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Auditor changes are not alarmingly high in Malta but have been rising of late and the driving forces in this regard could be particular to a small‐island state. This paper seeks to elicit the perceptions of behavioural, economic or other factors that influence auditor‐client realignments in Malta. It does this mostly by a mail questionnaire responded to by 97 Maltese companies. Such findings were complemented by 15 interviews with companies that actually changed their auditor. The study concludes primarily that behavioural forces provide the principal motivators of auditor changes in Malta. Deterioration in the working relationship with the auditor and lack of accessibility feature as foremost concerns. Economic forces, albeit being important triggers of auditor changes, come only secondary in importance. Underlying this, there is evidence of differences in the attitudes of clients and non‐clients of Big 4 audit firms as well as between small and large companies.

This paper has the objective of identifying the different types of qualifications in auditor's reports of companies in Malta, the extent of multiple and repeated qualifications in such reports and any significant relationships between such main types of qualifications and firm‐specific variables.

The study in this small Mediterranean island is designed to investigate the auditor's reports of 419 companies in the period 1997/2000. This is also complemented by an analysis of 12 interviews held with audit partners in different practices.

Results show that 19.9 per cent of sampled companies had a qualified auditor's report. The most common type of qualification was that of limitation‐on‐scope found in small companies and issued by non‐Big Four audit firms. Small companies were also prone to going concern qualifications in view of their more common net liability situations. Disagreement‐with‐management qualifications were found to be more likely in larger companies and to be mostly issued by Big Four audit firms.

The methodology adopted by the study may also be used in similar future studies in other small states and further research could possibly be undertaken on the motivation behind the issuance of such qualifications.

The study concludes that Maltese companies, which are as yet all required to be audited irrespective of size, have an apparently high rate of audit qualifications and also that the auditor's reports of non‐Big Four audit firms are often deficient or even incompatible with the wording of the International Standards on Auditing.

Historically, as a former British colony, Malta has had its accounting and auditing practices highly influenced by UK regulation. However, in the last decade, departures have steadily been occurring from a UK‐based regulatory framework to one increasingly influenced both by international standards and European Union requirements. One such departure relates to the retention of the statutory audit requirement for all Maltese companies, despite its earlier abolishment for small companies in the UK. This study evaluates the relevance of a mandatory annual statutory audit requirement for owner‐managed companies as perceived by two interest groups: the owner‐manager and the auditor. It also considers possible alternatives to such a requirement. Results indicate that for Maltese owner‐managed companies, the statutory audit fulfils two important roles: it bears relevance to outside third parties, and it has a positive effect on the owner‐manager and staff.

The organisation‐wide drive towards total quality management (TQM) and the call for sound corporate governance require that Maltese internal audit (IA) units benchmark their operations as a first step towards the critical evaluation of their processes and the management of change. The purpose of this paper is to determine the awareness of this process in Maltese IA units, its perceived major benefits and limitations and also major barriers in its implementation.

The objective of this study is achieved through a series of semi‐structured interviews with 12 Maltese IA executives representing most Maltese IA units.

This study concludes that Maltese IA executives have a weak grasp of the benchmarking process and that, current IA evaluation techniques are mere rudimentary comparisons, essentially backward‐ and inward‐looking in nature. Maltese IA executives appreciate the benefits of benchmarking as an effective IA quality tool but are divided as to its limitations. In addition, there are organisational and cultural barriers preventing them from attaining its potential benefits.

In addition to the analysis of major obstacles to the implementation and development of this TQM tool in a European ministate, this study points to possible regulatory and organisational changes for future improvements.

The objective of this paper is to find out and compare perceptions of the audit profession by jurors with those of auditors themselves in the small island‐state of Malta.

The objective is achieved by considering auditor responsibility, the reliability of audited financial statements and the decision usefulness of audited financial statements. A mail questionnaire was responded to by 56 auditors and 18 jurors, with the latter response being complemented by a further 100 jurors responding to the questionnaire when delivered by hand.

The study finds substantial divergences in the perceptions of the two respondent groups, particularly in the areas of fraud detection, responsibility for the internal control structure of a company, maintenance of accounting records, and actual work performed by an auditor. In addition, a particular trend in Malta is the high regard with which both respondent groups held the audit profession.

Limitations included the size of the sample of potential jurors taken when compared with the actual potential juror population of Malta, and the original low mail response rate from the jurors group.

Given the increase in recent years of the number of litigation cases against auditors and the particular need for the profession to restore public confidence in it, it is imperative for auditors to become more aware of how public perceptions differ from theirs.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of small river ferries as an under-researched but novel mode of travel which enhances and brings new dimensions to tourist experiences of travelling landscapes.

