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This study aims to examine the effect of the auditor-client relationship (ACR) on related party transaction (RPT) types of disclosure, either RPT-efficient or RPT-conflict. This study also examines whether family controlling shareholders (FCS) negatively affect the ACR in RPT types of disclosure.

This study uses multivariate regression on 2,203 year-observations of companies listed in Malaysia during the period 2014–2017.

This study finds weak evidence that auditors can mitigate companies’ RPT type (RPT-efficient and RPT-conflict) disclosure while maintaining a close ACR. However, an interaction between FCS and ACR reduces the RPT-conflict disclosure. Additionally, the Big 4 auditors slightly increase the RPT-conflict disclosure, however, the relationships are inversed if the close ACR involves the FCS. The Big 4 auditors also increase RPT-efficient disclosure although in a close ACR with FCS. Meanwhile, an interaction between non-Big 4 auditors and FCS in close ACR reduces both types of RPT disclosures.

The findings suggest that a close relationship between auditors and clients in firms with significant family control could compromise auditor’s skepticism. The FCS can easily influence the auditors to agree with the ways they treat the RPT disclosure. Therefore, policymakers may have to revisit auditors’ rotation policies in Malaysia, especially those involving FCS.

Trust, familiarity and future fee dependency are significant threats to auditor independence in a close ACR. This study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of a close ACR on RPT types of disclosure from a network theory perspective.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the attributes of audit firms (Big 4, audit fees, busy season, audit firm tenure and audit partner gender) and the impact of these attributes on key audit matters (KAM) readability in Malaysia.

The auditor's reports and financial data were analysed from a sample of FTSE 100 Malaysia-listed companies for the fiscal years 2017–2019, consisting of 258 observations. Panel regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the possible associations between audit firm attributes and KAM readability. The Flesch reading ease score and Coleman–Liau index were applied to measure KAM readability.

The findings show that female audit partners significantly impact KAM readability; further analysis also revealed that companies audited by Big 4 audit firms and higher audit fees tend to report a more readable KAM disclosure in the FTSE 100 in Malaysia.

The regression results provide empirical evidence of the influence of audit firm attributes on KAM readability. This study also examined important corporate governance players, such as external auditors and those charged with governance, who form the audit committee's qualities when analysing the determinants of KAM reporting variations in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of related party transactions (RPTs) and types of RPTs (complex, simple and loan) on earnings quality in four East Asian countries: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

RPTs and types of RPTs are measured using two approaches, magnitude and abnormal (magnitude change). Earnings quality is measured using proxies for accrual earnings management and identified as discretionary accruals (DAC) and performance matched discretional accruals (PMDAC).

The results suggest that firms in these countries experience poor earnings quality when they are engaged in RPT. The effect of RPT-simple on earnings quality is more severe than RPT-complex. However, the presence of higher investor protection and stricter enforcement of regulations in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong reduce the negative impact of RPTs on earnings quality.

The results support the argument that the presence of controlling shareholders in East Asia is likely to lead to engagement with RPTs, which will increase the likelihood of firms’ earnings manipulation via DAC. This study has two limitations. It only focuses on Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and the results may not be generalizable to other countries. Second, this study only measures the magnitude and abnormal RPTs based on the disclosures available in annual reports.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the effect of RPTs and types of RPTs on earnings quality in four selected East Asian countries. 

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of financial governance practices in influencing both financial management and Islamic work ethic practices to affect Islamic social enterprises (ISEs) accountability.

Questionnaires were administered to financial officers of 102 Malaysian ISEs. Data was analysed using Smart-PLS to examine the relationships between financial management, Islamic work ethic, financial governance and accountability.

Results of this study indicate direct relationship only exist between Islamic work ethic and accountability. The relationship between financial management and accountability are indirect through financial governance. Hence, the data proves that financial governance has a mediating role on both the relationships between financial management and Islamic work ethic with the accountability of the ISEs.

The study has highlighted the greater role of financial management, Islamic work ethic and financial governance practices over accountability to achieve public trust, especially for Malaysian ISEs.

ISEs need to have good financial governance practices besides financial management and Islamic work ethic practices to achieve good accountability.

The study contributes to the field of management and social accounting by providing empirical evidence on the ISEs practices specifically on financial management, Islamic work ethic, financial governance and accountability. This framework thus presents amongst the first attempts in studying accountability issues in ISEs.

