Enhance Information Transparency Research Articles

Bridging the gap: Digital finance's role in addressing maturity mismatch in investment and financing for agricultural enterprises

This research investigates digital finance's impact on reducing investment and financing maturity mismatches in agricultural enterprises, leveraging data from Chinese A-share listed companies between 2011 and 2022. The findings confirm digital finance's effectiveness in lessening these mismatches, as validated through comprehensive tests. Importantly, it alleviates maturity mismatch risks by enhancing information transparency and loosening financing constraints. The influence is especially notable in highly marketized regions and within both newly founded and closely examined firms. This emphasizes digital finance's key role in solving agricultural enterprises' investment and financing challenges.

Enhancing Information Transparency for Effective Governance: A Study on Government Procurement in Indonesia

The Indonesian Constitution prioritises citizen welfare, intellectual growth, and a just society. Effective development and public services are key to this government. Government purchase of products and services is crucial to national and regional development. However, data transparency difficulties typically lead to procurement fairness conflicts, making government procurement openness difficult. This is addressed by Presidential Regulation Number 16 of 2018 and its revision. In addition, the Indonesian Information Commission has set public information disclosure requirements, including procurement exclusions. This research explains Indonesian government procurement transparency policies and their relationship to excellent local governance. This qualitative study examines government procurement information openness using normative legal literature and primary data from interviews and observations. Transparency in procurement processes promotes good governance, and community input in information disclosure exemption determinations is needed.

Effective Evolutionary Principles for System-of-Systems: Insights from Agent-Based Modeling in Vehicular Networks

System-of-systems (SoS) evolution is a complex and unpredictable process. Although various principles to facilitate collaborative SoS evolution have been proposed, there is a lack of experimental data validating their effectiveness. To address these issues, we present an Agent-Based Model (ABM) for SoS evolution in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), serving as a quantitative analysis tool for SoS research. By integrating multiple complex and rational behaviors of individuals, we aim to simulate real-world scenarios as accurately as possible. To simulate the SoS evolution process, our model employs multiple agents with autonomous interactions and incorporates external environmental variables. Furthermore, we propose three evaluation metrics: evolutionary time, degree of variation, and evolutionary cost, to assess the performance of SoS evolution. Our study demonstrates that enhanced information transparency significantly improves the evolutionary performance of distributed SoS. Conversely, the adoption of uniform standards only brings limited performance enhancement to distributed SoSs. Although our proposed model has limitations, it stands out from other approaches that utilize Agent-Based Modeling to analyze SoS theories. Our model focuses on realistic problem contexts and simulates realistic interaction behaviors. This study enhances the comprehension of SoS evolution processes and provides valuable insights for the formulation of effective evolutionary strategies.

GREEN BONDS AND CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND GOVERNANCE GREENWASHING: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

In this paper, we examine the relationship between green bond issuance and corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) greenwashing using Chinese A-share listed companies between 2011 and 2021. The findings indicate that issuance of green bonds effectively mitigate enterprises’ tendencies toward ESG greenwashing, affirming the stability of China’s green bond market. The analysis of the mechanism demonstrates that the issuance of green bonds can effectively mitigate ESG greenwashing by enhancing information transparency and alleviating financing constraints. Further analysis reveals that the issuance of green bonds effectively mitigates E information greenwashing and S information greenwashing, while it does not significantly impact G information greenwashing. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the inhibitory impact of green bond issuance on ESG greenwashing is more pronounced within subgroups characterized by high environmental protection subsidies, elevated environmental protection taxes and fees, executives lacking prior experience in environmental protection, and enterprises with limited social responsibility. The findings provide theoretical supplementation of ESG consequences resulting from green bond issuance and elucidate the mechanism for curbing corporate ESG greenwashing. Practically, it will facilitate other countries to enhance their top-level design of green bonds and contribute to achieving carbon neutrality and peak carbon goals.

Stock market liberalization and stock tail systemic risk: Evidence from China’s “Mainland-Hong Kong Connect” program

ABSTRACTAs a crucial component of financial opening, stock market liberalization is a vital measure for China to advance market-oriented and open-oriented reforms. However, effective risk prevention and control must be in place as a prerequisite. Examining the ‘Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect’ program as a quasi-natural experiment, this study explores the mechanism through which this stock market liberalization policy affects stock tail systemic risk using a time-varying Difference-in-Differences (DID) model. The findings indicate that: (1) The ‘Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect’ program significantly reduces stock tail systemic risk in both Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. (2) The key to risk reduction lies in enhancing information transparency, corporate governance, and stock liquidity. (3) The risk mitigation effect of this policy is particularly pronounced in regions with weaker investor protection.

How do credit ratings affect corporate investment efficiency?

