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This study aims to review the literature on non-financial information (NFI) assurance including external assurance of sustainability reports (SRA) and integrated reports (IRA). The objectives are as follows: provide an overview of academic research; understand the nature of NFI assurance engagements by organising the literature around the five key elements of an assurance engagement; develop a framework for understanding NFI assurance; and provide directions for future research.

The study undertakes a structured literature review of 179 articles published from 1999 to 2023.

The review identified 324 researchers located in 35 different countries who published 179 articles on SRA and IRA. The researchers, their locations, journals, methods, theories and themes are examined. The literature is structured around the definition of an assurance engagement including a tripartite arrangement, subject matter, a suitable criterion, sufficient appropriate evidence and a written assurance report. A framework for understanding NFI assurance is offered. Avenues for future research, structured around the five elements of an assurance engagement, are presented.

Researchers will benefit from an overview of the literature and guidance on areas for future research. Lecturers can use the findings to develop content for their auditing courses. Reporting managers will benefit from a better understanding of this new form of assurance. Regulators can use this study’s insights to better inform the development of laws and corporate governance codes mandating NFI assurance. Standard setters can use these findings to guide the emergence of the new assurance standards. Assurance practitioners may use this research to inform practice.

The findings may prove useful in addressing capture, which deters NFI assurance from enhancing disclosure credibility and fulfilling its transparency and accountability role. This is to the detriment of the wider society.

The consolidation of the literature around the five key elements of an assurance engagement is unique. The framework devised offers useful insights into the dynamics of assurance generally and NFI assurance more specifically. The study is timely given the new European Union regulations on NFI reporting and assurance and the work of the International Audit and Assurance Standards Board in developing a specialist NFI assurance standard.

This paper aims to explore the impact of corruption (CP) on income inequality (IN) by considering the size of informal sector (IFS) at different levels of percentiles.

This paper uses a panel quantile regression approach for a sample of 50 developing countries. The study also applies panel co-integration (Kao residual co-integration test) in order to examine the long-run relationship between CP and IN.

This paper using a panel quantile regression approach shows that the high incidence of IFS in an economy marginalizes CP's positive effect because it works as a source of poor peoples' livelihood and skillful individuals. The spread of IFSs in the developing economies may raise earnings among groups and individuals who remain unemployed. Moreover, the results show that CP creates asymmetry in income distribution; fascinatingly, the asymmetric income distribution is high when CP is at higher percentiles.

Due to non-availability of IFS, we restrict our analysis up to 50 developing countries.

CP devastates the effectiveness of institutions over time. Therefore, the government should have to take bold steps to reduce CP in society. Another policy implication of this study is that the government should reduce CP to decrease IN in less developing countries. Moreover, to increase the net base, the authorities need to bring IFS under the umbrella of regulation to avoid inequality in society. In developing economies, a higher part of labor force is related to IFS; therefore, our findings suggest a dire need to reduce labor exploitation in IFS. The policymakers can reduce labor exploitation by reducing the size of IFS, which ultimately reduces IN.

On the basis of the authors’ findings, this paper further suggests that it is mandatory for government to reduce CP in order to reduce IN. Moreover, to reduce IN, one needs to reduce the size of IFS.

This study is unique as it is the first that examined the role of IFS in establishing the effect of CP on IN for developing countries at different percentiles.

This paper aims to examine the effects of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment of Islamic stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study uses a panel data set that covers 398 listed Islamic stocks from seven major Asia Pacific countries over the period of five years from 2017 to 2021, yielding 1,990 observations. Specifically, this paper investigates the said association by combining the real options theory regarding investment and the panel data-based econometric method that captures the dynamic relationship, the generalized method of moments estimators.

The findings show that the relationship between the oil price volatility and corporate investment of Islamic stocks is significant and nonlinear in nature, suggesting the presence of both the growth options and the waiting options. Overall, the results reveal that corporate investment of Islamic stocks is hindered during the unprecedented corona crash, when oil price increases at exponential rates.

