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The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on the importance of cross-border cooperation in the quality assurance of transnational education (TNE) by offering a comparative overview of how TNE is quality assured by both sending and receiving countries. Through this comparative analysis, it will be possible to appreciate the diversity of approaches to TNE. The paper also shows that for the foreseeable future, progress towards effective and effiicient quality assurance of TNE cannot rest on the hope of developing an internationally agreed framework, but it must rest on strengthening cooperation between quality assurance agencies operating within different national frameworks.

This paper looks at four key sending countries of TNE, the UK, Australia, the USA and Germany, considering the main drivers for out-going TNE, its main features and how it is quality assured. It then considers the same aspects from the perspective of receiving countries of TNE, looking at four key receiving locations, China, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. It also offers an overview of some recent international initiatives aimed at fostering cross-border cooperation in the quality assurance of TNE.

In the backdrop of this overview of different approaches to TNE, this paper will conclude that for the foreseeable future it is not possible to develop an internationally agreed view and approach to TNE and its quality assurance. This conclusion allows the author to focus on the importance of cross-border cooperation amongst quality assurance agencies in sending and receiving countries for the effective and efficient quality assurance of TNE.

This is the first comparative study of different countries’ approaches to TNE and its quality assurance, taking into account both sending and receiving countries. It allows pointing to the key different features in different countries’ approaches and illustrates how these often relate to the underlining national strategic priorities and drivers for TNE (either in-bound or out-bound). It also allows the international community to realise that in the absence of a viable shared and agreed international framework for the regulation and quality assurance of TNE, it is of paramount importance to focus efforts on inter-agency cross-border cooperation in order to ensure that TNE continues to be of good quality and relevant to the respective communities.

This study aims to investigate the influence of organisations’ board gender diversity on the adoption of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) and on the use of external assurance.

The paper combines data from the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database and the Orbis database from Bureau van Dijk. The study uses logit models based on a sample of 366 large Asian and African companies which have addressed the SDGs in their sustainability reports published in 2017.

The results reveal that board gender diversity is positively associated with sustainability reporting and the involvement of an external assurance provider.

This study adds to the growing literature on the relationship between women’s participation on corporate boards and SDG reporting. Additionally, it addresses the understudied question of how the gender diversity of board resources affects the adoption of the external assurance of sustainability reporting.

This paper aims to clarify whether assurance on non-financial corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports impacts the perceptions and decisions of banks as capital providers. The authors investigate the effects of the type of assurance provider and the level of assurance provided on decisions by banks to grant credit, make their own personal investments or recommend share purchases to their customers. The study aims to expand the domain of assurance on CSR reports (CSRR) by taking up a call by Cohen and Simnett (2015), who ask for behavioral research on how non-financial report’s intended users interpret and react to assurance.

The paper is based on an experiment case on a fictitious company with a 2 × 2 + 1 between-subjects design. To overcome concerns regarding external validity and to prove results in a real-world setting, the authors selected German bank directors as subjects due to the extremely high relevance of banks to the German economy. The authors investigated the perceptions of 69 bank directors and analyzed the influence of CSR assurance on their decisions.

The findings suggest that assurance positively influences confidence in CSRR and that, consequently, bankers are more likely to make favorable decisions toward the reporting companies, such as approving applications for credit, investing themselves in the company or recommending the purchase of shares to their clients. These effects are stronger when an accounting firm provides the assurance and when the assurance level is reasonable rather than limited.

The arguments presented are, strictly speaking, limited to the case in the experiment and the views held by the bank directors at the time the authors sent out the questionnaires. Moreover, the cell sizes are quite small. Nevertheless, the authors were able to find highly significant results.

The main implication of the paper is that the purchase of CSRR assurance services has a positive effect on bank directors’ perceptions and decisions. They favor the provision of such services by accounting firms and they prefer a reasonable assurance level. Thus, it can be concluded that bank directors perceive quality differences between assurance providers, are able to recognize the difference between reasonable and limited assurance and that the related information is relevant for their decisions.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the influence of CSRR assurance on decisions by bank directors. The observation of a high decisions-usefulness of CSRR assurance suggests that regulators should consider mandating some form of assurance on non-financial reports throughout the EU member states.

The objective of this study is to present a theoretical framework, which helps ascertain the meanings of the Sharīʿah audit quality and identify the factors that affect it.

The current literature of conventional and Islamic finance on audit quality is critically reviewed to propose the theoretical framework for the quality of Sharīʿah audit.

