Qiang Li

Sino-foreign cooperative universities (SFCU) represent the advanced manifestation of transnational education in China and has profoundly shaped the country’s higher education landscape. Despite the tremendous development of SFCUs, there is limited research on the motivations and driving factors of students choosing to study at SFCUs. To bridge this research gap, this study employs the grounded theory approach to examine why Chinese high school graduates choose SFCUs as study destinations. This study reveals that Chinese students’ choice of SFCUs results from personal considerations, institution-level characteristics, and social contexts. A theoretical framework is further proposed to better understand Chinese students’ motivations behind their choice to SFCUs. We also draw theoretical contributions on students’ mobility and marketing strategies that attract Chinese students to study at SFCUs with the findings.

This paper investigates the effect of the quality of environmental information disclosure of firms on their bank financing and further examines the moderating effect of formal and informal institutions on this effect using China as a laboratory. We find that the quality of environmental information disclosure is positively (negatively) related to the scale (cost) of bank financing. Furthermore, the formal institution (proxied by the official issuance of the Green Credit Guidelines) strengthens the above relationship. Moreover, the informal institution (proxied by bank connection) weakens the association between the quality of environmental information disclosure and bank financing. Our results are valid after addressing the potential endogeneity between environmental information disclosure and bank financing and remain unchanged in various robustness tests. Our findings affirm the decision usefulness of corporate environmental information disclosure that can be used by companies as an effective strategy for obtaining bank financing and the ethical integrity of borrowers to banks as an important group of capital market participants.

This study examines whether executives justify their excess compensation through environmental information disclosure using a sample of listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries from 2010 to 2014. We find that executives' excess compensation is positively related to the quality of environmental information disclosure. The above relationship is significant in cases with strong demand for compensation justification (i.e., state‐owned enterprises and firms where an internal compensation gap is salient), indicating that executives manipulate environmental information disclosure about their companies according to their purposes. We also find that media pressure weakens the above relationship. A further test affirms a differential influence of media pressure in settings that involve public or private ownership, development of markets, and low or high product market competition. This study reveals a self‐serving motive of executives for environmental information disclosure. The findings of this study have practical implications for regulators, shareholders, and managers.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the demands of the core stakeholders and how these stakeholders drive the information disclosure behaviors of the enterprise and local government.Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis was conducted. The authors collected and analyzed information disclosure laws and regulations regarding environmental emergencies in China, as well as related media reports and official accident investigation report about the oil pipeline leakage and explosion accident in City Q. The authors divided the whole process of the accident into four stages, i.e., the prodromal stage, acute stage, chronic stage, and resolution stage, and then analyzed the different demands of stakeholders and the different information disclosure behaviors of the enterprise and local government during these four stages.Findings: During the environmental emergency, the enterprise and local government exhibited information disclosure behaviors for their own benefits. There was severe information asymmetry between the enterprise and local government. Local government acted more positively in terms of information disclosure than the enterprise due to the demands of stakeholders. There were significant differences between the driving effects of different stakeholders. The effects of central government and local communities were the strongest, followed by news media and environmental organizations, whereas general public had the weakest impact. In addition, the effects of stakeholders on the information disclosure varied throughout different stages.Originality/value: This paper considered a Chinese typical case study, thereby providing details of information disclosure behaviors of the enterprise and local government during an environmental emergency, and making comparative analysis on the driving effects on information disclosure by different stakeholders.