This study examines whether mandatory disclosure of ESG (Environment, Society, and Governance) information affects the labor share of Chinese listed firms. Leveraging China's mandatory ESG disclosure policy in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that the mandate significantly increases labor share through enhancing reputational protection motivation and strengthening institutional governance. Furthermore, innovative firms, larger enterprises, and those operating in less competitive industries experience a more pronounced increase in labor share. These findings suggest that mandatory ESG disclosure can alter income distribution within firms and promote greater commitment to economic equity.

This study examines the impact of judicial delocalization on corporate tax avoidance by exploiting the staggered establishment of cross-provincial Circuit Tribunals in China as a quasi-natural experiment. We find that judicial delocalization significantly reduces corporate tax avoidance, with the effect concentrated among firms lacking political connections. The channel analyses indicates that the reform imposes a binding enforcement discipline on financially constrained firms by strengthening judicial credibility and substitute weak local governance arrangements. Additionally, we also find that the deterrent effect of the reform is more pronounced for firms that were more embedded in local protectionist environments prior to the reform, including older firms and firms with longer operating cycles. Our study highlights the importance of the spatial organization of judicial authority in shaping enforcement credibility and provides new evidence that judicial delocalization can serve as an effective institutional mechanism for curbing corporate tax avoidance in emerging economies.

Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach, we find that the establishment of circuit tribunals significantly increases corporate labor investment by improving the financing environment and promoting innovation. The effect is more pronounced in provinces with lower levels of marketization and weaker legal institutions, as well as in labor-intensive industries, state-owned enterprises, and financially constrained non-state enterprises. Additionally, circuit tribunals also enhance firm valuation, with no evidence of adverse effects on labor share or labor investment efficiency. Our study highlights the institutional role of judicial independence in supporting corporate hiring, contributing to the literature on judicial reform and labor investment in emerging markets.

Using a sample of Chinese firms from 2010 to 2021, we examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences firms' propensity to engage in related-party transactions (RPTs)-an intriguing yet underexplored relationship. We find robust evidence that CSR-oriented firms are less likely to permit RPTs. Our results further indicate that RPTs conducted by more CSR-oriented firms are viewed favourably by the market and are associated with higher subsequent market value. In contrast, RPTs among other firms correlate with reduced market value, suggesting that CSR-oriented firms only allow efficient RPTs to meet legitimate needs and align with strategic value-maximisation objectives. Additional analysis reveals that ownership structure and firm-level governance quality moderate the CSR-RPTs relationship. These findings remain robust to alternative RPT measures and are not driven by endogeneity concerns.

In the face of escalating climate risks, eco-innovation has emerged as a strategic imperative for firms seeking sustainable development and competitive advantage. While prior research highlights the role of corporate boards in fostering eco-innovation, the specific influence of politically connected directors (PCDs) remains underexplored. Grounded in resource dependence and contingency theory, this study investigates the relationship between PCDs and eco-innovation using a panel dataset of A-share nonfinancial, nonstate-owned firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2007 to 2022. The findings reveal that PCDs significantly enhance firms' eco-innovation outcomes, particularly in environmentally sensitive industries, less developed regions, and firms with high public visibility. By identifying and empirically testing three key contingencies-regional development, industry environmental sensitivity, and firm visibility-this study offers a context-sensitive understanding of when and how board-level political connections contribute to environmental innovation.

Using a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach, we investigate the impact of MOR on the labor investment efficiency (LIE) in China. We find that MOR can improve labor investment efficiency by reducing SOEs' deviations of labor investment from the level justified by economic fundamentals. Specifically, the significant mitigating effects of MOR mainly apply to inefficiencies concerning both over-investments in labor through over-hiring and under-investments through over-firing. These findings demonstrate robustness across an array of empirical tests, including the application of alternative Difference-in-Differences (DiD) or Triple Difference (DDD) methodologies, the inclusion of additional control variables along with province-fixed effects, and the exclusion of firms with changes in ownership type. The conclusions hold steady after considering the impact of anticorruption measures. The effect of MOR is more prominent for firms with less privatization, greater market frictions, higher external pressure, limited political connections, and lower financial constraints. In addition, we show that MOR in China reduces the labor misallocation within manufacturing sector, improves the education level of employees, but has no significant effects on the employment size or the labor share at the firm level.

This study examines whether China's anticorruption efforts affect firm employment. We find that Chinese provinces with higher pre-existing levels of corruption experience significant increases in the employment scale of listed firms post-campaign. Two channels through which anticorruption affects employment are identified: the mitigation of expropriation risk and the alleviation of financing pressure. The employment effects are more pronounced in firms with higher labor costs, lower management fees, and those located in regions with weaker marketization. Moreover, the campaign can mitigate underhiring and its effects on employment will not come at the expense of compensation or firm profitability.

