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Consortia of schools and colleges are mechanisms which have proved successful for managing TVEI programmes but which also offer LEAs and institutions a framework for coping with wider educational changes. If consortia are to continue to have value both to their individual members and to their respective LEAs, then the latter need to take them into account when responding to the challenges posed by the ERA, both when reorganising the service and in programmes of staff development, to ensure that account is taken of the needs and characteristics of middle‐management roles which have grown in response to the demands of consortia management.

The literature on the influence of audit committees (ACs) and cosmetic accounting (CSA) is scarce. This paper aims to examine the influence of AC attributes on CSA and how this relationship is moderated by the audit price (AUPR).

The study used pooled logistic regressions to analyse 624 firm-year observations of listed companies in Nigeria from 2008 to 2016.

The results show that AC financial accounting expertise, AC legal expertise and female AC membership were negatively related to CSA. The negative relationship is highly pronounced when a firm incurs higher audit fees. Results for the robustness checks were similar, even with changes to the measurements of dependent and independent variables and alternative estimation.

This study can benefit policymakers and regulators, enabling them to better appreciate the importance of AC attributes and AUPR in curtailing artificial manipulation and enhancing financial reporting quality.

This study can benefit policymakers and regulators, enabling them to better appreciate the importance of AC attributes and AUPR in curtailing artificial manipulation and enhancing financial reporting quality.

The findings provide an initial insight into the moderating effect of AUPR on the relationship between AC attributes and CSA.

This study aims to explore the opinions of audit committee (AC) members on the extent to which they fulfil the oversight role vested in them by the Jordanian Corporate Governance Code (JCGC).

This study uses semi-structured interviews with 18 AC members.

The findings suggest that although ACs largely meet the JCGC’s recommendations, their substantive oversight role in practice is limited. In particular, the responses indicate that ACs suffer from a lack of real power, especially concerning the appointment (or removal) of external auditors and the evaluation of internal control. Moreover, ACs have no actual role in issues deemed important for financial reporting quality (e.g. reviewing management estimates and evaluating chief financial officer (CFOs) and internal audit executives).

This study provides rich insights into ACs’ oversight processes in a setting outside the Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model where knowledge is scant on the ACs’ real function. Hence, the study injects the literature with new qualitative-based evidence from a peculiar civil law country. Also, Jordan has spent time and energy trying to strengthen corporate governance practices to boost investors’ confidence. However, the interviewees’ responses indicate that the oversight role of the AC is still far from what the regulators anticipate. Therefore, the findings offer useful feedback for regulators to think more deeply about the current governance regulations. The feedback from this study can be extended to other developing countries with similar institutional environments, especially countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the audit committee's (AC) independence and competence on the company's investment decision-making in Bahraini-listed companies.

A quantitative method is used, and crosssectional data are collected through a self-administered questionnaire survey. A stratified random sample technique is adopted with a total of 409 respondents from 39 listed companies. A descriptive analysis is used to identify the characteristics of the respondents, while the correlation analysis and linear regression analyses are used to test the model and explain the relationship between variables.

It is found that the AC independence and AC competence have a positive and significant influence on investment decision-making.

The AC’s independence and competence are importantly crucial for the decision-makers in improving the quality of financial reporting, internal control and audit. This may lead to the increase in investors' trust on financial reports and thereby making favorable investment decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential impact of two affiliation factors, as encapsulated by the chief financial officer's (CFO) prior organizational (alumnus vs non‐alumnus) and professional background (audit vs non‐audit ex‐partner), on auditor independence in post‐Enron and post‐HIH era.

The study is a 2×2 factorial between subjects experimental design with 52 audit partners and managers as participants. The two manipulated independent variables are client CFO prior firm affiliation (alumni vs non‐alumni) and professional background (audit partner vs non‐audit partner providing taxation, accounting and other non‐audit services).

The results of the study do not appear to signal loss of independence and professional skepticism in auditors' judgment when dealing with an alumni or ex‐auditor CFO. On average, auditors' endorsement of the client's preferred aggressive accounting treatment is low and the audit adjustment is material and significantly greater than the client's proposed adjustment.

The 2001 corporate collapses of Enron in the USA and HIH in Australia have reshaped the auditing profession. HIH, the most publicized corporate fraud in Australia resulting in estimated losses of $5 billion, was partly blamed on Arthur Andersen yielding to management's aggressive accounting policies and failure to display independence as a result of close relationships between the former partners and the audit team. As distinct from a number of prior studies conducted pre‐Enron and pre‐HIH, the results of this study, conducted with experienced audit professionals in Australia, do not support a loss of independence and professional skepticism by auditors in the current post‐Enron and post‐HIH environment and are consistent with the findings of the only other recent experimental study by Kerler III and Killough examining the closeness of the auditor‐client relationship. The results are also consistent with results of recent archival studies which find a decline in earnings management behavior, either because of reduced management incentives or reduced auditor willingness to consent. The evidence of this study lends supports to the latter explanation.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the audit committee’s (AC’s) independence and competence in the company’s investment decision-making in Bahraini- and Indonesian-listed firms, then to compare the two results

A quantitative method is used and cross-sectional data are collected through a self-administered questionnaire survey. A stratified random sample technique is adopted with a total of 409 respondents from 39 listed companies in Bahrain and 303 respondents from 27 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). A descriptive analysis is used to identify the characteristics of the respondents, while a correlation analysis, linear regression and t-test analyses are used to test the model, explain the relationships among variables and compare the two studies (Bahrain vs Indonesia).

