Hendry (2015) suggests that “despite the best efforts of all concerned, the financial sector continues to have a bad reputation for illegal and unethical behaviour and to be more prone to ethical lapses than other business sectors”. This observation raise interesting questions like why has the financial sector so prone to bad reputation for illegal and unethical behaviour. This can anecdotally be seen by corporate scandals around the world. This could be possibly due to ignorance and prejudice. Additionally, a large proportion of the populace has very little understanding of finance, and throughout history its practitioners and their core activities – lending, borrowing and speculative trading. The financial industry is at the center of the any economy. Financial and accounting services enable the flow of capital between savers and companies, and it sets the rates at which investors and lenders exchange money. Ethical problems within the financial industry can have catastrophic consequences for all other areas of the economy. For example, a lack of transparency concerning complex financial instruments played a significant role in the development of the financial crisis between 2008 and 2009, according to the book “Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases,” by O. C. Ferrell and colleagues.

Ethics in general is concerned with human behavior that is acceptable or "right" and that is not acceptable or "wrong" based on conventional morality. General ethical norms encompass truthfulness, honesty, integrity, respect for others, fairness, and justice. They relate to all aspects of life, including business and finance. Financial ethics is, therefore, a subset of general ethics. As Demsey (1999) argues, "ethics represents the attempt to resolve the conflict between selfishness and selflessness; between our material needs and our conscience." Ethics in Finance will address the professional intersection where financial theory meets practice and where the concept of ethical behavior crosses from the abstract to the concrete. High ethical principles and professional standards are essential to positive outcomes; rules and regulations, while necessary, are not sufficient by themselves. The ethical behavior of agents in the finance sector has come under increased scrutiny over the past several years. An in-depth examination of the issue of ethical finance and governance is particularly important given the alarming increase both in the frequency and severity of incidents of corporate fraud. Given these observations this special issue aspires to provide a forum for new research that looks at the nexus of ethics, finance, and accounting within and across companies as well as markets in general around the world.

Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD( has found an increasing amount of attention in both academic and business arenas. Such disclosure includes the provision of information on human resource aspects, products and services, involvement in community activities and environmental reporting. Gray et al. (1995) state that “… It is not restricted necessarily by reference to selected information recipients, and the information deemed to be CSR may, ultimately, embrace any subject …”. Many quarters have recognized this view of CSR as a broad concept.

The European Commission (2001 as cited in Hartman, LP et al. 2007) considers that a cleaner environment and a better society are good examples regarding CSR as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) (1998) defines CSR as “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large” (Holme and Watts, 2000). Currently, making profits and elements of CSR and accountability are considered the main objectives of business organizations in order to maintain corporate reputation and appropriate performance whereas in the previous years, the main objective of business organizations is making profits (Ghazali 2007).

A growth in nonfinancial reporting (disclosure) has relied on the evolution of the concept of CSR. This means, the company is responsible for its actions. Indeed, stakeholders are asking companies to disclose both social and environmental activities and their ability to improve the corporate process through nonfinancial reporting. In this regard, identifying, monitoring, and reporting all social, environmental, and economic effects of its operation on society at large are concrete evidence that companies are committed to continual, long-term improvement, if they want to gain their stakeholders’ trust and build a good reputation in the market (Brammer & Pavelin 2004).

This Special Issue should explain the importance and benefits for developing countries companies of engaging in corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD). In addition, it should introduce the motivations for engaging in corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD). Also, it should illustrate the relationship between CSRD with other variables such as financial performance, company reputation, and employee commitment and so on. Furthermore, this Special Issue should classify which the theories should be suitable with developing countries economics. Finally, it provide more information about the differences between developed countries and developing countries in related to corporate social responsibility disclosure and any topics related to CSRD in developing countries.

The service industry plays an increasingly important role in the economy of many countries and in today’s global competitive environment delivering quality service is considered as an essential strategy for success and survival. Service quality is a focused evaluation that reflects the customer's perception of specific dimensions of service: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, Empathy, tangibles. Satisfaction, on other hand, is more inclusive: it is influenced by perceptions of service quality, product quality, and price as well as situational factors and personal factors (www.serviceperformance.com).

This research paper is aimed at reviewing, evaluating and comparing service quality in two restaurants; all situated at Buea subdivision, South West Region, Cameroon. This study seeks to clarify the perception that customers do have concerning service quality in the restaurants businesses when compared with what was observed in the field, this could lead to the improvement of services rendered to customers as well as help to retain them. This survey will try to suggest important dimensions of service quality that customers do expect or gives them satisfaction, recommendations will be made. SERQUAL model was the model that used to measure the types of service quality been offered in both restaurants.

