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Building on resource dependence theory and the dynamic institution-based view, this paper examines the influence of government affiliations on firm product innovation in a dynamic institutional environment.

Using unique panel data of Chinese manufacturing firms covering a period of 12 years (1998–2009) with 2,564,547 firm-year observations, this study chooses the panel Tobit model with random effects to explore the influence of government affiliations on firm product innovation, followed by an analysis to test the moderation effects of dynamic institutional environments.

The study findings suggest that Chinese firms with higher-level government affiliations have a relatively high product innovation performance. It finds that this innovation stimulating effect is contingent on the dynamic nature of the institutional environment. To be specific, a high speed of institutional transition may depress the positive innovation effects of government affiliations, while a more synchronized transition speed of institutional components may enhance the positive innovation effects of firms' government affiliations.

This study adds to a better understanding of the drivers of product innovation in Chinese firms that are situated in environments that are characterized by institutional change, using and contributing to resource dependence theory and the dynamic institution-based view.

This paper investigates to what extent public sector entities (PSEs) in developing countries (DCs) are compliant with IPSAS and examines the impact of the socioeconomic and politico-administrative environment on this compliance during the period 2015–2018.

This research develops a self-constructed checklist consisting of 116 disclosure items from five accrual-based IPSAS (IPSASs, 1, 2, 3, 14 and 24) and applies panel regressions for a sample of 500 entity-year observations of 125 PSEs.

The study results show a high level of disparity in the degree of compliance with IPSAS amongst DCs' governments, with an overall average level of 61%. They reveal that compliance with IPSAS is positively influenced by the level of citizen wealth, government political culture (degree of government openness) and the quality of public administration, whereas jurisdiction size, government financial condition and political competition are non-significant factors.

This research provides researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive framework for understanding the extent of New Public Management reforms in DCs with a focus on International Public Sector Accounting Standards implementation. It might assist policymakers in their accounting strategies and might be a signal for DCs with low compliance to tap lessons from governments with successful experience of IPSAS adoption.

Focusing on DCs' context, this paper brings new insights into the analysis of socioeconomic and politico-administrative incentives for government compliance with IPSAS. It is the first to investigate the impact of citizen wealth and political competition on IPSAS disclosures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corruption level in steering the business–government relations (BGRs) in developing countries. It also examines the moderating effect of firm size.

Using robust tobit and probit models, this study tests the response behavior of 9787 firms from 23 African countries to their government's policy and regulations and the direct effect of corruption control level in their response decisions. The authors also perform several other additional analyses to ensure the robustness of the findings, including change analysis, two-stage model and recursive bivariate model.

The result shows that corruption level is among the significant factors that drive BGRs exponentially. The finding points out that, there is a strong alliance of business and government in more corrupt countries. Moreover, the impact of corruption level exacerbates when the firm is bigger.

Managers should focus more on activities that create long-term sustainable advantage. Valuable time of the senior managers should not waste on negotiating government policies to earn a short term advantages.

It is evident that legal and transparent government alliances can lead to economic rent for firms. However, it is important to note that any alliance based on corruption and illegality is short-lived and ultimately detrimental to long-term prosperity. Therefore, it is crucial for firms to prioritize ethical business practices and build relationships with governments that prioritize transparency and accountability.

Given the detrimental impact of corruption on economic progress, it is crucial for Africa policy-makers to prioritize reforms aimed at reducing its adverse effect. By implementing ethical and transparent business practices, countries can attract more investment and promote economic growth.

This study contributes to the existing literature on the passive form of political connectivity/activity and to what extend corruption level affect the political activities of firms.

The impact of fiscal decentralization on equalization between regions has received significant attention but there has been much less research of the impact of decentralization on equalization within regions. Theory suggests that the tradeoff between local fiscal autonomy and equalization ought to be most pronounced at the sub-region level where rural-urban disparities in the level of development are substantial. This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of fiscal decentralization on equalization within one Russian region, Leningrad (State). We show that the regional government uses a mixture of fiscal instruments to strike a balance between giving more budgetary autonomy to local governments and eliminating the disparities among them. We also develop a method for studying this tradeoff between decentralization and equalization when only limited data are available. Finally, we argue and demonstrate that without a detailed understanding of the institutional arrangement for intergovernmental fiscal relations, one cannot evaluate the equalization or decentralization implications.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between control by the Maltese Central Government on Local Government and the format and basis of budgetary and financial reporting used. The study analyses the role of reporting in agency and fiscal federalism theories.

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the controller (Central Government officials and the National Audit Office), while a survey was carried out with the controlled (Maltese Local Councils).

The type of reporting used by Maltese Local Councils may be undermining the control that Central Government seeks to exercise on overspending and debt levels. The Local Councils’ financial statements report accrual deficits and increasing liabilities. This overspending appears to slip through Parliamentary scrutiny because the latter approves cash allocations to Local Councils; the financial reports submitted to Parliament do not highlight overspending in cash terms; and the cash budget execution report that should be prepared by Local Councils is not given due importance.

