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This study aims to investigate how gender diversity and remuneration of boards of directors’ influence earnings quality for Spanish-listed firms.

The sample includes 105 nonfinancial Spanish firms from 2013 to 2018, corresponding to an unbalanced panel of 491 firm-year observations. The primary empirical method uses a Tobit semiparametric estimator with firm- and industry-level fixed effects and an innovative set of measures for earnings quality developed by StarMine.

Results exhibit a positive correlation between increased gender diversity and a firm’s earnings quality, suggesting that a gender-balanced board of directors is associated with more transparent financial reporting and informative earnings. We also find a nonmonotonic, concave relationship between board remuneration and earnings quality. This indicates that beyond a certain point, excessive board compensation leads to more opportunistic manipulation of financial reporting with subsequent degradation of earnings quality.

This study only covers nonfinancial Spanish listed firms and is silent about how alternative board features’ influence earnings quality and their informativeness.

This study introduces measures of earnings quality developed by StarMine that have not been used in the empirical literature before as well as measures of board gender diversity applied to a suitable Tobit semiparametric estimator for fixed effects that improves the precision of results. In addition, while most of the literature focuses on Anglo-Saxon countries, this study discusses board gender diversity and board remuneration in the underexplored context of Spain. Moreover, the hand-collected data set comprising financial reports provides previously untested board features as well as a nonlinear relationship between remuneration and earnings quality that has not been thoroughly discussed before.

This study aims to focus on how smartphone addiction impacts young consumer behavior related to mobile technology (i.e. the compulsive app downloading tendency). After a thorough literature review and following the risk and protective factors framework, this study explores factors that could mitigate its effects (resilience, family harmony, perceived social support and social capital).

The study used the covariance-based structural equation modeling approach to analyze data collected from 275 Generation Z (Gen Z) smartphone users in Spain.

Results suggest that resilience is a critical factor in preventing smartphone addiction, and smartphone addiction boosts the compulsive app downloading tendency, a relevant downside for younger Gen Z consumers.

Through the lens of the risk and protective factors framework, this study focuses on protective factors to prevent smartphone addiction and its negative side effects on app consumption. It also offers evidence of younger consumers’ vulnerability to smartphone addiction, not because of the device itself but because of app-consumption-related behaviors.

This systematic review paper aims to investigate seasonal ambient change’s impact on the incidence of falls among older adults.

The population, exposure, outcome (PEO) structured framework was used to frame the research question prior to using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis framework. Three databases were searched, and a total of 12 studies were found for inclusion, and quality appraisal was carried out. Data extraction was performed, and narrative analysis was carried out.

Of the 12 studies, 2 found no link between seasonality and fall incidence. One study found fall rates increased during warmer months, and 9 of the 12 studies found that winter months and their associated seasonal changes led to an increase in the incidence in falls. The overall result was that cooler temperatures typically seen during winter months carried an increased risk of falling for older adults.

Additional research is needed, most likely examining the climate one lives in. However, the findings are relevant and can be used to inform health-care providers and older adults of the increased risk of falling during the winter.

This paper aims to integrate insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective to explain how the historical and social attainment discrepancies motivate firms to change. Specifically, this paper proposes that a negative historical attainment discrepancy encourages the firm to engage in strategic change to solve its performance problems. In contrast, this paper advanced that a positive social attainment discrepancy motivates strategic change as a mechanism to bolster the firm’s position within the industry. Further, this paper integrated the moderating effects of industry dynamism and industry munificence.

This paper tests hypotheses using panel data on 2,435 US public firms over the years from 1996 to 2018. This paper uses a fixed-effects regression model to empirically test these hypotheses.

This paper finds empirical support for the effects of both the negative historical attainment discrepancy and the positive social attainment discrepancy on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. As for the hypothesized moderating effects, this paper finds that industry munificence accentuated the effects of both attainment discrepancies on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. However, the results do not support the hypothesized moderating effect of industry dynamism on either of these attainment discrepancies.

This paper contributes to the research on the separate effects of historical and social comparisons within the context of strategic change. Further, the paper bolsters our understanding of how performance feedback increases the firm’s tendency to change. Finally, the paper integrates theoretical views from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective on how socially high-performing firms may build and sustain their competitive advantage through organizational change.

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).

By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.

A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.

