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The FDIC Improvement Act of 1991 sets out five categories of capital and mandates corrective action for banks. Each bank based on its capital amount fall in the certain categories or states. The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of banking regulations and supervisory practices on capital state transition.

First, the authors investigate how much the practices influence banks' capital adequacy using a dynamic panel data method, the generalized method of moments. Then, to scrutinize the results of the first phase, the authors estimate the effect of practices on some characteristics of capital state transition such as transition intensity, transition probability and state sojourn time using multi-state models for panel data in 107 developing countries over the period 2000 to 2012.

The dynamic regression results show that capital guidelines, supervisory power and supervisory structure can have significantly positive effects on the capital adequacy state. Moreover, the multi-state Markov panel data model estimation results show that the significantly positive-effect practices can change the capital state transition intensity considerably; for example, they can transmit the critical-under-capitalized (the lowest) capital state of banks directly to a well or the adequate-capitalized (the highest) capital state without passing through middle states (under-capitalized and significantly-undercapitalized). Moreover, the results present some new evidence on transition probability and state sojourn time.

The main contribution of this paper, unlike the existing literature, is to consider the power of banking regulations and supervisory practices to improve the capital state using a multi-state Markov panel data model.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The United States defense industry has had a long history of unethical and illegal business practices. Recent polls find that most Americans believe that their nation’s weapon acquisition system is one of the worst managed activities in the public or private sectors and the defense industry is neither efficient nor honestly managed. Although the defense acquisition process has been the subject of many reform efforts, it is reasonable to ask whether these reform efforts have had any success. The Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Conduct, commonly known as DII, is the defense industry’s selfgoverned program responding to the concern regarding ethical business practices in defense procurement. This study is to assess the Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Conduct in an attempt to find the perceived impact of this self-governed compliance program.

This research analyses the impact of customers and government regulations on the implementation of socio-environmental practices in certifying organic agricultural products. It explores the dyad’s relationship between the focal company and its suppliers in the application of socio-environmental practices.

This study uses a quantitative methodology through a survey approach, with a sample of 206 agro-extractivists from the acai berry supply chain. The data are evaluated using regression analysis.

The main results reveal that customer pressure positively influences the implementation of social and environmental practices, but suggest a non-significant relationship between government regulations and the impact on environmental practices implementation. Social and environmental practices are positively related to operational performance. A moderating effect of organic certification is found in the relationship between customer pressure and the application of environmental practices.

The main contributions are exploring the use of socio-environmental practices in an emerging economy and organic certification as a moderating variable, revealing an “institutional void” that may hamper the enforcement of government regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and development of corporate accounting regulation in Libya.

Questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview methods were used to collect data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with external auditors, financial managers, accounting academics and regulators.

This paper found general agreement that the accounting regulation of public corporations and banks is strongly influenced by the Libyan Commercial Code and the Income Tax Law. Although listed companies and the banking sector in Libya are required to comply with International Accounting Standards (IASs), the majority of them still comply with the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP). Moreover, the conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that the enforcement of IASs through the Libyan Accountants and Auditors Association (LAAA), local auditors and the Libyan Stock Market has not achieved its purpose. The results also indicate that the accounting profession in Libya is still in its infancy and still lacks clear structure in order to develop corporate accounting practice and it appears to play only an important role in retaining external influences on the accounting practice. The empirical results of this research show that the Salter and Niswander (1995) criteria (longevity, setting exam and auditors’ opinion on companies’ financial reports) found that the level of professionalism in Libya is below the required standard.

This paper focuses on corporate accounting regulation and practices and the role of the LAAA in the development of corporate accounting in Libya. This paper, therefore, aims to contribute to the literature by examining the corporate accounting regulation in Libya and fills a gap in international accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enactment of safety routines in a transshipment port. Research on work safety and reliability has largely neglected the role of the workers’ knowledge in practice in the enactment of organisational safety. The workers’ lack of compliance with safety regulations represents an enduring problem that often involves first-level managers, who are willing to turn a blind eye toward divergent practices. The CHAT conceptual vocabulary and theoretical model is used to explore this issue.

A grounded, empirical study in a large transshipment port in the Mediterranean area is conducted. Ethnographic methods including participant observation and interviews are used, and emerging data are analyzed through an interpretive methodology. The paper explores 30 employees’ narrated accounts of how safety rules are enacted or infringed while living and working in the field in a transshipment port. Data obtained through organisational shadowing provided secondary data. Interview data were analyzed using content analysis, using a CHAT framework. Constant comparison and theoretical sensitivity were pursued through an iterative analysis process.

This study documented the critical role the workers’ knowledge played in practice in ensuring the efficient functioning of the port, and evidenced that the disconnect between safety procedures and technical productivity standards is the most important factor determining the erratic compliance with prescribed procedures. The selective application of safety norms was deliberate in nature, collectively shared and culturally regulated.

This contribution fails to address probably the most important aspect of the activity theoretical approach: its developmental orientation. The initial analysis intervention was meant to lead to a longitudinal process of expansive learning and development in the activity system. The authors had planned to initiate a cycle of expansive learning laboratories involving representatives of the dockworkers, the port management and the safety certification firm, but this had to be postponed to an undefined time due to the significant changes occurred in the international maritime cargo industry and the decision of the multinational company who owns the transshipment port to cut down its cargo traffic and privilege other ports in the Mediterranean area.

The practical implications of the case study concern the conception and design of safety training and management for the port organisation. By acknowledging the disconnect between espoused safety routines and the constraints and affordances of the workers’ everyday work practice, it is suggested that safety training could be more effective if it engaged the workers (or first-level supervisors) in the fine tuning of safety regulations. Workplace learning opportunities could enable the workers to learn and construct situated safety practices.

