Search Results (87)

Promoting social equity is a global issue, and common prosperity is an important goal for human society’s sustainable development. This study is the first to examine climate risks’ impacts on common prosperity from the perspective of corporate employees, providing micro-level evidence for the coordinated development of climate governance and social equity. Employing data from companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2016 to 2023, a fixed-effects model analysis was conducted, and the results showed the following: (1) Climate risks are positively associated with the common prosperity of corporate employees in a significant way, and this effect is mainly achieved through employee guarantees, rather than employee remuneration or employment. (2) Climate risk will increase corporate financing constraints, but it will also force companies to improve their ESG performance. (3) The mechanism tests show that climate risks indirectly promote improvements in employee rights and interests by forcing companies to improve the quality of internal controls and audits. (4) The results of the moderating effect analysis show that corporate size and performance have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between climate risk and the common prosperity of corporate employees. This finding may indicate the transmission path of “climate pressure—governance upgrade—social equity” and suggest that climate governance may be transformed into social value through institutional changes in enterprises. This study breaks through the limitations of traditional research on the financial perspective of the economic consequences of climate risks, incorporates employee welfare into the climate governance assessment framework for the first time, expands the micro research dimension of common prosperity, provides a new paradigm for cross-research on ESG and social equity, and offers recommendations and references for different stakeholders. Full article

Background/Objectives: Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) optimize antimicrobial use, improving outcomes and reducing resistance. This study assessed the impact of a ward-specific ASP. Methods: A pre/post quasi-experimental study was conducted in an internal medicine ward at a tertiary hospital in Padua, Italy. During the intervention year (September 2023–August 2024), a multidisciplinary team (infectious disease consultants, pharmacists, microbiologists, nurses, and hygienists) held bi-weekly ward-based audits, reviewing antimicrobial prescriptions and performing bedside assessments. Therapy adjustments followed guidelines and local epidemiology. Educational sessions and infection prevention and control (IPC) protocols were also reinforced. Outcomes were compared to the previous year, considering patient characteristics. The primary outcome was antimicrobial consumption (DDD/100 patient days, DDD/100PD); secondary outcomes included cost savings, length of stay (LOS), and mortality. Results: Fifty audits assessed 1074 patients and 1401 antimicrobial treatments. Patient characteristics were similar. Antibiotic suspension or de-escalation occurred in 37.9% and 22% of patients, respectively. AWARE ACCESS class use increased (+17.5%), while carbapenem (−54.4%) and fluoroquinolone (−42.0%) use significantly declined (p < 0.05). IPC and microbiological culture guidance were provided in 12.1% of cases. Antimicrobial consumption dropped from 107.7 to 84.4 DDD/100PD (p < 0.05). No significant changes in LOS or mortality were observed. Antimicrobial costs fell by 48.8% (with EUR 57,100 saved). Conclusions: ASP reduced antimicrobial consumption, improved prescription quality, and cut costs without compromising patient outcomes. Multidisciplinary collaboration, audits, and education proved essential. Future studies should assess long-term resistance trends and integrate rapid diagnostics for enhanced stewardship. Full article

Traceability plays a critical role in ensuring the quality, safety, and transparency of supply chains, where transportation stakeholders are fundamental to the efficient movement of goods. However, the diversity of actors involved poses significant challenges to achieving these goals. Each organization typically operates its own information system, tailored to manage internal data, but often lacks the ability to communicate effectively with external systems. Moreover, when data exchange between different systems is required, it becomes critical to maintain full control over the shared data and to manage access rights precisely. In this work, we propose the concept of interoperable traceability. We present a model that enables the seamless integration of data from sensors, IoT devices, data management platforms, and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) within a newly designed data space architecture. We also demonstrate a practical implementation of this concept by applying it to real-world scenarios in the agri-food sector, with direct implications for transportation systems and all stakeholders in a supply chain. Our demonstrator supports the secure exchange of traceability data between existing systems, providing stakeholders with a novel approach to managing and auditing data with increased transparency and efficiency. Full article

