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Change in ownership among U.S. community hospitals has been frequent and, not surprisingly, remains an important issue for both researchers and public policy makers. In the past, investor-owned hospitals were long suspected of pursuing financial over other goals, culminating in several reviews that found few differences between for-profit and nonprofit forms (Gray, 1986; Sloan, 2000; Sloan, Picone, Taylor, & Chou, 2001). Nevertheless, continuing to the present day, several states prohibit investor-ownership of community hospitals. Conversions to investor-ownership are only one of six types of ownership change, however, with relatively less attention paid to the other types (e.g., for-profit to nonprofit, public to nonprofit). This study has two parts. We first review the literature on the various types of ownership conversion among community hospitals. This review includes the rate at which conversions occur over time, the relative frequency in conversions between specific ownership categories and the observed effects of conversion on hospital operations (e.g., strategic direction and decision-making processes) and performance (e.g., access, quality, and cost). Overall, we find that the impact of ownership conversion on the different measures is mixed, with slightly greater evidence for positive effects on hospital efficiency. As one explanation for these findings, we suggest that the impact of ownership conversion on hospital performance may be mediated by changes in the hospital's strategic content and process. Such a hypothesis has not been proposed or examined in the literature. To address this gap, we next study the role of strategic reorientation following hospital conversion in a field study. We conceptualize ownership conversion within a strategic adaptation framework, and then analyze the changes in strategy content and process across sixteen hospitals that have undergone ownership conversions from nonprofit to for-profit, public to for-profit, public to nonprofit, and for-profit to nonprofit. The field study findings delineate the strategic paths and processes implemented by new owners post-conversion. We find remarkable similarity in the content of strategies undertaken but differences in the process of strategic decision making associated with different types of ownership changes. We also find three main performance effects: hospitals change ownership for financial reasons, experience increases in revenues and capital investment post-conversion, and pursue labor force reductions post-conversion. Membership in a multi-hospital system, however, may be a major determinant of both strategy content and decision-making process that is confounded with ownership change. That is, ownership conversion may mask the impact of system membership on a hospital's strategic actions. These findings may explain the pattern of performance effects observed in the literature on ownership conversions.

New ownership types in health care of welfare states raise concerns regarding psychosocial work conditions including different control dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how job demands, control over work and control within work (CWW) were related to job satisfaction in publicly administered, private non-profit and private for-profit hospitals.

Questionnaire data came from employees at three hospitals; a publicly administered (n=774), a private non-profit (n=1,481) and a private for-profit (n=694) hospital. Mean-level analyses and hierarchical regressions with multiple group tests were conducted.

Demands including workload were significantly lower at the publicly administered hospital while the control dimension CWW was significantly higher. Background factors and their associations with job satisfaction differed slightly between ownership types. Attitudes to privatization were not associated with job satisfaction within any ownership type. Overall, psychosocial work characteristics, including job demands and control, were significantly associated with job satisfaction while their interactions showed no consistent associations with job satisfaction. As for the strength of the associations, no consistent differences emerged between ownership types.

Using self-reports only, the associations between psychosocial work characteristics and job satisfaction seemed comparable across ownership types.

Associations between psychosocial work characteristics and job satisfaction seem comparable across ownership types. This may relate to societal demands on the structuring of costs, work and production efficiency being similar for all.

Contributions include researching different occupations and their attitudes to privatization and two control dimensions considered important for different ownership types.

Shareholder heterogeneity reflects the interactive relationship between shareholder groups of different industries and ownership types. This paper aims to discuss the impact of shareholder heterogeneity on ambidextrous corporate innovation.

Combining questionnaire and database data, this study empirically analyzes the internal mechanisms of the impact of shareholder heterogeneity on ambidextrous corporate innovation.

