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Falls continue to be the major cause of fatalities in the Hong Kong construction industry, as well as in other countries. Published statistics of the Labour Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) showed that from 2000 to 2004 approximately half of the fatal construction accidents were a result of fall of person from height. In view of this phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to present the findings and recommendations of a research paper which investigates the problems associated with fall of person from height in the construction industry.

Accident data obtained from the Architectural Services Department, HKSAR, was analysed according to the 14 available factors collectively to derive explanations for common situations and reasons leading to fall accidents.

The findings of this rigorous analysis are presented to practitioners whose feedback on the findings are recorded by means of a questionnaire survey. The responses from the survey show that “re‐enforced safety training” and “equipments for working at height” are the adoptable methods to enhance the workers' safety performance. The paper shows that “poor safety attitude and behaviour of workers” is the main problem in obstructing the implementation of safety procedures and guidelines for construction sites. In addition, over half the respondents agree that “closer monitoring and supervision” and “higher standard of projects” is observed by public projects when compared to private projects.

The statistics analysed in this paper are limited to public sector projects only. However, the findings are still believed to be valuable for safety practitioners so that they can adopt the necessary measures to prevent fall from height accidents occurring in future projects.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of financial statement comparability as a qualitative feature of financial reporting on cash holdings and the mediating role of disclosure quality and financing constraints in firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).

Using panel data from 110 TSE-listed firms from 2011 to 2017 in Iran, this study uses the regression analysis to examine the research hypotheses. The first hypothesis examines the relationship between financial statements comparability and cash holdings and two other hypotheses examine the mediating role of financing constraints and disclosure quality in this relationship.

Based on pecking-order theory and institutional context of Iranian firms, the results show that financial reporting comparability has a significant negative impact on corporate cash holdings. The results also show that disclosure quality and financing constraints have no mediating role in the relationship between accounting comparability and cash holdings. The robustness tests with alternative measures of accounting comparability and cash holdings support the findings of this study.

The limitations of this study are as follows: limited number of TSE companies that have necessary data to conduct research; and using the disclosure quality scores provided by TSE organization.

The findings suggest that creditors should consider the financial status and also the quality of financial reporting of companies, before granting credit to them. It is also recommended that regulators in the capital market publish the ratings of companies in terms of financial statement comparability alongside the disclosure ratings and a continuous regulatory oversight on companies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical research on the effect of accounting comparability on the level of cash holdings that examines the mediating role of financing constraints in the context of Iran market as an emerging economy. Moreover, this is the first empirical research that studies the effect of disclosure quality on this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect links between book-tax differences (BTDs) and audit quality using accounting conservatism (proxy of earnings quality). Hence, this paper seeks to extend prior audit quality research.

This study uses a sample of Tunisian listed firms on the Tunis Stock Exchange and operating in the industrial and commercial sectors during 2005-2012. This investigation is motivated by structural equations system models that specify both a direct link and an indirect link that is mediated by information reflected in BTDs.

The results show that for the Tunisians companies, firms with large BTDs are associated with higher audit quality implies that such BTDs represent an observable proxy for earnings quality that affects auditor decisions. The authors find statistically an indirect link between abnormal BTDs and audit quality that is mediated by earnings quality. The current study also provides evidence that information reflected in BTDs can improve audit quality.

The findings may be of interest to the academic researchers, practitioners and regulators who are interested in discovering the informational value of BTDs in the audit process.

This paper extends the existing literature by examining the mediation effect of information reflected in BTDs on relationship between BTDs and audit quality.

The purpose of this study is to document the mediating effect of earnings management on the relation between the components of audit certification. The study is performed under different levels of corporate governance effectiveness in the Tunisian context. The main objective is to empirically examine the ability of discretionary accruals to mediate the relationship between the audit reporting quality and audit risk and to define how the levels of risk governance moderate this relation.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) approach is applied for a panel data set of 28 Tunisian companies listed in the Tunis Stock Exchange (TSE) between 2006 and 2013. Furthermore, a moderated-mediation model is developed to examine the mediating role of earnings management. This model is considered to emphasize the moderating role of corporate governance on the relationship between audit-reporting quality and audit risk.

The results of this study show that earnings management mediates the moderating role of corporate governance on the relationship between timely disclosure and audit risk. Thus, this investigation empirically demonstrates that risk governance moderates both the relationship between the timely disclosure and earnings management, and the relationship between earnings management and audit risk, i.e., the mediating role of earnings management varies depending on the level of risk governance.

Investors and other external users of financial statements need to care about the audit risk by the audit-reporting quality (audit accuracy and timely disclosure). Moreover, all factors that may influence the audit risk should be identified. This identification can help guide the reforms to improve the functioning of the financial market.

