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The purpose of this study is to analyse historical events to argue the improbable prospect of radical accounting reform in corporate financial reporting (CFR) due to the absence of abstract accounting knowledge as part of accountancy professionalisation (AP).

A historical database of CFR and AP events in the UK is categorised and analysed to observe the evolution of accounting in CFR from the perspective of the sociology of professions relating to abstract knowledge in professionalisation.

CFR has always been a statutory function in the UK dependent on arbitrary accounting rules rather than expert measurements based on abstract accounting knowledge. Accounting rules have evolved as part of AP and currently form part of the statutory regulation of CFR. The accountancy profession has eschewed abstract accounting knowledge in a mutually beneficial and uncompetitive relationship with the law profession in CFR.

The study is limited to the history of CFR and AP in the UK and its findings are contrary to the sociology of professions regarding abstract knowledge, consistent with the accountancy profession’s 19th-century experience of court-related services, and indicative of normative accounting research’s redundancy.

Regarding CFR and AP in the UK, the accountancy profession is an expert subordinate branch of the law profession and has no incentive to alter the status quo of statutory accounting rule compliance prevailing over abstract accounting knowledge-based expertise in CFR.

The study questions the optimism of prior research of accounting in CFR that suggests the possibility of radical reform using abstract knowledge.

Leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship is a crucial context for individuals’ generation of creative ideas. Unlike the fruit research between LMX quality and employee creativity, the relationship between LMX ambivalence and employee creativity is scarce. This study thus aims to examine the effect of LMX ambivalence on employee creativity.

This study conducted an on-site survey of research and development teams in China and distributed paired questionnaires with a time lag of one month. Data from 116 leaders and 484 subordinates were collected and analyzed.

The results showed that LMX ambivalence was directly negatively or indirectly negatively related to employee creativity via self-efficacy. Employee cynicism acted as a potential personal moderator of the effect of LMX ambivalence, specifically, employee cynicism attenuated the negative influence of LMX ambivalence on employee creativity via self-efficacy.

This study extends our knowledge of the complex effects of LMX relationships by empirically exploring whether and how LMX ambivalence influences employee creativity, with self-efficacy introduced as one crucial underlying mechanism. Meanwhile, this study enriches the existing cynicism literature by demonstrating the role of employee cynicism as a buffer in the relationship between LMX ambivalence and employee creativity.

Business schools play a significant role in providing individuals with the ability to adapt to constantly changing environments. Such agile organizations require deans who, as leaders, possess the knowledge and attributes of astute and responsible executives. In this regard, the measurement of the attributes of leadership paves the way for evaluating a leader’s options process. In this study, we measure the attributes of leadership to pave the way for evaluating a leader’s decision-making process.

The rich data included the opinions of 93 university professors from seven countries: Iran, India, China, France, the UK, Canada and the USA. In appraising the responses, the authors considered the nationality and the development level of each participant’s country and continent. In this study, the authors developed an online questionnaire based on the best-worst method (BWM). By performing a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the authors also determined the significant statistical differences of the scientific communities through the lenses of authentic leadership, leader-member exchange and social identity and leadership.

The results provide evidence of transparency, measured as the most important criterion for leading a business school, i.e. knowledgeable deanship. Furthermore, the findings reveal a meaningful difference between developed and developing countries in the context of an authentic leadership pillar.

This paper contributed to the literature in five major ways as follows: The authors investigated the attitudes of scientific communities from different countries, business schools, BWM, dean selection and leadership evaluation.By means of the BWM, the authors measured the criteria culminating in the selection of a knowledgeable leader for a business school.The authors compared and contrasted the attitudes of scientific communities in developing countries vis-à-vis those in developed ones.The authors addressed the differences and similarities among countries in relation to the selection of a knowledgeable business school leader.The authors provided beneficial insights by addressing the different perspectives of researchers on the weights of the criteria involved in the selection procedure for a business school dean.

The purpose of this study is to understand the leadership humour style and the mechanism through which leadership humour style transforms into follower’s workplace positive and negative outcomes such as thriving at work and burnout. It uses comprehensive elaboration theory and relational process theory to explore self-disclosure and perceived similarity as two new constructs to assess their relation to intrapsychic (self-enhancing and self-defeating) and interpersonal (affiliative and aggressive) leader’s humour style, respectively.

