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The present study aims to evaluate the VBI strategies that have been implemented and to analyze the implementation challenges that BIMB has encountered.

A case study method was used to generate an in-depth and multi-faceted understanding of VBI strategy implementation in Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB). A semi-structured in-depth interview was conducted with BIMB which is among of the earliest members of the VBI Community of Practitioners (CoPs). The data were transcribed and analyzed based on the content and thematic analyses.

This paper provides insights into how Islamic bank, i.e. BIMB, implement initiatives and strategies for adopting VBI based on the four underpinning principles. VBI is seen as a continuous strategy implementation of what has been practiced in BIMB, for instance, the Sadaqah House initiative introduced in 2018.

The primary limitation of the study is that it only focused on BIMB and does not represent the larger members of VBI CoPs among Islamic banks in Malaysia. A larger sample would have given more trustworthy results and could give better insights on the VBI implementation.

A good strategy implementation can be realized by generating a positive and sustainable economic, societal and environmental impact consistent with sustainable shareholder returns and long-term interests. The regulator should consider the policy implications of this study by strengthening the VBI and encouraging more Islamic and conventional banks to adopt it based on the findings.

The originality of this study is that it focuses on strategy implementation and the challenges facing Islamic bank toward VBI. It provides information on the implementation strategy of VBI in Islamic banks in Malaysia and facilitates other Islamic banking institutions, specifically future members of CoPs in creating a strong ethical foundation.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the risk of management motives for fraud can be assessed in external audits.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 experienced external auditors to explore their perspectives on the methods they employ to assess the risk of management motives for fraud.

The study identifies six methods external auditors can use to assess management motives for fraud. It emphasises that assessing management motives requires auditors to go beyond understanding these motives and necessitates a sceptical and analytical mindset. Auditors need to identify the accounts most vulnerable to management manipulations, observe management attitudes and assess the credibility of management assertions. The auditors in this study highlight specific accounts frequently manipulated by management. Still, manual year-end journal entries are the most vulnerable to management manipulations as they are subject to fewer controls. They recommend increasing the sample size to 100% and assigning more experienced staff, particularly, those with qualifications in fraud examination or anti-fraud training, to audit these vulnerable accounts thoroughly. They also provided examples of how auditors can identify management motives for fraud, observe management attitudes and assess the credibility of management assertions.

Audit standards (e.g. ISA 240, SAS99) lack explicit guidance on assessing management motives for fraud, but auditors are required to consider it in fraud risk assessment. This study proposes guidance recommendations to improve auditors' ability to assess this risk, which could be integrated into professional audit standards and training materials to improve auditors' professional scepticism, ability to challenge management and skills in fraud risk assessment.

Assessing the risk of management motives for fraud in external audits has received limited attention in the literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address this knowledge gap.

How can large international financial firms go green in authentic ways? What enhances ‘Net Zero action’? Changes in global banks, fund managers, and insurance firms are at the heart of green finance. External change pressures – combined with problematic firm predispositions – exacerbate barriers to change and promote scepticism about authentic Net Zero change. Field research reveals main elements, connections, and interactions of this question by considering financial firms as complex socio-technical systems (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003). An interdisciplinary/holistic narrative approach (De Bakker et al., 2019) is adopted to design a conceptual framework that can support a green ‘behavioural theory of the financial firm’ (green BTFF). The BTFF presents an international version (Peng, 2001) of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (Barney, 1991; Hart, 1995; Teece et al., 1997).

The approach of this chapter is aimed at closing knowledge gaps and realign values in financial markets and society. By raising awareness about organised hypocrisy and facades (Brunsson, 1993; Cho et al., 2015; Schoeneborn et al., 2020) in financial firms the chapter aims at overcoming the gap between ‘talking’ and ‘walking’ in the financial sector. The chapter defines testable firm-level hypotheses for ‘Green Finance’ (Poterba, 2021) as well as – by implication – tests for ‘greenwashing’.

This study aims to examine whether the presence of advisory directors affects firm discretionary accruals (DACC), a widely used proxy for financial reporting quality. The authors argue that the advisory director weakens the board monitoring role and impairs the firm financial reporting quality by increasing DACC.

The sample consists of listed firms on the Australian Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2015 using 7,649 firm-year observations. The authors perform descriptive statistics, regression and propensity score matching analyses to examine the research hypothesis.

The research evidence that firms with a higher presence of advisory directors have more DACC, indicating poor financial reporting quality. Furthermore, the authors categorize the DACC and find that the firm has higher income-increasing DACC in the presence of higher advisory directors. The findings are robust concerning endogeneity issues.

The research evidence that firms with a higher presence of advisory directors have more DACC, indicating poor financial reporting quality. Furthermore, the authors categorize the DACC and find that the firm has higher income-increasing DACC in the presence of higher advisory directors. The findings are robust concerning endogeneity issues.

The research contributes valuable insights for regulators and policymakers seeking to comprehend the implications of firms using more advisory directors. Additionally, the authors recognize the potential significance of the findings for the institution of directors, as they can provide a nuanced understanding of the specific roles played by advisory directors in organizational dynamics.

While the extensive body of literature on corporate governance and financial reporting quality has been well-established, a noticeable void exists in academic research delving into the relationship between advisory directors and DACC management. This study seeks to fill this gap, making a distinctive and original contribution to the existing literature on corporate governance.

