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This study aims to investigate the relationship between the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs’) masculinity, CEO characteristics (accounting background, turnover and ethnicity/race) and earnings management (EM) in Malaysia. It also examined the moderating effect of the CEOs’ ethnicity/race (Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera) on the relationship between CEO masculinity and EM.

The analyses were based on a panel data set of 260 corporates listed on the Bursa Malaysia from 2009 to 2019. Python/code was used to calculate the facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), while testosterone (TESTN) was calculated based on CEO age and fWHR. To estimate the results, panel data analysis with a fixed effect model was used.

The result shows that fWHR and TESTN have a significant positive effect on EM. CEO race has a significant impact on EM, implying that non-Bumiputera CEOs are more likely to be associated with EM. There was no statistically significant evidence that race moderates the relationship between CEO masculinity and EM.

The research contributes to the growing evidence in the field of neuroscience that it is possible to infer aspects of an individual’s behavior based on their facial structure and their TESTN levels. The findings provide new evidence supporting Malaysian Government policies in reducing masculinity on boards of directors and senior executive positions, which will positively affect the integrity of financial reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first research to explain whether the ethnicity/race of CEOs is related to EM and whether it has a significant moderate effect on the relationship between masculinity and EM.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of country-level governance on sustainability performance, taking into account the effect of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and board characteristics.

This study uses panel data analysis using fixed effect models to investigate the influence of country-level governance on sustainability performance while considering the effect of SDGs and board characteristics. The sample comprises 8,273 firms across 41 countries during the period spanning from 2016 to 2021. The sample is divided into two categories based on the score of SDGs.

The findings of this study show that countries with high SDGs score have better overall country-level governance and board attributes which have a statistically significant positive impact on sustainability performance. However, for those countries with low SDGs, political stability shows a statistically insignificant and negative impact on sustainability performance, while government effectiveness indicates a statistically insignificant positive impact on sustainability performance.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between country-level governance, SDGs, board characteristics and sustainability performance. The study also highlights the importance of considering the effect of SDGs on the relationship between country-level governance and sustainability performance. The findings of this study could be useful for policymakers and firms in improving their sustainability performance and contributing to sustainable development.

This study aims to explore how citizens socialise and network in relation to using and adopting e-government. The paper suggests that governments need to consider social networks when introducing e-government initiatives. Using qualitative research, this study explores the reasons, fears, motivations and factors with respect to e-government relevant to two social groups of people, those who do and those who do not have regular access to the internet in the Middle Eastern country of Jordan.

The study analyses the results of focus groups representing different social groups of Jordanian citizens across the digital divide. The focus groups followed the nominal group method to explore questions relating to e-government adoption. The nominal group method provided preliminary categorisations of responses; however, further initial and axial coding of data were used to analyse recordings of focus group transcripts.

Contrary to previous research, this study highlights the importance of considering factors that most likely appear as organizational terms, such as resistance to change, when investigating the adoption of e-government within a social community. Cultural and social themes that emerged include resistance to change, wasta (favouritism), and word of mouth (WOM). Few qualitative studies have investigated the main factors relevant to the adoption of e-government by citizens in the Middle East.

To investigate the adoption of technological innovations including e-government, this paper encourages researchers and practitioners in information technologies (IT) to consider cultural and social factors that have been rarely discussed in IT research in general and e-government in particular. Examples of these factors are wasta (favouritism) and WOM.

It is frequently held that the old “official” unions have largely been discredited, while numerous studies point to employee dissatis‐faction with the performance of unions new and old in the era of transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, membership has not collapsed, although the unions themselves exaggerate its total. It is somewhat surprising therefore that little work has been undertaken on the determinants of the individual union‐joining decision in the new environment. This paper undertakes such a study for the case of Poland. Notwithstanding reputation effects, two further forces have accompanied the collapse of the communist regime and are likely to have reduced the attractiveness of union membership to workers. The first is the widespread loss of the distributive role with regard to important private goods which the unions previously possessed, while the second is the challenge to the strength of the social custom of union membership which systemic change has occasioned. While the transition economies are often held to have a distinct industrial relations system, in Poland at least, the determinants of the individual union‐joining decision appear very similar to those which have been uncovered in western contexts.