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Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission has a detrimental impact on climate change. There is an increasing trend for firms to use disclosure to signal stakeholders about its environmental responsibilities and performance in dealing with climate change. China is one of the countries producing the most carbon emissions. Over the last decade, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are becoming important players in international trade. However, the existing literature provides limited evidence on how Chinese SOEs influence GHG disclosure. Through the lens of stakeholder–agency theory, this chapter studies the top 300 listed firms to examine the relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. The result suggests a negative relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. This could be explained as a consequence of the managers' political self-interests, economic and policy-oriented decision-making process and the power differentials between the government and SOE managers. This research extends the GHG literature to Chinese SOEs context, providing direct evidence on how state ownership impacts on GHG disclosure.

This paper aims to evaluate the suggestion that the antecedents of union commitment and participation may differ between foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China based on the view that SOE unions will focus more strongly on the traditional dual role, emphasising on managerial functions and employee welfare.

The paper is based on employee surveys in two enterprises in Shanghai, one FIE and one SOE. Employee attitudes towards the union and enterprise were measured using a self-completion questionnaire, and data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Findings suggest that pro-union attitudes were more salient in the FIE context. In contrast, SOE workers’ allegiance to the union appeared to be a less reflection of pro-union attitudes and was more narrowly instrumental.

The findings suggest that FIEs workers’ union allegiances are more likely to reflect a pro-union orientation, with SOE workers more likely to see their union allegiances in narrowly instrumental terms. In FIEs, with a profit-oriented and privately managed enterprise, union allegiances may be closer to those of Western market economies, whilst in SOEs, the “dual role” model persists, with unions a service provider rather than an independent employee representative.

The findings in this paper provide an initial test of the potential differences in the antecedents of union commitment and participation across FIEs and SOEs. Future research is needed to build on these findings, in particular, adopting multi-enterprise study designs across different enterprise types.

This study aims to investigate measures established to ensure board of directors (BODs) in a state-owned enterprise (SOE) meets the organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD, 2015) guidelines criteria: how they perform their advising and control roles, and interactions within the boardroom using agency theory and OECD guidelines.

This research adopts a qualitative approach of a board within a SOE in Barbados involving several stages of data collection. A case study approach was used involving interviews of nine board members and seven key management staff, analysis of board minutes and annual reports.

BODs follow majority of the OECD (2015) guidelines for good governance. The Chairman allowed full discussion and input from BODs. The board members’ diverse qualifications and skills added value to the organization. However, appointments to the board were heavily slanted toward political considerations which at times may have skewed judgments. Boardroom interactions reflected quality contributions from the BODs. Decision-making was lengthy and tedious. Boardroom atmosphere could be territorial.

Political interference remains an issue facing BODs in executing their roles. This study did not observe board meetings but perceived views via the lens of BODs and management.

This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge of SOE board governance based on OECD (2015) guidelines and how the board performs its advising and control roles. Insights are gained on how board processes contribute to boardroom interaction by using agency theory as the theoretical framework.

In this fast-changing world, digitization has become crucial to organizations, allowing decision-makers to alter corporate processes. Companies with a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) level not only help encourage employees to focus on their goals, but they also show that they take their social responsibility seriously, which is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. So, this study aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure of Chinese A-share companies. Furthermore, this research investigates the moderating impact of governance heterogeneity, including CEO power and corporate internal control (INT) mechanisms.

This study used fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure and the moderating effect of governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The whole sample consists of 17,266 firms, including 5,038 state-owned enterprise (SOE) company records and 12,228 non-SOE records. The whole sample data is collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, the Chinese Research Data Services and the WIND databases.

The regression results lead us to three conclusions after classifying the sample into non-SOE and SOE groups. First, Chinese A-share businesses with greater levels of digitalization have lower CSR disclosures. Both SOE and non-SOE are consistent with these findings. Second, increasing CEO authority creates a more centralized company decision-making structure (Breuer et al., 2022; Freire, 2019), which improves the negative association between digitalization and CSR disclosure. These conclusions, however, also apply to non-SOE. Finally, INT reinforces the association between corporate digitization and CSR disclosure, which is especially obvious in SOEs. These findings are robust to alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative relationship between corporate digitalization and CSR disclosures is more pronounced in bigger, highly levered and highly financialized firms.

