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Purpose – In the recent financial crisis, the risk-taking behavior of banks led to severe financial and economic instability. Many reasons have been attributed to the cause of the financial crisis. This paper attempts to investigate the effect of government ownership, market structure, and regulations on risk-taking behavior in a sample of banks listed on the stock exchanges of the six Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) markets during the period from 1998 until 2010.

Methodology – The paper utilizes the fixed effect regression model to measure the impact of government ownership indicator, and market structure on risk while controlling for bank-specific characteristics and macroeconomic indicators in the GCC region.

Findings – We find consistent evidence that private-owned banks are more risky than government-owned banks. The results also show a positive and significant relationship between market concentration and risk. Islamic banks show more stability than conventional banks, while government regulations are insignificantly related to risk.

Originality and value – This research is essential to understand the probability of government ownership entities facing losses associated with distress due to both direct and indirect insurance guarantees provided by the government agencies in case of crisis. The results of the study are crucial for understanding the implications of bank ownership and market structure and its relation to risk for the stability of the financial system in the GCC market.

This paper addresses the social value of commercial enterprises that are jointly owned by a government and private sector investors and where the shares are listed on a stock exchange: thus, “listed public–private enterprises” (LPPEs). The theoretical part of the paper addresses how differences in ownership patterns influence the behavior and performance of LPPEs.

We develop a conceptual taxonomy, drawing on the empirical evidence on the behavior and performance of public–private hybrid enterprises and on the application of agency theory to that evidence. The taxonomy discussion predicts how different ownership patterns affect enterprise productive efficiency and the ability of governments to achieve social goals through LPPEs. We review the empirical literature on government enterprise ownership and on the concentration of private share ownership to deduce how these matter for owner and managerial behavior and productive efficiency. We review the literature that considers the informational content that listing of an enterprise's shares on a stock exchange can provide to enterprise owners, managers and other domestic audiences with a policy interest. We employ a social welfare perspective to derive policy implications as to when the LPPE governance structure is most appropriate.

We show how the monitoring and performance weaknesses of state ownership are offset by some private ownership, particularly when combined with listing on a stock exchange. We demonstrate the effects of different governance structures on enterprise productive efficiency. We find that the LPPE structure is particularly appropriate as an alternative to nationalization or to full privatization and regulation of natural monopoly public utilities, and as an alternative to full private ownership and taxation of non-renewable natural resource extractive enterprises.

This paper explicitly addresses the question of why and how the combination of government ownership, private investor ownership and listing on an exchange is socially valuable in providing information on productive efficiency to governments.

Against the background of actively promoting the reform of mixed ownership in China, this study regards government ownership in private sector enterprises (PSEs) as an important political connection mechanism and examines private holding listed companies in high-polluting industries that sold China A-shares from 2012 to 2019.

Using regression models such as Tobit and negative binomial estimation, the research empirically examines the impact of government ownership in PSEs on the corporate fulfillment of their environmental responsibilities.

Government ownership can effectively promote PSEs to fulfill their environmental responsibilities. Government ownership, as a corporate-level political connection mechanism, enables the government to provide firms with more environmental protection subsidies and environmental tax incentives, encouraging firms to fulfill their environmental responsibilities. When considering the policy risks faced by PSEs, government ownership effectively reduces the impact of policy uncertainty on firms’ fulfillment of environmental responsibilities. Additionally, verifying the economic development level of the city in which the firm is located makes the positive impact of government ownership on fulfillment of environmental responsibilities of PSEs in regions with lower economic development levels more significant.

Unlike existing studies that generally use the personal political identity of entrepreneurs to measure the political connections of PSEs, this study regards government ownership in PSEs as an important political connection mechanism. It provides a useful reference for China to formulate environmental protection policies for PSEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of managerial overconfidence on corporate financing decision and the moderating effect of government ownership on the relationship between managerial overconfidence and corporate financing decision.

Pooled OLS, fixed effect models (FEM), and Tobit regressions are employed to examine the relationship between managerial overconfidence, government ownership and corporate financing decision of publicly listed companies in Malaysia for the period of 2002-2011.

The authors conclude that: first, CEO overconfidence is significantly and negatively related to corporate financing decision; second, a higher degree of managerial overconfidence would result in lower leverage in GLCs, whereas the effect does not significantly exist in NGLCs; third, a larger ownership of government in a firm will reduce the negative effect of managerial overconfidence on corporate financing decision; fourth, the moderating effect of government ownership on the association between managerial overconfidence and corporate financing decision in GLCs is more effective than NGLCs; and fifth, government intervention plays its role as moderating effect on the relationship between managerial overconfidence and corporate financing decision in firms with lower ownership concentration but not in firms with high ownership concentration (more or equal than 50 percent).

The finding implies that the moderating effect of government ownership on the association between managerial overconfidence and corporate financing decision in GLCs is more effective than NGLCs.

The authors make the first attempt to test the moderating effect of government ownership on the relationship between ownership concentration and corporate financing decision.

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.

This study examines the bi-directional relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and ownership structure through a dynamic empirical framework in an emerging economy context.

Data over 10 years are used to investigate the response of disclosure to ownership structure variables and vice versa. Dynamic bi-directional relationships are hypothesised and empirically investigated using a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The ownership structure variables used are government ownership, block ownership and director ownership, while CSRD is constructed as a score through content analysis.

A bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership is found, revealing a preference for the state to invest in companies with opaque disclosure. CSRD is found to respond negatively to block ownership, albeit weakly. Results also show that directors prefer to own shares in the company they manage when there are low levels of CSRD.

