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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the processes involved in the creation and eventual demise of a market for biodiversity offsets in the UK. The reasons for the failure of this market to take hold as a governance mechanism are considered, and its subsequent effects examined.

The research examines a single case study of the creation of a pilot market for biodiversity offsets in the UK. Data include policy and industry papers, complemented with interviews with biodiversity offset practitioners, regulators and non-government organisations.

The case study demonstrates that a market for biodiversity offsets was piloted with the intent to contribute to the reform of the UK planning regime. However, disagreements about this political project, uncertainties in the knowledge base, and continued entanglements with existing biodiversity meant it was impossible to stabilise the assemblages necessary to support the market, leading to its eventual demise. However, the principles and devices of offsetting have proved more resilient, and have started to combine with the existing arrangements for the governance of nature.

The paper presents a situation where a political project to reform governance arrangements through the creation of a market was not successful, making it of interest to researchers and policymakers alike.

While biodiversity offsetting has been widely discussed from scientific, legal and political perspectives, this paper addresses it as a market, explicitly designed to become a part of a governance regime. It also advances the understanding of the mechanisms by which similar processes of marketisation can fail, and suggests avenues for future research in those contexts.

The impact of network centrality on innovation performance is inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to examine how formal and informal institutions affect the influence of network centrality on firms’ innovation performance in emerging economies by integrating social network theory and institutional theory.

Multisource and lagged data from 234 technology-based entrepreneurial firms listed on the Chinese Growth Enterprise Market were leveraged to test a proposed research model.

Results suggest that formal institutions (marketization) positively moderate the relationship between network centrality and innovation performance, whereas informal institutions (social cohesion) negatively moderate this relationship. Moreover, formal and informal institutions have a strong joint impact on such relationship, that is, the effect of network centrality on innovation performance is most positive when marketization is high and social cohesion is low.

This empirical research provides new insights into whether and how firms can grasp the innovation benefits of network centrality by exploring institutional contingencies. It further sheds on light the scope of the network centrality–innovation issue by extending its research context to Chinese entrepreneurial firms.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings and leverage manipulation and the moderating effects of internal and external supervision.

The authors draw on a sample of Chinese non-financial A-share-listed firms from 2013 to 2020 to explore the effect of ESG ratings on leverage manipulation. Robustness and endogeneity tests confirm the validity of the regression results.

ESG ratings inhibit leverage manipulation by improving social reputation, information transparency and financing constraints. This effect is weakened by internal supervision, captured by the ratio of institutional investor ownership, and strengthened by external supervision, captured by the level of marketization. The effect is stronger in non-state-owned firms and firms in non-polluting industries. The governance dimension of ESG exhibits the strongest effect, with comprehensive environmental governance ratings and social governance ratings also suppressing leverage manipulation.

Firms should strive to cultivate environmental awareness, fulfil their social responsibilities and enhance internal governance, which may help to strengthen the firm’s sustainability orientation, mitigate opportunistic behaviours and ultimately contribute to high-quality firm development. The top managers of firms should exercise self-restraint and take the initiative to reduce leverage manipulation by establishing an appropriate governance structure and sustainable business operation system that incorporate environmental and social governance in addition to general governance.

Policymakers and regulators should formulate unified guidelines with comprehensive criteria to improve the scope and quality of ESG information disclosure and provide specific guidance on ESG practice for firms. Investors should incorporate ESG ratings into their investment decision framework to lower their portfolio risk.

This study contributes to the literature in four ways. Firstly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is among the first to show that high ESG ratings may mitigate firms’ opportunistic behaviours. Secondly, it identifies the governance factor of leverage manipulation from the perspective of firms’ subjective sustainability orientation. Thirdly, it demonstrates that the relationship between ESG ratings and leverage manipulation varies with the level of internal and external supervision. Finally, it highlights the importance of governance in guaranteeing the other two dimensions’ roles by decomposing overall ESG.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of negative performance feedback on firms' cost behaviors including productive behaviors (i.e. R&D behaviors) and non-productive behaviors (i.e. selling behaviors and business entertainment behaviors), as well as to investigate the roles of ownership types and marketization.

A sample of Chinese manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2018 is analyzed employing multiple regression models.