Digitalization and CSR disclosure are well studied, but few have examined their interactions from a governance heterogeneity perspective in China. Practitioners and policymakers may use these insights to help business owners implement suitable digital policies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

The aim of this paper is to investigate CEO succession in China's state‐owned enterprises (SOE) from within intra‐industry labor market. One hypothesis looks at the proportion of SOEs in the industry which will be negatively associated with the likelihood of intra‐firm succession. Another proposition claims the performance gap between SOEs and the industry average level is positively related to the likelihood of intra‐firm succession.

Secondary source data on 79 CEO successions and descriptive company measures were obtained. Background variables such as ROA and employee number were collected from the Tianjin Statistical Yearbook. Pearson and logistic regression coefficients provided tests of hypotheses.

The hypotheses are strongly supported given all measures of performance. The likelihood of intra‐firm succession is negatively associated with the proportion of SOEs in a particular industry. The lower the performance of SOEs behind the industry average level, the greater the likelihood of intra‐firm succession.

The sample size used is moderate. Even though Tianjin is a large industrial center, generalizations to all of China may be limited.

The results support the overall argument that firms within a gradualist economic transition environment in China will tend to choose an internal CEO succession when firms have a limited qualified managerial supply outside the organization. Future research examining the CEO successor in both SOEs and non‐SOEs will provide a more complete picture of organization management with transitional economies evolving into the largest world‐leading economies.

The data base is unique. The paper looks at the business activities and management processes of China's SOEs for the purpose of understanding the way leadership develops; and the organizational effect it has on top management succession. The research not only contributes to the succession literature but also enables managers and investors to better understand the practice of top management succession in Chinese SOEs.

This study aims to explore the complex, multi-level institutional dynamics of smart city reforms and projects and their potential sustainability pressures on the implementation of a management accounting system in an Egyptian state-owned enterprise (SOE), which has a politically sensitive institutional character.

This study adds to institutional management accounting research using a multi-level perspective of institutional dynamics in the smart city context. Data were collected from an interpretive case study of an Egyptian SOE that was under socio-political sustainability pressures to implement a smart electricity network project in New Minya city.

Smart city projects have formed social and political sustainability pressures, which introduced the enterprise resource planning (ERP) network as a new management accounting system. A new (complex and multi-level) management accounting system was invented to reinvent the sustainable city as an “accounting city” (which appeared rhetorically as a “smart city”). “Smart” being the visibility and measurability of the sustainability performance of the collective body, which calls the city and its connectivity to different institutional levels brought out in a city network project for the ERP-enabled electricity distribution.

This study examines a single case study from a single smart city and identifies the accounting community’s need for multiple and comparative case studies to further analyse the potential impact of smart city reforms and projects on the sustainable implementation of management accounting systems.

City policymakers and managers may benefit from the practical findings of this interpretive field-based case study in planning, implementing and monitoring smart city projects and objectives.

Individual and collective well-being may be enhanced through new management accounting forms of multi-level local governance and increased political, field and organisational sustainability.

This study provides important insights into the sustainability dynamics of management accounting in achieving smart city reforms. The achievement of sustainability management accounting systems has connected to multiple ERP roles at different institutional levels, which resulted in accommodating the socio-political objectives of smart city projects.

This paper aims to examine whether and how gender diversity and CEO gender can influence firm value in the emerging market of Pakistan. The study further tests whether these relations vary across state-owned enterprises (SOE) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOE).

This study considers Pakistani listed firms over the period 2010-2017. The firms have been divided into SOE and NSOE for additional analysis. Tobin’s Q is used to measure firm’s value.

The authors document that female directors (FDirectors) on corporate boards is positively associated with firm value. The findings also illustrate that female CEOs (FCEOs) enhances a firm value. Additional analyses show that the influence of FDirectors and FCEOs on firm value is stronger in NSOE than in SOE.

