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The purpose of this study is to analyse historical events to argue the improbable prospect of radical accounting reform in corporate financial reporting (CFR) due to the absence of abstract accounting knowledge as part of accountancy professionalisation (AP).

A historical database of CFR and AP events in the UK is categorised and analysed to observe the evolution of accounting in CFR from the perspective of the sociology of professions relating to abstract knowledge in professionalisation.

CFR has always been a statutory function in the UK dependent on arbitrary accounting rules rather than expert measurements based on abstract accounting knowledge. Accounting rules have evolved as part of AP and currently form part of the statutory regulation of CFR. The accountancy profession has eschewed abstract accounting knowledge in a mutually beneficial and uncompetitive relationship with the law profession in CFR.

The study is limited to the history of CFR and AP in the UK and its findings are contrary to the sociology of professions regarding abstract knowledge, consistent with the accountancy profession’s 19th-century experience of court-related services, and indicative of normative accounting research’s redundancy.

Regarding CFR and AP in the UK, the accountancy profession is an expert subordinate branch of the law profession and has no incentive to alter the status quo of statutory accounting rule compliance prevailing over abstract accounting knowledge-based expertise in CFR.

The study questions the optimism of prior research of accounting in CFR that suggests the possibility of radical reform using abstract knowledge.

The article aims to establish whether the degree of aversion to inflation and the responsiveness to deviations from potential output have changed over time.

This paper assesses time variation in monetary policy rules by applying a time-varying parameter generalised methods of moments (TVP-GMM) framework.

Using monthly data until December 2022 for five inflation targeting countries (the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden) and five countries with alternative monetary regimes (the US, Japan, Denmark, the Euro Area, Switzerland), we find that monetary policy has become more averse to inflation and more responsive to the output gap in both sets of countries over time. In particular, there has been a clear shift in inflation targeting countries towards a more hawkish stance on inflation since the adoption of this regime and a greater response to both inflation and the output gap in most countries after the global financial crisis, which indicates a stronger reliance on monetary rules to stabilise the economy in recent years. It also appears that inflation targeting countries pay greater attention to the exchange rate pass-through channel when setting interest rates. Finally, monetary surprises do not seem to be an important determinant of the evolution over time of the Taylor rule parameters, which suggests a high degree of monetary policy transparency in the countries under examination.

It provides new evidence on changes over time in monetary policy rules.

Social media fatigue (SMF) has been widely recognized; however, previous studies have included various concepts into a single fatigue construct. Fatigue has typically been explored from the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) or stimulus-organism-response (SOR) perspectives. To further investigate SMF, the authors split it into the two constructs of exhaustion and disinterest. Furthermore, the authors introduced the concept of emotional labor and identified rules that may affect surface and deep acting strategies.

The authors designed and conducted a survey to collect data from social networking platform users.

Results from 364 users of social networking platforms supported most of the authors' hypotheses. First, most of the display rules affect the choice of deep or surface acting. Second, both types of acting lead to exhaustion, but only surface acting leads to disinterest. Third, discontinuance intention is affected by both types of fatigue.

This study contributes to SMF research by adding more antecedents (deep and surface acting) based on the emotional labor perspective and showing the impacts of communication rules on emotional labor. In addition, this study also distinguishes disinterest-style fatigue from exhaustion.

This study aims to investigate the configurational effects of five rules – artificial intelligence (AI)-based hiring decision transparency, consistency, voice, explainability and human involvement – on applicants' procedural justice perception (APJP) and applicants' interactional justice perception (AIJP). In addition, this study examines whether the identified configurations could further enhance applicants' organisational commitment (OC).

Drawing on the justice model of applicants' reactions, the authors conducted a longitudinal survey of 254 newly recruited employees from 36 Chinese companies that utilise AI in their hiring. The authors employed fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to determine which configurations could improve APJP and AIJP, and the authors used propensity score matching (PSM) to analyse the effects of these configurations on OC.

