Search results

This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.

We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.

The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.

This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.

This study seeks to understand how accountant stereotypes have been constructed and reconstructed at the macro-national and the structural level in Chinese society.

This qualitative investigation into China's social construction of accountant stereotypes employs Becker's (1963) labelling theory. Viewing stereotyping as a socially constructed practice, this study draws on a post-positivistic, reflexive epistemology in conducting 28 semi-structured interviews with accountants and related actors.

Chinese accountant stereotypes are constructed and reconstructed according to the rules created and enforced in different cultural-political periods. The accountant stereotypes constructed during the ancient Confucian period (500 BC – 1948) were replaced during 1949 and 2012 when the political focus shifted towards propagating socialism and later promoting economic growth. They also show how Confucian stereotypes of accountants resurfaced in 2013 but were reconstructed by the central government's cultural confidence policy of propagating Confucianism.

Empirically, prior literature has focused on what the accountant stereotype is and how accountants respond to such stereotypes, but it has neglected the ways in which these accountant stereotypes are politically and culturally constructed, diffused and legitimated. This paper fills in the gap by understanding the social practice of accountant stereotyping in a previously unexplored political-cultural context, namely Chinese society. In theoretical terms, by offering the first use of Becker's (1963) labelling theory in the accounting literature, it furthermore enhances our understanding of how accountants' identities and social standing are shaped by social rules.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between a commercial bank’s micro-loaning activity and overall performance over a 10-year period.

Quarterly data was obtained from the Wind Database, China Minsheng Banks’s official annual reports and annual corporate social responsibility reports from 2009 to 2019, to test the linear relationship between micro-loan activities and the overall financial performance of the bank.

The results of this study empirically demonstrate that there is a positive relationship between increases in micro-loaning activity and the overall performance of the bank. Some key recommendations for the sector are shared in the conclusion of this paper.

In the financial sector, some corporate social responsibility activities focus on the issuance of micro-loans. It is unclear, however, if this has also served as a means to increase profitability and overall performance for such institutions.

This study aims to control the oxidation resistance of Co-based deformed superalloys by adding trace elements Hf and Si.

The effects and mechanism of trace elements Hf and Si on the oxidation behavior of Co-Ni-Al-W-based forged superalloys were investigated by cyclic oxidation at 900°C.

The results show that the addition of trace elements Hf and Si does not affect the type of surface oxides of Co-Ni-based superalloys, and the oxidation layers of the alloys are TiO₂, spinel, Cr₂O₃, TaTiO₄, Al₂O₃ and TiN from outside to inside. However, the addition of elements can affect the activity of Cr and Ti elements; decrease the formation of TiO₂ and TaTiO₄ layers, which are harmful to the oxidation performance; and then improve the oxidation resistance of the alloy.

The relevant research results can not only optimize the microalloying element content of Co-Ni-Al-W-based superalloys, but also provide a new perspective for the composition optimization design of superalloys.

Due to the special service environment of superalloys, this paper aims to obtain effects of temperature and Ti addition on high temperature oxidation behavior of Co-Al-W-B alloys.

Isothermal oxidation experiment of Co-Al-W-based alloys were carried out at 800°C, 900°C and 1000°C for different times (3, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 h) referring to the method of HB5258-2000. Oxidation weight gain curves and oxidation products were detected.

The results showed that the average oxidation rates of Co-Al-W-B alloy at 800 °C and 900 °C were 0.489 g·m⁻²·h⁻¹ and 0.888 g·m⁻²·h⁻¹, respectively, which belonged to an antioxidant grade. However, the average oxidation rate at 1000 °C was 2.068 g m⁻²·h⁻¹, belonging to the secondary oxidation resistance class. In the alloy with Ti addition, dense Ti oxides film were formed at the early oxidation stage and then gradually diffused later, which can increase the oxidation resistance of the alloys to some extent. By analyzing the oxidation products of Co-Al-W-B alloy, it was found that a dense Al₂O₃ layer could be formed when the alloy was oxidized at 800°C. The continuous Al₂O₃ layer would prevent the oxygen from further spreading and make the alloy into the stable oxidation stage. However, only a non-dense Al₂O₃ layer were observed with 900°C oxidation.

It can provide references for the composition design, preparation process optimization and protective coating selection of the γ′ phase strengthened cobalt-base superalloys.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made telecommuting widely valued, but different individuals have different degrees of acceptance of telecommuting. This article aims to identify suitable individuals for telework and to clarify which types of workers are suitable for what level of telework, set scientific, reasonable hybrid work ratios and processes and measure their suitability.

First, two working scenarios of different risk levels were established, and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to introduce latent variables, constructing a multi-indicator multi-causal model (MIMIC) to identify suitable individuals, and second, constructing an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model of the working method to determine the suitability of different types of people for telework by calculating their selection probabilities.

It is possible to clearly distinguish between two types of suitable individuals for telework or traditional work. Their behavior is significantly influenced by the work environment, which is influenced by variables such as age, income, attitude, perceived behavioral control, work–family balance and personnel exposure level. In low-risk scenarios, the influencing factors of the behavioral model for both types of people are relatively consistent, while in high-risk scenarios, significant differences arise. Furthermore, the suitability of telework for the telework-suitable group is less affected by the pandemic, while the suitability for the non-suitable group is greatly affected.

