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Extant literature has indicated that government support is one of the main drivers of international expansion of Chinese multinational enterprises. However, research on the influence of governors on firm internationalization is still limited. Drawing upon the institution-based view, we theorize a novel concept of institutional enablement to illustrate the influence of a governor's pro-market ideology on Chinese firms' internationalization.

We analyze the relationship between a governor's pro-market ideology (consisting of a pro-market political ideology, an overseas educational background and a business background) and firm internationalization with a sample of Chinese public companies during 2014–2017.

We find a direct and positive effect of a governor's pro-market ideology on firm internationalization. We also find an indirect and positive effect of a governor's pro-market ideology through regional, inward foreign direct investment.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate an underexplored question of the impact of governors on firm internationalization and to develop a novel concept of institutional enablement, based on discursive institutionalism.

This paper examines the interaction between changes in governmental accounting, ideology and global capital markets. Based on a historical analysis from the late 1800s to the turn of the 21st century it provides support for the general hypothesis that the strength and support of global capital markets and pro-market ideologies is positively related to the likelihood of the adoption by governments of accounting methods geared toward exposing full costs and total debt. The analysis also illustrates that governments are more likely to use accounting methods that allow for greater flexibility for spending, borrowing and off balance sheet financing during times when global capital markets and pro-market ideologies are in decline.

This paper is a continuation and development of the author's thesis regarding deviant activity in the financial markets of the City of London. The basis of the thesis is that deviant activity in financial institutions has become legitimated in that external regulatory controls have failed to enforce order against the internally generated sub‐cultural codes of practice which have developed consequent upon the forces of economic imperative (the ideology of excellence in the enterprise culture) and globalisation (the technological revolution). The thesis originally dealt with the period between 1984 and 1989 which was characterised as ‘Casino Capitalism’. This paper examines whether this is still relevant and proposes a number of additional elements and examples in its articulation.

This chapter enquires into the political struggles that have led to the gradual institutionalization of neoliberal policies in India. As India witnessed a surge in democratization since the 1980s, the state sought to implement a policy regime of privatization and liberalization, albeit with mixed success. This chapter's contribution is to focus on the party-movement relationships that were integral to establishing this new political economy. To this end the chapter undertakes an “event-centered” analysis of the failed authoritarian interlude of 1975–1977 (the Emergency) and its aftermath. Subsequent to this turning point, the chapter argues the two key political parties – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress – converged upon and shaped support for a neoliberal project. In particular, the chapter traces the mechanisms by which the BJP seized the political opportunity opened during the wave of democratization that occurred from the Emergency period onward, gradually constructing a political bloc in opposition to socialism. Together with Congress Party policies “from above,” the populist mobilization led by the Hindu Right sought to embed neoliberalism by eroding the disciplinary power of the middle classes. In making this argument, the chapter offers a theory of neoliberalism as a political project that, even as it is led by particular agents such as sections of the capitalist class, technocrats, and/or organized global interests, nevertheless must be embedded through democratic processes.

There is a sense of loss among planners, community workers and built environment professionals that the enthusiasm and utopian thinking of the post-war New Towns have largely disappeared. Contemporary planning is struggling with a reality of pro-market ideologies and disempowered local government. The utopian thinking that went into the New Towns was part of a modernist project focused on planning future urban spaces and communities founded not just on new buildings and innovative design but on a social mission – an egalitarian ethos that intended the New Towns to deliver social progress. This essay explores the loss of this ethos using the framework of ‘hauntology’ developed by the cultural critic Mark Fisher.

This paper examines the origins and the institutions, strategies, and policies of the shift to transition toward capitalism and democracy as the aspired system of political economy of Boris Yeltsin and his supporters in Russia in the early 1990s. The paper argues that this process of radical change is very “rocky”, and that its outcome is not yet clear. The shift from socialist democratization under Gorbachev to capitalist transformation under Yeltsin had multiple origins; but a core element in the process was the very likely abandonment of the ancien régime by party, state, and industrial élites themselves. Key factors in the transition in the early 1990s were: continuity amid change in political leadership and governance institutions; the absence of a developed political party system that could have united Yeltsin and the new Russian parliament; and the underlying socioeconomic conditions and attitudes of the Russian population.

Reflecting their extensive domestic programmes, the UK and France became major exporters of New Town planning expertise during the later twentieth century. Yet each country delivered its expertise in markedly different ways. Drawing on the UK’s own New Towns programme begun in 1946, a public-sector international New Town planning agency, the British Urban Development Services Unit, was created in 1975. However, it quickly proved unsuccessful and was abandoned in 1978. Instead, national expertise was exported by UK private planning consultants, with strong government encouragement. By contrast France, whose own Villes Nouvelles programme started in 1969, created a single public-sector planning agency, the Groupement d’intéret économique Villes Nouvelles de France, in 1984 that operated successfully overseas (latterly under a different name) until 2013. The chapter briefly considers the international efforts of the two countries, targeting oil-exporting countries, their respective former colonial empires and elsewhere. It also interprets their different approaches in light of their different political histories. Thus, the UK was much earlier affected by neo-liberal, pro-market political ideologies that instinctively favoured private- rather than public-sector approaches. This was especially so given the already established position of its private planning consultancies both in international work and in preparing the original master plans of many UK New Towns. In France, by contrast, the public sector remained strong and structured the export of planning expertise while private planning consultancies were much less important. The chapter ends by briefly considering the wider impacts of the two countries’ different approaches.

Machiavelli is too often and quite wrongly impugned. Rather than being the master of intrigue, he should be valued as the first political scientist. He deduced what brought political success. The gist of his advice to the Prince is that loyalty, winning it, inculcating it, is the key to success. The paper will attempt to show why loyalty is the key to success in marketing, and that capitalism will fail unless it retains the loyalty of customers and of its many potential stakeholders.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore the strategies used by the Hong Kong government to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model; and to explore the views of women on the desirability of these strategies. The male-breadwinner model posits that men work full-time outside the home and women take on domestic work. The adult worker model suggests that women and men should be equally expected to participate in formal employment.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter analyses the policy measures used by the Hong Kong government to support women in their participation in formal employment and the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) as well as other policy measures that offer potential for enabling family care providers to accumulate resources for secure retirement. Additionally, it draws on semi-structured interviews with 30 Hong Kong young women to examine their views on the extent to which the government supports them to save pension incomes.

Findings – This study shows that the Hong Kong government uses a ‘weak action strategy’ to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model, and that this strategy fails to meet women’s diverse preferences for their roles in the labour market and the family.

Originality/value – Based on a newly developed framework, this study examines the responses made by the government to both the male-breadwinner model and the adult worker model. It sheds new insights into possible ways of assisting women to achieve secure retirement .