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Few studies have focused on emerging markets owing to difficulties in identifying the real effect of disclosures on these economies. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to first: investigate the main drivers for risk disclosure quality for Chinese financial firms, second: further study the impact of such disclosure on market liquidity.

The sample comprises all financial firms listed in the Shanghai A-shares market for the period 2013–2015. By relying on manual content analysis of annual reports, the risk disclosure quality is measured through a multidimensional approach which encompasses three factors: quantity of disclosure, coverage of disclosure and the semantic properties of depth and outlook. The findings of this paper are based on ordinary least squares and fixed-effects estimations.

The findings suggest that firm characteristics (especially size) influence risk disclosure practices of Chinese financial companies. Furthermore, the authors found that risk disclosure quality has an impact on market liquidity, and when the authors analysed each year the authors noticed that the results were driven by the year 2013; moreover, the authors noticed no or little significance from the period of the emerging financial crisis.

The sample of this paper is limited to financial firms in China. The usage of manual content analysis limits the authors’ ability to investigate risk reporting drivers and its impact on market liquidity on a large scale.

The importance of this paper stems from documenting several reporting incentives concerning not only firms’ quantity, but also firms’ quality of risk reporting. Collectively, the findings support activism for reforms and the enhancement of regulations in China in order to make the market more efficient.

This paper provides new evidence for financial companies in China on the principal drivers for risk disclosure quality and highlights how the quality of such disclosure impacts market liquidity. Furthermore, this paper confirms previous findings on the Chinese market (Ball et al., 2000; Zou and Adams, 2008) in which, given a decreasing but still strong state presence, there is higher stock volatility and weak corporate governance.

Since February 2022, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has significantly influenced global financial markets, altering investor behavior and increasing market volatility. Western countries’ sanctions on Russia have influenced market uncertainty. Academic literature has deeply investigated the market’s reaction to the conflict and demonstrated a diverse range of impacts. Our study delves into how corporate decisions to remain in or exit Russia during the conflict influence analyst sentiment.

Leveraging data on analysts' revision scores (ARS) from Eikon, Refinitiv, our analysis underscores the importance of analysts during periods of uncertainty (Kacperczyk and Seru, 2007; Loh and Stulz, 2018). Using static and dynamic panel analysis, we examine the impact of Russia exposure on ARS while controlling for key variables.

Companies that retain a presence in Russia tend to enhance the overall ARS score, contributing to increased optimism among analysts regarding forecasts for the firms in question. Controlling for endogeneity and underlying dynamics in ARS does not alter the main findings. All in all, the results confirm the absence of an impact on the companies' returns post-announcement to continue or leave Russia after the start of the conflict (Balyuk and Fedyk, 2023).

This research sheds light on the complex relationship between geopolitical events, corporate decisions and investor sentiment, offering valuable insights for stakeholders, policymakers and regulators.

This study aims to examine the impact of national culture on classification shifting in Eastern European Member States of EU Eastern European countries (EEU) vis-à-vis the Western Member States of EU (WEU). The EEU provides a unique sample to study the quality of financial reporting that the authors measure with classification shifting given that for more than five decades they were following the model of a centrally planned economy, where market-based financial reporting was absent. Yet, the EEU transitioned to a market-based economy and completed its accession to the EU.

This study uses a panel data set of firm year observations from 1996 and 2020 that covers the full transition of EEU. This empirical analysis is based on fixed effects panel regression analysis where the authors report a plethora of identifications.

This study finds classification shifting in the EEU countries since their transition to the market-based economy, though they have no long record of market-based financial reporting. This study also notices that cultural factors are associated with classification shifting across all Member States of the EU. This study further examines the impact of interactions between cultural characteristics and special items and reveal variability between WEU and EEU. As part of the robustness analysis, this study also tests the impact of culture on real earnings management measures for both WEU vs EEU, confirming the variability of the impact of culture on earnings management.

Future research could explore the role of religion differences in WEU vis-à-vis EEU states, as they are also subject to cultural differences.

The findings are important for regulators, external monitors and investors, as they show that cultural factors affect earnings management with some variability across countries in the EU, and they should be acknowledged in policymaking.

The findings show that cultural differences between EEU and the “old” Member States of the EU could explain classification shifting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that sheds light on the impact of national culture on classification shifting in EEU of EU vis-à-vis the “old” WEU of EU.

