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The deadly and infectious COVID-19 respiratory disease has brought in its wake untold uncertainties on the business environment globally. The impact of this fatal pandemic has shocked the transactions of businesses and service providers, including auditing firms to the core. This paper, therefore, explored the safeguards adopted by the auditor to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on audit quality. An online survey was used to administer questionnaires to solicit 289 valid responses from partners and staff of auditing firms in Ghana using a purposive sampling technique. Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) approach was adopted in assessing the measurement and structural models. The outcome of the study proves that the auditor’s instituted safeguards significantly moderate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on audit quality. This study provides ample contributions to regulators in the auditing profession to appreciate the impact of the ills of the pandemic on audit quality that forms the basis of informed economic decisions by users of financial reports. The researchers suggest that auditors should apply the appropriate safeguards to anticipated challenges emanating from the pandemic on their practices to express a better opinion on assurance and non-assurance services rendered for clients.

PurposeThis paper explores stakeholder perceptions on the nature and extent of sustainability reporting on the websites of technical universities (TUs) in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from the websites of the 10 TUs in Ghana and interviewed the stakeholders of the TUs. In analyzing the data, the authors used thematic analysis for the interview responses. The authors also adopted the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines and campus sustainability assessment tools for the presentation and analysis of the sustainability disclosures on the websites of the TUs.FindingsThe authors found that due to weak institutional coercions, there were limited disclosures on the websites of the TUs, which aimed at gaining stakeholders' legitimacy; the disclosures were more focused on organizational profile, governance and educational aspects of sustainability. To a large extent, while some external stakeholders such as parents, regulators and alumni appear to be less interested in the disclosures on the TU's websites, internal stakeholders such as employees (teaching and non-teaching staff) and students who frequently visited the TU's websites perceived limited reporting and were not impressed with the extent of sustainability disclosures on these websites.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study are intended to assist policy-makers in the educational sector to appreciate the importance of sustainability reporting on their websites. The results of this study will assist higher educational institutions (HEIs) in increasing the success rate of sustainability implementation by overcoming the lack of sustainability disclosures on their websites. Thus, the results of this study have implications for sustainability implementations, particularly those in emerging economies and policy-makers of universities worldwide.Originality/valueThis study could provide two significant values. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has explored stakeholder perceptions of sustainability reporting in implementing sustainability within the education sector. Second, the results were arrived at by combining stakeholder consultations with content analyses, which could be a good guideline for sustainability implementation in the educational sector of developing countries.

PurposeUsing a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context. Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews. FindingsThe authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations. Originality/valueSustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

Even though the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been applauded for several decades, the concept of stakeholder engagement is relatively new to the Ghanaian mining sector. This study investigates the CSR process of an extractive company and examines how stakeholders are engaged in CSR. Using purposive and snowball sampling in identifying its respondents, data was gathered through interviewing 21 selected respondents from various stakeholder groups and documents such as sustainability annual reports were analyzed. It was discovered that Newmont Ahafo Mines has consistently had a prominent CSR drive in Ghana for several years and stakeholder involvement in CSR is important for implementing relevant CSR programs. Findings of this study contribute to the building of empirical reference which will serve as guidelines for management practitioners dealing with stakeholder relations and CSR in Ghana’s mining sector. Therefore, it is recommended that the mining sector put immense effort in engaging various stakeholders in their CSR initiatives.

This study consolidates internal and external viewpoints to look at the heralds of corporate social irresponsible behavior. As far as internal elements are concerned, we concentrate on the degree to which a firm joins corporate social responsibility (CSR) into its corporate strategy and the level to which companies commit resources into R&D for consumer oriented product development. As for external determinants, we concentrate on market sector costs forces and government agencies responsible for local governance on corrupt practices. The hypothesis we developed for the study are tested, utilizing unique survey data of 120 companies spanning a period of five years. The outcome demonstrates that consolidating corporate social responsibility into business strategy and putting resources into R&D both foresee less socially irresponsible behaviors by companies. Conversely, pressures from costs and corrupt practices within governmental setting associates directly with incremental probability of irresponsible social and behaviors of companies in Ghana.