The fsQCA generates three patterns involving five configurations that could improve APJP and AIJP. For pattern 1, when AI-based recruitment with high interpersonal rule (AI human involvement) aims for applicants' justice perception (AJP) through the combination of high informational rule (AI explainability) and high procedural rule (AI voice), there must be high levels of AI consistency and AI voice to complement AI explainability, and only this pattern of configurations can further enhance OC. In pattern 2, for the combination of high informational rule (AI explainability) and low procedural rule (absent AI voice), AI recruitment with high interpersonal rule (AI human involvement) should focus on AI transparency and AI explainability rather than the implementation of AI voice. In pattern 3, a mere combination of procedural rules could sufficiently improve AIJP.

This study, which involved real applicants, is one of the few empirical studies to explore the mechanisms behind the impact of AI hiring decisions on AJP and OC, and the findings may inform researchers and managers on how to best utilise AI to make hiring decisions.

Clinically, it is often observed that autistic people may have a heightened need for rules and may find rule violations very distressing. It is clinically plausible that autistic individuals may be prone to hyper-morality and greater reactivity and adverse experiences arising from moral threats and violations. Such adverse experiences may, in some instances, lead to moral distress (MD) or in more extreme cases moral injury. Thus, this study aims to examine how MD can operate in the context of autism.

The authors explore clinical hypotheses on how MD can intersect with different features of autism by drawing on clinical and research knowledge of autism spectrum disorder and how it contextualises experiences of morality.

Based on a review of the literature and theory, the authors hypothesise that autistic individuals may be more prone to MD where they have a lower threshold for MD. As a result of this lower threshold, they may have more frequent exposure to MD, experience more immediate and intense subjective reactions to moral transgressions, for more protracted periods. Also, they may find it more difficult to over-ride and neutralise moral outrage. As a result, they may be more susceptible to mental health sequelae and impaired social and occupational functioning. Practical recommendations are made for clinicians supporting people with autism with a propensity for MD or moral injury, to improve their quality of life.

Practical recommendations are made for clinicians supporting people with autism with a propensity for MD or moral injury, to improve their quality of life.

Understanding MD in an autistic context is important for detecting and treating the adverse impacts of MD on autistic individuals. Importantly, erroneous preconceptions about moral reasoning in autism need to be mitigated to fully understand the moral experiences and harness the many strengths of people with autism.

When financial statements are public, the choice between alternative reporting regimes constitutes a signal that addresses external stakeholders. Generally, the choice of more complex regimes acts as a complement of firms' transparency. However, in the absence of audits, opportunistic behaviors could be incentivized. This study aims to test whether SMEs' choice between alternative accounting regimes is associated with earnings quality.

Drawing on the literature about accounting choices and earnings quality, this study investigates whether the same conclusions are confirmed for SMEs. Using a sample of 4,054 Italian companies and 12,114 observations, it compared four earnings quality proxies of a group of companies that opted for the “Full” rules and those of a subsample of the population of companies that applied the Simplified rules.

The results suggest that the signaling power of accounting rules' choice could lead to wrong conclusions for SMEs. Indeed, a positive relationship emerged (H1) between the choice of the “Full” rules and income smoothing behaviors, while the same choice appears to reduce the probability to disclose SPOS. Moreover, the results suggest that opportunistic behaviors are more frequent for firms that have settled in a “non-cooperative” social environment (H2).

This study could foster research on financial reporting quality in private firms.

Comparing the quality of financial statements drawn up according to two alternative accounting regimes could provide useful suggestions for both users and regulators.

The results contribute to the limited literature on the implications of differential reporting. Finally, it enriches the literature about heterogeneity in accounting quality within private firms.

This research investigates the impact of customer rule violation issues on frontline employees' (FLEs’) burnout due-to-customers. A model and hypotheses are developed using COR theory and past literature on misbehaving customers and their effects on customer-facing employees.