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance factors and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulations on environmental performance and emissions in Saudi Arabian companies to explore whether these companies are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using a pooled panel data approach for 51 Saudi-listed firms over the period from 2016 to 2023, the study examines the role of various governance mechanisms, such as audit committees, internal audits, audit quality, and leverage, in influencing companies’ environmental outcomes. The results indicate that ESG regulations have a promotive and statistically significant impact on reducing environmental emissions and improving environmental performance, particularly when supported by robust governance audit mechanisms. The results show that audit committee expertise, internal auditing, and audit tenure after ESG regulations exhibit a positive and significant effect on reducing environmental emissions and improving environmental performance. The findings have important policy, managerial, and theoretical implications, emphasizing the role of government regulations in shaping corporate sustainability practices, the need for improved corporate governance, and the theoretical link between governance and environmental performance. The study bridges an existing gap in the context of the impact of ESG regulations in emerging economies. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on ESG practices in emerging markets, particularly in the context of Saudi Arabia’s regulatory landscape. Full article

As Canada’s population ages and disability prevalence increases, understanding the built environment’s impact on mobility and social participation is essential. This study evaluates the measurement properties of the Stakeholders’ Walkability/Wheelability Audit in Neighbourhoods (SWAN) tool, a user-led instrument designed to assess environmental factors affecting older adults and individuals with disabilities. Using community-based participatory research, we recruited 54 participants from five cities to assess the SWAN tool’s inter-rater reliability, construct validity, and internal consistency. The results indicated a high overall inter-rater reliability of 85.22%, with substantial Cohen’s Kappa coefficients across domains, particularly in the Safety domain (0.73). The construct validity was confirmed through moderate to strong correlations with established measures, notably a correlation of 0.79 between the Street Crossing subdomain and the Sidewalk Index. The internal consistency analysis showed excellent reliability in the Functionality domain (α = 0.95) and a lower consistency value in the Social Environment domain (α = 0.63), suggesting the need for further refinement. These findings provide preliminary evidence of the SWAN tool’s potential for evaluating neighbourhood accessibility. By identifying barriers and facilitators to mobility, the SWAN tool can guide urban planning efforts aimed at creating inclusive environments for aging populations and individuals with disabilities. Future research should focus on larger samples to explore structural validity. Ultimately, the SWAN tool can contribute to improving the quality of life of vulnerable populations and promote more equitable urban policy development. Full article

This paper examines the impact of audit quality and internal corporate governance mechanisms on segment disclosure. It uses manual content analysis to measure the levels of disclosure for a sample of Egyptian-listed companies from 2015 to 2023. It provides evidence that audit quality, joint audit, gender diversity, and board independence have a positive impact on the segment disclosure level. In contrast, audit opinion, foreign directors, and military background directors have a negative impact on the segment disclosure level in Egypt. Full article

In the context of increasingly severe global climate change, both companies and investors are placing greater emphasis on investment philosophies centered around environmental protection, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG). This paper, based on data from 847 Chinese A-share listed companies over the period 2007–2022, employs a two-way fixed effects model to investigate the relationship between ESG controversies and firm investment efficiency. The results indicate that ESG controversies significantly reduce overall firm investment efficiency. Further analysis reveals that ESG controversies affect investment efficiency by exacerbating agency costs and reducing audit quality. Meanwhile, financing constraints and robust internal control quality mitigate these negative effects. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact is more pronounced for firms with higher pollution levels, non-state-owned enterprises, those with higher analyst coverage, and firms with lower levels of digitalization. The findings have significant implications for encouraging companies to fulfill their social responsibilities and promote high-quality economic development. Full article

Environmental accounting information disclosure is crucial for heavily polluting enterprises to strengthen environmental governance and realize sustainable development. However, some enterprises still suffer from weak disclosure awareness and low disclosure quality. Therefore, improving the quality of environmental accounting information disclosure in the digital era has become an urgent task to achieve China’s goal of a green and low-carbon economy. Using data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in China’s polluting industries from 2013 to 2022, this study explores the impact and channels of influence of digital transformation and environmental accounting information disclosure. It has been found that digital transformation significantly impacts the quality of environmental accounting information disclosure. Further, based on the dual perspectives of internal empowerment and external monitoring, digital transformation improves environmental accounting information disclosure by promoting executive compensation incentives and enhancing analyst attention. Furthermore, the positive impact of digital transformation on environmental accounting information disclosure is more pronounced with the implementation of new environmental protection laws, high-quality audits and a high level of digital transformation, and non-state-owned enterprises. The findings provide theoretical support for the government to improve the environmental accounting information disclosure system and provide valuable policy insights to promote digitalization and green, low-carbon transformation paths for heavily polluting enterprises. Full article