Central Government should be consistent in its policy towards Local Government, which may require more elaborate reporting. This study highlights the importance of aligning the reporting required (top-down) and the reporting presented (bottom-up) – otherwise, control is at stake.

In general, there are many disincentives standing in the way of promoting change in public procurement practices by government agencies. Because engaging in sustainable purchasing requires some level of entrepreneurialism and risk-taking, a sorting framework is adopted to gauge whether some organizations are systematically more likely to pursue sustainable public purchasing (SPP) efforts than others. One-way analysis of variance and other methods are applied to a survey of public procurement practitioners across over 300 governments in the U.S. Results strongly suggest that agencies of various scope and reach tend to abstain from aggressively pursuing SPP efforts. However, when they do employ SPP, these efforts tend to be quite variable across and within levels of government and organizational size. In an effort to bridge theory with empirical data, a strong case can be made that the current state of SPP in the United States is the result of random and very cautious experimentation with little systematic pattern to SPP adoption.

Federal systems are often more sophisticated than assumed in the literature. In many cases, at least three tiers of government are involved in federal decision making. The purpose of this paper is to cast some light on this increasingly important issue in fiscal federalism.

In a model with three tiers of government, the author analyzes corrective policies in the presence of fiscal externalities generated by federal redistribution.

The author identifies an additional qualitative incentive effect, particularly for intermediate governments. They behave strategically to attract additional redistribution funds from outside, though still using corrective policies to provide investment incentives toward their own regions. The results also suggest that differently from the USA the federal system of the EU may lead to inefficiently low regional investment.

The presented model is a first step toward analyzing strategic behavior and the effect of corrective policies in more complicated federal set ups with three tiers of government involved. This is relevant for federal structures such as Germany or the USA, as well as for government interactions at the international level.

This paper aims to investigate the extent of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) through websites and social media in Spanish local government (SLG) and analyze the factors that explain their disclosure.

The study applies content analysis and regression techniques. The ICD is analyzed for Spanish municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and provincial capitals over a period from January 2018 to February 2020.

Findings emphasize that the quantity of disclosed information on intellectual capital (IC) is in the low level, particularly with regard to human capital (HC). Furthermore, the results show that the information provided via social media mainly concerns the relational capital (RC). On the other hand, results obtained indicate that larger municipalities, with lower financial autonomy and whose citizens have a high income level use the online media (both websites and social media) more actively to disclose information about IC. Finally, municipalities led by women and with high level of citizens' education exert a positive influence in the ICD only on websites.

This paper makes a number of key contributions to the existing body of knowledge, focusing on ICD, a neglected area in the public sector accounting literature. It explores and identifies the supply-side and demand-side determinants of information affecting the ICD in local governments. The results of this research could be useful for policymakers, regulators and governments' managers to improve the online information addressing ICD issues.

This paper adopts an innovative perspective by investigating the use of alternative tools for ICD in local government context (websites and social media). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on investigating the determinants of online ICD in local governments.

Considering there is a lack of research in determining the optimal levels of government guarantee and revenue cap, the objective of this research is to determine their optimal levels to achieve a reasonable financial risk allocation between governments and private investors while avoiding overly lucrative conditions for private investors.

Expanded net present value (NPV) analysis and bargaining game theory are employed to construct the core of the determination process. The risk gap between governments and private investors is assessed via an expanded NPV analysis to see if the financial risk has been shared reasonably, based on which the range of the government guarantee is decided. A bargaining model is then created to help locate the optimal level of the government guarantee. Finally, a revenue cap, often combined with the government guarantee in public–private partnership (PPP) agreements, will be determined if overly lucrative conditions for private investors are observed or governments suffer a risk spillover.

Referring to a real PPP project in Australia, Project BA is created to validate the applicability of the proposed determination process. The outcome shows that the proposed determination process in this paper is capable of determining the optimal levels of government guarantee and revenue cap. The government preferences towards risk allocation will influence the values of the optimal levels. Governments may also consider to alleviate the control over investors' net profits to mobilise private investors into PPP projects.

There is a potential possibility that the revenue cap fails to control the financial risk for governments or the overly lucrative condition for private investors. In other words, even though the revenue cap is set at the minimal level, the financial risk for governments still beyond their tolerance range or the overly lucrative condition for private investors still occurs. Future research may focus on other financial protective schemes which help to better control the financial risks for governments and profits for private investors.

Government guarantees are frequently used as an investment incentive to reduce the probabilities of suffering loss for private investors. Nevertheless, the financial risks for governments may increase after providing guarantees and, as a result, revenue cap is required by governments to avoid placing themselves in an unprotected situation. By recognising the importance of the two contractual parameters, many scholars dig into their option values. However, there are very rare research works focussing on the method of determining the specific levels of government guarantee and revenue cap. To overcome the limitations of existing models and enrich the methodology for government guarantee and revenue cap determination, this paper contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a government guarantee and revenue cap determination process which contributes to a reasonable allocation of financial risks between governments and private investors.