AbstractThis study examines the impact of credit ratings on the efficiency of firms' investments. Using a large sample of US firms, we find a positive relationship between the existence of credit ratings and investment efficiency. The cross‐sectional analyses show the positive relationship is more pronounced for firms with greater information asymmetry and weaker corporate governance. Our results are robust to different methods to address potential endogeneity concerns, alternative measures of key variables, and the inclusion of additional control variables. Overall, the findings support the notion that credit rating agencies enhance information transparency and external monitoring, thereby allowing rated firms to promote investment efficiency. The findings contribute to our understanding of the significant role played by credit rating agencies in shaping firms' investment behaviour and efficiency.

Decoding Creativity in the Digital Age: Blockchain Unveiled - Navigating Opportunities and Challenges in Copyright Protection

Introduction: The advent of blockchain technology is heralded as a promising solution to address the challenges associated with digital copyright. Nevertheless, given the nascent stage of blockchain development, there exist a number of formidable challenges that necessitate resolution.Purposes of the Research: This study endeavors to analyze the opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of blockchain technology in safeguarding digital copyright.Methods of the Research: This study employs the normative legal research method with a qualitative approach. The utilization of a qualitative approach in normative legal research allows for a nuanced exploration of legal principles and norms. Results of the Research: The findings of the research underscore that blockchain technology, characterized by features such as decentralization, security, transparency, and immutability of data, presents opportunities for enhancing information transparency, detecting fraudulent claims, safeguarding the digital music industry, and automating license payments through smart contracts. Nevertheless, challenges must be addressed before blockchain can be widely implemented, including regulatory uncertainties and cybersecurity threats. Collaboration among government entities, academia, industry players, the private sector, and regulatory authorities is imperative to establish a clear and secure legal framework for the adoption of blockchain technology.

Global evidence on the association between environmental, social, and governance disclosures and future earnings risk

AbstractMotivated by growing stakeholder demands for environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures and enhanced information transparency, this study investigates the relationship between ESG disclosures and future earnings risk in a globally diverse sample of firms. Using fixed‐effects panel regression models and endogeneity controls, we show that ESG disclosures exhibit a substantial negative impact on earnings risk. The sub‐dimensions, except governance, of ESG disclosures also reveal a negative impact on earnings risk. Notably, the social dimension's impact is economically more pronounced than the other ESG disclosure dimensions, indicating that social issues carry more value in reducing the uncertainty surrounding the future earnings risk of a firm. Besides, higher ESG reporting firms benefit more from reducing future earnings risk than low‐reporting firms. Our findings suggest that enhancing information transparency can help alleviate the agency problem arising from information asymmetry between corporate managers and shareholders. Moreover, higher disclosure in various ESG dimensions can address stakeholders' concerns regarding firm's social and environmental impacts.

Competition laws and corporate risk-taking around the world

Using a new dataset on international competition laws, we examine the relationship between country-level competition laws and corporate risk-taking in 58 countries from 1990 to 2010. Consistent with the disciplinary effect hypothesis, we document robust evidence of a negative relation between corporate risk-taking and the stringency of competition laws. The negative relation between competition laws and corporate risk-taking is more pronounced among financially constrained firms and less pronounced among firms situated in high-trust jurisdictions. Further analysis shows that competition laws affect corporate risk-taking by mitigating agency problems and enhancing information transparency. Overall, these findings are consistent with the view that competition plays a critical external corporate governance role in shaping corporate behaviors.

Sustainability of AI: The Case of Provision of Information to Consumers

The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and its manifold applications have fueled the discussion around how AI can be used to facilitate sustainable objectives. However, the technical, ethical, and legal literature on how AI, including its design, training, implementation, and use can be sustainable, is rather limited. At the same time, consumers incrementally pay more attention to sustainability information, whereas businesses are increasingly engaging in greenwashing practices, especially in relation to digital products and services, raising concerns about the efficiency of the existing consumer protection framework in this regard. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussion toward sustainable AI from a legal and consumer protection standpoint while focusing on the environmental and societal pillar of sustainability. After analyzing the multidisciplinary literature available on the topic of the environmentally sustainable AI lifecycle, as well as the latest EU policies and initiatives regarding consumer protection and sustainability, we will examine whether the current consumer protection framework is sufficient to promote sharing and substantiation of sustainability information in B2C contracts involving AI products and services. Moreover, we will assess whether AI-related AI initiatives can promote a sustainable AI development. Finally, we will propose a set of recommendations capable of encouraging a sustainable and environmentally-conscious AI lifecycle while enhancing information transparency among stakeholders, aligning the various EU policies and initiatives, and ultimately empowering consumers.