This study examines the feasibility of using financial ratios and non-financial variables to predict audit opinions (qualified or unqualified) for firms listed on the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) from 2018 to 2022. Using 450 firm-year observations from 90 non-financial firms, we applied a logit regression model to analyze the relationship between 11 financial ratios and non-financial factors, such as auditor quality, auditor turnover, and corporate performance. While the results indicate that auditor characteristics, particularly auditor quality, have significant explanatory power, the predictive strength of financial ratios varies, suggesting that audit opinions in Greece may be influenced by broader governance and institutional factors rather than financial indicators alone. The study provides empirical insights that contribute to the development of predictive models for audit opinion assessment. These findings are particularly relevant in emerging economies like Greece, where audit risk and firm failures are heightened due to economic and regulatory challenges. By identifying key determinants of audit opinions, the study enhances understanding of audit risk assessment and its alignment with International Standards on Auditing (ISA 520). However, its findings are limited by the sample size and Greece’s unique regulatory environment. Future research should explore the integration of additional governance and institutional variables and assess the model’s applicability in larger and more developed markets. Full article

In the era of the digital modern economy, digital transformation has grown into the primary battlefield for conventional industrial competitiveness. For businesses, digital transformation is not just a future trend and requirement but also an intrinsic motivation to achieve sustainable development. The purpose of this research was to investigate the connection between digital transformation and carbon emission reduction using empirical analyses, as well as to elucidate whether the qualities of internal control, environmental disclosure, and auditing affect the connection between digital transformation and carbon emission reduction in businesses. This research used fixed-effects regression to evaluate data from China’s A-share-listed businesses from 2014 to 2023. These data suggest that corporate digital transformation may successfully reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile, internal control quality, environmental information disclosure quality, and audit quality all have a beneficial moderating influence on corporate digital transformation and carbon emission reduction. By incorporating pertinent theories, such as digital economy theory and ecological theory, this research indicates the immediate impact of digital transformation on reducing business carbon emissions, enhances and broadens the body of knowledge on the subject, and offers methodological recommendations for reducing corporate carbon emissions and attaining rapid development. Furthermore, it provides useful recommendations on how the government, businesses, and executive teams can contribute more to digital transformation and the carbon emission reduction process. This will assist Chinese corporations in raising their own level of digital transformation and achieving ongoing improvements in the management of carbon emission reduction. Full article

This article examines whether the presentation of integrated reports (IRs), the external assurance of non-financial information, and the use of auditing standards affect market liquidity and the accuracy of earnings per share forecasts in the Chilean market following the publication of the International IR Framework. Using ordinary least squares estimations, results show that IRs significantly reduce information asymmetry, thereby improving market liquidity. This effect is reinforced when non-financial information is externally assured, particularly under the ISAE3000 standard. However, neither IRs nor external assurance significantly impact financial analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy, suggesting that such information serves a complementary role in their evaluations. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the role of IRs and assurance in emerging economies, emphasizing their effectiveness in enhancing transparency and liquidity. The findings have direct implications for companies, as they suggest that adopting IRs and obtaining external assurance can strengthen market perceptions and investor confidence, particularly when using the ISAE3000 standard. For regulators, the results highlight the potential benefits of promoting standardized sustainability disclosures and assurance mechanisms to foster transparency in capital markets. Investors, in turn, can use IR quality and assurance as signals of corporate credibility and long-term value creation. Full article

