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This study aims to assess the effect of material internal control weaknesses (MICW) on the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure.

A total number of 197 firms were assessed in this study during 2014–2021. Two measures were used for MICW. First, the number of existing MICW was assessed in independent auditors’ reports. In Iran, the maximum number of weaknesses is 13. Second, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used as a dummy variable, 1 for a firm with MICW and otherwise 0. Moreover, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used to measure the level of future-oriented disclosure of 13 indicators.

The findings showed that institutional ownership and managerial ownership have a significant positive effect on future-oriented disclosure, whereas the MICW have a significant negative effect on future-oriented disclosure. In addition, MICW played a moderator role in the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure. The robustness checks confirmed the results.

As the studies conducted on future-oriented disclosure and the contributing factors are limited, and also the effect of MICW on future-oriented disclosure is not explored, the present findings can show the importance of the study, and fill the gap in this field. This study offers theoretical and practical implications to drive policymakers and managers to the effectiveness of internal control and future-oriented transparency.

This paper aims to determine whether there is a relationship between intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses and assess the relationship between the variables of intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses.

The statistical population consists of 1,309 firm-year observations from 2014 to 2020. The research hypothesis is tested using statistical methods, including multivariate, least-squares and fixed-effects regression.

The results demonstrate a negative and significant relationship between intellectual capital, social capital and internal control weaknesses. The study also finds that increased intellectual and social capital quality improves human resource utilization, control mechanism, creativity and firm performance. The results also show that intellectual capital and social capital enhancement will reduce internal control weaknesses in the upcoming years.

This paper is the pioneer study on the relationship between intellectual capital and social capital and internal control weaknesses in Iran, carried out separately and in exploratory factor analysis. This paper considers intellectual capital components for theoretical factor analysis, including human capital, structural capital and customer capital. Internal control weakness is assessed based on financial, non-financial and information technology (IT) weaknesses.

This study aims to examine the mediating effects of corporate governance mechanisms like the board of directors on the association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and the risk of material misstatements, including inherent risk and control risk. In particular, the authors study the mediating effects of board characteristics such as board size, independence and gender diversity.

Based on a sample of 100 audit clients listed on the FTSE 100 from 2015 to 2021, this study uses structural equation modelling to test the research objectives.

The findings indicate a significant and negative association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and inherent risk. However, there is no significant evidence observed for control risk. The utilisation of disruptive technology by the audit client has a significant impact on the board characteristics, resulting in an increase in board size, greater independence and gender diversity. The authors also find strong evidence that board independence mediates the association between disruptive technology usage and both inherent risk and control risk. In addition, board size and gender exhibit distinct and differential mediating effects on the association and across the two types of risks.

The study reveals that the significant role of using disruptive technology by audit clients in reducing the risk of material misstatements is closely associated with the board of directors, which makes audit clients place greater emphasis on the construction of effective corporate governance.

This study offers essential primary evidence that can assist policymakers and standard setters in formulating guidance and recommendations for board size, independence and gender quotas, ensuring the enhancement of effective governance and supporting the future of audit within the next generation of digital services.

With respect to relevant stakeholders, it is imperative for audit clients to recognise that corporate governance represents a fundamental means of addressing the ramifications of applying disruptive technology, particularly as they pertain to inherent and control risks within the audit client.

This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the joint impact of corporate governance and the utilisation of disruptive technology by audit clients on inherent risk and control risk, which has not been investigated by previous research.

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

This study aims to examine the determinants of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations and consequences of FCPA enforcements.

This paper uses publicly available data from Compustat, I/B/E/S and Thomson Reuters databases, combined with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) cases, to extract insights on FCPA violations and enforcements using econometric approaches.

The main determinants of FCPA violations appear to be firm size, multinational structure, country corruption and Sarbanes-Oxley Act control weaknesses. Traditional misreporting risks (F-score and M-score) do not predict FCPA violations. This study discovers significant differences between FCPA violations by motivation, as in, sale generation, rent extraction or cost evasion. Bribes motivated by sale generation or rent extraction are partially driven by the extent of the firm’s global operations, whereas bribes motivated by cost evasion relate to internal influences. This study also finds that enforcement is more salient for criminal violations (DOJ enforcement), compared to civil violations (SEC enforcement).

This research provides new insights into the determinants of FCPA violations while underscoring the need for effective measures to combat bribery and promote ethical business practices. This research contributes to the ongoing efforts to curtail bribery, offering valuable insights into the characteristics of firms more likely to engage in bribery and contexts in which these activities occur. It provides critical implications for regulatory bodies, highlighting the differential responses of firms to varying types of enforcement, namely, criminal versus civil, as the authors observe greater decreases in internal control weaknesses following DOJ enforcement compared to SEC enforcement.

For enforcement agencies, the findings underscore the importance of rigorous criminal enforcement against FCPA violations, highlighting the improved control environments prompted by DOJ actions. Managers will find this research relevant, as it demonstrates that a firm’s entry into international markets substantially elevates the risk of its representatives engaging in bribery with foreign officials. In addition, the results are of interest to regulators, revealing that the underlying motivations driving a firm’s activities can significantly alter the factors to consider that might lead to an FCPA violation.

This paper is the original work of the authors and explores the determinants and consequences of FCPA violations and enforcement actions since 2002. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to explore bribe determinants by their motive and documents industry-wide benefits arising from criminal enforcement.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between audit committee expertise and asymmetric information in the US equity market.

The authors use measures of information asymmetry for 705 US firms (5,260 firm-year observations) over the period from 2007 to 2018, and use the theory of expertise (Ericsson and Smith, 1991) to examine the association between audit committee financial expertise and information asymmetry. The authors use multiple econometric approaches such as firm fixed-effect regression and two-stage ordinary least squares regression to control for possible endogeneity and reverse causality and find that the results remain the same.

