Pub Date : 2025-05-31DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100477
Chen Zheng, Zhiyue Sun
Despite growing evidence of the importance of organisation capital, its impact on corporate resilience remains underexplored. This study investigates whether organisation capital provides firms with greater resilience and reduces their exposure to climate change. By analysing a sample of 3,622 US firms from 2001 to 2021, we found that firms with high organisation capital experienced less climate change exposure. This result remained robust across various tests and methods to address endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, organisation capital was found to act as a mediator or suppressor in the relationship between firm-specific factors – such as financial constraints, analyst forecast quality, agency costs, financial leverage, corporate governance, firm performance, efficiency, operating performance, product market competition, and environmental commitment and initiative – and climate change exposure. Overall, our results underscore the resilience benefits provided by organisation capital and highlight its critical role in mitigating climate-related risks.
{"title":"Organisation capital: A key asset for mitigating firm-level climate change exposure","authors":"Chen Zheng, Zhiyue Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100477","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100477","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite growing evidence of the importance of organisation capital, its impact on corporate resilience remains underexplored. This study investigates whether organisation capital provides firms with greater resilience and reduces their exposure to climate change. By analysing a sample of 3,622 US firms from 2001 to 2021, we found that firms with high organisation capital experienced less climate change exposure. This result remained robust across various tests and methods to address endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, organisation capital was found to act as a mediator or suppressor in the relationship between firm-specific factors – such as financial constraints, analyst forecast quality, agency costs, financial leverage, corporate governance, firm performance, efficiency, operating performance, product market competition, and environmental commitment and initiative – and climate change exposure. Overall, our results underscore the resilience benefits provided by organisation capital and highlight its critical role in mitigating climate-related risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100477"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144239382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-20DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100476
Xiao Chen , Narisa Tianjing Dai , Leo Jiahe Liu
This study introduces a novel measure, major customer diversity, to capture the heterogeneity in firms’ major customer bases, and examines its implications for audit practices. While engaging with heterogeneous major customers may help firms stabilize revenues and mitigate overstocking costs, we argue that such diversification increases auditors’ perceived business risk and the complexity of audit procedures. Our empirical findings indicate that major customer diversity is positively and significantly related to audit pricing, suggesting that auditors incorporate this dimension into their risk assessments and fee structures. Furthermore, we find that this effect is amplified when firms exhibit high dependence on major customers or operate with greater complexity. Additional analyses demonstrate that major customer diversity has broader implications for financial reporting outcomes, including shorter audit report lags, reduced discretionary accruals, a higher likelihood of financial restatements, and a decreased probability of receiving going-concern opinions. Moreover, firms with diversified major customers tend to hold less accounts receivables and finished goods and form greater investments in works-in-process and raw materials and customer-specific assets (e.g., property, plant, and equipment), indicating the leveling of liquidity and operational risks.
{"title":"Audit implications of major customer diversity","authors":"Xiao Chen , Narisa Tianjing Dai , Leo Jiahe Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100476","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100476","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study introduces a novel measure, major customer diversity, to capture the heterogeneity in firms’ major customer bases, and examines its implications for audit practices. While engaging with heterogeneous major customers may help firms stabilize revenues and mitigate overstocking costs, we argue that such diversification increases auditors’ perceived business risk and the complexity of audit procedures. Our empirical findings indicate that major customer diversity is positively and significantly related to audit pricing, suggesting that auditors incorporate this dimension into their risk assessments and fee structures. Furthermore, we find that this effect is amplified when firms exhibit high dependence on major customers or operate with greater complexity. Additional analyses demonstrate that major customer diversity has broader implications for financial reporting outcomes, including shorter audit report lags, reduced discretionary accruals, a higher likelihood of financial restatements, and a decreased probability of receiving going-concern opinions. Moreover, firms with diversified major customers tend to hold less accounts receivables and finished goods and form greater investments in works-in-process and raw materials and customer-specific assets (e.g., property, plant, and equipment), indicating the leveling of liquidity and operational risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100476"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144115940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-15DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100475
Hui Liang James , Pornsit Jiraporn , Hongxia Wang
We examine the impact of CEO tenure on corporate labor investment efficiency. While some studies show that CEO entrenchment increases in tenure (e.g., Hermalin and Weisbach, 1998), others argue that managerial expertise builds over time in the office (e.g., Graf-Vlachy et al., 2020). Using a large sample of U.S. firms from 1992 to 2018, we find that longer-tenured CEOs are associated with more efficient labor investment. This finding is robust to alternative measures of labor investment inefficiency, subsample analyses, and various model specifications. Further analysis shows that longer-tenured CEOs mitigate both under- and over-investment in labor problems characterized by under-hiring and under-firing, respectively. The positive effect of CEO tenure on labor investment efficiency is stronger in human capital-intensive firms and those with greater operational uncertainty. We conclude that advanced managerial expertise enables longer-tenured CEOs to invest in labor more accurately.
