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The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the relation between the joint provision of sustainability assurance and the readability of sustainability assurance statements. Additionally, it explores whether the presence of a female assurance partner influences the relation between the joint provision of sustainability assurance and the readability of sustainability assurance statements.

We analyzed a dataset comprising 882 firm-year observations from companies operating in sustainability sensitive industries for the period that spans the years 2016–2018.

The research indicates that joint sustainability assurance provision is associated with a more readable sustainability assurance statement, consistent with the “four-eyes” principle. Furthermore, the presence of a female assurance provider influences the joint assurance provision’s impact on sustainability assurance statement readability. Collectively, these results remain robust as they hold unchanged after controlling for endogeneity concerns.

This study provides novel insights into the recent sustainability assurance literature, being the first to examine joint assurance provision, assurance partner gender and sustainability assurance statement readability.

This study has the potential to catalyze regulatory and policy initiatives by providing compelling evidence in favor of mandating joint audits within the area of sustainability assurance practices. Additionally, this research contributes to the ongoing discussion about gender diversity in accounting and nonaccounting assurance firms, providing evidence of the positive impact of female assurance partners on sustainability assurance statement readability.

The regression results provide preliminary evidence on how the presence of a female audit partner influences the relationship between the sustainability assurance joint provision and sustainability assurance statement readability, an issue that has not been examined before.

This study aims to examine how female directors on corporate boards and audit committees, and auditor affiliations (Big 4 versus Egyptian firms affiliated with foreign auditors), influence audit fees. This examination is driven by the global call for increased female representation in leadership roles and its potential implications for audit quality and financial transparency.

A sample of non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange is used for the period 2011–2020. The authors used multivariate regression models, the Heckman two-stage and tokenism to support the analysis.

The results are threefold. First, this analysis reveals that female directors, whether on corporate boards or audit committees, are more likely to choose higher-quality audits in the form of high audit fees. Second, both Big 4 firms and Egyptian audit firms affiliated with foreign auditors are positively associated with audit fees and earn significant audit fee premiums. Third, a minor difference in audit fee premiums could be attributed to the existence of female directors.

Future research may expand the analysis performed in this study by investigating the characteristics related to female directors (e.g. education, experience and age) on audit fees.

This study suggests insights for regulatory bodies, corporate decision-makers, auditors and corporate governance researchers. For instance, this study reveals that the Big 4 are not homogenous and provide different audit quality levels along with significant audit fee premiums.

This study extends and contributes to the growing literature on female representation in corporate leadership. First, this study adds to the limited research in Egypt by examining the effect of female board representation on audit quality. Second, this study adds to the extant literature on the gender of financial experts by demonstrating that female financial expert is more likely to demand high-quality audits. Finally, the results have significant implications for policymakers. For instance, this study reveals that the Big 4 are not homogenous and provide different audit quality levels along with significant audit fee premiums.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the level of busyness of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and investment efficiency in the context of emerging markets.

The sample includes firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018 using ordinary least square estimation.

The findings suggest that companies led by busy CEOs tend to exhibit lower investment efficiency, thus providing support for the hypothesis that as CEOs’ commitments increase, their ability to concentrate on the company diminishes. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that companies with busy CEOs tend to demonstrate a greater tendency to over-invest, potentially in response to market pressures to showcase strong performance. A more in-depth examination of the data shows that the negative impact of busy CEOs on investment efficiency is especially noticeable in firms lacking risk and management committees (RMC).

These findings have substantial practical implications for the structuring and composition of corporate boards. They highlight the significance of conducting comprehensive assessments to gain insights into the external commitments of incoming CEOs.

This study underscores the importance of establishing RMC.

With the goal of helping consumers bounce back from the financial challenges they faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many firms developed and announced consumer-targeted resiliency programs (e.g. Walgreens waived delivery fees, Associated Bank allowed deferred mortgage payments). However, there is a paucity of research examining the unique features of these programs, and whether firms' investors (the first external stakeholder group to provide them with feedback regarding their strategies) were receptive to these programs during a period of time in which firms themselves were suffering financially. Drawing on resilience theory and stakeholder theory, the present research incorporates an event study of consumer-targeted resiliency program announcements to understand their financial implications for firms, and to learn whether firms witnessed different financial effects as a result of firm- and program-specific factors.

This study referred to business news publications and newswire services to collect a comprehensive list of consumer-targeted resiliency programs announced by publicly traded U.S. firms during the pandemic. The resulting dataset consisted of 145 announcements made during the period of February–June 2020. An event study was conducted in order to precisely measure the main effect of consumer-targeted resiliency programs on firm value, as manifested through abnormal stock returns. Finally, a moderation analysis (regression) was conducted to uncover whether firm characteristics or specific features of firms' consumer-targeted resiliency programs lead certain firms to witness stronger financial effects than others.

