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This study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), as the unified regulator of the audit profession in the UK, in restoring public trust in audit profession in the UK. It further analyses the views of partners in the Big 4 audit firms on this role.

The research data were gathered by conducting 17 semi-structured interviews with the top management of FRC’s members and executive partners of the Big 4 firms in the UK. The interviews were complemented by analysing data available on the web pages of the Big 4 firms and published reports related to the FRC’s projects.

This study identified three main strategies followed by the FRC to promote the trust and enhance the choice of auditors in the UK audit market. These strategies are improving the audit quality, increasing the transparency of the big audit firms and reducing the barriers to compete in the big audit market.

An analysis of the FRC’s efforts may help auditors to identify what they are expected to do to improve the reliability of information provided in the capital market. Audit committees can get a better understanding of the criteria that they need to improve the process of auditors’ choice. Auditors will also better understand how and why current audit regulations have been issued. This may improve their satisfaction with regulations and standards, and their efficient implementation. Furthermore, it is believed that audit regulators need to get feedback additional to the formal feedback they receive to improve their performance and current regulations.

This paper contributes to the literature by discussing the auditors’ criticism to the Audit Inspection Unit’s inspectors and the way the inspectors defend themselves. The findings suggest that partners of the Big 4 believe that the FRC’s projects effectively participate in improving the audit quality, as well as providing wider information about the audit firms to the public. However, different actions need to be taken to enhance the choice of auditors and increase the number of big audit firms that compete in the market.

This paper aims to investigate the possible trade-off between accountability and enterprise in the context of comply or explain governance. The issue was addressed through examining the effect of compliance with the corporate governance code (CGC) on corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and organisational performance.

Based on cross-sectional survey and content analysis of annual reports, the level of CE and compliance with the CGC were measured in the large and medium-listed companies in the UK during 2010. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis.

The results suggest no conflict between compliance with the CGC and CE in the UK, which can be attributed to the flexibility of the “comply or explain” approach. This implies that no trade-off between accountability and enterprise in the context of comply or explain governance.

The study provides evidence in support of the regulatory governance framework in the UK and the comply or explain approach at large. This evidence contributes to the debate on the rules-based or principles-based governance, which may affect future CG regulations. It can also guide the directors to achieve the balance between their conformance and performance roles.

The study bridges the gap between CG and CE disciplines through developing a theoretical model that integrate contingency and agency theories lenses. Adopting a holistic approach provides insights into the relationships between CG and CE, rather than investigating the effect of each of these practices separately on organisational performance.

This paper aims to explore problems facing the recruitment of accounting and finance staff in research-led universities. “University accounting and finance (A&F) departments are experiencing difficulty in attracting and retaining suitably qualified staff” (Duff and Monk, 2006, p. 194). The literature identifies a number of reasons for the shortage of A&F phenomenon (Duff and Monk, 2006; Smith and Urquhart, 2018), including, the wide salary gap between academe and industry profession, difficulty in achieving publications in highly rated journal, high workload in teaching and marking due the limited number of A&F staff.

The paper provides new insights for the use of the grounded theory and how the theory has been generated from the semi-structured interviews.

This study has resulted in eight main challenges emerged, and a final theory has been generated. Implications of this research on business schools are valuable in research-led universities, the A&F staff recruitment strategies and the A&F research strategies in research-led universities.

The novelty of this research is based on the induction of the challenges that a business school faces, as a case study for a research-intensive teaching-led UK university, in recruiting new A and F appointees and retaining existing members of staff.

This study aims to investigate and explore the impact of big data analytics (BDA) as a mechanism that could develop the ability to measure customers’ performance. To accomplish the research aim, the theoretical discussion was developed through the combination of the diffusion of innovation theory with the technology acceptance model (TAM) that is less developed for the research field of this study.

Empirical data was obtained using Web-based quasi-experiments with 104 Egyptian accounting professionals. Further, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the chi-square goodness-of-fit test were used to analyze data.

The empirical results indicate that measuring customers’ performance based on BDA increase the organizations’ ability to analyze the customers’ unstructured data, decrease the cost of customers’ unstructured data analysis, increase the ability to handle the customers’ problems quickly, minimize the time spent to analyze the customers’ data and obtaining the customers’ performance reports and control managers’ bias when they measure customer satisfaction. The study findings supported the accounting professionals’ acceptance of BDA through the TAM elements: the intention to use (R), perceived usefulness (U) and the perceived ease of use (E).

