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The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between accounting fraud and corporate sustainability.

Companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2019 are used to estimate a pooled ordinary least square regression model using panel data. Accounting fraud is represented by accounting disclosure, which is measured by its quality and timeliness, while corporate sustainability is measured by earnings management and corporate social responsibility.

Empirical findings support the hypothesis that the quality and timeliness of accounting disclosure have a statistically favorable impact on the management of company earnings and corporate social responsibility, respectively. Accounting fraud also has an impact on the sustainable development of the company.

Although the inferences of this study are limited to Chinese listed companies, this study may interest other scholars to explore similar topics.

This study aims to investigate whether gender diversity in audit committees affects the purchase of nonaudit services in China. Results from family and nonfamily firms are compared and the critical mass participation of females are further examined.

The sample comprises 1,834 Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2021, among which 910 are family firms. The Heckman (1979) two-stage model is used to mitigate the potential endogeneity issue in the selection of gender diversity. Propensity score matching is also used to further alleviate the endogeneity problem in relation to family firms.

Results show a significant and negative correlation between the gender diversity in audit committees and nonaudit service fees. This association is more apparent in nonfamily than in family firms. Findings are consistent and robust to endogeneity tests and sensitivity analyses. The analysis of critical mass and symbolic participation shows that three female directors can more significantly restrain nonaudit fees than one to two females on the board.

This study contributes to literature on resource dependence theory, which posits that audit committees help enterprises establish contact with auditors, improve the company legitimacy, assist in communication and provide relevant expertise. This study also relates to agency theory, which holds that differences in the severity of types I and II agency problems between family and nonfamily firms lead to differences in auditor selection and related costs.

Extending from previous research on the relation between the gender diversity in audit committees and nonaudit fees, the present study delves into this connection within the context of China, an emerging economy. As a result, this investigation offers novel insights and expands upon current knowledge. In addition, the correlation between the gender diversity of audit committees and nonaudit fees is explored for family and nonfamily firms.

This study aims to explore the managerial conception of the determinants and barriers of sustainability integration into management control systems (MCS) of manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka. Although existing literature has explored the factors that influence the adoption of specific management controls to handle environmental and social issues, the role of management conception has been underrepresented. Specifically, literature is scarce in identifying contextual and organisational factors that influence corporates beyond mere adoption of controls but to integrate with regular controls, especially in developing countries such as Sri Lanka.

A multiple case study approach has been used to identify the management conception of barriers and enablers for sustainability control integration. The analysis is conducted based on a theoretical framework extending the work of Gond et al. (2012) and George et al. (2016). To obtain an in-depth and multifaceted view, semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in charge of different functional departments of five manufacturing companies.

The findings identified managers’ perceived factors, such as environmental impact, stakeholder pressure (customer, competitor and regulatory authorities) and top management commitment, showing a clear difference between strongly and weakly integrated companies. Contrary to the literature, domestic regulatory pressure and multinational ownership do not sufficiently drive MCS sustainability integration.

The findings have implications for managers and practitioners to anticipate the potential barriers and determinants of sustainability integration and provide guidance to take proper measures to deal with them when designing and implementing their MCS.

The study adds value to the literature by presenting a theoretical framework based on the triangulation of different theories to recognise the significance of management idea in sustainable integration. Furthermore, because sustainable integration of MCS is a novel idea, this research is one of the earlier attempts to highlight problems from the perspective of developing countries.

From an agency perspective, the authors investigate whether family ownership and control configurations are systematically associated with a firm's choice of auditor and audit fees. Agency theory is an economic theory that purposes the existence of a contract between two parties, principals and agents. Auditor choice and audit fees by family firms provide interesting insights given the unique nature of the agency problems faced by such firms.

The authors employ Big-4 auditors (PWC, KPMG, E&Y and Deloitte) as a proxy for high quality auditor (Big N) for the auditor choice model. For the audit fee model, the dependent variable is the natural logarithm of audit fees (LnAF). The authors use two measures for family firm as explanatory variables: (1) a dummy variable (FAM_Control), which equals one if the firm is classified as a family firm and (2) FAM_Ownership, which is an indicator variable with a value of one if a firm has family members who hold CEO position, occupy board seats, or hold at least 10% of the firm's equity. Data of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2021 are used. The authors adopt the Heckman (1979) two-stage model to mitigate the potential endogeneity issue involved in the selection of Big-N auditors.

