Government‐Level Political Risk Perception and Corporate Violations: Evidence From China

High costs of technological innovation and insufficient technological innovation capabilities may impede the ability of firms to communicate relevant environmental protection information to the public. This study aims to analyze the impact of technological innovation on the quality of environmental information disclosure conducted by firms. A non-balanced panel dataset comprising A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2007 to 2020 was subjected to ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis in the study. The model included year-fixed and industry-fixed effects to eliminate the influence of unobservable factors during the sample period. The results revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between the quality of environmental information disclosure by enterprises and the quantity and quality of technological innovation. The study's findings indicate that technological innovation offers a more sustainable path for the advancement of environmental information disclosure. By utilizing environmentally friendly and energy-saving technologies, the negative impact of the environment on technological innovation can be mitigated, leading to a more sustainable approach to environmental information disclosure. The practical implications of this study include fostering innovation to enhance disclosure quality, which benefits policymaking and industry practices. The understanding of the positive relationship between technological innovation and environmental information disclosure is enriched by the empirical evidence from this study, emphasizing its role in promoting sustainability and transparency.

This article takes the companies that publicly issued corporate bonds on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2006 to 2018 as the research objects selecting six aspects that comprehensively reflect the 17 financial variables in 6 aspects: profitability, operating ability, bond repayment ability, development ability, cash flow and market value of the company. Principal component analysis method and factor analysis method are used to extract the principal factors of these financial indicator variables. That is how an ordered multi-classification Logistic regression model is constructed to test the impact of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges’ financial status on the corporate bond credit rating. It turns out that the financial status of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges have an important impact on the credit rating of corporate bonds. The financial status has a greater impact on corporate bonds with credit ratings of A- and AA-, while it has a smaller impact on corporate bonds with credit ratings above AA. The results of this article can help individual and institutional investors prevent risks from investing.

Recent years, a series of policies on environmental information disclosure is issued by relevant management departments. The author compares the data of environmental information disclosure from Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchange between 2006 and 2011, and finds that there is no difference between Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in environmental information disclosure level before 2008 and the environmental information disclosure level of Shanghai Stock Exchange is higher than that of Shenzhen Stock Exchange after 2008. For listed companies, the rules on environmental information disclosure of listed companies issued by CSRC(China Securities Regulatory Commission) are more effective than that of Ministry of Environmental Protection. Therefore, the relevant policies for environmental information disclosure of listed companies should be formulated and promulgated by CSRC or formulated and promulgated by both of CSRC and Ministry of Environmental Protection. And this paper also provides empirical evidence to improve the policies design of environmental information disclosure.

Firm Size, Firm Performance, and Environmental Information Disclosure Quality: Evidence from Listed A-shares Companies in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges

Surname relationship and trade credit: Evidence from China

At present, the classic corporate finance theory is challenged by various behavioral visions of corporate leaders in the actual decision-making of corporate finance. From the perspective of behavioral finance, this paper selects the data of A-share listed companies in China's Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2003-2016 to study the relationship between CEO's overconfidence and business operations. The study found that: Overconfidence CEOs will tend to increase the level of leverage, increase the number of loans, especially to increase the number of short-term loans; When the economic growth is faster, the listed company's CEO is more inclined to overconfidence; However, unlike the results of foreign studies, overconfident companies did not replace CEOs more frequently than non-overconfident companies, and did not increase the probability of bankruptcy. Finally, the CEO of a state-owned company does not appear to be more overconfident than the CEO of a private company.

