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This paper aims to examine the effects of the 2014 European regulatory reform on auditors’ activity, the audit outcome and the audit market, with a focus on the Spanish market.

The research is based on in-depth, semistructured interviews with partners of the main audit firms operating in the Spanish market. This qualitative approach provides a precise identification of the cause-effect relationships of the new measures introduced by the European audit regulation.

The findings indicate that, based on auditors’ opinions, the costs of the main regulatory changes outweigh the benefits. The European Union (EU) Audit Regulation imposes more demanding provisions, such as an extended auditor’s report, mandatory audit firm rotation, more banned nonaudit services and stricter quality controls, resulting in substantial side effects on audit activity and the audit market. This could undermine the objective of enhancing the quality of audit services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the effect of the 2014 EU regulatory reform on audit activity, audit market and audit outcome based on auditors’ perceptions. The findings may be of interest to academics, professionals and regulators alike, as they offer valuable insights for assessing the effectiveness of the new audit provisions. Additionally, the qualitative methodology used facilitates a causal analysis of the key elements introduced by the regulations, potentially paving the way for future research avenues.

Tourism value chain (TVC) analysis has been widely used as an alternative approach for designing sustainable and inclusive programs for tourism development in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. This chapter looks at the experiences of three sustainable tourism initiatives in the Philippines to assess the strengths and limitations of the value chain as a framework for destination development. Short case studies describe the experiences of stakeholders in two popular destinations in the Philippines: the surfing town of San Juan, La Union, and the resort-island of Panglao, Bohol. The third case study shares the perspective of the Transforming the Tourism Value Chain (TTVC) project, a national campaign for more sustainable hotels, resort as well as meetings, conventions, incentives, and event (MICE) facilities in various destinations around the country. Stakeholders deeply involved in implementing these projects share their insights on the successes, challenges, and limitations of TVC-based approaches to resilient and sustainable destination development. The destinations' experiences suggest that the advocacy for sustainable management and operations may be comparable to a process of technology adoption or acceptance along the TVC. Practical and theoretical recommendations for leveraging the TVC toward more holistic and sustainable visitor economies are given at the end of this chapter.

This paper aims to provide a starting point to discuss how social enterprises can drive systemic change in terms of social impact through operations and supply chain management.

This paper reviews existing literature and the four papers in this special issue and develops a conceptual framework of how social enterprises and their supply chains create social impact and further enable systematic change.

Our paper finds that social impact and systemic change can be shaped by social enterprises at three different levels of analysis (organization, supply chain and context) and through three enablers (cognitive shift, stakeholder collaboration and scalability). Such dimensions are used to position current literature and to highlight new research directions.

This paper proposes a novel understanding of operations and supply chain management in social enterprises intended as catalysts for systemic change. Based on this premise we distinguish different practices and stakeholders to be considered when studying social impact at different levels. The conceptual framework introduced in the paper provides a new pathway for future research and debate by scholars engaged at the intersection of social impact, sustainable operations and supply chain management.

HRM decentralization and devolution have been highlighted as key HRM processes in organizations’ quest for increased flexibility. Although they have been extensively studied in the MNC and International HRM literature, they have mainly been examined on a separate basis, and their definition and operationalization have often been confused. Thus, we first clarify the difference between the two concepts by refining the definitions by Hoogendoorn and Brewster (1992), and then empirically examine how they are related.

The relationship between HRM decentralization and devolution is examined by means of a survey in a large multi-country sample of multi-unit organizations.

Regarding our clarification objective, we contend that devolution has to do with who takes responsibilities for HRM (i.e. line managers or HRM professionals) while decentralization refers to where HRM responsibilities are allocated (i.e. headquarters or increasingly local units). Regarding the relationship between the two concepts, the results show that higher levels of HRM decentralization are related to higher levels of devolution, but this association is attenuated in organizations with more powerful HRM departments.

The study contributes to theory and practice by disentangling, at the conceptual, operational, empirical and practical levels, two different but related HRM decisions (how much to devolve and how much to decentralize HRM) that organizations must make to efficiently cope with the characteristics of their own structure and competitive environment. It highlights the role of the relative power of HRM departments in how HRM responsibilities are ultimately distributed across the organization.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the integrated application of business process modeling and notation (BPMN) and value stream mapping (VSM) to improve knowledge work performance and productivity in police services. In order to explore the application of the hybrid BPMN-VSM approach in police services, this study uses the department of digital crime investigation (DCI) in one Norwegian police district as a case study.

Service process identification was the next step after selecting an appropriate organizational unit for the case study. BPMN-VSM-based current state mapping, including time and waste analyses, was used to determine cycle and lead time and identify value-adding and nonvalue-adding activities. Subsequently, improvement opportunities were identified, and the current state process was re-designed and constructed through future state mapping.

The study results indicate a 44.4% and 83.0% reduction in process cycle and lead time, respectively. This promising result suggests that the hybrid BPMN-VSM approach can support the visualization of bottlenecks and possible causes of increased lead times, followed by the systematic identification and proposals of avenues for future improvement and innovation to remedy the discovered inefficiencies in a complex knowledge-work environment.

This study focused on one department in a Norwegian police district. However, the experience gained can support researchers and practitioners in understanding lean implementation through an integrated BPMN and VSM model, offering a unique insight into the ability to investigate complex systems.

Complex knowledge work processes generally characterize police services due to a high number of activities, resources and stakeholder involvement. Implementing lean thinking in this context is significantly challenging, and the literature on this topic is limited. This study addresses the applicability of the hybrid BPMN-VSM approach in police services with an original public sector case study in Norway.

