The development of industrialization runs through the history of the People’s Republic of China. In the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union provided important help for China’s industrialization construction, capital lending, talent training and technology transfer. By analyzing the proportion of China’s industrial output value in the total output value and the output of major industrial products during the period of the Soviet Union, it shows that the assistance of the Soviet Union had a very positive role in promoting the realization of ChinaIs industrialization, and helped China to lay the foundation of industrialization. In addition, some problems in accepting the Soviet Union’s aid to China also deserve our attention when promoting the new industrialization. The research explores both the internal and external factors that led to China’s acceptance of Soviet assistance. The study examines the political, economic, and historical contexts that created a favorable environment for such aid, analyzes the various modes and scales of the assistance implemented, and presents statistical data that underscore the transformative social and economic achievements derived from this partnership. Furthermore, the paper highlights the contributions of quantitative analyses in understanding the aid’s impact, discusses the experiences and lessons learned from the Soviet aid period, and assesses the evolving dynamics of Sino—Soviet relations, particularly the gradual divergence in economic development models. The findings shed light on how Soviet aid laid the groundwork for China’s industrialization while also foreshadowing future ideological and developmental separations.

The global financial system is currently navigating a profound transformation driven by digitalization and the rise of decentralized financial innovations. In response, central banks are increasingly exploring or implementing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as a sovereign digital evolution of fiat money. This study investigates the dual nature of CBDCs, evaluating whether they represent a strategic opportunity to modernize the economy or a systemic threat to existing financial stability. Employing a qualitative methodology, the research analyzes official policy frameworks from the IMF and BIS alongside diverse real-world case studies, including China’s e-CNY, the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar, Nigeria’s eNaira, and the European Central Bank’s Digital Euro. The findings suggest that while CBDCs offer significant benefits—such as enhanced payment efficiency, reduced transaction costs, and improved financial inclusion—they also introduce critical risks. These include the potential disintermediation of commercial banks, heightened cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and concerns regarding individual data privacy and government surveillance. The study concludes that the successful integration of CBDCs is not merely a technical challenge but a social and strategic one. Adoption is heavily dependent on infrastructure, digital literacy, and public trust. Ultimately, the research highlights that there is no "one-size-fits-all" model; the future of money will be shaped by how effectively individual nations balance technological innovation with the preservation of financial architecture.

The parking reservation systems (PRS), as an intelligent system, was adopted to address urban parking difficulties. However, the parking reservation system has not been widely adopted in China due to the reasons such as the imperfect system and the uncontrollable parking behaviour of users. This study examines the impact of users' non-compliant behaviour on intentions to reuse PRS. Non-compliant behaviours include not arriving or leaving parking spaces not as scheduled, negatively affecting subsequent users. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was expanded by adding perceived risk, social influence, and behavioral attitude. A survey involving 702 PRS users from multiple Chinese cities was conducted. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used for analysis Results show that perceived risk—such as occupied reserved spaces and extra fees from time deviations—significantly reduces behavioral attitudes and reuse intentions. Conversely, perceived usefulness, ease of use, and social influence positively influence both attitudes and reuse intentions. Importantly, the findings highlight that behavioral uncertainty, particularly users’ deviations from scheduled parking times, is a critical source of perceived risk that undermines trust and long-term engagement. Effectively managing this uncertainty through improved system flexibility and reliability is therefore essential to promoting the sustained adoption of PRS.

This study challenges democratic citizenship theory by examining altruistic behaviour in authoritarian China. We find that financial resources influence prosocial engagement primarily through psychological mediators such as long-term planning and self-discovery, rather than directly providing material means for participation. Communist Party membership shapes specific domestic ideological orientations, but not attitudes toward market regulation or income equality, while cultural tradition emerges as a stronger predictor of certain political attitudes than party affiliation. Cluster analysis identifies three distinct citizen profiles: (1) future-oriented altruists; (2) status-driven contributors; and, (3) short-termpragmatists, revealing motivational heterogeneity within authoritarian publics. These findings suggest that authoritarian citizenship operates through psychological mediation and plural motivational pathways fundamentally different from democratic societies, with potential applicability to other single-party regimes where states actively structure prosocial behaviour. The study contributes to comparative authoritarianism literature by theorizing how regime type moderates the relationship between socio-economic resources, political identity, and civic engagement.

We find that firm-specific social media tone influences leveraged trading. A more positive tone predicts greater next-day net margin purchasing, driven predominantly by sentiment. High margin purchasing following positive social media tone consistently yields inferior performance over both short and long horizons. Short sellers are collectively more sophisticated. They capitalize on fluctuations in social media tone, both positive and negative, through strategies that adjust to different tone windows and holding periods. While experienced, rational short sellers can swiftly profit from temporary negative sentiment, high short selling following persistently high social media tone is highly profitable over longer horizons.

