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This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

True to form, it is no surprise that ‘public interest entity’ (which, by EC requirement, must include all listed companies but other entities only at the discretion of individual member states) has been defined in the United Kingdom in the minimal permissible way – it excludes large privately held companies, mutuals, large professional partnerships and so on – about all of which the public has a real interest – as the current financial crisis has clearly shown. Think, for instance, of the need to widen choice in the audit market.

This chapter analyzes and discusses the empirical results of the study. The discussion is organized under the following themes: independent director, audit committee, auditor independence, corporate code of conduct, adoption of IFRS, and measures for improvement. Three main findings emerge from the analysis. First, the current institutional environment does not yet fully support the Anglo-American practices. Second, in recent years the quality of financial reporting has improved considerably, which is largely attributable to strengthened accounting rules and regulations. However, the imported Anglo-American models of corporate governance and financial reporting, except for enhancing auditor independence, have had only a minor impact on financial reporting quality. Third, although the imported practices are not working as intended, the vast majority of interviewees stated that it was appropriate to move toward internationally acceptable principles and standards. Improving laws and regulations seems to be the main measure for rendering the institutional environment in China more supportive of Anglo-American models of corporate governance and financial reporting.

Prior research finds evidence that audit quality is positively associated with the joint purchase of tax nonaudit services (NAS) and concludes that jointly provided tax services result in audit-related knowledge spillovers that lead to improved audit quality. We extend this line of research. We examine the relation between auditor-provided tax services and restatements and determine whether this relation differs when the auditor is a small or large accounting firm. We also examine whether the Securities Exchange Commission’s restrictions on certain tax consulting practices (SEC, 2006) altered this relation. Specifically, we measure whether the probability of financial statement restatements varies with (1) variation in accounting firm size (measured as PCAOB annually inspected firms versus PCAOB triennially inspected firms), and (2) the joint provision of audit and tax services. We find a negative relation between auditor-provided tax services and restatements which is consistent with prior research. We also find that this relation is significantly more negative when the auditor is a small accounting firm. Finally, we find that the lower probability of a restatement associated with the joint provision of audit and tax services persists regardless of auditor size after the SEC-imposed restrictions on certain tax consulting services in 2006. Our study provides evidence that accounting firms, and particularly small accounting firms, benefit from knowledge spillovers when jointly providing audit and tax services and these benefits lead to improved audit quality. Prior research concludes that large auditors provide higher audit quality and that the provision of tax services improves audit quality. Our results provide evidence that audit quality improvements are greater for small auditors and their clients. This improvement narrows that audit quality gap between large and small auditors. We do not find evidence that the SEC’s restrictions on certain tax consulting services altered the relation between audit quality and tax services.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of corporate governance (focused on some key mechanisms as board size, board independence, managerial ownership, institutional ownership, and chief executive officer duality) on financial analysts’ behavior in US. Results from panel data analysis for 294 US listed firms observed from 2007 to 2014 show that several attributes of the board of directors and audit committee have no effects on the number of analysts who are following the firm and the properties of analysts’ earnings forecasts. Findings also suggest that firms with independent and large boards and blockholders ownership benefit of more analyst following. In addition, it is proven that analysts’ earnings forecasts are optimistic and more accurate for companies where blockholder ownership, either by managers or external entities have larger quoted spreads but of lower quality for the ones which have greater independent board members and institutional investor’s holding.

This paper extends Demsetz and Lehn’s (1985) results and studies the determinants of corporate ownership concentration across countries in light of Qu’s (2004) model using a newly constructed dataset of 1,070 publicly traded stock companies from 45 countries. Estimation results show that ownership concentration varies systematically with respect to certain firm-specific economic variables and country characteristics in ways that are consistent with value maximization and predictions of agency theory. After controlling for firm-level determinants such as size, auditing practice, return rate, etc., ownership concentration is significantly lower in countries with more developed stock market and more effective investor protection.

Purpose – The chapter tests the effects of capitalisation on market structure within the context of Nigerian banking sector reform.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter is based on data collected through secondary sources, mainly from financial statements of banks audited by the CBN. The time period under review is 2001–2009, encompasses the 18 months transitional window and a trajectory of 3 years before the consolidation announcement. Quantitative methods were used to analyse available data.

Findings – The result confirms that banking consolidation led to an increase in the size of the top end of Nigerian banks.

Originality/value – This is the first study that tests the effects of capitalisation on market structure of the Nigerian banking sector.

The research aims to empirically investigate the determinants of the breadth of the corporate social disclosure (CSD).

The study adopts a multi-perspective approach, referring to different theoretical frameworks on CSD, such as the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory, the agency model, the asymmetric information theory, and the institutional perspective.

The empirical research is based on the sustainability reports of 80 companies in which investments were made by European socially responsible funds (SRFs) listed on the Morningstar platform during the years 2009–2008.

The theoretical hypotheses are tested by a univariate and multivariate analysis.

The breadth of the CSD depends on multiple factors, both external and internal, such as the country of origin, the industry reputation, the firm size, the frequency of the SRFs participation, the corporate social performance.

Limits inherent in this type of research are the comparability of the CSR reports and the systematization of the categories of content to be analyzed.

The chapter identifies several factors that lead to a greater completeness of the CSD, exploiting the capacity of the social reporting to trigger benefits for the firms such as a stronger social legitimacy and the reduction of asymmetric information.

The research supports the investigation of the levers of CSD to meet the demand for a broader accountability.

The reference to firms in which SRFs participated allows to focus on companies ascertained as socially responsible in accordance with a “certification function” of these funds. Findings support an approach which is not one-sided, thus enabling to look at the determinants of the CSD through different theoretical perspectives.