{"title":"CEO tenure and labor investment efficiency","authors":"Hui Liang James , Pornsit Jiraporn , Hongxia Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100475","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100475","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the impact of CEO tenure on corporate labor investment efficiency. While some studies show that CEO entrenchment increases in tenure (e.g., <span><span>Hermalin and Weisbach, 1998</span></span>), others argue that managerial expertise builds over time in the office (e.g., <span><span>Graf-Vlachy et al., 2020</span></span>). Using a large sample of U.S. firms from 1992 to 2018, we find that longer-tenured CEOs are associated with more efficient labor investment. This finding is robust to alternative measures of labor investment inefficiency, subsample analyses, and various model specifications. Further analysis shows that longer-tenured CEOs mitigate both under- and over-investment in labor problems characterized by under-hiring and under-firing, respectively. The positive effect of CEO tenure on labor investment efficiency is stronger in human capital-intensive firms and those with greater operational uncertainty. We conclude that advanced managerial expertise enables longer-tenured CEOs to invest in labor more accurately.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100475"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144107812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100474
Sabrina Gong , Heather A. Wier
We examine whether classification shifting affects measured cost stickiness. Our evidence is consistent with managers shifting SG&A costs into the restructuring charge category in instances where they are targeting “Street” earnings to meet or beat the analysts’ consensus forecast. Consequently, SG&A costs appear less sticky. We confirm that the decrease in observed cost stickiness for firms we identify as classification shifters is not due to increased operational efficiency and is incremental to spending cuts. We demonstrate that one-year ahead market share for firms that likely cut SG&A spending decreases significantly compared to the market share of firms that we identify as classification shifters. We present evidence that classification shifting via restructuring charges is concentrated in industries where SG&A spending creates high future value.
{"title":"An examination of the effect of classification shifting on the perception of cost stickiness","authors":"Sabrina Gong , Heather A. Wier","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100474","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100474","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine whether classification shifting affects measured cost stickiness. Our evidence is consistent with managers shifting SG&A costs into the restructuring charge category in instances where they are targeting “Street” earnings to meet or beat the analysts’ consensus forecast. Consequently, SG&A costs appear less sticky. We confirm that the decrease in observed cost stickiness for firms we identify as classification shifters is not due to increased operational efficiency and is incremental to spending cuts. We demonstrate that one-year ahead market share for firms that likely cut SG&A spending decreases significantly compared to the market share of firms that we identify as classification shifters. We present evidence that classification shifting via restructuring charges is concentrated in industries where SG&A spending creates high future value.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100474"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144071179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-26DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100472
Ahmed Bouteska , Taimur Sharif , Mohammad Zoynul Abedin
This paper investigates the influence of the anchoring effects on management earnings forecasting (MF) process among the US firms using the voluntary disclosures of MFs during the period 2015–2022. The results show evidence that the MFs’ valuation of the present period is influenced by the internal and external anchoring effects, reflected by firms’ previous earnings forecasts and the earnings forecasts from their industry counterparts, respectively. Furthermore, we highlight that stronger anchoring effects deteriorate the accuracy of the MF and improve the market reaction to the issued forecasts. Given these findings, we suggest that the informational content of the anchor heuristic in MF is affected in the stock prices. Overall, our study complement the behavioral finance literature and warn users about misleading or unreliable information for anchor heuristic in MF when it comes to make investment decisions.
The outcomes of this paper provide useful insights for practitioners, policymakers and to the regulatory authorities.