This study contributes to previous literature by: (1) determining the suitability of different population types for telework by calculating the probability of selection, (2) dividing telework and traditional populations into two categories, identifying the differences in factors that affect telework under different epidemic risks and (3) considering the impact of changes in the work scenario on the suitability of telework for employees and classifying the population based on the suitability of telework in order to avoid the potential negative impact of telework.

The purpose of this paper is to make a general comparison between urban‐rural relationship in China and that in the developed countries, aiming to draw some experiences based on which future tendencies of urban‐rural relationship in China could be predicted.

The core analysis of this paper examines how the urban‐rural relationship develops especially when urbanization rate reaches a very high level. Through literature review, this paper explores the evolution of urban‐rural relationship in developed nations by referring to some international cities in different industrial stages. In parallel, it goes through this relationship in China from 1949 until now.

This paper shows that future urbanization development in China will be generated largely by rural‐urban migration especially the eastern‐inclined migration while rural industrialization‐lead urbanization would develop at the provincial level. It also points that education and training to the labor force is the crucial issue to future urbanization development in China.

The obvious value of this paper is to predict, through a historical review and comparison, urban‐rural relationship in China when it is approaching to high urbanization level. Literature review finds some experiences in developed countries that will somehow take place in China. It also analyzes the eastern‐oriented rural‐urban migration, rural industrialization and their influence on urban‐rural relationship in China.

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), laying the foundation for its applications in autonomous navigation, intelligent driving and other related domains.

In analyzing the latest research, the review presents representative achievements, including methods to enhance efficiency, robustness and accuracy. Additionally, the review provides insights into the future development direction of Visual SLAM, emphasizing the importance of improving system robustness when dealing with dynamic environments. The research methodology of this review involves a literature review and data set analysis, enabling a comprehensive understanding of the current status and prospects in the field of Visual SLAM.

This review aims to comprehensively evaluate the latest advances and challenges in the field of Visual SLAM. By collecting and analyzing relevant research papers and classic data sets, it reveals the current issues faced by Visual SLAM in complex environments and proposes potential solutions. The review begins by introducing the fundamental principles and application areas of Visual SLAM, followed by an in-depth discussion of the challenges encountered when dealing with dynamic objects and complex environments. To enhance the performance of SLAM algorithms, researchers have made progress by integrating different sensor modalities, improving feature extraction and incorporating deep learning techniques, driving advancements in the field.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this review lies in its in-depth analysis of current research hotspots and predictions for future development, providing valuable references for researchers in this field.

Rural resilience plays an important role in maintaining rural stability and people's living standards in the face of risks and unexpected challenges. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the concept and mechanism of rural resilience and discuss how rural resilience is measured and to propose ways to improve rural resilience.

Literature review of the theoretical interpretations and empirical studies of rural resilience are conducted in the paper.

Resilience acts in the process as rural communities respond to risks and disturbances so as to maintain system stability and minimize the loss. Rural resilience consists of the capacity of resistance, adaptation and transformation. Promoting multifunctional transformation, exercising bottom-up planning and enhancing social capital are proposed to improve rural resilience.

The study of the paper makes comprehensive review of rural resilience in the context of rural interaction with the changing external environment. The study contributes to the understanding of rural evolution and helps to initiate feasible ways to achieve rural revival.

Based on the theory of “optimal contracting approach” and “the managerial power approach”, this paper aims to investigate whether senior executives of listed companies in China make use of their power to gain their own private benefits. The paper also compares compensation contracts between state- and private-owned enterprises to test whether there is a significant difference between senior executives from different ownership types of enterprises in terms of compensation contracts.

The paper raises four hypotheses based on the theories of “company agency”, “optimal contracting approach” and “managerial power approach”. After that, 5,680 A-share-listed companies of stock market in Shanghai and in Shenzhen Stock Market from 2008 to 2012 were taken as research samples to conduct a series of research analysis, including t-test, reliability analysis and regression analysis, with the help of SPSS 18.0.

The senior executives of listed companies in China could make use of their power to increase their own salary to gain power pay and, at the same time, company performance, company size and other factors that are important to influence the executive compensation. This paper further argues that senior executives of private-owned listed companies are more likely to use their power to obtain power pay and increase their own compensation. Additionally, the agency costs of Chinese listed companies are negatively related to the performance pay of senior executives, whereas there is no obvious negative correlation with the power pay of senior executives.

This paper takes multiple, in-depth approaches to study the relationship among managerial power, agency cost and executive compensation and to find out the differences in compensation contracts of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. It also provides necessary suggestions to ensure the interests of stockholders, such as: optimizing the management structure of listed companies; improving the transparence of information disclosure of listed companies; establishing effective mechanism of incentive and constraint; and improving and standardizing the market of professional managers.

The compensation contract of senior executives in China is critical to enhance enterprises’ performance, and it will become an important factor that will facilitate the interests of stockholders and management. However, this paper argues that some phenomena of over-payment of senior executives in listed companies cannot be explained by the theory of “optimal contracting approach”, but it is necessary and important to compare the differences of compensation contract of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. A series of findings are proposed in this paper.

This paper made use of a principal analysis to extract the main factors that could represent the managerial power from different angles. In addition, this paper also compared the differences between compensation contracts of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. Additionally, in this paper, the compensation of senior executives was divided into “power compensation” and “performance compensation”, which were used to test the relationship with the management cost of companies.