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The managerial questions of this paper are as follows, and the authors are trying to solve them: How revenue sharing contract (CSR) degree and government subsidy affect the agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, revenue-sharing contract [RSC] and cooperative) would be more effective in motivating manufacturers and retailer to increase effort and improve agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, RSC and cooperative) would make manufacturer and retailer better off?

Considering the jointing quality effort and contract decision in green agri-food supply chain, this paper proposes six models that consider CSR of manufacturer and retailer, and then the obtained optimal solutions are compared and analyzed. At the same time, the impact of government subsidies is analyzed, and corresponding conclusions are drawn.

The results show that, first of all, whether the increasing CSR of the manufacturer or the retailer can motivate both parties to improve the agri-food quality effort investment. Second, the WPC and RSC contract may play different role in different cases. Finally, under the model with government subsidies, regarding positive influence of government subsidies on efforts of manufacturer and retailer, quality and profits of members is investigated. Based on these conclusions, this study puts forward the following policy suggestions. Firstly, governments should formulate reasonable subsidy policies to support manufacturer and retailer to improve the agri-food quality, thereby promoting green industries' development. Secondly, manufacturer and retailer should actively improve CSR and strengthen the effort of agri-food so as to advance quality. Finally, manufacturer and retailer can choose cooperative model or WPC contract.

In this paper, one manufacturer and one retailer are considered. Since the agri-food supply chain structure in reality is more complicated, the future research direction can consider the supply chain structure with one manufacturer and multiple retailers. In addition, this paper only considers the subsidy, and future research can classify the subsidy into different types.

The study makes two substantive contributions to the body of knowledge in the field of sustainable operations:(1) incorporating quality-based demand function in supply chain and dynamic process of agri-food quality; (2) exploring the impact of CSR awareness of members and subsidy of government on agri-food quality, and comparing the influence in different models.

Examines two hypotheses: first, that employees’ perceptions of their firm’s quality efforts are related to employee affective reactions (satisfaction, commitment, turnover intentions), with those perceiving greater organizational quality efforts exhibiting more positive affective reactions; and, second, that perceptions of autonomy would account for the relationship between perceptions of organizational quality efforts and employees’ affective reactions. Questionnaires were completed by 228 employees of a large bank. Reports that regression analysis revealed that all of the affective reaction variables were significantly related to perceptions of quality efforts. Further analysis revealed that, while perceptions of autonomy were important with regard to affective reactions, employee perceptions of organizational quality efforts were also directly and significantly related to employees’ affective reactions. The impact of perceptions of quality efforts was found to be most significant for organizational commitment. Discusses the implications of these results.

The impact of accounting earnings based compensation contracts an effort allocation is analyzed using an agency‐theoretic model. In this model, the CEO of a publicly traded firm expends effort on operational short‐run activities and strategic long‐run activities. The shareholders desire the CEO to expend more effort in the strategic long‐run activities because the return to shareholders depends more on long‐run than short‐run activities. More specifically, they desire the effort to be allocated between these two activities on the proportion of the sensitivity of stock returns to these two activities. Compensating the CEO based on the stock returns performance measure is shown to induce the CEO to exert the desired proportion of effort in the long‐run activities. Unlike stock returns, accounting earnings are believed to focus more on the short‐run performance of the firm and not reflect the full impact of a CEO's long‐run effort. Compensating the CEO based on accounting earnings, in addition to stock returns, is shown to induce the CEO to expend less than the desired proportion of effort in long‐run activities. As the emphasis placed on accounting earnings relative to stock returns increases, the CEO decreases the proportion of effort expended in long‐run activities. On the positive side, including accounting earnings in the contract increases the total effort that the CEO exerts in short‐run and long‐run activities. The benefit accruing from the increase in total effort more than offsets the dysfunctionality caused by the short‐run focus. More specifically, adding accounting earnings to the incentive contract is shown to increase the expected return to the shareholders. In summary, while accounting earnings cause the CEO to be short‐run focused, their use in the incentive contract improves the firm's performance by motivating the CEO to work harder overall.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges for auditors to provide high-quality audits. These challenges pose interesting questions about the ability of auditors to obtain audit evidence and ensure appropriate conclusions. In response to these questions, this paper aims to examine how self-efficacy affects the auditors’ effort and performance during COVID-19 and how remote audit proficiency helps them respond to these challenges, as reflected in more effort and high-quality performance.

