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The purpose of this study is to examine the degree, contents and trend development of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) performance indicators disclosed in sustainability reports of large mining companies in Ghana.

Content analysis methods are used to analyse 50 sustainability reports of ten large-scale mining companies in Ghana, covering the period 2008-2012.

The study finds that there has been a widening and increasing trend in the disclosure of performance indicators in sustainability reports of the large mining companies in Ghana, in accordance with GRI guidelines. The findings suggest that good progress in the strategic sector has been made in the voluntary adoption of the GRI guidelines to increase transparency, credibility and comparability in sustainability reporting. The findings also indicate areas to be improved.

The Government of Ghana and the Ghana Chamber of Mines could learn from the findings about the current status of this matter in order for them to formulate policies and regulations which would encourage the mining sector in moving forward in the adoption of international reporting standards.

This paper initializes investigation into the degree, contents and trends of performance indicators in sustainability reports of large mining companies in Ghana using content analysis.

The purpose of this paper evaluates the effects of the Great Western Development (GWD) policy on agricultural intensification, land use, agricultural production and rural poverty in western China.

The authors collect county-level data on land use, input application, grain crop production, income, poverty and geophysical characteristics for 1996–2005 and use a quasi-natural experimental design of difference-in-differences (DD) in the empirical analysis.

Results suggest that the GWD policy significantly increased the grain crop production in western China. This increase resulted from higher yield, with increased fertilizer use and agricultural electricity consumption per hectare, and more land allocated to grow grain crops. The policy also increased land-use concentration, reduced crop diversity and alleviated rural poverty in western China.

This paper makes three contributions. First, the authors add to the growing literature on the GWD policy by evaluating its effects on farm household decisions and exploring the mechanisms and broad socioeconomic impacts in western China. Second, the authors take advantage of a quasi-natural experimental design to improve the identification strategy where input use, land allocation, production and off-farm labor participation are all endogenous in a farm household. Third, the authors explore a long list of variables within one integrated dataset to present a comprehensive picture of the impact of the GWD policy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the impact of Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) platform reputation directly and indirectly (mediate effect) affects investors’ (lenders) investment choices.

Using data collected from 478 P2P platforms, this paper calculates platform reputation via a β function after establishing a reputation mechanism by game analysis. This is followed by testing both the direct effect of platform reputation on investors’ investment choices (proxying by transaction volume) and the indirect effect through credit-enhancing information using three regression models (median regression, OLS regression and random effect OLS regression). A robustness test by adding instrument variables is conducted to confirm the findings from the main regressions.

In China, P2P lending platform reputations have played both a direct and indirect (through credit-enhancing information) role on investors’ investment choices.

This paper expands the boundary of P2P online lending research by not only examining the direct, but also, importantly, the indirect effects of platform reputations.

The promotion of financial inclusion can disturb the composition of traditional bank concentration and change the relationship between bank concentration and the availability of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing. This paper concentrates on a less frequently explored area of research by examining the relationships between bank concentration, financial inclusion and SME financing availability respectively, and the interaction between bank concentration and financial inclusion after the implementation of a financial inclusion strategy in China.

Using firm-level data from 1,509 listed SMEs in China from 2007 to 2017 and applying rigorous analyses, we identify how bank concentration affects SME financing availability under the promotion of financial inclusion and also the mechanisms involved.

We find that bank concentration and financial inclusion respectively have positive impacts on the credit available to listed SMEs, indicating that the promotion of financial inclusion in China has reached a new high watermark. The positive impact of bank concentration is reduced when the level of financial inclusion is high. Conversely, a higher level of financial inclusion favours SME credit availability at only a low degree of bank concentration. Our findings suggest that financial inclusion has a substitution effect on bank concentration and has enabled us to add new interpretations to relevant theories; namely, the Market Power and Information Theories respectively.

This study provides new insights into the relationship between bank concentration and SME finance availability under the promotion of financial inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between bank diversity and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) firm innovation in China to evaluate the impact of recent bank deregulation.

Using a large data set that includes 8,143 firm-year observations of 1,122 listed SME firms in China and baseline and robustness regression analyses, the authors identify how bank diversity affects firm innovation and via what economic mechanisms. Potential endogeneity problems are considered and addressed in the design and analysis to minimize research bias.