Longer waiting, more cancellation? Empirical evidence from an on-demand service platform

Consumer cancellation disrupts companies’ normal operations and incurs significant costs. This urges companies to understand the reasons for consumer cancellation. However, existing literature has barely discussed consumers’ cancellation behavior in the on-demand service context. This study examines the impact of consumers’ waiting time on cancellation on the on-demand food service platform. We find consumers’ longer waiting time for service production, but not for delivery, increases cancellation. Additionally, merchant popularity and price negatively affect consumer cancellation. Category and location of the merchant moderate the effect of waiting time on consumer cancellation. This study contributes to the cognitive timer theory through highlighting that consumers can have different perceived waiting time when they wait for service production versus wait for delivery. Our findings provide insights for platforms and merchants to cooperate to enhance information transparency and achieve a quick response upon receiving consumer orders to reduce waiting time in the on-demand service context.

Who is interested in a crowdsourced last mile? A segmentation of attitudinal profiles

Online and omnichannel retail developments placed logistics at the front-end of consumers’ purchase journeys. Particularly the last mile of the supply chain increasingly affects consumer satisfaction, while its financial and environmental impact is critical. “Crowd logistics” is introduced as a promising solution. As consumers are increasingly driving innovation and initiatives in the last mile, it is important to know their preferences and perceptions. Our objective is to identify which type of consumer is interested in a crowdsourced last mile and which particular crowd logistics services are considered interesting. To this end, we set up a survey among a sample of one-thousand consumers that represent the Belgian population. The survey is analysed using descriptive statistics and two-step cluster analysis. Analysis shows that consumers support neighbour relays and delivery by retailers’ employees, but general interest is low. A cluster analysis identifies four attitudinal profiles. One segment, labelled the “trailblazers”, are most likely to adopt crowdsourced last mile services: they strongly prefer delivery at home and rely on their community of neighbours when a delivery fails. They are more interested in last mile innovations and sustainability enhancements. The research contributes by taking a consumer perspective on the last mile and by including three types of services and four types of crowd. Three recommendations for retailers are formulated, to focus on a crowdsourcing solution that combines collection and delivery among their employees’ local network, to target consumers that fit the identified profile and to accentuate crowd logistics’ quality of enhancing information transparency.

The impact of online platform transparency of information on consumers’ choices

AbstractMillions of Europeans use online platforms with almost blind trust that the platforms operate in the interests of the consumer. However, the presentation of search results, transparency about contractual parties and the publication of user reviews that contribute to the value of online platforms in Europe's Single Digital Market also pose significant risks regarding consumer protection and market competition. The current study investigates how enhanced information transparency in online platforms might affect consumers’ trust in online activities and choice behaviour. Following an exploratory qualitative study, three online discrete-choice experiments were conducted with representative samples of 1200 respondents in each of four countries: Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK. The objective of the experiments was to test whether increased transparency in the presentation of online search information, details of contractual entities and the implications for consumer protection and user reviews and ratings would affect consumers’ choices. The results show that increased online transparency increases the probability of product selection. A comparison across the four countries found that the similarities in responses to online transparency were far greater than the differences. The findings are discussed in relation to the biases and heuristics identified in behavioural science. In conclusion, recommendations are made to increase online transparency, which the empirical evidence of this study shows would benefit both users and platform operators.

The Drivers of Corporate Water Disclosure in Enhancing Information Transparency

This paper explores drivers of corporate water disclosure (CWD) from an aspect of accountability. Based on legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, we propose six potential drivers of CWD. First, this paper uses an independent sample t-test to analyze differences in CWD among US firms. Later, potential drivers on CWD were identified using ordinal logit regression. These hypotheses posit that debt ratio, blockholders’ ownership ratio, inclusion in a capital market index (i.e., S&P500), and the status of belonging to a water-sensitive industry (WSensi) all have a positive effect on CWD. However, the relations of firm size and profitability on CWD are insignificant. This suggests that the supervision of blockholders and creditors can effectively improve the transparency of CWD.

A blockchain-based service composition architecture in cloud manufacturing

ABSTRACT Cloud manufacturing is a promising rising paradigm in which geographically distributed manufacturing resources are exposed as services in the cloud platform. The task of cloud manufacturing is to provide manufacturing resources as services to fulfil users’ demands. However, in existing cloud manufacturing architecture all the information is possessed by the platform operator, and the management of manufacturing services is highly centralised. It is firmly believed that decentralisation and elevating information transparency can help increase the operational performance. Blockchain is such a technology that distributes transactions information to a peer-to-peer network such that information is fully shared and unchangeable by partial peers. This paper proposes a blockchain-based cloud manufacturing architecture to enhance information transparency and decentralisation. The proposed platform is responsible for exposing manufacturing resources and wrapping them as services. Manufacturing services can be purchased by any user accessing to the platform. The blockchain is used to intermediate the service composition and record transaction results. Moreover, a quality of service (QoS) aware service composition model is proposed in the blockchain-based cloud manufacturing. A particle swarm optimisation (PSO) is proposed to solve the model. Finally, simulations are done to provide an application of the service composition in blockchain-based cloud manufacturing.