The results show that negative performance feedback has a positive but not significant effect on R&D behaviors, while its effect on selling behaviors is significantly positive. Meanwhile, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between negative performance feedback and business entertainment behaviors. Furthermore, when facing a performance dilemma, state-owned enterprises tend to adjust selling behaviors, while nonstate-owned enterprises pay more attention to business entertainment behaviors. In terms of marketization, the firms in high-marketization regions are more likely to adjust their R&D, selling and business entertainment behaviors, while the firms in low-marketization regions are difficult to adjust these cost behaviors.

This study explores the role of negative performance feedback in firms' cost behaviors and provides empirical evidence about the differentiated influences regarding ownership types and marketization.

Integrating insights from existing studies and introducing the behavioral theory of the firm and prospect theory, this study proposes a more inclusive framework that addresses the impacts of negative performance feedback on firms' cost behaviors. This paper deepens the understanding of firms' decision behaviors in the dilemma of performance shortfall.

Purpose: Market logics have increasingly dominated consumer life worlds. Consumers may embrace marketization, or they may resist it, try to escape it, rebel against it, or actively manage its effects. This chapter examines the marketization of elderly care (in the form of transactional service provider relationships) and how consumers apply humanizing strategies to market relationships.

Methodology/Approach: This is a qualitative interpretive study using in-depth interviewing, observations, and the analysis of media coverage.

Findings: Drawing on institutional theory, this study shows how consumers humanize a marketized service relationship by weaving social logics into existing market logics. Our research finds consumers engaging in three humanization strategies: (1) moving beyond transactional relationships; (2) sharing consumption experiences; and (3) reinforcing social bonds through giving. The end result is the do-it-yourself (DIY) creation of extended family relationships from market resources.

Social Implications: The context of this study is a government-supported, non-profit, exchanged-based retirement support scheme that addresses the challenges of global population aging and the increasing anonymization and estrangement in our society. The authors tentatively suggest that our findings represent a move to mitigate adverse effects of neoliberalism.

Originality/Value of the Paper: Prior research has shown that consumers embrace marketization, resist it, try to escape it, rebel against it, or actively manage its effects. The authors identify another strategy used by consumers to address the increasing marketization of their life worlds, namely humanization. This study shows that consumers assemble market resources and humanize transactional service provider relationships by weaving social- into market logics resulting in the creation of a DIY extended family.

Digital economic innovation is associated with risks. The lack of a platform's profitability weakens the operation's ability to sustain innovators and increases the possibility of the business' termination. Relevant data demonstrate a significant upward trend in the exit of Chinese innovators of the digital economy. The study aims to clarify the role of an effective government and effective market in the prevention and control of the withdrawal of innovators.

Based on balanced panel data of 31 provinces and cities from 2010 to 2018, this study uses the individual fixed effect model to study the impact of the marketization level, the market's scale and government interventions on the withdrawal of innovators. Simultaneously, based on the spatial econometric model, this study examines the spatial spillover effect of the withdrawal of innovators.

Results indicate that government interventions have an inhibiting effect on the withdrawal of innovators. Moreover, there was a positive “U”-shaped nonlinear relationship between the marketization level and the withdrawal of innovators, and an inverse “U”-shaped nonlinear relationship between the market size and the withdrawal of innovators.

The paper first studies the relationship between the exit of innovators and government intervention, marketization level and field scale; takes the lead in the research on the role of the government and effective market in the prevention and control of the exit of innovators from the perspective of the exit of innovators and puts forward policy suggestions to promote the sustainable and healthy development of fintech innovation in China from the market scale and other aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the evolution of marketization in the public sector as a process of institutional change.

The paper is based on a study of marketization and gradual changes in the involvement of private contractors (as providers of maintenance services) in the municipal road and park sectors in Denmark over the past 30 years. The study draws theoretically on historical institutionalism as an interpretive framework and empirically on findings from earlier research, register data from municipal accounts as well as new survey data.

Marketization within the road and park sectors has historically taken place through gradual changes, in particular by processes of layering and displacement, which has added up to substantial transformations in both sectors. Transformations relate to the levels of private sector involvement, the purpose of using private contractors, the extent of competition and the design of contractual arrangements. The road sector has been a frontrunner in this marketization process, while the park sector increasingly has been “catching up.”

The paper contributes to the understanding of the historical development and differential pathways of marketization within the public sector. In particular, the study highlights how pathways of gradual change, spurred by the influx of long-term policy pressures, over time can lead to substantial institutional transformations.

This study proposes personal network of social entrepreneurs as a key antecedent factor of their resource bricolage to understand the mechanisms underlying social entrepreneurial practices before the founding of social enterprises.

