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The Chinese data setting allows researchers to explore the influence of local versus national (central) government ownership on companies. This study aims to examine the influence of government ownership (local versus national) and auditor choice (choosing larger or smaller firms) on audit pricing in China.

This study executed three panel data regressions to examine the two hypotheses using 19,626 observations from 2009 to 2017 in the Chinese data setting. This study also uses the Sobel test to investigate the moderating effect of auditor choice.

This study first examines whether choosing a large audit firm positively influences audit pricing and whether listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) charge less audit fees to audit firms after controlling for various variables. However, the interaction influence of government ownership and audit firm size on audit pricing is positive, suggesting that a large audit firm charges a client company more, even if the client is an SOE. More importantly, when we divide SOEs into national- and local-SOEs, the results of the influence of auditor choice, government ownership and the interaction of government ownership on audit pricing are consistent (plus, minus, plus), and audit firms charge local-SOEs less than national-SOEs. Furthermore, from the additional analysis, this study finds that the strong auditor type has a moderate effect on the case of local-SOEs on audit pricing and local-SOEs choose smaller auditors.

Research on the differences between local and national government ownership is limited. This study adds empirical results from this perspective. In particular, the findings suggest a further audit pricing research direction to consider the influence of client companies’ ownership types and auditor choice, especially in countries with planned economies.

This paper examines how firms respond to local government’s environment initiatives through textual analysis of government work reports (GWRs). This study aims to provide insights into how firms strategically respond to government’s environmental initiatives through their disclosure and investment practices.

This study uses a textual analysis of GWRs from China’s provinces. The frequency and change rate of environmental keywords in these reports are used as a measure of the government’s environmental initiatives.

This study finds that environmental disclosure scores in environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports increase with the frequency or change rate of environmental keywords in provincial GWRs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms in highly marketized provinces or those listed in a single capital market. However, there is no significant relationship between firms’ environmental investments and government initiatives, except for cross-listed firms in provinces with consistently high frequency of environmental keywords in their GWRs.

The findings indicate that government environmental initiatives can shape firms’ disclosure behaviors, yet have limited influence on investment decisions, suggesting that environmental disclosure could potentially be opportunistic. This underscores the need for more effective strategies to stimulate firms’ environmental investments.

This study provides valuable insights into the differential impacts of government environmental initiatives on firms’ disclosure and investment behaviors, contributing to the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility in the context of government initiatives.

The main goal of the study is to participate in academic debates and explore women's leadership and related challenges and opportunities in governance, and the extent to which women’s leadership has been enhanced by administrative reforms. The goal is to broaden the scope of action by promoting women's engagement and leadership in local government.

This is a qualitative study that uses inductive content analysis to examine the relationship between administrative reforms and women’s leadership development in the context of local government in Southeast and South Asia.

There is a positive impact of administrative reforms on women's leadership development. There is evidence that women are preparing for leadership roles in administration, which is a sign of progress in political change and modernization of society. They have been empowered by political and administrative education in a transformative way.

This article contributes to the literature that expands knowledge about governance, female leadership and administrative reform. They are interrelated because they are precursors to the development of women's leadership in countries.

The findings of this study can help governments in South and Southeast Asia become more aware of strategies to promote gender balance in governance. The unsatisfactory situation was found to exist because of problems related to socio-political, economic, cultural, and personal development.

This study is the first to highlight the relationship between administrative reform and the development of women in leadership positions in a rarely studied developing country.

Decentralised administrative arrangements and the active function of local government organisations are essential to tackle crisis effectively. Using Bangladesh as a case study, this paper examines the central and local government administrative arrangements during COVID-19 pandemic.

This study applies qualitative content analysis and interviews to explore the local government’s role in Bangladesh’s COVID-19 management by interviews of 18 participants including government officials, experts, non-government organisations (NGOs) representatives, and the general public. This paper also analysed academic papers, policy documents and other publicly available documents, including newspaper reports.

The Constitution of Bangladesh intensified the active participation of local government in each administrative unit through decentralised administrative management. This paper however reveals that the administrative arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh was primarily a centrally led system. The local government was not sufficiently involved, nor had it integrated into the planning and coordination process. This indicated the absence of active decentralised administration.

This study fills the research gap of the administrative pattern and local relations in COVID-19 management by exploring the local government’s role during the catastrophic situation and highlights the importance of decentralised administrative actions in managing the crisis.

From the perspective of local government tax administration, the impact of geographic dispersion on the corporate tax burden is investigated in this paper.

Using unbalanced panel data with a sample of listed companies from 2003 to 2020 in China, this paper focuses on the effect of geographic dispersion on corporate tax burden and the mechanisms.

It is found that corporate tax burden is positively related to geographic dispersion. It is also found that geographic dispersion affects the corporate tax burden by increasing the effort of local government tax administration. In addition, the relation between geographic dispersion and corporate tax burden is more pronounced for local SOEs prior to the implementation of Golden Tax Project III and in cases where local governments face stronger financial pressure to obtain revenue.

This study has important implications for the promotion of the coordinated development of the regional economy, as well as the legalization, modernization and informatization of tax administration.

The authors revisit the notion of co-production, highlight more critical and re-politicized forms of co-production and introduce three principles for its operationalization. The paper’s viewpoint aims to find entry points for enabling more equitable disaster research and actions via co-production.

The authors draw insights from the authors’ reflections as climate and disaster researchers and literature on knowledge politics in the context of disaster and climate change, especially within critical disaster studies and feminist political ecology.

