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Increasing numbers of grandparents are raising their grandchildren because of problems within the parental generation such as drug and alcohol addiction, AIDS, divorce, and unemployment. Yet little is known about how grandparents who “parent” or “co‐parent” then‐grandchildren differ from other grandparents, or the extent to which parenting or co‐parenting grandchildren affects grandparent's psychological, physical, or financial well‐being, or feelings of family solidarity. The purpose of this research is to: (1) compare the characteristics of grandparents who go on to parent or co‐parent their grandchildren to grandparents who do not, and (2) assess the effects of entering the two caregiving arrangements — parenting and co‐parenting — on changes in grandparent's psychological, physical, and financial well‐being, as well as their feelings of family solidarity. The data for this study came from 659 grandparents from the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSG) who participated in at least two consecutive waves of data collection measured at three year intervals between 1985 to 1994: parenting grandparents (N = 12), co‐parenting grandparents (N = 27), and non‐parenting grandparents (N = 620). Analysis of the quantitative data reveals that grandparents who parent or co‐parent their grandchildren tend to be younger and less healthy than non‐parenting grandparents. Contrary to expectation, the data also indicate that there is no statistically significant decline in psychological, physical, or financial well‐being, nor in normative or marital solidarity after grandparents begin to caregive. Although the majority of grandparents show stability or improvement in overall psychological well‐being, some show decline. The qualitative data suggests that the extent to which grandparents can choose their level of involvement in caregiving influences and the age of the grandchild, whether they experience caregiving as positive or negative.

This study proposes a novel method utilising a speech-word pair bipartite network to examine the correlation structure between members of parliament (MPs) in the context of the UK- China relationship.

We construct MP-word pair bipartite networks based on the co-occurrence relationship between MPs and words in their speech content. These networks are then mapped into monopartite MPs correlation networks. Additionally, the study calculates correlation network indicators and identifies MP communities and factions to determine the characteristics of MPs and their interrelation in the UK-China relationship. This includes insights into the distribution of key MPs, their correlation structure and the evolution and development trends of MP factions.

Analysis of the parliamentary speeches on China-related affairs in the British Parliament from 2011 to 2020 reveals that the distribution and interrelationship of MPs engaged in UK-China affairs are centralised and discrete, with a few core MPs playing an integral role in the UK-China relationship. Among them, MPs such as Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, David Cameron, Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Howell of Guildford formed factions with significant differences; however, the continuity of their evolution exhibits unstableness. The core MP factions, such as those led by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and David Cameron, have achieved a level of maturity and exert significant influence.

The research has several limitations that warrant acknowledgement. First, we mapped the MP-word pair bipartite network into the MP correlation network for analysis without directly analysing the structure of MPs based on the bipartite network. In future studies, we aim to explore various types of analysis based on the proposed bipartite networks to provide more comprehensive and accurate references for studying UK-China relations. In addition, we seek to incorporate semantic-level analyses, such as sentiment analysis of MPs, into the MP-word -pair bipartite networks for in-depth analysis. Second, the interpretations of MP structures in the UK-China relationship in this study are limited. Consequently, expertise in UK-China relations should be incorporated to enhance the study and provide more practical recommendations.

Firstly, the findings can contribute to an objective understanding of the characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations, thereby informing adjustments of focus accordingly. The identification of the main factions in the UK-China relationship emphasises the imperative for governments to pay greater attention to these MPs’ speeches and social relationships. Secondly, examining the evolution and development of MP factions aids in identifying a country’s diplomatic focus during different periods. This can assist governments in responding promptly to relevant issues and contribute to the formulation of effective foreign policies.

First, this study expands the research methodology of parliamentary debates analysis in previous studies. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study the UK-China relationship through the MP-word-pair bipartite network. This outcome inspires future researchers to apply various knowledge networks in the LIS field to elucidate deeper characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations. Second, this study provides a novel perspective for UK-China relationship analysis, which deepens the research object from keywords to MPs. This finding may offer important implications for researchers to further study the role of MPs in the UK-China relationship.

This study proposes a novel scheme for analysing the correlation structure between MPs based on bipartite networks. This approach offers insights into the development and evolving dynamics of MPs.

