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This study examines how compliance with government and firm's own policy and reverse logistics practices relate with firm environmental performance.

This study draws on insights from stakeholder theory, and follows a two-phase research approach. The first phase utilized an extended literature review that seeks to provide a qualitative and comprehensive understanding of the research problem. The 2001–2023 data was collected from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, complemented with Google Scholar. The second phase involved an empirical study—adopting a quantitative cross-sectional survey design with a self-administered questionnaire to validate the theoretical conceptualizations deriving from the literature review. The empirical data were collected from 203 food and beverages manufacturing firms in Uganda and analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.

The study findings suggest that compliance with government policy positively influences firm environmental performance, both directly, and indirectly through fostering reverse logistics practices, and that the relationship between compliance with government policy and reverse logistics practices is contingent upon compliance with the focal firm's own policy.

The study findings will enhance the theoretical and conceptual development of the ideas that underpin stakeholder theory and applications. The Ugandan government will come up with better mechanisms for enforcing compliance with policy regulating the application of reverse logistics practices. In addition, the study advances the use of multi-method approaches in investigating interesting research aspects requiring in-depth examination. However, considering the fact that the empirical study was conducted in a single country context, and focused on firms more or less from the same sub-sector, the findings of the study might not be generalizable globally.

This study provides useful insights to logistics and supply chain managers involved in reverse logistics activities in food and beverages manufacturing firms. These managers can know how to leverage reverse logistics practices to enhance environmental performance of firms amidst environmental policies in the industry where they operate.

This study contributes to the built body of knowledge in operations, logistics and supply chain management literature; understanding about reverse logistics practices as a mechanism through which compliance with government policy influences environmental performance of firms. The interaction between compliance with government policy and compliance with firm policy is essential in explaining the performance effects of reverse logistics practices. In addition, the study advances the use of multi-method approaches in investigating interesting research aspects requiring in-depth examination. Complementing extended literature review with and empirical research to investigate reverse logistics practices influences on firm environmental performance, and incorporating the role of policy in explaining this relationship should make considerable contribution. Besides, the study highlights important areas for future research.

The statistics show that older adults have been major fire victims in high-rise buildings. However, the fire safety building codes in most countries are not inclusive and do not reflect provisions for older adults. The research aims to develop a fire risk assessment index system for older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in India. The study further develops a fire rating system to improve fire safety provisions in high-rise buildings in India.

The paper employs Delphi, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive risk evaluation techniques. It considers 18 in-depth interviews and group discussions with builders, developers, architects, policymakers, and fire safety experts and consultants to develop a fire risk assessment system for older occupants living in high-rise residential buildings in India.

The fire protection systems and fire management systems are not as per the needs of older adults. The egress system components need improvisation considering the challenges of older adults.

The study is limited to older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in the capital city of Gujarat, Ahmedabad.

This study will assist policymakers in developing fire safety standards that are targeted to the needs of older persons living in high-rise residential buildings during a fire evacuation.

While several approaches for measuring fire risk in high-rise residential buildings exist, no such system has been developed specifically for older adults in India.

This study aims to expand the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to understand determinants of financial inclusion participation behaviour through the mediating effect of Islamic finance product (IFP) adoption.

A quantitative research design was deployed using primary data from a survey conducted within the Muslim-dominated regions in Nigeria, which was analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

It was found that the original TPB variables, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and behavioural intention have strong positive influences on financial inclusion participation behaviour, however, among the new variables, government support and IFPs adoption directly influence, while awareness and access to banking and digital channels were not. Furthermore, IFPs adoption significantly mediates the relationship between attitude, behavioural intention, government support and access to banking and digital channels and financial inclusion participation, but it failed to mediate that of subjective norms, PBC and awareness.

These findings imply the need to establish more Islamic financial institutions or conventional banks to introduce IFPs in Muslim-dominated regions in Nigeria, as such products are desirable in expanding financial inclusion. While such is being pursued, policymaking bodies responsible for financial inclusion should design appropriate programmes to create awareness of IFPs for expanding financial inclusion.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study could be the first to expand the TPB by integrating IFP adoption as a mediator within the context of financial inclusion participation as well as the incorporation of awareness, government support and access to banking and digital channels as additional variables.

Understanding consumer behavior across various contexts within marketing has long been the focus of studies. Although many models are used in explaining consumers' behavior, one of these is the Model of Goal-Directed Behavior (MGB), which is becoming prominent in explaining consumers' behavior in marketing. Given its popularity, prior research on MGB has shown inconsistent outcomes regarding the casual association of MGB variables. To overcome this, the authors have adopted a meta-analytic review of the marketing studies grounded on MGB theory in examining the consumers' behavior.

