This study explores the application of the co-design approach in participatory planning for the development of Kambo Tourism Village, located at the intersection of urban and rural areas in Indonesia. By combining the Delphi Consensus Method and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the study successfully identified and prioritized key aspects in the planning process, with a primary focus on local community participation. The results indicate that the co-design approach is effective in creating a masterplan that not only aligns with the needs and aspirations of the community but also supports the sustainability and inclusiveness of tourism village development. AHP results reveal that local community participation was assigned the highest priority with a weight of 0.35, followed by stakeholder collaboration with a weight of 0.27. Community participation not only contributed to the creation of a well-structured tourism village masterplan but also enhanced human resource quality and strengthened stakeholder collaboration. The impact of this participatory planning process includes increased national recognition for Kambo Village, the village’s success in receiving awards, and local economic growth. Moreover, the study identified a gap between the calculated and expected weights in the AHP process, highlighting the complexity of aligning diverse stakeholder perspectives. These findings offer both practical and theoretical contributions and open opportunities for further research to address the challenges of participatory planning in the context of tourism villages.

In a rapidly evolving digital economy, cyberpreneurship has emerged as a pivotal force driving innovation and economic growth. The study applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour in predicting entrepreneurial intention in the context of Malaysia, where the government has actively championed digital entrepreneurship. Drawing from a sample of 473 final-year university students in the Klang Valley region of Malaysia, the study investigates the impact of Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) dimensions, namely innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness, on the intention to engage in cyberpreneurship within the context of Digital Free Trade Zones (DFTZ). The study further examines the moderation effect of psychological characteristics incorporating visionary thinking, self-efficacy, opportunism, and creativity to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing cyberpreneurial intentions. With the moderating variable, the paper presents a comprehensive model to investigate the IEO and psychological characteristics contributing to cyberpreneurship intentions and its impact on engagement in DFTZ. An empirical examination of data and hypotheses found that risk-taking (RISK) and proactiveness (PRO) are significantly related to cyberpreneurial intention. Psychological characteristics significantly proved its moderating role in its interaction with innovatiness (INNO), risk-taking (RISK), and proactivness (PRO) in influencing cyberpreneurial intentions (CYBER_PI). Innovativeness (INNO) without the influence of the moderating variable is not significantly related to cyberpreneurial intentions. Engagement with the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) through the mediating role of cyberpreneurial intentions (CYBER_PI), the innovativeness (INNO) did not succeed. On the other hand, risk-taking (RISK) and proactiveness (PRO) are found to be significant. The paper contributes to the landscape of e-commerce and digital trade literature by advancing our understanding of the factors driving individuals’ intentions to participate in cyberpreneurship and engage in DFTZ. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and entrepreneurs alike.

As digital technologies continue to shape the economy, countries are faced with increasing scrutiny in the use of digital transformation to aid productivity and improve performance. In South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Small and medium-sized businesses’ (SMEs’) uptake of digital technologies, as many businesses had to shift their operations online and adopt new digital tools and technologies to solve the challenges posed by the pandemic. This has led to an increased focus on digital transformation mechanisms among South African firms. Therefore, the study examines the effect of digital transformation on the productivity of firms using cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) (2020). The survey was based on firms and is a representative sample of the private sector in the South African economy and covers a wide variety of business environment themes, such as infrastructure, competitiveness, access to finance, and performance indicators. We found that digital transformation improved productivity of South African firms. Furthermore, empirical findings are reassuring robust to the IV-2SLS and quantile regression model, size of business, sectoral and provincial analysis. Finally, we recommend that policy makers should develop and implement initiatives to improve digital infrastructure, including high-speed internet access and reliable connectivity, especially in rural and underserved areas.

The Corona epidemic, as a global crisis, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) ISIS (war, as a regional crisis in Iraq, have significantly impacted the atmosphere of companies and the continuation of their activities. The present study examines the role of these crises in creating incentives for fraudulent reporting and reducing or improving audit quality. It also compares the results of these two relationships with each other. In other words, the current paper sought to answer these issues: What effect did the ISIS war and the COVID-19 pandemic have on the fraudulent reporting motives of companies, and how did it affect the quality of their audits? In the end, the answer to this question was addressed: What are the differences and similarities between the study results of the impact of COVID-19 and ISIS on fraudulent financial reporting and audit quality? For this purpose, the data of 33 companies from 2008 to 2021 (462 observations) were collected to examine six formulated hypotheses, and the hypotheses were tested using the method of structural equations and analysis of variance. Interviews with experts were also used to determine quality indicators of auditing and fraudulent financial reporting so that indigenous indicators were selected and finalized. The results showed no significant relationship between the epidemic of the COVID-19 crisis and the motives of fraudulent reporting and audit quality and between the crisis of the ISIS war and the motives of fraudulent reporting. However, the ISIS war crisis has negatively and significantly impacted audit quality. Finally, the results indicated no significant difference between the impact of the epidemic crisis of COVID-19 and ISIS on the motives of fraudulent reporting. Still, there is a significant difference in the impact of the epidemic crisis of COVID-19 and ISIS on the audit quality. The knowledge enhancement of the present study is the development of literature on the impact of the Corona and ISIS crises on corporate financial reporting and auditing. The current paper, by studying the consequences of COVID-19 and ISIS, showed that further investigations in this field, especially regarding the capital market environment and A company, can obtain essential results based on which practical suggestions can be made for possible future crises.

The present study investigates the relationship between audit quality and earnings management in banks listed on the Stock Exchange of Iraq and Oman. This paper used audit firm size, auditors’ industry expertise, audit report timeliness, auditor change, and auditors’ opinions to measure audit quality. Financial statements, notes attached to financial statements, and reports of independent auditors of 28 banks listed on the Iraqi Stock Exchange and 8 banks listed on the Oman Stock Exchange during the financial period of 7 years (2015 to 2021), and hypotheses were tested using EViews software and panel data. The results of the hypothesis testing showed no significant relationship between the firm size and the auditors’ change and earnings management for both countries (Iraq and Oman). This is while the relationship between the auditor’s industry expertise, the timely presentation of the audit report, and the auditor’s opinion and earnings management for both countries (Iraq and Oman) is negative.