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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of legal protection of bank minority shareholders (noncontrolling shareholders) and bank creditors (e.g. depositors or debt-holders) on bank dividend payout policies using a panel data set of 5,918 banks from 52 countries over the period 1998-2007, after controlling for country-level deposit insurance coverage and bank- and country-level regulatory pressures.

Tobit panel regression models are used to examine the impact of legal protection of shareholders and creditors on bank dividend payout amounts. And, logit panel regression models are used to examine the impact of legal protection of shareholders and creditors on banks’ likelihood to pay dividends.

The authors support the outcome hypothesis by finding that banks pay higher amount of dividends and, are more likely to pay dividends in strong minority shareholder protection countries. However, the authors reject the substitute hypothesis by finding that banks pay higher dividends and are more likely to pay dividends in weak creditor rights countries, and banks do not substitute weak creditor rights with lower dividend payout amounts. Contrary, the authors support the literature which argues the importance of creditor rights for capital market development because one possible reason for low dividend payouts in strong creditor rights countries could be that the banks retain more profits for extending more loans.

By finding that creditor rights index has a negative relation with bank dividend policies in contrast to its positive relation with nonfinancial firms’ dividend policies, the authors support the literature which argues that managers of banks give less importance to factors such as current degree of financial leverage, the contractual constraints such as dividend restrictions in debt contracts, and the financing considerations such as the cost of raising external funds, while deciding about the dividend payments. The authors also suggest to keep financial and nonfinancial firms separate, to better understand the dividend puzzle.

Extant literature recognizes that legal institutions such as shareholder protection and creditor rights affect corporate firms’ dividend policies significantly but largely excludes banking sector. This paper, by examining the relations between legal protection of shareholders and creditors and bank dividend policies, fills this research gap.

In order to improve banks' ability to fight against risks, China's financial regulatory authorities refer to the Basel Accord, and bank capital adequacy ratio is taken as an important means of control. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internal mechanism between capital buffers and risk adjustment.

Based on the dynamic characteristics of a bank's continuing operations, the authors established an unbalanced panel of China's commercial bank balance‐sheet data from 1991 to 2009 and used the Generalized Method of Moments to examine the relationship between short‐term capital buffer and portfolio risk adjustments.

The authors' estimations show that the relationship between capital and risk adjustments for well capitalized banks is positive, indicating that they maintain their target level of capital by increasing (decreasing) risk when capital increases (decreases). In contrast, for banks with capital buffers approaching the minimum capital requirement, the relationship between adjustments in capital and risk is negative. That is, low capital banks either increase their buffers by reducing their risk, or gamble for resurrection by taking more risk as a means to rebuild the buffer. Moreover, the authors' estimations show that the management of short‐term adjustments in capital and risk is dependent on the size of the capital buffer.

From the current research documents, there are few empirical researches on capital buffers and risk adjustment, and the research sample time limits of current papers are a little earlier. The researches did not reflect China's commercial banks' capital buffer and risk adjustment after the new Basel Accord.

Banks' adjustment speed of target level depends on the size of capital buffer, proving that the speed of adjusting capital buffer of banks with smaller capital buffer is significantly faster than their counterparts with larger capital buffers.

The paper uses the dynamic feature of banks' lasting operations as the logical starting point, which is ignored by the current researches, and investigates the internal mechanism between capital buffers and risk adjustment.

The current literature lacks discussion on the effects of synergy among multiple factors at different levels on foreign subsidiary performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting foreign subsidiary performance.

The methodology adopted in this paper is the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The data are obtained from 125 foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNCs through questionnaire surveys and secondary data.

The research results reveal that five configurations of antecedent conditions predict high foreign subsidiary performance, and the other two configurations predict not-high performance.

This paper’s main limitation is its only focus on foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNCs, which means that the findings should be generalized with precaution. The most valuable implication is to identify the configurations that lead to high and not-high foreign subsidiary performance.

This paper addresses the question of how interdependent factors at the national and corporate level are beneficial to foreign subsidiaries’ performance.

This study makes the following contributions to current theories: It provides (1) new insights for understanding the complex causality between antecedent conditions and foreign subsidiary performance and (2) a practical reference for the multinational operations of foreign subsidiaries.

Gallic acid is a substance that is widely found in nature. Initially, it was only used as a corrosion inhibitor to retard the rate of corrosion of metals. In recent years, with intensive research by scholars, the modification of coatings containing gallic acid has become a hot topic in the field of metal protection. This study aims to summarize the various preparation methods of gallic acid and its research progress in corrosion inhibitors and coatings, as well as related studies using quantum chemical methods to assess the predicted corrosion inhibition effects and to systematically describe the prospects and current status of gallic acid applications in the field of metal corrosion inhibition and protection.

First, the various methods of preparation of gallic acid in industry are understood. Second, the corrosion inhibition principles and research progress of gallic acid as a metal corrosion inhibitor are presented. Then, the corrosion inhibition principles and research progress of gallic acid involved in the synthesis and modification of various rust conversion coatings, nano-coatings and organic resin coatings are described. After that, studies related to the evaluation and prediction of gallic acid corrosion inhibition on metals by quantum chemical methods are presented. Finally, new research ideas on gallic acid in the field of corrosion inhibition and protection of metals are summarized.