Promoting consumer adoption of water-efficient washing machines in China: Barriers and countermeasures

The increasing popularity of water-efficient appliances is vital for water conservation. However, only few studies have investigated the purchasing behaviour of consumers and its influencing factors, particularly the use of water-saving washing machines (h-axis cloth washers). In this study, we analysed the effects of individual characteristics (e.g. knowledge, attitude and information source), selection criteria and selling points on the purchase of h-axis cloth washers and distinguished the buyers of h-axis cloth washers from those of conventional washing machines (v-axis cloth washers) by conducting a detailed survey of 321 consumers in four cities of northern China. We then evaluated data via one-way ANOVA and binary logistic regression. The choice of a consumer to purchase h-axis cloth washers was positively associated with his/her education, income and water conservation awareness, the energy and water use efficiency of the product and the popularisation of e-commerce and manufacturer websites. High price, information opacity, perceived negative benefits and ineffective communication were identified as the main barriers for selecting h-axis cloth washers. Public programs for promoting the purchase of h-axis cloth washers need to enhance information transparency and effectively communicate the benefits and costs of buying these appliances. Community-based education, salesman supervision, information transparency of water and electricity bills and cloth washer labels are also recommended.

The Business Case for Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Stock Market Reactions

Public policy makers seek to enhance disclosure of firms’ sustainability performance, yet firms debate about whether, or to what extent, they should engage in sustainability reporting. This article seeks to advance current understanding about the business returns to sustainability reporting by examining the short- and long-term investor reactions. Through an event study, this research documents significant short-term stock market reaction to the release of sustainability reports. In particular, abnormal stock returns around the release of such reports are positively related to firm sustainability performance, and this positive link is smaller for firms in a strong information environment. The results show that over the long term, relative to nonreporting firms, firms that release sustainability reports enjoy higher value relevance of sustainability performance. These findings suggest that sustainability reports enhance information transparency and allow investors to incorporate sustainability information in stock valuation. This study provides strong evidence for the business case of sustainability reporting, and offers important implications for public policy makers in terms of devising policies and regulations to promote sustainability reporting.

Hybrid approach for the integrated scheduling of production and transport processes along supply chains

The rise of new information and communication technologies leads to enhanced information transparency in supply chains. In order to utilise the resulting potentials, novel scheduling approaches that are capable of processing large amounts of data and coping with dynamic disturbances of manufacturing and transport stages have to be developed. For this purpose, the paper at hand proposes a hybrid approach for the integrated scheduling of production and transport processes along supply chains. The procedure combines mixed integer linear programming, discrete event simulation and a genetic algorithm. Obtained results show a significant reduction in the number of late orders, substantiating that proper scheduling approaches combined with information visibility allow for operational improvements in manufacturing supply chains.

Information and Liquidity of Over-The-Counter Securities: Evidence from Public Registration of Private Debt

The Rule 144A or non-bank private debt represents a significant and growing segment of the total U.S. bond market. A large fraction of 144A debt issues carry registration rights and are subsequently publicly registered. We examine the liquidity effects induced by enhanced information transparency of the registration. We document three key results. (a) Following public registration of 144A debt, dealer-specific bid-ask spreads improve, and more so for firms with higher ex-ante information asymmetry; (b) trading activities are subdued following public registration, based on both trading volume and frequency of trading, regardless of more retail investors entering the market; and (c) bond dealers tend to reduce their net positions following public registration of 144A bonds. Our results imply that public registration broadens market access for more investors and simultaneously enlarges the information set to all market participants thereby lowering transaction costs. More transparency may however discourage participation from institutional investors as they lose the privilege of uniquely accessing the market, generating private information or extracting rents from such privilege. This may in turn lead to dealers exiting their positions and thereby supplying liquidity to rest of the market.

Socio-technical analysis of Indonesian government e-procurement system implementation: barriers to enhance information transparency and accountability

E-governance has become increasingly important to deliver better public services, and increase public trust. With a specific focus on e-procurement and the issues of transparency and accountability this research investigates the role and barriers of information technology in enhancing information transparency and accountability to the public, using the actor-network theory and notion of delegation approach. This research concludes that information technology was delegated to automate the procurement process to increase transparency, accountability and prevent fraud. However, barriers of e-literacy, lack of leadership, reluctance of implementation, and lack of infrastructure created obstacles to attain the goals. This infers that social and technical aspects are interrelated and empower each other to support the technology in enhancing information transparency and accountability. Enhanced collaborative approach between the developers and users in the application development and implementation should be taken on board to enhance e-procurement system implementation quality.