Borderless transactions have resulted in changes to the competitive and technological environments. As a result, accounting profession faces challenges in meeting these changes. Previous studies have indicated that accounting education had failed to develop students’ competencies critically required by market. This paper mainly focuses on competencies in the workplace in relation to its levels of importance; as well as the level of emphasis of the competencies during university learning. In this study, 1,300 questionnaires were distributed to accountants graduated from seven state‐run universities namely Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Universiti Utara Malaysia and Universiti Sains Malaysia. The respondents were asked to rank the level of importance and emphasis of thirteen competencies; namely communication skills, decision‐making skills, leadership development, continuous improvement skills, professionalism, information development and distribution skills, knowledge in planning and budgetary, management control system, interpreting and analyzing financial statements, knowledge in accounting, knowledge in auditing and knowledge in taxation. The study found that there were large gaps between the level of importance of competencies in workplace and the level of emphasis of competencies in workplace. In addition, the study also found positive correlation between the personality traits and the level of competencies. In general, these findings are consistent with the findings from other studies conducted. The findings should provide empirical and relevant input for assessing the content of the existing accounting programs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is any difference in the characteristics of an audit committee between financially distressed and non‐distressed companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange). Financial distress among big companies is a sign of weak corporate governance, of which the audit committee is one of elements. Four characteristics of the audit committee being examined are size, independence, activity, and accounting knowledge.

The sample comprises 73 financially distressed and the matched pair of 73 financially non‐distressed listed companies. The financially distressed companies have been suspended from the listing under the provision of the practice note 4 (PN4) of the listing requirements.

Results show that financial distress of companies has a significant negative association with financial literacy of the audit committee and the quality of external audit.

The finding is limited to PN4 companies and the selected match of the non‐PN4. Results may not be generalized to other companies that are faced with financial difficulties but are not classified as financially distressed under the PN4 provision.

The paper does not examine other qualitative factors such as the culture and dynamics of audit committee meetings which may have effect on the audit committee performance. An examination on the issue requires a different research design. Hence, further research is needed to address the issue.

The evidence suggests that financial literacy of audit committee members is a significant factor which helps the audit committee enhance the financial performance of the company. It also suggests that a quality external audit, in addition to an effective audit committee, enhances company financial performance.

This study examines audit fee premiums from brand name, industry specialization, and industry leadership after the merger of two Big 6 audit firms, creating the Big 5 in 1998 in the Malaysian audit market. A sample of 679 companies listed at the main and second boards of Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) are investigated for audit fee premiums. Industry specialization is determined on the basis of 20 per cent share of audit market calculated by the number of audited companies in the industry. Audit fee premiums are calculated based on the Simunic (1980) model of audit fees. Results show: that Big 5 audit firms obtain 65.4 per cent audit market share for all KLSE listed companies; that Big 5 audit firms earn higher audit fees than non‐Big 5; and that industry specialization does not generate audit fee premiums. The study finds evidence for audit fee premiums derived from industry market leadership. Results also reflect the competitiveness among Big 5 audit firms in the audit market especially following the merger of Big 6 audit firms.

Conflicts between managers and outside auditors may exist in choosing alternative accounting procedures. Since auditors are appointed by the firm, they are subject to dismissal if divergent opinions cannot be resolved. To a lesser extent, financial reports are often negotiated. In order to produce unbiased financial reports, audit committee members are appointed to act independently in order to resolve conflicts between the managers and outside auditors. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of some audit committee characteristics, i.e. the independence of members, size, frequency of meeting and knowledge of the members, to monitor management behavior with respect to their incentives to manage earnings.

This paper uses discretionary accruals obtained from the established model as a signal of the presence of earnings management.

The evidence shows that the presence of a fully independent audit committee reduces earnings management practices. It was also found that firms which had more knowledgeable audit committee members and held more audit committee meetings recorded fewer earnings management practices compared with other firms.

This paper is different from prior studies, in that it makes a significant contribution towards enhancing one's knowledge in the interacting role of audit committee characteristics.

This paper aims to examine the association between new audit committee characteristics – attendance of audit committee members at meetings and changes of members through the demission or appointment of members of the audit committee during the year – and earnings management. Its objective is to contribute new evidence that extends studies on audit committee characteristics in reducing earnings management.

The sample comprises 370 observations obtained from the annual reports of 74 companies listed on the Muscat Securities Market for the years 2008-2012. The panel data are analysed using a fixed effects model to validate the hypotheses and model.

This study finds a negative association between earnings management and members’ attendance at the audit committee meetings. Additionally, there is a positive significant relationship between earnings management and changes to members through demission or appointment.

This study broadens the scope of audit committee characteristics by providing empirical evidence of the relationship between new audit committee characteristics and earnings management and may assist policymakers and regulators in determining ways to enhance audit committee characteristics and improve financial reporting quality.

This study aims to examine how audit committee (AC) attributes influence quality and quantity disclosure of energy consumed by the listed nonfinancial firms for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study aims at providing empirical evidence on how board of director’s independence influences the relationship between AC attributes and firms’ energy in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on world climate policy.

The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed nonfinancial firms, content analysis technique was used to compute energy disclosure indexes using global reporting initiative standards, while regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship among research variables.

The study revealed that AC independence, diversity and meetings were significantly related with energy disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related with energy disclosure.

The study is constrained for not considering all listed firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered selected attributes, other important audit-committee size attributes such as audit-committee size, audit-committee size tenure could be study in by the future study.

The study’s findings would have practical implications for corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the energy-related SDGs 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of AC attributes on the energy disclosure using effect of board independence as moderator in Nigeria.