The authors find that shareholder heterogeneity can promote ambidextrous corporate innovation and that board’s decision-making processes play an intermediary role. Specifically, shareholder industry-type heterogeneity promotes ambidextrous corporate innovation by improving procedural rationality in board’s decision-making process, and shareholder ownership-type heterogeneity promotes ambidextrous corporate innovation by improving political behavior in board’s decision-making process. The analysis of the impact degree shows that shareholder industry-type heterogeneity has a greater impact on exploitation innovation, while shareholder ownership-type heterogeneity has a greater impact on exploratory innovation. In addition, the research also shows that shareholder groups dominated by industry-type heterogeneity have an impact on corporate innovation by shaping an engaged board with higher procedural rationality and lower political behavior. Shareholder groups dominated by ownership-type heterogeneity have an impact on corporate innovation by shaping a contested board with higher political behavior and lower procedural rationality.

This study not only enriches the research on shareholder heterogeneity and corporate innovation in the context of transformation but also provides an analytical framework for research on board’s decision-making process.

This paper aims to investigate the Chinese employment relationship under the framework of psychological contracts. The authors explored the effects of firm ownership (in terms of state-owned and private enterprises) and employment type (in terms of permanent and temporary employees) on employee perceptions of psychological contract. In addition, the associations between fulfilled psychological contract and various dimensions of employee attitudes were examined.

The authors adopted a questionnaire as the primary instrument to investigate the impact of firm ownership and employment type on psychological contract perceptions and outcomes. The analysis was based on a Chinese sample of a size of 363 employees.

The results indicate that state-owned employees overall reported fewer promises (employer under-obligation promised psychological contract), while private employees tended to have more promises (mutual high obligation, employer over-obligation and quasi-spot obligation promise-based psychological contract). Permanent employees reported high fulfillment (employer over-obligation, mutual high obligation and employer under-obligation fulfilled psychological contract). In contrast, temporary employees presented many promises (mutual high obligation promised psychological contract) and low fulfillment (quasi-spot fulfilled psychological contract). In general, firm ownership had weak effects on permanent and temporary employees’ perceptions of promise-based psychological contract, but no significant influence on fulfillment-based psychological contract. Moreover, psychological contract fulfillment was positively related to employees’ fairness perception and job satisfaction, while negatively related to the intention to quit. The authors failed to find comprehensive statistical support for the moderating effects of firm ownership or employment type.

The study contributes to the literature through a number of ways. First, instead of psychological contract breach, the authors use psychological contract fulfillment as a direct measure to examine the relationship between psychological contract and employees’ attitudes. Second, they investigate the effects of firm ownership on employment relationship under the psychological contract framework, enriching the institutional lens of the issue. Third, while majority of psychological contract studies concerning employment type concentrate on either permanent or temporary employees, the authors take both types into account. Fourth, they integrate perspectives of firm ownership and employment type. Finally, the authors perform the study in the Chinese context, which offers extra evidence to the body of psychological contract literature.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the ownership structure types on the indicators of the external audit quality, in the light of the weak legal protection of the shareholders.

This study used the panel data of 94 listed Jordanian companies from 2009–2018 and the fixed-effect method.

The results revealed a significant relationship between the directors’ ownership, family and institutional ownership with the audit quality. By contrast, the managerial ownership had an insignificant influence on audit quality.

The results show the important role played by the directors’ and institutions’ ownership in ensuring the audit quality in Jordan. The results have implications for the policymakers in Jordan, to encourage and support the participation of such types of the investors and provide an effective monitoring over other types of ownership in the Jordanian capital markets.

This study suggests that the ownership structures are an essential and effective determinants of the external audit quality, which ultimately affects the performance and financial statements.

These results are consistent with prior studies, which have indicated a significant relation between ownership structure and the demand of the audit quality, even in a setting where legal protection of the shareholders plays essentially no role. To the best knowledge of the researchers, this study is one of the few studies that separates the ownership by the directors into two separate types. Further, this is the first study that used several indicators to measure the audit quality at the same time.

