Dong Wang

This study seeks to shed light on the effect of star CEOs on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of Chinese firms. Relying on the theoretical perspective of role identity and role constraints, we analyze data from 1222 Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2006 to 2019. The results analyzed using the ordinary least squares estimate method reveal a positive effect of star CEOs' extreme confidence and legitimacy pressure mechanisms on ESG performance. We also find that this positive relationship is negatively moderated by higher organizational slack but strengthened by a lower level of regional marketization, as the degree of firms' dependence on external stakeholders' resources differs significantly. Additionally, this study finds that ESG activities are less likely to be associated with firm performance if star CEOs pursue them to satisfy their need for star status. These findings supplement the early tests of the influence mechanism of star CEOs on organization-level results and expand the context discussion of role identity and role constraints theory in the Chinese institutional environment.

We study whether greater social trust is associated with a lower incidence of corporate misconduct. Both social norm and network theory suggest that social trust can affect managerial behavior and reduce the likelihood of misconduct behavior. Consistent with this prediction, we find that social trust is negatively associated with corporate misconduct behavior. Moreover, we show that, when media coverage is higher, the negative relation between social trust and corporate misconduct behavior is more pronounced. Further analyses suggest that social trust can help mitigate both disclosure-related and nondisclosure-related misconduct.

This paper examines the association between corporate philanthropy and tunneling by controlling shareholders. Using a unique dataset from China, the paper finds evidence that firms donating more are less likely to tunnel. The negative association between philanthropy and tunneling is stronger when firms are faced with more severe agency conflicts, as indicated by lower largest shareholding, fewer growth opportunities, lower state ownership, and weaker product market competition. The results suggest that companies engaging in philanthropy have incentives to enhance their reputations and improve their relationships with stakeholders.

The notion of “agent bookkeeping” was proposed when the “Accounting Law of the People’s Republic of China” was updated in 1993. Since their business is specialized in serving small and micro-enterprises, this has created the industry characteristic of generally small in the size of company and low in the salary of employees in Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Such characteristic results in a series of problems including negative work attitude of employees in the development process, which seriously limit the development of Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. However, issues occurred in the development of agent bookkeeping, such as negative employee attitudes, which severely hampered the growth of Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Therefore, a model of three dimensions of work attitude has been set up in this paper to demonstrate the working attitude of the staff of the agent bookkeeping companies in China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, including emotional dimension, behavioral dimension, and cognitive dimension which consists of eight factors: work environment, career satisfaction, interpersonal relationship, role engagement, work vitality, responsibility attitude, emotional identity, and retention attitude. The result indicates that female employees outnumber male ones in agent bookkeeping companies, most employees have a low sense of belonging to the company, limited career development affects employees’ enthusiasm for work, work attitudes are influenced by mediocre work performance among employees with a graduate degree or higher.