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The present paper examines whether tax avoidance practices affect productivity in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study also analyses whether this association is moderated by firm size, firm financial constraints, management control of cash flows, or information risk.

This study used a sample of Spanish SMEs for the period 2006–2020. Tax avoidance was measured as the difference between the statutory tax rate and the effective tax rate, and three proxies for productivity were used: overall productivity, capital productivity and labour productivity. Firm fixed effects regressions, propensity score matching and change regressions were used to address the potential sample selection bias and endogeneity between tax avoidance and productivity.

The results of the empirical analysis suggest that tax avoidance increases productivity in SMEs. This beneficial effect of tax avoidance was found to be higher in small firms than in medium-sized firms, but smaller in firms that faced financial constraints. Furthermore, the findings showed that the tax avoidance effect on productivity was stronger in firms where managers had less control over the cash flow –i.e. dividend-paying firms–, and weaker in firms with lower quality of financial information – i.e. firms with qualified audit reports.

This study contributes to the research on the economic consequences of tax avoidance by examining its impact on firm-level productivity in SMEs. From additional analyses, the findings of the study suggest that the positive effect of tax avoidance on firm productivity depends on firm size, the financial slack of the firm, and the costs of agency conflicts and information problems associated with tax avoidance.

The results of this study have implications for SMEs, suggesting that cash flows obtained through tax avoidance, if properly used, may increase firm productivity. In planning their tax avoidance practices, SME managers could take advantage of specific tax incentives designed for SMEs, which is particularly relevant given the low-productivity levels of these firms. The findings also highlight the importance of maintaining high-quality information and implementing mechanisms to mitigate the agency risks associated with tax avoidance to enhance the productivity of SMEs.

This study provides important insights to policymakers on SME tax policy, supporting the special tax rules for SMEs – in force in many OECD and EU countries – which aim to create an environment conducive to SME growth. The findings of the study also have macroeconomic implications, given the importance of firm productivity as a determinant of economic growth and the relevance of SMEs in most national economies.

This study provides novel empirical evidence on the effects of tax avoidance on firm-level productivity in SMEs. Despite the prevalence of SMEs as the predominant type of organization in most countries, no prior research has comprehensively examined this issue for this type of firm. This research question was addressed by considering proxies for overall, capital, and labour productivity and by examining how SME characteristics affect this relationship.

In this study, we examine regulated public accessibility to municipalities’ financial reports and bond interest cost. In particular, we examine whether there is information content in a component of a constrained filing period that is useful to municipal bond market participants. The component of a filing period that we focus on is the period of time between an audit report date and a regulated public accessibility date.

To explore our research question, we collect a sample of observations from municipalities that: (1) are required to post annual/audit financial reports on a centralized state-level repository that includes a “transparent” date stamp on when reports are made publicly available and (2) have issued general obligation bonds. Our sample is limited to one observation per municipality. The sample period is 2006–2019. In terms of approach, we use an ordinary least square (OLS) regression model to empirically test whether the time period between municipalities’ audit report date and state-required repository filing date is associated with general obligation bond interest cost.

We find support for the idea that there is information content in a component of a constrained filing period. In particular, we hypothesize and find a positive association between the time period between an audit report date and a state filing date and general obligation bond interest cost. Seemingly, this component of time may provide something unique or not available in other components of a constrained filing period (e.g. the fiscal year-end date to the audit report date). In post hoc analyses, we also find that both components of the constrained filing period in our setting (i.e. the audit report date to state filing date and the fiscal year-end date to audit report date) need to be considered for either of the components to be significant. Moreover, although both components are necessary, the audit report date to state filing date component appears to have a slightly stronger association (in terms of statistical significance) with general obligation bond interest costs.

To our knowledge, Illinois is the only state that provides a date stamp on when municipalities’ financial information is made publicly available on a centralized repository. As such we focus on municipalities in Illinois. While this increases the internal validity of our research, it potentially limits generalizability across other states. Also, as a reflection of the sample constraint, the number of observations in our study is relatively small. As part of post hoc analyses, we take a closer look at our sample, model and variables used to test our hypothesis.

For stakeholders, each component of a constrained filing period may provide unique information. For example, the time period between an audit report date and a regulated filing date may send a positive signal about the quality of financial management to investors. For regulators, requiring some sort of centralized public access to municipal financial reports that have transparent time constraints may help states provide stronger governance and help lower municipalities’ borrowing costs.