In this chapter, we provide the first empirical study of the effects of differing types of majority ownership, including employee ownership, on executive compensation. By investigating the case of Estonia, we also extend the range of geographical coverage of studies of the determinants of executive compensations to the case of Estonia.

Although previous research finds that the type of ownership affects CEO pay, our new panel data, and the exceptional configurations of ownership that prevailed in Estonia during early transition, enable us to construct unusual measures of majority ownership.

Findings indicate that an economically significant determinant of CEO pay is ownership both in state versus privatized firms and in different types of private firms. In firms with majority ownership by employees, pay is about 15% less than in state-owned firms, other things equal. CEO pay is also positively related to size and seldom related to performance although size elasticities are much smaller than those estimated in other studies, mainly for advanced western countries.

Findings provide more general support than previously for the varying importance of principal–agency relationships across firm types and the views that privatization and employee ownership have imposed strong discipline on the level of CEO compensation.

This study aims to collect new empirical evidence to determine how different forms of ownership structure responded to the recent COVID-19 crisis. In light of this tragedy, it explores the relationship between ownership structure forms (i.e. block-holders, foreign, institutional and family ownerships) and audit quality (proxied by audit fees).

In total, 3,200 firm-year observations for Jordanian enterprises covering the years 2005 through 2020 are used in an ordinary least squares regression with firm-clustered standard error to assess the hypotheses.

The regression results showed that COVID-19 strengthens the association between each type of ownership (i.e. block-holders, foreign, institutional ownership forms) and audit quality. This result reflects the need for high-quality audit services during the pandemic by such owners to improve their business decisions and limit agency-conflict issues. However, the analysis failed to find any effect of COVID-19 when it comes to family ownership. Family-controlled firms may react faster in crisis situations, and correspondingly, they do not bear high audit costs. The extended analysis covering the years 2005–2022 came to the same results.

The results aid authorities in their control and management of the auditing business. The findings have important consequences for policymakers, lawmakers, regulators and the audit profession as they assess the growing issues in an uncertain economic environment. Evidence is provided that may be used to reassure investors and aid authorities as they devise appropriate remedies to the pandemic-triggered economic crisis. The findings may aid in the improvement of legislation that governs Jordan’s auditing industry. Furthermore, the results can be generalized to other Middle Eastern countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically evaluate how different types of ownership affect audit quality in response to a dramatic shift in auditors’ working conditions brought on by the global health calamity. In emerging economies like Jordan, this type of analysis allows for preliminary assumptions to be established about ownership status during the COVID-19 outbreak. It adds to the body of auditing knowledge by shedding light on how various kinds of ownership affect responses to adverse events. This assessment is intended to serve as the definitive testimony in the field of accounting regarding the effects of the coronavirus across various corporations’ portfolios.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the relationships among organization ownership structure, implementation of just‐in‐time (JIT), and production operations performance.

A theory model for explaining the relationships among ownership, manufacturing strategy and performance was constructed, and then several hypotheses were tested using statistical analysis models based on questionnaire responses from Chinese manufacturing firms.

The results show that organization ownership not only impacts the implementation of JIT and operations performance, but also impacts the relationship between JIT implementation and operations performance. Moreover, the results show that, for firms operated in China, the implementation frequency of JIT practices varies with organization ownerships; the foreign and joint venture firms (JVFs) were found to have a higher level of JIT implementation and can also achieve better performance from JIT implementation than state‐owned and private‐owned firms (POF). Also, JIT implementation was found to have a significantly positive relationship with operations performance in all types of ownership firms, with the exception of private ownership firms.

The research only covers manufacturing firms in China. Further research is needed to test the wide implications of this research in other countries or industries.

This paper provides insights into how to improve JIT implementation performances, especially in various organization ownership structures.

The paper appears to be one of the first studies of relationship between ownership structure and JIT implementation in China manufacturing environment.

Based on the institutionalized agency theory, this paper aims to analyses the role of earnings management (EM) in mediating the relationship between ownership structure (OS) and the cost of equity capital (COE).