The current empirical set-up of using a small emerging economy may not carry to the context of larger emerging economies where the institutional context may differ. Thus, future research could use this dynamic empirical approach to re-examine the questions raised in this paper using data from other emerging economies. The use of a longer time series makes it feasible to explore further analysis what was not possible in this study, such as an impulse response analysis examining the reaction of the variables of interest, CSRD and ownership variables for a specific time horizon to particular changes or shocks associated with one of the endogenous variables in the PVAR.

A major implication is that expecting disclosure practices to improve due to government and director initiatives would be less likely in emerging economies. State and director shareholders prefer to invest in opaque companies because they may purposely choose to keep the minimum disclosure levels. The paper calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

The study investigates the bi-directional relationship between ownership structure and CSRD in contrast to the existing literature's presupposed one-way relationship between these variables by demonstrating that bi-directionality does matter. This paper also contributes to the CSRD literature in the emerging economy context. The bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership calls for a transparent selection process of board members as representatives of the state in those companies where the government has an ownership stake. It also calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

This paper aims to examine the impact of government ownership on the cost of debt and firm valuation in listed Vietnamese companies for the period 2007 to 2016.

The authors use both the generalised methods of the moment (GMM) and the ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to analyse a panel data spanning over the period 2007 to 2016 in the markets of Vietnam. Further, the instrumental variable is used in the paper.

The authors find that firms with relative higher government stockholdings or state-owned companies where the government owns 50 per cent or more of shares outstanding enjoy a lower cost of debt compared to the other firms. Consequently, these firms have higher firm valuation and profitability. The results are robust for both the GMM and the OLS regressions. Further, firms that no longer retain government ownership have a higher cost of debt than the other firms. The results of the paper imply the importance of political connections in businesses in the market of Vietnam.

This paper connects the relationship between government ownership and the cost of debt with the relationship between government ownership and firm valuation. The paper tests the relationship between the cost of debt and government ownership using both OLS and GMM specifications and the results are robust for both approaches. The manuscript uses an instrumental variable to show that government ownership has a positive impact on higher firm performance through reducing cost of debt. Further, this paper addresses the possible issue of endogeneity.

This study examines the impact of ownership structure on firm financial performance, for 146 manufacturing firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for the period 2003–2012.

The theoretical background of the present study is based on the agency theory. Ownership structure is measured by institutional shareholdings, insider shareholdings, foreign shareholders and government shareholdings, while return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), market-to-book ratio (MBR) and Tobin's Q (TQ) are used as proxies of corporate financial performance. The dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) method is employed to cater for the issue of endogeneity.

We find that institutional ownership exerts a significant positive impact on ROE and MBR, which suggests that institutional investors play a significant role in improving the financial performance of the sample Pakistani. Furthermore, the results reveal a significant positive relationship of insider ownership with ROA, ROE, MBR and TQ, which is consistent with the prediction of agency theory that concentration of insider ownership aligns the interest of shareholders with those of the managers and hence improves performance. A significant positive association of government shareholdings with ROA and ROE was also found. Therefore, policymakers may encourage government ownership in firms, which can help to improve corporate financial performance.

The present study contributes to the existing literature on ownership structure and corporate financial performance in an emerging market like Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that the institutional setup and corporate governance structure in Pakistan is yet at an evolving stage. Findings of this study may provide useful insights to corporate managers and investors about the relationship between ownership structure and financial performance of firms from the manufacturing sector in Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the differential impact of government promotional measures and government ownership on two internationalization variables: location and speed of internationalization of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs). Central to the authors’ study is the mediating role of strategic intents to internationalize. In particular, we study how government impacts the resource-seeking, market-seeking and technology-seeking motives to internationalize.

The empirical setting for the paper is Chinese companies that have internationalized via an equity based entry mode. The authors employ 672 firm responses collected by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

The empirical results demonstrate that different home government measures have differential impact on internationalization outcomes. Government promotional measures (such as direct incentives and bilateral agreements to support internationalization) have only an indirect effect on international location and speed through the effect they have on the strategic motives to internationalize; while government ownership in the company has a direct impact on international location.

The study highlights that home governments are shaping EMNEs strategic intent. Home government can influence EMNEs internationalization choices by providing resource flows through financial resources and state ownership or through asset-accumulation mechanisms via promotional measures.

Policy makers in emerging markets need to develop policies focused on the specific motivations that firms have when internationalizing. EMNEs are suggested to take advantage of government policies more intentionally.

The theoretical contribution centers on identifying important mediating mechanisms pointing to the interplay between government policies and international location and speed of firms. The authors contribute to the growing stream of research on internationalization of emerging market firms by building a sound theoretical model and examining empirically the role of home government in the internationalization of EMNEs.

This study aims to study the moderating effects of private ownership and government support on the relationship between outsourcing and product innovation in entrepreneurial ventures in a transition economy.

The data of 10,296 Vietnamese entrepreneurial ventures from the four rounds of the survey conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam to investigate the moderating effects of private ownership and government support on the association between outsourcing and entrepreneurial ventures’ product innovation performance. The Probit regression model is employed to estimate such associations.

Our research uncovered that the impact of outsourcing on the likelihood of product innovation is more significant for entrepreneurial operations characterized by a substantial degree of private ownership and government backing as opposed to those without.

The results of our research indicated that the resource-based perspective and extended resource-based view (ERBV) are essential in examining the impact of gaining resources or skills from external sources on the growth of entrepreneurial enterprises. These ideas have significance and importance not just in industrialized economies but also in countries undergoing transition. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurial enterprises should have the ability to manage a wide range of resources and make decisions about which activities should be handled internally and which should be delegated to other parties.

Our findings also imply that entrepreneurial ventures should be able to control many resources and choose which tasks should be performed in-house and which should be outsourced to third parties.

By adopting and leveraging the resource-based view (RBV) and extended resource-based views (ERBV), our study developed a theoretical model about private ownership and government support for moderate outsourcing’s impact on entrepreneurial innovation in a transition economy.