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This study aims to examine the association between non-audit fees and audit quality by using the context of gender-diverse audit committees. Further, the authors assess whether this link is moderated by industry-specialist auditors.

This study used non-financial FTSE-350 firms over the period of seven years. In addition, the authors use ordinary least squares regression to test the research hypotheses.

The authors find that female directors on audit committees are negatively related to non-audit fees, suggesting that non-audit fees reduce audit quality. Moreover, the results indicate that industry-specialist auditors positively moderate the link between gender-diverse audit committees and non-audit fees. This suggests that non-audit fees improve audit quality when the auditor is an industry-specialist.

The study does not support blanket restrictions on non-audit fees. It recommends regulators to consider industry expertise of auditors when devising non-audit fee restrictions. Moreover, the findings of this study have implications for firms aiming to understand whether non-audit fees could be used for enhancing audit quality.

By using the context of female directors on audit committees, the authors conclusively assess the link between non-audit fees and audit quality. Further, this study provides a more robust evidence on whether industry-specialist auditors affect the relationship between non-audit fees and audit quality.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine the female consumer’s intention to shop online. The rising number of female online shoppers has compelled the analysts and online vendors to believe that understanding the attitude and behaviour of the female consumers is very crucial for their growth.

A conceptual model is proposed that expands the theory of reasoned action (TRA) with three additional constructs, namely, trust, convenience and customer service. The proposed model is examined with the help of questionnaire responses collected from 909 online shoppers from India.

The paper empirically shows that there is a significant influence of attitude, convenience, customer service and subjective norm on the female consumer’s intention to buy online. Customer service acts as the most crucial factor in influencing the attitude of female consumers towards online shopping. The paper also points out that trust does not directly affect the female’s intention to shop online but indirectly influences it through attitude.

The paper has significant implications for practitioners. First, the results advocate that convenience and customer service are the vital antecedents to both behavioural intention and behavioural attitude. Second, the paper also showcases that trust influences behavioural intention indirectly through attitude, stressing the need for the online retailers to develop consumers’ trust in online shopping.

The paper examines TRA framework in the context of female online shopping, while earlier studies have concentrated completely on efficiency-based software tools like word processing, spreadsheets, etc. The integration of the three constructs – trust, convenience and customer service – in the TRA framework has not been studied in the past. The interaction effect of the different elements of customer services on the female consumer behaviour has never been examined in the previous research works.