The findings suggest that considering the information caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for investment decisions of Islamic stocks. Therefore, policymakers and regulators should incorporate the impact of oil price uncertainties caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic on firm’s investment expansion and diversification strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the relationship between the investment of Islamic stocks and the oil price uncertainty under compound options theory in top Asian oil-importing countries.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted all economies, businesses and societies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and present a case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of its relevance amidst the turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The authors use a directed content analysis approach to retrieve relevant information from news articles using Thomson Reuters’ Eikon^® and Bloomberg^® databases. Based on stakeholder theory, the authors evaluate some of the CSR initiatives undertaken by organizations around the world. The authors then undertake a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses standard to provide possible implications for organizations.

The findings suggest that in response to the pandemic, corporations from both developed and developing countries have been pursuing CSR measures for stakeholder engagement. The systematic literature review signals positive outcomes that companies might expect at the organizational level. The paper concludes by suggesting research propositions that indicate effective CSR at a time of crisis like COVID-19 encourages stakeholder partnerships and helps to gain a competitive advantage.

The authors present an overview of the CSR responses taken by firms globally in response to the pandemic by way of stakeholder engagement. The authors analyze the stakeholders targeted through such initiatives and report possible implications based on the extant literature. The findings of the study can be used to understand the various transitions that happen in an unprecedented situation like COVID-19 at all levels of business and society.

This study aimed at exploring the differential effects of different corporate governance (CG) indicators on risk management practices in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and conventional financial institutions (CFIs) of Pakistan. It also investigated the moderating role of institutional quality (IQ) in shaping the effects of CG practices on financial institutions of Pakistan.

A sample of 57 financial institutions including commercial banks, insurance companies and Modarba companies over the period 2006–2017 is used to carry out the empirical analysis. The authors applied the robust two-step system-generalized method of moments estimator, which is also called the dynamic panel data estimator. They also built the PCA-based composite index of CG and IQ by using different indicators to investigate the moderating role of IQ. They used three proxies for risk taking, five for CG and one for Shari’ah governance. To test the validity of the instruments, they applied the Arellano and Bond’s (1991) AR (1) and AR (2) tests and the J-statistic of Hansen (1982).

The results provided strong evidence that several individual characteristics of CG and the composite index are significantly related to the operational risk, the liquidity risk and the Z-score (a proxy for solvency risk). The results also revealed that IQ significantly and substantially contributes in reducing the level of risks. Finally, the estimation results indicated that the effects of CG on risk management are significantly different at IFIs and CFIs. This differential impact is mainly attributed to the fundamental differences in business models, operational strategies and contractual obligations of both types of institutions.

The findings of this study are important for enhancing our understanding of how CG relates to risk taking in Islamic and conventional financial services industries and how good quality institutions are important for formulating the governance effects on the risk-taking behavior of financial institutions. The findings suggest that a suitable size of board should be chosen to manage the risk effectively. As the findings show that the risk-taking behavior of IFIs differs from that of CFIs, the regulators and international standard setting bodies should tailor the regulatory frameworks accordingly.

This paper is different from the existing studies in four aspects. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical investigation in Pakistan, which does the comparison of IFIs and CFIs while examining the impacts of CG on risk management. Second, the paper constructs the composite index of CG by considering several different indicators of governance and examines the combined effect of governance indicators on risk management process. Third, this paper adds to the growing literature on the role of IQ by investigating whether it acts as a moderator between CG structures and risk management and if yes, then whether this moderating role is different for IFIs and CFIs. Finally, the paper builds upon the existing research work on the CG effects for different types of financial institutions by proposing a single regression based analytical framework for comparing the effects across two different types of institutions, harvesting the benefits of higher degrees of freedom and avoiding/minimizing the measurement error.

Urban areas, especially in the coastal region of Bangladesh, face environmental degradation due to rapid urbanization, uncontrolled socio-economic activities and experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change. Nature-based solutions (NbS) as options for restoring, preserving, maintaining and elevating natural features or systems are becoming popular for reducing vulnerabilities caused either by natural hazards or human-induced activities. With this understanding, this study aims to explore the need of practicing NbS by studying the condition of a tidal canal (known as Thakurani Khal) and its peripheral areas of Mongla Port Municipality, a coastal and seaport town in Bangladesh.

This case study-based research uses multiple inquiries, including focus group discussions, pair-wise comparison, observation, GIS-based mapping, key informant interviews and secondary climate data review, to understand the spatial development of the area and community reactions to the changes in the urban environment.

