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This paper aims to review the auditing procedures and structure in an emerging economy's public sector by explaining the recent changes and developments in the auditing process, its structure and the responsibilities of its underlying actors.

This paper traces the development of Iran's public sector financial monitoring by examining the country's legal and governmental documents as well as the auditing standards and procedures.

The Supreme Audit Court of Iran (SACI) is the main actor in public auditing and uses various tools and involves several organizations to cover diverse scopes of public auditing; this paper also discusses the structure and the financial (in)dependence of the SACI.

This is the first piece of work that explains the public auditing procedures and structure in Iran's public sector by focusing on recent changes and developments in its objectives and scopes.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the extent to which a model based on financial and non-financial variables predicts auditors' decisions to issue qualified audit reports in the case of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).

The authors utilized data from the financial statements of 96 Iranian firms as the sample over a period of five years (2012–2016). A total of 480 observations were analysed using a probit model through 11 primary financial ratios accompanying non-financial variables, including the type of audit firm, auditor turnover and corporate performance, which affect the issuance of audit reports.

The results demonstrated high explanatory power of financial ratios and type of audit firm (the national audit organization vs other local audit firms) in explaining qualifications through audit reports. The predictive accuracy of the estimated model is evaluated using a regression model for the probabilities of qualified and clean opinions. The model is reliable, with 72.9% accuracy in classifying the total sample correctly to explain changes in the auditor's opinion.

This study contains some limitations. First, it is likely that similar researches in developed countries set a large sample (e.g. over 1,000 firms) including more years, but the authors cannot follow such a trend due to data access restrictions. Second, banks and financial institutions, investment and holding firms are removed from the sample, because their financial structure is diverse. The third limitation of the study represents the different economic and cultural conditions of Iran compared to other countries. Future studies could focus on internal control material weaknesses or earnings management to predict audit opinion in emerging economies including Iran.

The paper has practical implications and can assist auditors in identifying factors motivating audit report qualifications, mainly in emerging economies.

The paper contributes to auditing research, since very little is known about the determinants of audit opinion in emerging markets including Iran; it also constitutes an addition to previous knowledge about audit opinion in the context of TSE. The paper is one of the rare studies predicting auditor opinions using both financial variables and non-financial metrics.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

Despite cultural dimensions being included in hundreds of business and management research studies, there have been relatively few studies in public-sector accounting that include the use of cultural dimensions. It is posited that national cultural variables impact the institutions, which, in turn, have an influence on public-sector budgeting. The study aims to contribute to the literature by examining these relations in 31 countries.

These relationships are empirically evaluated by structural equation modeling using measures of national culture from Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs) measures named institutions from the World Bank. Furthermore, measures of public-sector budgeting are evaluated in which public-sector budgeting is classified according to the legislative power of the purse and budget transparency.

Generally, findings reveal that institutions mediate the relationship among national cultural variables and budgeting at the national level. By that means, budgeting in a given nation is linked to the nation's supporting institutions which, in turn, are influenced by the national culture of those who maintain them. Particularly, power distance and uncertainty avoidance impact budgeting through the full mediation of institutions.

The World Bank's database used for the institutions contained over 200 countries (Kaufmann et al., 2007); the GLOBE cultural database (House et al., 2004) contained data for 62 societies; the public-sector budgeting (Qi and Mensah, 2011) included power of the purse and budgeting transparency country scores for 49 countries and the datasets comprised 31 nations, mostly from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. While smaller than we would have preferred, the size is consistent with other international studies (for instance: Waldman et al., 2006; Kwok and Tadesse, 2006).

The findings of the paper suggest that any plan to improve a nation's budgeting should consider the links between budgeting, supporting institutions and the culture of those that run them. The formal adoption of new methods and standards by supporting institutions may not be enough without accompanying efforts to transform national culture.

The theoretical contribution of the paper is discussed further in the paper.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

The aim of this paper is to compare the audit and accountability arrangements of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) internationally.

Building on a theorisation of regulatory space, extended by new audit spaces of public audit, the scope of the research is the 196 SAIs that are full members of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). The study is based on documentation review, workshops with a steering panel, a survey of all SAIs (response rate of 64%, being 125 of 196 members), workshops with the seven regions of INTOSAI and discussion at Congress.

The paper suggests that the audit and accountability arrangements for SAIs is underpinned by INTOSAI's global voice, a country's regulatory space and a SAIs organization, capacity and scope that are themes used to structure the comparison. The results show there is diversity in the organization, capacities and scope of SAIs, but also an opportunity for recognising the positive potential of INTOSAI in fulfilling its global voice leveraged from the results of its work with its regions and members.

This is the most comprehensive research study of SAIs and the research underpinning this study enables SAIs to compare themselves regionally and internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the various anti-corruption strategies used to fight economic and financial crimes in both the public and private sectors in Iran.

This paper relied essentially on a secondary source of information. Materials used were collected in an eclectic manner from published outlets such as journal publications, books, online sources and newspaper reports. Also, official documents and statutes were also used. This study’s scope is limited to issues and analysis relating to measures adopted to combat corruption in Iran.

The legal and institutional frameworks analysed indicated that Iran has a robust anti-corruption scheme. However, there is no adequate measure available to gauge the effectiveness of these measures.

The paper concludes that conventional anti-corruption methods are not enough to fight corruption in this present time, thus, the implementation of whistle-blower policy and allowing freedom of operation of the civil society organisations and media would assist in the fight against corruption in Iran.

The paper provides the legal and institutional anti-corruption frameworks in Iran. It explores the three major approaches or methods of combating corruption and other corrupt practices in Iran.

This paper aims to analyze thoroughly all of the sources of research used to develop the money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) low-risk rating, a rating attained by Norway according to the Basel Institute of Governance, and determine the reasons why Norway is one of only two countries in the world according to the 2012 report, with the other being Estonia, to gain an overall low-risk ML and TF rating.

The differences between the USA and Norway which has obtained a low-risk ranking, were compared and contrasted.

Beginning with the Basel Institute Rating index as a legitimate source for use in assessing anti-money-laundering (AML)/TF risk, and the amount of documentation used in the index’s methodology, it has been proven that the low-risk rating Norway has received is well deserved, and that the US rating of medium risk is also deserved for the time the report was published. Achieving a low-risk rating is not as ambiguous as recently thought and neither is its application on a global scale.

The paper identifies practical areas of improvement and concerns in addressing the overall issue of ML and terrorist financing.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of social theories to explain auditors’ attitude toward balance time between marketing activities and auditing responsibilities.

Data were collected through a survey, from which a measure of auditor’s view on the importance of marketing was identified and regressed against balance between audit time and marketing activities. In addition, a measure of balanced attitude of auditors toward the time of the audit and marketing activities was identified and regressed against attitude toward the importance of corporate governance mechanisms.

The results obtained from the hypothesis test indicated that the audit fee can be a decisive factor in the status of auditors to carry out their function in the social structure which is limited to the stakeholders. The balance time between auditing and marketing is of the same importance to all auditors. Furthermore, entrepreneur auditors find the present corporate governance good for the prosperity and creativity of the forces within the auditing firms. As a result, entrepreneur auditors are very effective in corporate governance mechanisms.

The most significant contribution of the present study is the development of auditing literature to better understand and analyze the behavior of auditors.