{"title":"Nexus between the anchoring effect and management earnings forecasts: An investigation of the listed firms in the US stock market","authors":"Ahmed Bouteska , Taimur Sharif , Mohammad Zoynul Abedin","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100472","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100472","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the influence of the anchoring effects on management earnings forecasting (MF) process among the US firms using the voluntary disclosures of MFs during the period 2015–2022. The results show evidence that the MFs’ valuation of the present period is influenced by the internal and external anchoring effects, reflected by firms’ previous earnings forecasts and the earnings forecasts from their industry counterparts, respectively. Furthermore, we highlight that stronger anchoring effects deteriorate the accuracy of the MF and improve the market reaction to the issued forecasts. Given these findings, we suggest that the informational content of the anchor heuristic in MF is affected in the stock prices. Overall, our study complement the behavioral finance literature and warn users about misleading or unreliable information for anchor heuristic in MF when it comes to make investment decisions.</div><div>The outcomes of this paper provide useful insights for practitioners, policymakers and to the regulatory authorities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100472"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143881846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100471
Lei Zhao
This paper investigates whether and how redacting value-relevant proprietary information from material agreements in initial public offerings (IPO) affects financial analysts’ weighting of private and public information. To the extent that redaction affects the firm information environment, I find that analysts place greater weight on private information for redacting IPO firms. This result prevails particularly among analysts who rely more on private information. Further evidence reveals that analysts’ increased reliance on private information stems from cognitive biases and incentives. Moreover, I ascertain that analysts’ heightened emphasis on private information increases idiosyncratic risk. These findings shed light on the role of firm information environment in analysts’ decision-making processes, which is of potential interest to regulators seeking to understand the consequences of redacting proprietary information in IPO filings.
{"title":"Redacted disclosure and analysts’ weighting of information","authors":"Lei Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100471","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100471","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates whether and how redacting value-relevant proprietary information from material agreements in initial public offerings (IPO) affects financial analysts’ weighting of private and public information. To the extent that redaction affects the firm information environment, I find that analysts place greater weight on private information for redacting IPO firms. This result prevails particularly among analysts who rely more on private information. Further evidence reveals that analysts’ increased reliance on private information stems from cognitive biases and incentives. Moreover, I ascertain that analysts’ heightened emphasis on private information increases idiosyncratic risk. These findings shed light on the role of firm information environment in analysts’ decision-making processes, which is of potential interest to regulators seeking to understand the consequences of redacting proprietary information in IPO filings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100471"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143895026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-23DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100473
Haiyan Jiang , Kun Su , Ahsan Habib
This paper examines the association between government subsidies and firm-level managerial slack for a sample of Chinese listed firms over the period 2005–2018. Managerial slack is the excess spending, compensation, and perquisites consumed by managers at the expense of shareholders’ wealth. Measuring managerial slack as the abnormal administrative expenses following Fang, He, and Conyon (2018) and Fang, He, and Shaw (2018), we find that government subsidies are positively associated with firms’ managerial slack. This positive association, however, is attenuated for firms with strong internal control and firms headquartered in regions with a high level of social trust. Further analysis demonstrates that the positive association is driven by firms receiving non-tax-related government subsidies. Our main result remains robust after addressing endogeneity concerns. Finally, we show that the stock market penalizes subsidy-receiving firms with high managerial slack.
本文以2005-2018年中国上市公司为样本,研究了政府补贴与公司层面管理懈怠之间的关系。管理懈怠是指管理者以牺牲股东财富为代价而消耗的超额支出、薪酬和额外福利。继Fang, He, and Conyon(2018)和Fang, He, and Shaw(2018)之后,我们将管理松弛作为异常管理费用来衡量,发现政府补贴与企业管理松弛呈正相关。然而,对于具有强大内部控制的公司和总部位于社会信任度高的地区的公司,这种积极联系减弱了。进一步分析表明,这种正向关联是由企业获得与税收无关的政府补贴所驱动的。在解决内生性问题后,我们的主要结果仍然强劲。最后,我们证明了股票市场对高管理松弛度的接受补贴的公司进行了惩罚。
{"title":"Government subsidies and managerial slack: Evidence from China","authors":"Haiyan Jiang , Kun Su , Ahsan Habib","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100473","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100473","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the association between government subsidies and firm-level managerial slack for a sample of Chinese listed firms over the period 2005–2018. Managerial slack is the excess spending, compensation, and perquisites consumed by managers at the expense of shareholders’ wealth. Measuring managerial slack as the abnormal administrative expenses following Fang, He, and Conyon (2018) and Fang, He, and Shaw (2018), we find that government subsidies are positively associated with firms’ managerial slack. This positive association, however, is attenuated for firms with strong internal control and firms headquartered in regions with a high level of social trust. Further analysis demonstrates that the positive association is driven by firms receiving non-tax-related government subsidies. Our main result remains robust after addressing endogeneity concerns. Finally, we show that the stock market penalizes subsidy-receiving firms with high managerial slack.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100473"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143877061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-19DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100470
Jingxin Hu , Bin Liu , Tao Li , Lihua Yuan
This paper investigates the impact of fiscal stress on the corporate structure of affiliates. When facing a high fiscal deficit, governments may prompt firms to set up subsidiaries rather than branches as subsidiaries pay more taxes locally. Consistent with the prediction, we find that fiscal stress is positively associated with firms’ tendency to establish subsidiaries, and that the relationship is weaker in cities with higher GDP or higher administrative hierarchy. We also show that firms’ incentives to obtain cheap land and public subsidies induce their cooperative behavior. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that non-SOE firms and those with higher growth potential are more likely to align with deficit-facing governments’ preferences. Overall, our findings suggest that governments play an important role in shaping firms’ organizational choice.
