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Based on the textual-analyzed data covering 2148 IPO firms in China’s stock market during the 2007–2018 period, the authors’ purpose is to examine the influence of anti-takeover provision (ATP) adoption on initial public offerings (IPO) underpricing and identify the reducing effect of the former.

The authors examine the sample consisting of Chinese A-share listed IPO firms between 2007 and 2018 from China Stock Market Accounting Research and Chinese Research Data Services, with ATP data collected from the IPO firm chapters. Specifically, the authors use text analysis to identify whether there are ATPs in the IPO firm chapters, as well as the number of ATPs. H1: IPO underpricing is less severe for firms adopting ATPs. H2: The effect of ATP adoption on IPO underpricing is more salient for firms in worse information environments.

The authors examine the influence of ATP adoption on IPO underpricing and identify the reducing effect of the former. This effect can be explained by the fact that adopting ATPs in IPO firm chapters can reduce information asymmetry to a large extent by helping external investors obtain more private information, which alleviates IPO underpricing. The authors also find that the reducing effect is more significant in the worsened information environment. Furthermore, the authors explore the influence of adopting ATPs on other IPO characteristics and find positive effects on IPO over-subscription, funds raised and trading activity and negative effects on listing fees.

This study mainly contributes to the literature from the following two aspects. First, the study enriches the literature about the influencing factors of IPO underpricing. Second, the study also enriches the literature about the economic consequences of ATP adoption. This study also has important policy implications. With the coming of the era of decentralized ownership in China’s capital market, ATP adoption has become more important and attracted more attention. Also, investors focus more on pricing efficiency. The findings in this paper provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between ATP adoption and IPO underpricing.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer relationship management (CRM) implementation affects internal capital allocation efficiency, the efficiency with which a firm allocates its capital across its business segments.

The authors use a statistical regression method to analyze a sample of 801 unique firms in the USA from COMPUSTAT and the Computer Intelligence database. This analysis examines the relation between CRM implementation and internal capital allocation efficiency and identifies the conditions under which firms benefit more from CRM implementation. They also use instrumental variables (IVs) to address endogenous concerns with a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model.

The authors find that CRM implementation is positively related to internal capital allocation efficiency. The results are robust to the 2SLS analysis with IVs. This positive relation is more pronounced for firms with effective internal control and for those operating in highly competitive markets.

The research implies that that CRM can have a significant cross-functional effect on corporate financing and budgeting. This also suggests that when chief marketing officers plan marketing initiatives and implement CRM, they should communicate to chief financial officers not only the direct effect but also the indirect strategic benefits of such initiatives to a firm.

The authors reveal a previously overlooked aspect of marketing accountability by suggesting marketing’s impact on internal capital markets. They also enrich the body of literature on CRM benefits by showing a cross-functional benefit from marketing to finance (or capital allocation).

This study aims to quantitatively consolidate the research conducted over the past four decades on how internal branding activities drive employee commitment. It summarizes several operationalizations of internal branding and tests the moderating effect of employee’s personal characteristics and job characteristics on the relationship between internal branding and employee commitment.

This paper uses meta-analysis as the research methodology. The analysis includes a sample of 65 studies (from 62 published works), yielding 226 effect sizes (coded into 82 composite effect sizes) over an aggregated sample of 21,706 respondents.

This study finds that brand communication, brand-centered human resource management (HRM), training and development, organizational support and culture, brand-centered leadership and an excellent reward system are the key operationalizations of internal branding. Furthermore, employee’s personal (education, age and gender) and job (tenure, work status and level of customer orientation) characteristics significantly moderate the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

Limited empirical literature on some of the internal branding operationalizations such as brand-centered HRM and rewards has curbed the scope of moderator analysis.

This paper proposes some effective ways of implementing internal branding strategies and provides support for boundary conditions that brand managers should consider to strengthen the impact of internal branding activities on employee commitment.

As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the few quantitative consolidations of four decades of research on the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

During the 1990s, Italian healthcare organisations (HOs) underwent a process of corporatisation, and the most innovative HOs introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC) to address the need for broader accountability. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the dynamics and outcomes of such a process. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether the BSC is still considered an effective performance management tool and analyse the factors driving and hindering its evolution and endurance in public and non-profit HOs.

We conducted a retrospective longitudinal analysis of two pioneering cases in the adoption of the BSC: one in a public hospital and the other in a non-profit hospital. Data collection relied on accessing institutional documents and reports from the early 2000s to the present, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with the internal sponsors of the BSC.

We found evidence of three main categories of factors that trigger or hinder the adoption and development of the BSC: (1) the role of the internal sponsor and professionals’ commitment; (2) information technology and the controller’s technological skills; and (3) the relationship between the management and professionalism logics during the implementation process. At the same time, there is no evidence to suggest that specific technical features of the BSC influence its endurance.

