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This research paper investigates variances in auditors’ attitudes toward dysfunctional audit behavior (DAB) in two different time periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in DAB among experienced/inexperienced auditors as well as differences between male/female auditors while facing time budget and time deadline pressures.

This study uses surveys administered to a group of junior auditors joining a Big 4 firm in the UK and compares the results to surveys completed by the same group of auditors after three years of experience. The survey assesses participant’s perception of DAB in the presence of time budget and time deadline.

The results of this paper show that experienced auditors have more tolerant views of DAB then inexperienced auditors. In terms of gender, inexperienced male auditors are more accepting of DAB when compared to their inexperienced female counterparts. Female auditors surveyed in both time periods seem to be unfavorable of DAB.

The uniqueness of this study derives from the fact that it explores the same group of auditors and assesses variances in their perception of DAB in two different periods over a passage of three years during which inexperienced auditors become experienced.

This study aims to investigate the impact of changes in audit processes during the pandemic on auditors’ deviant behavior, considering auditors’ personal characteristics, including demographic variables, spirituality levels and personality traits.

A survey consisting of five parts was used to gather data from auditors employed at Big Four audit firms in the Middle East. The questionnaire collected data on auditors’ perceptions of changes in audit processes and deviant audit behavior during the pandemic, as well as information about their personal characteristics.

The findings revealed a significant positive association between changes in audit processes and a heightened perception of deviant audit conduct during the pandemic. Males and extravert auditors expressed less favorable attitudes toward such behavior.

The sample size was limited to 107 auditors due to the challenges of soliciting responses from auditors during the pandemic. The sole focus on the Big Four audit firms limited the generalizability of the results. Upcoming research should integrate qualitative methods alongside surveys and collect data from larger, more diverse samples to enhance the understanding of the pandemic’s impact on audit behavior.

The findings provide guidance and recommendations for audit firms to mitigate deviant behavior during crises while considering auditors’ personal factors. Recommended strategies include the organization of trainings to raise awareness of these risks and the integration of artificial intelligence to modernize audit processes and enhance audit firms’ readiness to confront future crises.

This study offers a novel empirical investigation into how pandemic-driven changes in audit procedures relate to auditors' deviant behavior, while exploring the influence of auditors' individual traits, an unexplored area in the literature. It addresses this gap specifically in the context of the understudied Middle East region.

This study assesses the perception of academics and practitioners of ramifications that may have impacted audit evidence quality during COVID-19 in Egypt.

A questionnaire was collected and designed regarding the factors affecting the quality of audit evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic using a five-point Likert scale, and detailed descriptive statistics and regression analyses were conducted.

The study finds that there is no significant association between social distancing (SD), changing in the economic environment (CEE), time constraint (TC) and stress on audit personnel (SAP) as repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic with the quality of audit evidence (QAE). The disruption in operational results (DOR), changes in the internal control (CIC) and the stress on client personnel (SCP) significantly affect the quality of audit evidence. Moreover, there is a significant difference between Big and non-Big Four audit firms in terms of changes in economic conditions, internal controls, disruption of operational results and time-constraint variables. The latter has significantly affected the audit evidence quality for both academics and professionals.

Due to the implementation of SD and work-from-home policies, audit firms are highly recommended to invest more in digital programs and to be more adaptable to work-from-home, which policy and enhances the effectiveness and flexibility of communication between auditors and their clients.

This paper is one of the foremost papers that provides empirical evidence for the antecedents or variables that may affect audit quality evidence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to identify the effect of soft skills as a driver of audit quality and their moderating role in the relationship between stress and the propensity for auditors to engage in reduced audit quality practices (RAQP).

This study uses a sample of 130 auditors, whose data were collected through an electronic questionnaire. The results were derived from the partial least squares-structural equation modelling method.

The findings show that the propensity to incur RAQP increases when auditors are under job stressors but decreases when individuals have resilience and time management skills. Moreover, the results suggest that the moderating effect of these two soft skills can effectively reduce the auditors’ propensity to engage in dysfunctional actions and judgments in auditing. Emotional intelligence and self-efficacy skills are shown not to affect RAQP.

