Purpose This study aims to explore the corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) practices of the Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during the period 2010-2014 and examines the determinants of CSRD and its effects on firm value. Design/methodology/approach Based on the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions Governance Standard No. 7 guidelines and using content analysis, the paper develops a comprehensive CSRD index for GCC Islamic banks. The study applies ordinary least squares regression analysis for hypothesis testing and for finding determinants of respective dependent variables. Findings The results show a very low level of CSRD among the sample Islamic banks in GCC countries. When using corporate governance characteristics to examine the determinants of CSRD, this study provides evidence of a significant positive association between board size and CSRD practice in Islamic banks and a significant negative relationship of chief executive officer (CEO) duality with CSRD, as per expectation. For the economic consequences of CSRD, the study documents an inverse performance effect of CSRD while board size, board composition and CEO duality indicate significant positive effects on firm value. Research limitations/implications The relatively small sample size of GCC Islamic banks may limit the application of the findings to other Islamic financial institutions such as Takaful and the Islamic unit trust company. Practical implications The findings of this study initiate the global debate on the need for corporate governance reform in Islamic banks by providing insights on the role played by corporate governance mechanisms in encouraging and enhancing CSRD practices among Islamic banks. The findings also have important implications for investors, managers, regulatory bodies, policymakers and Islamic banks in the GCC countries. Social implications The results of the study do not support the idea that Islamic banks operating on Islamic principles can meet their social responsibilities through promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and by differentiating themselves from non-Islamic banks. Originality/value This is the first study to examine the determinants of CSRD in GCC Islamic banks using comprehensive CSRD and corporate governance variables and, therefore, adds value to the existing CSR literature in banking.

This study investigates the relationship between Big 4 auditor industry specialization and audit pricing in the UK in a period of many changes having taken place in the market for audit services. Using a large dataset between 2004 and 2011, our empirical results show a significantly higher fee premium for the Big 4 firms who are national industry leaders compared to city‐specific industry leaders, and that the fee premium for industry leadership is only earned by the city‐specific industry leaders if and when they are also the national leaders. Neither the national nor city level industry leadership alone is priced anymore in the UK audit market. These findings hold for the pre‐ and the post‐global‐financial‐crisis period only and for a number of additional analyses. The evidence suggests that the Big 4 industry leadership in the UK has moved away from the previously documented premium for the Big 4 city‐specific industry leadership alone, and is now driven solely by the joint Big 4 industry expertise at the national and city‐specific levels concurrently. The study's results indicate that there is a progression from city‐specific industry expertise to national‐specific industry expertise, and they imply that there has been an improvement in the sharing and transferability of industry knowledge and expertise among the city offices of the Big 4 firms in the UK in the period of investigation.

This study investigates the effects of audit partner industry specialization on audit pricing in the UK market. The mandatory disclosure of the name of the engagement partner in the auditor reports of UK public listed companies took effect from April 2008. Given that the identity of the audit partner is now observable to users of financial statements, it can be argued that there may be an incentive for partner-level differentiation in auditing products, and hence, audit quality. This research examines whether auditor industry expertise in the UK is driven by firm, office, or partner level expertise. The fee premium observed in the study is a joint product of firm and partner level of industry expertise with the highest premium occurring when the client is also audited by an industry leading partner. This finding lends support to the argument that industry expertise is uniquely attributable to the individual audit partner's human capital in terms of their knowledge and experience from leading audit engagements in a particular industry. It also provides evidence that some fee premiums earned by audit firms and documented in prior literature are most probably the product of the individual audit partner's expertise.

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The quality of reported earnings is important to investors in the financial market, as investors and analysts heavily rely on the company's reported earnings in making investment decisions. The board of directors, the audit committee, and the internal audit function represent the internal monitoring mechanism within a company, whereas the external auditors serve as an external monitoring mechanism providing independent verification of the quality of a company's financial reporting. Besides that, interdependencies exist between a firm's internal corporate governance structure and its external audit function. Given the important effect of these monitoring mechanisms on a company's financial reporting process, this paper aims to to discuss the relevance of various theories used in academic research in explaining the role of corporate governance and auditors in promoting higher earnings quality. Through the review of literature, we have found that the agency theory, stewardship theory, institutional theory, and managerial hegemony theory as the main theories that provide significant insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of corporate governance and audit functions from various perspectives. Hence, this suggests that future research could consider the use of multiple theories together in the explanaining the interrelation between corporate governance, audit, and earnings quality. Our paper would be of interest to academicians, practitioners, regulators, and policymakers in trying to understand how a company's internal corporate governance characteristics such as the board, audit committee, and internal audit function, as well as how the external auditors affect the quality of financial reports produced by companies. Our paper also contributes to the literature as this paper comprehensively provides a synthesis and a holistic view of how these four theories complement each other in explaining the interrelation between the different governance mechanisms and financial reporting.