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This study aims to investigate the association between the co-option of the chief financial officer (CFO) and dividend payments, assessing whether the talent of the CFO affects this association.

The empirical analyses were based on hand-collected data for 922 firm-year observations from 157 European listed firms, during the period 2013–2019. Empirical models, based on a two-step estimation procedure, involved the use of instrumental variables and the generalised moment method.

The results show that CFO co-option is negatively associated with the level of dividend payments. It was also found that the degree of CFO talent moderates the negative association between CFO co-option and dividend payments.

This investigation responds to the call for literature which examines how chief executive officer (CEO) – CFO relationships influence firms’ policies and outcomes. The study offers novel evidence for the individual-level characteristics of CFOs which are likely to reduce the effectiveness of CEO power and increase monitoring on corporate decisions on dividends.

The study sheds light on the effect of the interactions between CEOs and CFOs, which are important for investors’ expectations. In this regard, investors may be interested in the CFO profiles which may reduce CEO power over dividend policies.

Unlike previous research, which focused on CEOs, the authors are the first to shed light on the role of CFOs as key decision makers in influencing the dividend policies in modern corporations.

This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.

The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.

The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on Lean Management and Lean Six Sigma (LM/LSS) in local government organizations (LGOs).

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to extract the most relevant academic publications on LM/LSS in LGOs. ProQuest, Web of Science and Engineering Village were used to obtain the publication set. Studies were then analyzed based on author characteristics, research design characteristics and content characteristics.

The SLR yielded 53 academic publications. The primary finding is that this research area has recently received an increase in attention within these types of organizations. While this research area attracts new scholars every year, there remains insufficient collaboration across different research groups. Research methods, outcomes and future research areas were also investigated to comprehensively evaluate the literature and specify new research opportunities.

Although the SLR is a rigorous research methodology used to gather relevant publications, it is limited to the chosen information sources (i.e. platforms) to obtain the publications. Therefore, the researchers used multiple sources to maximize the likelihood of capturing publications related to this topic.

The insights presented here provide a foundational reference for researchers interested in investigating and exploring future research opportunities associated with LM/LSS in LGOs.

This study adds value to the research community through its detailed characterization and analysis of the existing research literature on LM/LSS within LGOs, an area that remains largely unexplored in the academic literature. By providing a rigorous understanding of the current status of this research area, this work responds to a notable gap. The review of the existing literature suggests that this effort represents the first comprehensive examination of the research literature on the evolution of LM/LSS, specifically focusing on LGOs as the primary application unit of interest.

This paper aims to provide deeper insights into the relationship between board gender diversity (BGD) and accounting conservatism by exploring the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) underlying this relationship.

The authors sample 10,252 firm-year observations from 932 publicly listed firms in 15 European countries over the 2010–2020 period. The authors conduct several models for panel data, applying mediation mechanisms, the Heckman two-stage model and the generalized method of moments and instrumental variable regressions to test the research hypotheses and account for endogeneity problems as well as unobservable heterogeneity.

Based on an integrated theoretical framework that draws insights from agency, resource dependence and stakeholder theories, the authors establish a positive and significant relationship between BGD and accounting conservatism, which is significantly mediated by CSR. The authors provide empirical evidence for the prior inconsistent results on the gender diversity-conservative accounting link and suggest that BGD promotes effective corporate governance and enhances CSR performance, which in turn, leads to higher conservatism in financial reporting.

The findings have important implications for regulators, policymakers and managers in understanding the drivers to ensure and control the quality of financial reporting. The results alert firms to the need to focus not only on the importance of BGD but also on CSR activities to ensure higher earnings reporting quality.

The results are significant in encouraging a higher presence of women on corporate boards, enhancing CSR performance and drawing social attention to mitigating earnings management practices through higher conservatism in financial reporting.

This paper recognized a gap in the literature not yet examined and contributed to the body of knowledge through the mediating role of CSR in the relationship between gender diversity and accounting conservatism.

This paper aims to explore how the time and temporal aspects are managed in a financial accounting outsourcing (FAO) transition process in an international interorganizational context. As a research outcome, the authors identify management interventions of both the service provider (SP) and the outsourcing company (OC) at both the corporate and operational levels.

The framework by Huy (2001a, 2001b) was used to analyze the qualitative data, which draw on observations, participation in 32 official meetings during the outsourcing process, informal discussions with key actors from the SP and the OC, and archival data of a single case company.

The authors illustrate how the time and temporal aspects of planned accelerated change are managed through management interventions during the FAO transition process. All four ideal intervention types (commanding, engineering, teaching and socializing) were used sequentially but also jointly to complement one another. The pacing was mostly rapid, owing to strong commanding interventions initiating almost every stage. When analyzing the FAO transition process, the authors identified four stages: contact, contract, convergence and control. Moreover, the authors focused on the role of the operational-level managers and accounting specialists of both organizations. The findings indicate that management interventions vary with the management level.

This study contributes to the interorganizational control literature by considering the time and temporal aspects in planned organizational change and the role of operational-level managers in managing large-scale changes.

Past research is mixed on family small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) use of external advisors and the limited empirical evidence is confined to developed markets. Drawing on the knowledge-based view of the firm, this research focuses on the “familiness” characteristic of SMEs and their use of external accountants as advisors in an emerging marketplace. Using internal resources for basic tasks is proposed to strengthen this relationship from a managerial cognition lens. Focusing also on SME internalization, this research probes the performance ramifications of using external accountants as advisors.