The main effect of consumer-targeted resiliency programs on firm value was found to be positive – a 1.9% increase on average. The moderation analysis finds that non-financial firms were rewarded more positively than financial firms (e.g. banks and credit card companies). In addition, financial aid (i.e. allowing customers to defer their payments to a firm for its products/services, versus a reduction in the price of a product/service or offering it for free or giving cash back to customers) and temporal characteristics (i.e. an offer being framed as limited-time, vs being indefinite or for the foreseeable future) are not found to have a moderating effect.

This theory-driven empirical study uncovers practical implications for managers of firms interested in whether investing in corporate social responsibility during times of crisis is a wise allocation of resources. Any form of financial aid for consumers, regardless of temporal limitations, is received positively by investors.

Ownership structure plays a significant role in determining board demographic diversity. However, it is still unclear how different ownership configurations impact the structures of firm's boards and how board diversity influences firm performance. This study aims to investigate the relationship between family ownership and board diversity. Therefore, in this study, the authors argue that family firms have a lower level of board demographic diversity (in terms of age, gender and nationality) than non-family firms and that board diversity moderates the relationship between ownership and firm performance.

To test the authors’ hypotheses, we draw data from a sample of 341 German family and non-family firms for a period of five years.

The results show that family firms are less diverse in terms of age, gender and nationality diversity than non-family firms.

This study contributes to the general understanding of family firms and in particular the role ownership plays in shaping board demographic diversity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of industry specialization of audit partners and audit committee members on the level of tax avoidance in Australian banks.

This study uses a multivariate regression analysis based on hand-collected data consisting of 180 observations from Australian domestic banks between 2010 and 2018.

The primary results of the empirical analysis indicate that audit partner industry specialization is negatively associated with the level of tax avoidance in Australian banks. Regarding the audit committee, the proportion of industry specialists among audit committee members reduces the magnitude of tax avoidance. These results are robust, as they hold the same for alternative measures of tax avoidance and industry specialization of audit partner and audit committee members. Results from supplementary analysis reveal that the interactive effect of both audit firm and audit partner industry specialization strengthens the auditors’ effectiveness in reducing the level of tax avoidance.

As this study highlights the importance of the industry specialization in decreasing tax avoidance, it can be beneficial for policymakers to assess the impact of good governance on the level of tax avoidance in the banking industry.

Even though the existing studies examine the link between the governance actors’ industry specialization and tax avoidance in nonfinancial firms, this paper explores the banking industry that differs from nonfinancial firms in among others; accounting and fiscal regulations. This study further provides unique evidence indicating that industry specialization of the audit partner constitutes a significant determinant of minimizing the bank’s level of tax avoidance.

A company needs to use auditing procedures to ensure the reliability of financial statements while also providing transparency to stakeholders. The extent of risk associated with the company depends on the directors’ involvement in its daily operations. This paper aims to study the relationship between busy chief executive officers (CEOs) and audit fees.

This study uses 1,037 data samples from companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 until 2018. It adopts the ordinary least squares method to test the hypothesis. Furthermore, this study performs robustness tests, such as propensity score matching (PSM) and Heckman’s two-stage least square tests (Heckman, 1979), to address the endogeneity issues.

This study finds that the appearance of a busy CEO in a company will significantly increase the audit fee. It also concludes that a long tenure of a busy CEO will substantially weaken the positive relationship between the CEO and the audit fee. However, this study discovers that, in a company with a busy CEO, a monitoring mechanism through the independent commissioner and risk management committee will only help to maximize the firm’s practical risk evaluation a little. This result is robust because the PSM and Heckman tests display consistent results, so it is free from endogeneity issues.

This study is valuable for theoretical and practical development in Indonesia. Due to the minimum regulation about multiple positions on boards in Indonesia, the shareholders must be aware of the need to choose a board with more skill and commitment to improve the position of the company. This result also warns the C-level of the company to pay more attention to its risk-monitoring process to make it more effective and efficient.

Indonesia is one of the countries that have implemented the two-tier governance system. With the minimum regulation about multiple directorships in Indonesia, this study offers new insights into how a busy CEO will be related to the audit outcomes.

Although the association between sustainability assurance (SA) quality and firm value has been examined in previous studies, the moderating relationship is novel in this study and highlights the effect of corporate environmental sustainability performance (CESP) on the relationship between SA quality and firm value. This study aims to examine whether such an effect is strengthened or weakened by eco-efficiency, as measured by ISO 14001 certification, aggregate CESP score and each individual dimension of CESP (emission reduction [ER], resource reduction [RR] and product innovation [PI]).

The sample includes 40 companies in Euronext Paris with the largest market capitalisations (the Cotation Assistée en Continu 40 [CAC 40] index) from 2010 to 2020. The authors apply the feasible generalised least squares regression technique to estimate all the regression models. Because observed associations may be biased by reverse causation or self-selection, the authors use the instrumental variable approach and Heckman two-stage estimation.

