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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between formal environmental regulation (FER) and informal environmental regulation (IER), technological innovation and employment.

This paper uses data from the 30 provinces of China during 2003–2015. The impacts of formal and IER and technological innovation on employment are estimated by generalized least squares, and the eastern region of China is analyzed separately.

First, both formal and IERs have different degrees of significant impact on employment, and the relationship is not a simple linear. FER has an inverted U-shaped relationship with employment, but IER has a U-shaped relationship. However, in the test including technological innovation, the results of the national sample and the eastern sample are different. In the eastern sample, the relationship between informal regulation and employment has an inverted U-shaped curve. Second, the results of model 3 and model 6 show that technological innovation has a significant negative effect on employment both in the national and the eastern region sample.

This paper puts forward corresponding policy implications: first, in designing environmental regulations, it is necessary to consider not only the stringency but also the type of regulation. Second, environmental regulations need to be differentiated by region. Finally, when designing environmental regulations, it is necessary to consider more flexible employment policies that are contingent on the stringency of regulations, in order to prevent employment decline due to technological innovations.

The conclusions about the influence of environmental regulation on employment reached are not consistent in China. Most existing research studies seldom consider environmental regulations into categories and focus only on the whole environmental regulation. This paper pays attention to the influences of different types of environmental regulations on employment. It analyzes the eastern region separately to explore whether there is a difference in the effects of environmental regulations. Furthermore, this considers the effect of technological innovation as a mediator.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating effect of board gender diversity on the relationship between sustainability reporting (SR) and earnings management (EM) in the East Africa Community (EAC).

The study analyzed a sample of 71 publicly traded companies from 2011 to 2021.

The study finds that both SR and board gender diversity have a negative and significant effect on EM and that board gender diversity moderates the relationship between SR and EM.

The findings suggest that boards should support the adoption of SR and increase female representation as a practical way to reduce EM. Policymakers should also implement appropriate measures, such as imposing mandatory SR and gender quotas on corporate boards, to address EM.

This research adds to the limited knowledge of SR and EM in the EAC and also fills a gap in the existing literature by investigating the influence of board gender diversity on the link between SR and EM.

The aim of this paper is to examine how managerial ability affects corporate tax aggressiveness.

The study follows the work of Demerjian, Lev, and McVay (2012) and quantifies managerial ability by calculating how efficiently managers generate revenues from given economic resources using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The study uses a wide range of measures of tax aggressiveness. Firm fixed-effects regressions and a difference-in-differences approach using information regarding CEO turnover to control for endogeneity are used.

The study finds a negative relationship between managerial ability and corporate tax aggressiveness. Further tests show that this negative relationship is more pronounced for firms with higher investment opportunities or firms with more reputational concerns.

Given the significant costs associated with tax aggressiveness and the negative effect it can have on managerial reputation if discovered, the results suggest that more able managers invest less effort in aggressive tax avoidance activities. This study furthers the understanding of how managerial personal traits affect corporate decision-making.