Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world has become one of the main focuses of concern in almost every country, and governments have taken numerous measures to prevent/mitigate the spread of the disease. As an essential social determinant, COVID-19 has significantly impacted consumers’ food consumption behavior and healthy eating habits/behaviors. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on food consumption behavior, and the main goal was to assess the possible problems (such as food waste and weight gain) caused by changes in food consumption behavior during the pandemic. Based on the accounting data of Chinese enterprises found in the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database, this study uses economic theory and the translog function to conduct an average partial effect (APE) analysis of the pandemic, and finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased Chinese people’s overall food consumption, and the consumption of food from large food enterprises has increased even more (APE = 0.11 vs. APE = 0.31). This study suggests that food waste and weight gain in the Chinese population may be more severe during the pandemic, and it is necessary to enhance food management and weight management through multiple pathways.

This study examines the association between professional training, higher academic qualifications (educational levels) and operating performance of audit firms in Taiwan. We particularly focus on the curvilinear effects of higher academic qualifications on operating performance. We group the total sample into three categories: national, regional and local audit firms. Based on the theoretical framework in industrial economics, we establish a cross-sectional multiple regression equation to test our hypotheses. Both higher academic qualifications and professional training are positively related to the operating performance of audit firms. Professional training moderates the relation between higher academic qualifications and operating performance. Higher academic qualifications exhibit a curvilinear effect on operating performance with a reverse U-shaped relation for the national audit firms and a U-shaped relation for both regional and local audit firms. Due to data unavailability, some factors affecting the audit quality and operating performance are not included in our analysis, such as auditor teamwork, internal control system, operating policies and auditing procedures of audit firms. The findings that higher academic qualifications are positively associated with the operating performance of audit firms justify the educational policy of establishing institutes or graduate schools in accounting over the past two decades. Furthermore, audit firms skillfully exploit employees with higher academic qualifications to improve their operating performance. We are the first to document the moderating effects of professional training and the curvilinear association between higher academic qualifications and operating performance, contributing knowledge to related literature.

This study examines the effects of training on organization-level financial performance for male-owned and female-owned audit firms. We define audit firms whose auditors take professional training as non-violator firms and whose auditors do not take professional training as violator firms. Regression results indicate that financial performance of non-violator audit firms is better than that of violator firms. Male-owned audit firms are superior in financial performance to female-owned ones. Male-owned violator firms even outperform female-owned non-violator firms. In addition, the extent of financial performance effect of training in the female-owned audit firms is higher compared to the male-owned firms. Findings gained in this study indicate that gender-role stereotype dominates the determination of financial performance of Taiwanese audit firms due to the Chinese cultural values in social roles against women. This study extends prior studies on training and gender gap, contributing knowledge to the extant literatures.

Two professional service organizations, an auditor and a tax agent, provide services to the same target clients. Taiwan established a new regulatory system for tax agents in 2004, which directly enhances their ability to compete with auditors. From the perspective of the economic theory of regulation, this study investigates the indirect effects of the new regulatory system on the business of auditors. We focus on auditors in proprietorship audit firms and divide the sample period into before and after 2004. This study establishes a cross-sectional regression equation to test our hypotheses. We classify the types of business into three levels, total amount, three categories and six individual items. Based on the 1989–2017 Survey Report of Audit Firms in Taiwan, we find that auditors perform better after 2004, indicating that increased competition leads to positive sustainability for auditors. Further results show that the effects of the regulation on auditors’ performance are greater after 2004, additional evidence of the positive indirect effect on auditors. This study contributes to the literature, provides public policy implications to regulators and contributes managerial information to auditors.

This study examines the moderating effects of professional training on the relation between information technology (IT) investments and financial performance of audit firms in Taiwan. The organization-level financial performance includes productivity and profitability. Total IT investments are divided into software and hardware expenditures. Empirical results indicate that professional training positively associates with productivity significantly but insignificantly with profitability. IT negatively relates to productivity and profitability. Both productivity and profitability are improved by the interaction between IT and professional training, indicating that professional training mitigates the IT productivity paradox. This study takes training and IT into account simultaneously to empirically examine the moderator role of training in the organizational context in which IT is deployed. Evidences obtained thus contribute information to both IT and human resources management literatures. Taiwanese audit market structure is similar to that of many western countries, empirical results of this study possess global managerial implications.