The study used a mixed methods approach including participant observation, a survey and interviews with ferry users and staff at one river crossing in South West England.

The ferry attracts tourists as a different and practical mode of transport. The river crossing provides an experience of being on water, and the material structure of the ferry significantly shapes on-board interactions whilst providing new perspectives of place.

This article draws on data collected for a study of ferry crossings conducted at three sites in Devon and Cornwall, England, using multiple methods. The material presented in this article focuses on one site and draws on four interviews, twelve reflection cards and observations.

The research highlighted the extent to which the ferry is dependent on tourist use. At the same time, it reveals the extent to which the crossing enriches the tourist experience and celebrates a ferry’s contribution to local place-making.

The majority of research on ferry crossings focuses on commuter experiences, marine crossings and larger passenger vessels. This article makes an original contribution to literature on ferries, as it offers a perspective on tourist experiences of river ferry crossings, reveals how the ferry structure influences interrelations on-board and provides distinctive insights into place through a focus on movement across water.

This study aims to examine the underlying antecedents of memorable halal food experiences by considering how specific internal factors of non-Muslim tourists – novelty seeking, authenticity and sensory appeal – combine with external factors in a restaurant setting – togetherness, experience co-creation and substantive staging of the servicescape – to effect memorable halal food experiences. The study also examined the relationship between memorable halal food experiences and place attachment.

During the first week of August 2021, an online survey was used for data collection and shared on Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) as well as sent to non-Muslim people known to the authors to have had halal food experiences in a tourism setting. A total of 293 valid responses were obtained.

The results revealed that novelty seeking, authenticity, experience co-creation, substantive staging of the servicescape, togetherness and sensory appeal influence memorable halal food experiences. Furthermore, these experiences positively impact place attachment.

This is one of the first studies to explore non-Muslim tourists’ memorable halal food experiences.

Using a state of the art CIMO literature review the paper develops a framework of the relationship between strategy making in the small tourism firm context and four performance outcomes.

The paper uses the CIMO literature review method, adapted from the wider management literature to structure and integrate the existing fragmented literature base.

Premised on the literature review, a framework of the relationship between strategy making and firm performance in context is posited. Emerging from a dominant owner/manager in a deeply embedded context strategy making influences firm performance across four dimensions. The influence is dynamic, continually subject to modification in a changing environment often mediated through emerging technology.

The CIMO method provides an integrated framework of the relationship between strategy making and small firm performance in context hence overcoming limitations of the fragmented nature of the research landscape. Emerging from the review key future research trajectories is posited.

While highlighting the relationship between strategy making and performance, the proposed framework implies owner/managers play the key role in strategy making with opportunities and challenges in modifying existing strategy making emerging from owner/manager embeddedness. Opportunities for improved policy interventions are posited.

The paper applies the systematic review to the relationship between strategy making and the small tourism firm.

This article highlights the ambiguities and debates surrounding the meaning, application, purpose and concomitants of the concept of empowerment presented in the service management literature and argues that these flow from the attempt to reconcile the need for control to secure employee compliance with the need to cede a degree of autonomy to secure co‐operation and initiative. It shows how empowerment is conceived primarily in terms of “choice” ‐ increase discretion over how work if performed ‐ rather than “voice” ‐ greater involvement in organizational decision‐making ‐ and is increasingly regarded as a particular and contingent management strategy in which control via regulation and supervision is replaced by more indirect controls. A study of five‐star hotels in Amsterdam is reported which shows that, despite managerial rhetoric, there was little “empowerment” in practice and what there was amounted to increased employee responsibility rather than greater choice over how work was done or more voice in organizational decisions and that supporting forms of recruitment, training and remuneration were mostly absent.

This paper aims to test four potential predictors of the behavior of empowered employees during the delivery of service to customers.

A questionnaire measuring employees' perceptions of training, performance‐related rewards, customer‐oriented culture, empowering management style, and empowered behavior was filled out by 356 frontline employees of 16 luxury hotels in seven European countries. These statistical analyses removed common‐method bias.

Results of regression analyses at the department level showed that two means of control – customer‐oriented culture and empowering management style – correlated significantly with empowered behavior.

The survey tool would benefit from further refinement. Creative replications of the survey in different service or hotel settings may benefit service managers, consultants as well as consumers, ultimately.

A direct implication of this study's findings is that in luxury hotel service settings, enhancement to employee empowerment may be achieved through careful management and organizational development. If done well, service enhancements may be within reach.

In prior research, employee empowerment has been identified as an important means to increase customer satisfaction. The present study contributes to a greater and more specific understanding of how employee empowerment can be attained in luxury European hotels.