The developed countries’ institutional research undertaken on corporate social responsibilities (CSR) have shown a positive relationship between accessibility of financial related assets and CSR. Contentions that we classified as the Institutional Difference Hypothesis (IDH) drawn from the institutional writing, on the other hand, propose that institutional contrasts amid of developing and the developed economies are prone to result in diverse CSR propositions. Incorporating the rationale of IDH with understanding of knowledge from slack resource theory, we contend that there exists a negative relationship between fiscal resources accessibility and CSR investments for mining companies in Ghana, a sub-Saharan African developing economy. We utilize a well-protected data from the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and Ghana Chamber of mines (GCM) and find that Return on Ordinary Share, Return on Sales, and Net Profit were reliably connected with lower CSR disbursements. We highlight the ramifications of our discoveries for academics’ examination and corporate practitioners.

The extractive industry gets huge international consideration because of the way they discharge their ecological and social obligations. Despite the fact that mining sector ventures have numerous points of interest, wrong mining operations have prompted emotional environment and resources exhaustion. To accomplish a parity of such operations, sustainable programs are an absolute necessity and ought to be trailed by the business. Of the different feasible practices, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) has picked up conspicuousness as of late. The developed nations, CSR is at a propelled level, yet in emerging economies particularly in Africa, CSR is in a preparatory stage, because of both known and obscure reasons. This study researches drivers for CSR usage in the mining business in Ghana, a developing country in Africa. A few studies concentrated on CSR issues however were constrained to industrial points of view without considering multi-partners. This paper endeavors to bridge the gap by dissecting CSR drivers from the viewpoints of numerous stakeholders, including media, government and social organizations. The researchers propose a model system, showed with a contextual investigation from a Ghana Investments Promotion Center (GIPC). In light of these findings, businesses can build their chances of honing quality CSR in modern business behaviors. This research augments the extent of this issue through changing multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) apparatuses and distinctive situations, for example, dim, fluffy, and different methodologies. The extra drivers can likewise be accepted with statistical interpretations.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its impacts on financial performance has been studied exhaustively, however proponents reports differing findings. A number of studies have shown that there exist a significantly positive correlation between research and development (R&D) and profitability. Between the period 2009 and 2013, we analyzed 500 Ghanaian cases in which companies’ integrate R&D investments as one of their business sustainable development strategies for feasible advancement; they additionally recognize their altruistic “give-away” as commitments to CSR. In view of hypothetical affirmations and observational confirmation in this study, we recognized a positive relationship between CSR and financial performance.

This paper establishes the relevance of Environmental management accounting (EMA) as an inevitable system for ensuring effective corporate governance. In contemporary business, corporate leaders globally stress on ensuring the interest of stakeholders through diverse means of which the use of Environment management accounting systems could be adopted for that purpose. Reluctance in handling environmental issues could culminate into huge financial loss to organizations in terms of environmental or other opportunity costs. It could also be the source of loss of goodwill on the part of stakeholders which can spell huge consequences for the entity’s business relationships resulting into governance problems. Consequently, the paper suggests that there are several reasons by which environmental management accounting becomes inevitable in the corporate governance process. It further concludes that Environmental management accounting provides information to the CEO that enables companies improve upon their environmental performance which impacts on effective corporate governance. The paper finally suggests specific areas for future research in relation to EMA and corporate governance.

This study analyzes the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and company’s profitability (CP) in Ghana with the utilization of mixed data, obtained from sixteen (16) firms' audited annual report and financial statements between "2005-2014", filed with the Ghana stock Exchange (GSE) and Register General of companies. We use lagged data from the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) to establish the relationship between CP and CSR. In addition 850 questionnaires were administered to the public for CSR level of awareness data. The data collected are being analyzed by the use of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) for the study. Results from the analysis demonstrated that the selected companies have contributed below ten percent of their yearly profit to support social responsibility programmes. The co-efficient of determination of the findings demonstrates the extracts that the logical variable account for changes or varieties in chosen companies’ profits after tax (PAT) are brought about by changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Ghana. It is then prescribes that regulations and laws to commit companies’ to be apparent, satisfactory consideration ought to be given to social accounting regarding social cost and to agree to the establishment of corporate social responsibility.

