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This study aims to investigate the role of negative media coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in deterring tax avoidance. Inspired by media agenda-setting theory and legitimacy theory, this study hypothesises that an increase in ESG negative media coverage should cause a reputational drawback, leading companies to reduce tax avoidance to regain their legitimacy. Hence, this study examines a novel channel that links ESG and taxation.

This study uses panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between negative media coverage of ESG issues and tax avoidance among the largest European entities. This study considers different measures of tax avoidance and negative media coverage.

The results show that negative media coverage of ESG issues is negatively associated with tax avoidance, suggesting that media can act as an external monitor for corporate taxation.

The findings have implications for policymakers and regulators, which should consider tax transparency when dealing with ESG disclosure requirements. Tax disclosure should be integrated into ESG reporting.

The study has social implications related to the media, which act as watchdogs for firms’ irresponsible practices. According to this study’s findings, increased media pressure has the power to induce a better alignment between declared ESG policies and tax strategies.

This study contributes to the literature on the mechanisms that discourage tax avoidance and the literature on the relationship between ESG and taxation by shedding light on the role of media coverage.

This study aims at proposing and testing a model delineating how and when the quality of a special B2B professional service, investment relations (IR), would drive corporate intangible value.

This study employs a proprietary dataset on voting records of an annual investment relations (IR) awards event and the corresponding company-level archival data for analysis. Regression analysis is used to test hypotheses.

IR service quality not only directly enhances corporate intangible value, but also indirectly boosts it via information transparency. While competitive intensity does not moderate the relationship between IR service quality and corporate intangible value, its moderating effect on the relationship between information transparency and this value is negative.

The findings advance academic understanding of the mechanism and boundary conditions underlying the complex and dynamic relationships among IR service quality, information transparency, corporate intangible value and competitive intensity. Future research endeavors to verify the present findings in other service and/or geographic settings would help establish their external validity.

The findings advise companies to expand the traditional role of IR by taking it as a powerful communication and relationship marketing tool to improve their visibility and attract investors.

The findings suggest that superior IR service would strengthen the company’s social bonding with institutional investors and effectively signal to them its commitment to good corporate governance practices.

Matching a proprietary dataset on IR voting records with the corresponding company-level archival data over a five-year period to investigate the performance implications of IR service quality within the Hong Kong context rectifies methodological limitation and geographic confinement of prior IR research.

This study aims to explore the moderating effects of strategy on the relationship between working capital management (WCM) and profitability.

A data sample of 72,444 firm-year observations of US-listed firms during 2000–2020 was used. The research hypotheses were tested using a panel regression analysis and an appropriate research instrument that signifies a firm’s strategic positioning.

The prospecting (defending) strategy has a decreasing (increasing) moderating effect on the relationship between WCM and profitability. The empirical findings are not affected by the level of earnings management, the presence of motives to meet earnings targets or the intensity of unreported intangible assets. Additionally, the reported empirical results remain robust within the context of propensity score matching regression analysis, in the presence of nonlinear effects of WCM on profitability, when alternative measures of WCM are used, and between firms with an increase or decrease in future profitability or different levels of efficiency on net WCM investments.

This study may stimulate future research exploring the moderating effects of various variables on the relationship between WCM and operating performance.

The findings highlight the importance of strategy for improving the performance evaluation of WCM policies and the prediction accuracy of the consequences of a strategy on short-term operating performance.

Prior empirical research has documented either a negative or positive relationship between WCM and profitability, which implies the presence of moderating effects of various factors. This study provides empirical evidence of the moderating effects of strategy on the relationship between WCM and profitability.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether and how inter-firm cooperation and firm age moderate the relationship between family ownership and productivity.

We first estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) of a large sample of Italian firms observed over the period 2010–2018 and then apply a Poisson random effects model.

TFP is, on average, higher for non-family firms (non-FFs) than for FF. Furthermore, inter-organizational cooperation and firm age mitigate the negative effect of family ownership. In detail, it is found that belonging to a network acts as a moderator in different ways according to firm age. Indeed, young FFs underperform non-FF peers, although the TFP gap decreases with age. In contrast, the benefits of a formal network are high for older FFs, suggesting that an age-related learning process is at work.

