Mapping Ethics Education in Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Journal of Business Ethics - The attention being paid to ethics education in accounting has been increasing, especially after the corporate accounting scandals at the turn of the century. This...     

Japanese managers and British culture: a comparative case study

This paper examines the applicability of Japanese management practices in Britain within a socio-cultural perspective. Using a case study research in a Japanese multinational subsidiary in Britain, the paper argues that some management practices are incompatible with British societal and business cultural characteristics and are therefore not adopted by the Japanese managers working in this country. There are some practices which can more readily be adapted to local conditions and have successfully been implemented in Britain.     

Examining the extent of and determinants for sustainability assurance quality: The role of audit committees

This study examines the extent of and determinants for sustainability assurance quality. Data comprise sustainability assurance statements published by the top 100 listed companies in Australia and New Zealand from 2017 to 2019. The findings indicate that Australian companies lead their New Zealand counterparts in sustainability assurance. Although sustainability reporting has risen, assurance rates remain significantly low. Accountants dominate the market, and companies prefer to use their own auditors for sustainability assurance work. Sustainability assurance quality is poor and does not vary significantly among Australian and New Zealand companies. Low-quality sustainability assurance plays a limited role in mitigating potential stakeholder–agency conflicts. The regression analysis indicates that audit committee characteristics such as members' independence, industry/market expertise, and attending meetings enhance sustainability assurance quality, whereas audit committee size has no affect. These findings suggest that audit committee characteristics such as independence, industry expertise, and regular meeting attendance have the potential to reduce stakeholder–agency conflicts by improving the quality of sustainability statement assurance. Our findings build on the sustainability assurance literature by exploring current trends in sustainability assurance practices in Australia and New Zealand where corporate governance codes have been recently revised. Further, these findings are timely given recent changes in standards (International Standard on Assurance Engagements [ISAE] 3000 and Global Reporting Initiative [GRI]). Our study contributes to the audit committee literature and sheds light on the role played by audit committee characteristics on sustainability assurance statement quality. The study findings potentially offer useful insights for practitioners, standard setters, and regulators.     

Gender discrimination in education,health, and labour market: a voice for equality

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market on economic growth in a panel of 20 high-income OECD countries for the period of 1980–2015. In addition, the study proposed an index of pro-equality growth, which is flared with education, health, and labour market initiatives to promote economic growth. The results show that gender parity index for educational attainment significantly promotes economic growth while health and labour market required substantial policy reforms to reduce health and labour market inequalities to sustain long-term economic growth. The results classified three countries as highly equitable growth, one country for equitable growth, two countries are moderate growth, four countries are less equitable growth while remaining 10 countries fall in the category of inequitable growth, where greater inequality promotes economic growth on the cost of education, health, and labour market inequalities.     

Do Big-Four affiliates earn audit fee premiums in emerging markets?

The paper investigates whether Big-Four affiliated (B4A) firms earn audit premiums in an emerging economy context, using Bangladesh as a case. The joint determination of audit and non-audit service fees is also examined using a sample of 122 companies listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Our findings reveal that although the B4A firms do not generally earn a fee premium in Bangladesh, they charge higher audit fees for clients not purchasing non-audit services. This suggests that the B4A firms may actually lower audit fees to attract non-audit services, and cross subsidizes audit fees through non-audit-services fees. The lack of a B4A premium implies that there is lack of quality audit in emerging markets. We also document that audit and non-audit service fees are jointly determined in Bangladesh. Thus, we provide evidence of joint determination of audit and non-audit service fees in an emerging economy context.     

Global estimates of growth–inequality–poverty (GIP) triangle: evidence from World Bank’s classification countries

This study extended the concept of ‘growth–inequality–poverty (GIP) triangle’ by using the principle component approach which allows us to composite different poverty and inequality indicators into one single index that contains most of the useful information from the original dataset. Using the idea of GIP triangle, this study examines the long-run relationship among weighted poverty index (which comprises headcount ratio, poverty gap and squared poverty gap); weighted inequality index (i.e., Watts Index, Gini Index and MLD Index) and average monthly per capita income in the designated 138 countries according to World Bank’s classification over a period of 2005–2010. The data set mainly contain countries’ unit record household survey at least one which is conducted between the countries during the sample period. The regression model encompassing the impact of economic growth and income inequality on poverty reflects that income inequality increases poverty while economic growth decreases poverty. It indicates that the impact of inequality in increasing poverty is a somewhat greater than that of growth in average income in reducing overall poverty in a sample countries. The other regression model encompassing the impact of economic growth and poverty on income inequality showed that the poverty itself is also likely to be a barrier for poverty reduction; and inequality seems to predict lower future growth rates. The final regression model depicting the impact of poverty and income inequality on mean income of the household suggests that poverty itself reduces mean income of the household while income inequality increases economic growth. The results are interesting and simply suggest that whenever social institutions malfunction, the incidence of damage would usually be distributed unevenly over the society’s members.     

Measuring health expenditures and outcomes in saarc region: health is a luxury?

The objective of the study is to investigate the link between health care expenditures (HCE), economic growth and health outcomes (i.e., life expectancy (LE), infant mortality and the share of elderly people) for a panel of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries; namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka; over the period of 1995–2010. The developed panel cointegration technique is employed for analysis of short and long-run relationship between the variables. The results of panel cointegration found that there is a long-run relationship between health expenditures, economic growth and health outcomes in SAARC region. The estimated results indicate that both, LE and share of elderly people in population have a negative relationship related to the HCEs which signifies that HCEs are luxury goods in SAARC countries. The burden of aging population can be lowered by provision of quality health services and utilization of their experience and knowledge in dynamics of economic development forecasting. Furthermore, there is no significant relationship found between infant mortality rate (IMR) and HCEs which implies that HCEs do not provide sufficient benefits to reduce infant mortality. Similarly, HCEs are not enough in generating GDP, lowering IMR and increasing LE in SAARC region. The implementation of appropriate tax reform, stable food prices and trade promotion for low transaction cost medical equipment is required for the SAARC region.     

Quantitative easing and median income: a state-level analysis

Due to the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve engaged in unconventional monetary policy (QE) to fight the effects of the economic downturn. Literature asserts that QE did have impacts on economic growth and helped alleviate the effects of the recession. Recently, critics have asserted that the benefits of QE may not have been equally distributed across households. In this paper, we build a state-level dataset to investigate the dynamics of QE measures and median income across the U.S states. The findings indicate that, for the period 2008 to 2014, there is statistical evidence that increases in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet correspond with higher nominal median income. However, once we adjust for inflation, the results become statistically insignificant and the impact of QE on median income becomes almost zero.