The proposed model was assessed using a survey of 840 frontline retail, restaurant, service and caregiving employees and their reactions to the issue of misbehaving customers (i.e. rule breaking and/or rude customers).

FLEs' perceived frequency of customer rule violations, FLEs' concerns with misbehaving customers and FLEs' concerns with enforcing rules with these customers increased FLEs' burnout due-to-customers, while FLEs' customer orientation decreased it. Interactions among several antecedents were found relative to their effects on burnout. Burnout due-to-customers decreased FLEs' organizational commitment and increased quitting intentions. Additionally, this burnout mediated the relationships between our studied antecedents and job outcome variables (either partially or fully), with organizational commitment also mediating the relationship between burnout and quitting intentions.

The impact of FLEs' concerns relative to customers' rule breaking, which has not been previously addressed, is shown to increase FLEs' burnout due-to-customers, while FLEs' customer orientation buffered and reduced burnout, with frequency of violations interacting with several antecedents, and ultimately affecting burnout and several dependent variables—organizational commitment and quitting intentions. These FLE rule violation and enforcement concerns, captured at the height of the pandemic, are new variables to the literature. These issues have important implications for managers as to their treatment and training of FLEs in the future.

The authors construct two time-varying political connection (PC) indexes to measure a firm's political tendencies toward ruling and opposing parties and analyze whether a firm with ruling party tendencies obtains better bank loan contracts compared to the contracts obtained by a firm with opposing party tendencies and a firm with fixed PC tendencies.

Linguistic text mining is used to construct the two time-varying PC indexes from news sources that reflect the tone and frequencies of characteristic texts to determine a firm's tendencies to favor the ruling or opposing parties.

The results show that varying PC firms connected to the ruling party receive preferential loan contracts when their political tendencies increase but varying PC firms connected to the opposition party do not. In contrast, fixed PC firms gain similar benefits only when the connection is determined in the presidential election year but not in other years. Firms supporting two parties receive minimal financial rewards in terms of loan terms.

In past studies, once a firm is identified as having a connection with a political party, it is assumed to have PC throughout the sample period (i.e. fixed PC firms). The authors lift this assumption and examine how varying PC affect bank loan contracts. The two time-varying PC indexes can identify a firm's more immediate party tendencies and more precise effects of a firm's party tendencies on bank loan contracts.

Numerous policies are established in Mauritius to attract foreign direct investment, but at the same time, severe concerns were raised concerning the erosion of Mauritian tax base, which is witnessed by the decrease in the percentage of tax revenue to gross domestic product in recent years. To avoid these issues, in 2019, the Mauritian legislator has domesticated the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) BEPS 2013 Action 3 on controlled foreign company (CFC) in its income tax legislation. As such, the purpose of this study is to critically assess the implications of CFC rules of Mauritius to reduce tax avoidance in the light of international tax competition.

To achieve the research objective, this study will adopt a black letter approach by analysing the rules and regulations of various jurisdiction as well as international standards on CFCs and other tax avoidance legal provisions. A comparative analysis will be conducted between Mauritian laws on CFCs and the corresponding legislation of the UK and the USA, which are selected to assess the developed world’s position on strict CFC rules.

A hasty implementation of CFC rules leads to various complexities like interpretation issues and diminishing the competitiveness of the country to multinationals. In this respect, there is the risk of a trade-off between tax collected and foreign direct investment in the country. Consequently, the research recommends that Mauritius reforms its CFC legislation by extending the scope of tax exemptions for intra-group financing income, for the first year of CFC’s operation with the possibility of offsetting foreign taxes and for the Mauritius Revenue Authority to establish detailed guidelines on the determination of CFC income and its attribution for tax purposes in Mauritius.

