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This research paper aims to investigate the effects of internal audit’s (IA) use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality.

The authors conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment among upper and middle managers where the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors are manipulated.

Results highlight the importance of internal auditor use of data analytics and performance of consulting activities to improve perceived IA quality. First, managers perceive internal auditors as more competent when the auditors use data analytics. Second, managers perceive internal auditors’ recommendations as more relevant when the auditors perform consulting activities. Finally, managers perceive an improvement in the quality of relationships with internal auditors when auditors perform consulting activities, which is strengthened when internal auditors combine the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities.

From a theoretical perspective, this research builds on the IA quality framework by considering digitalization as a contextual factor. This research focused on the perceptions of one major stakeholder of the IA function: senior management. Future research should investigate the perceptions of other stakeholders and other contextual factors.

This research suggests that internal auditors should prioritize the development of the consulting role in their function and develop their digital expertise, especially expertise in data analytics, to improve perceived IA quality.

This research tests the impacts of the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality holistically, by testing Trotman and Duncan’s (2018) framework using an experiment.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

This study aims to examine whether firms that appear to exhibit high sustainable outputs are more likely to pay higher audit fees than firms without such outputs.

The sustainability outputs are measured using a sustainable product portfolio consisting of four products: clean energy products, eco-design products (EDP), environmental products (EP) and sustainable building projects (SBP). The audit fee variable is measured by the natural logarithm of the total amount of audit fees. The study tests two models of the association between these outputs and audit fees; Model 1 tests this association in the absence of the moderating variable (sustainability committee), and Model 2 tests the association in the presence of the moderating variable.

An analysis of data on 261 European firms from the Refinitiv Eikon database from 2010 to 2019 shows that high sustainability outputs are significantly and positively associated with audit fees. More importantly, this association is moderated by the presence of a board-level sustainability committee, suggesting that this type of committee reflects a factor considered by auditors in their audit risk assessment practices. The findings indicate that in Model 1, one (EP) out of four variables has a significant and positive association with audit fees, while in Model 2 and in the presence of sustainability committee, two variables (EP and EDP) have a significant and negative association with audit fees. However, the robust analysis shows that three variables (EP, EDP and SBP) have significant and negative associations with audit fees.

The study findings have important implications for policymakers, auditors and firms’ managers. For policymakers, the findings provide support for the argument that sustainable attitudes incentivise firms to manage sustainable product profiles more effectively. As such, policymakers should incentivise firms to establish a sustainability committee and regulate its role and responsibilities. Auditors should coordinate with the sustainability committee to facilitate audit efforts and reduce audit fees.

Understanding the relationship between sustainable products and audit fees will allow firms to improve their portfolio of sustainable products. In addition, other social implications of this study relate to improving relationships with society by establishing a sustainability committee that is responsible to communicate with that society.

The results support the argument that firms should manage sustainable product portfolios more effectively. In addition, the results of the study highlight the importance of a new variable as a moderator, the sustainability committee, which has not been examined before.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting has been widely accepted as a vital tool for communicating with stakeholders on a range of social, environmental, and governance issues, but how companies define, interpret, apply, integrate, and communicate their CSR efforts and impacts in corporate reporting is anything but a straightforward task. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the concept of materiality in CSR reporting and demonstrate practical examples of good CSR and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting practices. We chose the aviation industry because of its economic relevance, constant growth, and future expected changes in the aftermath of COVID-19. In addition, airlines affect many of the SDGs directly and indirectly with contending results. This chapter is timely because of the growing willingness by companies to integrate CSR and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) thinking into the corporate strategy and business operations using materiality assessment and enhancing their competitive advantage and ability to maintain long-term value and because ESG and ethical investing have become part of the mainstream investing. Thus, this chapter contributes to an understanding of the wide range of existing and new reporting frameworks and regulations and reinforces the importance of discussing how this diversity of approaches can affect the work toward worldwide comparability of CSR and sustainability reporting.

This study aims to examine the effect of family ownership on audit fees and whether political connections moderate the causal relationship. Indonesia, as emerging countries, arguably offers appropriate research setting for this research because most Indonesian firms are family owned and exhibit weak investor protection. The authors predict that family ownership positively affects audit fees, and political connections strengthen this influence.

This study uses 98 listed manufacturing firms on Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2018–2020, resulting in 279 firm-year observations. Panel data regression used to test the hypothesis. Family ownership is divided into direct and indirect ownership while audit fees are measured by the natural logarithm of audit fees paid by the firms.

The results show that the greater total and direct family ownerships imply lower audit fees, while indirect family ownership does not affect audit fees. The finding is contrary to the alleged hypothesis. Further, political connections only strengthen direct family ownership's negative impact on audit fees.

