Chief Audit Executive as Supervisory Board Member and Executive Compensation Contracts

This paper studies a unique phenomenon in China's corporate governance—that chief audit executives (CAEs) sit on supervisory boards (CAE duality)—and examines its effects on executive compensation contracts. Using a sample of listed firms between 2010 and 2018, we find a significant positive relation between CAE duality and pay-for-performance sensitivity, which suggests that the dual position helps integrate monitoring resources and reduces agency costs. This positive relation is more pronounced when companies face a stricter monitoring environment and in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than in SOEs. In addition, we find that the recent reforms on compensation strengthen the role of CAE duality in SOEs. Further analysis identifies the reliability of performance information (i.e., earnings quality) and reduced executive self-interested behaviours (i.e., perquisite consumption) as the influencing mechanisms that increase the demand for performance-based compensation and thus improve pay-for-performance sensitivity.     

Short-sale constraints and informational efficiency to private information: A natural experiment

Exploiting a regulatory change in short-sale constraints (Regulation SHO) as a natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of short-sale constraints on informational efficiency of stock prices to private information. I find that short-sellers act as informed traders prior to forthcoming analyst news and trade on negative private information. When short-sale constraints are relaxed for pilot stocks (treatment group), both trading volume and stock price sensitivity increase prior to the analyst announcement for bad news but not for good news, relative to that of nonpilot stocks (control group). The findings are consistent with the Diamond and Verrecchia model that predicts that short-selling increases the speed of adjustment of stock prices to private negative information. In the cross-section, the effect of Reg SHO is stronger in stocks of firms with weak and uncertain information environments (i.e., small firms and firms with high analyst forecast dispersion).     

Institutional quality,investment efficiency,and the choice of public–private partnerships

We examine a sample of 625 public–private partnership (PPP) firms from 1980 to 2015 that straddle nine countries with varying degrees of economic development and PPP markets. We find that the motivations of the firms that undertake PPP investments vary. While private sector firms in economies with low institutional quality choose to engage in PPPs to alleviate capital constraints attributed to underinvestment, those in economies with high institutional quality participate in PPPs to solve the problem of overinvestment due to an abundant cash flow. In the long run, the benefits of lower capital constraints through PPP investments are more pronounced in economies with high institutional quality.     

荷兰农业绿色转型经验与政策启示

[目的]与我国的农业资源禀赋条件相似,荷兰人多地少,农业资源贫乏,却是世界农业强国,其20世纪80年代开始的农业转型之路对促进我国当前农业绿色发展具有重要借鉴意义。[方法]结合实地调研与文献研究,文章梳理了荷兰40年来在农业环境治理方面的具体政策设计和实施效果,并分析了其主要经验做法及对我国发展的启示。[结果]从畜禽养殖数量控制到化学投入品控制、再到农业资源全管理,荷兰始终坚持以种养结合的可持续发展模式应对农业资源环境挑战,不断强化循环利用技术推广应用,逐步建立了严格的农业资源环境监管体系和政府支持体系,在农业污染得到有效治理的同时,依然很好地保持了国际市场竞争力。[结论]荷兰曾经面对的养殖业污染、化学品过度投入等问题也是我国当前农业环境的突出问题,其当时采取的转型思路与我们目前的绿色发展理念高度一致,借鉴荷兰经验,加快推进我国农业绿色发展,亟需创新循环农业发展模式,加强绿色发展技术支撑,建立并完善农业绿色发展制度体系,协同推进农业资源环境保护和农业竞争力提升。     

Disappearing investment-cash flow sensitivities: Earnings have not become a worse proxy for cash flow

According to a recent conjecture in the literature, earnings have become a poorer proxy for cash flow from operations over time. We find that since 1988, when cash flow statements started to be consistently reported in Compustat, the cash effectiveness of earnings has actually increased for a large sample of US manufacturing firms. This occurs despite the introduction of fair value accounting and increasing accounting accruals during the last three decades. Also contrary to the conjecture, using more comprehensive measures of cash flow does not restore the investment-cash flow sensitivity, which continues to be around 0.05 in more recent periods.     