The natural water flow of this canal is controlled by sluice gates that indirectly allowed the dweller to encroach its lands and convert the canal into a solid waste dumping area. These human-induced activities as well as the climate change-induced events (i.e. extreme heat, intensive and irregular rainfall, increased number of cyclones, etc.) have made the adjacent areas prone to waterlogging and drainage congestion. In this context, the revival of the original natural quality of the canal has been identified as an alternative to ensuring an adaptive urban environment.

This research highlights the importance of practicing NbS for developing urban resilience in the context of climate change.

Corporate corruption reporting (CCR) is an emerging issue of the corporation for measuring transparency, integrity and accountability to the stakeholders and society. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of CCR and financial management responsibility regarding the issue of corruption control.

To explore the influences of corruption disclosure, this study considers the keywords-based content analysis of the listed financial firms of the Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh for 2012–2016. The research considers stakeholders and theoretical legitimacy lens for discussing corporate corruption disclosure. This study identified 143 self-driven keywords by classifying, analyzing and selecting the appropriate large set of keywords from the prior literature. This study examines 247 firm-year observations of all financial firms in Bangladesh using secondary data sources.

The results of the hierarchical regression analysis report that financial firms following Sharia principles have a negative and significant association with CCR, while Big4 has a positive and significant influence. Moreover, the interaction effect of Big4 on the relationship between Sharia principles and CCR is negative and insignificant. The findings reported that Islamic financial firms disclose less corruption information than conventional financial firms in Bangladesh.

This study findings are expected to significantly impact corporate management and policymakers of developing and highly corrupted economies to enhance corporate accountability, transparency and reputation. The regulatory body can consider the findings to promulgate anti-corruption reporting rules and regulations.

The authors believe the theoretical lens used to support the method and findings of this paper are unique and novel.

The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of anti-corruption disclosures by construction firms in Asia-Pacific countries.

The sample comprises construction companies from seven Asia-Pacific countries from 2015 to 2019. The authors hand-collected data on anti-corruption disclosures by using content analysis.

This study provides empirical evidence that government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors increase companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. Meanwhile, this study finds that uncertainty avoidance does not affect companies’ anti-corruption disclosures.

This study has a number of implications. First, government and professional accountant organizations need to improve accountants’ knowledge and competence through education, training and continuous professional development. Second, public accounting firms need to ensure the quality of their auditors, particularly in the technical competence in financial and nonfinancial reporting. Finally, universities must improve and update their curriculum regarding nonfinancial reporting issues.

This study is among the first to examine anti-corruption disclosure practices in the most corrupted settings, i.e. the construction industry in Asia-Pacific countries. It uses the isomorphism perspective to explain the influence of government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors on anti-corruption disclosure transparency. The number of prior studies investigating this association is very limited. Moreover, disclosures of anti-corruption information are complex and sensitive; thus, coercive, normative and mimetic pressures are required to achieve higher transparency and sustainability.

The objective of this study is to construct a theoretical framework concerning wage determination, grounded in principles and supplemented by conventional theories. It discusses the Islamic perspectives on minimum wage and examines contemporary challenges and intricacies in its application.

This study uses thematic analysis to create the conceptual framework, drawing upon a review of pertinent literature such as academic papers, books and articles published up to 2023.

The framework encompasses various categories, namely, employee characteristics, job characteristics, market factors, compensation practices and Islamic principles. Each category consists of multiple variables. The resulting framework offers a holistic and ethically grounded methodology for wage determination, aligning with both Islamic and conventional perspectives. This study notes the absence of a universally agreed-upon minimum wage. Islamic economics faces challenges due to the unclear application of principles, limited awareness, legal constraints and a lack of empirical evidence on wage systems, along with complexities in their implementation.

The paper’s limited scope focuses solely on the Islamic perspective on wage determination, without comparing it to the conventional viewpoint. This may have implications for future research.

The insights on Islamic principles and wage determination guide scholars and policymakers interested in promoting just and equitable wages.

This study is distinct in its integration of various factors to propose an all-encompassing framework for wage determination, rooted in the Quran and principles, while also reinforcing the framework with conventional theories. Additionally, it adds to the growing body of literature by investigating the Quran’s stance and principles on minimum wage, as well as discusses the challenges involved in implementing an Islamic approach to wage determination, which has received limited attention in Islamic literature.