This study adds to previous research on auditors’ drivers for supplying audit quality, by providing evidence of auditor characteristics as a critical input to audit quality. The results emphasize the importance of researchers including in models the moderating effect of soft skills on the relationship between audit quality and determinants associated with audit firms, clients or the regulatory framework.

This study aims to provide evidence on how the issuance of a nonreliance restatement affects non-restating clients of the same audit office.

To test the effect of restatement issuance on office-level quality, this study runs regressions using both input- and output-based measures of audit quality.

This study finds that in the years where one or more clients of an audit office issue a restatement, audit effort is lower for non-restating clients of the same office. When two or more clients issue a restatement, other clients are charged lower audit fees, file later and are more likely to experience an audit failure.

This study contributes to the literature on office-level audit quality and provides an explanation for the longitudinal correlation of office-level audit failures.

The organizational decision-making perspective (ODM) has a legacy regarding its concern for budgeting as an essential organizational routine in decision-making. Budgeting has also become a direct concern to organizational institutional theory (OIT) because of its prominent role in institution building, where budgeting can build trust in inter-organizational relationships. This paper builds on these two perspectives to explore organizational budget processes' formation, disruption, and re-creation over time.

We conducted a comprehensive review and critical analysis of the ODM and OIT perspectives, focusing on a fundamental paradox between ODM's emphasis on stability through organizational routines and OIT's focus on organizational legitimacy through the decoupled expression of organizational values. We then expanded on these paradoxical concerns in the context of budgeting, formalizing them into specific research propositions for future studies.

Tensions around the stability, decay, and re-creation of budgets as organizational routines emerge as a pressing issue requiring further empirical investigation from the ODM perspective. A critical issue in the OIT perspective is the potential for organizational budgets to provide an opportunity to decouple from practice through routinized expressions of rationality and to facilitate loose coupling in practice. These findings offer a fresh perspective and open up new avenues for future research in this area.

This paper contributes to the accounting and organizational research literature by shedding light on how organizations respond to the potential decay of budget routines and the manifestation of organizational values in decoupling processes by further re-creating and elaborating budget processes.

This study investigates the impact of organizational culture on the governance transparency of audit firms operating in the emerging market of the United Arab Emirates. The study unpacks how organizational culture influences audit firms' perceptions and practices regarding transparency in leadership, operations and reporting.

The primary data for this study is collected through an online survey distributed to auditing firms in the UAE, with statistical analysis conducted using multiple regression models and robustness checks. The survey is designed to assess transparency practices in leadership, operations and reporting based on the Financial Reporting Council’s (UK) audit firm governance code. Then, the data is analyzed using SPSS software, representing a diverse sample of auditors from different firm types, ownership structures and sizes.

The study reveals that organizational culture significantly influences audit firms' perceptions of governance transparency practices. Specifically, cultural aspects such as public interest, improvements and consultation positively and significantly impact voluntary transparency in leadership, operations and reporting. Notably, reporting practices are particularly affected by organizational cultural norms and values. Furthermore, transparency practices vary based on audit firms' size, type and industry. These findings offer valuable guidance for audit firms, regulators and accounting standards setters in developing suitable governance mechanisms for global audit firms, including developed and developing countries.

Future studies may extend the scope by including additional transparency issues such as independent non-executives and dialogue practices. Further, it would be valuable to investigate the influence of organizational culture components, such as symbols and assumptions shared by employees, on governance transparency and to include an additional set of control variables, such as corporate governance. By incorporating these aspects into research, a more comprehensive understanding of transparency practices within organizations can be achieved.

This study offers directions for stakeholders in the audit industry, aiding them in developing effective governance strategies both locally and internationally. The study further highlights ways audit firms can foster a culture of transparency, regulators can establish relevant frameworks, and accounting standards setters can contribute to developing consistent and appropriate governance mechanisms across different countries.

