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This paper aims to investigate whether a powerful chief executive officer (CEO) impacts corporate risk taking in the distinctive institutional and market setting of China? Second, in case such relationship exists, the paper further aims to investigate whether the presence of large shareholders affects it, and finally, whether this effect of large shareholders varies in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs).

The authors have used a sample of 1,502 Chinese firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Sample period is 2008-2013. Besides conventional fixed-effect regression, dynamic panel data estimation (generalized method of moments) is applied to address the potential endogeneity.

The results show that CEO power is negatively related with corporate risk taking in two risk proxies, i.e. total risk and idiosyncratic risk. Second, the presence of large shareholders significantly affects this relationship, but does not change the primary negative relationship between CEO power and corporate risk taking. Finally, the results show that the relationship between CEO power and corporate risk taking is different in SOEs and NSOEs. The findings of this paper contend the organizational and behavioral theory viewpoint that individual decisions are more extreme.

This study provides useful implication for policymakers and suggests that while evaluating CEO’s performance, institutional and market settings should be considered.

This study provides new insights on the impact of CEO power on corporate risk taking under the two distinctive features in a developing country, i.e. presence of large shareholders and state-owned enterprises.

This study aim to examine the themes of moral disengagement (MD) and engagement in reasoning regarding a putative governmental right to kill innocent civilians when fighting terrorism.

In total, 147 participants from Israel, 101 from the USA and 80 from South Africa provided quantitative rating scale responses and qualitative explanations about such a putative right. Qualitative responses were coded for presence or absence of indices of MD and engagement.

In ANOVAs by gender and country, men scored higher than women on rating scale scores indicating support for the right; there were no significant national differences on these scores. Chi-square analyses with the coded qualitative responses indicated more men than women gave morally disengaged responses, proportionately more South Africans than Israelis provided morally disengaged responses and proportionately more South Africans and Americans than Israelis provided morally engaged responses. Pearson correlation analyses indicated that MD was positively correlated with rating scale scores and moral engagement was negatively related to rating scale scores in all three countries.

Regarding limitations, it is difficult to know how the omission of qualitative explanations of rating scale responses by many participants influenced the statistical findings – or how to interpret the more restricted level of qualitative responses in Israel and South Africa as compared to the USA.

Programs designed to counteract MD have the potential for helping reduce support for war and its inhumanities across diverse nations.

This is the first study on MD to compare American, Israeli and South African perspectives on the justifiability of human rights violations in the war on terror. The findings go beyond earlier studies in finding gender differences in MD that occurred across three very different nations in three very different parts of the world.

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between fear of terrorism and several predictors (gender and nationality) and outcomes (moral disengagement, authoritarianism, aggression and social anxiety) in the USA and South Korean young adults. Of particular interest were the potential moderating and mediating roles of moral disengagement between fear of terrorism and the other outcomes.

Samples of 251 college students from the USA and 211 college students from South Korea completed survey packets including measures of fear of terrorism, moral disengagement, authoritarianism, aggression and social anxiety.

US participants expressed greater concern about a terrorist threat to their country, while South Koreans worried more about terrorist threats to their family or themselves. Females in both countries reported greater fear of terrorism and social anxiety. In both countries, fear of terrorism was associated with aggression, social anxiety and moral disengagement. Mediation analyses showed that fear of terrorism exerted a significant direct effect and an indirect effect via moral disengagement on aggression and authoritarianism in the US sample. Moderation analyses revealed that moral disengagement moderated the relationship between fear of terrorism and social anxiety in the Korean sample.

This study has the common limitations of cross-sectional studies; i.e. it cannot prove causal relationships.

The findings support Albert Bandura’s view that efforts to address the excesses of counterterrorism and other negative outcomes of fear of terrorism, attending to issues of moral disengagement may be helpful.

The authors findings provide support for the view that fear of terrorism is associated with negative psychological and social outcomes and that moral disengagement can play an important role in those negative outcomes. Moreover, it adds to evidence that the negative role of moral disengagement shows considerable generalizability across gender and two very different cultures.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of a student teaching internship program on the self-efficacy of pre-service teachers in China.