Recent research has drawn attention to the tension between the Central and local governments in China regarding their roles in environmental protection. This paper aims to explore this tension and examine the extent to which local/provincial government’s environmental oversight has influenced the quality of corporate environmental disclosure in China.

A sample of 198 listed companies in heavily polluting industries were selected to examine the relationship between their environmental disclosure quality and the respective local government’s environmental oversight level.

The results provide evidence that local/provincial government’s environmental oversight significantly influences environmental disclosure in China. Despite the coercive pressure from the powerful Central government on corporate environmental disclosure, local/provincial governments are able to buffer the pressure and adjust the intensity of their environmental oversight on companies during the implementation of central policies to retain local economic and political interests. This may partially explain the persistent issue of low environmental disclosure quality in China.

This study enriches our understanding of the significant role of local governments in China in enhancing or sometimes discounting the regulatory enforcement of the Central government on corporate environmental disclosure, pointing to the need for concerted efforts by both local and Central governments to advance environmental disclosure development.

Research on environmental disclosure in developed countries has been well established in the literature. However, such research in developing nations is still limited, especially in China, the world largest developing country. The existing literature on environmental disclosure in China links it with either market demands, or regulatory enforcement from the Central government. The importance of local/provincial governments and their environmental oversight has long been ignored, which motivates this research.

The purpose of this paper is to review most recent developments of social and environmental accounting (SEA) in the context of developing countries and to offer insights for the latest research in this field. It also provides an introduction to the AAAJ special issue.

The authors have undertaken a conceptual overview of the field developed in the past two decades (2001–2020) with a view to identify major themes, trends and future research directions.

The overview reveals that only 43 SEA papers addressing contextual challenges of developing countries have been published in leading accounting journals in the last 20 years. The coverage of these publications is concentrated in a small number of countries and regions. Interdisciplinary accounting journals, especially AAAJ, are the main publishing outlets in this field. The topic areas are dominated by social accounting challenges, with much less focus on environmental accounting, although developing countries are particularly exposed to the threats of climate change, water pollution and biodiversity loss. The literature reviewed uses elaborating, problematising and theorising contexts as three main contextualisation approaches to analyse contextual themes framed around regulatory, political, cultural and religious, and social-economic systems. Although various conceptual lenses have been adopted in the developing country SEA literature, the use of institutional theory and its various extensions to address political and cultural complexities seems to become more prominent, as shown in most of the contributions included in this special issue.

This review is limited to leading accounting journals. SEA research increasingly published in other disciplines such as in management, social and environmental areas might provide a more comprehensive view in this research field.

In this paper, inter alia, the authors review and synthesise the previous literature in a conceptual framework, illustrating and highlighting the importance of contextual framing of SEA in developing countries. Based on this review, the authors propose some ideas for a future research agenda aiming to advance the field. The authors expect this paper and the special issue to act as a reference point for emerging SEA researchers from developing countries to raise more scholarly impactful enquiries in this area.

This paper aims to examine the role of local/provincial government in influencing corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) in China, and more specifically, how the underlying economic and political factors associated with local government have influenced the quality of CSER.

The authors used 234 environmentally sensitive companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during 2013 and 2015 as the research sample to test the relationship between CSER and local government’s political connection and economic prioritisation and the potential mediating effect of local economic prioritisation.

The analysis provides evidence that local/provincial government’s political geographical connectedness with the central government has directly and positively influenced the level of CSER, while local prioritisation of economic development has a direct but negative effect on CSER in China. In addition, local/provincial prioritisation of economic development has mediated the relationship between local–central political geographical connectedness and CSER.

While local/provincial governments are heavily influenced by the coercive pressure from the central government, they also act in their own political and economic interests in overseeing CSER at the local level. This study raises the question about the effectiveness of the top-down approach to improving CSER in China and suggests that the central government may need to focus more on coordinating and harmonising different local/provincial governments’ interests to enable achieving a common sustainability goal.

The authors provide evidence revealing how the economic and political contexts of local government have played a significant role in shaping CSER in China. More specifically, this paper addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting the importance of local government oversight power for CSER development and how such oversight is determined by local prioritisation of economic development and political geographical connectedness of local and central governments.

This paper aims to examine the nature and extent of disclosure on the use of big data by online platform companies and how these disclosures address and discharge stakeholder accountability.