An exploratory qualitative study through semi-structured interviews was conducted with 10 leaders to understand the different aspects of leadership humour and their outcomes. Based on these dimensions, a questionnaire was created and sent to 200 respondents, and 158 responses were received. The empirical analysis of data was done by building structural equation modeling using smart partial least square.

The empirical study has shown that self-enhancing leadership humour is related to self-disclosure, and both affiliative and aggressive leadership humour styles are related to perceived similarity. When looking at the two critical outcomes of leadership humour, both perceived similarity and self-disclosure were related to social intimacy and thriving at work. The mediation effect showed that self-enhancing humour leads to self-disclosure which increases social intimacy leading to improving thriving at work and aggressive humour leads to norm violation which further leads to burnout.

The study has used the mixed methodology to understand leadership humour and its outcomes by conducting in-depth interviews with leaders and also provides empirical evidence related to leadership humour style by using the survey to collect data from the followers capturing their perceptions. And very critically, it has explored self-disclosure and perceived similarity as two new constructs to see their relation to leadership humour style and positive and negative outcomes at the workplace.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine specificities, including limits of mindfulness at work in an African organisational context, whilst dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically addresses the role of organisational and managerial support systems in restoring employee wellbeing, social connectedness and attachment to their organisations, in order to overcome the exclusion caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes interviews as the main data source. The sample comprises of 20 entrepreneurs (organisational leaders) from Ghana and Nigeria.

The authors found that COVID-19-induced worries restricted the practice of mindfulness, and this was prevalent at the peak of the pandemic, particularly due to very tough economic conditions caused by reduction in salaries, and intensified by pre-existing general economic and social insecurities, and institutional voids in Africa. This aspect further resulted in lack of engagement and lack of commitment, which affected overall team performance and restricted employees’ mindfulness at work. Hence, quietness by employees even though can be linked to mindfulness was linked to larger psychological stress that they were facing. The authors also found leaders/manager’s emotional intelligence, social skills and organisational support systems to be helpful in such circumstances. However, their effectiveness varied among the cases.

This paper is one of the first studies to establish a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and mindfulness limitations. Moreover, it is a pioneering study specifically highlighting the damaging impact of COVID-19-induced concerns on leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) relationships, particularly in the African context. It further brings in a unique discussion on the mitigating mechanisms of such COVID-19-induced concerns in organisations and highlights the roles of manager’s/leader’s emotional intelligence, social skills and supportive intervention patterns. Finally, the authors offer an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of organisational interventions and supportive relational systems in restoring social connectedness following a social exclusion caused by COVID-19-induced worries.

This study draws on the trait activation theory to investigate the relationship between Machiavellianism and relational energy, considering the mediating role of facades of conformity and the moderating role of leader–member exchange ambivalence.

We collected survey data from 275 employees in central China at three time points. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis and bootstrapping to test the hypotheses using Mplus7.0 and the PROCESS macro.

We found that facades of conformity mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and relational energy. Moreover, the indirect effect of Machiavellianism on relational energy via facades of conformity was more significant when leader–member exchange ambivalence is higher.

This study provides empirical evidence of how and when Machiavellians acquire relational energy from leaders.

The authors tested (1) the mediating role of thriving in the association between leader-member exchange (LMX) and work–nonwork balance (WNWB) and (2) the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between LMX and thriving.

Cross-sectional data were collected from six separate participant groups across an eight-month period (n = 522). Data analysis included confirmatory factor analysis to assess the construct validity of the proposed three-factor model. Hierarchical regression and the PROCESS macro were used to test three hypotheses.

The authors found thriving mediated an indirect effect of LMX on WNWB. In addition, we found that the relationship between LMX and thriving was moderated by gender, such that the relationship was found for females. Overall, the authors identified a moderated-mediation effect indicating an indirect effect of LMX on WNWB via thriving for females.

Cross-sectional design suggests their results are theory driven. The authors suggest future studies replicate the study employing experimental designs.

The authors suggest organisations develop programs to enhance leadership and thriving capabilities as tools to manage WNWB.

The authors add to the thriving literature by revealing gender differences in the effectiveness of relational resources (i.e. LMX) in fostering employee thriving. Furthermore, the authors extend the efficacy of thriving beyond the workplace to include WNWB. The authors demonstrate the skills and knowledge acquired at work can be used to lessen the impact of WNWB.

This study examines the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee discretionary work behaviors in terms of job crafting, innovative work behavior and knowledge-sharing behavior by focusing on the mediating role of psychological safety.