This article comparatively examines corporate social responsibilities reporting in the context of listed companies in the emerging economy - Ghana. The stakeholders’ anticipations for infrastructural development demand pressures and reporting have forced the companies to persistently improve their functioning practices whereas engage in Corporate Social Responsibility practices. This article searches the journey taken by the listed firms, as they implement their social responsibilities policies. The researchers use the companies’ secondary data drawn from their corporate reports to answer three research questions. The three common findings after testing our hypothesis indicates that there is a significant CSR reporting among the listed firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) which seeks to support the “triple bottom line” approach. The outcomes provide additional confirmation that CSR reporting in Ghana are not stable, all-purpose and more of altruistic in nature. The aftermaths, therefore, provide some initial indication of the possibility that CSR reporting in Ghana represent attempts by companies to advance their corporate expelling image and to be seen as responsible corporate citizens in their actions of operations in the host communities.The government therefore have to put in place stern principles to control listed firms to implement their CSR policies to their host communities to win the legitimacy within the environment they find themselves.

Ageing is a natural process, which presents a unique challenge for all sections of the society. Further, by the year 2025, almost 75% of this elderly population will be living in developing nations, which already have an overburdened health-care delivery system. Our research integrated the Refined Kano Model with the RAND study to evaluate the value of health service quality offered to the elders as a basis for redesigning the healthcare component of Ghana elderly healthcare policy. Further the study identifies the specific elements of healthcare which are of importance to the elderly as opposed to the general use of the world healthcare which completely buries the specific healthcare challenges that elders in Ghana are suffering from and what they want done about it. The results demonstrate areas in which the healthcare sector in Ghana especially elderly care services is close to meeting elder’s expectations, and areas in which it falls far short of expectations. From a methodological perspective, it can be concluded that the ability of designing elderly healthcare services upon patient satisfaction makes this approach a powerful tool for health service managers and hospital business sector like other sectors

Elderly care, or aged care, is the fulfilment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens. Because of the wide variety of elderly care found globally, as well as differentiating cultural perspectives on elderly citizens, cannot to be limited to any one practice. Our study evaluates the socio-economic situation of older people in Ghana, as they move into their retirement year. It analyses a comprehensive range of variables that capture the economic status of the elderly, including income, poverty rates, food consumption, housing consumption, nutrition measures, household production, and leisure. Further the study focuses on providing a solid assessment of the economic status of elderly people using comprehensive measures. It also specifically addresses questions regarding the social program participation decisions of the elderly and how public transfers impact their welfare. Following proposal for further studies in existing literature, this study explore the expectations and perception of socio-economic care needs of the elderly in Ghana using Kano’s service quality model as a tool to determine the expectations gap in the current services available for the elderly in Ghana. The study concludes that social welfare has typically had a low priority and the contribution of the family to welfare has largely been neglected. As a consequence, policy-making on how better to harness the energies and resources of the family and the community to resolve the social needs of individuals and groups has barely commenced. Traditional domestic arrangements had intergenerational support built into them; modern arrangements are in the process of destroying this key social welfare feature. Recognizing that this is the case raises the question of how to design intergenerational support back into mainstream social relations so that the elderly are not marginalized and put at risk by the urbanization process.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse sustainability reporting information reported by two plant sites of a multinational mining firm operating in Ghana. It draws on institutional theory and firm characteristics to compare and contrast the sustainability reporting contents on the websites of two plants of a multinational mining company in the same country. The study uses case study approach with qualitative content analysis to benchmark the sustainability information found on the websites of the two plants of Newmont Mining Corporation, Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd at Ahafo and Newmont Golden Ridge Ltd at Akyem based on the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Division for Sustainability Development models. It was discovered that even though both plants reported on all aspects of sustainability - economic, environmental and social, the plant sites vary in the contents and details of reports even though the websites had the same headings. These variations are arguably due to the institutional pressures and variations in the characteristics of the two plants. This paper contributes to an understanding of how on site-specific institutional pressures from stakeholders such as community and regulatory bodies and the size and age of subsidiaries may impact on sustainability reporting.