This study aims to work toward understanding the entrepreneurship ecosystem of agricultural social enterprises in the Philippines by exploring the interactions between policy, culture, supports and human capital domains.

The authors considered using an exploratory single-embedded case study approach, involving methodological triangulation of document analysis, semistructured interviews and participant observation. The authors analyzed the data using a narrative approach to map the ecosystem.

Through the research, the authors discovered that while each domain functions effectively individually, disconnects exist when interacting collectively as an ecosystem. The authors come to know that there is no policy consensus on social enterprise definitions, which limits specialized policy support. Although support services like incubators are available, the authors observed that awareness and accessibility vary based on location and business maturity. The authors also noted that human capital helps translate concepts into frameworks, but research tailored to agriculture and social entrepreneurship is limited. The authors come to the conclusion that collaboration and openness across domains are needed to strengthen connections and synergies.

The study was geographically limited to Luzon Island, and the authors did not include the finance and markets domains of the ecosystem model in the analysis.

Based on the findings, the authors identify strategies to reinforce connections, such as increasing awareness of support services, developing tailored policies for social enterprises, conducting specialized research and promoting collaboration across domains. The authors are convinced that implementing these strategies can further develop the agricultural social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The study provides unique empirical insights into the agricultural social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Philippines. The authors captured the narratives and experiences of key ecosystem stakeholders along the process. The authors have confidence that what the authors found can strategically guide policymakers and support organizations, educational institutions and social entrepreneurs to accelerate ecosystem development for greater social impact.

This research paper investigates variances in auditors’ attitudes toward dysfunctional audit behavior (DAB) in two different time periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in DAB among experienced/inexperienced auditors as well as differences between male/female auditors while facing time budget and time deadline pressures.

This study uses surveys administered to a group of junior auditors joining a Big 4 firm in the UK and compares the results to surveys completed by the same group of auditors after three years of experience. The survey assesses participant’s perception of DAB in the presence of time budget and time deadline.

The results of this paper show that experienced auditors have more tolerant views of DAB then inexperienced auditors. In terms of gender, inexperienced male auditors are more accepting of DAB when compared to their inexperienced female counterparts. Female auditors surveyed in both time periods seem to be unfavorable of DAB.

The uniqueness of this study derives from the fact that it explores the same group of auditors and assesses variances in their perception of DAB in two different periods over a passage of three years during which inexperienced auditors become experienced.

This study aims to examine how women on board influence quality and quantity disclosure of emissions discharge by the listed non-financial firms for the period of six years (2016–2021), with institutional ownership as a moderator.

The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed non-financial firms. A content analysis technique was employed to compute emissions disclosure indexes using Global Reporting Initiatives standards from the sampled firms. Random and fixed effect regression analyses were run for both direct and moderation models. Based on the results of the Hausman tests, random results were adopted and used in examining the relationship.

The result reveals that women on board are significantly related to emission disclosure. The study also documented that institutional owners have not influenced the relationship between women directors and emissions disclosure.

The study's findings have practical implications for emerging economies, corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the emissions control and reduction issues toward sustainable development goals 5, 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders.

Listed firms in emerging economies would gain sincerity through the women directors’ knowledge, skills, demographics and ethnicity in the society. Therefore, corporate bodies in emerging economies can successfully contribute toward improving the social welfare of various segments of society by controlling current and future climate issues. Additionally, society will surely benefit when firms control the pollution discharges within the community.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that provides empirical evidence on the effect of the presence of women on board on emissions disclosure using institutional ownership as a moderator in Nigeria.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the benefits and challenges of implementing circular economy (CE), as well as shed light on the influence of procurement strategy in CE implementation in construction projects.

A qualitative research approach with abductive reasoning was adopted. The empirical data were collected from the construction industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The results reveal that clients, consultants and contractors have limited awareness, knowledge and motivation to implement CE in construction projects. The absence of incentives to design projects following CE principles, lack of involvement of contractors and suppliers, non-use of materials that use CE principles and current procurement strategies are the main challenges for the implementation of CE in the UAE.

Previous research offers limited knowledge on CE and its implementation in construction projects particularly from a procurement strategy perspective. The findings of the study provide new knowledge of the benefits, challenges and role of procurement strategy for implementing CE. It is suggested that collaborative and partnering-based procurement methods are needed to facilitate the effective implementation of CE.

The purpose of the this study is to discover the impact of practices of knowledge management, intellectual property protection and management innovation on entrepreneurial leadership, which in turn leads to sustainable growth in small and medium-sized enterprises.

The data was collected from 292 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the USA using a cross-sectional survey. To evaluate the study hypotheses and analyse the data, structural equation modelling was used. SMART-PLS software was used for both confirmatory factor analysis and structural analysis.

The work has significantly contributed in revealing that knowledge management practices, management innovation and intellectual property protection have a substantial and constructive impact on entrepreneurial leadership, which in turn leads to sustainable growth in SMEs.

The study findings recommend that SMEs must focus on knowledge management practices, intellectual property protection and management innovation to nurture entrepreneurial leadership, which can lead to sustainable growth. SMEs can benefit from investing in knowledge management practices, protecting their intellectual property and innovating their management practices to achieve sustainable growth. Also, the absorptive capacity of an SME can help it to aggravate the impact of the above factors and lead them to sustainable growth faster.

The current work studies the association between knowledge management practices, intellectual property protection, management innovation, entrepreneurial leadership and sustainable growth in SMEs, thus contributing to the literature. The study provides insights into the factors that can nurture entrepreneurial leadership and contribute to sustainable growth in SMEs, which can inform policy and practice in the field of entrepreneurship.