The results suggest that gender diversity and CEO gender play a significant role in corporate decisions. The findings imply that FDirectors discipline the management, reduce agency conflicts and thereby improve corporate governance, resulting in higher firm value.

This study has two important contributions. First, while prior studies mostly based their arguments on using gender diversity of corporate boards, this study shows that a firm performance can be significantly improved if a female serves as a CEO. Second, this study also tests the stated relations for SOE and NSOE and show that gender diversity plays a significant role in NSOE than in SOE.

This paper aims to explore how a shared service centre (SSC) is mobilised in a power-dominant context of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE). Specifically, it examines the mobilisation of SSC within this multi-divisional SOE, the role and dynamics of actors involved and the influence of changes in the integrated information system (IIS) during the mobilisation process.

The study follows a qualitative case study methodology. The authors draw on actor-network theory to examine the network and translation processes constructed in mobilising SSC in the chosen SOE. The data sources of this study were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary reviews.

The mobilisation of SSC is not a linear process but rather a “spiral” interplay through continuous interactions and compromises between human and non-human actors. Power gave the core actor as an orchestrator legitimacy and formality to reduce resistance and obstruction in translation for the mobilisation of SSC. The changes in IIS appear to facilitate the interaction between the heterogeneous actors.

This case study contributes towards understanding the mobilisation of SSC in a power-dominant context by highlighting the impact of changes in IIS and the details of the mobilisation of SSC in terms of the role played by both the individual actors and the technology.

This study provides a broader understanding of the interactions of the heterogeneous actors for mobilising SSC in a power-dominant context. More importantly, the study inspires future research into examining how SSC practices unfold and how the changes in IIS influence the mobilisation of SSC.

This article aims to consider success in terms of the financial returns and risks of new public management (NPM) in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs).

Financial returns of New Zealand SOEs were examined through a review of their annual reports over a five‐year period. Dimensions of risk were examined through interviews conducted in two phases over a two‐year period with senior executives from 12 of the (then) 17 SOEs operating in New Zealand.

Findings indicate the potential for SOEs to operate as profitable government investments, with clear support for positive financial returns under NPM. However, variations noted within individual SOEs also indicate that profitable and commercial operations may not be possible in all cases. An examination of the risks associated with SOEs' operations reveals a number of dimensions of risk, encompassing financial, political (including regulatory), reputational, and public accountability aspects.

There is a need for an enhanced awareness on the part of internal and external stakeholders (such as the government and general public) of the risks SOEs face in pursuing higher levels of profitability. Also required, is a more acute understanding on the part of internal and external stakeholders (e.g. government and the public) of the need for SOEs to manage the range of risks identified, given the potentially delicate balance between risk and return.

While previous studies have considered the financial returns of SOEs, or the risks faced by the public sector in terms of accountability, few have addressed the two issues collectively in a single context.

The concept of power in the literature is not conclusive yet and still contradictive. As contested concept, power have multi-definition in the literature. This study aims to construct a concept of power between organizations, state-owned enterprises (SOE) and communities in the context of community-based tourism in Borobudur, Indonesia.

Participants were 29 individuals representing SOEs (i.e. executive members) and local communities (e.g. village chiefs, community enterprise, managers and residents). Data collection was conducted through interviews, focus group discussions, field records and documents. Using grounded theory, the data were analyzed using open, axial and selective coding.

This study discovered that power was fluid. At first, power was a static resource then when it exchanged, it turned into relational/power interplay and at last, became output resource. There was a transformation of antecedent resources of power into a consequential source of power through relationship processes.

This study should be replicated in other settings for further research, for example, in a business-to-business context and business-to-government to develop a general framework.

Policymakers should be aware of such fluid power to ensure that community-based tourism programs can benefit all parties involved.

Findings from this study make several contributions to current literature as follows: this study extends from the existing theories of power, the community-based tourism context where this study was conducted represents actual social situation allowing it to be transferrable to real environment and elaborating theory of power into a comprehensive framework.