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The paper aims to examine the sufficient and necessary conditions upon which the innovative “partial shock model” was implemented in China.

The study employs a multi‐method approach, involving a case study of Wuhan city in 2004.

Evidence suggests that implementation of the partial shock model in state‐owned small and medium‐sized enterprises (SOSMEs) is not only essential, but also feasible. More than 1,000 enterprises in Wuhan have restructured properties, and hundreds of thousands of workers have changed their state‐owned identity, which has resulted in positive social and economic outcomes in SOSMEs.

The paper suggests that there is a need to combine business reorganisation with government's timely intervention so as to overcome potential problems such as unjust occupation of state assets and unfair distribution among different enterprises in the same city.

The paper explores the distinct Chinese experiences in reforms of SOSMEs, which is a relatively under‐researched area of entrepreneurship.

After three years of economic reform in urban areas, China has been confronted with a series of choices. Six of these choices are examined: the focus of the reform, its approach, its target, the pattern of national economic macro‐management, the macro‐economic policy, and the pace of the reform. It is held that the focus of the reform should be the establishment of a planned commodity economic system, which is the correct target of the reform; such a reform must be carried out step by step, systematically and in the light of an integrated design worked out in advance, with greater paces to shorten the period in which two systems confront each other; the macro‐management of the economy should be carried out by the central authority on the basis of an integrated market rather than administrative decentralisation; the money supply should be controlled in order to create a relatively relaxed environment for reform. On each of the six aspects, other prevailing views are analysed.

Since the late 1970s, Chinese policymakers have implemented many policies to reform their country's administrative systems for the purpose of promoting economic development. In the area of public budgeting and finance, reform policies have been introduced to improve China's taxation system, budgeting system and intergovernmental fiscal relations. The implementation of these policies has resulted in many changes and improvement to China's society and has also created new challenges to China's future development. This symposium introduction provides a brief review of the development of reform policies and a summary of five articles that examine China's revenue system, public expenditure structure, budgeting control, incentive policy, and education finance.

Reforms set forth in Sarbanes‐Oxley and the NYSE, AMEX, and NASD are designed to prevent the reoccurrence of corporate collapses at companies such as Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc., and Global Crossing Ltd. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possible impact the reforms may or may not have had in controlling the abuses uncovered in recent corporate failures.

This paper examines the reforms to corporate governance and the rationale behind the reforms, and examines how the actual governance structures of Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing during the years of their accounting scandals compared to the new requirements. It also offers a discussion as to whether the new reforms would have been helpful in preventing management's manipulation of earnings.

Global Crossing's governance structure would have satisfied a majority of the reforms. Enron's and WorldCom's governance structures would have satisfied less than half of the reforms.

This paper highlights the need for management and shareholders alike to focus on the substance of the reforms and not merely the form of the reforms in order to make meaningful improvements to corporate governance.

This paper should serve as a warning to the investing public. The reforms in and of themselves should not be relied on to prevent future corporate scandals. The reforms, however, do focus the spotlight directly on corporate boardrooms where shareholders can now insist that directors' interests be separate from those of the CEO and upper management.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to a dialogue between practitioners and academics. The article discusses the relevance of Public Sector Accounting (PSA) reforms, including their key approaches and challenges, and the role of the World Bank's Public Sector Accounting and Reporting (PULSAR) Program.

This is a practitioner's viewpoint, which reflects World Bank and PULSAR Program's publicly available documents and the opinions of a practitioner involved in the implementation of PSA reforms.

Implementation of PSA reforms, based on the good international standards and practices, such as International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), represents an opportunity for governments to significantly improve (1) the quality, reliability and comparability of their financial information; (2) decision-making process of the high-level public officials; and (3) the overall levels of fiscal transparency and public sector accountability and performance. There are several main approaches of the PSA reform implementation that could be observed across the globe. In practice, many countries and different jurisdictions face multiple challenges associated with PSA reform implementation. The World Bank and PULSAR Program in particular represent a valuable source of knowledge generation and sharing, and also acts as a catalyst for promoting PSA reforms in beneficiary countries.

The limitations of this article (which are also its strength in terms of fitness for purpose) are that as a practitioner's viewpoint, it provides a brief overview and personal judgements rather than an empirical analysis of developments applying a theoretical framework.

A practitioner's engagement with academic supports increased understanding of the respective views leading to better outcomes for practitioners and academics working in the area of public sector accounting.

The article provides a practitioner's input on the relevance of PSA reforms and their key challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to present the contexts for the four papers selected in the area of policy and institutional reforms in India. The two decades of reforms in India have lead to research from multiple perspectives and have thrown up rich repository of knowledge; and the selected papers form part of its continuum. The paper presents a brief overview on the aspects and thrust of these reforms in developed economies, and the learnings. This overview provides the frameworks for understanding reforms in emerging economies. There have been gains but it is still being debated. But, what is concerning policy makers and academicians is the pressure from developed economies and global think tanks to mimic them, when the advantages are still unclear.

This paper provides a conceptual overview and tries to present the overall framework in which the four papers have to be appreciated. The context itself is tuned to the focus of these papers. The selected papers cover a wide spectrum of domain and reform interventions. The approach is to weave together these papers around the theme of policy and institutional reforms in terms of instruments of interventions and their effectiveness. It also throws up issues for future research.

This paper can summarize the findings of these studies it emerges that various attempts are being in the realm of reform with different levels of effectiveness. These are also in different stages of implementation. The papers indicate that while there are gains from reforms, the full potential could not be reached or it is too early to say.

The relevance of this paper and the four papers that it presents are at two levels. First is the direct learning from these studies in their areas of focus. Second is in terms of discerning the common thread of reforms that runs through these papers; in terms of their content, implementation, and effectiveness. These attempts are fairly representative of the reform story that is emerging from India.

Many developed countries have seen significant reforms of their health systems for the last few decades. Despite extensive investment in these changes, health systems still face a range of challenges which reform efforts do not seem to have overcome. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are two particular reasons, which go beyond the standard explanations of changing demographics and disease profiles.

The paper is a commentary based on the literature.

The first explanation relates to the relationship between substantive health care reform and governance reform. These are intertwined processes and the pattern of interaction has distorted both types of reform. Second, reform has multiple meanings and may sometimes be more of an intra-organizational ritual and routine than a coherent plan aiming to bring about particular changes. As such, part of the reason why reform so frequently fails to bring about change is that it was not actually intended to bring about specific changes in the first place. The limited success of reform in recent years, the authors argue, has been a result of the fact that reform has focused too much on the substantive aspects of healthcare, while ignoring the governance aspect of the sector.

As a result, governance has often been obstructed by interest groups inside the system, resulting in paralysis. The authors conclude by arguing that substantive reform of public organizations without an accompanying reassessment of the governance of these organizations are more likely to fail, compared to more comprehensive reform efforts.

The paper aims to highlight the challenges faced by international organisations such as the United Nations when facing the ever‐changing demands for change through the adoption of a holistic reform process.

The paper uses the UN as a case for understanding the reform process undertaken by international organisations. Based on the evidence in hand both from the UN and the literature on public sector reform, leadership and governance, a case has been prepared for the development of a holistic model for achieving the goals of an effective and sustainable reform.

The evidence supports the view that attention ought to be paid to treating international organisations such as the UN as operating in an open system environment where there is a constant need for adaptation to the environment and adoption of change. To achieve this, attention should be paid to the development and capacity building of human resources, whose changing values, behaviour and attitudes are of the utmost importance for the success of reform.

The paper proposes a realistic model for bringing about change and reform in international organisations. It provides a useful framework for all major international organisations, including large public sector institutes and international donor agencies, to follow.