With 1,367 participants, structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the fit of the hypothetical model and a latent path analysis was conducted to identify the relationship among various variables.

The results suggested that the program had a significant impact on efficacy in terms of personal skills, general teaching skills and personal qualities of the student interns concerned. Although this study was set in rural China, the findings of this study offered insights for teacher education in other places.

To the best of our knowledge, no research studies have been conducted on this in-service teacher training program in a systematic and comprehensive way using a large sample size and involving all major stakeholders. The aim of the present study is to fill this gap, by exploring the experience of a large cohort of pre-service teachers participating in this student teaching internship program. Studying the experiences of these student teachers will illuminate some of the key challenges faced and how they impacted their teaching and learning during their teaching practices in rural areas. The findings may help teacher education institutions to review and enhance their existing approaches to teaching practices and professional development initiatives not only in rural China but in similar contexts in other countries.

This study aims to investigate how the presence of female CEOs (FCEOs) affects investment efficiency in emerging economy, where female participation in business activities is limited.

This paper investigates the impact of CEO gender on investment efficiency by using investment efficiency measures proposed by Biddle et al. (2009), Chen et al. (2011) and Chen et al. (2013).

The findings suggest that FCEOs are associated with high level of investment efficiency. FCEOs improve corporate governance, streamline management and reduce inefficient investment decisions. In addition, FCEOs focus more on curbing underinvestment than overinvestment when making investment decisions. Furthermore, high financial reporting quality (FRQ) strengthens the effect of FCEOs on investment efficiency. The results suggest that FCEOs do not ameliorate the investment efficiency of state-owned enterprises.

This study enhances our understanding of the effects of FCEOs on corporate investment decisions in a male-dominated society. Efficient use of resources is vital from corporate and societal perspectives. Emerging economies are characterized by the unstable political and economic environment and low participation of females in decision-making. Hence, these economies require efficient utilization of resources. This study also sheds light on the role of FCEOs in curtailing underinvestment in emerging economies. It proves that FRQ is important in emerging economies because it strengthens the governance role of FCEOs.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of sources of information on trading behavior by analyzing the influence of investor personality in Chinese futures market.

The authors adopted the Big Five personality framework and examined the survey results of individual investors (n = 333) in Chinese futures market. Personality traits of futures investors were measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1989) which is a shortened version of revised NEO personality inventory of the Big Five model (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the fitness of model. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the moderating influence of investor personality traits on the association between source of information and trading behavior.

The results confirm the previous findings that the sources of information used by investors as a foundation of their financial choices have a significant impact on trading frequency. The authors also provide an empirical evidence that investor personality traits moderate the relationship between sources of information and trading behavior. Financial advice from professionals is likely to increase trading frequency in investors with neuroticism and openness personality traits, and to reduce trading frequency in conscientious and extravert investors. Similarly, financial information acquired via word-of-mouth communication results in more trading in extravert and agreeable investors. Finally, information acquisition from specialized press causes more adjustment of conscientious investors’ portfolios. Theoretical explanations, implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

This study combines information search and behavioral finance literature to demonstrate that the impact of various sources of market information on asset allocation decisions is influenced by investor personality. No previous study has been conducted yet to explain variations in the impact of sources of information on trading behavior by the Big Five personality traits and this paper seeks to fill this gap in Chinese futures market.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the key sources of information, namely, financial advice, word-of-mouth communication and specialized press, on trading behavior of Chinese stock investors. The study also analyzed if the association between the key sources of information and trading behavior is influenced by investor personality.

The authors adopted the Big Five personality framework and examined the survey results of individual stock investors (n=541) in China. Personality traits of investors were measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1989). The authors performed probit regression analysis to evaluate the moderating influence of investor personality traits on the association between sources of information and stock trading behavior.

