Guiyang Wu, Xikui Gu, Wanwei Zhao, Rui Fan and Ting Mao
This paper aims to study the effect of chloride ions concentration on the corrosion behavior of carbon steel in methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) aqueous solution in the sight of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the effect of chloride ions concentration on the corrosion behavior of carbon steel in methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) aqueous solution in the sight of different process parameters of purification plant.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the decrease of filtration efficiency and separation efficiency, the chloride ion in the desulfurization solution is enriched. The corrosion behavior of carbon steel under chloride ion enrichment environment was studied by weight-loss method, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, cyclic polarization curve, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy.
Findings
The results show that temperature and hydrogen sulfide loads are the main factors of corrosion in CO2-MDEA-H2O-H2S environment. The enrichment of chloride ions reduces the corrosion rate at low temperature but promotes the corrosion rate at high temperature. The chloride concentration should be controlled below 3000 mg/L, and no pitting corrosion was found under the experimental conditions.
Originality/value
The effect of chloride ion enrichment on MDEA solution corrosion shows that at low temperature, the increase of chloride ion will reduce the acid gas load and increase the density of corrosion products, so as to reduce the corrosion; on the contrary, at high temperature, the density of corrosion products will decrease and the corrosion will be intensified as well. It is believed that the chloride ion should be controlled below 3000 mg/L according to the results of the tests.
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Xiaofang Ma, Wenming Wang, Gaoguang Zhou and Jun Chen
This study aims to take advantage of the unprecedented anti-corruption campaign launched in China in December 2012 and examine the effect of improved public governance on…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to take advantage of the unprecedented anti-corruption campaign launched in China in December 2012 and examine the effect of improved public governance on tunneling.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange listed companies from 2010 to 2014 and conduct regression analyses to investigate the effect of improved public governance attributed to the anti-corruption campaign on tunneling.
Findings
This study finds that the level of tunneling decreased significantly after the anti-corruption campaign, suggesting that increased public governance effectively curbs tunneling. Cross-sectional results show that this mitigating effect is more pronounced for non-SOE firms, especially non-SOE firms with political connections, firms audited by non-Big 8 auditors, firms with a large divergence between control rights and cash flow rights and firms located in areas with lower marketization.
Practical implications
This study highlights the importance of anti-corruption initiatives in improving public governance and in turn reducing tunneling. This study provides important implications for many other emerging economies to improve public governance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on the role of public governance in constraining corporate agency problems and advances the understanding of the economic consequences of China's anti-corruption campaign in the context of tunneling.
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Rui Dan, Yujie Zheng, ZhiQin Liu and Zhen Shi
The inward displacement perpendicular to the body surface produced by compression garment is an important index to evaluate pressure comfort and optimal design of tight clothing…
Abstract
Purpose
The inward displacement perpendicular to the body surface produced by compression garment is an important index to evaluate pressure comfort and optimal design of tight clothing products. The purpose of this study is to explore the pressure distribution state at waist position of elastic legwear and then to solve the common problem of excessive pressure or easy slippage for waist of elastic legwear.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors obtained the waist cross-section model of human body using CT scanning and mimics modeling and then simulated the pressure and displacement distribution after wearing sample four elastic legwear using finite element method. The dressing process of elastic legwear was divided into six periods (instantaneous, 1, 2, 4, 8 and 12 h) in this study, and the finite element software ANSYS was used to simulate the displacement and deformation of the waist cross section. The authors finally obtained the functional relationship between pressure/displacement ratio and angle using curve fitting.
Findings
In this paper, the authors obtained the functional relationship between pressure/displacement ratio and angle using curve fitting. Comparison found that the “pressure/displacement–angle” function curve showed an almost consistent trend at any time. That was to say, when the human body was in the state of clothing pressure, the corresponding displacement value of the human body can be calculated by the curve equation under the premise of known pressure value.
