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The paper aims to explore the sided challenges facing the accounting profession in an advanced digitalised future where humans and robots will collaborate in working teams.

Employing a qualitative approach, the paper conducts a reflexive thematic analysis to identify challenges and associated socio-ethical risks of digitalisation; it then introduces an ethical decision-making model aimed at addressing these challenges.

Key professional accountants’ (PAs) sided challenges refer to autonomy, privacy, balance of power, security, human dignity, non-maleficence and justice, each of them possessing multifaceted dimensions that are interconnected dynamically to create a complex web of socio-ethical risks.

The ethical decision-making pathways corresponding to each detected challenges provide a useful reference and guideline for PAs in the digitalised future of the profession.

Using an anthropocentric perspective, the research addresses the sided challenges of accounting profession’s accelerated digitalisation; it contributes to fostering accountability and legitimacy of the accounting profession which serves the public interest.

By innovatively intertwining ethical positions with decision-making pathways, the paper offers a potential solution to address digitalisation’s sided challenges that might interfere with practitioners’ professional judgement and identity.

The purpose of the research is to shed light on how the mandatory regulation on nonfinancial information has changed European state-owned enterprises' (SOEs) disclosure levels. In addition, the present research aims to demonstrate, under the lens of legitimacy theory, how Hofstede's cultural dimensions shape social expectations that may have suffered changes after the introduction of a mandatory regulation on nonfinancial reporting.

The paper adopts a mixed approach. First, it employees the content analysis to investigate the disclosure level on 22 of the 24 European SOEs. Second, the authors demonstrate how cultural dimensions take a different role when a change in regulation is introduced using the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

The results reveal a slight increase in disclosure from the year before introducing the directive. Additionally, the results demonstrate how none of Hofstede's cultural dimensions is responsible for high disclosure levels. Although, the sufficiency analysis outlines several combinations of different cultural dimensions that lead to high disclosure levels. In particular, results demonstrate how the core dimensions leading to the outcome changed once the European Union Directive (EUD) has entered into force.

Despite the contributions, the present study is not free of limitations. As the investigated sample is limited to a small number of SOEs, the content analysis adopts a dichotomous approach. The analysis is conducted on integrated reporting, and the fuzzy set QCA results cannot be used for generalization but refer only to the investigated sample. Consequently, further studies should investigate a broader sample of SOEs and organizations that adopt other nonfinancial reporting frameworks. Additionally, a qualitative approach to the reports' analysis is recommended.

It demonstrates how the EUD on nonfinancial information has impacted the disclosure levels of European SOEs. It adopts a fresh methodology rarely used in accounting. It demonstrates how cultural conditions influence social expectations that determine corporations to disclose more information after the introduction of a regulatory framework.

The paper's theoretical contribution refers to its focus on the public sector, and it adopts a methodology rarely used by accounting scholars.

This study aims to explore intersectional gender inequalities that exist in accounting organizations.

A review of the literature, covering the period from 1990 to 2020, assesses the intersectionality of professional and social factors that shape inequalities in women’s professional accounting careers.

This study presents the complex facets of women’s inequality in gendered accounting organizations. The results reveal that inequity persists in accounting organizations despite organizational changes. The findings highlight the relevance of further research in gendered organizations to capture the intersectionality of gender with other forms of inequality.

This review informs professional organizations, accountants and company managers about the persistence of gender concerns in the accountancy profession in the last 30 years, despite stated accounting profession commitments to achieve gender equality, as promoted by United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, some possible solutions are proposed.

This study focuses on a complex and challenging issue, contributing to the literature by extending classical narrative literature. This study presents a structured view of the various intersections of professional and social characteristics that created inequalities and the suggested solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous changes in society. Universities were among the few organisations with some previous knowledge of online education, being able to rapidly adapt by transferring already known best practices to the new context. As teaching moved to online, students encountered less sustainable implementation by their universities. This allowed the development of previously planned sustainable strategies so that when face-to-face teaching resumed, universities could be even more sustainable. This paper aims to explore loyalty to the sustainable university during the later COVID-19 pandemic based on the university’s efforts to manage a green campus.