The authors find that the existence of an audit committee with financial expertise is negatively and significantly associated with information asymmetry. The authors further provide empirical evidence through which audit committee financial expertise affects the firm’s informational environment. Additional analysis supports the argument that the audit committee’s financial expertise enhances the firm’s informational environment by increasing (decreasing) analyst following (dispersion).

One limitation to consider, like most studies on audit committees, is that the authors do not examine the actual role performed by the audit committee. The authors focus on the characteristics stipulated by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act 2002 and stock exchange rules regarding the financial expertise of audit committee members only.

This study is useful to policy makers, standard setters, investors, activists, managers, lenders and various stakeholders who rely on the financial statements of firms with an expert audit committee on board. The outcome of this study promotes recruiting audit committees with financial expertise due to the assumed benefits of this trait to the US firm.

The results of this study are not event-dependent and therefore have persistent effects, which is important to the evaluation of the usefulness of a regulation. This study promotes recruiting audit committees with financial expertise on boards because of the assumed benefits to the firm and investors.

This study is the first to document that financial expertise of audit committee characteristics is not only negatively related to the magnitude of information asymmetry but also driven by the financial expertise of audit committee members rather than chairs.

This study aims to explore the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) power and stock price crash risk in India. Furthermore, it seeks to analyse how insider trades may moderate the impact of CEO power on stock price crash risk.

A study of 236 companies from the S&P BSE 500 Index (2014–2023) have been analysed through pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression in the baseline analysis. To enhance the results' reliability, robustness checks include alternative methodologies, such as panel data regression with fixed-effects, binary logistic regression and Bayesian regression. Additional control variables and alternative crash risk measure have also been utilised. To address potential endogeneity, instrumental variable techniques such as two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) and difference-in-difference (DiD) methodologies are utilised.

Stakeholder theory is supported by results revealing that CEO power proxies like CEO duality, status and directorship reduce one-year ahead stock price crash risk and vice versa. Insider trades are found to moderate the link between select dimensions of CEO power and stock price crash risk. These findings persist after addressing potential endogeneity concerns, and the results remain consistent across alternative methodologies and variable inclusions.

This study significantly advances research on stock price crash risk, especially in emerging economies like India. The implications of these findings are crucial for investors aiming to mitigate crash risk, for corporations seeking enhanced governance measures and for policymakers considering the economic and welfare consequences associated with this phenomenon.

This research investigates whether focal firms employ strategic supply chain information disclosure, focusing on the concealment of supplier and customer identities, as part of their supply chain environmental risk management strategies (supplier sustainability risk and customer loss risk, respectively).

Using a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and utilizing the suppliers’ environmental punishment of peer firms (peer events) as an exogenous shock and employing ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, this study conducts a regression analysis to test how focal firms disclose the identities of their suppliers and customers.

Our results indicate that focal firms prefer to hide the identities of their suppliers and customers following the environmental punishment of peer firms’ suppliers. In addition, supplier concentration weakens the effect of withholding supplier identities, whereas customer concentration strengthens the effect of hiding customer identities. Mechanism analysis shows that firms hide supplier identities to avoid their reputation being affected and hide customer identities to prevent the deterioration of customers’ reputations and thus impact their market share.

Our study reveals that reputation spillover is another crucial factor in supply chain transparency. It is also pioneering in applying the anonymity theory to explain focal firms’ information disclosure strategy in supply chains.

This study aims to investigate the effect of intangible capital (e.g. intangible investments and research and development (R&D) expenditures) on future profitability in an emerging economy and the moderating role of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

To this aim, information about 210 companies during 2014–2021 was collected. This study calculated EPU based on the inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate and economic growth.

The results showed that both R&D expenditures and other intangible investments positively affect future profitability. Moreover, EPU decreases the positive effect of R&D expenditures and other intangible investments on future profitability. Hypothesis testing based on ordinary least squares and generalized method of moments regressions confirmed these results. This study emphasizes the urgent need to adjust how they operate the business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nature and degree of intangible assets and R&D expenditures in firms in emerging markets is an interesting area of research. However, empirical studies in this area have not led to any unanimous conclusion in emerging markets. Moreover, intangible assets and R&D expenditures become very important in the economy affected by the financial crisis and conditions of uncertainties. In light of the COVID-19 crisis, significant changes occurred at all levels and affected accounting-related issues, and the present study highlighted COVID-19. The findings of this research will not only help the managers of companies in developing countries but also, because of the dearth of similar research, they can help managers in developed countries and the global community.

Ethiopia has enacted laws on transparency and disclosure of information in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However, these laws are not strict enough, with the transparency and disclosure practices disappointing in the country. Thus, this study aims to investigate the legal framework governing transparency and disclosure in SOEs.

This study uses doctrinal, qualitative and comparative approaches. Domestic legal texts are appraised based on the organization for economic co-operation and development Guideline on Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises, the World Bank Toolkit on Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises and best national practices. This approach has been further corroborated by qualitative analysis of the basic principles of transparency and disclosure.

The finding reveals that the laws on transparency and disclosure do not comply with global practices and are inadequate to ensure transparency and discourse in SOEs. They fail to establish appropriate disclosure frameworks and practices at the SOE and state-ownership entity levels. They also indiscriminately subject enterprises to multiple auditing functions and conflicting responsibilities.

To the author’s knowledge, this study is the first legal literature on transparency and disclosure in Ethiopian SOEs. This study assists the state as owner in reforming the laws and uplifting SOEs from their current unpleasant condition. It can also become a reference for future research.