The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

The various quality improvement (QI) frameworks and maturity models described in the health services literature consider some aspects of QI while excluding others. This paper aims to present a concerted attempt to create a quality improvement maturity model (QIMM) derived from holistic principles underlying the successful implementation of system-wide QI programmes.

A hybrid methodology involving a systematic review (Phase 1) of over 270 empirical research articles and books developed the basis for the proposed QIMM. It was followed by expert interviews to refine the core constructs and ground the proposed QIMM in contemporary QI practice (Phase 2). The experts included academics in two academic conferences and 59 QI managers from the New Zealand health-care system. In-depth interviews were conducted with QI managers to ascertain their views on the QIMM and its applicability in their respective health organisations (HOs).

The QIMM consists of four dimensions of organisational maturity, namely, strategic, process, supply chain and philosophical maturity. These dimensions progress through six stages, namely, identification, ad-hoc, formal, process-driven, optimised enterprise and finally a way of life. The application of the QIMM by the QI managers revealed that the scope of QI and the breadth of the principles adopted by the QI managers and their HOs in New Zealand is limited.

The importance of QI in health systems cannot be overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality.

This paper contributes new knowledge by presenting a maturity model with an integrated set of quality principles for HOs and their extended supply networks.

This chapter investigates whether, and if so, how particular firms in a transition economy are involved in bribery. Built on pressure theories, we explain how the direct effects of firm characteristics and contextual characteristics determine firm bribery behavior. Entrepreneurs make choices based on perceptions of a specific pressure due to organizational characteristics (internal pressures) or due to context (external pressures). The relationship between firm characteristics, context, and bribery was estimated using unique data from a survey of 606 Vietnamese entrepreneurs. We controlled for various entrepreneurial, organizational, and industrial characteristics. The exploratory findings support firm attributes hypotheses, which is a negative relationship between firm size and bribery and a nonmonotonic U-shaped relationship between firm age and bribery. Besides, the effects of context on bribery are also found. Specifically, the result supports a positive relationship between competition and bribery and a negative relationship between the quality of the government and bribery.

The purpose of this study is to extend sales control research to inside sales. Aside from a few notable exceptions (Conde et al., 2022) much of the sales control literature has focused on a single control mechanism rather than a sales control portfolio perspective. The authors add multiple layers to Conde et al. (2022) by capturing secondary operational data and manager interviews to access sales control theory in practice.

With operational data from a Fortune 100 financial services company and sales manager interviews, the authors present evidence that managers apply a portfolio of controls to ensure sales agents’ overall performance.

Findings support that cultural controls have a greater influence on overall performance than a focus solely on process and outcome controls. Inside sales managers can generate better results when they focus on creating an employee-centric culture rather than controlling sales agents with formal sales controls.

This study extends sales control research by examining inside sales managers’ formal and informal sales controls. Historically, inside sales had sales leaders balance a myriad of sales controls grounded in strict oversight. With a few notable exceptions, the limited inside sales control research provides the opportunity to display an inside sales manager’s need to jointly focus on operational results and sales outcomes, illustrating the importance of cultural controls compared to other sales process and outcome controls. This research considerably extends sales controls research by focusing on inside sales.

Although recent literature has examined diverse measures adopted by SMEs to navigate the COVID-19 turbulence, there is a shortage of evidence on how crisis-time strategy creation behaviour and digitalization activities increase (1) sales and (2) cash flow. Thus, predicated on a novel strategy creation perspective, this inquiry aims to investigate the crisis behaviour, sales and cash flow performance of 528 SMEs in Morocco.

Novel links between (1) aggregate wage cuts, (2) variable operating hours, (3) deferred payment to suppliers, (4) deferred payment to tax authorities and (5) sales performance are developed and tested. A further link between sales performance and cash flow is also examined and the analysis is conducted using a non-linear structural equation modelling technique.

While there is a significant association between strategy creation behaviours and sales performance, only variable operating hours have a positive effect. Also, sales performance increases cash flow and this relationship is substantially strengthened by e-commerce digitalization and innovation.

Theoretically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first inquiries to espouse the strategy creation view to explain SMEs' crisis-time behaviour and digitalization. For practical purposes, to supplement Moroccan SMEs' propensity to seek tax deferrals, it is argued that debt and equity support measures are also needed to boost sales performance and cash flow.