. Furthermore, this study’s findings suggested that green psychological climate moderates the direct and indirect associations such that the associations were stronger when green psychological climate was more positive rather than less positive.

The study provides important lessons to managers and policymakers about the benefits of ESEL to achieving green employee creativity within the hospitality sector and helps to contextualize the importance and relevance of addressing global challenges in light of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The study is the first to explore the green adaptation of empowering leadership, its effects, mechanisms and boundary conditions.

This paper aims to examine how interpersonal conflict at work might enhance employees’ propensity to engage in counterproductive work behavior (CWB), as well as how this relationship might be attenuated by emotional intelligence. It also considers how the attenuating role of emotional intelligence might depend on employees’ gender.

Survey data were collected from 193 employees working in different organizations in Pakistan.

Interpersonal conflict relates positively to CWB, but this relationship is weaker at higher levels of emotional intelligence. The negative buffering role of emotional intelligence is particularly strong among women as compared to men.

Given that individuals high in emotional intelligence are better at regulating their negative emotions, emotional intelligence training may be a powerful tool for reducing the hostility elicited among organizational members in response to interpersonal conflict and, consequently, their engagement in CWB.

This study uncovered the emotional mechanism that underlies the interpersonal conflict–CWB relationship by gender and makes suggestions to managers on minimizing the harmful effects of interpersonal conflict.

This paper aims to probe the prevailing belief that engaging in innovative work behavior (IWB) will invariably lead to favorable outcomes. To do so, the paper integrates followership theory and cognitive dissonance theory to investigate the connection between employees’ IWB and despotic leadership, and the mediating role of interpersonal conflict with the supervisor in this connection. Moreover, the moderating impact of the supervisor’s dispositional resistance to change trait on the direct and indirect relationship between IWB and despotic leadership is explored.

The data were collected through a multi-wave survey of 350 employees and 81 supervisors working in 81 public schools.

The findings show that IWB has a positive and significant relationship with despotic leadership, and this relationship is mediated by interpersonal conflict with the supervisor.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the link between IWB and despotic leadership via interpersonal/dyadic conflict and explores the moderating effect of leadership dispositional resistance to change trait in this indirect relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals in the relationship between performance pressure and employees' work engagement, as well as the buffering role of emotional stability, as a personal characteristic, in this process.

Data were collected using a three-wave research design. Hypotheses were examined with a sample of 247 white-collar employees from French organizations.

Performance pressure is appraised as either threat or challenge. Challenge appraisal positively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship, whereas threat appraisal negatively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship. Emotional stability moderated these effects, suggesting performance pressure was appraised as a challenge rather than a threat, which then enhanced employee work engagement.

This study has shown that employees with high emotional stability who perceived performance pressure as a challenge achieved stronger employee work engagement.

Building on Lazare's theory of stress and Mitchell et al. 's theorization, this research demonstrates mediating and moderating mechanisms driving the role of performance pressure on employee work engagement relationships.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the determinants and consequences of psychological reactance in the online shopping context. Leveraging the psychological reactance and self-congruity theories, functional and symbolic discrepancies enhance the psychological reactance toward online shopping. In addition, trustworthiness moderates the impact of online customers attitude ambivalence on their psychological reactance.

The authors conduct an empirical study on online customer cognitive factors. In this research paper, the postpositivism research view is used. The Smart PLS-SEM is used to analyze the data.

The current study findings reveal that self-concept and operational incongruence (i.e. symbolic and functional) are the main factors that lead to psychological reactance and resulting in online shopping hate. Poor website quality and other matters are so significant they create functional incongruence. Moreover, low trustworthiness strengthens psychological reactance in the online shopping hate context.

This study extends the psychological reactance and self-congruence theories to online shopping. Previously, literature has extensively studied the social commerce intention.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the research of knowledge management in higher education institutions (HEIs) by studying the enablers of knowledge entrepreneurship. Anchored in the dynamic capability theory, knowledge entrepreneurship is heterogeneously distributed in HEIs and is critical for the sustenance of organizations in the knowledge economy. This aim is realized by understanding the determinants of knowledge entrepreneurship and empirically investigating the relationship of knowledge-sharing behaviour and entrepreneurial leadership with knowledge entrepreneurship.

Data was collected through structured questionnaires from 550 faculty members of HEIs in Pakistan by adequately representing the sample size through regional stratification and proportionate sampling. Data was analyzed through the Analysis of Moment Structures software where the data validation and reliability were achieved using correlations, confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modelling to generate generalizable results.

The findings revealed that knowledge sharing is an important component in developing knowledge entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial leadership is pivotal in providing the support, vision and autonomy to individuals with personal and professional capabilities to ensure the creation of new knowledge, collaboration and innovation.

The study contributes to an understanding of relationship of knowledge sharing and entrepreneurial leadership that leads to promotion of knowledge entrepreneurship in HEIs of Pakistan. In addition, the findings of the study extend the existing literature on knowledge entrepreneurship by offering the positive mediating role of entrepreneurial leadership in the universities of Pakistan, hence, addressing the specific challenges and opportunities faced by the HEIs of a developing country like Pakistan. The theoretical framework of the study elucidates the importance of knowledge sharing and entrepreneurial leadership by using the dynamic capabilities theory and extends the scope of the aforementioned theory in entrepreneurial leadership realm.

By generating an understanding of the dynamics of knowledge entrepreneurship this study tries to help policymakers and educational leaders to develop strategies to cultivate a culture of knowledge sharing and entrepreneurial leadership in Pakistani HEIs. Building the entrepreneurial ecosystem entails prioritizing knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and retention that can lead to innovative solutions for local and global challenges.

The study used dynamic capabilities theory to link the knowledge and resources together for the education sector for sustainable outcomes in the knowledge economy. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically study the behaviour of HEIs to create and support knowledge entrepreneurship in the presence of entrepreneurial leadership in the context of a developing country, Pakistan. Becoming a knowledge-based society will help Pakistan upgrade itself to the list of developed countries.