Given that women CEOs are usually more risk averse, engage less in opportunistic behavior, and provide higher quality earnings than men CEOs, we argue that firms with women CEOs are likely to face lower operational and information risk and thus enjoy cheaper external funds. Using a large sample of Chinese A-share listed firms operating from 2006 to 2012, we find consistent evidence that Chinese banks tend to impose lower loan costs on firms with women CEOs compared to firms with men (...) CEOs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises than for state-owned enterprises, for firms without political connections than for firms with political connections, and during non-crisis periods. We do not find any significant effects for firms with women chairpersons, CFOs, or directors. (shrink)

Following the financial crisis and recent recession, the center of gravity of global economic growth and competitiveness is shifting toward emerging economies. As a leading and increasingly influential emerging economy, China is currently attracting the attention of academics, practitioners, and policy makers. There has been an increase in research interest in and publications on issues relating to China within high-quality international academic journals. We therefore organized a special issue conference in conjunction with the Journal of Business Ethics in Lhasa, Tibet, (...) on May 19–20, 2014, on Business Ethics in Greater China: Past, Present and Future. The papers for the special issue focused on the intersection of ethics and finance, and fit within one of the three themes: environment and sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and fraud. Within these themes, issues of intellectual capital protection, gender equality, political connections, regional development, investor protection, corporate stewardship, trust and corruption, and corporate transparency each play a significant role. In this paper, we survey these studies and the related literature to provide a comprehensive coverage of business ethics and finance issues that affect China. (shrink)

The impact of smaller firm size on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is ambiguous. Some contend that small businesses are socially responsible by nature, while others argue that a smaller firm size imposes barriers on small firms that constrain their ability to take responsible action. This paper critically analyses recent theoretical and empirical contributions on the size–social responsibility relationship among small businesses. More specifically, it reviews the impact of firm size on four antecedents of business behaviour: issue characteristics, personal characteristics, organizational (...) characteristics and context characteristics. It concludes that the small business context does impose barriers on social responsibility taking, but that the impact of the smaller firm size on social responsibility should be nuanced depending on a number of conditions. From a critical analysis of these conditions, opportunities for small businesses and their constituents to overcome the constraining barriers are suggested. (shrink)

The state governance system seems to be incapable to address sufficiently global public goods problems or to regulate global business so that the public interest is served. At the same time, international governmental organizations are unable to fill the governance gap while nongovernmental organizations criticize the behavior of business firms along their supply chains. Therefore, business firms are confronted with increasing social and environmental demands and are requested to take responsibility for issues of public concern. As a response, some business (...) firms engage with corporate social responsibility projects and directly contribute to the production of public goods. These developments challenge the received theory of the firm and its strict separation of public and private domains. Corporations become political actors. In this introductory essay, the guest editors first elaborate on the concept of politics and describe the challenges that lead to the new political role of global business firms and, second, will introduce the articles in this special issue and briefly comment on their contribution. (shrink)

Institutional and resource dependence theories point at the roles of government and peers’ behavior as determinants of firms’ social behavior. This is tested in this research, with important implications for both theory and practice. Using data from a national survey of Chinese private small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, this paper examines the role of government intervention in corporate philanthropy, as well as the moderation effect of peers’ giving. Results show that government intervention, when using a Marketization Index as a (...) measure, increases CP. In addition, the community peers’ giving enhances the positive effect of government intervention on SMEs’ giving. But the moderation effect of industry peers’ giving is generally not supported except when CP is measured as giving-to-sales. In general, community peers appear to be a clear reference for SMEs and, in relation to government intervention, exert a dominant isomorphic influence. The findings provide strong support to the neo-institutional theory perspective on philanthropy. Important theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether philanthropic giving decisions and amount of charitable giving are related to firms’ political connections and ownership type. To this end, Chinese firms listed on either the Shenzhen or Shanghai stock exchange between 2004 and 2011 are examined, where government interference in the business sector is prevalent, state ownership structure is dominant, and corporate political connections prevail. Our analyses show a significant and positive relationship between political connections and the likelihood and extent of firm contributions; a significant (...) and negative relationship between state ownership and extent of firm contributions; and a stronger relationship between political connections and corporate philanthropy in non-state-owned firms. These findings with regard to the relationship between corporate giving, political connections, and ownership type have important implications for understanding corporate giving behavior in China and in emerging markets in general. (shrink)

Drawing on institutional and signaling theories, this study examines how environmental corporate social responsibility affects firm performance in a dysfunctional institutional environment. We extend the ECSR literature by suggesting that ECSR indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating effects of business and political legitimacy. Based on a dataset of 238 firms in China, we find that ECSR affects business and political legitimacy followed by firm performance. Moreover, legal incompleteness weakens and legal inefficiency strengthens the effects of ECSR on business and (...) political legitimacy. (shrink)