The authors find robust evidence that bank diversity improves firm innovation. Specifically, the findings suggest that the positive effects of bank diversity on firm innovation are only significant for the firms which are more external finance dependent, have fewer growth opportunities and/or located in the provinces having low financial market development.

This study provides novel evidence and insights into the relationship between banking market structure and the determinants of firm innovation in the Chinese context, as a result of China’s banking deregulation.

This paper aims to develop an integrated and portable desktop 3D printer using direct extruding technology to expand applied material field. Different from conventional fused deposition modeling (FDM) which uses polymer filaments as feedstock, the developed system can fabricate products directly using polymer pellets. And its printing properties are also investigated.

A conical screw-based extrusion deposition (CSBED) system was developed with a large taper conical screw to plasticize and extrude fed materials. The 3D printer was developed with assistance of precision positioning and controlling system. Biocompatible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) pellets were selected as raw materials for experiments. The influences of four processing parameters: nozzle temperature, fill vector orientation, layer thickness and infill density on the product’s internal structure and tensile properties were investigated.

It is concluded that the customized system has a high manufacturing accuracy with a diminutive global size and is suitable for printing soft materials such as TPU. Theoretical calculation shows the developed conical screw is more effective in plasticizing and extruding compared with conventional screw. Printed samples can achieve applicable tensile properties under harmonious parameter cooperation. Deposited materials are found to have voids among adjacent roads under unbefitting parameters.

The developed system efficiently improves material limitations compared to commercial FDM systems and exhibits great potential in medical field because soft materials such as biocompatible TPU pellets can be directly used.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of selective laser sintering (SLS) method on morphology and performance of polyamide 12.

Crystallization behavior is critical to the properties of semi-crystalline polymers. The crystallization condition of SLS process is much different from others. The morphology of polyamide 12 produced by SLS technology was investigated using scanning electron microscopy, polarized light microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction and wide-angle X-ray diffraction.

Too low fill laser power brought about bad fusion of powders, while too high energy input resulted in bad performance due to chain scission of macromolecules. There were three types of crystal in the raw powder material, denoted as overgrowth crystal, ring-banded spherulite and normal spherulite.

In this work, SLS samples with different sintering parameters, as well as compression molding sample for the purpose of comparison, were made to study the morphology and crystal structure of sintered PA12 in detail.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the environmental factors (either internal or external) that influence the adoption of management accounting practices (MAPs) in Chinese state ‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and foreign joint ventures (JVs) located in China.

A cross‐sectional survey and comparative study based on questionnaires from SOEs and JVs respondents.

The study finds a significant difference in the adoption levels of MAPs according to the ownership type of the enterprise (JVs and SOEs). This study provides some support for the findings from previous researches. It confirms that Chinese enterprises participating in foreign‐partnered JVs have made more changes to their management accounting systems when compared to similar Chinese enterprises that had no collaborative venture operation with foreign firms. This paper has also presented a detailed historic background and an in‐depth discussion to explore some environmental factors influencing the adoption of MAPs in SOEs and JVs and explain possible reasons.

This study is thought as one of the first attempts to systematically investigate of the benefits derived from traditional and contemporary practices of management accounting used in Chinese SOEs and JVs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical quantitative evidence concerning small business financing in China and highlight the financing problems faced by small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing their businesses.

A semi‐structured questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from a sample of 60 small businesses in three cities in China. Descriptive methods and the SPSS statistical software package were used to analyse the data and interpret the results.

The data gathered covered current topic in research including the capital structure of SMEs at start‐up, the types and extent of funding shortage, the preference of financial resources as SMEs grow, the significant factors, which help SMEs secure bank loans and the influence of a firm's size, age and the like. The findings generally support financial theories and previous studies about SMEs but also offer the basis for new arguments about financing SMEs in China.

The sample size is relatively small and statistical analysis is relatively straightforward.

The present study will be of interest to policy makers developing new strategies and policies to support the financing of SMEs in China.

The results from this study contribute to the understanding of current problems in financing Chinese small business enterprises. These include findings, which were not presented in other similar studies.