Hierarchical regression is used to test the hypotheses. The mediation hypothesis is tested by bootstrapping the indirect effect. The interaction hypothesis is visualized with simple slope analysis.

The results indicate that the familiness of SMEs is positively associated with the use of external advisors, and thereby, with high performance. SMEs with higher international exposure also use these external advisors to a greater degree. Family SMEs that have a focused use of internal resources for basic tasks benefit more from the use of external accountants for advising tasks.

This research sheds light on how family involvement in management influences firm performance, showing the moderating role of the use of internal advisors for basic tasks and the mediating role of the use of external accountants for advising. We add to the knowledge-based view by describing how family SMEs can utilize internal and external knowledge resources simultaneously.

This study aims to examine how new regulation changes for the auditor’s report, so-called key audit matters (KAMs), influence tax avoidance.

This study uses data from firms listed on the Omani capital market over the period 2012–2019 and analyzes these data using pooled panel data regression with a robust standard error. It uses two common proxies for tax avoidance and two measures for the KAMs disclosure requirement.

This study finds a sharp decrease in the effective tax rate following the introduction of KAMs disclosure and the issuance of more KAMs in audit reports. This result is supported by several robustness checks. In an additional analysis, the authors observe interesting results, indicating that real earnings management mediates this association, while the audit committee plays a moderating role. The authors do not find a moderating effect of Big4 on this association, but find discrepancies within the Big4 firms in relation to this moderating effect.

The results of this study indicate that although the introduction of the KAMs disclosure requirement may have positive consequences, it may also lead to unintended negative consequences. This conclusion has not been comprehensively reported in literature.

Accounting scandals and earnings management problems at large firms such as Global Crossing and Enron have resulted in lots of wealth loss not only to corporate investors but also led tremendous damage to societies. Hence, policymakers and academic researchers have started to explore mechanisms to prevent improprieties in financial reporting and further enhance firm value. Using data from United States (US)-listed companies between 2000 and 2018, this article explores the effect of ex-military executives on earnings quality, the role of financial analysts in their interplay and the firm value implication of earnings quality driven by ex-military executives.

This study employs a firm fixed-effects model to validate the main conjecture and adopts the weighted least squares, Granger causality analysis, instrumental variable approach, propensity score matching, entropy balancing approach and dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to address robustness and endogeneity issues.

Authors reveal that companies run by ex-military senior executives exhibit lower levels of accruals-based and real earnings management than those without. The effect of management military leadership on constraining earnings management is more prominent for companies with low analyst coverage, suggesting that the military experience of executives could be a substitute for external monitoring. Authors also find that these ethical managers alleviate the negative impact of earnings management on firm value and that companies managed by these managers exhibit higher firm performance.

This study highlights the importance of the intrinsic motivation behind the effect of military experience on senior managers' personalities and offers essential stakeholder-related implications regarding the effect of military experience. The military experience of senior managers helps facilitate the attainment of broader corporate governance and economic objectives.

This article adds new insights to the literature on the role of managerial military experience in decision-making processes, financial reporting outcomes and firm performance by employing the upper echelons and imprinting theoretical perspectives.

Bank–fintech associations are significant globally, establishing purposeful eco-systems towards extending and complementing capabilities, reach and customer experiences. This paper aims to explore 39 leading fintechs in India catering across payments, lending, wealth management, regulation, neo-banks and other banking functions. Alongside fintechs, the research studies 19 leading banks (public and private) to understand the nature of bank–fintech associations in the Indian context.

The research focuses on narratives from leading banks and top fintechs in India, captured from public disclosures and leadership interviews. The study leverages qualitative research techniques, including grounded theory approaches of inductive analysis, to codify interview and narrative observations to discover relevant objectives, scenarios, challenges and outcomes in India-centric bank–fintech associations.

Bank–fintech associations in India are increasingly focusing on financial services portfolio diversification and improvement in customer experience. Simultaneously, both banks and fintechs, differentiate with innovations and extend offerings to target underserved customer segments. The associations are beneficial for both banks and fintechs in transforming offerings and improving efficiency, scale across channels. Through codification of observations, review of existing literature and evaluation of best practices, alongside subject matter expertise, the study evolves a generalized “Association Model”. The model can steer meaningful bank–fintech associations in India and globally. The association model relates to observables like objectives, enablers of bank–fintech associations, challenges and association-driven value outcomes. Built from study of practices, the proposed model is relevant for strategic orientation in bank–fintech associations.

The findings reveal practices in bank–fintech associations in India with significant learning opportunity for organizational leaders globally. Understanding the nature of association is relevant for strategic interventions, particularly in scenarios of inter-organization collaborations. Central banks, policymakers, governments, investors, banks and fintechs can use the derived association model to establish, govern and steer purposeful value-driven associations.

This paper aims to synthesize the diverse literature on nomination and remuneration committees and provide avenues for future research.

This study provides a comprehensive literature review of theoretical and empirical studies published in reputable international journals indexed by Scopus.

The literature review reveals several aspects of the nomination and remuneration committee. These aspects have been classified into the definition of the nomination and remuneration committee, dimensions of the nomination and remuneration committee, measurement and research review results, reasons for conflict empirical findings, company dynamics and research on moderators, as well as recommending future research.

Our literature review shows that nomination and remuneration committees play a role in improving board performance and company performance, reducing agency conflicts and improving corporate governance to provide implications for companies, regulators and investors and pave the way for future research.

This paper identifies issues related to nomination and remuneration committees, their theoretical and practical implications and avenues for future research.