This study has several limitations that could be addressed in future research. First, this study focuses on customers’ performance measurement (CPM) only and ignores other performance measurements such as employees’ performance measurement and financial performance measurement. Future research can examine these areas. Second, this study conducts a Web-based experiment with Master of Business Administration students as a study’s participants, researchers could conduct a laboratory experiment and report if there are differences. Third, owing to the novelty of the topic, there was a lack of theoretical evidence in developing the study’s hypotheses.

This study succeeds to provide the much-needed empirical evidence for BDA positive impact in improving CPM efficiency through the proposed framework (i.e. CPM and BDA framework). Furthermore, this study contributes to the improvement of the performance measurement process, thus, the decision-making process with meaningful and proper insights through the capability of collecting and analyzing the customers’ unstructured data. On a practical level, the company could eventually use this study’s results and the new insights to make better decisions and develop its policies.

This study holds significance as it provides the much-needed empirical evidence for BDA positive impact in improving CPM efficiency. The study findings will contribute to the enhancement of the performance measurement process through the ability of gathering and analyzing the customers’ unstructured data.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of sustainable enterprise resource planning (S-ERPs) systems implementation on sustainability performance.

A 1 × 2 experiment was conducted, involving a sample of 72 professional accountants enrolled in MPA, MBA and DBA programs at two prominent Egyptian universities. Simple linear regression was used to analyze the data.

The results reveal positive relationships between the implementation of S-ERPs and economic, environmental and social sustainability performance.

Considering the research methodology used, which relies on a laboratory experiment design; nevertheless, empirical data derived from a quasi-experiment conducted in a real-world context would offer valuable insights into the existing literature.

For manufacturing sector managers, the results offer value as organizations can benefit from S-ERP adoption in the internal and external integration of sustainability functions. The findings also provide decision-makers in the manufacturing context, particularly in emerging countries, with tangible reasons to consider S-ERP adoption for holistic sustainability benefits including waste management, resource consumption reduction and management of sustainable supply chain complexities. Further, the findings provide valuable insights for ERP vendors on how they can develop their ERP packages to align with software sustainability criteria.

This study is among the few that experimentally investigates the influence of S-ERPs implementation on sustainability performance within the manufacturing sector, especially in an emerging context such as Egypt. This unique contribution provides valuable insights into the complex connection between technology adoption and sustainability outcomes.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of integrating Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning (S-ERP) systems and lean manufacturing (LM) practices on sustainability performance, especially in Egypt as an emerging country.

The authors carried out an experimental study with a sample of 144 professional accountants of MPA, MBA and DBA students at two of the top universities in Egypt.

The results provide significant evidence that the integration of S-ERP systems and LM practices implementation improve sustainability performance. However, there is no significant evidence that S-ERP adoption contributes to the success of LM practices implementation.

Because of the chosen research approach, this study is limited to use of a laboratory experiment design. Empirical evidence based on quasi experiments on a field setting would add value to the current literature.

Findings provide practical insights for the manufacturing sector managers into the benefits of integrating S-ERP systems and LM practices for sustainability performance improvement (e.g. reducing cost and waste, increasing operational efficiency). For ERP vendors, findings highlight how ERP vendors introduce “enablers” that incorporate LM best practices into their ERP systems and also how those vendors conform to the software sustainability criteria in the design of ERP applications.

Contrary to previous studies that addressed the individual impact of S-ERP systems and LM practices on performance, this paper experimentally gives an indication of the impact of concurrent implementation of S-ERP and LM practices on sustainability performance, especially in developing countries.

This study aims to examine the effects of the entry of foreign direct investments (FDIs) on the audit markets in developing countries (i.e. Egypt). There is a long-standing debate on the impact of FDIs on developing markets, but little is still known about the effect of FDI on national suppliers, such as audit firms.

This paper reports the results of a study that used qualitative research methods. It involves interviews with senior management teams of the Big 4 audit firms, to find out how these firms deal simultaneously with conflicting global and local influences. The interviews were complemented by the publicly available data on the firms’ websites as well as published reports related to the Egyptian economy and current investment regulations.

Drawing on the institutional theory, the findings suggest that an increased litigious environment, compliance with developed markets’ regulations, auditor regulatory sanctions and improved local accounting and auditing standards are highly significant consequences of foreign investment inflows. The findings indicate that more emphasis has been given to the quality of audit and auditors’ independence when auditing FDIs. Both audit regulators and audit firms in the domestic market pay higher attention to improving the quality of financial reports when FDIs have entered the market. More inspections and reviews for audit firms have been conducted, and local auditing and accounting standards have been revised to be in compliance with international standards.

