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In this study, we examine the influence of a firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on analysts’ stock recommendations and earnings forecast accuracy in the Chinese context.

We take a textual analysis approach to analyst research reports issued between 2010 and 2019, and differentiate between two distinct analyst categories: “sustainability analysts,” which refer to those more inclined to incorporate ESG information into their analyses, and “other analysts.”

Our evidence indicates that sustainability analysts tend to be significantly more likely than others to provide positive stock recommendations and demonstrate enhanced accuracy in forecasting earnings for companies with superior ESG performance. Our additional analyses reveal that this finding is particularly prominent for analysts who graduated from institutions emphasizing the protection of the environment, those recognized as star analysts, those affiliated with ESG-oriented brokerages, and forecasts made by analysts in the later part of the sample period. Our findings further indicate that sustainability analysts exhibit a more pronounced negative response when confronted with a negative ESG event.

In general, the evidence from this study reveals the interplay between ESG factors and analyst behavior, offering valuable implications for both financial analysts and sustainable investment strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the causal effect of high-speed railways (HSRs) and investigate the affecting channels; the second purpose is to examine how HSRs change the distribution of economic activity across cities and sectors.

A difference-in-difference strategy is implemented to estimate the impact of recently built HSRs on local economic performance in China, exploiting the geography and time variations in HSR operations.

Using panel data from China’s City Statistical Yearbook 2001–2019, the authors find that HSRs lead to a significant increase in cities’ gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita, but the authors do not find any significant change in GDP growth. This conclusion still holds true after the authors address the endogeneity problems. A mechanism analysis shows that HSRs improve local economic performance mainly by increasing fixed asset investment. The authors also find that the HSR investment is a policy that favors metropolitan areas due to the larger increase in the GDP for larger cities and with HSRs, the industrial and service sectors will further agglomerate in larger cities.

The authors contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this paper improves the estimation strategy in identifying the HSR impact on the local economic performance. Second, this paper investigates the affecting channels of HSRs. This paper proves that HSRs in China promote the cities’ economic performance mainly by increasing the fixed asset investment. Third, this study provides evidence for the new economic geography models pioneered by Krugman (1991).

Research on Science parks (SPs) has attracted a growing interest in the last decades. This widespread innovation policy initiative pursues technology-based industrial and entrepreneurial growth through business development and technology transfer across new and mature firms. Despite the common agreement on SPs' potential benefits, literature have showed mixed results regarding the performance of SPs. To explain this findings, current research pointed out at the lack of a common guiding framework. To cover this knowledge gap, this manuscript proposes an integrative definition and research model together with a multidimensional measurement instrument suitable to encompass the diverse reality of this global phenomenon.

Based on a systematic literature review of 281 indexed journal articles published between 1990 and 2018, the paper provides an integrative framework of enabling factors of SPs' performance.

The results illustrate an integrative conceptual framework of SPs that allows further comparison and generalization of research. At the same time, this manuscript provides valuable insights for managers and entrepreneurs as it conveys a standardized view of SPs' internal context useful for benchmarking.

Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV), the paper conducts a thorough literature review to develop an integrative research model featuring three value streams: physical infrastructures, formal links and support services. In addition, a multidimensional measurement tool to operationalize these three dimensions is proposed.

Business incubators are advantageous to new venture legitimacy because they provide rich access to entrepreneurial resources, and their incubation networks can offer endorsement to incubatees. However, empirical evidence on this topic is limited, and the existing literature relies predominantly on the Western context. Given that not all developing country incubators have resourceful and reputable external entrepreneurial networks as in the industrialized countries, and that new ventures need to build legitimacy along cognitive and socio-political dimensions that require different actions to influence different stakeholders, this study investigates empirically how business incubators facilitate their incubatees to build legitimacy in a context where resource and reputation conditions are weak. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how business incubators perform legitimacy-building roles effectively.

A multiple case study of business incubators in Chongqing, a second-tier Chinese city, is presented. Using grounded theory, this paper draws its findings from a synthesis of interviews and secondary data of seven incubators and their ten incubatees.

The legitimacy-building role of business incubators is performed well in this research context. Evidence is presented that incubators play different roles in building different dimensions of incubatees’ legitimacy. Government-associated incubators play a salient role in building incubatees’ socio-political legitimacy whilst non-government related incubators shape their incubatees’ cognitive legitimacy.

