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Type of audit opinion is important for all stakeholders. Firm-specific characteristics have a direct impact on the type of audit opinion. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between accounting comparability (as a micro level characteristic), financial reporting quality (as a macro level characteristic) and audit opinions.

This study uses a multivariate regression analysis to tests it hypotheses to a sample of firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during 2015–2019. To measure accounting comparability, the authors use De Franco et al. (2011) model, and Hutton et al. (2009) model to measure financial reporting quality. The authors use type of audit opinion, and auditor's remarks (explanatory notes) as the measure for audit opinions.

The authors find a negative association between accounting comparability, and the proxies for audit opinion. The authors also find that a negative association between financial reporting quality and audit opinions. These results suggest that higher accounting comparability, and higher financial reporting quality (proxied by earnings quality) increases auditor tendency to issue unmodified audit opinion.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examines the association between accounting comparability, financial reporting quality and audit opinion. This study provides empirical support for the theoretical views on the association between financial reporting quality and audit opinion. The results could be of interest of both auditors and managers, especially in emerging capital markets, who seek to improve financial reporting quality.

Poor people often experience a delay in meeting their healthcare needs due to their economic situation. As a result, delayed diagnoses and treatment may increase disease severity, increase the risk of death, and enhance disease transmission in the community. The purpose of this paper is to provide important information about health service delays among the poorest people in Turkey.

A field study is conducted among the 92 poorest households in the Etimesgut region of Ankara in order to ascertain any delays in health services among the poor, as well as the factors related to those delays.

The results of the study show that 87 percent of the households lived on a daily income of US$2.15, and that household member's delay seeking healthcare services an average of 4.66±1.17 times in the past year. Reasons for delaying or not seeking healthcare services included the following: participants thought they would get better without doing anything (7.6 percent), by using traditional herbs (12.7 percent), by using pharmaceuticals already on hand (11.4 percent), the health facility was too far away (5.1 percent), and inability to pay (63.3 percent). Significant associations are found between the delaying behaviors, socioeconomic characteristics of households, and health status.

At the end of the study, policy suggestions are provided for improving medical care seeking behaviors and treatment compliance among the poor.

Poverty is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that consists of income insufficiency, lack of education, malnutrition, and poor health. The relationship between poverty and poor health impacts those who live in poverty as well as communities, organizations and entire countries. Reducing health disparities and decreasing delays and difficulties in access to health care among poor households are important goals.

While synchronous and asynchronous distance education options have fulfilled the promise to reduce travel costs and decrease the number of human resources necessary for training delivery, many corporations are faced with the need to produce learning even at a faster pace in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage. This means a paradigm shift in the distance education arena: in order to reduce the time to produce and deliver training, subject matter experts (SMEs) are asked to step up to the plate and assume additional roles in the instructional design process. This research addresses these issues.

This research, conducted within the training department of a large telecommunications company, focuses on enabling SMEs to teach online, using synchronous instructional methods and a rapid e‐learning approach.

Based on student performance records and satisfaction survey results, it was concluded that SMEs are able to reduce training development time, deliver workshops online and maintain acceptable quality of instruction. SMEs' training background did not impact student achievement or satisfaction. Practical implications for corporate training development related to synchronous online training are also included.

The originality of the paper resides in the fact that the guidelines that emerged from this research are a step forward towards the expansion of rapid e‐learning as it applies to synchronous online training and to helping SMEs to teach online.

We study how giving depends on income and luck, and how culture and information about the determinants of others’ income affect this relationship. Our data come from an experiment conducted in two countries, the USA and Spain – each of which have different beliefs about how income inequality arises. We find that when individuals are informed about the determinants of income, there are no cross-cultural differences in giving. When uninformed, however, Americans give less than the Spanish. This difference persists even after controlling for beliefs, personal characteristics, and values.

This article reviews the quantitative marketing literature on artificial intelligence (AI) through an economics lens. We apply the framework in Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence to systematically categorize 96 research papers on AI in marketing academia into five levels of impact, which are prediction, decision, tool, strategy, and society. For each paper, we further identify each individual component of a task, the research question, the AI model used, and the broad decision type. Overall, we find there are fewer marketing papers focusing on strategy and society, and accordingly, we discuss future research opportunities in those areas.

The purpose of this study is to present the evidence of the association between financial statement comparability and corporate financial distress.

This is an empirical study, and this study uses multiple regression analysis to evaluate hypothesis.

The authors find a significant decrease in the probability of financial distress as accounting comparability increases. Findings of this study suggest that distressed firms tend to produce financial statements that compare poorly to those of peer firms; the effectiveness of predicting financial distress with accounting ratios may be conditional on comparability with peers; and financial statement comparability may be predictive of financial distress.