{"title":"Government fiscal stress and firms’ choice of affiliates","authors":"Jingxin Hu , Bin Liu , Tao Li , Lihua Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100470","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100470","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the impact of fiscal stress on the corporate structure of affiliates. When facing a high fiscal deficit, governments may prompt firms to set up subsidiaries rather than branches as subsidiaries pay more taxes locally. Consistent with the prediction, we find that fiscal stress is positively associated with firms’ tendency to establish subsidiaries, and that the relationship is weaker in cities with higher GDP or higher administrative hierarchy. We also show that firms’ incentives to obtain cheap land and public subsidies induce their cooperative behavior. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that non-SOE firms and those with higher growth potential are more likely to align with deficit-facing governments’ preferences. Overall, our findings suggest that governments play an important role in shaping firms’ organizational choice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100470"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143867745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100468
Yongliang Yang , Jitao Zhang , Changting Song , Yingying Wu , Bingbing Zhang
We investigate the effect of environmental information disclosure on the information content of stock prices using data from Chinese-listed companies from 2008 to 2020. We find the following: (1) Environmental information disclosure can increase the information content of future cash flows in stock prices. This effect is long-term, not short-term. (2) This effect is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, firms with higher institutional ownership and lower management ownership. Voluntary and soft disclosures have a significant effect on stock price informativeness. (3) Environmental information disclosure helps management obtain more investment information from stock prices and promotes the real investment efficiency of enterprises. This research is of great significance for the correct understanding of corporate ESG practices and improvements to the efficiency of capital market allocation.
{"title":"Does environmental information disclosure make financial markets more informative? Evidence from China","authors":"Yongliang Yang , Jitao Zhang , Changting Song , Yingying Wu , Bingbing Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100468","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100468","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the effect of environmental information disclosure on the information content of stock prices using data from Chinese-listed companies from 2008 to 2020. We find the following: (1) Environmental information disclosure can increase the information content of future cash flows in stock prices. This effect is long-term, not short-term. (2) This effect is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, firms with higher institutional ownership and lower management ownership. Voluntary and soft disclosures have a significant effect on stock price informativeness. (3) Environmental information disclosure helps management obtain more investment information from stock prices and promotes the real investment efficiency of enterprises. This research is of great significance for the correct understanding of corporate ESG practices and improvements to the efficiency of capital market allocation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100468"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143815076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100469
Liyi Zhu , Qian Sun , Wenyu Zhang , Jian Sun , Lidong Zheng
In this study, we examine the efficacy of the China Securities Investor Services Center (CSISC), an advanced minority shareholder safeguard mechanism endorsed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CRSC), in promoting the quality of information disclosure. By utilizing a difference-in-differences analysis on the sample of Chinese listed companies, we find that CSISC shareholding improves the readability of annual reports. Additional analyses reveals that the impact of CSISC shareholding on the readability of annual reports is more pronounced with weaker internal and external governance supervision, poorer operational performance, stronger competitive intensity and senior management without a legal background. Our study contributes to the research related to the economic consequences of the CSISC exercise at the micro-enterprise level and the determinant of annual report readability. Furthermore, our findings hold significant implications for regulatory authorities aiming to enhance the investor protection system.
{"title":"Supervision of not-for-profit minority institutional shareholder and annual report readability: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment☆","authors":"Liyi Zhu , Qian Sun , Wenyu Zhang , Jian Sun , Lidong Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100469","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100469","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this study, we examine the efficacy of the China Securities Investor Services Center (CSISC), an advanced minority shareholder safeguard mechanism endorsed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CRSC), in promoting the quality of information disclosure. By utilizing a difference-in-differences analysis on the sample of Chinese listed companies, we find that CSISC shareholding improves the readability of annual reports. Additional analyses reveals that the impact of CSISC shareholding on the readability of annual reports is more pronounced with weaker internal and external governance supervision, poorer operational performance, stronger competitive intensity and senior management without a legal background. Our study contributes to the research related to the economic consequences of the CSISC exercise at the micro-enterprise level and the determinant of annual report readability. Furthermore, our findings hold significant implications for regulatory authorities aiming to enhance the investor protection system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 2","pages":"Article 100469"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143777645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}