The study reviewed and analyzed 611 correlations from 27 studies with 31 samples (combined sample size of 9588) using a meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) technique.

The outcomes of MASEM confirm the significance of all the proposed relationships in the MGB model. However, the attitude has shown a strong influence on desire formation among all the proposed MGB relationships. Further, past buying experience and positive anticipated emotions strongly affect desire in developed nations compared to developing nations.

The current work has considered the possibility of various recommended moderators (e.g. culture, crisis situation, sample size, method of data collection, etc.); however, the study lacks to consider the dimension of gender dominance in it. Hence, future researchers should keep it in mind while conducting similar studies. Future scholars can also perform a comparative study on MGB across the domains and subdomains to know more insights.

The current work offers a better understanding of MGB application in marketing. As this work is one of the first meta-analyses on MGB application in marketing that also considers the effect of various moderators, it thus adds knowledge to the literature on MGB in marketing. It will also help the future researchers to understand MGB as a framework and its application in marketing.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between dynamic capabilities and sustainable business performance in Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the mediating role of digitalization strategies. Specifically, the authors seek to explore whether and how the three critical characteristics of dynamic capabilities (DCs) – sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities – are linked to business model innovation (BMI) or sustained performance and what dimensions contribute to their development and adoption in digitalization strategies.

The authors analyse a sample of 596 Vietnamese SMEs using a validated measurement framework to explore the three clusters of DCs activities and their contributions to digitalization strategies, BMI and sustainable business performance across economic, social and environmental dimensions.

The study highlights the pivotal role of sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities in the adoption of digitalization strategies, BMI, as well as in promoting sustainable business performance. Firstly, sensing capability profoundly influences product digitalization strategy, whereas seizing capability has the greatest impact on process digitalization strategy. Secondly, sensing and transforming capabilities significantly contribute to BMI. Thirdly, both process and product digitalization strategies exert a significant positive influence on sustainable business performance, especially the environmental dimension. Finally, the study exhibits the indirect impacts of seizing and sensing capabilities on sustainable business performance through product and process digitization strategies.

This study extends recent research by investigating the DCs underlying a firm’s digitalization strategies and contribute to ongoing calls for further investigation in the DCs literature. This research design, which draws from a validated measurement framework, responds to recent calls to broaden the toolkit used in DCs research. The practical implications of this study can benefit SMEs in Vietnam and beyond as they seek to enhance their digitalization strategies and achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

The high and persistent unemployment rates of people with intellectual disabilities (PwID) reveal the wide gap that still remains to be bridged. Entrepreneurship combinedly with a high enterprising tendency could improve PwID's life satisfaction.

A mixed-method approach was used, based on questionnaires and structured face-to-face interviews on 37 PwID who had recently become entrepreneurs. Data were firstly quantitatively analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), and qualitative data were used to enable robust findings.

The entrepreneurial tendency of PwID who had recently become entrepreneurs was found to be a positive to their life quality (LQ), job satisfaction and life satisfaction.

This study revealed that entrepreneurship among PwID who had high enterprising tendency enhances their LQ, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. However, further research could evaluate whether becoming an entrepreneur is in itself enough to change PwID's life to better, such that a comparison could be done between PwID who become entrepreneurs and PwID who have a salaried job.

New aspects in the design of public social policies to improve PwID's life satisfaction are suggested. These include the facilitation of both entrepreneurship and enterprising tendency for PwID to enhance their life satisfaction.

There are very few occasions in which PwID set up businesses. This is one of the first studies to analyze the benefit of entrepreneurship and enterprising tendency on the LQ, the satisfaction at work and the life satisfaction of PwID.

Using a qualitative grounded theory approach, this study explores the methods experienced external auditors use to detect fraudulent financial reporting (FFR) during standard audits.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 experienced external auditors to explore the methods they used to detect FFR successfully during standard external audits.

The authors find 58 methods used for FFR detection, out of which the following methods are frequently used and help in detecting more than one type of FFR: (1) specific analytical procedures, (2) positive confirmation, (3) understanding of the client's business and industry, (4) the inspection of specific documents, (5) a detailed analysis of the audit client's anti-fraud controls and (6) investigating tip-offs from suppliers, employees and customers.

Based on the grounded theory approach, the authors theorise that auditors must return to the basics and focus on specific audit procedures highlighted in this study for effective fraud detection.