The authors test the above relationship by investigating a sample of 249 European non-financial listed companies during 2005-2012. The authors adopt different measures for both EM and COE and identify three main types of ownership by the majority share of the ultimate owners. Path analysis is used to explore the role of direct, mediated (i.e. EM) and total effects of OS on COE.

While OS directly affects COE, the results support the idea that an EM-mediating effect contributes to further explain this relationship in some ownership structures. Particularly European listed family-owned firms experience lower COE owing to the prevailing direct and negative effect of OS, despite the fact that both accrual and real EM mediate and have a positive effect on COE. In financial institutions-owned firms, only a direct and positive effect can be observed on COE while state-owned firms do not have a direct influence on the COE, although they do reduce real EM, which, in turn, decreases the COE in a mediated effect. Further analysis comparing the Anglo-Saxon context with Continental Europe shows more detailed results.

The study marks its entry into the international debate on the evolution in the value relevance of accounting information by arguing that the COE implications of EM depend on institutional factors such as OS and the context investigated.

The paper contributes to extant finance, accounting and corporate governance literature by providing new, robust evidence on the mediating role of EM in defining COE for different ownership types and their diverse risk-taking propensities in Continental Europe, which differs from the Anglo-Saxon context both institutionally and legally.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of the extent and quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) in Jordan. The study examines a number of factors that influence the extent and quality of CSR disclosure, such as corporate characteristics, corporate governance and ownership structure.

A quantitative approach and a content analysis technique is used to measure the extent and quality of CSRD from annual reports. The sample is drawn from the annual reports of 118 Jordanian companies between 2010 and 2015. A CSRD index is constructed, which includes the disclosures of the following categories: environmental, human resources, product and consumers, and community involvement. This is the first study that presents a new measurement for CSR disclosure quality by using images and charts in a seven-point scale measurement.

The result reveals that the extent of CSRD is higher than quality in Jordan. Regarding the determinants of CSR disclosures, the following factors were found to have a significant relationship with both the extent and quality of CSRD: board size, non-executive directors, age of firm, foreign members on the board, number of boards meetings, the presence of audit committees, big 4, government ownership, size of firm and industry type. Non-executive directors was found to have a significant correlation with the extent of CSRD.

The current study has some limitations; first, the study findings are limited to the Jordanian environment. Second, the study adopted a purely quantitative method, and future research could include interviews and questionnaires to gather data from financial managers and chief executive officers (CEOs). Third, the potential influences on the level and quality of CSR are not limited to the variables tested in this study. Future research can be done on new determinants, such as CEO interlocking and profitability. Finally, the sample included companies from two main sectors – the services and industrial sectors; thus, this limited the results to these two main sectors.

Practitioners, as firms, should develop new strategies and ensure that CSR is included in their reports. Thus, companies can achieve legitimacy for their products and activities. Policymakers must consider introducing new laws that mandate CSRDs since it has many advantages for companies and society. In addition, this research suggests amending the law to require companies to have 33% of their directors be non-executives since this will remove the negative effect on CSR disclosure. Investors must pay attention to the social activities of the companies they invest in, as CSR could have a positive effect on their market value.

The study has indicated that Jordanian companies became increasingly more involved in CSR activities, as this growth in CSRD is linked with global increases in CSR. Moreover, the study has revealed that the highest category of CSR disclosures is related to products or services and employee information. On the other hand, the lowest category of CSR disclosures is related to community and other disclosures (extent) and environmental disclosures (quality). Furthermore, the results show that the services sector was found to have more disclosures regarding employees and community, whereas the industrial sector was more concerned about environmental and product information.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that presents a new measurement for CSR disclosure quality by using images and charts in a seven-point scale measurement. This new seven-point scale will be adopted to distinguish between poor and excellent disclosures. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Jordan which examines the determinants of the extent and the quality of CSR for three categories, namely, corporate characteristics, corporate governance and ownership structure.