The results of the study confirm the previous findings that the key sources of information used by investors as a foundation of their financial choices have a significant influence on their trading behavior. The study also provides empirical evidence that investor personality traits moderate the relationship between the key sources of information and trading behavior. Financial advisors tend to increase the frequency of trading in investors with openness, extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness personality traits, and tend to decrease the intensity of trading in investors with conscientiousness trait. On the other hand, financial information acquired from word-of-mouth communication is more likely to enhance trading frequency in extraverted and agreeable investors, and is more likely to reduce trading frequency in investors with openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism traits. Finally, the use of specialized press leads to more adjustment in portfolios of the investors with openness and conscientiousness traits than those with other personality traits. An alternative mediated model was not supported.

This research contributes to information search literature and behavioral finance literature and provides empirical evidence that the psychological characteristics of investors are significant predictors of the variations in information-trading link. The study offers new theoretical insights of investors’ behavior due to the characteristics of Chinese stock market which are unique from other stock markets in the world. To the authors’ best knowledge, no previous study has been conducted so far in Chinese stock market to explore variations with regards to the impact of the key sources of information on trading behavior by the Big Five investor personality and this paper seeks to fill this gap.

This study aims to examine the impact of board gender diversity on the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the Arab Gulf states. Also, this research further aims to explore whether the impact of board gender diversity varies across the Arab Gulf states.

Ordinary least squares regression is used in this study to test the impact of board gender diversity on the level of CSR disclosure. Manual content analysis is used to evaluate the extent of CSR disclosure in annual reports, stand-alone CSR reports, sustainability reports and website sections to examine the relationship between the extent of CSR reporting and board gender diversity. This study uses the global reporting initiative (GRI) fourth version reporting guidelines to design and define the classifications of CSR reporting checklist.

The findings show that there is a statistically significant relationship between the number of female directors and the level of CSR disclosure. The results show that board gender diversity is positively associated with the level of CSR reporting in two countries, namely, Bahrain and Kuwait. Also, the findings reveal that there is a weak positive relationship between the presence of women on the boards and CSR reporting index in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

This study attempts to fill the gap in the literature, in that no similar study covers the Arab Gulf countries as one economic unit. The study is unique in that it focuses on oil-rich countries. This study is, to the best of this researcher’s knowledge, the first to explore the impact of women’s boards on the extent of CSR reporting, as well as investigating the possible variation of board gender diversity impact on the extent of CSR reporting in the Arabian Gulf region.

The purpose of this paper was first to find out whether the negative relationship between board size and future firm risk persists in China while contemplating all sorts of endogeneity. Second, the authors have investigated the role of large shareholders in influencing the managerial decisions concerning future firm risk via board size. Finally, the authors examined whether the moderating role of large shareholders is any different in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs) in China.

The sample included all the A-listed firms listed on the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stock exchanges over a sample period from 2008 to 2013. The authors used fixed effects regression and the generalized method of moments (GMM) to test the three hypotheses.

The authors found that board size is negatively associated with future firm risk when measured as volatility in future stock prices and future cash flows. Second, large shareholders directly influence managerial decisions about future firm risk, irrespective of board size. Third, the moderating role of ownership concentration is insignificant in both SOEs and NSOEs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which has analyzed the role of large shareholders in the relationship between board size and future firm risk. This study provides valuable insights, particularly in the context of a developing country, into the role played by large shareholders in influencing managerial decisions concerning future firm risk.

In the last few decades, there has been growing interest in forecasting with computer intelligence, and both fuzzy time series (FTS) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) have gained particular popularity, among others. Rather than the conventional methods (e.g., econometrics), FTS and ANN are usually thought to be immune to fundamental concepts such as stationarity, theoretical causality, post-sample control, among others. On the other hand, a number of studies significantly indicated that these fundamental controls are required in terms of the theory of forecasting, and even application of such essential procedures substantially improves the forecasting accuracy. The aim of this paper is to fill the existing gap on modeling and forecasting in the FTS and ANN methods and figure out the fundamental concepts in a comprehensive work through merits and common failures in the literature. In addition to these merits, this paper may also be a guideline for eliminating unethical empirical settings in the forecasting studies.