This study examines the impact of country-level corruption on audit fees. Using a sample of 102,934 companies from 48 countries over the period 1998–2014, the authors find that audit fees are positively associated with higher levels of corruption. They also discovered that corruption adds a significant margin to the premium paid to Big 4 (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG) auditors. The study opens up a new line of research and adds significantly to the academic literature on the Big 4 audit premium.
IMPACT
The study has several important implications for academics and policy-makers. These include discussion of the factors driving corruption and the role of auditing. Knowledge of the factors driving corruption should guide policy-makers to adoption of polices that could reduce corruption. The finding that audit fees are positively associated with corruption, as well as with audit quality, points to the potential for auditing as a tool for corruption control beyond its traditional role as an assurance service. 相似文献
Several macro‐level and meso‐level factors have led to unprecedented proportions of aged employees in organisations, resulting in higher levels of age diversity. Little is known about which age diversity practices and programmes are effective in which types of organisations for which outcomes. Derived from social exchange theory, this paper proposes and tests positive relationships between age diversity practices and organisational outcomes and work‐life programmes and organisational outcomes. Derived from contingency theory, it also proposes and tests for a moderating effect of diversity perspective (fairness and discrimination vs. synergy) on the two main relationships. Data were collected from 248 medium to large‐sized for‐profit organisations. The results partially support both main effect hypotheses and one moderating effect hypothesis. The findings suggest different organisational outcomes for age diversity practices and work‐life programmes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. 相似文献
Empirica - We investigate the hysteresis hypothesis by proposing a heterogeneous panel unit root test that allows for gradually changing trends and cross-sectional dependence (CSD) among panel... 相似文献
Online physician reviews (OPRs), also known as electronic word of mouth, have become the primary source of information for patients while making health consultation decisions. However, different techniques to analyze these reviews by machines have not been frequently applied yet in this domain. In this study, a novel method for opinion mining is being proposed to fill the existing research gap, that is, a hybrid approach to sentic computing. This approach integrates artificial intelligence and semantic web techniques to implicitly analyze OPRs in order to evaluate patient perceptions of healthcare service quality. We develop our methodology by using the following three main tasks: (1) sentence-level topic spotting (a topic-analysis procedure) to extract major topics, (2) a sentic computing framework to perform concept-level sentiment analysis (polarity detection on the categorized sentences), and (3) root cause and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analyses to identify SWOT for healthcare organizations. Analyses results of 47,499 OPRs from the UK-based website (Iwantgreatcare.org) show that the proposed hybrid approach has accurately classified concept words to their corresponding topics, and it has also outperformed the similar other methods of topic extraction in the healthcare domain. The results also indicate that the proposed approach can better contribute to the overall performance analyses for healthcare organizations, which could help practitioners in improving service-quality measures based on the real voices of patients. The proposed model also provides a theoretical basis for formulating quality measures for the healthcare sector.
Microcredit has long been hailed as a powerful tool to promote livelihoods and reduce poverty through entrepreneurship. However, its impacts on people's subjective well-being remain underexplored. We present a unified theoretical framework for analyzing the effect of microcredit-enabled entrepreneurship on overall life satisfaction – a key manifestation of subjective well-being. Empirically, we apply an instrumental variable approach to a unique census-like household survey conducted in three villages of Bangladesh in 2013. In spite of having no direct effects, we find that microcredit borrowing has an indirect negative effect on overall life satisfaction, through increased worry. On a positive note, we find that female micro-borrowers experience an increase in satisfaction with financial security and achievement in life. We also provide evidence that micro-borrowers with higher levels of assets experience an increase in satisfaction with financial security. 相似文献
This paper examines the volatility spillovers among Gulf Arab emerging markets. Multivariate VAR-GARCH model of daily returns, with BEKK specification based on the conditional variances and conditional correlations, is estimated for all six GCC equity markets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. The results show high own-volatility spillovers and a high degree of own-volatility persistence in all GCC markets. Moreover, there are significant cross-volatility spillovers and cross-volatitlity persistence among all GCC equity markets, with stronger evidence from all GCC markets to the Saudi market. Such evidence could be explained by the existence of uncertainties surrounding various Gulf bank exposures to certain Saudi business groups as well as the downward movement of oil prices. 相似文献
Prior literature on firm value creation for stakeholders has oversimplified and narrowed the concept of value down to “economic returns.” Although economic returns are fundamental to a firm's core stakeholders (i.e., shareholders), other legitimate stakeholders want “value” beyond economic returns. We define stakeholder value as the financial and nonfinancial returns a firm can offer to its legitimate stakeholders, and empirically investigate whether board gender diversity (BGD) improves our multidimensional measure of value. Using Thomson Reuters' ASSET4 data for U.K.‐listed firms available from Eikon for the period 2007–2017, we report a significant positive relationship between BGD and stakeholder value creation. In particular, BGD increases social and environmental value creation in addition to economic returns. Furthermore, our results suggest that even though gender‐diverse boards are associated with stakeholder value creation in family firms, this is only conspicuous for environmental value creation. The findings suggest that although female directors cater to the interests of broader stakeholder groups, family ownership causes them to mainly focus on environmental stakeholders. The study provides important implications for regulators, stakeholders, and academic scholars. 相似文献
Nakhon Si Thammarat province is one of the largest cities in Thailand and offers various types of street foods in the city. However, the number of street vendors that pass food safety certification is very low. Nevertheless, there are many consumers who still purchase street food because of their lifestyle who are exposed to food safety risks. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate how consumers make their decisions about the safety of the street food. This study investigates the importance of the need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation stages in consumers’ decision-making in relation to their purchasing of safe street food. The results from the structural equation modeling analysis found that, at 95%, the confidential need recognition would act as a partial mediator between consumers’ motivation → pre-purchase evaluation on purchasing safe food and consumers’ food safety knowledge → pre-purchase evaluation. In turn, pre-purchase evaluation would act as a full mediator between consumers’ motivation and safe street food purchasing. The findings signify that the stages of need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation in the decision-making process are important in order to reduce consumers' food risk while purchasing street food. Therefore, encouraging consumers to recognize the importance of purchasing safe food and convincing them to be concerned when selecting food is necessary to prevent consumers from unsafe food consumption. 相似文献