PurposeThis study examines the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets among Chinese listed firms, taking into account the firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consists of all A-shares listed in the Chinese stock market from 2001 to 2019, except firms in the financial industry. Probit estimator is employed to observe the effect of audit quality, proxied by a binary variable indicating whether a firm is audited by a Big 4 audit firm, on the behavior of earnings management to beat earnings targets. Industry and year fixed effects are incorporated into the models to control for differences among industries and time periods.FindingsThe result of this study reveals that audit quality disciplines earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. This result holds across different specification and endogeneity tests. The authors further find that auditors seem to be more tolerant to earnings-managed firms that actively disclose CSR activities. However, this moderating effect of CSR disclosure only exists among firms that manage earnings less aggressively.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study suggest that market participants should be mindful of the earnings management phenomenon and make their investment decisions after carefully dissecting and confirming the truthfulness of firms’ financial reporting. Regulators should raise the requirement on the capacity of auditing services to ensure the quality of the audit outcome.Originality/valueThis study is the first to investigate the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. Moreover, this study pioneers in observing the moderating effect of CSR disclosure on the relationship between audit quality and earnings management.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting Vietnamese consumers' intention and behavior towards “bringing your own shopping bags” (BYOB) instead of using plastic bags based on the theory of interpersonal behavior (TIB).Design/methodology/approachWe used a combination of in-depth interview and large-scale survey methods with the official research sample of 536 Vietnamese consumers to explore the relationship among factors in the research model including: attitude, affect, social factor, facilitating conditions, intention and behavior towards BYOB instead of using plastic bags. The collected data went through quantitative analysis steps including Cronbach's Alpha reliability test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) for scales and hypotheses testing.FindingsThe results show that intention towards BYOB has a positive effect on consumers' behavior towards BYOB. Facilitating conditions have a stronger and more positive influence than attitude and affect intention towards BYOB. Meanwhile, the hypothesis about the relationship between social factors and intention towards BYOB was rejected by this study.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of this paper is that the findings of the present study are limited to elements of the TIB.Practical implicationsBased on the results of the study, we made some suggestions for state management agencies and retailers to promote intention and behavior towards BYOB instead of using plastic bags.Originality/valueThis study applies the TIB to understand the relationship between factors such as attitude, affect, social factors and facilitating conditions on intention and behavior towards BYOB instead of using plastic bags.