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Article
Publication date: 7 June 2016

Zabihollah Rezaee

Global investors demand, regulators require, and companies disclose their sustainability performance information, and scholars have started to conduct research on sustainability…

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Abstract

Global investors demand, regulators require, and companies disclose their sustainability performance information, and scholars have started to conduct research on sustainability performance, reporting and assurance. The goal of firm value creation can be achieved when management considers the interests of all stakeholders and integrates all five economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance into managerial strategies, actions and reporting. This paper provides a synthesis of research on sustainability and presents a theoretical framework consisting of theories and standards relevant to all five EGSEE dimensions of sustainability performance and risks and their integration into corporate culture, business models and reporting in creating stakeholder value.

Details

Journal of Accounting Literature, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-4607

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 June 2020

Zabihollah Rezaee, Mohammad Alipour, Omid Faraji, Mehrdad Ghanbari and Babak Jamshidinavid

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between environmental disclosure quality (EDQ) and risk and to further examine whether corporate governance (CG…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between environmental disclosure quality (EDQ) and risk and to further examine whether corporate governance (CG) practices moderate this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a set of unique, hand collected data (from 2011 to 2016) to measure EDQ for a sample of 762 firm-years Iranian listed companies. Ordinary least squares regression analysis is performed in testing hypotheses after controlling for a variety of firm, industry and year effects. Moreover, several analyses are performed to establish the robustness of the findings.

Findings

The results indicate a negative association between EDQ and firm risk. While board independence moderates this relationship, other CG practices such as CEO duality and board size do not show any effects on the relationship between EDQ and risk. The results remain robust after performing sensitivity tests and under various specifications, including the fixed-effects panel data and Heckman two-stage regressions.

Research limitations/implications

Results are from a sample of firms from one country.

Practical implications

The results have implications for policymakers, legislators and corporate executives, as environmental initiatives are gaining more attention worldwide.

Social implications

Sustainability initiatives in the areas of environmental and social performance and disclosure are gaining global attention. This study addresses the link between firm risk and EDQ.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the relationship between corporate risk-taking and EDQ in the context of a developing economy.

Details

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8021

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Article
Publication date: 8 August 2023

Zabihollah Rezaee, Saeid Homayoun, Nick J. Rezaee and Ehsan Poursoleyman

This paper aims to examine the association between sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the micro level and firms’ inclination to sustainability reporting and assurance (SRA).

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the association between sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the micro level and firms’ inclination to sustainability reporting and assurance (SRA).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use global data from 44 countries in the 2016–2021 period and perform the probit and logistic models in testing the hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that socially responsible firms adopting SDGs are more likely to issue sustainability reports and obtain assurance statements. The authors find that the link between firms’ compliance with SDGs and SRA is stronger for firms domiciled in stakeholder-oriented countries.

Originality/value

SRA issues are gaining the attention of regulators, investors, businesses and academics worldwide. Results pertaining to the relationship between SDGs and SRA are robust to alternative measures and several sensitivity tests and, thus, provide policy, practice and research implications.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 38 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 October 2018

Zabihollah Rezaee and Jim Wang

This paper aims to examine the relevance of Big Data to forensic accounting practice and education by gathering opinions from a sample of academics and practitioners in China.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the relevance of Big Data to forensic accounting practice and education by gathering opinions from a sample of academics and practitioners in China.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conduct a survey of academics and practitioners regarding the desired demand, importance and content of Big Data educational skills and topics for forensic accounting education to effectively respond to challenges and opportunities in the age of Big Data.

Findings

Results indicate that the demand for and interest in Big Data/data analytics and forensic accounting will continue to increase; Big Data/data analytics and forensic accounting should be integrated into the business curriculum; many of the suggested Big Data topics should be integrated into forensic accounting education; and some attributes and techniques of Big Data are important in improving forensic accounting education and practice.

Research limitations/implications

Readers should interpret the results with caution because of the sample size (95 academics and 103 practitioners) and responses obtained from academics and practitioners in one country (China) that may not be representative of the global population.

Practical implications

The results are useful in integrating Big Data topics into the forensic accounting curriculum and in redesigning the forensic accounting courses/programs.

Social implications

The results have implications for forensic accountants in effectively fulfilling their responsibilities to their profession and society by combating fraud.

Originality/value

This study provides educational, research and practical implications as Big Data and forensic accounting are advancing.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2022

Zabihollah Rezaee and Mohammad Hossein Safarzadeh

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and various measures of earnings quality in listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The…

1036

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and various measures of earnings quality in listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The theoretical intuition for prediction of any relationship between earnings quality and CG is based on the behavioral theory and the institutional settings in Iran.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used the data of 117 listed companies on the TSE for the period from 2005 to 2019. The authors use panel data regression as the main methodology, along with principal component analysis, t-test and rank-sum test.