The results show that SA quality had a positive and significant effect on firm value. Second, the authors demonstrate that CESP, as assessed by ISO 14001 certification, has a stronger interaction with assurance quality and acting as a moderator variable. Using the ASSET4 scores, an alternative proxy for CESP, the authors find inconsistent evidence regarding the impact of CESP attributes. The CESP and ER scores are homogeneous and have a positive effect on firm value. However, the PI and RR CESP attributes are not homogenous and do not have the same interactive effect on firm value. The results are robust to the use of an instrumental variable approach and the Heckman two-stage estimation procedure.

Policy implications: Regulators may be interested in the findings when considering current and future assurance requirements for sustainability reporting, and shareholders when considering SA as an investment choice criterion. The insights into and enhanced understanding of the incentives for obtaining high SA quality can help policymakers develop effective policies and initiatives for SA. Considering the possible improvements in sustainability performance when obtaining a high level of sustainability verification, governments need to consider mandating SA.

Firms receive clear confirmation of the importance of investing in SA quality. Financial markets do not evaluate SA dichotomously but reward companies with higher SA quality because of the greater credibility it provides. Firms should allocate a significant percentage of their annual budgets and other relevant resources to environmental training and development programmes to improve and maintain environmental performance. If they care about environmental issues, they must announce this by issuing sustainability reports and seeking assurance of the information disclosed. High-quality assurance not only has a significant effect on investors’ investment reliability judgements but also the perceived credibility of environmental performance fully moderates the effect of assurance on these judgements.

This study has social implications; the authors find that the French market rewards firms that provide a high-quality assurance to guarantee the integrity of their sustainability reports. Therefore, by incorporating environmental sustainability into their financial goals, a better assurance ultimately will urge firms to move from green washing to strategic goals, which is beneficial for society. Further, firms that focus on sustainability as part of their business strategy may attract employees who engage in green behaviours at work and create a friendlier and productive environment because it gives meaning to the work they do and keeps them engaged to the level needed to perform their jobs capably.

This study contributes to the literature by re-examining the relationship between SA quality and firm value. It also provides new evidence on the moderating effect of CESP on the SA quality–firm value nexus. Specifically, it explores the joint effect of credibility and eco-efficiency on market confidence in sustainability information.

This study aims to investigate the effect of smoking on the income of workers in the Brazilian labor market.

Using data from the 2019 National Health Survey (PNS), we initially address the sample selection bias concerning labor market participation by using the Heckman (1979) method. Subsequently, the decomposition of income between smokers and nonsmokers is analyzed, both on average and across the earnings distribution by employing the procedure of Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009) - FFL decomposition. Ñopo (2008) technique is also used to obtain more robust estimates.

Overall, the findings indicate an income penalty for smokers in the Brazilian labor market across both the average and all quantiles of the income distribution. Notably, the most significant differentials and income penalties against smokers are observed in the lower quantiles of the distribution. Conversely, in the higher quantiles, there is a tendency toward a smaller magnitude of this gap, with limited evidence of an income penalty associated with this habit.

This study presents an important limitation, which refers to a restriction of the PNS (2019), which does not provide information about some subjective factors that also tend to influence the levels of labor income, such as the level of effort and specific ability of each worker, whether smokers or not, something that could also, in some way, be related to some latent individual predisposition that would influence the choice of smoking.

The relevance of the present study is clear in identifying the heterogeneity of the income gap in favor of nonsmokers, as in the lower quantiles there was a greater magnitude of differentials against smokers and a greater incidence of unexplained penalties in the income of these workers, while in the higher quantiles, there was low magnitude of the differentials and little evidence that there is a penalty in earnings since the worker is a smoker.

The adoption of solar energy by households is an important avenue of protecting the environment and enabling energy access in rural areas, especially in developing countries like Uganda, where energy access is low. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors that influence the households’ willingness to adopt solar photovoltaic (PV) energy and how soon the households are willing to adopt solar PV energy for business use in Uganda.

Heckman’s two-step selection model was used to determine the willingness and urgency of adopting solar PV energy for business use in selected districts in Eastern Uganda. The respondents were selected purposively at the household level at a given point in time.

Results show that sex, household head estimated income, mode of acquisition and repayment terms of solar technology positively influence both willingness and urgency to adopt solar energy for business use in households. However, financial disclosure only influences willingness to adopt solar. Then, age and energy need only significantly influence how soon the household is willing to adopt solar PV energy for business use.

This study’s findings essentially apply to the individual factors that determine the willingness and urgency to adopt solar PV energy for business use by households. Hence, further research is needed to understand the external and industrial factors which could strengthen the predictive potential of the elements in this study.

This study underscores the need for regulatory enforcement on the supply and usage of quality, reliable and affordable solar equipment which are suitable for business use. Also, the need to promote and finance the usage of solar PV as a green energy source for household businesses has been emphasized.

The study simultaneously examines the willingness and urgency to adopt solar PV energy for household business purposes using Heckman’s two-step selection model. This has hitherto remained unknown empirically.