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The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether two major stakeholder groups – customers and employees – consider third party-reviewed corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and assurance on the quality of internal controls as value determinant in their decisions, and how their decisions influence financial performance through the halo effect of these reports.

Using Compustat North America and Global Reporting Initiative data, the authors used first-order autoregressive models over the period from 2006 to 2012.

The results indicate that the impacts of customers and employees on financial performance are influenced by third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control. Moreover, it is found that the third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control enable the persistence of financial performance.

The findings have implications for stakeholders in terms of third party-reviewed CSR reports and effective internal control. The findings are important due to the influence that these stakeholders (customers and employees) have on the financial performance of firms and the impact that CSR actions can have on society as a whole.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that contributes to the literature by demonstrating that information about third party-reviewed CSR reports and internal control reviews may influence the perceptions of firms by two primary stakeholders – customers and employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between integrated reports, external assurance and financial performance for North American firms between 2011 and 2016.

Corporate websites were examined for disclosures which included both financial and non-financial information. Compustat North America and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) websites provided additional data for the analysis.

Using a panel data analysis, the results provide evidence that there is a significant positive association between integrated reports and multiple measures of financial performance. Moreover, this positive effect is enhanced when integrated reports are assured by accounting firms.

There are relatively a small number of firms that do this kind of reporting. A major limitation of the study is the small sample size.

As stakeholders find information in integrated reports relevant, there needs to be standardization on their content and level of assurance. Standard setters and regulators should be involved in setting these standards and assurance guidelines.

Although it is clear that there is a cost to firms which produce integrated reports, the benefits to society may outweigh these costs. This may go beyond the benefits to shareholders as they make investment decisions.

According to the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study that examines the impact of integrated reports and external assurance on financial performance for North American firms.

This study aims to examine the public budgeting process in the higher education and research sectors of Iran. It focuses on the actors’ budgetary roles and uses their perspectives to identify deficiencies in the budgeting process that cause delays in the transition to a performance-based system.

This study uses an interpretive research paradigm. It applies the grounded theory methodology to analyze the interviews conducted with those responsible for budgeting at Iranian public universities and research institutes (PURI). The results are interpreted using Wildavsky’s (1964) budgetary roles paradigm.

Using Wildavsky’s (1964) paradigm, “spenders” and “guardians” are identified and their perceptions about the public budgeting process are described. The results suggest a decoupling between the actors’ perceptions based on their budgetary roles. Spenders consider budgeting as a negotiation-based process, while guardians’ decisions are largely based on “outputs” and “information.” This study demonstrates that the disagreement over the perceived budget process was due to different budgetary roles. This disagreement leads to delays in the transformation of the budget process in Iranian PURI.

While efforts are made to obtain a sample of individuals with different roles and responsibilities, the selection is limited by subjects’ willingness and availability. Therefore, sample size and diversity are potential limitations of this study.

When organizations attempt to transition to performance-based budgeting (PBB), it is critical to understand the current budgeting process to identify potential impediments. Understanding these impediments allows for alternate approaches to be considered. This is particularly important for universities that are mostly funded by the government (such as those in Iran). The results of this study show that the contradictory perceptions among budget actors have a significant impact on budgeting transition and require attention to understand budgeting decisions.

This study contributes to the budgeting literature in three ways. First, it examines the impact of endogenized shared values among budget participants on the budgeting transition process. Second, by focusing on budgetary roles, it contributes to the literature by examining disagreement on the perceived budgeting process and its implications for transforming the process into PBB. Finally, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the public budgeting process in a developing country – Iran.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reason for the failure of implementing performance-based budgeting (PBB) at Iranian public universities and research institutes (PURI). This examination focuses on the actors participating in the budget processes and their perceptions.

The study uses grounded theory and employs deep semi-structured interviews of budget preparers at Iranian PURI.

The results indicate a loose coupling between perceived and regulated budgeting process. This leads to budgetary slack as a barrier for authentic information flow and indeed PBB implementation. In the analysis of the results, the authors suggest some ways to improve the current situation of the budgeting processes at Iranian PURI.

Public organizations that desire to transform their budgeting system need to consider their actors’ perceptions regarding the budgeting process. By explicitly considering their perceptions the organization may be able to solve any loose coupling as a result of internal, external and behavioral conditions.

This research examines issues that arise in the transformation of organizational processes. The focus on budget processes is critical for organizations which receive most, if not all, of their operational funds from a central authority. This research highlights the role of budget actors’ perceptions in transforming the budgeting process. An important result of this analysis is documenting the existence of loose coupling in the current budgeting process at Iranian PURI. This loose coupling results in slack creation and restricts the implementation of a PBB system. Additionally, this loose coupling limits the flow of authentic information.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of auditors in Egypt toward the role that continuous auditing (CA) can play in offsetting the challenges facing the quality of Internet-reported financial information. The paper also examines the impact of audit firm type and years of experience on these perceptions.

