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Microwave curing (MC) can facilitate rapid concrete repair in cold climates without using conventional accelerated curing technologies which are environmentally unsustainable. Accelerated curing of concrete under MC can contribute to the decarbonisation of the environment and provide economies in construction in several ways such as reducing construction time, energy efficiency, lower cement content, lower carbonation risk and reducing emissions from equipment.

The paper investigates moisture loss and pore properties of six cement-based proprietary concrete repair materials subjected to MC. The impact of MC on these properties is critically important for its successful implementation in practice and current literature lacks this information. Specimens were microwave cured for 40–45 min to surface temperatures between 39.9 and 44.1 °C. The fast-setting repair material was microwave cured for 15 min to 40.7 °C. MC causes a higher water loss which shows the importance of preventing drying during MC and the following 24 h.

Portland cement-based normal density repair mortars, including materials incorporating pfa and polymer latex, benefit from the thermal effect of MC on hydration, resulting in up to 24% reduction in porosity relative to normal curing. Low density and flowing repair materials suffer an increase in porosity up to 16% due to MC. The moisture loss at the end of MC and after 24h is related to the mix water content and porosity, respectively.

The research on the application of MC for rapid repair of concrete is original. The research was funded by the European commission following a very rigorous and competitive review process which ensured its originality. Original data on the parameters of porosity and moisture loss under MC are provided for different generic cementitious repair materials which have not been studied before. Application of MC to concrete construction especially in cold climates will provide environmental, economic and energy benefits.

The primary objective of this study is to unveil the relationships that interconnect ESG and three pillars disclosures with technological innovation while also investigating the moderating impact of product market competition. The paper seeks to identify the underlying mechanisms that facilitate technological innovation in sustainable management.

Using data from 8,738 Chinese firms from 2011 to 2019, this study employs quantitative analysis to examine the relationship between ESG disclosure and technological innovation and the moderating effect. Moreover, this study explores the heterogeneous impacts while considering factors such as property rights and firm size.

The findings reveal a positive correlation between ESG disclosure and technological innovation. The study also investigates the moderating role of product market competition and finds that increasing competition mitigates the positive effects of ESG disclosure on technological innovation. Additionally, the conclusions reveal that the relationship between ESG and three pillars disclosures and technological innovation, as well as the moderating role of product market competition, exhibits inconsistency across firms with different property rights and sizes.

This study offers a clear understanding of the relationship between ESG disclosures and technological innovation, and how it varies across businesses of different sizes and ownership structures. It also provides fresh perspectives on the influence of product market competition on this relationship, with implications for strategy development in corporations.

This research investigates whether focal firms employ strategic supply chain information disclosure, focusing on the concealment of supplier and customer identities, as part of their supply chain environmental risk management strategies (supplier sustainability risk and customer loss risk, respectively).

Using a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and utilizing the suppliers’ environmental punishment of peer firms (peer events) as an exogenous shock and employing ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, this study conducts a regression analysis to test how focal firms disclose the identities of their suppliers and customers.

Our results indicate that focal firms prefer to hide the identities of their suppliers and customers following the environmental punishment of peer firms’ suppliers. In addition, supplier concentration weakens the effect of withholding supplier identities, whereas customer concentration strengthens the effect of hiding customer identities. Mechanism analysis shows that firms hide supplier identities to avoid their reputation being affected and hide customer identities to prevent the deterioration of customers’ reputations and thus impact their market share.

Our study reveals that reputation spillover is another crucial factor in supply chain transparency. It is also pioneering in applying the anonymity theory to explain focal firms’ information disclosure strategy in supply chains.

This study aims at proposing and testing a model delineating how and when the quality of a special B2B professional service, investment relations (IR), would drive corporate intangible value.

This study employs a proprietary dataset on voting records of an annual investment relations (IR) awards event and the corresponding company-level archival data for analysis. Regression analysis is used to test hypotheses.

IR service quality not only directly enhances corporate intangible value, but also indirectly boosts it via information transparency. While competitive intensity does not moderate the relationship between IR service quality and corporate intangible value, its moderating effect on the relationship between information transparency and this value is negative.

The findings advance academic understanding of the mechanism and boundary conditions underlying the complex and dynamic relationships among IR service quality, information transparency, corporate intangible value and competitive intensity. Future research endeavors to verify the present findings in other service and/or geographic settings would help establish their external validity.

The findings advise companies to expand the traditional role of IR by taking it as a powerful communication and relationship marketing tool to improve their visibility and attract investors.

The findings suggest that superior IR service would strengthen the company’s social bonding with institutional investors and effectively signal to them its commitment to good corporate governance practices.

Matching a proprietary dataset on IR voting records with the corresponding company-level archival data over a five-year period to investigate the performance implications of IR service quality within the Hong Kong context rectifies methodological limitation and geographic confinement of prior IR research.

This study examines whether a firm’s management earnings forecasts affect its technical innovation activities. Our study also examines whether the cost of debt plays a mediating role between the management earnings forecasts and the innovation nexus.

We obtained data from 1,032 Chinese non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2005 to 2022 (i.e. 18,576 firm-year observations). We used various econometrics techniques, such as Heckman’s (1979) two-stage selection method and two-stage least square, to examine the relationship between management earnings forecasts and the firm’s technical innovation activities.