This study explores the influence of organizational culture on governance transparency in UAE audit firms, emphasizing the role of cultural elements in shaping transparency practices. It provides insights for enhancing governance mechanisms in global audit firms. Previous studies dealt with different determinants of audit behavior and performance. This study extends this prior literature by focusing on organizational culture as a vital underlying informal mechanism for controlling agency relationships.

This paper aims to unravel the puzzle that the United Kingdom’s high-quality government accounting and fiscal architecture is associated with low-quality outcomes, including poor productivity growth, high public debt, public services which do not meet citizen expectations and historically high levels of taxation. It contributes to public sector accounting research in the fields of fiscal transparency and governance.

This paper uses Miller and Power’s (2013) economization framework and Dunsire’s (1990) concept of collibration to explain why being a global leader in public sector accounting reform and in fiscal and monetary architecture has not protected the UK from weak governance. The intersection of economization’s roles of accounting with modes of government accounting clarifies the puzzle.

Whereas accruals government accounting contributes to fiscal transparency, this is not a sufficient condition for well-judged policy and its effective application. Collibration is the dominant mechanism for mediation in the fiscally centralized UK, but it has failed to deliver stable outcomes, in part because Parliament is limited in its ability to hold back inappropriate behaviour by the Executive. Subjectivization has disrupted adjudication because governments at all levels resist constraints on their behaviour, with unpredictable and often damaging consequences.

This paper provides insights through the combined lens of economization and modes of government accounting, demonstrating the practical value of this conceptualization. Although some causes for unsatisfactory outcomes are specific to the UK, there are cautions for accounting and fiscal reformers in other countries, such as Member States of the European Union.

This study aimed to determine the factors affecting consumers’ perceptions and intention to purchase home meal kit services (HMK), a convenient home-cooked meal option, considering the moderating effects of monetary restriction, through the lens of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

This cross-sectional study used an online, self-administered survey to collect data from 374 US adults. Results were tested for variable associations via multiple linear regression and moderation analyses.

HMK adoption intention was positively associated with attitude and subjective norms but negatively associated with perceived behavioural control. Consumers’ HMK attitude demonstrated a significant positive relationship with food safety concerns and perceived time constraints. Income and financial constraints were significant moderators of the associations between TPB determinants and HMK intention. The findings emphasised the possibility of using HMK as a foodservice option for time-challenged consumers with food safety concerns.

This study addressed the limited research on HMK, a competitive meal option that foodservice businesses could implement to boost revenue. The study establishes the contribution in understanding the motivators and barriers that potentially affect consumers’ HMK behaviour through the lens of TPB. The results expand the scope of the TPB application in food-related research, providing a deeper understanding of antecedents and other factors on consumers’ HMK behavioural attitudes. Understanding this information will enable practitioners to develop strategies that meet consumers’ concerns when embracing this service to promote HMK.

This study aims to investigate the use of voluntary disclosure on mainstream social media platforms to examine strategic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the influential factors and institutional pressures organisations faced when making disclosures on social media during the pandemic.

A two-stage qualitative approach was adopted. Stage one used content analysis to examine voluntary disclosures made by international organisations on social media during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stage two comprised semi-structured interviews with individuals who were involved in the decision-making process around the social media disclosures.

This study’s findings reveal significant changes in disclosure practices due to COVID-19-related pressures. In addition to the utilisation of social media for signalling conformance with new pandemic-related norms and connecting with stakeholders, the evidence also reveals how organisations made use of strategic responses to COVID-19-related institutional pressures.

The findings reveal how social media was used as a means of timely voluntary disclosure during the examined crisis. The findings can inform the development of organisational guidelines and policies for the use of social media as a disclosure medium.

This study reveals how organisations used voluntary disclosure on social media as a strategic response to institutional pressures and the COVID-19 pandemic; this context is under-researched. The study also extends the application of the strategic response framework regarding voluntary disclosure via social media.