An empirical study is used to collect and analyze data. The questionnaire data are drawn from in-depth semistructured interviews with Chinese social entrepreneurs. This study develops a theoretical framework that draws upon two dimensions of social capital, namely, “ownership” and “use,” to explore relationships among personal network, resource bricolage and relation strength.

With data from 227 social enterprises in China, empirical results suggest that personal network of social entrepreneurs, that is, the “owned” social capital, shall be transformed by the intermediate role of resource bricolage into relation strength, that is, the “used” social capital. The relationship between resource bricolage and relation strength is positively moderated by the marketization degree and social class of social entrepreneurs.

This study introduces resource bricolage into the front-end course of social entrepreneurship. The results show that similar personal network can lead to different behavioral outcomes in the context of social entrepreneurship. Then the integration of resources and opportunities at the beginning of the social entrepreneurial process opens new avenues for future research. However, this study only investigates the transformation from network to resources implemented by social entrepreneurs before organization establishment. It does not explore potential outcomes of such a transformation for the development of social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs at the prefounding stage shall make use of the values of available resources, fully use potential interpersonal relations in the personal network, and transform these relations into a close, steady relationship to realize potential values of available resources. Social entrepreneurs can start from excavation and foundation laying of strong relation networks, to avoid problems in legality, social awareness and failure risks generated from blind integration of external resources.

This study finds that social entrepreneurship exists between the motivation of the social entrepreneur and the establishment of the organization after the development over time. Creating first a phased result through the resource bricolage is necessary. This result establishes a complete process chain of social entrepreneurship from motivation to behavior, next to organization establishment and subsequent development. This study is an empirical test based on the theoretical interpretation to make a positive effect on the social entrepreneurship research in the theoretical construction and testing of the deficiencies.

Whilst the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance has been well documented, CSR has rarely been studied from the perspective of corporate poverty alleviation. This study aims to test whether participation in targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) affects firms' market value and to explore how the magnitudes of market value vary in different CSR environments.

Based on recent Chinese TPA initiatives and on 108 TPA announcements of Chinese-listed firms from 2016 to 2020, this study adopts an event study method to investigate the impact of firm's TPA announcements on the firm's market value. Then, the authors construct a cross-sectional regression to analyse different CSR factors that may affect market reactions.

The results demonstrate that TPA announcements can increase a firm's overall market value. Additionally, the results show that TPA way and firm ownership significantly moderate the market reaction, namely the positive reaction is more significant when the TPA announcements involve charity poverty alleviation rather than industrial poverty alleviation and for privately owned firms rather than state-owned firms.

The empirical results help TPA practitioners obtain a nuanced understanding of whether and when to participate in poverty alleviation is worthwhile. This study also provides a reference for poverty alleviation work in countries with similar backgrounds.

This study not only provides empirical evidence for the consequences of poverty alleviation behaviour of firms in developing countries, but also complements the field of CSR research in developed countries.

This study explores labor relations management behaviors of administrators and Party organizations in resource-based state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China based on social exchange theory and embeddedness theory. It builds up a process model for managing collective labor conflicts in resource-based SOEs in the Chinese context.

A comparative case study is conducted using two resource-based SOEs with similar backgrounds but differing in effectiveness of the management of collective labor conflicts. Data are collected from interviews, archival sources and a one-month participatory investigation.

The administrators and Party organizations of resource-based SOEs manage collective labor conflicts by means of human resource practices (HRPs) and Party organizations' boundary-spanning behaviors (PBSBs), respectively; foremen and unions perform a mediation role, especially under circumstances where administrators employ high-performance HRPs and PBSBs are closely integrated with the production process. The marketization of the “new danwei system” exerts a “provocation effect” but does not necessarily lead to collective labor conflicts. The root cause of conflicts lies in the inherent defects of specific HRPs and PBSBs, as well as the absence of the Simmelian tie in the social exchange interaction of actors.

First, this study develops a new construct of PBSBs for enterprises' Party organizations and explores its underlying mechanisms, which enriches the range of actors studied in the context of Chinese labor relations; Second, the authors develop a new dimension called “exemplification” building on the existing three-dimensional structure of boundary-spanning behaviors, which expands boundary-spanning theory. Third, the findings that Simmelian tie structure could better maintain the stability of labor relationship in the mediation process of labor-capital conflict management enrich the social exchange theory from the perspective of structure. Finally, this study deepens the existing research on HRPs by proposing a new explanation for disputes.