Multi-source and multi-wave data were collected from 284 employees in the banking sector of Pakistan.

The findings reveal a positive relationship between LMX and psychological safety. Psychological safety, in turn, is positively related to discretionary work behaviors (i.e. job crafting, innovative work behavior and knowledge-sharing behavior). Moreover, psychological safety fully mediates the relationship between LMX and discretionary work behaviors.

Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study introduces psychological safety as a mediating mechanism in the relationship between LMX and three important discretionary work behaviors.

This study examines direct effect of leader-member exchange (LMEX) and learning orientation (LEOR) on workplace innovation (WPIN) and indirect effect between underline relationships in presence of mediators such as creative self-efficacy (CRSE), thrive at work (THAW), task interdependence (TAIN) work significance (WOSI) and creative performance (CRPE). Moreover, this study investigates the serial mediating effect of CRSE, WOSI, THAW, TAIN and CRPE between LMEX, LEOR and WPIN in entrepreneurial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study collected a total of 286 usable responses from entrepreneurial SMEs in three major business cities in Pakistan. In this cross-sectional study, data were gathered through self-administered surveys using purposive sampling approach and tested hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The findings suggested insignificant direct effect of LMEX and LEOR on WPIN in the presence of mediators. Interestingly, CRSE, THAW, TAIN and CRPE were identified as significant mediators between LMEX, LEOR and WPIN. However, WOSI was found to be an insignificant mediator in the observed context. Moreover, the results revealed significant serial mediating effect of CRSE and CRPE with work context elements such as THAW and TAIN between LMEX, LEOR and WPIN, while serial mediating effect of WOSI in underline relationships found insignificant.

The study emphasizes that chief executive officers (CEOs) of entrepreneurial SMEs should prioritize individual, team and organizational factors to improve WPIN for competitiveness. Entrepreneurial management should focus on building strong relationships with employees to foster creativity and create a learning-oriented work environment that improves motivation and collaboration, thereby boosting employees' CRSE and CRPE, leading to enhanced WPIN.

This research offered a novel research framework and identified critical mediators and serial mediators between LMEX, LEOR and WPIN for entrepreneurial SMEs in developing countries, a domain grossly underrepresented in the literature.

Accounting information systems are mainly rule-based, and data are usually available and well-structured. However, many accounting systems are yet to catch up with current technological developments. Thus, artificial intelligence (AI) in financial accounting is often applied only in pilot projects. Using AI-based forecasts in accounting enables proactive management and detailed analysis. However, thus far, there is little knowledge about which prediction models have already been evaluated for accounting problems. Given this lack of research, our study aims to summarize existing findings on how AI is used for forecasting purposes in financial accounting. Therefore, the authors aim to provide a comprehensive overview and agenda for future researchers to gain more generalizable knowledge.

The authors identify existing research on AI-based forecasting in financial accounting by conducting a systematic literature review. For this purpose, the authors used Scopus and Web of Science as scientific databases. The data collection resulted in a final sample size of 47 studies. These studies were analyzed regarding their forecasting purpose, sample size, period and applied machine learning algorithms.

The authors identified three application areas and presented details regarding the accuracy and AI methods used. Our findings show that sociotechnical and generalizable knowledge is still missing. Therefore, the authors also develop an open research agenda that future researchers can address to enable the more frequent and efficient use of AI-based forecasts in financial accounting.

Owing to the rapid development of AI algorithms, our results can only provide an overview of the current state of research. Therefore, it is likely that new AI algorithms will be applied, which have not yet been covered in existing research. However, interested researchers can use our findings and future research agenda to develop this field further.

Given the high relevance of AI in financial accounting, our results have several implications and potential benefits for practitioners. First, the authors provide an overview of AI algorithms used in different accounting use cases. Based on this overview, companies can evaluate the AI algorithms that are most suitable for their practical needs. Second, practitioners can use our results as a benchmark of what prediction accuracy is achievable and should strive for. Finally, our study identified several blind spots in the research, such as ensuring employee acceptance of machine learning algorithms in companies. However, companies should consider this to implement AI in financial accounting successfully.

To the best of our knowledge, no study has yet been conducted that provided a comprehensive overview of AI-based forecasting in financial accounting. Given the high potential of AI in accounting, the authors aimed to bridge this research gap. Moreover, our cross-application view provides general insights into the superiority of specific algorithms.