We use a novel approach (with the Illinois date stamp filing information) to examine our research question. Most prior research has often relied on an assumption that the time between fiscal year-end and the audit report date is the component of time that provides useful information to investors (e.g. Henke and Maher, 2016). In our setting, we explore and find that a component of a constrained filing time period (i.e. the date from an audit filing to a required public accessibility filing) may also provide impactful information to investors.

This study aims to investigate the pragmatic issues on the radical call for the establishment of an external Shariah auditor (ESA) in the governance framework of Islamic banks (IBs).

From 11 well-established Malaysian IBs, 16 internal auditors were interviewed to provide an in-depth understanding on how ESA can provide greater assurance to stakeholders in Malaysian IBs.

This study reported mixed acceptance from internal auditors on the proposed additional governance layer to be undertaken by the ESA. Generally, internal auditors reluctantly agreed that Shariah auditing by the ESA would enhance the quality of Shariah assurance but maintain several practical concerns regarding lack of guidelines on Shariah auditing, the additional cost to be borne by IBs and the possible tensions between the ESA and Shariah board (SB) amid the diverse Shariah interpretations available for experts in the field.

The critical point on the manifestation of an ESA in the contemporary IB practice brought by this study highlights the need for regulation and policy promulgation that embrace a comprehensive approach to Shariah audit process within the religio-ethical dogma of Islamic banking and the pragmatic approach to banking.

This study provides evidence on the expected role and competency of an ESA and explores the implications produced by its implementation in Malaysian IBs. This study also clarifies how IBs should delineate the role of Shariah assurance from SB to ESA.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the institutional environment influences auditor reporting.

This study employs China's anti-corruption campaign as an exogenous shock to its institutional environment and compares auditors' issuance of modified audit opinions (MAOs) to small-profit clients before and during the campaign.

This study documents that small-profit clients were more likely to receive MAOs during the anti-corruption campaign period than before, indicating that auditors issued more conservative audit opinions to small-profit clients because of the anti-corruption campaign. Additionally, this study finds that increased auditor conservatism was more pronounced for auditors of large clients.

This study suggests that a weak institutional environment adversely affects auditor conservatism. This offers valuable insights for governments and regulators to improve the audit environment and for audit firms to enhance auditors' integrity and independence.

This study contributes to the research on institutional environments and auditing by observing a unique exogenous event.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the risk of management motives for fraud can be assessed in external audits.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 experienced external auditors to explore their perspectives on the methods they employ to assess the risk of management motives for fraud.

The study identifies six methods external auditors can use to assess management motives for fraud. It emphasises that assessing management motives requires auditors to go beyond understanding these motives and necessitates a sceptical and analytical mindset. Auditors need to identify the accounts most vulnerable to management manipulations, observe management attitudes and assess the credibility of management assertions. The auditors in this study highlight specific accounts frequently manipulated by management. Still, manual year-end journal entries are the most vulnerable to management manipulations as they are subject to fewer controls. They recommend increasing the sample size to 100% and assigning more experienced staff, particularly, those with qualifications in fraud examination or anti-fraud training, to audit these vulnerable accounts thoroughly. They also provided examples of how auditors can identify management motives for fraud, observe management attitudes and assess the credibility of management assertions.

Audit standards (e.g. ISA 240, SAS99) lack explicit guidance on assessing management motives for fraud, but auditors are required to consider it in fraud risk assessment. This study proposes guidance recommendations to improve auditors' ability to assess this risk, which could be integrated into professional audit standards and training materials to improve auditors' professional scepticism, ability to challenge management and skills in fraud risk assessment.

Assessing the risk of management motives for fraud in external audits has received limited attention in the literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address this knowledge gap.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether audit committee characteristics, in particular audit committee size, audit committee activity and audit committee gender diversity, are associated with financial performance in Egyptian banks. The second purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance.

A multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance of a sample of Egyptian banks during the period between 2018 and 2022.

The results indicate that audit committee size has a negative and insignificant effect impact on return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), respectively. The results also indicate that the audit committee gender diversity has a significant positive impact on ROA and ROE, respectively. Regarding audit committee activity, the number of board meetings has a negative and insignificant effect on ROA and ROE, respectively. Regarding gender diversity as a moderating variable, in general there is a positive effect of gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance.

The study was limited to 20 banks in one country, but it sets the tone for future empirical research on this subject matter. The study also relied on one moderating variable, which is board gender diversity. This study provides an avenue for future research in the area of corporate governance and financial performance in other emerging countries, especially other African countries.

