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This paper examines the effects of organizational culture, society, and masculinity on women's skills in accounting workplaces and the influences of workplace norms, culture, and organizational structure on women's leadership qualities and behaviours towards their work. Based on previous studies, we link the theory with professional skill and career advancement of women. We argue that a gender imbalance has prevailed for centuries affecting women's careers; and, the transformation of accounting technologies, corporate structures, and the amalgamation of cultures have exacerbated gender inequality. Women's lack of self-motivation and men's dominance in accounting contexts keep women subordinate to men in accounting workplaces. We propose that offering courses on gender issues to business and accounting disciplines taught at university would subsequently shift the paradigm of hegemony and subordination in an accounting workplace.

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We take advantage of China's relationship-based institutional setting to investigate whether and how firms' disclosure decision is affected by political patronage and associated political costs considerations. Using a sample of 65 firms involved in the Shanghai Pension corruption scandal of 2006, we find that relative to benchmark firms, the connected firms are associated with lower levels of disclosure prior to the scandal. However, they significantly increased their disclosures in the year immediately following the public exposure of the scandal. A content analysis indicates that the increased disclosures are value-relevant, and are not merely used as a public relations effort to subdue public outcry in the immediate aftermath of the scandal. Cross-sectional analyses further reveal that the increase in disclosure is positively associated with the extent of firm's guanxi dependence and type/severity of involvement in the scandal. We conclude that the increased disclosures are in response to the heightened risk and potential costs of regulatory and public scrutiny in the wake of a major event involving high political and public sensitivity. The evidence is supportive of the political costs hypothesis, and has important managerial and policy implications.

This research investigates the relationship between the expertise of female audit committee (AC) chairs and financial reporting quality (FRQ). Also, it examines the moderating effect of the expertise of AC female chairs on the relationships between internal control (ICS), components of ICS, and FRQ This study analyses 302 firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2016. Data on ICS, FRQ, and other corporate governance indications are collected manually from annual reports. This study concludes that the accounting expertise of AC female chairs enhances FRQ better than their male counterparts. Also, the accounting expertise of AC female chairs improve corporate governance mechanisms and ICSs (i.e., Control Environment, Control Activities, and information and communication). This research offers implications for shareholders and regulators. The accounting expertise of female AC chairs (WACCH) improve monitoring that enhances shareholder value and investor confidence. The regulator needs to be stricter regarding the requirements for AC chairs.

For the first time, a novel, simple and reliable method for analysis of pymetrozine residues in flue-cured tobacco leaves has been developed utilizing HPLC-UV with liquid-liquid partition cleanup. Pre-treatment with ultrasonic extraction and liquid-liquid partition procedures gave preferable baseline separation and clean chromatograms by removing water-soluble and fat-soluble components which interfere with pymetrozine in the test. The performance of the method was evaluated and validated: the detection limit (LOD) was 0.005 microg x mL(-1), the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 1.2% (n = 5), and the overall recovery was above 90% at fortification levels of 0.200, 0.500, 1.000, and 5.000 mg x kg(-1). The proposed method was successfully employed for the determination of pymetrozine residues in twelve flue-cured tobacco samples collected from different regions of China.

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Non-observable board diversity is an important organizational strategy for improving the long-term growth and survivability of firms. The involvement of corporate sustainability (CS) in top management teams has led to effective boards. By using agency theory, we stress how financially qualified directors (FQD) in audit committees (ACs) may positively or negatively affect the practice of earnings management (EM). We also use various theories to explain how a powerful chief executive officer (CEO) complicates the effectiveness of AC and reduces their ability to detect EM practices. Using a sample of 1020 firm-year observations representing 204 non-financial listed Pakistani firms during 2013-2017, we find that the presence of FQD on the AC is associated with lower levels of EM. Our analysis shows that this effect is driven by the level of FQDs' accounting knowledge.