The study provides evidence that FFs can outperform non-FFs when they move away from Socio-Emotional Wealth-centered reference points and exploit knowledge flows arising from high levels of social capital. In the case of mature FFs, networking is a driver of TFP, allowing them to acquire external resources. Since FFs often do not have sufficient in-house knowledge and resources, they must be aware of the value of business cooperation. While preserving the familiar identity of small companies, networks grant FFs the competitive and scale advantages of being large.

Despite the wide but ambiguous body of research on the performance gap between FFs and non-FFs, little is known about the role of FFs’ heterogeneity. This study has proven successful in detecting age as a factor in heterogeneity, specifically to explain the network effect on the link between ownership and TFP. Based on a representative sample, the study provides a solid framework for FFs, policymakers and academic research on family-owned companies.

This study aims to identify the intellectual structure of expanded audit reporting (EAR), offers a quantitative summation of prominent themes, contributors and knowledge gaps and provides suggestions for further research.

This research uses various bibliometric techniques, including co-word and co-citation analysis for EAR science mapping, based on 123 papers from Scopus Database between 1991 and 2022.

The results show EAR research is focused on Audit Quality; Auditor Liability and Litigation; Communicative Value and Readability; Audit Fees; and Disclosure. Regarding EAR research, Brasel et al. (2016), article is the most cited paper, Bédard J. is the most cited author, Laval University is the most influential university, The Accounting Review is the most cited journal and USA is the leading country. Furthermore, the results show that in common law countries, in which shareholder rights and litigation risk is high, topics such as disclosure quality and audit litigation have been addressed more; and in civil legal system countries, which usually favor stakeholders’ rights, topics of gender diversity or corporate governance have been more studied.

This research has practical implications for standard setters and regulators, who can identify important, overlooked and emerging issues and consider them in future policies and standards.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a more objective and comprehensive status of the accounting research on EAR, identifying the gaps in the literature and proposing a direction for future research to continue the discussion on the value-relevance of EAR to achieve more transparency and less audit expectation gap.

This study examines the impact of debt maturity structure on stock price crash risk (SPCR) in Asian economies and the moderating effect of firm age on this relationship.

The study utilized annual data from 432 nonfinancial firms publicly listed in six Asian countries: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan and India. The observation period covers 14 years, from 2007 to 2020. The sample was categorized into three groups: the entire sample and one group each for developing and developed Asian economies. A generalized least squares panel regression method was employed to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest that long-term debt has a significant negative influence on SPCR in Asian economies, indicating that firms with high long-term debt experience lower future SPCR. Moreover, firm age negatively moderates this relationship, implying that older firms may experience a more pronounced reduction in SPCR due to high long-term debt. Finally, firms in developed Asian economies with high long-term debt are more effective in mitigating the risk of a significant drop in their stock prices than firms in developing Asian economies.

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first of such efforts to investigate the relationship between debt maturity structure and crash risk in Asia. Additionally, it reveals that long-term debt influences SPCR directly and indirectly in Asia through the moderating role of firm age. Lastly, it is likely one of the first studies by a research team in Asia to compare the nonfinancial markets of developed and developing Asian countries.

Corporate digital transformation (CDT) has challenged traditional tax administration systems. This study examines the impact of CDT on tax avoidance behavior and tests whether tax authorities can identify this behavior.

Using data on listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2008 to 2020, this study applies the Heckman two-stage and cross-section models.

The results show that the higher the degree of CDT, the more aggressive the tax avoidance behavior. The CDT's impact on corporate tax avoidance is more significant under strong government tax efforts.

This study expands research on the economic consequences of CDT and the factors influencing corporate tax avoidance behavior. Moreover, it has important implications for governments to monitor tax avoidance behavior under the CDT, improve digital tax systems, and pay more attention to the tax administration of digital assets.

The theory of managerial discretion and the direct insights it provides in the understanding of the varying impact strategic and operational actions have on organizational change and business fortunes is an area of research potential underexplored in the UK. This study aims to establish whether the measurement of managerial discretion is constant between the two similar societal corporate frameworks of the UK and the USA listed markets.