This study provides useful insights for managers and policymakers to better understand which audit committee characteristics can best encourage a company to improve financial performance. Furthermore, regulators should ensure that banks strictly adhere to corporate governance principles to build a strong banking industry capable of achieving economic development.

Banks will benefit equally from valuable qualities across demographic groupings in society by having females on the audit committee and appropriate audit committee meetings. Additionally, if audit committee members are correctly selected, banks with more females in audit committee and suitable audit committee meetings can successfully contribute to strengthening financial performance and social welfare of diverse segments of society. A culture of good banking governance must emerge to improve bank financial stability and, as a result, greater stability and economic growth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is, perhaps, the first to examine the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance in Egyptian banks. This study adds to the literature by investigating such an issue in a developing economy that operates in a different context than those in developed countries.

This study aims to investigate the impact of ethical accounting practices on financial reporting quality by using the extended theory of planned behaviour (ETPB) and integrating religiosity as a moderating variable.

Using a survey method, data was obtained from 371 chartered accountants who were in good standing as of April 2023. The collected data were then analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between ethical accounting practices (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and ethical judgement) and financial reporting quality of accounting practitioners. Furthermore, a moderation test was conducted, which demonstrated that religiosity enhances the positive correlation between ethical accounting constructs (attitude, subjective norm and ethical judgement) and financial reporting.

Leading by example, top-level management should actively promote a culture of religiosity that prioritises integrity and adherence to financial reporting requirements.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the very few ethics studies in accounting that demonstrates that the application of the ETPB improves financial reporting quality in a context fraught with allegations of moral breaches by accountants.

This study aims to investigate accounting practices within a non-Western (indigenous) context and provide insights into alternative accounting approaches and perspectives.

This study adopts an interpretive research approach to gain an in-depth insight into the functioning of accounting in Solomon Islands’ unique cultural and social-political context. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain insights into the perceptions and meanings held by participants concerning Western accounting practices and their limitations.

The findings provide unique insights into different interpretations of accounting and accountability through two distinct cultural lenses – Western and non-Western. The complimentary and rival explanations on what accounting and accountability are doing and what accounting and accountability should be doing will help close the gap in knowledge and contribute to shaping a better world for indigenous people.

Implications for practice involve fostering collaborative efforts among individuals, communities, leaders and institutions to harness cultural strengths through accounting. Additionally, continuous capacity building and education are essential to develop accounting skills, enhance financial literacy, promote professional expertise and build a pool of skilled accountants with local knowledge to support indigenous communities.

This study is original and provides novel insights supporting the need for accounting to recognise the importance of indigenous perspectives, adapt to cultural sensitivity and integrate cultural norms and values into accounting practices to make an impact and achieve greater social and moral accountability.

This study aims to investigate climate finance literature to understand whether and how research in this area is explored from an accounting perspective.

This study conducts a meta-analysis and narrative review of climate finance.

The issue of climate finance has received increasing attention in recent years because of international negotiations on climate change. The volume of literature examining climate finance has grown, particularly from a finance perspective. The literature analysed is diverse, using unique methodological and theoretical differences and providing insights into the effectiveness of policies and the impact of climate finance on capital markets, economic growth and the green economy. However, in spite of growing concerns regarding the accounting and reporting issues in climate finance, little attention has been paid to this topic from an accounting, accountability, audit or corporate disclosure perspective.

This study contributes to climate finance research by integrating insights from a dispersed and emerging body of literature by conducting meta-analysis and narrative review. Meta-analysis enables us to map the development of this specific literature and how it has changed over the years, whereas a narrative review serves as a basis for identifying research gaps and developing avenues for future research in accounting, accountability, audit and corporate disclosure.

This study aims to examine the role relational dynamics, grounded in the theories of social exchange and social capital, play within the context of geographic indication (GI) food supply chain network (FSCN) performance.

A total of 30 qualitative interviews were undertaken with key informant stakeholders across a variety of organizations within Turkish GI FSCNs. An open, axial and selective grounded theory coding process was used for the analysis, teasing out critical themes that underpinned the conceptual framework.

The findings identify the formal and informal mechanisms which govern GI FSCNs. These two forms of governance mechanisms influence network performance, which was found to comprise logistics, production, business and socio-economic performance dimensions. Transparency, GI traceability, trust and psychological contract violations were found to mediate the link between governance and network performance outcomes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore GI FSCNs from the perspective of relationship marketing and through the lens of social exchange and social capital theory. Accordingly, both academics and practitioners can benefit from the study, as it unveils relevant relational factors underpinning such networks.