To investigate loyalty towards the sustainable university during the later COVID-19 pandemic, a conceptual model is proposed. This research is grounded in an empirical investigation using a quantitative online survey implemented with online interviews, the relations between all latent constructs being analysed with SmartPLS.

The results show that university sustainability reflects student loyalty, outlining the image developed under the influence of green campus management. The results show that universities must intensify their efforts to support the sustainable agenda and create a sustainable academic brand, inducing student loyalty. The findings may attract the attention of other universities wishing to gain knowledge about the factors that students consider important in generating their loyalty.

As this research was carried out in the later COVID-19 pandemic context from 2021, the students already had experience of online teaching, so their assessment of the sustainability strategies implemented could be quite different from their perceptions in the first months of the pandemic. This research provides a comprehensive insight into the overall strategy that a sustainable university might apply in a crisis context.

Research has shown that green campus management has a positive impact on the sustainability of a university’s image, on how students perceive the university at which they study and on the university’s efforts to ensure efficient campus management. These factors contribute to the development of a strong and sustainable image of the university within the community.

The originality of this paper lies in the research questions designed to conceptualise and operationalise the generation of students' loyalty towards their university by encouraging and implementing sustainable strategies on campus. This paper highlights a structural model that combines strategic practices to determine students' loyalty towards a sustainable university during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective of this study is to systematically review the current body of literature in order to gain insights into the progress of research in accounting and auditing of cryptocurrencies, while also highlighting the associated risks and identifying gaps for future exploration.

To achieve this, a structured literature review was carried out, presenting a thorough and critical assessment of the available studies focused on cryptocurrencies within the accounting and auditing domain.

The analysis reveals that the majority of the research has concentrated on the reporting and measurement aspects of cryptocurrencies, neglecting the auditing aspect. Regarding the methodology, future investigations should incorporate both theoretical and empirical manners to address this gap. Various spheres require further exploration, as they have the potential to significantly impact practitioners and academics.

The significance of this paper lies in its comprehensive examination of the existing literature, synthesizing and organizing information pertaining to accounting and auditing considerations of crypto transactions. Moreover, it provides valuable insights into best practices and prompts identifying avenues for further research in this field.

Algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), machines, and all emerging digital technologies disrupt traditional auditing, raising many questions and debates. One of the central issues of this debate is the human-algorithms complex duality, which focuses on this investigation. This study aims to investigate the algorithms’ penetration in auditing activities, with a specific focus of a future scenario on the human-algorithms interaction in performing audits as intelligent teams.

The research uses a qualitative reflexive thematic analysis, taking into consideration the academic literature, as well as professional reports and websites of the “Big Four” audit firms and internationally recognized accounting bodies.

The results debate the complex duality between algorithms and human-based actions in the institutional settings of auditing activities by highlighting the actual stage of algorithms, machines and AI emergence in audit and providing real-life examples of their use in the audit. Furthermore, they emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of algorithms compared to human beings. Based on the results, a discussion on the human-algorithms interaction from the lens of the Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) approach concludes that the Auditor-Governing-the-Loop may be a possible scenario for the future of the auditing profession.

This study is exploratory, investigating academia and practitioners’ written debates, analyzes and reports, limiting its applicability. Nonetheless, the paper adds to the ongoing discussion on emerging technologies and auditing research. Finally, the authors address some potential biases associated with the extended use of algorithms and discuss future research implications. Future research should empirically test how the human-algorithms tandem is working and how AI and other emerging technologies will affect auditing activities and the auditing profession.

The study provides valuable insights for audit firms, auditors, professional organizations and standard-setters, and regulators revealing the implication of algorithms’ penetration in auditing activities from the human-algorithms complex duality perspective. Moreover, the academic education and research implications are highlighted, in terms of updating the educational curriculum by including the new technologies issues, as well as the need for further research investigations concerning the human-algorithms interactions issues as, for example, trust, legal restrictions, ethical concerns, security and responsibility.

The research uses HITL as a novel paradigm for responsible AI development in auditing. The study points to the strategic value of a HITL pattern for organizational reflexivity that, according to the study, ensures that the algorithm’s output meets the audit organization’s requirements and changes in the environment.