This study can enhance knowledge and understanding on how motivational and environment factors influence the audit risk. Using data from the Tunisian market, this work fills a research gap by examining the audit risk and identifies a new governance risk index. The specificity of the country where the study is elaborated refers to its accurate “revolutionary” transitional phase. Tunisia aims to enhance economic growth and to establish general strategic governance of the country, particularly strategic governance of companies.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore how the effect of intellectual capital (IC) on organizational performance is indirect and mediated through performance measurement (PM) systems.

Data were collected from a survey of 128 chief financial officers of Iranian publicly listed companies. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares regression, a structural modeling technique which is appropriate for highly complex predictive models.

Results from the structural model indicate that, in general, companies with a higher level of IC place a premium on the balanced use of PM systems in a diagnostic and interactive style. Furthermore, the results provide some evidence that IC is indirectly associated with organizational performance through the intervening variable of the balanced use of interactive and diagnostic PM systems.

This study sheds light on the issue of how senior management should use PM systems to take full advantage of intellectual assets which could lead to improved organizational performance.

This is the first study of its kind to synthesize a model which examines IC, PM systems, and organizational performance. Although the effect of different types of intangible assets on performance has been substantially examined in the literature, less effort has been devoted to understanding the role of PM systems in leveraging an organization’s IC.

In this chapter, I investigated how challenges (life events) are negotiated within families according to gender roles and their effect on marriage quality, life satisfaction, and psychological resilience in a nonclinical sample of heterosexual couples (N=159), age 23–78 (M=45.4, SD=11.2), with children (n=127) or childfree (n=32). Specifically, I accounted for the individual’s ability to share “hurt feelings” and foster intimacy within the couple, thus strengthening resilience and improving life satisfaction and hypothesized that the impact of negative life events on both relationship quality and life satisfaction could depend on the resilience levels of each partner and their ratio according to gender roles. Results confirmed the hypothesis and showed significant gender differences in the impact of negative life events on relationship quality, life satisfaction, ability to share hurt feelings, fear of intimacy, and resilience levels. Moreover, the ratio of the partner’s individual resilience affected the dependent variables differently by gender, its level interacted with the age of the couple’s first child (range: 2–54, mean: 21.4, SD: 10.4) and strongly depended on the occupation of the parents.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between tax evasion and firm’s value while determining the moderating role of family management and the ownership’s concentration in this relationship.

The empirical study employs a Panel Data set of 34 firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE) for the period 2007 to 2014. Regression analysis is used to estimate the relationships proposed in the hypotheses.

The results show that tax evasion has no direct effect on a firm’s value. This study highlighted the presence of a moderating effect of family management on the relationship between tax evasion and firm’s value. However, no moderating effect of the concentration of property on the mentioned relationship was detected.

This study represents a first empirical essay focusing on the relationship between tax evasion and firm’s value. Furthermore, it analyzes the moderating effect of some aspects of governance, such as family management and ownership’s structure, on this relationship in a Tunisian context.

The importance of online reviews on online hotel booking has been widely acknowledged. However, not all online reviews affect consumers equally. Compared with common online reviews, key online reviews (KORs) have a greater influence on consumers' decisions and online hotel booking. This study takes the first step to investigate the factors affecting the identification of KORs and the role of KORs in online hotel booking.

To test the research hypotheses, this study develops a crawler to obtain 551,600 online reviews of 650 hotels in ten representative large cities in China. This study first uses a binary logistic regression to identify KORs by combining review content quality and reviewer characteristics and then uses a log-regression model to investigate the role of KORs in online hotel booking.

This study mined the factors affecting the identification of KORs by analyzing review contents and reviewer characteristics. Our results revealed that KORs play a mediating role in the effects of review content and reviewer characteristics on online hotel booking.

This study focuses on KORs, which have received limited attention in research but are important to practitioners. Specifically, this study investigates the antecedents and consequences of KORs. Our results enable hotel managers to manage online reviews effectively, particularly KORs.

Delay is an important issue for service providers. Indeed, previous studies have widely shown the negative effect of waiting time on consumer service satisfaction. However, being satisfied with the service seems to be insufficient for customers to remain loyal. Creating customer loyalty is even more crucial than just satisfying them. The paper aims to investigate how customers weigh up their service satisfaction and waiting time satisfaction in order to determine whether they will remain loyal or not.

A survey was conducted in the Belgian health care industry. The final sample includes 946 respondents. Regression analyses were performed and the Baron and Kenny method used to test moderator and mediator impacts of variables.

The results confirm that waiting time satisfaction is not only a service satisfaction determinant, but it also moderates the satisfaction‐loyalty relationship. Moreover, determinants of customer waiting time satisfaction include the perceived waiting time, the satisfaction with information provided in case of delays, and the satisfaction with the waiting environment. In addition, it is shown that waiting time satisfaction is a complete mediating variable in the perceived waiting time and service satisfaction link.

The paper suggests several implications about the waiting time impacts on service satisfaction and customer loyalty. They show the importance of this variable in the service process and explain how to improve it.