This study contributes to the business incubators literature by revealing how incubators perform the legitimacy-building role when their resource endorsement is weak. The results suggest that incubators need to strengthen their ties with external stakeholders and that new ventures need to take key stakeholders into consideration when they select incubators to enter.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence Malaysian manufacturing sector investment in accounts receivable (AR), an asset seen by many as one of the riskiest in any company’s balance sheet.

The authors test several theories, related to AR, using a cross-section of 262 listed manufacturing firms over a period of five years (2007-2011). Both fixed and random effect approaches are adopted to deal with potential heterogeneity across firms.

The results show that investment in AR in Malaysia are influenced by firm size, short-term finance, sales growth and collateral. Profit, liquidity and gross margins have no role in affecting the decision of trade credit granting to customers. The results are inconsistent with previous studies. Size and short-term finance have a negative, rather than positive, impact. Liquidity and gross margins have no, rather than positive, effect. While profit and sales growth are predicted to feature a U-shaped relationship with investment in AR, the former is insignificant while the latter is strictly increasing. The only factor found to be consistent with prior studies is collateral.

The results have two principal implications. First, policy makers should not take a holistic view of the trade credit market. Given that policy makers aim to improve liquidity and trade, they should design policies that are not only country specific but also sector specific. As is clear from our results, what holds for other countries or sectors may not necessarily be true for the Malaysian manufacturing sector. This has important implications for policy makers in emerging economies.

Investment in AR, in the Malaysian manufacturing sector, is impacted by many of the factors implied by either theory or empirical evidence. However, the main finding in this paper is that the Malaysian manufacturing sector is rather different. First, while liquidity and gross margin have been found to have a positive and significant effect on AR helping hand theory in prior studies, the results show that these two factors play no role in influencing the level of AR in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

Unlike the experience in developed economies, firms in our sample that have access to short-term finance are less likely to grant trade credit. This suggests that the helping hand theory does not hold as far as the Malaysian manufacturing firms are concerned: firm that have better access to short-term finance in Malaysia do not use trade credit to pass on the benefit to their customers by granting them trade credit.

It is unclear why firms invest in AR given the high risks of uncollectability as well as tedious, time-consuming and costly legal process for debt recovery compared to firms from more developed economies. This paper examines the reasons business-to-business lending, through AR, is widespread in Malaysia and investigates the factors that affect this decision despite the risk involved. To our knowledge, this is the first study to date that looks at the factors that influence AR level in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an appraisal system for evaluating and choosing traction battery for electric vehicle (EV) quantitatively and effectively.

Traction battery always bottlenecks the development of EV. It is difficult to evaluate and choose traction battery for EV because there are many kinds of battery and each kind has many performance parameters. An estimating system for traction battery was proposed with every factor considered. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive theory are both used to evaluate program with many aims and influencing factors. It is relatively easy and exact using AHP to determine the weighting value vector of every criterion but not so exact when marking the appraisal objects. Objections can be marked more reasonably with fuzzy comprehensive theory. Both the advantages of these two theories were integrated in this paper in order to evaluate battery more effectively. It was proved effective by the application example.

An estimating system and appraisal method for traction battery.

Weighing factors of different criteria should be determined based on the EV type and application condition.

Very useful method and system for EV designers to choose and evaluate traction battery.

The appraisal system eliminates the blindness when choosing and evaluating traction battery for EV. Both the merits of AHP and fuzzy comprehensive theory were combined for the evaluating process.

The purpose of this paper is to find an appropriate sliding mode control strategy for neutral systems with time‐delays in the presence of unmatched parameter uncertainties and external disturbance.

Owing to the complexity of uncertain neutral time‐delay systems, some conclusions for system stability and stabilization are complicated non‐linear matrix inequality (NLMI). Through virtual state feedback control, a sliding mode controller is designed to guarantee state trajectories from any initial condition are attracted to the sliding mode plane in a finite time and remain there for all subsequent time, which can avoid the complicated NLMI. Furthermore, a delay‐independent sufficient condition for the design of robust stable sliding mode plane is obtained in term of LMI.

