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This study employs survey methods to statistically examine the internationalization of quality assurance (IQA) in Taiwanese higher education. The data collected were analyzed to assess the associations between administrators' opinions of the importance of IQA and their evaluations of its implementation, as well as the relationship between implementation and opinions on seven measures of international quality. The study also explores the mediating effect of implementation assessments on the relationship between opinions of the importance of IQA and opinions of international quality.

This study targeted higher education administrators from universities in Taiwan, including presidents, vice presidents, deans, section chiefs, directors, and heads of schools in various departments. Using systematic sampling methods, 80 universities were selected from a population of 159 higher education institutions in Taiwan, with 17-40 potential participants each in 2015. A total of 2,377 questionnaires were distributed to all the administrators of those institutions, and ultimately, 65 institutions and 337 valid questionnaires were analyzed.

The importance of IQA directly and positively influenced implementation of it on higher education institutions. The implementation directly and positively influenced the level of international quality of the institutions and the importance of IQA had an indirect positive influence on international quality through implementation. The aggregated institution-level results were similar to but much stronger than the individual-level results.

This study examined the IQA of higher education in Taiwan, which is increasingly important to institutions' competitiveness in the global higher education market. The data were analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling at the individual-level and the aggregate-level. The analysis revealed direct and indirect associations between opinions about IQA and institutional quality. This study makes a significant contribution to the literature because it clarifies the role of administrators (individually and collectively) regarding their institutions' educational quality, and it provides useful information that institutions could apply to improve their international competitiveness.

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on formal stakeholder participation (or “lobbying”) in the early phase of the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB’s) standard-setting.

Drawing on a rational-choice framework, this paper conducts a content analysis of comment letters (CLs) submitted to the ISSB in response to its first two exposure drafts (published in 2022) to investigate stakeholder participation across different groups and jurisdictional origins. The analyses examine participation in terms of frequency (measured using the number of participating stakeholders) and intensity (measured using the length of CLs).

Preparers and users of sustainability reports emerge as the largest participating stakeholder groups, while the accounting/sustainability profession participates with high average intensity. Surprisingly, preparers do not outweigh users in terms of participation frequency and intensity; and large preparers outweigh smaller ones in terms of participation intensity but not participation frequency. Internationally, stakeholders from countries with a private financial accounting standard-setting system participate more frequently and intensively than others. In addition, country-level economic wealth and sustainability performance are positively associated with more participating stakeholders.

This study is of interest for organizations and stakeholders involved in or affected by standard-setting in the field of sustainability reporting. The finding of limited participation by investors and from developing countries suggests the ISSB take actions to enhance the voice of those stakeholders.

The imbalances in stakeholder participation that were found pose potential threats to an important aspect of the input legitimacy of the ISSB’s standard-setting process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore stakeholder participation by means of CLs with the ISSB in terms of frequency and intensity.

This paper aims to examine the multiplicity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards, explaining its nature, dynamics and implications for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international business (IB), especially in the context of CSR and global value chain (GVC) governance.

This paper leverages insights from the literature in political science, policy, regulation, governance and IB; from the own earlier work; and from an inventory of CSR standards across a range of sectors and products.

This analysis’ more nuanced approach to CSR standard multiplicity helps distinguish the different categories of standards; uncovers the existence of different types of standard multiplicity; and highlights complex trends in their evolution over time, discussing implications for the various firms targeted by, or involved in, these initiatives, and for CSR and GVC governance research.

This paper opens many avenues for future research on CSR multiplicity and its consequences; on lead firms governing GVCs from an IB perspective; and on institutional and market complexity.

By providing overviews and classifications, this paper helps clarify CSR standards as “new regulators” and “instruments” for actors in business, society and government.

This paper contributes by filling gaps in different existing literatures concerning standard multiplicity. It also specifically adds a new perspective to the IB literature, which thus far has not fully incorporated the complexity and dynamics of CSR standard multiplicity in examining GVCs and MNE strategy and policy.

The objective of this paper is to extend the debate on audit quality in the less complex entity (LCE) context by analyzing comment letters submitted to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The IAASB has drafted a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements.