Originality/value
This study solves the difficult problem which hard to measure displacement values by conventional methods due to the small deformation of the human body after dressing the compression garment. Conclusions also provide a theoretical reference for evaluating pressure comfort and optimizing clothing structure for the elastic legwear, and this method is also applicable to other types of compression garment.
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Xin Yu and Ying Zheng
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the political connections of listed firms in China affect how the market reacts to cases of financial misrepresentation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the political connections of listed firms in China affect how the market reacts to cases of financial misrepresentation investigated by the regulatory authorities.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use an event study method and the financial misrepresentation events in China stock markets as research setting and empirically test the association between market reactions to the announcement of financial misrepresentations and the presence of political connections.
Findings
The results show that on average, there is no significant market reaction to financial misrepresentation for politically connected firms. In contrast, however, there is a significantly negative market reaction for non-connected firms, which suggests that investors do not punish politically connected firms for financial misrepresentation. The authors argue that politically connected companies use the altered financial information to gain legitimacy and obtain benefits from the government. Consistent with the argument, the authors find that in the years after they disclose their financial misrepresentation, firms with political connections are more likely to increase their bank loans than firms without political connections.
Originality/value
The authors provide a new explanation for the low-earnings quality of politically connected firms.
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Emmanuel C. Mamatzakis, Lorenzo Neri and Antonella Russo
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could explore the role of religion differences in WEU vis-à-vis EEU states, as they are also subject to cultural differences.
Practical implications
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.
Social implications
The findings show that cultural differences between EEU and the “old” Member States of the EU could explain classification shifting.
Originality/value
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.
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The paper aims to identify the relationship between institutional logics and corporate finance in the context of China. It models the institutional logics and outlines why and how…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to identify the relationship between institutional logics and corporate finance in the context of China. It models the institutional logics and outlines why and how they impact the capital structure. The study aims to expand the domain of corporate finance by introducing the institutional effects.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs the ownership and region to proxy institutional logics, and a time dummy for their evolution and tests how they shape firms' capital structure through panel data regression.
Findings
The paper finds that capital structures in firms dominated by state logic are less heterogeneous but the heterogeneities of all firms' increase over time and the capital structures in firms dominated by state logic deviate more from the optimality but those of all firms approach the optimality as time goes by. I also document that the institutional logics affect the corporate financing decisions through the selection of chief executive officers (CEOs).
Research limitations/implications
The paper demonstrates how state and market institutions are embodied in firms and how their evolution requires firms to adapt, and it proposes a brand-new insight into the marketization process of China.
Practical implications
The paper finds that the firms are unable to acquire optimal capital structure because of the institutional pressure and derive some implications on managerial practice of Chinese firms.
Originality/value
The paper analyses and examines the impacts of the institutional logics on corporate financing decisions as well as the potential channel, enhancing the understanding of the institutions and firms' responses.
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Yi Wei, Jianguo Chen and Carolyn Wirth
This paper aims to investigate the links between accounting values in Chinese listed companies’ balance sheets and the exposure of their fraudulent activities.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the links between accounting values in Chinese listed companies’ balance sheets and the exposure of their fraudulent activities.
Design/methodology/approach
Every balance sheet account is proposed to be a potential vehicle to manipulate financial statements.
Findings
Other receivables, inventories, prepaid expenses, employee benefits payables and long-term payables are important indicators of fraudulent financial statements. These results confirm that asset account manipulation is frequently carried out and cast doubt on earlier conclusions by researchers that inflation of liabilities is the most common source of financial statement manipulation.
Originality/value
Previous practices of solely scaling balance sheet values by assets are revealed to produce spurious relationships, while scaling by both assets and sales effectively detects fraudulent financial statements and provides a useful fraud prediction tool for Chinese auditors, regulators and investors.