The study provides practical guidance, including 58 methods used in audit practice to detect FFR. This knowledge can improve auditors' skills in detecting material misstatements due to fraud. Besides, analytical procedures and positive confirmation helped external auditors in this study detect all forms of FFR, yet they are overlooked in the external audit practice. Therefore, audit firms should emphasise the significance of these audit procedures in their professional audit training programmes. Audit regulators should advise auditors to consider positive confirmation instead of negative confirmation in financial audits to increase the likelihood of FFR detection. Moreover, audit standards (ISA 240 and SAS 99) should explicitly require auditors to conduct a detailed analysis of the client's anti-fraud controls.

This is the first study to identify actual, effective methods used by external auditors in detecting FFR during the ordinary course of an audit.

This study aims to explore the use, effectiveness, motives and obstacles of analytical procedures (APs) used by auditors in Palestine, a context characterised by a pool of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a limited skill set, poor quality of data, political uncertainty and a community-based business culture.

The study considers the audit market in Palestine using a sequential mixed-methods approach combining a questionnaire survey and a series of in-depth interviews. A total of 129 Big-4 and non-Big-4 auditors were surveyed.

The use of APs is driven by the auditor size (Big-4 vs non-Big-4) and the client size (large vs SMEs). Even though the use of APs has increased over the past decade, audit objectives, know-how, and personal, family and social connections among auditors and clients influence the quality of the audit process.

Small firms take advantage of the lack of audit governance in Palestine. Our findings suggest that the regulators should help bridge the knowledge-sharing programmes between the small and large audit firms to help improve audit quality.

Studies on audit quality, particularly using APs, in the context of politically unstable cases such as Palestine are limited. The study has implications for the use of APs in the case of SMEs to prepare for the technological revolution that will modernise audit procedures and quality soon.

The relationships between integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and corporate governance characteristics have been studied extensively, but the results are still inconclusive and, sometimes, contradictory. The purpose of this paper is to systematize the results of previously published studies on the relationship between corporate governance and IRQ.

This paper uses several complementary theoretical perspectives (agency, stakeholder and signaling theory). The relevant aspects of the corporate governance system are the attributes and composition of the board, the existence of a social responsibility committee, the quality of the audit committee, integrated report assurance and ownership structures. The sample consisted of 61 papers published in top journals between 2015 and 2021. Meta-analytic procedures were applied on bivariate and partial correlations between IRQ and the identified corporate governance characteristics.

The results confirm that director independence, the existence of a social responsibility committee, institutional ownership and the hiring of a Big 4 auditor are significantly correlated with IRQ. On the other hand, board gender diversity, audit committee independence and dedicated assurance have a positive but nonsignificant impact on IRQ. Chairperson-chief executive officer duality does not seem to impact report quality, while ownership concentration has a negative but nonsignificant impact on IRQ.

Future research can improve the measurement of focal indicators by using a common set of variables for comparability, favoring disaggregate measures of corporate governance and updating the measurement of some indicators. Future research could also propose new indicators in the area of corporate governance and expand the theoretical domain of IRQ research.

The findings emphasize the need to explicitly consider the role of corporate governance structures and arrangements in improving IRQ. Through meta-analysis, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive and generalizable set of findings, suggesting that corporate governance indicators cannot be overlooked as predictors of integrated reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the free vibration response of a laminated honeycomb sandwich panels (LHSP) for aerospace applications. Higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) was simplified for the dynamic analysis of LHSP. Furthermore, the effects of honeycomb parameters on the value of natural frequency (NF) of vibration were explored.

This paper applies HSDT to the analysis of composite LHSP to derive four vibration differential equations of motion and solve it to find the NF of vibration. Two analytical models (Nayak and Meunier models) were selected from literature for comparison of the NF of vibration. In addition, a numerical model was built by using ABAQUS and the results were compared. Furthermore, parametric studies were conducted to explore the effect of honeycomb parameters on the value of the NF of vibration.

The present model is successful in simplifying HSDT for the analysis of LHSP. The first five natural frequencies of vibration were calculated analytically and numerically. In the parametric study, increasing core height or young’s modulus or changing laminate layup will increase the value of NF of vibration. Furthermore, increasing plate constraint (using clamped edge boundary condition) will increase the value of NF of vibrations.

The current analysis is suitable for all-composite symmetric LHSP. However, for isotropic or non-symmetric materials, minor modifications might be adopted.

The application of simplified HSDT to the analysis of LHSP is one of the important values of this research. The other is the successful and complete dynamic analysis of all-composite LHSP.