This paper seeks to highlight how the consideration of local knowledge and context-dependent practices can achieve better comprehension of situated application of safety norms.

The paper contributes to understanding the complexity of enacting and translating safety procedures into everyday work practices.

This paper aims to explore how environmental management practices impact different dimensions of corporate sustainability. It also explores the mediating impact of environmental regulation and reports on the relationship between environmental management practice and corporate sustainability.

A brief focus group discussion and a preliminary test were conducted through a focused group meeting with industry experts before data were collected from senior management of 116 registered operations in the hospitality and tourism industry in the Maldives. To analyse the data, a mediation model is proposed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

Results showed that environmental management practices have a direct and positive effect on corporate sustainability. Furthermore, environmental regulation and reporting positively mediate the effect of environmental management practices on corporate sustainability. Among the sustainability dimensions, it is important to note that the social sustainability aspect has the highest impact, followed by the economic and environmental aspects of corporate sustainability.

Findings provide empirical evidence in understanding achieving corporate sustainability through environmental management practices. The study is practical for stakeholders and policymakers to follow through with the environmental regulations and be transparent on environmental reporting measures that impact overall sustainability.

This study serves as noteworthy research for stakeholders to evaluate against regulatory and reporting requirements for businesses they invest in the future. It adds value to the literature and attempts to advance environmental management and sustainability research in the context of small island developing states.

The purpose of this study is to examine both the responses of auditees to corporate governance audit (CGA) regulation and the practices of CGA auditors.

The study used a mixed method. Content analysis of 200 annual and CGA reports was carried out for 13 years, from 2008 to 2021, split into voluntary disclosure and mandatory disclosure periods. Quantitative analysis was also conducted using Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn's tests. Data gathered were interpreted through the lens of isomorphism and Oliver's (1991) strategic responses to institutional processes.

The study revealed that in the voluntary disclosure period, auditees responded mainly with acquiescence, motivated by mimetic isomorphic pressure. In the mandatory disclosure period, auditee responses ranged from acquiescence to dismissal of corporate governance regulation (i.e. coercive isomorphic pressure). Auditor reporting of CGA findings was found to be heterogeneous, suggesting that normative and mimetic isomorphism did not homogenize auditor practices.

The absence of uniform auditee responses to CGA regulation during the mandatory disclosure period suggests that the purpose of mandating the regulation has not yet been achieved and may signal inadequate coercive isomorphic pressure from the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN). Similarly, heterogeneous reporting of CGA findings by corporate governance auditors inhibits the comparability of audit findings, limiting their value for information users.

This study examines corporate governance auditor practices and auditee responses to corporate governance audit regulation.

This paper introduces the special issue “Rebuilding trust: Sustainability and non-financial reporting, and the European Union regulation”. Inspired by the studies published in the special issue, this study aims to examine the concept of accountability within the context of the European Union (EU) Directive on non-financial disclosure (hereafter the EU Directive) to offer a critique and a novel perspective for future research into mandatory non-financial reporting (NFR) and to advance future practice and policy.

The authors review the papers published in this special issue and other contemporary studies on the topic of NFR and the EU Directive.

Accountability is a fundamental concept for building trust in the corporate reporting context and emerges as a common topic linking contemporary studies on the EU Directive. While the EU Directive acknowledges the role of accountability in the reporting practice, this study argues that regulation and practice on NFR needs to move away from an accounting-based conception of accountability to promote accountability-based accounting practices (Dillard and Vinnari, 2019). By analysing the links between trust, accountability and accounting and reporting, the authors claim the need to examine and rethink the inscription of interests into non-financial information (NFI) and its materiality. Hence, this study encourages research and practice to broaden mandatory NFR practice over the traditional boundaries of accountability, reporting and formal accounting systems.

Considering the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, this study calls for further research to investigate the dialogical accountability underpinning NFR in practice to avoid the trap of focusing on accounting changes regardless of accountability. The authors advocate that what is needed is more timely NFI that develops a dialogue between companies, investors, national regulators, the EU and civil society, not more untimely standalone reporting that has most likely lost its relevance and materiality by the time it is issued to users.

By highlighting accountability issues in the context of mandatory NFR and its linkages with trust, this study lays out a case for moving the focus of research and practice from accounting-based regulations towards accountability-driven accounting change.

This study aims to examine the determinants of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sustainability practices in New Zealand from the triple bottom line (3BL) perspective. Unlike large companies and government agencies whose sustainability practices are driven by regulations and attempts to legitimise business operations, little is known about the drivers of SMEs’ sustainability practices.

A cross-sectional survey approach was adopted for the data collection. The analysis was mainly descriptive, while the covariates’ effects were measured based on partial least squares structural equation modelling.

This paper identified that SMEs’ 3BL practices are significantly influenced by local bylaws, voluntary adoption of 3BL operational policies and company size. This paper finds that the SMEs’ industry type is not statistically significant as a determinant of their 3BL practices. This implies that regulation and operational policies increase sustainability practices in the SME sector.

These findings provide insights to SMEs’ managers on the importance of sustainability policies adoption and bylaws. Government departments and local government councils could adopt the findings in developing regulatory policies that support SMEs’ 3BL.

This study provides support for economically, environmentally and socially sustainable business practices amongst SMEs.

A dearth of studies on SMEs sustainability practices exists in the extant literature, particularly in New Zealand. The study focusses on SMEs sustainability in the viewpoint of 3BL practices based on an empirical analysis.