This study investigates the impact of service failure severity, service recovery strategies and customers’ perceptions of recovery justice on post-recovery satisfaction, customers’ emotions and repurchase intentions in the banking sector of countries with different socio-cultural contexts.

The study employed a quantitative survey approach in the banking sector across Egypt and Spain. Online questionnaires were distributed to bank customers who experienced service failures within the past year. The final sample comprised 910 respondents (410 Egyptian and 500 Spanish). Data analysis was conducted with Smart PLS 4 for structural equation modeling.

Results showed that service failure severity negatively influenced recovery strategies only in Spanish banks. Service recovery strategies positively affected perceived recovery justice, which enhanced positive emotions and reduced negative ones across both countries. While perceived recovery justice and positive emotions increased post-recovery satisfaction, negative emotions decreased it. Besides, post-recovery satisfaction influenced repurchase intentions in both countries, though its mediating role between recovery justice and repurchase intentions was significant only for Spain. Educational level emerged as a significant moderator only in the Egyptian context.

The study developed and empirically examined a comprehensive conceptual model of the drivers and outcomes of post-recovery satisfaction in the banking sector. Providing meaningful insights into how social and cultural differences between customers in different countries can sometimes result in dramatically different behaviors following a service failure, the study highlights the need to adapt accordingly the strategies and the management processes of service recovery.

This research examines whether people with disabilities (PwDs) are willing to adopt generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and identifies the factors influencing their use behavior in their daily lives.

The theoretical framework presented in this study integrates the unified theory of technology acceptance and use (UTAUT) and its extension, the UTAUT2, with the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model. Empirical data were quantitatively analyzed using SmartPLS 4.

Effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and hedonic motivation (stimuli) positively affect perceived value (organism). Anxiety (stimulus) exerts a negative effect on perceived value. Perceived value generates a response by significantly affecting behavior intention, which drives GenAI use behavior in PwDs’ daily lives. If these stimuli are not properly managed, they lead to non-use by PwDs, resulting in avoidance behavior.

This study enriches the technological innovation management literature by presenting a theoretical framework of the stimuli that affect GenAI use behavior by PwDs.

By underlining the interplay between PwDs and new technologies, this study offers practical implications and recommendations for tech and non-tech companies, policymakers and regulators to implement advanced technologies inclusively. It guides these practitioner groups to enhance user-centered innovation by adhering to the principles of inclusive technology design.

This study offers an inclusive analysis of GenAI use behavior by PwDs. Its originality lies in focusing on PwDs’ perceptions rather than predefined corporate-driven factors.

This study aims to investigate the influence of clients’ investments in artificial intelligence (CINV_AI) on audit costs within the Chinese context. Furthermore, this study moderates the role of audit quality on the relationship between corporate investments in AI and audit costs.

To test the hypotheses, this study uses an ordinary least squares regression using a final sample of 26,654 firm-year observations spanning the period 2016–2023. To mitigate potential endogeneity concerns, the researchers adopted the instrumental variable technique, specifically the two-stage least squares method.

This study reveals that corporate investments in AI has a statistically significant positive effect on audit costs, suggesting that clients with high investments in AI-increasing operational complexity and risk, increasing audit effort, improving audit efficiency and ultimately incurring higher audit costs. Furthermore, the results indicate that audit quality positively and significantly reinforces the link between corporate investments in AI and audit costs. Finally, the robustness tests support the main findings and confirm their validity.

This paper provides valuable insights for corporate managers, investors and auditors. For managers and investors, it emphasizes that AI implementation constitutes a substantial investment, encompassing considerable direct expenditures on assets and technology, as well as indirect costs such as increasing audit costs. For auditors, it emphasizes that these AI investments necessitate more audit effort and team members with specific IT expertise.

The results provide new evidence contributing to the recent inconclusive literature that investigates the impact of client IT capabilities (AI) on audit costs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of audit quality in the relationship between corporate AI investment and audit costs.

This study investigates the relationship between key audit matters (KAMs) and audit fees in the Chinese context. Furthermore, this study moderates the characteristics of the dual-board system (board of directors (BOD) and supervisory board (SB)) on the association between KAMs and audit fees.

The ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects (FE), and random effects (RE) were applied using a final sample of 17,286 firm-year observations from 2017 to 2022 to test the hypotheses. We relied on the instrumental variable using the two-stage least square (IV-2SLS) method and generalized method of moments (GMM) to address the endogeneity issue.

Our results show a positive and significant relationship between KAMs and audit fees. These findings indicate that audit fees are related to compliance with the requirements of China Standards on Auditing (CSA) No.1504 KAMs. Furthermore, our results indicate that factors such as board size, the level of board independence, and the size of the SB positively and significantly reinforce the association between KAMs and audit fees. However, the outcomes depict that SB independence has a significant and negative effect on the association between KAMs and audit fees. In contrast, the findings reveal that chief executive officer (CEO) duality does not have a statistically meaningful impact on the relationship between KAMs and audit fees. Finally, the robustness tests support the main findings and confirm their validity.

Our paper focuses solely on the total number of KAM topics, while future studies could investigate how specific types of KAM disclosures, such as those related to revenue recognition, accounts receivable, and goodwill impairment, which are the most frequently reported KAMs, influence audit pricing in the Chinese context.

This study has theoretical and practical importance for regulators, auditors, practitioners, shareholders, and academics. For example, it can help regulators gain a clearer understanding of the impacts of the new Chinese auditing standard (CSA No. 1504) on audit fees.

This study offers significant social implications by emphasizing the role of audit transparency and unique governance structures in protecting stakeholder interests, improving public trust in audit reports, and supporting economic development.

Our empirical findings provide novel evidence that contributes to the recent inconclusive literature on the impact of KAMs on audit fees. To the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first empirical evidence in China that explores the moderating role of the dual-board system characteristics on the relationship between KAMs and audit fees.