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The purpose of this paper is to examine the inter-relations among the strength of investor protection institutions, earnings management (EM) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a proxy for EM, the authors use discretionary accruals measure, estimated using the modified Jones model (1991). As a proxy for the strength of investor protection institutions, the study uses the Investor Protection Index, extracted from the Global Competitiveness Reports. The sample consists of 5,519 firms listed in the Group of Twelve countries during 2015–2020.

The study shows that firms tend to engage less in EM during the pandemic period. The authors also find a significantly negative relation between the strength of investor protection institutions and EM practices, and interestingly, this negative relation was found to be more pronounced during the pandemic period.

For investors and practitioners, the findings help get insights into the behavior of firms in response of the pandemic shock in countries with solid institutional and legal protection. For policymakers, the findings reaffirm the critical role that institutional incentives and reforms can play, in influencing firms to exert more efforts to promote their financial reporting quality.

To the best of our knowledge, the study is one of the first attempts to examine the link between EM practices and investor protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings extend both the literature on the role of institutional factors in promoting the earnings quality and the literature on COVID-19’s effect on firm performance and practices.

This study aims to explore corporate governance (CG) practices that can lead to firms’ better performance in different organizational life cycles. The authors propose a configurational approach to explore how a set of CG practices combine in bundles to achieve high performance outcomes for firms across their corporate life cycles.

Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was used to analyze a sample of data of 21 countries and 9 industries. Data referred to the period of 9 years extending from the year 2005 to the year 2013.

This study reveals that there are multiple CG practices that exist through firms that can achieve high firm performance. Moreover, CG practices combine in different ways for firms in their growth, maturity and declining stages.

This study demonstrates the value of using a configurational analytical approach to explore both the firm and country-specific CG practices (together) that engage firms to achieve the desired level of performance across the corporate life cycles.

The current study draws attention to the policymakers’ need to assess the current level of regulatory and competitive development of their countries and form policy accordingly. The approach used in the current research study not only offers the linkages between CG and performance to managers as incentives to comply with regulation but also to view CG-related activity as a strategic move.

The approach used in the current research study not only offers the linkages between CG and performance to managers as incentives to comply with regulation but also to view CG-related activity as a strategic move.

This study broadening the focus of CG studies to include a rigorous explanation of the global CG phenomena and to provide effective solutions for the practitioners.

This study demonstrates the value of using a configurational analytical approach to explore both the firm and country-specific CG practices (together) that engage firms to achieve the desired level of performance across the corporate life cycles.

This study aims to examine the role of the board of directors in affecting earnings management practices across small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) life cycle.

Data is collected from 280 SMEs listed on the London Stock Exchange during the period of 2009–2016. Fixed effects regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

This study shows that the impact of the board of directors' roles on earnings management practices varies depending on the SMEs life cycle stage. In the introduction, growth and decline stages of SMEs, the wealth creation role of the board is negatively significant with earnings management, while the wealth protection role of the board is positively significant in the growth and maturity phases. Results suggest that the board's responsibility to create wealth deters early-stage earnings management strategies, while protecting shareholder interests, in latter stages, leads to a decrease in earnings management.

The findings suggest that corporate governance should be customized to the specific stage of the SMEs life cycle. Additionally, different life cycle stages may impose different requirements on corporate boards to shape the effectiveness of these mechanisms and constrain earnings management practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers one of the first insights on the UK SMEs to understand how board functions and earnings management practices vary over SMEs life cycles. It will offer important information on the effect of board features on earnings management in SMEs in the UK and is anticipated to be of importance to policymakers, regulators, investors and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of auditors in Egypt toward the role that continuous auditing (CA) can play in offsetting the challenges facing the quality of Internet-reported financial information. The paper also examines the impact of audit firm type and years of experience on these perceptions.

Ninety-six auditors working in the Big 4 and large local audit firms are surveyed to attain their perceptions on the issues examined. Chi-square, Mann–Whitney and t-test are used to test the research hypotheses.

The overall results indicate that the majority of auditors in Egypt agree that implementing CA can offset the challenges associated with the Internet financial reporting (IFR) environment. The results also reveal that there are significant differences between auditors working in Big 4 audit firms and those working in local firms regarding the perceptions of the effect of CA on some aspects of the timeliness of information.

The paper extends the stream of research on both CA and IFR that confirms that the widespread use of the Internet in disclosing financial information continues to be a worrisome problem for auditing firms.

The paper provides insights into the challenges facing auditing in the IFR environment and how implementing CA can help offset these challenges.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to examine issues related to CA in the IFR environment in the Middle East and, in particular, Egypt.

This paper aims to provide insights into the complicated relationship between earnings management (EM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) during the financial downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parametric t-tests and non-parametric Wilcoxon rank-sum tests accompanied by ordinary least squares regression analysis, augmented with Newey–West procedure approaches, are used for a sample that consists of 1,984 firms from 47 countries for the period of 2014–2020. EM was proxied once with discretionary accruals using the modified Jones model (1995) and once with real earnings management (REM) using the Roychowdhury model (2006). This study uses environmental, social, and governance scores from the Thomson Reuters database as a proxy for CSR.