Gallic acid can be used as a corrosion inhibitor or coating in metal protection.

There is a lack of research on the synergistic improvement of gallic acid and other substances.

The specific application of gallic acid in the field of metal protection was summarized, and the future research focus was put forward.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper systematically expounds on the research progress of gallic acid in the field of metal protection for the first time and provides new ideas and directions for future research.

This paper aims to study whether the adoption of an entry mode that fits the social trust level contributes to the improvement of foreign subsidiary performance.

The authors used the Probit model, linear regression, strategic fit approach and instrumental variable regression. The sample was made up of 11,095 observations of Chinese multinational enterprises' foreign subsidiaries in 54 countries from 2005 to 2020.

The results suggest that a host country with a high level of social trust results in fewer difficulties for enterprises in gaining legitimacy, thus foreign subsidiaries are more likely to select the wholly owned entry mode. The results also show that the effect is contingent on the formal institutions of host countries. The results of the mechanism test suggest that social trust influences subsidiaries' entry mode choice by reducing information asymmetry, costs and uncertainty risks. This study further finds that selecting a fit entry mode based on social trust level substantially increases foreign subsidiary performance and this effect is more significant when multinational enterprises (MNEs) are state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The main limitation of this paper is its only focus on foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNEs, which may limit the generalizability of research findings.

This paper responds to the call for conducting more research on informal institutions. Findings highlight the critical role of informal institutions in helping foreign subsidiaries in gaining legitimacy in host countries and the essentialness of selecting a fit entry mode based on the informal institutions of host countries for the development of foreign subsidiaries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the negative expectation–performance gap on the internationalization speed as well as the moderating role of organizational slack, based on the performance feedback theory and the springboard perspective.

This paper takes the Chinese A-share listed companies engaged in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) between 2010 and 2022 as the research sample. A two-way fixed effects model is employed to test the research hypotheses, using a dataset comprising 6,868 observations.

The findings show that there is a positive relationship between the negative expectation–performance gap and internationalization speed for Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs). In addition, this effect is stronger in private CMNEs. Furthermore, the relationship is negatively moderated by organizational slack. Additional findings suggest that that negative industry expectation-performance gap has a stronger impact on the internationalization speed. The moderating effect of unabsorbed slack resources is more pronounced.

When emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) face the dilemma of underperforming, they may consider a rapid internationalization strategy as a solution to improve performance. However, EMNEs should be wary of falling into a resource trap. Organizational slack reduces managers’ incentives to identify issues associated with negative performance feedback, thereby diminishing the likelihood of addressing performance challenges through rapid internationalization. For state-owned EMNEs, optimizing organizational structure and improving the efficiency of responses to negative performance feedback are essential.

Unlike previous studies, this paper integrates performance feedback theory and the springboard perspective to explore in depth the relationship between performance feedback, internationalization speed and organizational slack within the context of managers’ cognitive and decision-making mechanisms. It also examines the distinct impacts of historical and industry negative expectation–performance gaps as well as the different moderating roles of absorbed and unabsorbed organizational slack, which have not been explored together before.

Damage to the pipe structure and increased bolt stress in operating tunnels will significantly affect the long-term stability of shield tunnels. However, due to the large number of segments and complex bolt installation methods, it is difficult to directly obtain the conditions of segments and bolts. Convergence deformation, as an important indicator for the health assessment of operating tunnels, is easy to collect and can directly reflect the structural state of tunnel segments and bolts.

Taking the typical sections of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 and Line 3 as an example, the current structural damage is simulated by monitoring tunnel convergence deformation. First, based on the disease data, the relationship between convergence deformation and segment leakage, segment misalignment as well as the longitudinal joint opening between two segments is analyzed statistically. The stress of bolts, steel bars and segments under different convergence deformations is simulated by Midas. Then a reinforcement measure of circumferential internal tension steel rings is proposed.

It is found that when the segment convergence exceeds 85 mm, although the overall force on the segment has not reached the material limit, there are certain safety risks in the structure. After comparison, the reinforcement measure has a relatively significant effect on controlling the lateral deformation of segments.

The results have important guiding significance for the evaluation of structural diseases, early warning and control of structural diseases at different convergence deformations.

This study investigates the performance distribution of passive funds in the Korean market and compares it with the performance distribution of active funds. The key findings are as follows, first, the performance distribution of passive funds has a thicker tail compared to that of active funds. There are passive funds that achieve outstanding performance, and both the false discovery rate (FDR) analysis and simulation analysis suggest that their outperformance is driven by managerial skill rather than luck. Second, passive fund performance is more persistent compared to active fund performance. Third, investors are less responsive to passive fund performance compared to active fund performance. The fund flow-performance relationship is significantly positive for active funds but not for passive funds. This implies that investors may not recognize the managerial skills of passive funds.