The findings suggest that compared with non-family firms, Chinese family firms have a less tendency to employ Big-4 auditors due to less severe agency problems between owners and managers. Additionally, Chinese family firms sustain higher audit fees than non-family firms. Similar to the prior literature, however, Chinese family firms audited by Big-4 auditors incur lower audit fees than family firms audited by non-Big-4 auditors in this study. In contrast to young-family firms, old-family firms are less likely to pick top-tier auditors and sustain lower audit fees. Consistent and robust results are found from endogeneity tests and sensitivity analyses.

The empirical evidence provides a unique insight, for accounting practitioners, policymakers, family owners and other capital market participants concerning the diverse effects of various family ownership and control features on selecting high-quality auditors and audit fees. This study advances the understanding, showing that a lower demand for audit quality occurs in Chinese family firms as they encounter less severe Type I agency problems. However, the more severe Type II agency problems in Chinese family firms sustain higher audit fees due to higher audit risk and greater audit effort.

Burdened by undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity as a consequence of both internal conflict and the global nutrition transition, Iraq is in need of adequate public health nutrition education to mitigate nutrition-related outcomes and risks. To address nutrition-related health outcomes, trained nutrition professionals are warranted. This paper examines current nutrition-affiliated programs offered across post-secondary institutions in Iraq.

An electronic review of universities and colleges’ websites, department webpages and academic programs’ homepages and resources of all the private and public universities in Iraq was conducted to find programs related to nutrition, nutrition sciences and dietetics.

All identified programs belonged to the governmental sector, were administered and financed by the Iraqi Government and were under the purview of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. The review highlighted a predominant focus on food sciences in agricultural departments rather than public health or clinical nutrition. Advanced education in topics such as human metabolism, medical nutrition therapy and public health nutrition are required to adequately address over- and undernutrition in Iraq.

The current state of public health and nutrition-related postsecondary education in Iraq warrants an increased emphasis on clinical and public health nutrition education. Despite a commendable focus on food science studies, the country’s ongoing challenges with obesity, nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases and conflict-associated food insecurity signal an urgent need for balancing this focus with grounding in postsecondary training in public health nutrition.

Personal remittance and ready-made garments (RMG) export incomes have emerged as the largest source of foreign income for Bangladesh's economy. The study investigates their impact on income inequality and gross domestic product (GDP) as a control variable, using time-series yearly data from 1983 to 2018.

It employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) estimation and the Toda-Yamamoto (T-Y) causality approach. The ARDL estimation outcomes confirm a long-run association among the above variables and validate the autoregressive characteristic of the model.

Personal remittances positively contribute to reducing the income gap among the people of the society and declining income inequality. In contrast, RMG export income and economic growth contribute to further income inequality. The T-Y causality analysis follows the ARDL estimation outcomes and authenticates their robustness. It reveals a feedback relationship between remittance inflow and the Gini coefficient, unidirectional causalities from RMG export income to income inequality and economic growth to income inequality.

The finding has important policy implications to limit the income gaps between low and high-income groups by channeling incremental income to the lower-income group people. The policymakers may facilitate further international migration to attract further remittances and may upgrade the minimum wage of the RMG workers.

The study is original. As far as the authors' knowledge goes, this is a maiden attempt to investigate the impact of personal remittances and RMG export income on income disparity in the case of Bangladesh.

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have paid a great deal of attention to the circular economy (CE) due to its potential social and environmental benefits. However, limited attention has been devoted in the literature to studying the barriers to CE implementation in the apparel retail industry in emerging and developing nations besides China. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the barriers to implementing CE in the Indian garment retail market.

This exploratory study uses a comprehensive literature analysis to identify the micro-level impediments to CE adoption in India's garment retail industry. The study aims to identify these barriers using a Delphi process, consisting of three stages. The first stage involves literature reviews and expert opinions, while the second and third stages involve survey methods with 14 industry professionals and academics. The use of the two primary data sources allows for triangulation of the data, which improves the validity of the findings and enables broader conclusions to be drawn from the results.

This study indicates that the top three challenges to implementing CE principles in the Indian apparel retail industry are “standards and regulation barriers” (84%), “strategic barriers” (82%) and “supply chain management and technology barriers” (79%). Strategies for overcoming these obstacles include gaining top management support, coordinating supply chain components, training and employee motivation.

This study considers only Indian apparel retail industry, and the practical implications could potentially limit the study to emerging Asian economies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research of its type to explore CE obstacles at the organizational level in the Indian garment retail business. Thus, it contributes to a greater understanding of the topic and enables practitioners to develop effective policies and business strategies for CE and sustainability.