The results reveal that firms tend to engage more in EM practices during the pandemic and that more socially responsible firms tend to be honest and transparent during the financial reporting process. Interestingly, it was found that more socially responsible firms engaged less in REM practices during the pandemic.

The findings of this research help lenders, investors, policymakers and managers gain a better understanding of EM practices during a negative shock and shed light on the importance of CSR in being ethical.

The findings extend both the literature on the role of CSR in promoting financial reporting quality and the literature on the impact of COVID-19 on accrual and REM practices.

This case gives readers the opportunity to think about strategies employed in the postal sector amid sector, technological, national and global challenges. It highlights the importance of thinking about real options, and real solutions to counter the failures of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

The case will be particularly useful for master's degrees, Master of Business Administration, doctorate students or undergraduate specialized courses of strategy, public sector management and privatization.

This case study aims to analyze the manner in which LibanPost transformed itself from a government bureaucracy to a commercial company and how, through diversification, it was transformed from a traditional postal operator to a high-end service provider. In addition, it attempts to examine the stages that have led to LibanPost's success, shedding the light on the major barriers and enablers for its reform.

The students will be able to examine how a privately owned postal company succeeded in transforming a courier company from a bureaucratic public administration incurring substantial losses to a profitable commercial company, through privatization, and grasp the major success barriers and enablers for LibanPost, while exploring the reasons behind the failure of the foreign–national partnership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

In the context of Saudi Arabia, this chapter investigates how clustering promotes knowledge sharing and transfer in an emerging, government-directed industry cluster. It is determined that lateral actors play a key facilitating role, and formal and informal mechanisms and interpersonal links among actors support that cluster knowledge exchange. Limited social capital strength and depth and a lack of trust that prevents knowledge sharing are partially explained by the cluster's limited vertical and horizontal actors.

This chapter applies the five drivers of productivity framework to regional microdata for Egypt and extends it by introducing an index of industrial clusters as an explanatory factor of the productivity performance of local private sector firms. Applying structural equation models, the geographic concentration of sectoral economic activity is found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on labor productivity. The transmission mechanism is conjectured to be the positive spillovers that are created, which local firms can tap into. In contrast, a higher concentration of skilled workers in an industrial sector in a region is associated with lower levels of labor productivity – a finding that suggests there may be structural deficiencies in the allocation of skilled workers. Regional policy should focus on net investments in gross capital formation throughout the country, for which the national and regional governments should improve how public investments are managed and the institutional framework – including the rule of law, bureaucracy and red tape, conflict of interest, transparency, and governance – so that private investment (both local and foreign) may substantially increase.

This paper aims to investigate the role of forensic accounting skills in enhancing auditor’s self-efficacy towards fraud detection in Egypt. Additionally, it explores the moderating effect of computer-assisted audit techniques and tools (CAATTs) application on the relationship between accounting and auditing skills and auditor’s self-efficacy, as well as its role in enhancing fraud detection.

A cross-sectional survey was developed and distributed to 117 external auditors working in Egypt. Partial least square structural equation modelling is used to examine the study hypotheses.

The results show a significant direct relationship between effective communication skills, psycho-social skills, accounting and auditing skills and an auditor’s self-efficacy. Additionally, the results show a significant direct relationship between auditor’s self-efficacy and fraud detection. It is revealed that CAATTs application moderate the relationship between auditor’s self-efficacy and fraud detection. In contrast, the results do not show a significant relationship between technical and analytical skills and auditor’s self-efficacy.

The originality of this research paper lies in its exploration of the role of forensic accounting skills in enhancing auditor’s self-efficacy towards fraud detection in Egypt. It sheds light on the role of improved auditor’s self-efficacy in detecting fraud. Additionally, this study further enhances the understanding of the potential benefits of using technological advancements in the audit process. It provides insights for accounting professionals and regulatory bodies in Egypt, highlighting the importance of leveraging forensic accounting skills and using CAATTs to enhance fraud detection efforts.

This study examines how far female tour guides in Egypt experience sexual harassment and how they cope with it.

A qualitative research method is employed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 full-time female tour guides working for several travel agencies in Egypt. Thematic analysis was used to extract the main ideas from the transcripts.

The findings show that female tour guides in Egypt would encounter annoying gender harassment mostly from tourists they serve, and they might suffer from irresponsible behavior – gender harassment, unwanted sexual harassment, and sexual coercion – from their local managers. When facing sexual harassment, female tour guides usually tend to adopt one of the following three coping strategies: (a) indifference to sexual harassment they encounter, (b) heroism by taking legal action when exposed to sexual harassment or (c) fatalism by taking inconsequential action such as complaining the harasser to his direct manager or filling in an official complaint inside their workplace. The selection of the coping strategy is usually based on the female victim's personality and the organizational and social context she adapts to.

This paper contributes by filling a gap in tourism, human resources management and gender studies in which empirical studies on the sexual harassment that female tour guides encounter, particularly in non-Western contexts, have been limited so far.