Content analysis of annual reports and data policy documents of 100 online platform companies were used for this study. More specifically, the study develops a comprehensive big data disclosure framework to assess the nature and extent of disclosures provided in corporate reports. This framework also assists in evaluating the effect of the size of the company, industry and country in which they operate on disclosures.

The analysis reveals that most companies made limited disclosure on how they manage big data. Only two of the 100 online platform companies have provided moderate disclosures on big data related issues. The focus of disclosure by the online platform companies is more on data regulation compliance and privacy protection, but significantly less on the accountability and ethical issues of big data use. More specifically, critical issues, such as stakeholder engagement, breaches of customer information and data reporting and controlling mechanisms are largely overlooked in current disclosures. The analysis confirms that current attention has been predominantly given to powerful stakeholders such as regulators as a result of compliance pressure while the accountability pressure has yet to keep up the pace.

The study findings may be limited by the use of a new accountability disclosure index and the specific focus on online platform companies.

Although big data permeates, the number of users and uses grow and big data use has become more ingrained into society, this study provides evidence that ethical and accountability issues persist, even among the largest online companies. The findings of this study improve the understanding of the current state of online companies’ reporting practices on big data use, particularly the issues and gaps in the reporting process, which will help policymakers and standard setters develop future data disclosure policies.

From these findings, the study improves the understanding of the current state of online companies’ reporting practices on big data use, particularly the issues and gaps in the reporting process – which are helpful for policymakers and standard setters to develop data disclosure policies.

This study provides an analysis of ethical and social issues surrounding big data accountability, an emerging but increasingly important area that needs urgent attention and more research. It also adds a new disclosure dimension to the existing accountability literature and provides practical suggestions to balance the interaction between online platform companies and their stakeholders to promote the responsible use of big data.

We use the extended finite element method (XFEM) to model the whole process of initiation and propagation of cracks in the inner dense pyrolytic carbon (IPyC) layer of tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle induced by the microdefect in an irradiation-induced thermomechanical coupling environment and study the effect of microdefect sizes on the propagation path.

The irradiation-induced thermal–mechanical coupling analysis is first conducted for the representative volume element (RVE) of the TRISO particle by using the conventional finite element method (CFEM) so that the stress distribution is obtained. The stress results are then restored for the enriched elements, and the simulation of crack initiation and propagation is eventually carried out by using the XFEM.

1. As a crack initiates in the IPyC layer, it will terminate at the free edge of the RVE TRISO particle in the end. 2. The size of the microdefect has a significant impact on the propagation path.

The ceramic dispersion microencapsulated (CDM) fuel is a good accident-resistant fuel whose safe operation is crucial to the safety and reliability of the whole nuclear reactor. It is of great scientific significance and practical value to study the irradiation-induced thermomechanical coupling stress distribution and cracking behavior in the IPyC layer of TRISO particles for the CDM fuel. Crack initiation and propagation analysis is challengeable for this complex multi-layer structure. This can help understand the failure mechanism of TRISO particles and evaluate the operation safety of the reactor.

The purpose of this study is to present an analysis of the Islamic good governance concept and means known as Al-Siyasah Al-Syar’iyyah as a principle and approach for combating corruption. This literature review aims to synthesize extant literature that discusses the determinants of integrity and how to prevent and combat corruption based on the Al-Siyasah Al-Syar’iyyah perspective.

A systematic search was conducted on a literature review based on Scopus and referred journals from Google Scholar databases. A manual search on Google Scholar was performed to identify additional relevant studies. Studies were selected based on the predetermined criteria. They were thematically examined using content analysis.

The study found that most of the 45 works of the literature, (41 studies and four chapters) suggested that corruption should be considered a sin and that education of Al-Siyasah Al-Syar’iyyah’s perspective against corruption, emphasizing the principle of piety, the institutionalization of justice and accountability, good governance performance with an emphasis on its belief in self-accountability and justice, is the means to combat corruption.

This study is unique in that it focuses on locating material on battling corruption from the standpoint of Al-Siyasah Al-Syar’iyyah. Based on the al-Quran, the Sunnah and the best practices of Muslim rulership, this notion provides an epistemological, ethical and ontological stance in Islam.