Corporate culture is the soul of the enterprise and plays a vital role in creating corporate cohesion and improving business performance; in many cases, the role of corporate culture on business performance is not direct, but there are a series of intermediary influencing mechanisms. Most of the current academic circles have studied the influencing mechanism between corporate culture and business performance from the perspective of dynamic matching. Still, there is a lack of research results based on the theoretical perspective of Edgar H. Schein's corporate culture dimensions. Based on Edgar H. Schein's theoretical perspective of corporate culture dimensions, this study explores the influencing mechanism between corporate culture and the business performance of Chinese listed companies from the dimensions of corporate governance culture in the external environment and corporate governance culture in the internal environment. It conducts empirical research using the data of A-share listed companies in China's Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange as samples. The results are twofold. First, the adaptability of the enterprise's external environment has a significant and positive effect on the Weighted average return on net assets in the financial dimension; it has a substantial and positive impact on customer satisfaction in the non-financial dimension. Second, internal corporate governance culture has a significant and positive effect on weighted average return on net assets, Debt-to-Equity Ratio, Earnings per share in financial dimensions, Percentage of highly educated employees, customer satisfaction survey, and non-financial dimensions. Percentage of highly educated employees, Customer Satisfaction, Customer retention rate, and R&D investment as a percentage of operating income in non-financial dimensions have significant positive effects. The findings of this study provide theoretical and practical guidance for Chinese listed companies to strengthen the construction of external environment adaptive culture and internal corporate governance culture.

This chapter examines the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) regulation on the quantity and quality of disclosure of listed mining firms in a rapidly growing, developing economy, which is of China. It utilises a manually collected dataset based on firms drawn from China's Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, covering the 2007 to 2010 period. The chapter provides a brief review of literature allowing development of our hypotheses. It presents the research sample and methodology. The chapter discusses a methodology which involves identification of the information in corporate announcements on the level and content of firms' CSR commitments, and the application of content analysis to allow quantitative analysis of the characteristics of the information disclosed. Qualitative measurement is also an important component in content analysis. An objective index of the quality of CSR disclosure must acknowledge two types of disclosed information: general category and performance indicator.

Purpose The major shareholders may try to manipulate the stock price for tunneling after share lockup expiration, but the earlier studies focus on earnings management and do not consider other potential manipulation methods. Therefore, we explore the tone management of earnings communication conferences. Design/methodology/approach We take the China A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2007 to 2021 as our sample to examine how, why and when share lockup expiration of major shareholders affects tone management of earnings communication conference. Findings Firms tend to engage in tone management in earnings communication conferences when the lockup expires by increasing the optimism of the tone and decreasing the similarity between the responses and questions. The purpose of tone management is not for share reduction, but rather for improving market performance and better share pledge. The effect of share lockup expiration is weaker when the firm engages in real or accrual-based earnings management, and when the firm keeps higher accounting conservatism. In addition, in companies at growth and maturity stages, where executive compensation is high, institutional investor ownership is low and the controlling shareholder is a non-state-owned enterprise, the impact of share lockup expiration on the tone management becomes more pronounced. Originality/value Our study reveals the ways and purposes of tone management when share lockup expires, shows the timing preferences of tone management and helps identify the quality of information disclosure in earnings communication conferences, enriching the research on tone management and market value management.

BackgroundIn recent years, cases of stock price crash have continued to emerge. However, yet little research to date has investigated the compensation incentives of top management team (TMT) affect the risk of stock price crash. Nor has research considered the impact of the executive pay gap on the stock price crash risk. Especially, as the “egalitarianism” was broken in the compensation system, and the increase of the degree of marketization of salaries, the executive pay gap has shown an expanding trend. Under this circumstance, we would systematically examine the association between the extent of executive pay gap and its future stock price crash risk.Design, methodology, and approachBased on the sample of A-Share non-financial listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, we used firm FE regression method to empirically examine the relationship of the internal and external compensation gaps of executives and crash risk, as well as its contigency variables and inner mechanism.FindingsThe empirical results show that there is a U-shaped relationship between the internal and external pay gap of executives and future crash risk. After passing the endogenous test and the robustness test, the conclusion still holds. Further research shows that the U-shaped relationship between the pay gap and crash risk is more pronounced, when firms are affiliated with the non-state-owned enterprise or its compensation fairness is lower. Finally, the quality of information disclosure plays a mediation effect when executive pay gap affects stock price crash risk.Originality and valueAccording to the economic and behavior perspectives, we explored the impact of compensation structure on stock price crash risk from the pay gap of executives for the first time, and extended the emerging literature of forecasting future stock price crash risk and executive pay gap. In addition, a key implication of our findings is that more guidance for firms is provided to design the compensation structures and to reduce stock price crash risk.