Findings

This study finds that the CG has a positive association with earnings quality. More precisely, better CG mechanisms cause lower earnings smoothness, more predictable and persistent earnings, and higher levels of timeliness, conservatism and value relevance. The relationship between CG and earnings quality is statistically and economically significant for all models.

Originality/value

The findings further the understanding of the role of CG in improving earnings quality in an Islamic and emerging country. First, this study provides evidence on the relation between CG and earnings quality by focusing on the behavioral theory, which suggests that corporate decision-making is not only influenced by formal CG mechanisms, but also by informal CG arrangements. In this case, this study departs from the restrictive theories (specifically, agency theory) that are widely used in past literature. Second, this study constructs an index that fits to corporate context of Iran rather than applying indexes introduced in Anglo-American environments.

Details

Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 March 2024

Samira Joudi, Gholamreza Mansourfar, Saeid Homayoun and Zabihollah Rezaee

Considering the standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this study aims to examine whether the link between material sustainability and…

Abstract

Purpose

Considering the standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this study aims to examine whether the link between material sustainability and financial performance depends on the extent to which the company is oriented toward stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the predictions, 13,942 firm-year observations from 43 different countries are used, covering the period from 2010 to 2019. Using a hand-mapping approach to match the indicators suggested by the SASB with those of the ASSET4, the authors realize that there are 170 material sustainability indicators among 466 indicators of the ASSET4. The authors use three different methods to verify if the materiality matters, including the alphas obtained from the Fama and French factor models, comparing the average abnormal returns of the portfolios and the bootstrapped Cramer technique.

Findings

The findings show that companies investing in material sustainability activities perform better than those investing in immaterial activities. Also, consistent with the theoretical foundations, the authors find that the effect of investing in material sustainability activities is more pronounced in stakeholder-oriented countries than that in shareholder-oriented countries. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.

Research limitations/implications

Owing to COVID-19 in late 2019, data from 2020 to 2022 have not been used to obtain reliable results.

Practical implications

The results obtained in the current research provide valuable guidance for investors to make investments considering the degree of materiality of sustainability activities in different industries. It also helps managers to increase the company’s financial performance, make efficient decisions related to investment in sustainability activities and find investment strategies on the material sustainability issues in their industries.

Social implications

This study provides a clearer understanding of investment in sustainability activities in different industries by separating material and immaterial sustainability activities in stakeholder and shareholder-oriented countries, and the results obtained can change the perspective of investors and company managers regarding investing in such activities in different countries. Investing in more materiality sustainability activities than the immateriality dimension can be new opportunities for companies to achieve predetermined goals, help retain and attract business partners or be a source of innovation for new product lines or services. Internal morale and employee engagement may increase while increasing productivity and firm performance. This discussion opens the way for future research.

Originality/value

This study provides insight into the effect of investing in material and immaterial sustainability activities in different industries on the company’s performance in shareholder and stakeholder-oriented countries.

Details

Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2023

Bita Mashayekhi, Ehsan Dolatzarei, Omid Faraji and Zabihollah Rezaee

This study aims to identify the intellectual structure of expanded audit reporting (EAR), offers a quantitative summation of prominent themes, contributors and knowledge gaps and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to identify the intellectual structure of expanded audit reporting (EAR), offers a quantitative summation of prominent themes, contributors and knowledge gaps and provides suggestions for further research.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses various bibliometric techniques, including co-word and co-citation analysis for EAR science mapping, based on 123 papers from Scopus Database between 1991 and 2022.

Findings

The results show EAR research is focused on Audit Quality; Auditor Liability and Litigation; Communicative Value and Readability; Audit Fees; and Disclosure. Regarding EAR research, Brasel et al. (2016), article is the most cited paper, Bédard J. is the most cited author, Laval University is the most influential university, The Accounting Review is the most cited journal and USA is the leading country. Furthermore, the results show that in common law countries, in which shareholder rights and litigation risk is high, topics such as disclosure quality and audit litigation have been addressed more; and in civil legal system countries, which usually favor stakeholders’ rights, topics of gender diversity or corporate governance have been more studied.

Practical implications

This research has practical implications for standard setters and regulators, who can identify important, overlooked and emerging issues and consider them in future policies and standards.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a more objective and comprehensive status of the accounting research on EAR, identifying the gaps in the literature and proposing a direction for future research to continue the discussion on the value-relevance of EAR to achieve more transparency and less audit expectation gap.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 February 2021

Kaveh Asiaei, Zabihollah Rezaee, Nick Bontis, Omid Barani and Noor Sharoja Sapiei

The pivotal role of knowledge management (KM) and its extensive implications have been debated in the academic literature with insufficient focus on its link to particular…

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Abstract

Purpose

The pivotal role of knowledge management (KM) and its extensive implications have been debated in the academic literature with insufficient focus on its link to particular organizational control mechanisms such as performance measurement systems (PMS). To bridge this gap and building on resource orchestration theory, this paper aims to investigate the relationships between KM factors, PMS and corporate performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a survey data set of 92 listed companies in Iran, the framework and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS).

