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The purpose of this paper is to explain the effects of innovation, specialisation, qualifications and sectoral structure on the resilience of German regions (municipal level) facing the Great Recession in 2008/2009.

To calculate the effects of various variables on the resilience of German regions against the Great Recession, the authors use quantile regressions. To measure resilience, the authors create a number of indexes representing different parts of the economy: resistance performance index, recovery performance index, shift-share resistance index, shift-share recovery index, manufacturing resistance index, manufacturing recovery index, service resistance index and service recovery index.

The results of this study confirm that locations with employment growth before the crisis and with a good industry structure show better employment dynamics during and after the crisis. The authors find evidence for positive relationship between innovativeness, qualification, the share of the service sector, specialisation and resistance. The authors obtain positive results for related variety and both resistance and recovery. The share of the manufacturing sector only shows a positive relationship with recovery.

The authors expand the existing literature in three aspects: First, instead of using regions as observation units, the authors conduct the analyses on the basis of municipalities and their surroundings. By doing so, the authors reduce the modifiable area unit problem because the authors do not rely on regions defined for administrative reasons. Second, the authors apply quantile regressions to detect nonlinear effects. Third, in addition to the resilience of the whole economy, the authors also study the resilience of the manufacturing and service sectors separately and examine the resilience of the local shift effect.

This paper aims to explore the interplay between industrial diversity and sustainable economic development in US counties.

Among other popularly used measures, this study uses an underused measure, Hachman index, to gauge the degree of industrial diversity in the models. To capture the impact of industrial diversity on the local community, this study estimates the relationship of two diversity measures to four traditional socioeconomic indicators: per capita personal income growth, gross domestic product per worker, income inequality ratio and poverty rate.

Statistical results suggest that industrial diversity, which is measured by Hachman index, is significantly related to the four socio-economic indicators. Industrial diversity can positively contribute to regional per capita personal income growth and mitigate income inequality and poverty stress; however, it is negatively related to the gross domestic product (GDP) per worker, which means industrial specialization may contribute to GDP per worker growth.

The findings of this study show that there is a nonlinear relationship between industrial diversity and all socioeconomic indicators. Most of the control variables, human capital variables and business and industry profile variables also display significant and positive impacts on economic development.

The present study aims to assess the impact of narcissism, self-confidence and auditor's characteristics on audit report readability for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The study’s statistical population comprises firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The present research used a systematic elimination method, and 1,162 firm-year observations were obtained for seven years from 2012 to 2018. Three variables including auditor tenure, audit fee and audit specialization are used for measuring auditing features. The Fog index is used as a proxy for measuring audit report readability. In addition, in this paper, four regressions, including fixed effects, random effects, pooled and T+1, are used to estimate reliable coefficients.

The findings show a negative and significant relationship between auditor’s characteristics (tenure, fee and specialization) and audit report readability. Moreover, the variables of the auditor’s narcissism, self-confidence and mandatory auditor change have a positive and significant association with audit report readability. This study lends support to the theories of personality disorder and behavioral decision.

Since narcissism and self-confidence are two characteristics that shape an individual’s character and personality, some involved behavioral factors in auditors’ characteristics contribute to their decisions. The effects of these should be detected to enhance the decision-making process. The said factors significantly impact audit report readability. Hence, this paper attempts to assess the effect of the said factors on audit report readability.

With Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), the self-regulation of the auditing profession was replaced with standard setting and oversight by the government. The authors focus on the audit fees literature to examine how this change impacted research trends over time and shaped different aspects of audits.

The authors utilized bibliometric and content analysis to identify research themes pre- and post-SOX.

The change in regulation contributed to an increased focus on clients and continued interest in engagement characteristics as added requirements emphasized the client's governance structure, the auditor's tenure and the type of services provided.

The prominent issue that emerged is how deficiencies in the audit processes and in the client's internal controls are translated into audit fees. The authors discuss regulatory initiatives pursued in other jurisdictions, including mandatory rotation of firms, joint audits and further limitations on non-audit services, as intended and unintended consequences of these requirements warrant further examination.

Financial reports are the basis of economic decisions that affect organizational interests and shareholders. However, there is a severe research gap concerning the factors affecting the quality of financial information (such as audit report readability and tone). Therefore, considering the importance of presenting high-quality financial information, this study aims to investigate the impact of intellectual capital (IC) and its components on the audit report's readability and tone.

The multivariate regression model tests research hypotheses. Then, hypotheses are tested via a sample of 824 observations of the listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (103 companies) from 2014 to 2021, using the multivariate regression model based on pooled data and fixed effects.

Results determine that customer capital (CC) and structural capital (SC) are likely to influence the audit report tone positively. In general, the IC and human capital (HC) negatively impact auditors' tone. More analyses also document that IC and its CC, HC and SC components positively and significantly affect audit report readability based on two readability indices, including FOG and text length. Finally, findings pertaining to the third readability index (Flesch index) reveal that only HC and SC are robust based on this measurement, whereas the IC and CC have a negative and significant impact on the readability of auditors’ reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address this issue in emerging markets, and it provides helpful insights for users, analysts and legal institutions regarding IC, which significantly affects audit report readability and tone.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of audit quality and environmental auditing on integrated reporting and the effect of environmental auditing on audit quality.