As a non-penal regulatory tool, the annual report inquiry letter exerts effects that influence the decision-making processes of both auditors and corporate management. Using a sample of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2016 to 2024, this study empirically examines the impact of annual report inquiry letters on auditor behavior through three dimensions: audit fees, audit opinions, and auditor changes. The results indicate that companies receiving inquiry letters face significantly higher audit fees, are more likely to receive non-standard audit opinions, and exhibit a significantly increased probability of auditor change. These findings collectively demonstrate that regulatory inquiries influence the operational mechanisms of the audit market by enhancing information disclosure quality and strengthening auditors' risk perception. This study provides valuable insights for optimizing auditor decision-making, improving regulatory effectiveness, and enhancing the quality of information disclosure in listed companies.

According to the requirements of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, China's listed companies need to disclose corporate information to the outside world every year. The improvement of the quality of information disclosed by listed companies will effectively alleviate the problem of information asymmetry in the capital market, and providing investors with higher quality corporate information enables investors as shareholders to make more comprehensive decisions. This study uses unbalanced data from companies listed on China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2019 to study the impact of corporate governance and external auditing on the quality of corporate information disclosure. This study combines corporate governance and external auditing to study the impact on the quality of information disclosure, extends ways to improve the quality of corporate information disclosure, and provides new ideas for improving the quality of information disclosure by listed companies in China.

In the context of increasing carbon emissions and strengthening regulatory measures, an increasing number of stakeholders are paying more attention to corporate carbon information. To further explore the relationship between the quality of carbon information disclosure and enterprise value, this study uses a sample of companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2013 to 2021. The aim is to investigate the link between the quality of carbon information disclosure and enterprise value, while also analyzing the role of green innovation in this relationship. The empirical results show that the quality of carbon information disclosure can significantly enhance enterprise value, with green innovation playing a mediating role in this effect. After robustness checks, including replacing the measurement variables and addressing endogeneity issues, the conclusions remain valid. Further analysis reveals that the effect of carbon information disclosure quality on enhancing enterprise value is more pronounced in non-high-pollution industries, non-state-owned enterprises, and firms located in eastern regions. This study provides valuable insights for future policy optimization related to carbon information disclosure and the promotion of low-carbon development in enterprises.

This paper empirically examines the relationships between the efficiency of the board, the efficiency of the board under the influence of ultimate ownership structure and the quality of information disclosure based on the data consisting of Chinese listed companies from Shenzhen Stock exchange from 2004 to 2007. The results from our sample show that, (1) The duality of board leadership and the number of board meetings have significantly negative impact on the quality of information disclosure; the board size has significantly positive impact on the quality of information disclosure; the board independence has not significantly impact on the quality of information disclosure. (2) The ultimate ownership structure (the ultimate nature of property rights, cash flow rights, the separation of cash flow rights and control rights) has significantly impact on the relationship between the board efficiency and the quality of the information disclosure. So we may prefect corporate governance and improve the quality of information disclosure by the conclusion of this paper.KeywordsEfficiency of the boardUltimate ownership structureQuality of informationDisclosureListed companies

Purpose This study attempted to derive differentiated implications by analyzing the corporate value of low-carbon companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2016-2020 according to the characteristics of each industry, equity structure, and stock market. Design/Methodology/Approach The data in this study were taken from A-share companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020. Findings The analysis results are as follows. It was found that the existence of a low-carbon company has a positive effect on the increase in firm value, which can be interpreted as supporting the results of previous studies. And, in the analysis of each industry (manufacturing, non-manufacturing), equity structure (state-owned enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises) and each stock market (Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange), it was confirmed that the effect of low-carbon enterprise on firm value was more significantly in the manufacturing sector, state-owned enterprises, Shanghai Stock Exchange than in the non-manufacturing sector, non-state-owned enterprises and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Research Implications Accordingly, companies must establish a low-carbon, eco-friendly awareness and innovate their corporate management and operating models. The government should exercise a functional advantage and provide platforms and cooperation for companies’ low-carbon conversion.