The extant managerial discretion ranking model, established in the USA, is empirically assessed for its validity and effectiveness across a sample of high- and low-discretion companies from the FTSE 350.

Using accounting measures, a clear and significant difference is established between UK high and low managerial discretion entities. The results prove to be significant in enabling the differential comparative analysis of the institutional characteristics of corporates.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study of this nature has been conducted previously in the UK context. While the original model developed in the USA is now several decades old, the UK results reflect similar industry rankings as found originally in the USA, subject to some differences considered to be a result of the changing nature of global business since the 1990s. This study opens a new seam of novel research, which has the potential to uncover, at a granular level, the differential mores and character of management ethics, styles and practices in such issues as organizational change, corporate culture, governance and social responsibility.

Given the increasingly important role of knowledge capital on key outcomes and innovation capabilities of organizations, this paper aims to investigate the influences of knowledge-based human resource management (KHRM) practices on innovation capability of firms via mediating role of knowledge sharing (KS). This study also examines whether competitive intensity moderates the effects of KS behaviors on specific aspects of innovation capability, namely, product and process innovation.

This paper used structural equation modeling to examine the level of how KHRM practices and KS impact on two types of innovation capability, namely, product innovation and process innovation using data collected from 265 participants in 112 manufacturing and service firms in Vietnam.

The research findings confirm the mediating roles of KS behaviors between KHRM practices and two specific types of innovation. Besides, the paper first reveals the moderating role of competitive intensity in the relationships between KS and product innovation. The results underline the necessity of building a climate of KHRM practices to stimulate employees sharing knowledge, which, in turn, positively promotes innovation capabilities in an organization.

Future research should investigate the impact of different forms of human resource management (HRM) practices on innovation via the mediating effects of certain aspects of KS to bring better understanding on the importance of HRM practices and knowledge resources in pursuing innovation competence.

This paper offers leaders a deeper understanding of potential effects of competitive intensity and environmental factors to promote innovation capabilities in their firms.

This paper has significant contributed to theoretical and practical initiatives on theory of HRM practices and knowledge management by showing different moderating and mediating mechanism thereby firms can follow to enhance innovation capability of firms in developing and emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between accounting conservatism and pledging of shares by controlling shareholders of a firm to obtain a loan. The pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders of a firm results in alterations to the payoff and risk structure for these shareholders. Since accounting numbers have valuation implications, pledging of shares by a controlling shareholder has an impact on accounting policy choices made by the firm. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of controlling shareholder share pledging to obtain a loan on a specific accounting policy choice, namely, conservatism.

The paper uses a large data set from India comprising 14,786 firm years consisting of 1,570 firms belonging to 58 industries for a period of 11 years (2009–2019). The authors use ordinary least square regression with robust standard errors. The authors conduct robustness checks and the results are consistent across alternative statistical methodologies and alternative measures of the primary dependent and independent variables.

The primary results show that pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders results in higher conditional conservatism and lower unconditional conservatism. Further analysis reveals that the relationship is stronger when the controlling shareholder holds a majority ownership in the firm. Additionally, the results show that for business group affiliated firms, which are unique to developing countries, both the conditional and the unconditional conservatism are incrementally lower when the controlling shareholder pledges the shares. For family firms with a family member as CEO, the conditional conservatism is incrementally higher and the unconditional conservatism is incrementally lower. Finally, the authors show that the results hold when the pledge intensity variable is measured with a one-year lag and finally, the authors show that conditional conservatism is incrementally higher in the year of the increase in the pledge and the year after, but there is no such incremental impact on unconditional conservatism.

The research is limited to the listed firms in India. Since majority of the listed firms are controlled by families and the family firms around the world are heterogeneous the findings of the research may not be applicable to other countries.

The study has implications for policy-making and monitoring of the pledging by the controlling shareholders. It also helps the investors in making investment decisions with respect to family firms in India.

The study is unique as it focuses on the relationship between pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders and its impact on accounting conservatism. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research integrating these two aspects.