Earnings management (EM) is a critical ethical issue for the accounting profession. However, it remains unclear why accountants differ in their ethical judgements of EM, with some evaluating it as ethically acceptable while others do not. From the perspective of personal values, we explore how personal values influence accountants' ethical judgement of EM through the mediation role of moral disengagement. A survey of 554 Chinese practicing accountants found that accountants with higher resultant conservation values were less likely to morally disengage, thus less tolerant of accounting manipulation, while accountants with higher resultant self-enhancement values were more likely to morally disengage, leading to greater tolerance for accounting manipulation. The results showed that moral disengagement fully mediated the relationship between personal values and ethics in accounting manipulation. Moreover, moral disengagement had no significant effect on ethics in operating manipulation. Our study has practical implications for educators, regulators, and companies combating EM.

The governance structures of contemporary organizations are increasingly challenged by financial uncertainties, evolving ownership patterns, heightened scrutiny of ethical financial practices, and the expanding influence of information systems in decision- making. Independent directors, who play a crucial role within these governance frameworks, often face complex and multifaceted dilemmas, including the significant decision of whether to resign from their positions. This study aims to comprehensively investigate the variables influencing independent directors' resignation decisions, focusing on the interplay between financial metrics such as Return on Equity and Earnings Management, audit opinions, major litigation, changes in the largest shareholder, liquidity ratios, and governance components like information system functionality. The study seeks to enhance existing corporate governance theory and provide valuable insights for the development of effective governance structures. Employing a qualitative approach, the research conducted eight semi-structured interviews followed by a three-step thematic analysis to explore the lived experiences of independent directors and the intricate factors affecting their resignation decisions. The findings highlight the considerable influence of financial metrics, governance challenges, and the role of information systems on the likelihood of independent director resignations. The interaction of these dimensions reveals a complex landscape that directors navigate, underscoring the necessity of an integrated approach to governance analysis. This research offers novel insights by bridging gaps in current literature and presenting a holistic perspective on the factors driving director resignations. The study's originality lies in its examination of the interconnected financial, governance, and technological dimensions, contributing both to academic discourse and practical governance strategies. The implications of this research are significant, providing guidance for organizations seeking to strengthen their governance structures, enhance board effectiveness, and adeptly manage the complexities of the modern business environment.

This paper examines the effects of human resource quality (HRQ) on multidimensional firm performance of Chinese listed firms. Consistent with the positive role of education, we find that higher HRQ contributes to Chinese listed firms with higher return on equity (ROE) and higher market to book ratio (MTB). We address endogeneity concerns with change model regressions, instrumental variable methodology and difference-in-difference analysis. The findings are robust to alternative research designs and different subsets of sample firms. Additional analyses show that the HRQ effects on overall performance are channeled by intermediate performance on productivity, innovation, debt financing and analysts following.

数智化技术、业态和环境构成了全景式数智时代图景,推动了会计环境变革,对会计范式与人才培养提出了挑战.本文将会计学科范式体系解构为会计理论范式、会计研究范式和会计实践范式,探索数智时代会计范式的演进趋势.通过构建基于人才供需持续性与适配性的整体评价框架,对数智时代会计人才的供需状况进行评估和监测;并通过阐释高端会计人才的培养方向、评价标准和能力框架,总结高端会计人才的数智化培养目标.进而从教学机构、专业教师、会计学生和教育管理部门等方面总结学校培养策略,结合会计人才的自我完善、职业认证和组织实现提出职业培养策略,利用数智化赋能高端会计人才全生命周期管理,促进数智时代高端会计人才的高质量职业发展.

The importance of employee quality increases continuously with technology developments; however, prior literature in corporate risk taking mainly focuses on firm managers, and the effect of employee education remains unexplored. Using unique firm-level employee education data from Chinese listed firms between 2011 and 2017, we find that employee education results in a significant average increase of 15.5% in corporate risk taking, consistent with the perspective of mass wisdom. Furthermore, the positive effect of employee education is more evident among firms with state-owned enterprises and more institutional or managerial ownership. Internal control and managerial myopia influence agency problems and bounded rationality; they are two mediating channels for the positive effect of employee education on corporate risk taking. This study's results are robust to alternative measures of employee education and corporate risk taking and a set of endogeneity tests. Overall, our findings show the practical value of employee education in improving corporate risk taking.

以2009～2019年A股上市公司数据为研究样本,考察衍生工具应用与真实盈余管理之间的关系,结果表明:应用衍生工具公司的真实盈余管理程度更大,特别是在衍生工具经济复杂性较高时;衍生工具应用与真实盈余管理之间的正向关系在非国有企业和财务风险低的公司中更加显著.进一步研究发现:应用衍生工具公司的应计盈余管理程度更小,且在衍生工具经济复杂性较高的公司中更明显.这一结论从侧面验证了应用衍生工具的公司真实盈余管理程度更高.

