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The study aims to examine the effect of multiple directorships on accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management. It analyses whether earnings management practices in the Saudi context increase or decrease with the average number of multiple directorships.

The study uses the approach by Roychowdhury (2006) to capture the level of real earnings management and uses the cross-sectional model by Jones (1991) to measure accrual-based earnings management.

The paper provides partial evidence supporting the “busyness” hypothesis where earnings management practices increase with the number of multiple directorships. The evidence shows that multiple directorships have a positive and significant effect on real earnings management in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, we find no significant impact of multiple directorships on accrual-based earnings management.

This is the first study that empirically investigates the relationship between multiple directorships and earnings management in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The paper contributes to the limited literature on multiple directorships in developing countries by examining their impact on opportunistic real earnings management.

This cross-country study aims to investigate from an interdisciplinary perspective the impacts of the accounting regulation's strength and cultural values of long-term orientation (LTO) and indulgence (ND) on board efficacy in developing countries.

Board Efficacy Index scores for 54 developing countries over the period 2007–2016 were employed to ascertain predictors of management's accountability to boards of directors and investors. Two types of explanatory variables – formal and informal – were employed in a pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis.

The research is the first to empirically show that more LTO and ND in a country have significant and positive effects on board efficacy. The findings also show that the strength of auditing and reporting standards (SARS) has a dominant impact on board efficacy, and the SARS' consideration is recommended in future cross-country research on board efficacy.

To restore investor confidence and increase the credibility toward firms, regulatory authorities in developing countries are called upon to integrate compliance with accounting and auditing regulations combined with cultural values in the implementation of good governance practices.

This study contributes to the board efficacy literature in two significant ways. First, the study constructs and empirically tests a conceptual model that integrates both informal factors, the six cultural dimensions of Hofstede et al. (2010), and formal factors, the strength of accounting regulations. Second, conducting a study on a sample not widely used in the literature, over a fairly long period of time, highlights the governance characteristics of this context and strengthens the internal and external validity of the study.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary cross-country study is to investigate the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on money laundering.

The authors rely on tightness-looseness theory as the basis for their predictions. The authors use the Basel Anti Money Laundering Index to operationalize financial crimes. They use dynamic panel data regressions spanning from 2012 to 2018 across 66 countries.

The authors find a positive and significant effect of national culture on money laundering financial crime. This suggests that financial crimes increase in countries with higher levels of cultural looseness orientation. Moreover, the authors show that the absence of violence, control of corruption, political stability and voice and accountability has a significant and negative influence on money laundering financial crime.

Formal institutional factors are not the only factors that can help curb financial crimes, but policy regulators should also consider the degree of cultural tightness-looseness.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first research ever to examine the effects of cultural tightness-looseness on the level of financial crimes.

Illicit trade is pervasive in many nations and may be influenced by the level of national IQ. The current interdisciplinary paper aims to study the association between national intelligence and illicit trade across nations.

The illicit trade index scores for 84 countries, developed by the Economics Intelligence Unit, are used to measure the dependent variable. The independent variable is national intelligence, while economic development, unemployment and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the control variables. Two-level hierarchical linear models (HLMs) are used to empirically test the above-mentioned association.

The empirical results suggest that the higher the degree of national intelligence, the lower is the degree of illicit trade across nations. In addition, economic development, unemployment and national culture play an important role in explaining cross-country differences in illicit trade.

Regulatory authorities should find the results of this cross-national research useful in evaluating the likelihood of illicit trade from a cognitive perspective, and in implementing reforms to curb this type of economic crimes.

This interdisciplinary study makes novel contributions to the literature on economic and financial crimes. First, for the first time to the best of the authors’ knowledge, an association between national intelligence and illicit trade is examined. A second original contribution of this study compared to earlier research is related to the use of two-level HLMs. Third, the investigation of the association between intelligence and illicit trade takes a new control variable into consideration, i.e. unemployment, a variable which is found to have a significant effect on illicit trade and that has not been used directly in relationship with illicit trade so far.