Ninety-six auditors working in the Big 4 and large local audit firms are surveyed to attain their perceptions on the issues examined. Chi-square, Mann–Whitney and t-test are used to test the research hypotheses.

The overall results indicate that the majority of auditors in Egypt agree that implementing CA can offset the challenges associated with the Internet financial reporting (IFR) environment. The results also reveal that there are significant differences between auditors working in Big 4 audit firms and those working in local firms regarding the perceptions of the effect of CA on some aspects of the timeliness of information.

The paper extends the stream of research on both CA and IFR that confirms that the widespread use of the Internet in disclosing financial information continues to be a worrisome problem for auditing firms.

The paper provides insights into the challenges facing auditing in the IFR environment and how implementing CA can help offset these challenges.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to examine issues related to CA in the IFR environment in the Middle East and, in particular, Egypt.

This study aims to examine and visualize the adopted internal control structure and effectiveness in firms and present a typology of firms. Control structure and effectiveness are measured based on the assessment of management, rather than using reported material weaknesses as most studies do. This type of evaluation is more purposeful for firms that do not apply the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Internal control frameworks provide only broad guidance concerning internal control concepts, leaving the details to the adopting firms.

The survey data (from 741 CEOs) are clustered using the self-organizing map, a visual artificial neural network approach. A three-dimensional effectiveness proxy is used.

The analysis reveals four alternative types of internal control effectiveness in firms and visually presents how the components of the internal control structure are associated with each one. A typology of internal control structure and effectiveness is then created.

The findings suggest that there are interrelated, but not straightforward, relationships between internal control variables and that there is a link between some of them and higher internal control effectiveness in practice. These findings have important implications for those responsible for improving or assessing internal control, such as management, personnel and internal and external auditors.

This paper uses a clustering approach to create a typology for alternative types of internal control structure and effectiveness, based on data from actual firms. Instead of using material weaknesses as a measure, this study uses managers’ own assessments of internal control effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new concept: the online collaborative audit system, and to design a prototype system at the national level for financial auditors, members of a supervisory body.

Conceptualization, modelling, analysis, imagination, scientific abstraction and review of legislation are the research methods used.

An online collaborative audit system is defined as an interorganizational system which uses the methods of collaborative intelligence among the stakeholders of the audit process (audit firms, auditees, supervision bodies) in a given geographical area (e.g. country) and which is based on the Internet. By assessing the design of the system, we could anticipate that an online collaborative system is feasible to implement. The main characteristics of an online collaborative audit system are geographical dispersion, collaboration between the stakeholders of the audit process, electronic management of the audit documents, online/continuous auditing and dynamic virtual teams, etc.

The system presented in this paper aims to cover the research gap which exists in this area and also to produce a change of paradigm in the sense that nowadays the technology allows us to move the audit results to an integrated national platform for audit stakeholders. In this way, the transparency of audit results increases and the role of audit becomes more predictive compared with the traditional way of performing an audit. Compared with the research in the field, the system presented in this paper is innovative in the sense that it not only allows online auditing but also gathers the national audit community in a virtual environment, which allows information sharing and improvement of information access.

The online collaborative system for audit, which promotes collaboration between a large number of auditors and which is based on the networks of the supervision bodies, could be implemented not only by Romania, on which this research is based, but also by other countries.

The online collaborative systems for audit, which promotes collaboration between a large number of auditors and which is based on the networks of the supervision bodies, could be implemented not only by Romania but also by other countries.

The purpose of this project is to undertake continuous auditing and monitoring (CA/CM) implementations working with small-to-medium-sized (SME) not-for-profit (NFP) organizations of varying sizes, business purposes and levels of technical sophistication.

This paper discusses a project using a case study approach with an SME NFP entity.

The findings support the discussions in the literature regarding CA/CM adoption in organizations, particularly regarding its implementation benefits and challenges.

The project is not complete in that additional case studies could possibly offer additional applicability to the findings.

This case study illustrates the issues inherent with the process of adopting new technologies. It provides insights for others considering adoption of CA/CM tools or protocols.

The need for more reliable auditing has never been more urgent than it is today in the NFP environment, and this case study demonstrates how an NFP could address these critical needs of increased reporting accountability and internal controls.

The application of CA/CM is quite interesting and relevant in this modern real-time economy. This case study provides a new area of research in the field of CA/CM and, as such, contributes to the literature.