Exploiting the mandatory provision of integrated reporting in South Africa, this paper aims to investigate whether this regulatory switch from the conventional annual report is associated with differences in the level of textual risk disclosure (TRD). This paper also examines the economic usefulness of this regulatory change by observing the impact of TRD on the complying firms’ market values.

Archival data are collected and examined using time-series difference design and difference-in-differences design.

The authors find that the level of TRD within the mandatory integrated reporting is significantly lower than that of annual reports. The authors find that the impact of TRD in integrated reporting on market value compared to that of annual reports is statistically not different from zero. The authors’ further analyses suggest that corporate governance effectiveness is not a moderating factor to the study results. The results are robust to comparisons with the voluntary adoption of integrated reporting in the UK.

Collectively, the study results suggest that managers’ adherence to the mandatory provision of integrated reporting has significantly decreased the level of (voluntary) TRD they tended to convey within the conventional annual reports, resulting in a trivial impact on market value. These unintended consequences should be of interest to the International Integrated Reporting Council and other bodies interested in integrated reporting.

Focusing on the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in universities, this research paper explores how the “soft” dimensions of TQM trigger its “hard” dimensions considering them at the individual (micro-) and the university (meso-), and eventually at cluster (system-), levels.

Adopting a qualitative approach, this study presents an in-depth, longitudinal case study of University of Siena, one of the oldest Italian universities, that has been at the core of the research-based cluster on vaccines, today converged in the Tuscan Life Science Cluster. In particular, data were collected between 2018 and February 2022 and consists of archival data (press articles, websites, books), nine interviews to key informants, multiyear experience of the Life Sciences sector by two of the authors and other material put at disposal by university offices, and emails. Data analysis relied on a timeline, a coding procedure that considered three levels of analysis (individual, organization and cluster). Finally, the authors looked at the “how” and “why” the emerged themes have contributed to academic excellence.

This paper unveils how “soft” and “hard” sides of TQM are blended across multiple levels for reaching academic excellence. The grounded model emerged enlightens the importance of an individual “soft” dimension, academic passion (composed by its three subdimensions of individual research, teaching and entrepreneurial passion) and also sheds light on the organizational “soft” and “hard” sides that the university has been able to design for encouraging research, teaching and third mission quality. Academic excellence has been possible thanks to the capitalization of the individual and organizational “soft” sides into real outcomes as represented by the organizational and individual “hard” sides.

The paper suggests the importance of TQM principles applied at universities' level, providing an in-depth description of “soft” and “hard” sides dimensions of TQM and their impact on all the three pillars of academic excellence. The study findings suggest implications for managers and professionals in the higher education domain as well as for policymakers emphasizing the importance of supporting the individual and organizational soft sides of TQM. The authors provide practical implications recommending universities to consider not only the organizational dimensions but also individual ones when pursuing higher education excellence. In particular, individual passion plays a crucial role and universities need to identify ways of nurturing it. The authors also recommend policymakers to think about new ways to sustain universities as crucial actors in boosting a cluster development, as well as to consider higher education institutions, especially in more rural areas, as a privileged player not only capable of nurturing academic excellence but also able of creating an internationally renowned cluster.

TQM principles have been intensively analysed from an industrial perspective focusing on manufacturing and services, while this paper focuses on TQM in universities, presenting a grounded model that blends the individual and organizational “soft” and “hard” sides.

Nondominant youth faces complex structural inequalities and injustices that have a direct impact on their academic learning outcomes and psychosocial well-being. Research suggests that supporting the development of students’ critical consciousness not only improves their educational and career trajectories but also provides students with the tools, language and skills they need to examine, act upon and heal from the sociopolitical realities and injustices they face in their daily lives.

This paper reports findings from a two-year Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study conducted with students in a police-oriented Career and Technical Education program. YPAR was used as pedagogy for nondominant students to explore how to leverage their funds of knowledge (FK) in their learning and future careers as police officers to improve community–police relations.

This paper reports on one aspect of the findings from the YPAR project that includes: a) the relationship between students’ difficult FK, critical consciousness development and career aspirations; b) how, if left unaddressed, students’ difficult FK could mediate deficit and internally oppressive views of Communities of Color and other nondominant groups; and c) the power of transforming students’ difficult FK into pedagogical assets.

Engaging students’ difficult FK can support critical consciousness development and facilitate students’ ability to navigate and resist oppressive spaces, sustain their well-being and empower themselves and their families and communities.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance attributes, in the form of board characteristics, on risk disclosures provided through integrated reporting (IR).