This study's findings support the alignment effect hypothesis arguing that controlling shareholders, in this case, families, align their interests with non-controlling shareholders. These findings provide a different perspective from various empirical studies conducted in Asian countries where the majority of companies are also controlled.

This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

The current study aims to analyze the role of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in sustainability issues and its impact on the attitude of practitioners (auditors) in industrial companies. The current study relies on the analytical method, one of the tools of the inductive approach, by examining the literature of researchers, international and local organizations, publications, series, alerts, and topics dealt with by the IFAC, as well as reviewing studies, theoretical and applied research, periodicals, books, and statistics. And specialized publications for this subject, which is related to other sciences – such as – environmental science, economic, and political sciences. The study reached many results, the most important of which are: (1) The first half of the current decade has seen high interest from the IFAC, has led to the issuance of International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) international standard on assurance engagements 3410, (GHG) Statements. (2) Sustainability has become important to a growing number of enterprises, and may have a significant influence, in certain cases, the financial statements, also became the sustainability of the topics under increasing attention from users of financial statements. Thus, the financial statements will need a practitioner to take into consideration sustainability issues and a private greenhouse gas when auditing the financial statements. This study is distinguished by analyzing the role of the IFAC and the IAASB for the period from 1998 to 2023 regarding sustainability issues.

This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The changes the authors are interested in are linked to technology-driven innovations in managerial decision-making and in organizational structures. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps and opportunities for future research.

The authors adopted a grounded theory literature review method (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013) to achieve the study’s aims.

The authors identified four research themes that describe the changes in the management accounting profession due to technology-driven innovations: structured vs unstructured data, human vs algorithm-driven decision-making, delineated vs blurred functional boundaries and hierarchical vs platform-based organizations. The authors also identified tensions mentioned in the literature for each research theme.

Previous studies display a rather narrow focus on the role of digital technologies in accounting work and new competences that management accountants require in the digital era. By contrast, the authors focus on the broader technology-driven shifts in organizational processes and structures, which vastly change how accounting information is collected, processed and analyzed internally to support managerial decision-making. Hence, the paper focuses on how management accountants can adapt and evolve as their organizations transition toward a digital environment.

The “metaverse” is the new buzzword. With the phenomenal growth of the metaverse comes accounting, taxation and jurisdictional challenges, which business and governments have yet to fully address. This paper aims to highlight and rationalise the lack of regulatory framework and multiplicity of jurisdictions on metaverse transactions. This paper addresses some of the complications with respect to accounting and taxation in virtual environments.

This study relies on secondary data and emerging literature to understand the multiplicity of jurisdiction and complexity of the accounting transactions. The concept of the metaverse is rapidly evolving, and this study uses extant literature to provide the foundation for understanding the key challenges relating to accounting and taxation.

Concepts of revenue recognition and deferment are challenged by the transactions in the metaverse. There are novel applications, underpinned by emerging technologies and blockchain supporting new crypto assets, such as non-fungible tokens and other decentralised finance (DeFi) tools; however, the caveats of anonymity and jurisdictional issues persist. The paper suggests that the industry must adapt to the unique reporting requirements of these assets and develop new standards for evaluating their value for financial reporting purposes. The paper emphasises the need for a case-based approach in the absence of standardised regulations for the accounting industry in the metaverse.

This paper adds original contributions to extant literature of the metaverse and advances ongoing debates into the accounting and taxation issues pertinent to the metaverse and DeFi.

The purpose of this study is to examine the benefits and challenges of using logistics service providers (LSPs) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporations.

This study uses the focus group interview method with eight LSP companies of varying sizes in the UAE. The aim is to obtain detailed insights into the advantages and obstacles associated with using LSPs.

The interview results reveal differences in the services and payment options offered by large and small-medium-sized LSPs, leading to varying impacts on SMEs. Additionally, both large and small-medium-sized LSPs encounter challenges in delivering services to SMEs, including sustaining logistic excellence in a competitive market, meeting the high customer expectations from SMEs and large enterprises, difficulty in recruiting skilled and competent employees and high costs of business technology.

This study is limited to the UAE context and the perspectives of eight LSP companies. The findings may not be generalizable to other regions or industries.

The findings of this research provide valuable insights for SMEs and large corporations considering the use of LSPs. Understanding the benefits and challenges associated with outsourcing logistics services can assist in making informed decisions and developing effective collaborations with LSPs.

This research contributes to the existing literature by specifically examining the benefits and challenges of using LSPs for SMEs and large corporations. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors that influence logistics outsourcing decisions and highlights the unique challenges faced by LSPs and SMEs in the context of the UAE.