This paper aims to explore the emerging phenomenon of integrated reporting (IR) in the context of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and proposes a longitudinal analysis of the level of IR disclosure (IRD) provided by a sample of European SOEs for the period 2013–2017, in accordance with IR framework requirements. The study also proposes an analysis of the possible explanatory factors driving the level of IRD. Specific attention is devoted to examine the influence exerted by the public ownership on the level of IRD provided by SOEs.

The IRs published by a balanced sample of 18 European SOEs between 2013 and 2017 were examined through a manual content analysis. Several analyzes were performed to assess the relationship between the level of IRD provided by SOEs and some possible determinants.

Results show an increasing level of disclosure during the observed period, confirming the relevance of IR as a tool for transparency and accountability within the context of SOEs. Statistical analyzes show that government ownership, external assurance, investor protection and global reporting initiative guidelines adoption positively affect the level of IRD, while SOE size exerts a negative influence.

As this paper examines a context which has been under-investigated, it presents fresh knowledge about the evolution of IR adoption by European SOEs. Furthermore, this paper identifies some of the explanatory factors that drive the preparation of IR, thus providing international integrated reporting council, policymakers and standard-setters with the relevant information for inclusion in specific guidelines for IR by SOEs.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by presenting new knowledge about sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) reporting practices through integrated reporting (IR). This paper’s ultimate goal is to dig to light companies’ main approaches to incorporating SDG disclosures into IRs.

This study puts forward both deductive content analysis and an inductive thematic analysis on a sample of worldwide leading IR adopters to assess what SDGs they disclose and how they integrate SDGs into the reports. Meaningful narratives and graphical illustrations are selected, categorised and discussed from a symbolic/substantive legitimacy perspective.

The results of this study highlighted that although a fair number of leading IR adopters addressed SDG issues, their pathways to disclosure were not uniform. In some cases, SDGs inspired substantive changes to internal management and process, communicated through an integrated approach. However, there was a persistent trend of using SDGs as camouflage and symbolic tool to enhance company’s reputation and obtain a licence to operate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study that performed a deductive/inductive thematic analysis to engender insight into the most meaningful patterns followed by leading IR reporters worldwide to disclose their contributions to SDGs and address their legitimacy.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the audit committee’s (AC) cash compensation and related-party transactions (RPTs). This paper also explores whether the affiliation of directors on the AC has a differential effect on the association between AC members’ cash compensation and RPTs.

This paper uses data from Chinese-listed firms for the period from 2007 to 2017 and use the ordinary least square regressions, to test the association between AC cash compensation and RPTs. To alleviate the endogeneity concerns, this paper applies the generalized method of moment, the two-stage least square regression technique and the Granger causality test.

This paper documents a negative association between the AC members’ cash compensation and RPTs. The findings reveal that one standard deviation increase in the AC’s cash compensation leads to around 0.08% reduction in the amount of RPTs. Further analysis shows that the cash compensation of AC independent directors is negatively associated with RPTs, whereas that of nonindependent directors shows no significant impact. The results remain robust to endogeneity tests. The results might be of interest to both practitioners as well as regulatory bodies and investors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to try to examine the relationship between AC cash compensation and RPTs in the context of China. This study also is the first attempt to consider the affiliation of AC directors by decomposing the AC compensation into independent and nonindependent directors. Also, it adds to the literature on the determinants of RPTs.

The aim of the study is to highlight the perspectives of accounting professionals in Romania on adopting a single set of financial reporting standards for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs).

The study included a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. A qualitative approach was employed to examine the perspectives of accounting professionals on their inclination toward international standards for SMEs or national regulations. The quantitative approach involved doing content analysis on interviews to provide empirical support for the implementation of these standards in a national context.

Romanian accounting professionals want an improvement in financial reporting, but not necessarily through the use of an international standard. And although the level of convergence between the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for SMEs and national regulations is medium, it is not desirable to apply an international financial reporting standard for SMEs.

This study stands out as one of the few papers that delve into the perspectives of accounting professionals about adopting IFRS for SMEs in a specific country, offering a unique and engaging perspective.