Disaster studies can better contribute to disaster risk reduction via political co-production and situating local and Indigenous knowledge at the center through three principles, i.e. ensuring knowledge plurality, surfacing norms and assumptions in knowledge production and driving actions that tackle existing knowledge (and broader sociopolitical) structures.

The authors draw out three principles to enable the political function of co-production based on firsthand experiences of working with local and Indigenous peoples and insights from a diverse set of co-production, feminist political ecology and critical disaster studies literature. Future research can observe how it can utilize these principles in its respective contexts.

Agricultural land loss is a severe issue that Australia faces, along with many other countries. Myriad research studies have discussed the reasons for such land loss, including urban sprawl as the main factor and factor's repercussions. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding the impact of dwelling type on farming land reduction. Also, there is an application gap, particularly in the local context. The purpose of this study is to discover the effect of differing dwelling types (compact and non-compact) in metropolitan areas with a growing population (such as Craigieburn) toward potentially noticeable agricultural land loss.

This paper aims to fill these research and practice gaps through a case study using a mixed methods approach. A quantitative analysis was conducted of housing types, the types' growth and agricultural land area taken up by those different housing types over 18 years. Thematic analysis of policies, strategies, schemes and codes relevant to the case study enabled a better understanding of practice gaps.

The study revealed a significant loss of agricultural land. Separate housing was found to be the main culprit due to the number of houses and the area the houses require, thus exhibiting the lack of practical guidelines to prevent the houses' overdevelopment. The findings enabled the identification of opportunities for better practice through government intervention and potential industry alterations.

Previous literature has primarily explored the issues associated with urban sprawl and the sprawl's unsustainability. This research paper offers a more targeted insight into one of the key factors leading to urban sprawl: the types of dwellings being constructed.

This study aims to compare the local climate characteristics of Angkor Wat, Borobudur and Prambanan parks and determine effective strategies for mitigating thermal conditions that could suit Borobudur and Angkor Wat.

The study employed local climate zone (LCZ) indicators and ten-year historical climate data to identify similarities and differences in local climate characteristics. Satellite imagery processing was used to create maps of LCZ indicators. Meanwhile, microclimate models were used to analyze sky view factors and wind permeability.

The study found that the three tropical large-scale archaeological parks have low albedo, a medium vegetation index and high impervious surface index. However, various morphological characteristics, aerodynamic properties and differences in temple stone area and altitude enlarge the air temperature range.

Based on the similarities and differences in local climate, the study formulated mitigation strategies to preserve the sustainability of ancient temples and reduce visitors' heat stress.

The local climate characterization of tropical archaeological parks adds to the number of LCZs. Knowledge of the local climate characteristics of tropical archaeological parks can be the basis for improving thermal conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the external environment on the strategic thinking dimensions in Malaysia and Palestine on the banking sector.

This paper focuses on dynamism and complexity in political and economic external environments. This study uses qualitative methodology through a comparative case study method. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from in-depth semistructured interviews with 33 bank executives from Malaysia and 17 from Palestine.

The findings revealed that the banking sector in both Malaysia and Palestine shared five common strategic thinking dimensions, including vision, creativity, conceptual thinking, futurism and opportunity. However, a sixth dimension, intent-focused, was unique to Palestinian bank executives. This study indicates that Palestine’s financial strategic thinking environment is more dynamic and complex than Malaysia’s. Additionally, the study highlights the significant influence of both microenvironments (such as types of banks) and the macroenvironment (such as political and economic situations). These findings hold important implications for decision-makers in the banking sector of both countries.

As with many studies, this study has some limitations. First, the analysis examines only the turbulent and stable environment in the two countries by using a qualitative approach which enables the analysis of thoughts and actions and exposes the beliefs, perceptions, mental maps and structures of belief in their perceptions (Cavana et al., 2001). As such, the results are limited to a particular time, date and geographical location; thus, opinions and perceptions might be altered due to changes in the external political and economic environment. The second limitation of this work is that the case study might not be appropriate for generalization (Stake, 1978). Finally, the limited number of female participants in Palestine shows a high level of inequality compared to Malaysian participants.

This study explores the implication of uncertain environments at the national level on executives’ cognition and actions, links the micro- and macro-environment of the banking industry to a theoretical perspective and develops a conceptual circular model to show the effect of macro environments on bank performance. The findings offer practical contributions to the current literature, providing insights for executives to navigate a dynamic and complex banking industry.

This study fills the literature gap by exploring how strategic thinking dimensions triggered by macro- and micro-environments impact banking sector performance in Malaysia and Palestine.

The paper sets out to understand the key issues that the various functions and optimal allocation of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the circular economy that provide public services depend not only on external quantities or densities but also on their internal size of human resources.

The paper uses different data samples and models to study the influence mechanism of optimal NGO size of human resources and its differentiated effects on governance quality of entrepreneurship.

The authors find that a reduction in transaction costs and an increase in the aggregation degree of public demand lead to increased human capital and lower financial capital intensity. In addition, the authors find that NGO size of human resources has a relationship that is approximately U-shaped (or inverse U-shaped) with the governance quality of entrepreneurship.

The paper discusses the implications for programs that encourage NGOs to optimally determine their internal size of human resources and further improve the governance quality of entrepreneurship in the circular economy.

The paper reveals the significant nonmonotonic relationship between local governance quality and NGO financial size, even after controlling for other NGO, city and provincial characteristics.