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Reza H. Chowdhury, Min Maung and Jenny Zhang
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the signaling and free cash flow hypotheses of dividends in the context of an emerging financial market.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the signaling and free cash flow hypotheses of dividends in the context of an emerging financial market.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use fundamental financial information of Chinese companies listed in the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges. They examine the impact of cash dividend payments on future profitability of individual firms with and without controlling for non-linearity in their earnings to test the signaling hypothesis. They also determine the characteristics of dividend paying firms to examine the free cash flow hypothesis.
Findings
It was found that while dividend increases by publicly listed Chinese firms are followed by increases in earnings in two subsequent years, such relationship does not exist in the case of dividend decreases. However, under the assumption of non-linearity of earnings, it was found that neither dividend increases nor dividend decreases convey any valuable information about future changes in earnings of Chinese firms. Further, it was found that firms with high cash holdings, large profitability and high managerial efficiency are likely to pay dividends. The authors therefore conclude that announcements of cash dividend payments do not signal future performance but indicate good governance practices of publicly traded firms in China.
Originality/value
This evidence is critical for potential foreign investors in their portfolio investment decisions and for regulators in determining an efficient measure of corporate disclosure in China.
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Qaiser Rafique Yasser, Abdullah Al Mamun and Irfan Ahmed
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the causes and interrelations between ownership composition and financial reporting quality of firms in the Asia-Pacific region.
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the causes and interrelations between ownership composition and financial reporting quality of firms in the Asia-Pacific region.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses panel data for 420 firms for the period 2011-2013 (three years) from Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Pakistan.
Findings
Overall, the authors find that ownership concentration is positively associated with the financial reporting quality. However, institutional ownership and foreign ownership are positively associated with financial disclosure in developing countries. Further, the result indicates that institutional and public ownership is positively associated with financial reporting in developed countries. Among the control variables, the authors find that larger firms are negatively correlated with financial reporting quality in Asia-Pacific.
Originality/value
These results highlight the highly individualized effects of blockholders and the need for research to further understand the mechanisms through which shareholders impact financial reporting quality.
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Yasin Mahmood, Abdul Rashid and Muhammad Faisal Rizwan
This study aims to examine how corporate financial flexibility, financial sector development and the regulatory environment influence corporate investment decisions in an emerging…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how corporate financial flexibility, financial sector development and the regulatory environment influence corporate investment decisions in an emerging economy after controlling for several macroeconomic factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors estimated random-effects models to empirically examine the impacts of corporate financial flexibility, banking sector development, equity market development, regulatory quality and corruption on corporate investment decisions. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced annual panel data set of a sample of 198 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for the period 1992–2018.
Findings
The results show that financially flexible firms tend to invest more. The increased banking sector development, stock market development and better regulatory quality play a pivotal role for enabling firms to increase their investment ability. However, the results reveal that corruption acts as a barrier and reduces corporate investments during the examined period. The results suggest that unused borrowing capacity is a good source of financial flexibility. These results strongly support the pecking order theory, which explains why firms incline toward internal sources for financing their investments and why they prefer debt to equity when go for external financing.
Practical implications
The empirical findings of the study enable corporate managers to make better financing and investment decisions by understanding the significance of the attainment and maintenance of the corporate financial flexibility to enhance firm value. Furthermore, the findings enable corporate managers to examine and understand the role of banking sector development (BSD), equity market development (EMD), regulatory quality and the role of corruption in affecting corporate firms' investment ability, allowing them to make appropriate investment decisions, especially from an emerging economy perspective. The findings also help investors in making appropriate investment decisions while they are purchasing financial assets. Finally, the findings of the study have some implications for regulators as well. Specifically, the findings suggest that the authorities should implement economic and financial policies favoring banking sector as well as equity market development to enhance corporate investment.
Originality/value
The study significantly adds to the literature by examining the impact of financial flexibility, financial sector development and regulatory environment on corporate investment decisions. According to the authors' knowledge, the empirical evidence examining the impact of all of these factors on corporate investment is very scarce. Therefore, this study is an effort to fill the gap left in the literature.