The sliding mode controller for uncertain neutral time‐delay systems is designed and a delay‐independent sufficient condition for the design of robust stable sliding mode plane is obtained.

The main limitations are that external disturbance must meet matched condition.

A useful control strategy for uncertain neutral systems with time‐delays.

The virtual state feedback control is designed so to avoid the complicated NLMI.

Guanxi is an influential factor of doing business in China. This research focuses on a specific guanxi type, political connection and studies the impact of political connection on corporate value. Moreover, in the technology innovation studies, few studies have examined the impact of politics on technology innovation of firm. This paper aims to examine the relations among political connection, technology innovation and corporate value by an empirical study.

A sample of listed technology-intensive firms in China is used. This research examines the impact of political connection and technology innovation on corporate value with two dimensions, namely, the owner type of firm and the political connection level of firm.

Based on an empirical study, this research has four main findings. First, technology innovation has positive impact on corporate value. Second, compared to non-connected firms, politically connected firms value more. Third, political connection to a government of higher administrative level contributes more to corporate value. Finally, the relations among political connection, technology innovation and corporate value differ by the owner type of firm.

This research contributes to the study of guanxi by considering the specific guanxi type, political connection, as well as to the study of technology innovation by considering the impact of politics.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if market discipline and legal environment are sufficient to motivate firms to disclose optimal level of corporate information voluntarily in the context of a developing country that is Pakistan. Furthermore, it was examined if regulators have sufficient regulatory capacity to influence the extent up to which politically connected companies disclose corporate information.

An in-depth investigation was carried out through qualitative content analysis of 200 annual reports from 40 companies listed on Karachi Stock Exchange along with 26 semi-structured interviews from experts in the field of corporate governance.

Findings from the research indicated that there is an absence of culture for disclosure of information and country’s existing institutional environment is not sufficiently strong to support self-regulation or voluntary disclosure of information. It is argued that stringent disclosure regulation results in better flow of information in politically connected companies and helps in curbing opportunistic behaviour.

This research carries significant policy implications. It is proposed that in addition to mandatory disclosure requirements, the code of corporate governance should indicate desirable disclosure levels for voluntary corporate information as well.

This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of role and usefulness of mandatory corporate disclosure regulation, voluntary disclosure practices, and capacity of regulators to enhance dissemination of corporate information in a developing country with high levels of political corruption and cronyism through an in-depth research.

E-commerce live streaming is a new influencer advertising method that allows influencers to interact directly with consumers on e-commerce platforms. Although evidence suggests that influencer live-streaming advertisements (ads) on social media can increase consumers’ buying impulses, little research examined how this similar but new advertising method on e-commerce platforms may influence consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. This study explores the role of influencer credibility, celebrity effect, perceived entertainment, trust and perceived usefulness on consumers’ attitudes toward influencer ads and their urge to buy impulsively.

A questionnaire containing seven constructs was developed and distributed to participants using a convenient sample and snowball sampling approach. The constructs were measured based on validated measurement items from the literature and adjusted according to this study’s focus. A total of 236 valid responses were obtained from the survey and used for data analysis. A partial least squares structural equation modeling approach was employed for parameter estimation and model testing.

The empirical results show that all constructs influenced consumers’ urge to buy impulsively via attitude toward influencer ads. The proposed research model explains 61.7% of the variance in attitude toward influencer ads and 19.4% of the urge to buy impulsively.

This is an early study investigating the relationship between influencer advertising and impulse buying. The results provide valuable insights into improving the design of influencer ads and marketing strategies.

1. I-eIB model tests the mechanism of influencer ads on consumers’ buying impulse.

2. Consumers’ attitude towards influencer ads affects their urge to buy impulsively.

3. Influencer credibility affects consumer attitude via celebrity effect as a mediator.

4. Trust affects consumer attitude via perceived usefulness as a mediator.

5. Entertaining ads help develop favorable consumer attitude.

I-eIB model tests the mechanism of influencer ads on consumers’ buying impulse.

Consumers’ attitude towards influencer ads affects their urge to buy impulsively.

Influencer credibility affects consumer attitude via celebrity effect as a mediator.

Trust affects consumer attitude via perceived usefulness as a mediator.

Entertaining ads help develop favorable consumer attitude.