Paying taxes to support the societies in which they operate is both a legal and ethical responsibility of business. Nevertheless, some companies work to avoid taxes, which could cause society to question the legitimacy of the organisation. Many companies provide reports on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities; more transparent CSR reports may help to restore the legitimacy loss associated with tax avoidance. We investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and CSR report readability among Chinese companies. We find a positive relationship between corporate tax avoidance and the readability of CSR reports. This relation is weaker among state-owned enterprises, which may have stronger pre-existing legitimacy owing to their relationship with the state. The relationship is also weaker among companies in less developed regions of China, which have less developed institutions to monitor organisational legitimacy. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that CSR reporting represents an attempt to overcome legitimacy concerns arising from tax avoidance. Our findings indicate that tax avoidance and CSR reporting are alternative means of establishing legitimacy, rather than complementary reflections of an organisational culture that values (or devalues) CSR.

Cash is a strategically valuable asset for corporate financial sustainability. Cash holdings may create value when external financing is expensive, or undermine corporate value due to agency problems. An efficient use of cash holdings will lead to higher value of cash holdings. In this paper, we investigate the effects of human resource quality on corporate value of cash holdings. Benefited from the unique disclosure of employee education structure in the annual reports of Chinese listed firms, we measure the human resource quality of a company with its weighted average of employee education degrees. The value of cash holdings are examined based on the sensitivity of the change in firm values to the change in cash holdings of a company. We posit that higher level of human resource quality or better educated employees may contribute to corporate governance and internal controls and help to improve the value of corporate cash holdings. We test our hypothesis based on a large sample of Chinese listed A-share firms in 2007–2016 and provide strong evidence that the firm level human resource quality is positively associated with the value of corporate cash holdings. The findings cannot be explained by the effects of management education and are robust to alternative measures of human resource quality and alternative model designs. To alleviate the endogeneity concerns, we adopt a two-stage instrumental variable methodology by including two policy-based exogenous instruments: the number of universities supported by the Chinese government’s “211 project” and the province-year minimum salary levels in the province where a firm headquartered. In addition, we find that the positive effect of human resource quality on the value of cash holdings mainly exists for the non-state-owned-enterprises (non-SOEs) and is more significant for companies operating in industries with more market competition. The results suggest that human resource quality is particularly effective and beneficial for firms operating with strong profit orientation and high market competition. This study add both to the VCH literature and the human resource quality literature by examining the relationship between human resource quality and the value of cash holdings, and reveals the practical importance of human resource quality to corporate cash management efficiency, especially for companies operating in the developing areas.

獐子岛、瑞幸咖啡和康美药业等财务造假案的接连发生引发了公众对注册会计师审计质量的高度关注.高压监管虽可产生短期内"重典重罚"的警示效应,但并非持续维护审计质量的根本途径.由于兼具立法监管的刚性和容错预警的柔性,起源于法国的"驾照式"管理在交通、工程监理、医药等行业得到广泛应用.文中总结我国注册会计师管理的发展背景与趋势,提炼"驾照式"管理的核心逻辑,分析我国注册会计师行业实施"驾照式"管理的制度基础,探索注册会计师"驾照式"管理的基本方案设计、评估方案推进思路及预期效果,以期助力新时期我国注册会计师行业的高质量发展.

为管控会计商誉泡沫与商誉减值乱象,本文分析了商誉核算的理论逻辑与现实困境,探索商誉后续计量新模式.基于超额收益论与总计价账户论,商誉的确认与计量兼具资产负债观与收入费用观特征,而财务会计的技术瓶颈、资本市场的道德风险与管理层的非理性决策使得会计商誉泡沫与商誉减值风险日益突出.为如实反映商誉价值与并购绩效,商誉的后续计量应及时挤出泡沫并避免对盈余质量造成干扰.在理论层面,考虑到会计商誉泡沫减值符合搭桥项目的概念界定,本文兼融摊销法与减值法之所长,提出与其他综合收益相结合的双重计量确认模型.在实践层面,面对数字经济兴起及其对管控商誉相关风险的挑战,财政部和相关监管部门应在完善已有核算规则的同时,进一步协同强化公司外部管制,从而提升会计信息的决策有用性.

We propose a positive association between voluntary MEFs and the value relevance of earnings in audited financial reports based on the confirmation, signaling, and expectation management effects of voluntary MEFs. China is characterized by a weaker information environment, which provides a meaningful institutional setting for testing the usefulness of MEFs. We find that firms that provide voluntary MEFs have significantly higher value relevance of earnings and earnings components (i.e., operating cash flows and normal/abnormal accruals) in financial reports. We also find that the specificity of MEFs is associated with higher value relevance of earnings. In a placebo test, we do not find a similar relation between MEFs and the value relevance of balance-sheet items in most regressions, indicating that our findings are unlikely to be driven by other differences in fundamentals. Our findings are robust to different research designs and confirm the usefulness of voluntary MEFs in emerging markets.

This paper examines the link between privatization of state ownership and corporate social responsibility performance. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies between 2010 and 2015, we find evidence that privatization is negatively associated with firms' social performance but this negative relationship is weaker for firms that have politically connected board members. These results suggest that the firm's likelihood to engage in social activities results primarily from political connections and from significant government control over the firm's decisions, as such firms are subject to higher pressure than other firms are. Moreover, our findings have important implications for policymakers in understanding companies' social behavior in an emerging market.