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Governments worldwide seek to optimize value in public project bids. Social procurement (SP) has become a global tool for achieving project goals. The purpose of this study is to assess the understanding of SP among contractors and identify its drivers to optimize the value associated with public projects.

A total of 15 major contractors were interviewed to obtain their views on SP, appreciate their current practices and identify the main drivers of SP in projects. A semistructured interview was used to gather relevant data. Neo-institutional theory is the lens of the study used to provide the focus of the research. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic data analysis technique.

The study found that SP is understood as corporate social responsibility and is not handled in a structured manner guided by policies or clearly defined procedures. Additionally, research has shown that compliance requirements, rather than value and goodwill, are the main inspiration for SP practices.

The study’s limitation is the fact that it was conducted in the context of Botswana and only used the interview technique as the solo data collection method. The other limitation is the lack of empirical literature on SP concerning the lack of SP policy in Botswana.

This study raises awareness of the concept of SP among contractors in Botswana and eases its implementation within the industry.

The objective of this paper is to extend the debate on audit quality in the less complex entity (LCE) context by analyzing comment letters submitted to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The IAASB has drafted a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements.

The Gioia method is utilized to conduct the qualitative analysis. This enables the material to shine and provide a comprehensive picture of the important aspects of the comment letters about the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs. A content analysis of the 145 comment letters is conducted to identify the extent of the support for and the arguments against the new, stand-alone draft standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements. In addition, this study considers how the comment letters describe the respondents’ views on audit quality in relation to the new standard. Finally, the tone of the comment letters and audit quality arguments is investigated.

The findings provide a useful framework of the most frequently used arguments supporting and opposing the ISA for LCEs. Within the themes identified, a wide variety of issues and concerns are discussed. The results reveal that the arguments in the comment letters are contradictory. For instance, when discussing audit quality, those interest groups that perceived many positive opportunities in the adoption of the ISA for LCEs thought that the audit quality would increase. Conversely, those interest groups that were skeptical about the success of the ISA for LCEs argued that the audit quality could be compromised by the general prejudice that the ISA for LCEs might be perceived as a lower-quality audit with fewer procedures.

This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to examine the content of comment letters in the context of a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs. The international audience can utilize the results in the context of the widely discussed issue of reducing LCEs’ auditing obligations. This study aims to contribute to the two streams of accounting literature concerning audit quality and political lobbying.

Singapore’s research has grown significantly since the first national R&D plan was launched in 1991, the same year Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was established. NTU’s research progression, vitally funded by the government, mirrored the substantial growth of Singapore’s research. NTU began as an engineering-based higher education institution that also had a school for accountancy and business, but more schools were added after 2000. Since then, the university has established a research ecosystem that includes research centres of excellence, corporate labs, and medium-sized research centres. Concurrently, the development of research administration in NTU has evolved from providing pre- and post-award support, extending to include outreach, research integrity and ethics, bibliometrics analysis, and talent recruitment and career support. The evolution of administrative needs and capabilities following the changing environment underscores the dynamic nature of research management and administration in Singapore.

In this study, the authors examine artificial knowledge as a fundamental stream of knowledge management for sustainable and resilient business models in supply chain management (SCM). The study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of artificial knowledge and digitalization as key enablers of the improvement of SCM accountability and sustainable performance towards the UN 2030 Agenda.

Using the SCOPUS database and Google Scholar, the authors analyzed 135 English-language publications from 1990 to 2022 to chart the pattern of knowledge production and dissemination in the literature. The data were collected, reviewed and peer-reviewed before conducting bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review to support future research agenda.

The results highlight that artificial knowledge and digitalization are linked to the UN 2030 Agenda. The analysis further identifies the main issues in achieving sustainable and resilient SCM business models. Based on the results, the authors develop a conceptual framework for artificial knowledge and digitalization in SCM to increase accountability and sustainable performance, especially in times of sudden crises when business resilience is imperative.

The study results add to the extant literature by examining artificial knowledge and digitalization from the resilience theory perspective. The authors suggest that different strategic perspectives significantly promote resilience for SCM digitization and sustainable development. Notably, fostering diverse peer exchange relationships can help stimulate peer knowledge and act as a palliative mechanism that builds digital knowledge to strengthen and drive future possibilities.

This research offers valuable guidance to supply chain practitioners, managers and policymakers in re-thinking, re-formulating and re-shaping organizational processes to meet the UN 2030 Agenda, mainly by introducing artificial knowledge in digital transformation training and education programs. In doing so, firms should focus not simply on digital transformation but also on cultural transformation to enhance SCM accountability and sustainable performance in resilient business models.

This study is, to the authors' best knowledge, among the first to conceptualize artificial knowledge and digitalization issues in SCM. It further integrates resilience theory with institutional theory, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory as the theoretical foundations of artificial knowledge in SCM, based on firms' responsibility to fulfill the sustainable development goals under the UN's 2030 Agenda.

The rapid growth in cruise shipping coupled with increasing public awareness of climate change has led to increasing concerns about the impact cruise shipping poses on the environment, especially regarding air emissions. This study analyses the cruise shipping network of ports in and around the emission control areas (ECAs) to understand the structural properties of the network and ports.

A complex network approach was used to analyse the network data of 239 voyages serviced by 14 international cruise lines, visiting 127 ports across 44 countries in the Caribbean Sea.

It is found that the network has a small-world property with a short average path length and a high clustering coefficient. The regulations affect connections among ports, in which most ports in ECAs have lower connections than ports outside ECAs. A few ports in ECAs play important key roles, but many ports outside ECAs play a more important role in the network because the regulations are barriers for cruise ships entering the ports.

The findings of this study have drawn useful guidelines for cruise lines and port authorities to improve their operations. Constrictive recommendations are suggested to policymakers for designing reasonable regulations to attract more cruise shipping to travel in ECAs.