To test the hypotheses, this study used a quantitative approach in which 193 Saudi auditors were surveyed and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The authors demonstrated that self-efficacy is positively associated with the perceived audit effort and performance during the COVID-19 crisis. The results also showed that remote audit proficiency plays a significant role during COVID-19 as it can help auditors exert more effort and perform audit activities effectively. This study also found that remote audit mediates the association between self-efficacy and both effort and performance during COVID-19. These results are also asserted under several robust analyses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these findings provide the first evidence on the effect of COVID-19 on auditors and have implications for both theory and practice.

Audit hour reporting is rare internationally. Thus, to what extent shareholders have the power to influence audit effort/hour demand is a question left unanswered. This study aims to use unique South Korean data to determine whether the increasing power of the largest foreign/domestic shareholders and blockholders can influence audit hour demand.

In this study ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis is conducted using a sample of Korean listed firms over the 2004–2018 sample period.

The results show: as the percentage equity holding of the largest foreign shareholder and blockholder (>5%) increases, audit hour demand increases. As the shareholding of the largest domestic shareholder increases, audit hour demanded decreases. The association between audit fees/hours is not qualitatively indifferent, after controlling for the audit fee premium effect. Furthermore, the largest foreign shareholder is shown to demand increasingly higher levels of audit hours from Big4 auditors, relative to NonBig4. All results are consistent with audit demand theory.

Whilst previous studies offer audit fee/risk interpretations, this study extends the literature by developing a framework to explain why audit hour demands differ for specific groups. Because audit hour information is rare internationally, the study has important policy implications.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationship model among narcissism, work centrality, employee engagement and discretionary effort.

Respecting the quantitative approach, the data were gathered by means of the survey completed by 1,190 respondents of Generation X, Y and Z working in the Thai service and manufacturing industries.

The findings of the study indicated positive associations between narcissism and work centrality, narcissism and employee engagement, work centrality and employee engagement and employee engagement and discretionary effort. It was observed that work centrality played a partially mediating role in the relationships between narcissism and employee engagement, while employee engagement fully mediated the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort. The structural model demonstrated variations across different generational cohorts, suggesting that the relationships differed among generations. However, the model did not exhibit any variations across different types of industries. Furthermore, the findings from the Thai samples indicated that generational differences had a moderating effect on the path relationships between narcissism and work centrality (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X), narcissism and employee engagement (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X) and narcissism and discretionary effort (with Generation X having a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation Z), all with a significance level of 95%. Additionally, the relationship between employee engagement and discretionary effort showed a significant difference across generations, with Generation Z exhibiting a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation X, at a significance level of 99%.

This study provides empirical evidence supporting the positive relationships between narcissism and work centrality, as well as narcissism and employee engagement, contrary to previous research findings. The results reveal that employee engagement fully mediates the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort, offering valuable contributions to the existing literature. Furthermore, this study expands on previous research by examining the moderating effect of industry type, specifically comparing manufacturing and service industries. The findings suggest that the model exhibits variations across different generational cohorts, highlighting the importance of considering generational differences in understanding these relationships. However, the model does not exhibit variations across different types of industries.

This paper aims to examine the perspectives of auditors, regulators and financial report preparers on the effects of key audit matters (KAMs) reporting on audit effort, fees, quality and report transparency.

The authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (13 Audit Partners, 5 Chief Financial Officers and 3 regulators) and thematically analysed the interviews. They use the frame of “Paradox of Transparency” to explain the findings.

Auditors perceive that the overall quality control of their audits has improved both in the planning and execution stages, and such improvement can mostly be attributed to the coercive pressures from professional bodies and regulators. Nevertheless, audit fee remains unchanged. Auditors disclose industry generic items and descriptions of KAMs, sometimes masking the real problem areas of the clients. Even after improving the performative audit quality, transparency of audit reporting has not improved. Issues that warrant going concern qualifications or audit report modifications are now reported as KAMs. Hence, KAMs reporting might make the audit report less transparent.