First, this study only used publicly available financial data, which may not be representative of all countries and could differ because of differences in accounting practices. Second, although this study found a connection between accounting comparability and financial distress, it cannot prove a causal relationship, as other factors that were not controlled for may also have an impact. Third, this study used various measures of financial distress, but other measures could lead to different results. Finally, this study did not include all relevant variables, such as industry-specific factors and macroeconomic conditions, which could influence the relationship between accounting comparability and financial distress.

For investors and financial analysts, the results imply that accounting comparability can serve as a useful signal for identifying companies that are more likely to remain financially stable in the long run. Thus, they may prefer to invest in or recommend highly comparable firms over their less comparable counterparts. For auditors, this study underscores the importance of promoting and enforcing accounting standards that improve comparability, as this can help mitigate the risk of financial distress among their clients. Regulators may also consider the implications of the study’s findings when designing policies and guidelines related to financial reporting and disclosure.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the association between financial statement comparability and corporate financial distress of the US firms. This study uses large, comprehensive and multi-year data. Furthermore, this is the only study that presents the evidence of negative association between comparability and firm financial distress.

Although preferential treatment has been considered a positive relationship marketing tactic, this research aims to examine how perceived harm to others as a result of preferential treatment invokes consumers’ negative moral emotions and negative attitudes towards the service provider.

Four studies are presented in this research. A pilot study first provides empirical evidence that customers who receive preferential treatment are aware of potential harm caused to other customers. Three experimental studies then test the hypothesis that shame and embarrassment mediate the effect of perceived harm to others on consumers’ responses to earned and unearned preferential treatment, respectively.

The present studies demonstrate that consumers naturally scan the environment and seek out information about others when judging their own experience; consequently, when preferential treatment is perceived to cause harm to others, it can trigger negative moral emotions. In particular, the authors show that shame mediates the effect of perceived harm to others when preferential treatment is earned, whereas embarrassment mediates this effect when preferential treatment is unearned.

The results of this research contribute to the literature on earned and unearned preferential treatment and negative moral emotions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to show that negative moral emotions may arise because of perceptions of harm to other customers, particularly in the context of earned preferential treatment. The authors demonstrate that ordinary shopping contexts have the potential to elicit these negative emotions, raising concerns about ethical and moral practices in service environments.

When designing relationship marketing programs incorporating preferential treatment, firms need to consider both the ethics of justice and the ethics of care. Guidelines considering ethics of care should be developed for employees to ensure appropriate training to deliver preferential treatment effectively and avoiding situations causing potential harm to others. Strategies could include encouraging employees to better scan the servicescape to identify if other customers’ needs should be attended first, and providing clearer justifications when administering preferential treatment. The provision of choices such as delayed redemption and passing on benefits to others can help minimise harm and potentially enhance customer service experience.

The studies presented here are the first to examine the role of perceived harm to others as an antecedent of consumers’ negative responses to preferential treatment. In particular, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to show that negative moral emotions may arise in the context of earned preferential treatment, calling into question some basic principles of relationship marketing.

Traditionally, the pool from which the United States (US) drew its US-born science and engineering talent has been relatively homogeneous – consisting mostly of non-Hispanic white males. Because science and technology drive the economy worldwide, it is imperative that the US develop, nurture, and utilize the talent of all its citizens. Yet, efforts to diversify the US science talent pool often focus on non-Hispanic white females and much less often on African American males and, of course, African American women.

In recent years, there have been a growing number of references to social capital, in debates about higher education (HE), by policy makers, senior institutional leaders and academics. This chapter highlights the value of social capital to both students and institutions alike, as a contributing factor to the transformational effect of HE; and as an important tool to explain the value of HE to policy makers and the public. We draw on empirical data from students articulating the value of social capital. Their voices demonstrate that social capital has a significant role to play in institutional endeavours to maximise student success.

This paper considers the relationship between admissions criteria and subsequent academic performance in a university‐level special study program, using the example of study abroad. The University of California Education Abroad Program (EAP), perhaps the largest single study abroad entity, provides the data and institutional setting for this study. Based on a study of nearly 1,600 students over a five‐year period, we describe student characteristics associated with participation, with special attention to diversity issues; we explore factors associated with academic performance abroad; we investigate minimum academic qualifications associated with academic “success” in the study program. Findings show marked variations in the demographic characteristics of students participating in the program and that students’ pre‐departure academic performance and foreign language proficiency are positively related to academic performance abroad. It is also shown that some students admitted to the program by exception do perform at equivalent levels.