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Medical tourism offers many opportunities to diversify Bahrain’s economy and foster economic development and prosperity. This study aims to holistically investigate the potential of developing Bahrain as a medical tourism destination and create a strategic roadmap to help government decision makers and other key private sector players to realize that potential.

This study is primarily based on quantitative research methods. Data were collected from medical service providers in the Kingdom of Bahrain using a questionnaire and subsequently analyzed using quantitative analysis techniques.

Overall findings indicate that Bahrain has the potential to attain competitiveness in the medical tourism sector. This can be achieved through a combination of industry-specific management strategies which facilitate effective public–private partnerships, reinvent healthcare legislation and encourage investment in medical tourism infrastructure.

This study will help determine best practice, prioritize improvement opportunities and enhance performance relative to stakeholders’ expectations and responsible tourism development.

Studies assessing medical tourism competitiveness of various countries are difficult to obtain. This study fills an existing gap by providing a distinct and comprehensive evaluation method of such competitiveness through a structured analysis of relevant market data in Bahrain. This study can be further extended to include a wider range of stakeholders, namely, private enterprise and the government sector.

Quality measurement is the trigger for quality improvement. Indeed, what gets measured gets done. The real scope of quality improvement in construction projects is the difficulty and-maybe-lack of quality measurement methods. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing the quality performance of highway projects in Egypt. Furthermore, this paper also contributes to develop models to measure the quality level of these projects.

A literature review is conducted to compile a list of factors influencing the quality of highway projects. The resulting list of factors is subjected to a questionnaire survey which was sent to owners, consultants and contractors of highway projects in Egypt. Furthermore, linear regression analysis and statistical fuzzy approaches are adopted for modeling process.

The survey results show that availability of experienced staff in the owner’s and contractor’s teams during the project execution, asphalt quality and type used in the construction process, pavement is not designed according to the regional conditions, and contractor’s labors and equipment capability are among the most important factors influencing quality performance.

The main contribution of this study is to develop models to measure the quality of highway projects in Egypt. The first model is based on the linear regression analysis, while the second one is based on a statistical fuzzy approach which is a hybrid approach from the fuzzy logic and regression analysis. Validation of the models reveals that the linear regression and the statistical fuzzy models can accurately assess expected quality of any future highway projects at confidence levels 68.97 and 87.44 percent, respectively.

Modeling represents the art of translating problems from an application area into tractable mathematical formulations whose theoretical and numerical analysis provides insight, answers and guidance useful for the originating application. The purpose of this paper is to determine the causal causes of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt in order to be used as independents variables in mathematical models for predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of such projects in Egypt.

A survey of a randomly selected samples yielded responses from 40 owners, 15 consultants and 56 contractors. The survey includes 38 schedule overrun factors and 26 cost escalation factors. The effectiveness degree of the identified factors has been identified by the triangle fuzzy approach.

The results of the survey show that “contractor’s technical staff is insufficient and ineligible to accomplish the project” is the most important cause of schedule overrun, while the major cause of cost escalation is inadequate preparation of the project concerning planning and execution.

The main contribution of this study is predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt. Through the application of the linear regression analysis method and statistical fuzzy theory, four predictive models have been developed and it has been noted that the linear regression-based model shows prediction accuracy better than statistical fuzzy-based model in predicting percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation.

This study aims to critically analyze the fundamentals of the current major Islamic Finance (IF) instruments and contracts in light of both the foundations of IF and the concept of substance over form in the accounting conceptual framework. Such analysis is believed to be necessarily for the IF institutions to provide better and more genuine service to their customers.

To achieve the study purpose, the methodology is based on theoretical analysis and analytical review of the major IF contracts.

The IF industry needs to focus on the economic substance of the products offered to their clients. In developing and promoting their products, IF institutions need to focus on the ultimate and substantial goals of Islamic Sharia rather than re-packaging existing conventional products under different arrangements and formats to make them appear as Sharia-compliant to their clients. Both religious scholars and IF professionals need to engage in much deeper analysis and understanding of the substantial design of IF instruments and the concept of usury in modern economy.

This paper does not intend to develop a comprehensive framework for the design of IF instruments to meet the economic substance and ultimate goals of IF principles or measure such economic substance. However, that is definitely a subject for further research.

By applying concepts like substance over form from other business fields such as the accounting theoretical framework to the IF instruments and contracts, we should gain better understanding and practical implications of these instruments and figure out ways to improve their design to be more consistent with and better serve the ultimate goals of the Islamic Sharia.

This paper examined engineers’ satisfaction with services of a building permission unit at a local municipality using a focus group, a questionnaire and follow‐up interviews. Obtained satisfaction indexes are reported. Differences in satisfaction levels were tested using parametric t‐tests and Kruskal‐Wallis non‐parametric tests according to engineer’s specialization, size of office and number of building projects submitted to the building permission unit. The results indicate no significant statistical differences in satisfaction levels based on specialization (civil engineers versus architectural engineers), size of the consulting office, or the number of projects submitted. However, satisfaction indexes were not high. They were about 60 per cent.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the value relevance of product diversification in US commercial banks.