Recent developments in several emerging countries are predicted to lead to significant improvements in firm performance/profitability as well as improved accounting quality. These improvements, if effectively implemented, will be attributed to better institutional quality in recent years, such as improved audit quality, auditor reputation and specialism, better investor protection, strong corporate governance, effective securities market regulation, improved legal systems, accounting disclosure rules, financial development, greater financial inclusion, etc., the list is not exhaustive. Previous studies have been done in this area, for example Houqe et al (2017), Scholtens and Feng (2013), González and García-Meca (2014), Arouri et al (2014), Ozili (2017), etc. It is interesting to understand the conceptual, theoretical or empirical relationship between institutional quality and firm behavior in emerging economies in recent years.

All contribution to the published special issue in IJFA will contribute to the literature that investigate the role of institutional monitoring for firm performance, and the role of institutional monitoring to discourage fraudulent financial reporting.

This special issue encourages submissions that investigate how (or whether) recent developments in institutional quality influence firm performance or influence the financial reporting behavior of firms in emerging economies. We welcome submissions that adopt a qualitative or quantitative approach, the latter should focus on recent dataset. This special issue has both accounting and finance components.

Chaos Theory deals with complexity, nonlinear behavior, and dynamics. This theory has been applied to many branches of science. Economics, as being a very complex, uncertain, and dynamic system, is also in the focus of chaos research. This special issue is devoted to publishing theoretical and empirical researches that highlight possible approaches to explore chaotic dynamics in different fields of economics and finance including micro level and macro level. The issue aims to show what is new and useful about current and future chaos application in economics and finance.

Nowadays, with globalization of the economy, good governance of public finance is of fundamental importance for all countries to ensure the sustainability of the national budget and financial systems, as well as mutual financial security and sustainable economic growth. The public sector of many economies has been subject to dramatic change. The every citizen demands greater understanding of where their tax rubles go and spend. For this reason, it is important to understand how social welfare fit into the suitable Public Administration. This special issue will focus on administrative, accounting and auditing techniques to observe public sector as a whole using Internet and Information Technology.

The one of the main goal of this special issue of IJFA is to understand how to evaluate Public Sector by performance indicators and control during the performance audit of budgetary funds used around the world. Also, it would be useful to study the impact of performance auditing and measuring results on the distribution of budget fund’s distribution.

To realize special issue of IJFA goals, firstly it is necessary to understand the current real working system of the Public Administration. Next, it is necessary to analyze the most significant and highest priority indicators systems to evaluate Public Sector. To test this system of indicators it is suggested to conduct a performance audit in merely public institution. Then, it is needed looking at how performance digital audit impacts on official decisions, and how public servants evolve to cope with such changes in the public sector.

This special issue of IJFA is devoted to publishing state-of-the-art research and case studies that highlight and illustrate ways to incorporate risk management within small and medium sized organizations. Since the financial crisis, much of the research concerning risk management has focused more on issues within large financial firms. Recent risk management research for small and medium sized organizations has mainly dealt with operational risk and more specifically information technology risk. This special issue will focus on financial, strategic and reputational risk management techniques small and medium sized firms.

The aim of this special issue is to introduce the research trend of investment behavior in Japan, especially centering on the heterogeneity of capital stock, the lumpiness of investment (due to nonconvex adjustment costs of investment) and the effect of uncertainty on investment.

Accounting is important to businesses and to society as a whole and consists of producing economic information in a systematic way for different users, in particular actors in financial markets, management and staff.

The recent financial crisis has challenged several accounting concepts, methods and tools and therefore there is the need to rethink what to account for and how to account for it in order to make the disclosure of accounting information relevant and useful. This situation can have consequences both in the production and in the use of accounting information.

Regarding the production of information, it is possible to notice the rising call for new or modified accounting standards, the adoption of new or improved accounting practices or the implementation of new technologies. With reference to the second perspective, it is possible to notice a change on how the growing amount of produced and distributed accounting numbers are used in businesses and organizations.

The aim of this special issue is to foster theoretical and empirical research in the area of the disclosure of accounting information. More in depth, this special issue focuses on new trends in financial and voluntary reporting and on innovative accounting practices, considering both the reasons of these innovations and their consequences in terms of use.