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Article
Publication date: 10 July 2020

Huangyue Chen, Xiaoping Tan and Qun CAO

This paper aims to investigate whether and how air pollution affects auditor behavior and audit quality. Specifically, the authors draw from studies of behavioral economics and…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate whether and how air pollution affects auditor behavior and audit quality. Specifically, the authors draw from studies of behavioral economics and psychology to develop a new prediction that air pollution-induced negative mood causes pessimistic bias in auditors’ risk assessments of client firms, which motivates them to put more effort into achieving higher audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a sample of Chinese public firms for the period 2013 to 2018 and an ordinary least squares model to examine the effects of air pollution on audit quality.

Findings

The results suggest that auditors exposed to higher levels of air pollution are more likely to put more effort into their audits, resulting in higher audit quality. Furthermore, the impacts of air pollution on audit quality are more pronounced when an auditor has a higher level of education, a major in accounting or a related subject and a position as a partner. A series of identification tests and sensitivity tests further support the main findings.

Practical implications

This study provides deeper insight into how air pollution affects auditors’ decision-making through its effect on mood.

Social implications

The findings have broad potential implications for auditing and other high-skill professions. Because air pollution-induced negative mood is a common occurrence and numerous psychological experiments have demonstrated the potentially adaptive and beneficial role of negative mood in decision-making for professions like auditing that need a more conservative, alert and detail-oriented cognitive style, negative mood may to some extent facilitate decision-making. Professionals may benefit from paying closer attention to the adaptive benefits of different moods.

Originality/value

Few studies empirically discuss the effects of auditors’ psychology on audit outcomes. This study responds to this research gap with analyzes of how air pollution-induced negative mood can affect auditors’ professional judgment and audit outcomes. Further, this study adds to the growing literature that examines how air pollution affects various aspects of the economy and enriches the literature on behavioral economics, providing empirical evidence from a large sample of the effects of an environmental stressor on individual auditors’ professional judgment.

Details

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8021

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 27 November 2020

Xiting Wu, Qun CAO, Xiaoping Tan and Liang Li

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability and environmental governance, as well as the internal…

1138

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability and environmental governance, as well as the internal mechanism of audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability that plays a role in national environmental governance.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on city-level panel data from 2012 to 2015, this paper adopts a difference-in-difference model to examine the role of government audit in national governance from an environmental perspective. Furthermore, using a mediating effect model, the study sheds light on the internal mechanism of audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability that plays a role in national environmental governance.

Findings

This paper finds that: the implementation of the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability has significantly improved the water quality of the pilot area, but its effects on waste gas and smoke are not obvious; environmental supervision partly plays a mediating role in the improvement of regional environmental governance by the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability; the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability can complement the incentive mechanism of promotion. The older the local officials are, the more obvious the effect of the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability on the environmental quality of the pilot areas is.

Originality/value

This paper reveals the role of government audit from the perspective of environmental governance. It provides empirical evidence for policy regarding the audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 35 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2016

Xiaoping Tan and Wanlong lin

The purpose of this paper is to test whether there is higher return rate of investment for poor farmers than for un-poor farmers and to discuss its implication for poverty…

464

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test whether there is higher return rate of investment for poor farmers than for un-poor farmers and to discuss its implication for poverty reduction microcredit rate policy.

Design/methodology/approach

By using the household-level data of six provinces of China, farmer household production function is used in this paper to estimate the investment return rate of farmer.

Findings

The paper indicates that regardless which kind of grouping standard is adopted, the investment return rates of poor farmer households in general are far lower than the non-poor. In general, the richer a farmer household, the higher is the return rate of his household productive operations.

Practical implications

The study of this paper reminds policy makers that poverty reduction microcredit rate should really take endurance capacity of poor farmers for credit rate into accounting because of the low return rate of their family investment. Exorbitant credit rate should be avoided to protect the credit right of poor farmers.

Originality/value

There is seldom study on the comparison of return rates of family operation investment between poor and un-poor farmers; there is also unenough empirical study on the rationality of high interest rate on poor households from the return rate of investment point of view. The authors expect this paper will have some contribution on these two points.

Details

China Agricultural Economic Review, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-137X

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Article
Publication date: 13 June 2016

Ping Ke, Xin Chen, Yingxi Liu and Yimin Zhao

China is currently constructing the public cultural service system on a national scale. Library strategic environment problems, such as the status of library in the public…

1052

Abstract

Purpose

China is currently constructing the public cultural service system on a national scale. Library strategic environment problems, such as the status of library in the public cultural service system, the relationship with relevant public cultural service institutions/organizations, and the factors influencing library development, etc., which increasingly raise people’s concern. The purpose of this paper is to solve above mentioned problems.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper used online and offline questionnaires to solicit feedback from public cultural service institutions/organizations. Based on the data from questionnaires, this paper analyzed library strategic environment in the public cultural service system in mainland China by adopting correlation analysis, mean analysis and factor analysis, etc.

