Corporate social responsibility reporting in China: political, social and corporate influences

This paper explores the main drivers of CSR and its reporting for large Chinese listed companies, and identifies the key institutional pressures and stakeholder influences that shape CSR and its reporting. The data were collected through interviews with managers from large listed Chinese companies. Our findings reveal how the Chinese government uses social organisations and social intermediaries to facilitate and mediate CSR and its reporting to meet changing societal expectations across regions, while ensuring that companies remain responsive to the expectations of international stakeholders. We find that CSR and its reporting help companies gain political legitimacy domestically, while retaining their legitimacy in global markets. Companies co-operate with social organisations and social intermediaries actively and continuously. This helped companies secure political legitimacy with the government, while helping officials maintain their social legitimacy. Our findings on regional differences support the idea that relations between Chinese business and society have a fundamental effect on CSR and its reporting

IPOs, institutional complexity, and management accounting in hybrid organisations: A field study in a state-owned enterprise in China

An initial public offering (IPO) is an important milestone for an organisation. In addition to pressures from capital markets unavoidably imposed onto newly listed firms, other beliefs, rationales, and prescriptions deriving from the institutional environment where they operate may prevail and guide organisational practices. Drawing on the perspective of institutional logics, this paper investigates the implementation of management accounting (MA) within firms that face multiple institutional demands following an IPO. By studying a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) that was recently listed, this paper demonstrates that the interplay of multiple logics, including State, corporate, and capital market logics, shapes the manner in which MA operates. This study also reveals that different MA practices tend to encompass institutional demands in diverse ways and to varying degrees. However, regardless of whether MA practices are implemented to simply respond to plural institutional expectations, connect different organising principles, or balance elements of multiple logics, they function as hybrid practices, helping to maintain the hybrid nature of the firm as a ‘listed SOE’. This study makes two main contributions. First, it extends the literature on IPOs by providing an in-depth analysis of how MA is implemented and why it functions in particular ways in firms following an IPO, and by exploring the influences of a wider set of beliefs, rationales, and expectations on the MA practices of newly listed companies. Second, by drawing on the perspective of institutional logics, this paper extends prior research addressing the dynamics between institutional complexity and MA adoption by individual organisations and enriches our understanding of how hybrid organisations may maintain their hybridity through the deployment of MA practices

How do enterprises respond to a managerial accounting performance measure mandated by the state?

We study the application of Economic Value Added (EVA®) by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) following a regulatory requirement to deploy the measure. Our theoretical framing engages conceptual elements of institutional work and public accountability research to consider why key actors vary in their responses to the mandated application of EVA®. Our data derives from thirty interviews with managers in three SOEs and their oversight body (the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council). We identify two relevant dimensions associated with managers: 'accounting centricity' and 'institutional potential' and report that they drive the authenticity of actors' responses in the absence of enforcement of the mandated measure. When accounting centricity and institutional potential align to the dictates of the higher implementing body, accountability remains high notwithstanding the absence of enforcement. When these two factors do not align, accountability fails even when politicization is high and formal accountability claims are high. Where the two factors are partially present, the accountability response is mixed. Our study contributes to a refinement of the perspective advanced by prior investigations of institutionally sanctioned roll outs of accounting systems highlighting in particular, the role of human agency in explaining actor responses

Management controls in automotive international joint ventures involving Chinese parent companies

Key findings: • Flexibility in international joint ventures (JVS) is important and a shared but split control style is recommended. • Chinese partners used to have learning as their main objective in an IJV but this has been replaced by profit, growth and market share. • The most significant shifts in control between partners involve human resource management and research and development. • When foreign partners insist on adherence to their own management philosophy, culture clashes occur. • Negotiation is a part of daily life in the IJVs, and it occurs at both executive and managerial levels, depending upon the significance of the item

Strategy and management control in embracing market-political paradox: the case during institutional transitions in emerging economies

This study focuses on the management of market-political paradox within the context of institutional transition in emerging economies and how management control systems (MCSs) can be used to engage and communicate such a strategy. A case study is conducted in a Chines state-owned enterprise where Economic-Value-Added is introduced to promote shareholder’s value maximization while firm size is still important to meet the political demand. A spatial focus strategy was identified which requires subsidiaries to engage both forces but with different focuses. It provides critical insights on how diagnostic, interactive, beliefs, and boundary control have been employed to visualize and engage the paradoxical strategy in the organization, where the interwoven of ‘either/or’ dilemma and ‘both/and’ paradox brings ambivalence and uncertainty into decision-making. The study extends our understanding of managing organizational paradox and the relevance of MCSs in it, which enriches our knowledge with insights on indigenous Chinese management practices

Economic value added adoption in Chinese SOEs-a case of evolutionary change

Led by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), the Chinese government has adopted a residual income (RI) index since 2010 when assessing the performance of the 129 state owned enterprises (SOEs) under direct administration of Central Government, known as central SOEs, after a three-year trial.This study explored how actors interact during the new index adoption process. The actors include SASAC as an agent of state interests and the scheme promoter, and the management of SOEs at both group and business unit level.The project aims to: establish the evolution of performance measures in Chinese central SOEs and explore the motives behind explore the effects of RI adoption on strategic, managerial and operational decision making at both group and business unit level analyse the relationships and the interactions between actors during RI implementation.A case study approach is used to interview key officials in charge of performance evaluation, the chief financial officers (CFOs) and the business unit managers of four case companies

Is there an expectations gap in the roles of independent directors? An explorative study of listed Chinese companies

This paper investigates whether an expectations gap exists in the control, strategic and resource provision roles that independent directors play in the corporate governance of listed Chinese firms and the factors that affect their performance of these roles. For this purpose, we interviewed Chinese executive directors, independent directors, institutional investors and stock exchange regulators. We find a performance gap but no reasonableness gap with respect to the control and strategic roles. The results suggest that the performance gap may be attributed to such factors as the ill-defined roles, independent directors' limited amount of time commitment and their lack of competence and objectivity. Interestingly, there is disagreement over the protection of minority interest as the objective of the control role. We find no consensus on the desirability, reasonableness and effectiveness of independent directors' resource provision role, perhaps because of a pejorative interpretation of this role as an exercise of guanxi