The paper contributes to the debate on the key factors for implementing and sustaining multidimensional control systems in professional organisations. It emphasises the importance of knowledge-based assets and distinctive internal capabilities for the success of the business. The implications of the BSC legacy are discussed, along with future developments of multidimensional control tools aimed at supporting strategy execution.

This study aims to investigate why and how shared service centres (SSCs) are implemented as well as how they affect audit firm practice and audit quality.

In this qualitative study guided by the theoretical framework of institutional theory, the authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven European countries, including 16 interviews with audit partners from Big 4 firms, 6 with audit team members, 2 with interviewees from second-tier audit firms and 1 with a member of an oversight body.

The authors show that the central rationale for audit firms to implement SSCs is economic rather than external legitimacy. The authors find that SSC implementation has substantial effects on audit practices, particularly those related to standardisation, coordination and monitoring activities. The authors also highlight the potential impacts on audit quality.

By exploring the motivation for and effects of SSC implementation amongst audit firms, the authors offer insights into the best practices related to subsequent change processes and audit quality.

Digitalization is increasingly important for promoting authentic CSR practices. Firms with higher CSR levels motivate their employees to pursue their goals and demonstrate their social responsibility. However, the literature has not adequately examined how firm-level digitalization influences corporate sustainability from a governance perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how digitalization affects CSR disclosure, a key aspect of sustainability, at the firm level. Furthermore, this study also aims to investigate how governance factors, such as management power, internal control and minority shareholder pressure, moderate this effect.

This study employs a fixed effect model with robust standard errors to analyze how digitalization and CSR disclosure are related and how this relationship is moderated by governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The sample consists of 2,339 firms, of which 360 are SOEs and 1,979 are non-SOEs. To ensure robustness, this study has excluded the observations in 2020 to avoid the effects of COVID-19 and used an alternative measure of CSR disclosure based on the HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Furthermore, this study also explores the link in various corporate-level CSR settings.

The regression findings reveal that: First, Chinese A-share firms with higher digitalization levels disclose less CSR information. This finding holds for both SOEs and non-SOEs. Second, stronger management power has a negative moderating effect that weakens the link between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is mainly driven by SOEs. Third, internal control attenuates the negative association between firm digitalization and CSR disclosure, which is more pronounced in SOEs. Finally, minority shareholders exacerbate the negative relationship between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is more evident in non-SOEs. These results are robust to excluding the potential COVID effect and using an alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index measure.

Digitalization and sustainability have been widely discussed at a macro level, but their relationship at a micro level has been largely overlooked. Moreover, there is hardly any evidence on how governance heterogeneity affects this relationship in emerging economies, especially China. This paper addresses these issues by providing empirical evidence on how digital transformation influences CSR disclosure in China, a context where digitalization and CSR are both rapidly evolving. The paper also offers implications for both practitioners and policymakers to design appropriate digital strategies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

This study aims to analyse the influence of digitalisation on the management control function of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, it aims to illuminate how digitalisation influences management control elements, organisation and roles/competencies and to identify obstacles to digitalisation of management control in SMEs and measures taken to overcome them.

The study is based on guideline-supported expert interviews conducted with 14 financial managers from SMEs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This study reveals the influence of digitalisation on management control elements, organisation, and roles/competencies. The automation and standardisation of management control processes result in new elements for management control, such as strategic support for management. In addition, the increased availability and transparency of data enable the use of instruments within a company that allow for quick analyses of the company's development. Digitalisation leads to the integration of management control into the corporate network and, thus, a change in the organisation of management control. It also triggers the expansion of management control competencies, especially IT competencies. A shortage of internal digitalisation resources, unclear corporate roadmaps, and a lack of managerial experience loom as central challenges for digitalising the management control function. Measures derived from the interviews can help SMEs overcome the obstacles to the digitalisation of management control.

This research is the first interview-based study of the impact of digitalisation on management control in SMEs, potential obstacles to that digitalisation, and measures to overcome those obstacles. Thus, it contributes to the emerging debate on factors that may explain why SMEs lag in terms of the digitalisation of their internal processes.

Green transition is a long-term direction of corporate development that can achieve sustainable corporate development. This study aims to investigate whether state ownership promotes corporate green transition by mitigating managerial myopia and the impact of environmental regulations, internal controls and ownership on this pathway.

Using data from 2,608 Chinese listed companies for 2010–2019, the authors investigate the relationship between state ownership, managerial myopia and corporate green transition by using fixed-effects and moderated mediation models.

State ownership can boost green transitions and alleviate managerial myopia. Managerial myopia mediates the relationship between state ownership and corporate green transition. Furthermore, environmental regulations, internal controls and ownership moderate the mediating effects of managerial myopia.

The authors construct a multidimensional green transition index to examine the influence of state ownership on corporate green transition behavior and reveal the underlying mechanism by which state ownership promotes green transition by “mitigating managerial myopia.” This study enriches the literature on state ownership, management myopia and green transition and provides important evidence for the promotion of mixed ownership reforms.