Data was collected from a sample of 300 international companies during the period 2010–2019. The author collected the data from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database, sustainability reports and annual reports. A multiple regression analysis was performed to test the hypotheses.

The finding of this study confirms a positive and significant relationship between audit quality and integrated reporting. It is also found that environmental auditing has a positive and significant effect on integrated reporting. Thus, this study found a positive and significant relationship between environmental auditing and audit quality.

The findings in this paper identify strategies for improving integrated reporting as a crucial element in the processing of financial and nonfinancial information, to help managers and investors and shareholders take a long-term perspective. Therefore, the results encourage companies to invest in economic, environmental and social aspects. This enables accounting professionals, stock exchange authorities and users of environmental and social information to be aware of the factors associated with environmental reporting, to improve the efficiency of those producing the audit service.

The originality of this study lies in its consideration of a particular aspect of auditing, namely, environmental auditing. However, despite the large body of research on auditing and integrated reporting, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between environmental auditing and integrated reporting. Furthermore, in this research, the author has emphasized the importance of the role played by environmental auditing on audit quality. This design has been neglected in previous studies. Finally, the choice of the field of investigation for the reliability of the data used and the generalization of the results obtained, enables us to make important contributions to the user of the information.

The digital economy is expected to revive the countryside and reduce the current level of urban–rural inequality. Nevertheless, whether rural e-commerce can narrow the urban–rural income gap still requires further analysis. The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether this goal is, in fact, being achieved.

Taobao villages have become the epitome of rural e-commerce development in China. Therefore, this paper matches the data of Taobao villages and the data of prefecture-level cities from 2014 to 2019, and employs a two-way fixed effect model, nonlinear model, instrumental variable model and interactive fixed effects model to explore the impact of rural e-commerce on the urban–rural income gap.

Firstly, the ability of urban residents to share rural e-commerce development is higher than that of rural residents, which actually widens the urban–rural income gap. Secondly, the migration to cities of rural families that have profited from e-commerce, and the return of working-class people to the countryside, are two factors that are contributing to the widening of the urban–rural income gap. Thirdly, the farther the distance from the urban area and the higher the spatial agglomeration of the rural e-commerce cluster is, the weaker the impact on widening the urban–rural income gap will be. Finally, while industrial-led rural e-commerce is responsible for widening the urban–rural income gap, agricultural-led rural e-commerce has no significant impact on the urban–rural income gap.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze the impact of rural e-commerce on the urban–rural income gap from the perspective of the coverage of Taobao villages. This empirical study will enrich existing theoretical perspectives on urban–rural integration under the backdrop of the digital economy.

This paper aims to determine whether there is a relationship between intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses and assess the relationship between the variables of intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses.

The statistical population consists of 1,309 firm-year observations from 2014 to 2020. The research hypothesis is tested using statistical methods, including multivariate, least-squares and fixed-effects regression.

The results demonstrate a negative and significant relationship between intellectual capital, social capital and internal control weaknesses. The study also finds that increased intellectual and social capital quality improves human resource utilization, control mechanism, creativity and firm performance. The results also show that intellectual capital and social capital enhancement will reduce internal control weaknesses in the upcoming years.

This paper is the pioneer study on the relationship between intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses in Iran, carried out separately and in exploratory factor analysis. This paper considers intellectual capital components for theoretical factor analysis, including human capital, structural capital and customer capital. Internal control weakness is assessed based on financial, non-financial and information technology (IT) weaknesses.

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.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the individual auditor’s industry specialization and the audit report lag (hereafter ARD). Further, it explores whether changing in the audit reporting requirement (i.e. the adoption of ISA701) influences the auditor’s industry specialization effect on the ARD.

A large data set of companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm over the period 2010–2019 has been analyzed. Least squares regressions have been estimated to provide empirical evidence for the researched hypotheses.

The research findings indicate that the ARD is shorter for client firms audited by an industry specialist audit partner. Testing for the moderating role of changing in the auditing reporting regulation on the relation between the audit partner’s industry specialization and the ARD, the authors reveal that all client firms (except client firms with industry specialist audit partners) experienced an increase in the ARD. Overall, the baseline regression findings are found to be robust to the endogenous auditor choice and multiple measures of both the ARD and the auditor’s industry specialization.

This paper provides novel evidence on the relationship between the audit reporting lag and industry specialization from the individual auditor perspective, an issue that has hitherto been unexplored. The regression results further contribute to the upsurge debate about the consequences of changing in the audit reporting model by providing consistent support for the importance of industry specialization of the audit partner in minimizing costs derived from the former requirement.