The Gioia method is utilized to conduct the qualitative analysis. This enables the material to shine and provide a comprehensive picture of the important aspects of the comment letters about the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs. A content analysis of the 145 comment letters is conducted to identify the extent of the support for and the arguments against the new, stand-alone draft standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements. In addition, this study considers how the comment letters describe the respondents’ views on audit quality in relation to the new standard. Finally, the tone of the comment letters and audit quality arguments is investigated.

The findings provide a useful framework of the most frequently used arguments supporting and opposing the ISA for LCEs. Within the themes identified, a wide variety of issues and concerns are discussed. The results reveal that the arguments in the comment letters are contradictory. For instance, when discussing audit quality, those interest groups that perceived many positive opportunities in the adoption of the ISA for LCEs thought that the audit quality would increase. Conversely, those interest groups that were skeptical about the success of the ISA for LCEs argued that the audit quality could be compromised by the general prejudice that the ISA for LCEs might be perceived as a lower-quality audit with fewer procedures.

This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to examine the content of comment letters in the context of a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs. The international audience can utilize the results in the context of the widely discussed issue of reducing LCEs’ auditing obligations. This study aims to contribute to the two streams of accounting literature concerning audit quality and political lobbying.

The aim of this article was to present a retrospective assessment of the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in global trade. This study was motivated by the increasing role of standards and certifications in governing global agricultural and food trade.

The current investigation was carried out with bibliometric methods using VOSviewer software. Techniques such as citation, co-citation, keyword co-occurrence, keyword evolution and co-authorship analyses were performed to tackle the research questions. Articles were extracted from Scopus database for the period 1998–2022 (30th August 2022) with selected keywords (“Private food standard*” OR “food standard*” OR “agri-food standard*” AND “agri*” OR “agro*” OR “farm*” OR “food*” AND “international trade” OR “global trade” OR “international business”) along certain filters (subject – Economics and Business management: language – English: Document – article and review articles and source – journals).

The results show that the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in global trade has evolved around five clusters, namely: (1) the political economy of food standards, (2) food standards and their challenges in global trade, (3) food standards and integration into value chains, (4) food standards and market access and (5) food standards and exports from developing countries. However, the authors found the research gaps in each of the thematic clusters.

The main limitation of this study is that the authors focused their attention on certain aspects of bibliometric review, such as the intellectual structure of the field, the citation analysis and the collaboration network. Future research could attempt to explore new field development through bibliographic coupling and deepening of conceptual structure using content analysis by incorporating the research methods used in the respective studies.

The emerging research areas in private agricultural and food standards in global trade are related to topics on food quality, sustainable development, genetically modified organisms, World Trade Organization, tariff structure, trade agreements, food industry and European Union. However, there is less research and little collaboration between Africa and developed countries. For example, Africa's total publications were (15), while the US had (46), China (15), Belgium (23), Germany (27), Italy (32) and the UK (24).

There are limited studies that have conducted a retrospective evaluation of the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in the global trade using bibliometric analysis. The present investigation is novel in identifying the thematic research clusters, emerging issues and future research directions. This is more important to developing countries as their agricultural produce face challenges to access markets of the developed world.

This paper aims to examine the concept of standardization beyond its traditional use in generating and implementing standards and good practice guidelines (S&GPG) by looking at existing and emerging trends.

This paper utilizes two primary approaches to categorizing S&GPG for better comprehension: categorization based on provenance as well as based on subject matter.

A significant concern related to categorizing S&GPG based on provenance or subject is the constant proliferation of standards being developed and introduced every year. This rapid growth in standards requires frequent re-categorization to keep up with the dynamic nature of this field. To tackle this problem, this paper explores emerging concepts such as ontological representation and frameworks that offer archives and records management (ARM) professionals.

Standardization refers to establishing uniform rules through mutual agreement to ensure consistency. The study of standardization goes beyond the development of individual S&GPG, encompassing their practical application in work settings. Categorizing standards alone may not fully capture their actual use. However, abstraction mechanisms like ontological representations, models and frameworks can demonstrate how these standards have been leveraged. This paper provides illustrative examples rather than an exhaustive list to showcase how these mechanisms have been applied in research projects or as practical tools.

This paper explores the emerging topic of standardization from the perspective of ontological representations and models or frameworks. In addition, it also contributes to the discussion of the 2022 version of ARMA International’s Information Governance Implementation Model and the 2020 version of the World Bank Group's Records Management Roadmap, providing unique insights into these topics.