Existing literature has to a great extent focused on the role of CFC rules as a tax avoidance measure and on the divergence or convergence between domestic CFC legislation against the OECD recommendations (Dourado, 2015; Xu, 2018; Beebeejaun et al., 2023). However, limited literature is available on the evaluation of the purpose of CFC rules enacted by a developing country being Mauritius in the context of the global competitive market, to which this research aims at filling the gap.

This study aims to analyze notable distribution dispute cases from Islamic law history. The authors will assess these alongside resolutions proposed by historical authorities, some of which evolved into established Islamic case law. In addition, the authors intend to apply classic fair division rules to these cases, providing alternative solutions. Using a game-theoretical approach, the authors plan to compare Islamic solutions with traditional division rules through axiomatic analysis. The goal of this study is to systematically explore the unique principles underpinning Islamic distributions.

In this study, the authors collate Islamic inheritance law disputes involving conflicting claims, unresolvable by primary Islamic law sources, from historical and modern texts. The authors formally model these as claims problems, surplus-sharing problems and adapted claims problems. Concurrently, the authors gather the proposed solutions and historical backgrounds offered by the era’s authorities and jurists. These solutions are axiomatically generalized into rules, while the axioms characterizing distribution rules are checked if they are aligned with Islamic norms and values. This approach facilitates a comparison between Islamic distributions and classic division rules.

The 'Awl and Radd doctrines, used in Islamic inheritance law, are axiomatically equivalent to the Proportional Rule, a prevalent non-Jewish division rule. These doctrines present solutions impervious to manipulation by legal heirs through rights transfer, unlike other possible distributions. Ibn 'Abbas' solution for Awliyya cases uses sequential priorities and diverges uniquely from classic fair division rules in the literature. In addition, it is established that Abu Yusuf's (b. 729) distribution for a legal dispute is axiomatically identical to Abraham ibn Ezra's (b. 1089) division rule.

There is a noticeable dearth of comprehensive studies investigating contentious disputes concerning resource claims within Islamic law. Many of these studies are lacking in-depth analyses of diverse cases, casting doubts on their reliability. As a result, a robust focus is needed on case collection prior to any analytical process. Future research should concentrate on collating instances of fair division problems throughout Islamic history, as well as separately collecting methods of Islamic sharing. This procedure may lead to the characterization of various Islamic regulations, thereby emphasizing distinct Islamic principles. In forthcoming studies, conducting an exhaustive axiomatic evaluation of the cases and proposed resolutions is imperative.

This research illuminates existing knowledge gaps, setting a course for novel research trajectories. It underlines the fair division literature’s oversight of disputes within Islamic law, despite the plentiful existence of contentious cases. The research underscores the relevance of cooperative game theory as a tool for dissecting Islamic legal disputes. By accounting for unique Islamic norms and principles, this study lays a foundation for a nuanced comprehension of the dynamics and outcomes of legal disputes. By integrating an interdisciplinary approach, this research strives to bridge the gap between game theory and Islamic law.

Beyond addressing a significant research lacuna, this study carries extensive societal implications. By shedding light on enduring debates within Islamic law, it encourages a rejuvenated understanding of the evolution and interpretation of legal disputes. The axiomatic disparities between rulers’ and jurists’ methods provide invaluable insights within the Islamic context, bolstering the understanding of sociocultural dynamics that influence legal decision-making. This research has the potential to shape legal discourse, guide policymaking and spur scholarly, juristic and societal dialogue. Consequently, it may foster a more comprehensive and enlightened approach toward the resolution of legal disputes in Islamic law.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine Islamic law’s historical legal disputes from a game-theoretical standpoint. Existing studies rarely collect distribution disputes systematically, and none scrutinize the axiomatic rationales underlying authorities’ and jurists’ distributions, opting instead to focus on historical backgrounds. While the fair division literature extensively examines disputes, it often overlooks those originating from Islamic law, which presents a rich source of disputes that can be modeled as fair division problems. This research makes a distinct contribution by incorporating disputes from Islamic law into the existing body of cooperative game theory literature.