Findings

Stakeholders (relevant public cultural service institutions) highly valued the status of library and no respondents believed that library did not belong to the public cultural service system. Compared with competing relationship between enterprises, library and relevant cultural services institutions were partners rather than competitors. Three main factors that influenced library strategic planning were identified: internal conditions factors, external environment factors and stakeholder related factors.

Research limitations/implications

There are some limitations of this thesis. For instance, the sample size is not large enough and respondents are confined to cities, which may reduce the generalizability of the findings.

Originality/value

Through this analysis, library can learn more of national cultural environment in China, and take necessary measures to cope with these changes.

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 November 2021

Franky K.H. Choi

The purpose of this paper is to bring out the possibility of selecting good leaders in Asian countries, i.e., China and Singapore.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to bring out the possibility of selecting good leaders in Asian countries, i.e., China and Singapore.

Design/methodology/approach

Since comparative historical analysis enhances the objectivity for academic discussion, Deng Xiaoping’s and Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership successions have been chosen as the cases for studies by virtue of “method of agreement”. Incorporating “argument based on the contrary” into the context for macro-historical analysis, this paper characterises the duo’s successful (at least quite successful) leadership successions, thus offering an alternative paradigm beyond Western-style democracy.

Findings

Both cases of post-Mao China and the independent Singapore indicate that in quite a number of Asian countries, good leaders could still be selected beyond universal suffrage as practised among Western Electoral Democracies, mainly because of the elites-driven context. As to the duo’s succession results, Deng Xiaoping’s selection of leaders was somewhat successful, while Lee Kuan Yew’s was phenomenal.

Originality

This paper offers readers a glance over the possibility of selecting good leaders in Asian countries not fully based on Western-style democracy. Learning from the duo’s leadership successions, the West may treat elite politics as the supplement under Western Electoral Democracies in order to avoid their countries falling into the trap of populism. The West could meanwhile consider the exceptional criteria prized by the duo for leadership successions. Considering such interactions among elites in the real-life context, it could serve as an alternative model to Western-style democracy.

Details

Public Administration and Policy, vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1727-2645

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 11 May 2022

Chih-Ming Chen, Tek-Soon Ling, Chung Chang, Chih-Fan Hsu and Chia-Pei Lim

Digital humanities research platform for biographies of Malaysia personalities (DHRP-BMP) was collaboratively developed by the Research Center for Chinese Cultural Subjectivity in…

549

Abstract

Purpose

Digital humanities research platform for biographies of Malaysia personalities (DHRP-BMP) was collaboratively developed by the Research Center for Chinese Cultural Subjectivity in Taiwan, the Federation of Heng Ann Association Malaysia, and the Malaysian Chinese Research Center of Universiti Malaya in this study. Using The Biographies of Malaysia Henghua Personalities as the main archival sources, DHRP-BMP adopted the Omeka S, which is a next-generation Web publishing platform for institutions interested in connecting digital cultural heritage collections with other resources online, as the basic development system of the platform, to develop the functions of close reading and distant reading both combined together as the foundation of its digital humanities tools.

Design/methodology/approach

The results of the first-stage development are introduced in this study, and a case study of qualitative analysis is provided to describe the research process by a humanist scholar who used DHRP-BMP to discover the character relationships and contexts hidden in The Biographies of Malaysia Henghua Personalities.

Findings

Close reading provided by DHRP-BMP was able to support humanities scholars on comprehending full text contents through a user-friendly reading interface while distant reading developed in DHRP-BMP could assist humanities scholars on interpreting texts from a rather macro perspective through text analysis, with the functions such as keyword search, geographic information and social networks analysis for humanities scholars to master on the character relationships and geographic distribution from personality biographies, thus accelerating their text interpretation efficiency and uncovering the hidden context.

Originality/value

At present, a digital humanities research platform with real-time characters’ relationships analysis tool that can automatically generate visualized character relationship graphs based on Chinese named entity recognition (CNER) and character relationship identification technologies to effectively assist humanities scholars in interpreting characters’ relationships for digital humanities research is still lacking so far. This study thus presents the DHRP-BMP that offers the key features that can automatically identify characters’ names and characters’ relationships from personality biographies and provide a user-friendly visualization interface of characters’ relationships for supporting digital humanities research, so that humanities scholars could more efficiently and accurately explore characters’ relationships from the analyzed texts to explore complicated characters’ relationships and find out useful research findings.