We find a positive relationship between management earnings forecasts and the firms' technical innovation. We also find that the cost of debt mediates the relationship between management earnings forecast and technical innovation. Further analysis indicates that frequent earnings forecasts provide incremental information regarding a firm’s future value and cash flows, thus reducing the volatility and uncertainty in cash flow calculations. Our findings are robust to several tests.

Our study has implications for policymakers, practitioners and high-level management of Chinese firms, enabling them to understand the relationship between management earnings forecasts and firms' innovation activities.

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

This study seeks to explore the intricate relationship among supply chain transparency, digitalization and idiosyncratic risk, with a specific focus on newly public firms. The objective is to determine whether supply chain transparency effectively mitigates idiosyncratic risk within this context and to understand the potential impact of digitalization on this dynamic interplay.

The study utilizes data from Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) on China’s Growth Enterprise Board (ChiNext) over the last five years, sourced from the CSMAR database and firms’ annual reports. The research covers the period from 2009 to 2021, observing each firm for five years post-IPO. The final sample comprises 2,645 observations from 529 firms. The analysis employs the Hausman test, considering the panel-data structure of the sample and favoring fixed effects over random effects. Additionally, it applies the high-dimensional fixed effects (HDFE) estimator to address unobserved heterogeneity.

The analysis initially uncovered an inverted U-shaped relationship between supply chain transparency and idiosyncratic risk, indicating a delicate equilibrium where detrimental effects diminish and beneficial effects accelerate with increased transparency. Moreover, this inverted U-shaped relationship was notably more pronounced in newly public firms with a heightened level of firm digitalization. This observation implies that firm digitalization amplifies the impact of transparency on a firm’s idiosyncratic risk.

This study distinguishes itself by providing distinctive insights into supply chain transparency and idiosyncratic risk. Initially, we introduce and substantiate an inverted U-shaped correlation between supply chain transparency and idiosyncratic risk, challenging the conventional linear perspective. Secondly, we pioneer the connection between supply chain transparency and idiosyncratic risk, especially for newly public firms, thereby enhancing comprehension of financial implications. Lastly, we pinpoint crucial digital conditions that influence the relationship between supply chain transparency and idiosyncratic risk management, offering a nuanced perspective on the role of technology in risk management.

The study examines whether affective organizational commitment and its drivers differ between Polish female and male employees.

Our proprietary data are from ongoing surveys conducted by a major Polish HR consulting firm. The nationwide survey of nearly 3,000 Polish workers in 2020 constitutes the data set in this analysis. Regression analysis is applied to analyze the relationship between organizational commitment, gender and other variables.

The study provides support for the job model, that is, women and men have similar levels of commitment once all other factors are controlled. Although the results show that, ceteris paribus, the organizational commitment of women is statistically significantly higher than that of men, the effect size is trivial in practical terms. The study also discloses the fact that the determinants of organizational commitment of men and women are similar, thus refuting a commonly held notion about gendered job attribute preferences. Support for gender as a moderator between organizational commitment and its antecedents is not found. COVID-19-related work adjustments do not seem to have affected the commitment of Polish male and female workers to their employers.

The study adds to the scarce empirical literature on organizational commitment in Poland. To date, only a small number of such studies exist for Poland, and all of them use small homogeneous samples and limited questionnaires. The results are of value to researchers as well as HR managers seeking to improve long-term commitment to organizations.

We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific aspects of board structure and processes. We deploy insights from the behavioral governance perspective to develop arguments about how family businesses may choose board elements based on their degree of control over the firm (absolute control or less), and its effect on firm performance.

We use an unbalanced data panel of 404 firm-year observations. The data was obtained from the annual financial and corporate governance reports of 62 Colombian stock-issuing firms for the period 2008–2014 – due to change in regulation, data could not be added beyond 2014. Panel data technique with random effects was used.

The results show that board structure is positively associated with financial performance, however, this relationship is negative in businesses where family has absolute control. We also found that there is a negative association between board processes and performance, but positive association in family-controlled businesses.

Our research contributes to research streams on effects of family control in firm choices and on the interactive effect of governance choices and institutional context and more generally how actors interact (rather than react) with their institutional context.

This study examines the impact of China’s mixed-ownership reform on the innovation of non-state-owned acquirers, with a particular focus on the impact on firms with high financing constraints, low-quality accounting information or less tangible assets.

We use a proprietary dataset of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges to investigate the impact of mixed ownership reform on non-state-owned enterprise (non-SOE) innovation. We employ regression analysis to examine the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation.

The study finds that non-state-owned firms can improve innovation by acquiring equity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the reform. Eased financing constraints, lowered financing costs, better access to tax incentives or government subsidies, lowered agency costs, better accounting information quality and more credit loans are underlying the impact. Additionally, cross-ownership connections amongst non-SOE executives and government intervention strengthen the impact, whilst regional marketisation weakens it.

This study adds to the literature on the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation by focussing on the conditions under which this impact is stronger. It also sheds light on the policy implications for SOE reforms in emerging economies.