This study aims to investigate climate finance literature to understand whether and how research in this area is explored from an accounting perspective.

This study conducts a meta-analysis and narrative review of climate finance.

The issue of climate finance has received increasing attention in recent years because of international negotiations on climate change. The volume of literature examining climate finance has grown, particularly from a finance perspective. The literature analysed is diverse, using unique methodological and theoretical differences and providing insights into the effectiveness of policies and the impact of climate finance on capital markets, economic growth and the green economy. However, in spite of growing concerns regarding the accounting and reporting issues in climate finance, little attention has been paid to this topic from an accounting, accountability, audit or corporate disclosure perspective.

This study contributes to climate finance research by integrating insights from a dispersed and emerging body of literature by conducting meta-analysis and narrative review. Meta-analysis enables us to map the development of this specific literature and how it has changed over the years, whereas a narrative review serves as a basis for identifying research gaps and developing avenues for future research in accounting, accountability, audit and corporate disclosure.

This study aims to investigate the impact of board skill diversity (BSD) on corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In addition, this study explores the moderating effects of formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure.

This study uses Chinese high polluting companies as the sample and uses regression analysis. Robustness checks, including instrumental variable regression, Heckman two-stage model and propensity score matching method, are performed to test the robustness of the results.

The findings suggest that BSD significantly improves CER performance. Both formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure strengthen the positive impact of BSD on CER. Further channel analyses reveal that BSD improves CER performance by promoting corporate proenvironmental behaviors rather than by restricting environmental violations; skill diversity of executive directors has a more significant effect on CER than that of independent directors. Finally, the moderating effect of regulatory pressure is only significant after the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law, and the moderating effect of media pressure mainly concentrates on negative media coverage.

The involvement of directors with more diverse skills is essential to improve corporate proenvironmental behaviors. Companies should select qualified directors with different skills to further improve their performance on environmental protection and sustainable development.

Regulators and standard-setters should develop efficient guidelines on corporate board governance to enhance the positive role of companies in environmental and sustainable development.

This study broadens the research on the determinants of CER by examining the influence of BSD on CER and the moderating roles of various stakeholder pressures, thereby providing a deeper understanding of corporate environmental performance and sustainable development.

This paper applies an original construct of “subjective risk intelligence (SRI)” to the small business context. By leveraging on its multidimensionality, it aims to shed light on the existing ambiguities in the analysis of the relationship between the entrepreneurial attitude towards risk evaluation and firms’ financial stability.

The empirical investigation refers to the Italian context, where an ad hoc survey has been administered to a sample of small businesses. Based on both a linear and a semiparametric regression, results show a significant relationship between SRI and firm’s financial structure, and that such relationship is basically nonlinear.

Evidence shows that entrepreneurs with a high level of risk intelligence run highly leveraged firms. Moreover, in the light of the non-linearity of such relationship, higher levels of risk intelligence are associated with a greater capacity of the entrepreneur to govern the financial balance of the enterprise only up to a certain threshold. Over this threshold, risk intelligence generates overconfidence leading the entrepreneur to a reckless behaviour in taking financial risks.

From a theoretical point of view, the paper contributes to the literature by shedding lights on the complexity of the relationship between risk intelligence and small businesses. From a policy point of view, findings suggest that, to train new entrepreneurs, the educational system aims should focus on the development of two specific “soft skills”: the ability to manage emotions and the ability to glimpse opportunities even in uncertain situations.

This study aims to highlight the risks and threats posed by crowdfunding. It also looks at the new European Union regulation on crowdfunding, which is intended to give participants confidence that there will be specific minimum regulatory standards to protect parties against mis-selling issues affecting some platforms.

This paper is based upon a thorough literature review.

Crowdfunding is an essential alternative for financing commercial and non-commercial projects. Although it is a fast-growing digital financial tool, it can also be considered extremely risky. It can be an ideal platform for money laundering and can facilitate the financing of terrorism and fraud.

Crowdfunding is still in its infancy, so the literature has not yet sufficiently addressed the compliance risks of crowdfunding. As a result, there is a significant research gap. Thus, this study aims to analyse and propose suggestions to mitigate the risks that all crowdfunding stakeholders may face when deciding to participate in a crowdfunding activity or when they want to set one up.

The success of public–private partnership (PPP) projects is highly correlated to the successful management of risks encountered during the operation phase. PPP projects are especially exposed to risk due to the long operation period over which revenues need to be generated to recoup substantial initial investment and operational running costs. Despite the critical impact of risk exposure, limited research has been specifically undertaken on the matter of operational risk management. This study seeks to address this oversight by identifying and evaluating operational risk management strategies for PPPs.

Vulnerability theory is the theoretical lens used, with context drawn from Chinese PPP projects. Based on the data collected from expert interviews and questionnaires, 28 operational risk management strategies are identified. A fuzzy synthetic method is employed to analyze the effectiveness of the 28 strategies.

The findings reveal that providing an exit mechanism clause into the contract, establishing a comprehensive performance evaluation mechanism and developing a clear compensation mechanism are the top three effective strategies. This study also reveals that risk mitigation approaches that reduce vulnerability prove more effective than attempts to reduce external threats. Specifically, strategies aimed at managing contract, political, technical and financial risk are the most effective.

The findings of this study extend current knowledge regarding the risk management of PPP projects. They also offer a reference by which practitioners may select effective operational risk management pathways and thereby, galvanize the sustainable development of PPPs.