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Article
Publication date: 28 August 2019

Peng Sun, Naiguang Lu, Mingli Dong, Xiaoping Lou and Zexiang Tan

Geometric structure error of parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) frame affects the installation accuracy of mirrors and absorber tubes and thus decreases the solar energy…

103

Abstract

Purpose

Geometric structure error of parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) frame affects the installation accuracy of mirrors and absorber tubes and thus decreases the solar energy concentrating efficiency. Until now, there is no effective method to instruct the assembly and regulation of PTC frames. This paper aims to propose a vision guided method for fast and accurate regulation of mirror and absorber supports to improve the geometric quality of PTC frames.

Design/methodology/approach

The PTC frame support regulating system consists of a general-purpose online photogrammetry system, frame support measurement adaptors and data analyzing software. First, the positions and angles of all the supports are measured in real time by the online photogrammetric system. Then, the measured positions and angles are aligned to the design reference frame through the transformation calculated by an absorber position constrained nonlinear optimization so as to get the geometric errors and regulating amounts. Finally, a graduated pseudo-color-based visualization method is proposed to assist the manual or automated regulation of PTC frame supports in site.

Findings

The proposed method does not need to construct a reference system nor specify the rotation attitude of the PTC frame, and it is capable of conducting efficient and accurate regulation on PTC frame assembly line. The method is applied to manual regulation of a light type PTC frame structure. After regulation, the maximum position and angle errors of supports are reduced to less than 0.15 mm and 0.15° respectively and the intercept factor is increased to 97%, which meets the requirement for a qualified PTC concentrator.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a vision guided assembly or regulation method for PTC frame structures. The research uses online photogrammetry system to provide real-time geometric quality information feedback, elaborates the data analysis algorithm and provides the visualization method for accurate and efficient in site regulation. Furthermore, this paper also provides theories, methods and experiences for other applications that use vision guidance for attitude regulation and digital flexible assembly of large equipment.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 46 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 November 2018

Franky K.H. Choi

Outside the US and Europe, to establish a good government requires more than Western-style democracy. Adopting universal suffrage fully from the Western model is no longer a…

10850

Abstract

Purpose

Outside the US and Europe, to establish a good government requires more than Western-style democracy. Adopting universal suffrage fully from the Western model is no longer a panacea to reach the ultimate goal of good governance in the East, i.e., to keep promoting socio-economic renovation can be noted as a prerequisite to have further meaningful political advancement in an Asian polity. The purpose of this paper is to explain how to establish a good but authoritarian government in the East.

Design/methodology/approach

Given the good of comparative historical analysis, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Deng Xiaoping in China are selected as both cases for “method of agreement.” Further including “argument based on the contrary” to form a context for macro-historical analysis, this paper outlines two characteristics of the duo’s authoritarian leadership, namely, Ideologies and Policy-making; and Political Modernization, and hence provides a more balanced reevaluation of their governance.

Findings

Apart from noting how these two Asian giants more or less contributed to their good but authoritarian governments for long in the twentieth century, such a word of authoritarianism to the duo was quite positive to help legitimize their governance, which was far different from many negative views of the Western world.

Originality/value

As theories put forward by Western academics could not entirely justify modernization among Asian societies in the twentieth century, this paper attempts to answer one question: Does the meaning of authoritarianism remain unchanged in the discourse of the East and the West?

Details

Public Administration and Policy, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1727-2645

Keywords

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Book part
Publication date: 20 January 2021

Yao Lixia

Abstract

Details

Energy Security in Times of Economic Transition: Lessons from China
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-465-4

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 October 2021

Ruhao Zhao, Xiaoping Ma, He Zhang, Honghui Dong, Yong Qin and Limin Jia

This paper aims to propose an enhanced densely dehazing network to suit railway scenes’ features and improve the visual quality degraded by haze and fog.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose an enhanced densely dehazing network to suit railway scenes’ features and improve the visual quality degraded by haze and fog.

Design/methodology/approach

It is an end-to-end network based on DenseNet. The authors design enhanced dense blocks and fuse them in a pyramid pooling module for visual data’s local and global features. Multiple ablation studies have been conducted to show the effects of each module proposed in this paper.

Findings

The authors have compared dehazed results on real hazy images and railway hazy images of state-of-the-art dehazing networks with the dehazed results in data quality. Finally, an object-detection test is taken to judge the edge information preservation after haze removal. All results demonstrate that the proposed dehazing network performs better under railway scenes in detail.

Originality/value

This study provides a new method for image enhancing in the railway monitoring system.

Details

Smart and Resilient Transportation, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2632-0487

Keywords

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