Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of intangible investment on non-financial performance. This study also examines the moderating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach This study extracted data from annual reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2012 to 2020. This study used the generalized method of moment for testing research. Findings This study finds that intangible investment positively affects non-financial performance and the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened this positive effect. Research limitations/implications A small sample size is one of the limitations of this study. Furthermore, because of the lack of data in Egypt, the analysis does not include other measures of intangible investment. Finally, the sectoral analysis does not include all sectors because of the lack of observations in some sectors. Practical implications This study offers practical and social implications. It would help policymakers, regulators and shareholders to realize the importance of the intangible investment and also shed light on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also offers managerial implications. It motivates managers to invest more in intangible investment as an important resource to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, enhance the internal operating performance and improve learning and growth, which result in creating sustainable competitive advantage. Originality/value This study provides new empirical evidence on the impact of intangible investment on different dimensions of non-financial performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper offers the first empirical evidence on the moderating role of the COVID-19 pandemic in the relationship between intangible investment and non-financial performance.

PurposeThis paper aims to (1) investigate the effect of other comprehensive income (OCI) on audit fees (AF) and audit report lag (ARL) and (2) test the moderating effect of board gender diversity (BGD) on such relationships.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses data extracted from the financial reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2013 to 2019, where the data are processed using the Panel Corrected Standards Errors (PCSE) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM).FindingsThe results reveal that (1) the OCI existence and OCI volume have a significant positive effect on AF and ARL, and (2) the presence of female directors on the board and the percentage of female representation affect the relationship between OCI and AF positively, but this effect on the relationship between OCI and ARL is insignificant.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has some limitations, where the analysis uses a small sample of Egyptian listed firms, as well as, the measures that were used as proxies of the study variables, which do not necessarily express the most suitable ones.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper would (1) provide signals to the audit market, the professional bodies in Egypt and stakeholders about the determinants of AF and ARL, (2) provide guidelines that support the capital market authority to consider gender diversity in boards of companies taking into considerations its impact on AF and ARL, and (3) help the accounting setters in emerging economies as Egypt in drafting more suitable standards and guidelines regarding OCI.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the literature on OCI, where it investigates the effect of OCI on ARL, which was not yet studied in prior studies. Also, this paper complements and extends the literature by providing empirical evidence from one of the emerging markets as Egypt about the effect of BGD on the relationships between OCI, AF and ARL, as these relationships have not been examined before.