The paper examines differences in the value relevance of commercial bank earnings components from interest and noninterest banking activities. Specifically, it studies market reaction to changes in bank earnings from noninterest sources resulting from expansion into new financial services other than the traditional intermediation activities. A sample of commercial banks between 1993 and 2002 is used.

Results show that annual abnormal returns have more significant positive relation with changes in the noninterest component of bank earnings compared with changes in the interest component of earnings. These results are more obvious for small banks and after 1999, the year in which the Gramm‐Leach‐Bliley Act allowed banks to expand into more noninterest banking activities.

This paper is an extension of the long and extensive accounting research strand in the value relevance of earnings applied to bank earning components. It may also contribute to banking and Finance literature regarding the effect of product diversification in the banking industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between earnings management behavior and the activity of both the board and audit committee.Design/methodology/approach – Different models to isolate abnormal accruals as a proxy for earnings management are applied to a sample of manufacturing companies.

Earnings management is negatively related to both board and audit committee independence. Such negative relation is stronger when the audit committee is more active. However, this result is not valid for the board activity.

Results are limited by the accuracy of the models applied to isolate abnormal accruals.

Results may have implications for corporate governance regulations such as board composition, audit committee composition, and their activity.

Results of earnings management research are sensitive to the different models suggested in literature to isolate the abnormal accruals.

This paper aims to study a preemption proposition for the compliance costs associated with stock option expensing under SFAS 123(R) by examining whether early adopters used their discretion over option pricing model inputs to mitigate the adoption effect.

The paper uses a matched sample approach of firms that voluntarily adopted stock option expensing during the 2002-2004 period and similar firms that waited until the mandatory expensing. The paper empirically examines some determinants of voluntary adoption, and the changes in option pricing model inputs during the period leading to mandatory expensing.

The paper reports evidence that voluntary adopters of stock option expensing during the 2002-2004 period have used the period leading to mandatory expensing to preempt its compliance cost effect. The authors exercised their discretion by decreasing estimates for stock price volatility and time-to-maturity to preempt or minimize the reduction in earnings before mandatory adoption date.

Results of this paper are useful to accounting regulators in understanding the reaction of financial statement preparers to deliberations, effective dates and voluntary early adoption terms of the accounting standards setting process.

The purpose of this paper is to provide more comprehensive analysis of the effects of Sarbanes‐Oxley (SOX) Act on both audit fee premium and auditor change in the US audit market.

The audit fee premium model is employed to track the trend in audit fee premium between 2000 and 2006 for small accelerated filers compared with large accelerated filers and non‐accelerated filers and how the change in auditor affected such trend around the enactment of SOX.

The results indicate a significant shift in audit fee premium during early years of SOX compliance especially for small accelerated filers compared with large accelerated filers or non‐accelerated filers. Such shift started to wind down during 2006 after the initial application of SOX requirements. Although clients who switched from big to non‐big auditors have experienced a slower increase in their audit fees, these fee savings are lower for small accelerated filers during 2004 and 2005 with the increasing demand for audit services in the US audit industry during these years.

The compliance costs of significant regulatory changes like SOX may be upfront loaded but their benefits are long‐term benefits in terms of higher quality of financial reporting and better internal controls over financial reporting. When analyzing the effects of such regulatory changes, practitioners and researchers should factor these costs and benefits over a sufficient time horizon.

More comprehensive analysis of SOX effects on the US audit industry not only in the short run during early compliance years, but also in the longer run after the initial setup process.

The purpose of this paper is to review the empirical research literature dealing with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and auditing. The authors identify four main topics related to the effect of IFRS adoption on audit fees, audit market and audit report lag and the influence of auditor choice on IFRS compliance.

For each reviewed stream of research, the authors present its theoretical underpinning and summarize its main results.

Based on 26 empirical studies, the review reveals four main findings. First, IFRS adoption is associated with increased audit fees. Second, IFRS adoption has had an effect on audit market through auditor choice, audit switching and audit market concentration. Third, IFRS adoption has increased audit report lag. Finally, the authors document that audit quality, as proxied by auditor type, may play an important role in enforcing the compliance with IFRS.

For regulators the review highlights that IFRS adoption is associated with several effects dealing with audit cost (audit fees), audit efficiency (audit report lag) and may benefit audit firms with international affiliation compared to local ones and this may inform regulators in settings that plan to adopt IFRS in the future.

This literature review represents a historical record and an introduction for researchers who aim to investigate this topic in the future since the authors provide specific guidance for future research avenues for these reviewed strands of research and other unexplored topics related to auditing and IFRS.