Localised audit environments and institutions affect the transparency of KAMs reporting. Without attention to corporate governance and auditors’ independence issues, paradoxically, performative improvement in audit quality (due to the KAMs reporting requirement) does not enhance the transparency of audit reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide field-level evidence in Bangladesh and other developing countries about the perceptions of auditors, financial report preparers and regulators on the effects of KAMs reporting on audit efforts, fees, quality and report transparency.

Motivated by the wide application of procurement strategies in retailing, this paper aims to examine the effect of procurement strategies on decisions and profits and strategic inventory (SI) is considered.

The game-theoretic models are developed under a two-period fresh product supply chain (FSC), and consist of the mode of purchasing products only in the first period without SI (Scenario S), the mode of purchasing products in every period without SI (Scenario T) and the mode of purchasing products in every period with SI (Scenario TS).

Conducting the calculating and comparing, some major findings can be concluded. In general, two-period purchasing strategies (Scenarios T and TS) promote a higher freshness-keeping effort than the single buying strategy (Scenario S). Regarding the pricing strategy, SI and Scenario S can both contribute to obtaining a lower wholesale price, the retailer's pricing is relatively complicated and hinges on the consumer's sensitivity to freshness-keeping effort and the holding cost. Besides, comparing the sales quantity and the profit, the authors find that Scenario TS stimulates more demands and brings more profits for the manufacturer. However, Scenario TS is not the optimal selection for the reason that SI sometimes hurts the retailer and even the whole supply chain. Whereas, when the holding cost is in a certain range, Scenario TS will lead to a win-win situation.

The main findings of this study can give the enterprises some advice on the procurement strategies of fresh products and the decisions of pricing and the freshness-keeping effort.

This paper investigated the impact of firms' service recovery efforts on consumers' desire to reciprocate and forgiveness in the hospitality industry of Pakistan. Additionally, this study examined the mediating role of perceived justice between service recovery efforts and their outcomes.

Using snowball sampling technique, an online survey was administered and 259 responses were collected from casual-dining restaurant customers. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) were used to examine the hypotheses.

The results indicate that perceived justice significantly mediates the effect of service recovery efforts on the consumers' desire to reciprocate and forgiveness. Moreover, high (vs. low) service recovery efforts lead to high consumer forgiveness.

The study provides insights for managers into how optimal recovery efforts predict consumers' positive responses and minimize the effect of service failure in South Asian consumers.

This research is among the early endeavors to examine consumers' desire to reciprocate in service recovery context. Also, this is the first study to validate the impact of service recovery efforts on consumers' desire to reciprocate and consumer forgiveness in a South Asian country.

The development of low-carbon production is impeded by the investment costs of green technology research and development (R&D) and carbon emission reduction while facing the uncertain risk of emission reduction investment. With the government's carbon emission constraints, green manufacturers implement the advance selling strategy to increase both profit and reduction level. However, few studies consider the consumer's green preference and emission constraints in advance selling market and spot market independently. The authors' paper investigates the optimal strategies of advance selling pricing and reduction effort for green manufacturers to maximize profits.

The authors' paper designs a stochastic model and investigates the manufacturer's optimal strategies of advance selling price and emission reduction efforts by categorizing different purchasing periods of low-carbon consumers. With the challenges of uncertain demand and government's emission constraints, the authors' develop the non-linear optimization model to investigate the manufacturer's profit-oriented decisions.

The results show the government's carbon constraints cannot influence the manufacturer's profit, but the consumer's low-carbon preference in the advance selling period can. Interestingly, the manufacturer will make fewer reduction efforts even when the consumers have stronger environmental awareness. In addition, the increasing consumer price sensitivity will exacerbate the profit loss from mandatory emissions reduction. Overall, for achieving a win–win situation between emission reduction and profit growth, green manufacturers should not only consider the sales strategies, market demand, and government constraints in a low-carbon market, but also pay attention to the uncertainty of green technology innovation.

With the consideration of the government's carbon emission constraints, uncertain demand, and low-carbon consumer's preferences, the authors' study innovatively incorporates the joint impacts of advance selling strategy and emission reduction effort strategy and then differentiates between two cases that pertain to the diverse carbon emission regulations.