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Based on the theoretical development by House et al. (2004), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the cross-cultural differences of internal auditors’ perceptions on the importance of internal auditor skills.

The authors developed a survey based on the competency framework for internal auditing and collected data from the UK (Anglo cultural cluster) and Korea (Confucian cultural cluster). In total, 231 internal auditors participated in the study.

The results showed that UK auditors perceived behavioral skills as more important than cognitive skills, while Korean auditors had an opposite perception. Not surprisingly, UK auditors rated each sub-category of behavioral skills higher than Korean auditors; Korean auditors gave higher scores than UK auditors for each sub-category of cognitive skills.

One limitation of the study is that two different data collection methods were used for the study: online for the UK and paper-based for Korean auditors. Another limitation of the study is that the authors did not analyze the possible impact of each participating auditor’s background knowledge.

The findings of the study contributes to professional practice by providing culturally adaptive criteria for regulators’ policy-making, organizations’ employee hiring and training, and educators’ curriculum design across various cultural environments.

The findings of the study can provide some insights on cultural impacts to help academic researchers develop models regarding the internal auditor selection and training in different nations.

This study aims to investigate whether eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) disclosure management solution improves public companies’ earnings release efficiency and mitigates earnings management.

This study adopts a unique survey data set from the Financial Executives Research Foundation 2013 to identify companies’ XBRL implementation strategies. Earnings release efficiency is measured by earnings announcement time lag. Multiple indicators of both accruals- and real activities-based earnings management are adopted to examine the research hypotheses.

The authors find that the disclosure management solution (DMS) XBRL implementation is positively associated with earnings release efficiency for companies with good news. The authors also find that DMS implementation strategy is negatively related to accruals-based earnings management, but positively related to real activities-based earnings management measured by abnormal cash flows.

The results of this study can inform regulators, investors and corporate management on how XBRL adoption is associated with corporate financial reporting.

The study contributes to the XBRL literature by providing empirical evidence on how the strategies adopted by companies to implement XBRL may affect the results of XBRL mandatory adoption.

The aim of the present paper is that three long-chain hydroxyethyl alkylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ionic liquids (ILs) were synthesized and evaluated as lubricants for steel-steel contacts at room temperature and boundary lubrication conditions. Hydroxyethyl functional group and alkyl chain length effect on the physicochemical and fretting tribological behaviors of the ILs was comparatively investigated, as compared to traditional dialkylimidazolium ILs.

The fretting friction and wear tests were carried out using an Optimol SRV-IV oscillating reciprocating friction and wear tester. The worn surface was observed and analyzed by scanning electron microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The electrochemical corrosion behavior of copper disks in selected imidazolium-based ionic liquids was studied using a CHI660B electrochemical workstation.

This can be seen by comparing the results for the non-hydroxyl ILs and hydroxyl ILs that the latter exhibited the littler friction coefficient, the smaller wear volume, although the latter electrochemical corrosion behavior of copper disks is slightly higher than the former. The results also revealed that the ILs with a longer alkyl chain displayed larger viscosities, better anti-corrosion capacities, higher hydrophobic properties and more excellent friction-reducing and anti-wear performance than those with a shorter alkyl chain.

This work might offer new knowledge in the design and application of new ILs as lubricants; it also confirms some in-depth physicochemical questions, e.g. the function mechanism, the correlations between structure and performance. Additionally, a proposed interaction model between the ILs and the friction substrate has been given.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Chinese industry accountants' perceptions of the ethical context in their organization and Machiavellianism on attitudes toward earnings management.

The research is based on a survey of professional accountants employed by companies in Mainland China.

The results indicate that perceptions of a strong organizational emphasis on serving the public interest (benevolent/cosmopolitan climate) significantly reduced professional accountants' willingness to condone accounting earnings management. Professionally certified accountants also judged accounting earnings management more harshly. Consistent with our expectations, high Machiavellians judged earnings management more leniently, although this effect was only marginally significant in the case of accounting earnings management. In contrast to prior studies of earnings management in the USA, the participants judged accounting earnings management more leniently, but judged operating earnings management more harshly.