The capital market is important to promoting the comprehensive green transformation of social development and facilitating the flow of social resources toward green innovation and low-carbon technologies. Mainland Chinese enterprises cross-listed in the Hong Kong stock market (AH cross-listed enterprises) provide a good experimental object for investigating the role of capital-market integration in promoting corporate green innovation behavior. This paper investigates the impact of Chinese AH cross-listing on corporate green innovation. Using the entropy balancing matching and difference-in-differences model (EB-DID model), we empirically analyze a sample of 13,538 valid firm-year observations (including 1206 AH-share ones) from Chinese listed firms between 2005 and 2023. Our research findings show that AH cross-listing promotes Chinese firms’ green innovation. Moreover, this effect is heterogeneous among firms with different financial constraint levels, external finance dependence, internal control quality, and audit quality. Finally, AH cross-listing spurs corporate green innovation by reducing equity capital costs and optimizing information disclosure quality. Our results are robust to alternative measurements of green innovation, alternative matching methods, alternative regression models, and various controls for endogeneity issues. The study reveals a new determinant of corporate green innovation and expands the boundaries of cross-listing’s microeconomic consequences. Full article

In the era of increasing digitalisation, organisations face the critical challenge of detecting anomalies in large volumes of data, which may indicate suspicious activities. To address this challenge, audit engagements are conducted regularly, and internal auditors and purchasing specialists seek innovative methods to streamline these processes. This study introduces a methodology to prioritise the investigation of anomalies identified in two large real-world purchase datasets. The primary objective is to enhance the effectiveness of companies’ control efforts and improve the efficiency of anomaly detection tasks. The approach begins with a comprehensive exploratory data analysis, followed by the application of unsupervised machine learning techniques to identify anomalies. A univariate analysis is performed using the z-Score index and the DBSCAN algorithm, while multivariate analysis employs k-Means clustering and Isolation Forest algorithms. Additionally, the Silhouette index is used to evaluate the quality of the clustering, ensuring each method produces a prioritised list of candidate transactions for further review. To refine this process, an ensemble prioritisation framework is developed, integrating multiple methods. Furthermore, explainability tools such as SHAP are utilised to provide actionable insights and support specialists in interpreting the results. This methodology aims to empower organisations to detect anomalies more effectively and streamline the audit process. Full article

This study aims to improve the state of financial distress, which plagues 64% of South Africa’s municipalities. This fiscal crisis has constrained the quality of basic service delivery to local communities. Even though municipal financial distress dominates South African news headlines, there is a gap in the existing research literature on how to address municipal financial distress practically. This study identified effective turnaround strategies to alleviate financial distress by analyzing regulatory audit reports and audit action plans of municipalities officially classified as financially distressed in May 2018 and subsequently improved their financial affairs. Effective turnaround strategies empower financially distressed municipalities to improve their financial viability by promoting accountability and restoring local communities’ trust in their democratically elected municipal councils. Effective turnaround was achieved through the introduction of internal controls, strengthening governance and oversight, and the implementation of adequate records management practices. This study was conducted in the context of local democratic theory, as elected municipal officials are accountable to residents for the manner in which taxpayers’ money is spent. It aims to assist financially distressed municipalities in becoming financially sustainable and empower them to deliver essential services to local communities in accordance with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Full article

In 2006, the PCAOB implemented new restrictions on the auditor provision of some tax and contingent fee services provided to issuer audit clients. These restrictions were implemented to reduce auditor conflicts of interest inherent when the auditor provides any of these specific services and a financial statement audit. Subsequent research found that these tax service restrictions did not impact audit quality, measured as the probabilities of going concern opinions or financial statement restatements. We reexamine this research question in the context of the regulation’s earnings management effects. Our investigation of this question uses a difference-in-difference regression approach and 20,043 issuer company fiscal year observations from 2002 to 2009, consistent with that used in prior studies, and four measures of earnings management (discretionary accruals, abnormal working capital accruals, current accruals, and the likelihood of meeting or slightly beating the zero earnings change benchmark) to proxy for audit quality. We find, consistent with findings in prior studies, no detectable effects of the 2006 PCAOB tax service restrictions. These null results persist through a series of robustness tests that include re-estimating our primary regressions on a Big 4 subsample, adding multiple alternative treatment variable definitions, generating a propensity-score-matched sample, and adding a control for internal control weakness. These findings raise further doubt about the need for these non-audit service restrictions. Full article