Drawing upon an agency theory perspective, this study examines the effect of the main corporate governance board characteristics (size, gender diversity, independence and meeting frequency) on the level of risk disclosure provided by a sample of 95 IR adopters from 24 countries for 2018.

The results suggest that firms are slow to realise IR’s potential to produce innovations in risk disclosure mechanisms. In addition, certain board characteristics, such as gender diversity, independence of directors and meeting frequency, are positive drivers of the risk disclosure provided via IR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on risk disclosure provided via IR. Connecting corporate governance mechanisms to IR risk disclosure practices can contribute to enhancing the practical and theoretical understanding of the role that the board of directors may play in stimulating transparency and accountability about risks via an alternative communication tool, IR, to the benefit of both investors and other stakeholders.

Health-care systems around the globe share several pressing challenges – including increasing costs and patient outcomes. Innovative arrangements, such as public–private partnerships (PPP) can be adopted to help address these challenges. Although the promise of PPPs is great, so are its peril if the arrangements are not managed and regulated adequately through the contracting process. Yet, PPP arrangements can introduce their own unique set of problems. This paper aims to analyze how PPPs contracting accounts for three major problems identified reviewing the: performance measurement and audit; determination of compensation and risk management–related issues.

The authors used a case study approach to analyze contracting among health-care PPPs in two countries: Italy and the USA. With a structured review performed on Scopus database using a keywords Boolean research, the authors identified three recurring major issues to investigate in two selected cases, one per country. For each major issue, the authors defined several sub-issues retrieved from a widely used institutional framework. In each sub-issue, a documental analysis on all published information related to the signed contract has been performed identifying the approaches used by the two organizations.

The authors find that PPP contracting in the USA case seems to be oriented more toward managing institutional change as well as more flexibility in the deductibility and compensation determination for organizations and providers, suggesting this organization is more oriented to change in general. The authors find that PPP contracting in Italy more clearly delineate the allocation of risk between organizations that engage in PPPs, suggesting a more practical approach.

PPP is complex. Contracting helps manage the complexity of these arrangements. This case study approach to PPP contracting highlights the variation in contracting approaches across two different countries. Policymakers and health-care managers need to ensure that PPP contracting clearly delineates auditing and performance measurement, compensation and risk management.

The authors’ analysis sheds light on the different approaches to arranging health-care PPPs in two different country settings. More research should be done to connect these different approaches to important outcomes, such as patient and organizational finances, as well as expanding the scope of countries adopting PPP in health care.

This paper aims to verify whether the legitimate pressure of external forces on heavily polluting firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related behaviors affect firms’ assurance strategy in the Chinese context. The authors argue that, under external pressure, as a source of legitimacy, the assurance over CSR reports allows the business behaviors of heavy polluters to be recognized by society.

This paper sampled listed heavy polluters in China from 2011 to 2018 and used the multiperiod logit model to examine the effects of external corporate governance on firms’ assurance decisions. Principal component analysis methods were used to construct a comprehensive framework of external corporate governance. The indicators were obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research databases, the NERI Report and the China Urban Statistical Yearbook.

This paper confirms that external corporate governance positively affects firms’ assurance decisions, and good financial conditions, well-governed internal controls and sufficient government subsidies positively moderate this effect.

The findings provide feasible ways to encourage firms’ high-quality corporate environmental information disclosure, thus providing valuable guidance for policymakers and other stakeholders to effectively supervise firms’ CSR behaviors.

The findings are of great importance in encouraging high-quality corporate environmental information disclosures, improving the support of capital markets among developing countries and drawing social attention to the environmental protection and social responsibility of heavy polluters.

The research extends the current research in the field of social environmental accounting by using legitimacy theory to explain firms’ assurance motivations. Additionally, this paper focuses on the practices of assurance services in the emerging economy and provides suggestions for developing assurance over CSR reports.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission has a detrimental impact on climate change. There is an increasing trend for firms to use disclosure to signal stakeholders about its environmental responsibilities and performance in dealing with climate change. China is one of the countries producing the most carbon emissions. Over the last decade, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are becoming important players in international trade. However, the existing literature provides limited evidence on how Chinese SOEs influence GHG disclosure. Through the lens of stakeholder–agency theory, this chapter studies the top 300 listed firms to examine the relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. The result suggests a negative relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. This could be explained as a consequence of the managers' political self-interests, economic and policy-oriented decision-making process and the power differentials between the government and SOE managers. This research extends the GHG literature to Chinese SOEs context, providing direct evidence on how state ownership impacts on GHG disclosure.