The paper suggests that for a better Sharīʿah compliance at Islamic banking institutions (IBIs), the role of audit practitioners is very much indispensable. The competency of the practitioner is one of the important factors that affect the quality of the Sharīʿah audit. Assessment and identification of Sharīʿah risk in different financial arrangements, contracts and transactions require a unique competency on the part of the auditor, that is, gripping Sharīʿah law besides traditional assurance skills and techniques.

The Sharīʿah compliance is one of the primary objectives of IBIs, which works at the conceptual level, product development and implementation level, various business models and governance level. Sharīʿah audit function, internal or external, is an important component of Sharīʿah governance framework and provides an independent assessment of IBIs’ compliance with the Sharīʿah rules and principles and helps in managing the Sharīʿah non-compliance risk and ensuring sound internal Sharīʿah control system.

The paper proposes a theoretical framework for defining the Sharīʿah audit quality and determining the factors that are significant in affecting the Sharīʿah audit quality in the IBIs of Pakistan.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of internal control on the relationship between internal quality assurance implementation and higher education institution (HEI) quality.

The study employed a survey method with hypothesis testing using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique with a second-order analysis approach. The questionnaire survey was administered to 191 HEIs.

The results revealed that internal control and internal quality assurance implementations are positively associated with HEI quality. Additionally, internal control implementation strengthened the relationship between internal quality assurance and HEI quality.

This study adds to the body of knowledge on the moderating role of internal control in the HEI sector and its role in the non-economic aspect, namely, the HEI quality.

This study aims to understand independence in internal auditing by investigating how internal auditor independence is constructed when analysed in its corporate governance context.

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the corporate governance reports of Swedish large stock market listed non-financial companies, for three consecutive years, is undertaken, using a theoretical lens of organisational embeddedness and operational coupling to understand independence as a situated practice.

The study develops four archetypes of internal auditor independence – autarchic, instrumental, symbiotic and subservient – and discusses each archetype's implications for independence, related to tripartite relations with management and the audit committee, regarding who has the mandate to direct work and how the work is done. It finds that internal auditors always have a capacity to be independent. Although they are not independent in relation to agents in the subservient archetype, they are independent of those down the organisational chain of command, suggesting independence is both situational and relational.

The analysis contributes a novel approach to the literature and develops a conception of independence using the dimensions of embeddedness and coupling. The archetypes offer an analytical framework for future studies on independence.

Internal auditors may understand their practice differently through the archetypes that result from this study.

Internal auditors' power relations within corporate governance further an understanding of the pressures on internal auditors and their role.

This study contributes new knowledge on the situatedness of independence by showing how internal auditors are embedded and coupled helps build their independence.

Since the turn of the 21st century, various institutions of higher education have been established in the Gulf Cooperation Council region, several of which are branches of universities from North America, Europe, Australia, and other regions. Quality education is currently a required component in the models of collaboration between Universities; yet the literature suggests that challenges remain in how the quality education will be practiced in a region that lacked for long time private universities. In this paper, we present an exploratory investigation to determine what could be learned by studying the practicalities of collaboration and accreditation of a newly established institution in Oman, namely, Dhofar University. The case study focuses on the practicalities of DU’s external collaboration, national accreditation, and good practices University-wide and within the College of Engineering in particular. The paper aims to present and analyze challenges, good practices, faculty and staff experiences, and solutions that could be a useful pattern for similar institutions. The investigation builds on an internal University-wide self-study and an external review by an accreditation council.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between audit committee effectiveness (ACE), internal audit function (IAF) and sustainability reporting practices.

Using a cross-sectional and correlational design, useable questionnaires were received from 48 financial services firms in Uganda. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

results indicate that ACE and IAF are positively and significantly associated with sustainability reporting practices. ACE and IAF are more significantly associated with economic and social indicators than environmental sustainability indicators.

In terms of practice, it is no longer a matter of having internal auditors and audit committees in place but rather those who are mindful of the welfare of society and the natural environment. The effectiveness of the board audit committee and a functioning internal audit can be assessed in terms of their recommendations and decisions regarding improvements in the welfare of society and the natural environment in addition to the traditionally known performance benchmarks.

The study focuses on only financial services firms in Uganda, and this is a small sample. Future studies may focus on larger samples to enable comparison of the results.

This study provides insights on the initial understanding of the association between ACE, IAF and sustainability reporting practices using evidence from a developing African country – Uganda.