Search results

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

We question whether the Chinese state has played an effective role in promoting outward foreign direct investment via its “Go Global” policies. Using the literature in International Management as our framing, we observe three inter-related stylized realities. First, it is state-owned enterprises (SOEs) – not private enterprises – that tend to principally benefit from the favorable “Go Global” policies. Second, SOEs tend to pay much higher acquisition premiums in outward FDI as compared to non-SOEs. Third, SOEs tend to be less effective as compared to non-SOEs in gaining synergies and enhancing competitiveness as a result of these cross-border experiences. These results yield clear policy implications for the Chinese government: first, more effective public policy would involve enhanced targeting of private enterprises as the recipients of policies promoting outward FDI; second, the Chinese government should continue along the path toward privatization of SOEs. The continued bolstering of economic and social development in China is contingent upon efforts to reduce the state’s active role in outward FDI.

Forces of globalization have driven international convergence in corporate governance and accounting considerably over the past few decades. Nevertheless, despite the global trend, convergence of corporate governance and financial reporting remains a subject of debate. This research monograph critically examines whether China’s convergence with Anglo-American corporate governance principles and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is likely to produce the expected outcomes of improving the transparency and comparability of accounting information in Chinese firms. In this chapter, we discuss the motivation for and the significance of the study; describe the issues associated with the adoption of internationally acceptable standards and principles in China; explain the theoretical framework used to inform the study and research methodology; and present the aim and objectives of the monograph.

This chapter develops the theoretical framework used to inform the study, which is based largely on neoinstitutional theory. This monograph recognizes that a holistic perspective and richer insights are needed when examining complex issues associated with the adoption of internationally acceptable practices. The proposed theoretical framework incorporates international influences, domestic influences, and intraorganizational dynamics. In the context of globalization, China’s convergence with internationally acceptable principles and standards is largely shaped by international forces, including supranational organizations, foreign investors, and international accounting firms. Furthermore, in order to examine the operation of those imported ideas, it is essential to consider China’s contextual setting, which comprises the political system, economic system, legal system, social and cultural system, and accounting infrastructure. In addition, the convergence process is also influenced by interaction among organizational players who may actively mobilize their power to preserve the status quo and protect their power and interests. The outcome and the process of loose coupling deeply intertwine with and reflect upon international influences, domestic influences, and intraorganizational dynamics.

Leaders of global virtual teams (GVTs) during the economic crisis of 2008–2009 faced a leadership challenge very different from leadership of traditional, face-to-face teams during normal economic conditions. Previous research has shown that the effect of leadership tends to become diminished in virtual team situations, due to well-known challenges of virtual working (geographic dispersion, computer-mediated communication, time zone, cultural and language differences); however, little empirical research has been undertaken during crisis periods such as experienced in 2008–2009 to evaluate the effect of leadership on team outcomes during times of crisis. We present findings which shed light on the impact of three sets of leadership behaviour, as described by FIRO theory (Schutz, 1958), that is, inclusion (participation), control (structure) and affection (personal support), on virtual team motivation and cohesiveness spanning the time of the recent global economic recession. Beginning in March 2008 spanning one year to March 2009, 221 team members within 31 operational GVTs located across 22 countries responded to a three-part, online survey relating to perceptions of team leader behaviour, team motivation and cohesiveness. Findings showed significant positive relationships between leaders' perceived expression of inclusion and personal support and motivation and cohesiveness outcomes. In addition, perceived team cohesiveness was positively correlated to perceived team motivation. Results suggest the need for virtual leaders to ‘turn up the volume’ in their initiated inter-personal behaviour, that is, to increase efforts in participation and supportiveness to bridge the considerable gaps between themselves and team members working virtually and to maintain motivation during difficult times. Correspondent to these findings, we surmise that leadership development programs need to be adjusted to include training and feedback mechanisms to support these types of GVTs leadership behaviours.

In this paper I bring together interaction, media, deviance, self, and identity to make sense of how young Singaporeans consume Korean popular (hereafter, K-pop) music and culture. My overarching goal is to highlight that being a music fan is not a straightforward or even easy experience. Rather, the self as music fan is continually developing within a complex variety of social processes, from the circulation of global, mass media representations to inter- and intra-personal interactions. I present data collected from a study on K-pop music consumption in Singapore, a small island-nation in Southeast Asia with an insatiable thirst for foreign culture. The data show how a group of Singaporean K-pop fans were regularly bombarded with largely negative messages about what it means to be K-pop music fans, and how these meanings affected their own negotiations as fans. K-pop fandom provided a sense of shared identity and status within popular youth culture, yet their experiences were often soured by negative media portrayals of deviant fans, whose behaviors risked stigmatizing the K-pop social identity. This paper thus deals with some of the problems for self that being a music fans entails.

This chapter covers many angles of the role national identity plays in the production, consumption, and reception of sport via social media channels. More specifically, it explores what sociology specifically brings to the equation regarding theories of group identity, identifies the core studies that represent what we currently know about national identification in the social mediated sports world, and determines fruitful themes and paths for subsequent investigation.

The approach to the chapter largely involves the synthesis of a diverse set of literatures in the academic spaces of nationalism, fan behavior, and social media.

The chapter advances the argument that only a handful of investigations in social media content focus on how national identity is forged within sport. Global events (Olympics, World Cup) seem to be the current areas of investigation, with social media facilitating various forms of BIRGing and CORFing depending largely on real-time results.

Relevant and understudied areas for future investigation on the nexus of sport, social media, and national identity include gendered correlates, GORFing (Glory Out of Reflected Failure), redefinitions of sport fandom, eSports, and the application of new technologies, applications and platforms in the social media space.

The chapter establishes a foundation of knowledge triangulating sport, social media, and national identity while creating warrants for key scholarly agenda advancement in the future.

Australian cricket has traditionally been an exemplar of hyper-masculine sporting conservatism. However, cricket, as with a number of Australian sports, has recently introduced an elite women's league. Despite growth in participation and funding of women's cricket, it remains poorly understood at the elite level and particularly its fans. Drawing on the concept of gender-bland sexism (Musto et al., 2017), we investigate differences in fan engagement and perceptions of men's and women's cricket matches. Through a case study of Australian Women's Big Bash cricket team the ‘Sydney Sixers’, this chapter explores how women's cricket was experienced on match-day by fans, as well as perceptions of the value and quality of attending women's professional cricket. We first undertook participant observation at matches to understand how women's cricket was delivered, experienced and engaged with by fans. These observations informed a survey which was distributed to club members. Our findings suggest that there continue to be noticeable differences in the presentation of women's matches when compared to their male equivalents, providing evidence for the presence of gender-bland sexism in areas other than sports media.