组织间学习与绿色创新:绿色吸收能力的调节作用

尽管组织间学习已经获得较多关注,但鲜有研究探讨它对绿色创新的影响。从组织间关系和双元性理论视角,提出了组织间的纵向利用式学习和横向探索式学习,基于组织学习理论和吸收能力理论,探究了两种组织间学习方式与绿色创新的关系,并检验了绿色吸收能力的调节作用。基于203家中国制造企业的调查数据,实证结果表明:纵向利用式学习和横向探索式学习都能显著正向影响绿色创新;相比横向探索式学习,纵向利用式学习对绿色创新的影响作用更强。绿色吸收能力在横向探索式学习与绿色创新之间也起调节作用,但它并不调节纵向利用式学习与绿色创新的关系。研究提出了不同的组织间学习方法与绿色创新的关系,丰富并拓展了绿色创新的相关研究。     

Turning green subsidies into sustainability: How green process innovation improves firms' green image

Green process innovation has been seen as a key strategy for manufacturing firms to pursue sustainable development. Yet, how to help manufacturing firms eliminate bottlenecks when implementing green process innovation remains poorly understood. To address this issue, the current study, which is anchored in the government incentive perspective, examines the drivers, contingent conditions, and consequences of green process innovation by using the panel data of manufacturing‐listed firms in China from 2013 to 2017. The results present valuable findings: (a) green subsidies are positively related to two dimensions of green process innovation, namely, cleaner production technology and end‐of‐pipe technology; (b) both cleaner production technology and end‐of‐pipe technology are positively related to firms' green image; (c) a firm's cleaner production technology mediates the relationship between green subsidies and its green image; and (d) higher absorptive capacity strengthens the indirect effect of green subsidies on a firm's green image via cleaner production technology. Our results provide meaningful theoretical and practical implications by revealing the benefits of green subsidies through green process innovation by leveraging levels of absorptive capacity.     

Then and Now: Examining Older People's Engagement in Outdoor Recreation Across the Life Course

Outdoor recreation provides a range of health and wellbeing benefits and facilitates engagement with natural environments. We explore older people's participation in outdoor recreation throughout their lives to examine how past experiences shape engagement later in life. A qualitative life history approach, consisting of semi-structured interviews and a focus group in three place-specific (urban, rural, and small town coastal) case studies in Scotland, was adopted. Thematic analysis revealed ways in which childhood experiences shaped adult engagement and highlighted life course transitions where behaviour change was most pronounced. Place and gender were considered as factors which may affect responses. Participants identified the points of getting married, becoming a parent, children entering adolescence, retirement, the onset of disabilities or ill health, and the death of others as “moments of change” in the extent and/or form of their outdoor recreation. The findings highlight potential for targeted interventions to promote outdoor recreation throughout life.     

企业环保主张对消费者绿色购买意愿的影响机制研究

在广告设计中如何使用环保主张是影响广告效果和公司声誉的一项重要决策。基于此，文章引入归因理论和精细加工可能性模型对企业环保主张的效果和发生机制进行分析。结果表明：相较于关联型环保主张，消费者面对实质型环保主张时的绿色购买意愿更高；消费者环境关注调节了环保主张对绿色购买意愿的影响，即相较于关联型（实质型）环保主张，高环境关注（低环境关注）的消费者面对实质型（关联型）环保主张时绿色购买意愿更强；同时消费者的CSR内部动机感知在环保主张对消费者绿色购买意愿的影响中起中介作用。文章丰富了绿色广告理论体系，为增强企业环保主张的说服效果提供了理论依据。     

Exploring the effect of buyer engagement on green product innovation: Empirical evidence from manufacturers

In this study, we are interested in how export firms organize knowledge management and increase product innovation performance. Prior studies have concluded that knowledge transfer from external actors leads to operational performance outcomes; others have questioned the positive influence of buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities on innovation performance. Drawing on absorptive capacity, we aim to offer a better understanding, how export firms as recipients of knowledge resources, organize their internal capabilities in order to realize firm-level product innovation. This empirical study examines the interplay of buyer-driven knowledge activities, resource acquisition and combining, and product innovation outcomes in the context of Pakistani export firms. Drawing on survey data from 239 export-manufacturing firms, we test hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities play a crucial role in enhancing export firms in absorbing and combining resources that lead to product innovation. The pragmatic suggestion of the research suggests that managers look closely at developing a culture of involvement with their buyers that promotes the development of knowledge resources. The results of this study have research, policy, and managerial implications.