It is found that the AC independence and AC competence have a positive and significant influence on investment decision-making for both the Bahrain and the Indonesia studies

The current study’s results have implications for the process of appointing and nominating the AC members, since this would affect an investor’s investment decision. Investors’ perception of the independence and competence of ACs will make a difference in their investment decisions.

AC independence and competence are importantly crucial for the decision-makers in improving the quality of financial reporting, internal control, and audit. This may lead to an increase in investors’ trust in financial reports and their ability to make favorable investment decisions.

This paper aims to report the findings of semi‐structured interviews with management, external auditors and audit committee members in Malaysia concerning the role of the audit committee in resolving auditor‐client disagreements.

An exploratory case study method was applied in seven publicly listed companies in Malaysia. In each company interviews were conducted with an audit committee chair/member, the finance manager/CFO and the external auditor.

The study finds that, when the issue is very material, the audit committee plays a mediating role as a third‐party intermediary who provides assistance to resolve the dispute. The authority of the committee to act as a mediator comes from its oversight responsibilities, its understanding and awareness of possible issues and the members' accounting and business expertise. Mediation techniques used include controlling the agenda, gathering information, advising and solving problems. With two exceptions, the interviews indicate that the audit committee does not take sides when helping to resolve a dispute. The outcome from the mediation process is generally a compromise solution.

The study is based on 21 interviews undertaken in Malaysia. Hence, the findings may not be generalizable to other cultures and jurisdictions. Further, while a number of mediation techniques used by audit committees are identified, the paper does not examine in‐depth the mediation processes used in resolving disagreements.

The study extends the auditor‐client negotiation literature by examining whether the audit committee plays a mediating role to help resolve disagreements. The findings demonstrate that audit committee effectiveness can extend beyond a pure oversight role to more active involvement in resolving contentious accounting issues.

This paper aims to investigate how the roles, characteristics, expectations and evaluation practices of audit committees have adapted to regulatory change and what practices are most conducive to effective audit committees.

This paper uses semi-structured interviews with audit committee chairs and chief audit executives.

While new regulation is a primary driver of changes in the roles of audit committees, the audit committee’s role has evolved beyond regulatory requirements. Audit committees are taking a more active role in organisational governance and performance in key areas such as risk management. However, while audit committees have a clear concept of what characteristics committee members require, conceptual frameworks and mechanisms for evaluating the performance of committees and their members remain underdeveloped.

The responses of audit committees in Australia to broader regulatory trends suggest that more research is required into how audit committees function in practice, and into developing new frameworks for evaluating the committees’ performance. This paper provides an in-depth exploration of key areas of audit committee performance, and identifies aspects that might be further investigated.

The paper identifies key attributes of effective audit committees and especially the characteristics of audit committee members. The paper also identifies a need to improve – and in many cases create – performance evaluation frameworks and mechanisms. Given the international regulatory trend towards greater reliance on audit committees to improve governance, more policy attention is required on developing guidelines and assessment processes that evaluate whether audit committees are fulfilling their legislative mandate in practice.

The paper contributes to the relatively new and more specific discussion on reviewing and evaluating the performance of the board and its subcommittees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of audit committee (AC) characteristics (size, independence, the number of meetings and expertise) on compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for related party disclosures (CRPD) in the South African context.

This paper is based on an analysis of the consolidated financial statements of 120 non-financial firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) for the period 2012 to 2014. Panel regressions have been used.

The findings of this paper reveal that CRPD is positively influenced by AC independence. However, AC size and the number of AC meetings do not affect CRPD. Regarding expertise, the authors find that there is a positive and significant relationship between CRPD and have combined industry expertise with accounting and financial expertise. However, while accounting expertise by itself is associated with CPRD, industry expertise by itself is not associated with CRPD.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no empirical studies that have addressed the effect of AC characteristics on compliance with IFRS for CRPD.

The purpose of this paper is to examine external auditors' perceptions of the impact of audit committee financial expertise and industry expertise on the mediating role played by the committee in resolving auditor‐client disagreements.

The study is a 2×2 between subjects experimental design, using 61 Malaysian auditors as participants. The authors manipulate audit committee financial expertise and industry expertise at high and low levels.

It is found that external auditors perceive that audit committees play a greater mediating role and use mediating techniques to a greater extent when committee members' financial and industry expertise is high compared to when expertise is lower.

This is the first paper to examine the importance of audit committee expertise on the mediating role of the audit committee. The major contribution of the paper is the finding that auditors believe the audit committee's role as a mediator is strengthened not only by the committee members' accounting and auditing expertise but also by their industry expertise. The paper's findings have implications for practitioners and regulators who are concerned with the role of the audit committee in enhancing the integrity of the financial reporting and audit process.