This is the first study to document that an organizational emphasis on serving the public interest can restrain aggressive behavior among industry accountants. Claims of serving the public interest in accounting have traditionally focused on the role of the independent auditor in protecting the public from misleading financial reporting. The results indicate that appeals to public interest obligations also have resonance for professional accountants in industry. The fact that certified accountants were less tolerant of accounting earnings management also has important implications, demonstrating the practical value of professional certification programs and their associated training and socialization processes. The contrast observed between the ethical judgments of our Chinese participants and US accountants surveyed in previous studies raises important questions for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to addresses the impact of organizational ethical context (ethical climate and ethical culture) and Machiavellianism on organizational‐professional conflict (OPC) and affective organizational commitment (OC) among Chinese accountants. The paper also aims to test for interactive effects of ethical context and Machiavellianism.

The paper is based on a field survey of 89 professional accountants employed by companies operating in Mainland China.

Two aspects of the organizational ethical culture, expectations of obedience to authority and strong ethical norms/incentives, emerged as the dominant influences on both OPC and affective commitment. Strong negative correlations are observed between OPC and OC, and between Machiavellianism and OC. Contrary to expectations, the organizational ethical context had the greatest impact on OC among high Machiavellians. For low Machiavellians, OPC fully mediated the relationship between ethical context and OC, but no such mediation effects are found for high Machiavellians.

This is the first study of the relationships among ethical context, OPC and OC among industry accountants in China, and the first study of the effects of Machiavellianism on these relationships. The results generally support our contention that organizational ethical context will be a key determinant of OPC and OC. The fact that weaker ethical cultures were strongly associated with increased conflict and decreased commitment suggests that managers of accounting/auditing departments should take a proactive approach to developing and nurturing positive or supportive cultures. The differences in results for high and low Machiavellians also raise interesting questions that should be addressed in future research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether companies’ environmental and social supply chain activities are associated with their financial performance.

A sample from the top 500 US companies based on Newsweek's green ranking is used. Data from the Bloomberg environmental, social and governance (ESG) and COMPUSTAT financial database are used for an empirical analysis of the relationships.

Integrated sustainable supply chain management, jointly including social and environmental supply chain management, efforts is positively associated with corporate financial performance measured by return on assets and return on equity, and the positive effects can have a time lag of at least two years.

By adopting the ESG database, the paper only tests corporate sustainability supply chain management using a binary 0-1 valuation. Three-year data period is also a limitation for an extensive time study. A research implication is that win-win benefits may accrue, but additional nuances may exist such as indirect influences that need to be studied.

Two major implications of this study are that organizations may wish to implement both environmental and social supply chain management simultaneously to get the greatest benefit, and that managers need to be patient about reaping the rewards of these initiatives.

The paper contributes to the sustainability management literature by being the first to use publicly available data to investigate the financial benefits associated with individual and joint environmental and social supply chain management activities. The paper also uses a relatively large data set from US-based companies that have not been widely studied in the supply chain management literature.

The purpose of constructing the technology/function matrix is to analyze the patents in the target domain. The extraction of technology words is an important part of the construction of technology/function matrix. This algorithm is used to solve the problem of low efficiency of traditional Chinese process patents technology words extraction.

The authors propose a Chinese process patents technology words extraction method based on the improved term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) algorithm to help technicians obtain the technology words in the target domain. According to the characteristics of Chinese process patents technology words, the TF value of candidate technology words is divided into four parts, and the corpus of IDF value calculation of candidate technology words is selected.

Through the test of Chinese process patents in the domain of path planning, this study shows that the method is feasible and practical. It can help users quickly and accurately obtain the technology words of Chinese process patents in the target domain.

With the increasing number of patents on the network-based patent information platform, patent analysis of massive Chinese process patents has become a research focus. The method proposed in this paper can facilitate users to extract technology words from massive Chinese process patents for patent analysis.

This paper aims to improve the efficiency of Chinese process patents technology words extraction. The authors hope that the proposed method can reduce the labor and time cost of Chinese process patents technology words extraction.