Our results have important implications for investors, regulatory authorities and governments in relation to the development, implementation and enforcement of international financial reporting and auditing standards.

Policymakers and regulators in Egypt have responded to international pressure by revitalizing their local accounting and auditing standards and adopting international financial reporting and auditing standards. The authors identify strategies that have been adopted by audit firms to face the FDIs’ challenges.

This paper aims to investigate various institutional pressures driving the adoption and implementation of a new risk management system; enterprise risk management (ERM).

The implementation of ERM-related practices is analysed based on an institutional framework and drawing on empirical evidence from multiple sources in ten large/medium-sized insurance companies. This paper focuses on extra-organisational pressures exerted by political, social and economic institutions on insurance companies which drove the adoption decision.

It was found that different change agents have taken part in the decision to introduce new risk management system as a part of ERM implementation process. Further, the institutional pressures, coercive, mimetic and normative, were found to differ in character and strength over different intervals of time in relation to the adoption of ERM. Companies that adopted ERM early were mostly driven by internal strategic drivers, whereas the recent adoption decision was more driven by coercive and mimetic pressures. Thus, evidence of divergence between insurance companies was found.

The findings have implications for policy makers, regulatory agencies and innovation developers. ERM was considered not only as a necessity but also as a value added to the insurance companies under study. Thus, regulators and innovation developers should survey main players in any specific organisational field to understand their views before issuing new compulsory regulations or developing innovations. They also need to consider exploring companies’ experiences with ERM, which can provide a basis for the development of strengthened and more informative regulatory ERM frameworks. This will support a faster and easier understanding and implementation of ERM framework hindered by the confusions companies may face when considering the complicated/changing regulatory and risk requirements.

This study extends the scope of institutional analysis to the risk management field, particularly ERM and to the explanation of how different institutions affect the decision to move towards ERM and modify the risk management rules applied within the organisational environment. It looks not only at convergences but also divergences associated with the period of time when ERM adoption decision was made. Thus, it develops a processual view of change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine which firm characteristics affect the usage of sustainability incentives in executive remuneration contracts, and whether these sustainability incentives have an impact on shareholders’ return.

The analysis is based on a sample of 212 firms from the FTSE 350 firms over the period of 2009-2011.

The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the adoption of sustainability incentives in executive remuneration and firm size, compensation committee independence, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) sustainability committee, CSR sustainability index, and resource efficiency policy variables. Further, there is evidence to support a positive impact on the shareholders’ return.

The results of this study should be interpreted within two limitations. First, the limited numbers of the sample years due to the limited number of firms used sustainability incentives. Second, the use of a dummy variable in the measurement of the adoption of sustainability incentives in the analysis.

The paper includes implications for the development of sustainability incentives within the performance measurement system and compensation contracts that could be a solution for the agency problem.

This study provides empirical evidence on an increased use of sustainability incentives in UK firms, and identifies firm’s characteristics that explain such increase in the sustainability incentives, finally its positive impact on the shareholders’ return.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of gamma-rays on murexide (Mx) dye and its possible use as radiation dosimeters in two different dosimetry systems. The first system depends on the Mx dye as a liquid dosimeter. The second dosimetry system depends also on the same dye but as in a gel form, which is more sensitive to gamma-rays.

The prepared Mx (solutions/gels) have a considerable two peaks at 324 and 521 nm that upon irradiation, the intensity of these peaks decreases with the increasing radiation dose.

The gamma-ray absorbed dose for these dosimeters was found to be up to 2 kGy for the solution samples and 40 Gy for the gels. Radiation chemical yield, dose response function, radiation sensitivity and before and after-irradiation stability under various conditions were discussed and studied.

It is expected that the radiolysis of the Mx dye can be used as radiation dosimeters in two different dosimetry systems; liquid and gel dosimeters. This can be applied in a wide range of gamma radiation practical industrial applications in water treatment, food irradiation dosimeters, radiotherapy and fresh food irradiation and seed production.

Both of the prepared Mx dyes, either as solutions or gel samples, can be facilely prepared from commercially, cheap, safe, available chemicals and suitable for useful applied Mx solutions and gels radiation dosimeters.