This paper examines the association of the presence of royal family members on the board of directors with audit committee effectiveness. The sample of this study consists of 444 listed manufactured firms in Saudi Arabia for the period 2012-2019. Using the Pooled OLS regression, the result of the study shows that royal family ownership is associated with audit committee effectiveness, giving support to the substitution hypothesis. The result indicates that members from the royal families are good monitors imposed into the companies' managements as both taking the role of decision makers and owners who may substitute the effectiveness of the audit committee. The presence of royal family members on the board has an alternative for the effectiveness of the audit committee. The marginal effect of audit committee effectiveness as an internal corporate governance mechanism is substituted by the presence of royal family members on the board. This study provides insightful evidence to regulators and policy makers at the company and country levels on the relationship of royal family ownership and audit committee effectiveness.

Continuous improvement of accounting policies coincides with the increase and development of earnings management. Several studies focus on this topic, and it became subject to many investigations. This paper deals with current literature focused on several axes of earnings management like motives for practicing earnings management, earnings management types, developed models to discover earnings management, factors affecting earnings management, and the consequences of earnings management practices. Besides, this research focuses on earnings management in Saudi Arabia in particular. In the recent period, Saudi Arabia is going through changes in the Saudi economy and changes in accounting systems, such as adopting the IFRS standards, which provides opportunities for expanding research into earnings management in the Saudi Arabia context. Several studies conclude that Saudi companies' earnings management practices are done in several ways and affected by many factors.

This study examines whether local corporate ownership is associated with audit committee diligence among 431 listed manufactured firms in Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the period 2012-2019. Using the complementary hypothesis, this study expected that there is a positive relationship between local corporate ownership and audit committee diligence. The Pooled OLS regression shows that local corporate ownership is positively associated with audit committee diligence. The findings reported by this study have implications for regulators, companies’ management, auditors, and creditors in a manner that they would gain a deeper understanding on how the local corporate ownership impacts the audit committee diligence.

Liquidity refers to the paying ability of the business organization while profitability assesses the profit earning capacity of the business organization. The liquidity of the business organization can be bifurcated into two based on time i.e., short-term and long-term liquidity. The short-term liquidity reveals the operational efficiency while long-term liquidity refers to the financial capability to repay the long-term debts of the business organization. The short-term paying ability is the management of the working capital or efficient management of the current assets and current liabilities. The current assets and current liabilities are directly related to the revenue of the business and further affected by the profitability, indirectly. The long-term paying ability or financial health of the business organization is reflected by the debts and equity ratio. The energy sector of Saudi Arabia is a prominent sector and contributes to the economy progressively. The study is based on secondary data and reveals the long-term and short-term liquidity variations and the cohesiveness of long-term and short-term liquidity with the revenue and profitability of energy sector companies. The study reveals the significant variations in the short-term and long-term liquidity and cohesiveness between the revenue, profitability, and short-term and long-term liquidity of the energy sector companies.

The aim of this study is to empirically examine the association between audit efficiency and board activity among listed energy companies in Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the period 2012-2019. The final sample of this study consists of 32 firm-year observations. Using the Pooled OLS regression, the study finds that audit efficiency was positively related to board activity. Moreover, the result indicates the complementary role of monitoring mechanisms in which audit efficiency complements the board activity. The study also provides insightful evidence to policy makers on the link of audit efficiency and board activity among energy companies.

The focus of this study is to examine the impact of board of directors’ size and meetings on the audit committee meeting frequency among energy, materials and food and beverages sectors listed on Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the period 2015-2017. The final sample of this study consists of 198 firm-year observations. Using the Pooled OLS regression, this study finds that board meeting is positively associated with audit committee meeting frequency. Furthermore, this study fails to report an association between board size and audit committee meeting frequency. This study provides insightful evidence to policy makers on the determinants influencing the audit committee meeting frequency among manufacturing companies.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the way digital marketing (DM) works in increasing customer satisfaction (CS) and brand loyalty (BL) at the Saudi Arabian Restaurants. The study uses 7 variables for analysis such as Service quality satisfaction (SQS) Digital engagement satisfaction (DES) Recommendation Likelihood (RL) Digital Promotions (DP) Online Presence Perception (OPP) Promotions Effectiveness (PE) Social Media Engagement (SME). Data from customers using digital media has been gathered through questionnaires. 410 respondents provided the data, which was then examined using SPSS and AMOS. The study will give management the knowledge they need to modify procedures and train employees in order to satisfy customers and promote BL. Future research can be done across several corporate sectors and cultural contexts. The premise for this study is provided by this paper, which also offers managers useful guidance regarding how to train employees to increase consumer satisfaction and BL.

The profitability of the business organization is the relative measurement and explores the profit earning capacity. There are two concepts of measuring profitability, which are profitability based on revenue, and investments. Gross and net profitability are the means of expression of the profitability based on revenue while investment profitability can be measured based on owners’ investment and total investment or total assets. Secondary data from the websites of the energy sector companies are taken for the study and ratio analysis, rank correlation is applied to get the similarity or differences in the profitability and relational relationship of the energy sector companies of Saudi Arabia. The study reveals that there was a significant difference in the profitability of the energy sector companies. Possibly, internal and external factors of the business organizations govern the profitability. There is a perfect and positive relational correlation between revenue and profitability while a highly negative correlation exists between profitability and investments. This may be due to overcapitalization or underutilization of the resources. Enhancement of velocity of operational activity is necessary to enhance the operational level of energy sector companies of Saudi Arabia. There is a need to control the indirect manufacturing and administrative expenses in smaller organizations and further investment in the energy sector companies is not advisable.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of using artificial intelligence applications on the performance of accountants and audit firms. The final sample for this study comprises 38 audit firms. This study uses a survey-based methodology in the context of Saudi Arabia. The results of the multiple regression revealed that the audit firms using artificial intelligence applications perceive them as useful instruments that increase the performance of accountants and audit firms. They can reduce the cost, effort, and time of the audit process, achieve a competitive advantage for the audit firms, help auditors better determine materiality, achieve a competitive advantage, improve the performance of the audit team, carry out the continuous audit process better than the traditional audit, enable auditors to select audit samples with high efficiency, improve the quality of control procedures on electronic transactions and files used by the client, contribute to the management of operations and tasks with more sophisticated and intelligent mechanisms, increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process and the efficiency and effectiveness of planning and supervising the audit process, reduce uncertainty and audit risk. The results reported by this study can be valuable for the accounting and auditing professions, audit firms, and standards and auditing regulators to deeply understand the extent to which artificial intelligence applications influence the performance of accountants and audit firms.

This study aims to examine the effect of company experience on audit committee diligence among manufactured listed companies on Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the period 2015-2017. The final sample of this study consists of 191 firm-year observations. Using the Pooled OLS regression, the study finds that there was a positive impact of company experience on audit committee diligence. The study provides insightful evidence to policy makers on the determinants influencing the audit committee diligence among manufacturing companies.