Findings

The SEM-PLS results indicate that knowledge assets are significantly associated with both PMS and corporate performance while knowledge process capabilities (KPC) are not significantly associated with PMS and corporate performance. This study also shows that PMS mediates the relationship between knowledge assets and corporate performance.

Practical implications

The results suggest that the use of appropriate management control systems plays an effective role in synchronizing, aligning and orchestrating a company’s various knowledge resources, which, in turn, can lead to superior overall performance.

Originality/value

Building on a unique synthesis of resource orchestration theory and the knowledge-based view of the firm, the results of this study provide the first empirical evidence on how PMS intervenes in the relationship between knowledge resources (knowledge assets and KPC) and corporate performance.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 25 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 April 2023

Ling Tuo, Shipeng Han, Zabihollah Rezaee and Ji Yu

This study aims to address the unanswered question of whether corporate sustainability has an impact on auditors’ overall judgment and to provide incremental evidence that…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to address the unanswered question of whether corporate sustainability has an impact on auditors’ overall judgment and to provide incremental evidence that corporate sustainability reporting has significant effect on financial auditors’ judgment.

Design/methodology/approach

Following prior research, the authors, respectively, apply auditors’ decisions on going-concern opinions and three discretionary accrual measures as proxies for auditor conservatism over financial risk and financial reporting risk. The authors collect corporate sustainability reporting and sustainability assurance data of U.S. firms from the global reporting initiative (GRI) database to construct and measure firms’ sustainability reporting activities.

Findings

The authors find that nonreporting firms are more likely to receive going-concern opinions than the reporting firms. In addition, reporting firms have a larger scale of discretionary accruals than their nonreporting counterparts. The authors also obtain consistent findings that sustainability assurance or accounting assurance providers strengthen the effect of sustainability reporting on auditors’ judgment.

Research limitations/implications

First, using discretionary accruals as measures of auditor conservatism is controversial, as accruals are the joint product by auditors and clients. Second, binary variables as a measure of sustainability reporting activities limit the inference. Lastly, the findings based on limited samples may weaken the external validity.

Practical implications

The findings imply that firms engaging in sustainability activities are lower in financial or financial reporting risk. Firms can influence audit practitioners’ overall judgment through sustainability reports. Sustainability commitments and reporting have become a part of firms’ risk management.

Social implications

The findings imply that sustainability reporting could become an integrated part of regulated corporate disclosure. Sustainability assurance reduces social costs by lending credibility to sustainability reports.

Originality/value

This paper provides incremental evidence that sustainability reports provide useful information and signals that influence auditors’ professional judgment. The findings also suggest that sustainability assurance strengthens auditors’ confidence in using sustainability information, thus amplifying the effect of sustainability reporting on auditors’ judgment.

Details

International Journal of Accounting & Information Management, vol. 31 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1834-7649

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Article
Publication date: 10 January 2022

Ehsan Poursoleyman, Gholamreza Mansourfar, Saeid Homayoun and Zabihollah Rezaee

Employing a large sample consisting of 3,701 corporations domiciled in developed and emerging countries, this paper aims to analyze the mediating role of investment efficiency in…

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Abstract

Purpose

Employing a large sample consisting of 3,701 corporations domiciled in developed and emerging countries, this paper aims to analyze the mediating role of investment efficiency in the association between business sustainability performance and corporate financial performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Four different aspects of corporate sustainability offered by the ASSET4 database are used as proxies for business sustainability performance, including economic, corporate governance, social and environmental dimensions. In addition to these aspects, the aggregate measure of business sustainability performance is also employed. In order to test the association between business sustainability and corporate performance via investment efficiency, ordinary least squares, fixed-effect, random-effect and generalized method of moments statistical models were employed.

Findings

The results suggest that business sustainability performance is positively associated with corporate financial performance, indicating that sustainable corporations enjoy higher financial performance. Moreover, Sobel, Aroian and Goodman tests confirm that investment efficiency mediates the positive relationship between business sustainability performance and financial performance. Finally, further analyses show that the positive association between sustainability performance and investment efficiency is stronger for those firms headquartered in developed countries than in those located in emerging nations.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating how growth opportunities advance the influence of business sustainability to corporate financial performance using a large sample from 43 countries.

Details

Managerial Finance, vol. 48 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4358

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