Community-based natural resource governance is often promoted in the name of sustainability, yet long-term outcomes remain elusive. This study examines the impact of various types of trust as the underpinning factor for the long-term resilience of collaborative resource governance. Using a four-type trust framework, dispositional, affinitive, rational, and procedural, the study compares trust trajectories across the prior to-, during-, and post-project phases of matsutake mushroom management in two communities within the S National Protected Area, Yunnan Province, China. Drawing on qualitative interviews and comparative case analysis, the study finds that while neither community sustained co-management mechanisms in full, X Village retained partial continuity through embedded procedural and rational trust. In contrast, Y village experienced accelerated institutional decline after project withdrawal, as market changes and weak enforcement undermined collective norms and trust in formal structures. These findings underscore that institutional resilience is shaped not only by institutional design but also by the evolution and interaction of trust types over time. By tracing trust trajectories across project stages, this study contributes a micro-level explanation of how trust mediates post-project governance outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of layering trust and embedding it within local social and institutional practices. The findings highlight the need to consider how co-management strategies can support trust continuity after project withdrawal, particularly by acknowledging the underlying structural conditions that shape trust resilience.

This paper investigates whether and how independent director-affiliated corporate donations affect stock price crash risk in China. We find a significant positive relationship between affiliated donations and future crash risk. The relationship is more significant for firms with weak internal governance and limited external monitoring, when affiliated directors serve on the audit committee, and in non-state-owned enterprises. Overall, our findings suggest that the social ties built through affiliated donations undermine rather than enhance director monitoring, and that agency theory has more explanatory power than resource dependence theory for understanding the impact of affiliated donations on stock price crash risk.

Capital market internationalization is widely regarded as an important pathway to improving resource allocation efficiency and enhancing governance quality, while simultaneously imposing higher requirements on corporate sustainability and social responsibility. However, its impact on firms’ internal income distribution remains subject to academic debate. This study treats the inclusion of China’s A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as a landmark exogenous shock of capital market internationalization. Based on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2014 to 2022, we manually compile firm-level MSCI inclusion data and construct a multi-period difference-in-differences model for empirical testing. The results indicate that firms’ inclusion in the MSCI Index significantly increases their labor income share. The mechanism analysis reveals that this promoting effect operates mainly through three channels: alleviating financing constraints, fostering innovative development, and strengthening investor governance. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is more pronounced among technology-intensive firms, firms under greater competitive pressure, and firms with higher degrees of internationalization. By incorporating income distribution outcomes into the framework of capital market internationalization, this paper enriches the evidence on the economic and social effects of internationalization and provides policy implications for emerging economies to advance high-level capital market opening and optimize income distribution.

Recent technological advancements have enabled the emergence of business organizations fully managed by algorithms, such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) or through artificial intelligence (AI), as observed in China’s online food delivery sector. These organizations are collectively referred to as algorithm-managed firms (AMFs). Given machines’ capabilities in data collection and analysis, human directors are increasingly being replaced by algorithms or AI in specific sectors. This article contends that algorithms can effectively take over human directors’ managerial, monitoring, and mediating roles. The diminishing role of human directors raises certain concerns of stakeholder protection. Unlike human directors, algorithm directors or managers would not consider stakeholders’ interests unless clearly instructed to do so. However, the algorithm supplier and the AMFs may lack the incentives to fully consider stakeholders because they do not always internalize the social costs. To address the challenges of AMFs, policymakers need to consider different regulation strategies. First, they must choose between command-and-control regulations and target-based regulations. Command-and-control regulations often do not work well because regulators lack enough information or control over complex algorithms. Instead of setting detailed technical rules, policymakers should adopt target-based regulations that let the algorithm balance various interests and regulate its own operations. Second, policymakers should decide between entity-based and algorithm-based regulations. Algorithm-based regulation is more suitable because it prevents companies from passing costs onto society. The state could consider regulating the composition of the board of directors of the algorithm supplier to ensure that they incorporate the concerns of stakeholders’ interests in the development of the algorithm. Additionally, corporate law doctrines that protect creditors and other stakeholders, such as piercing the corporate veil and limiting liability for corporate torts, must be revisited and modified because their foundational assumptions no longer align with the realities of AMFs.

Purpose – Estimates disclosure of human capital management for Chinese listed companies. Investigate the patterns ofthe disclosure of human capital management acrossindustries and regions. Examine the determinants of human capital management disclosure in China. Examine the association between human capital management disclosure and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach – We employ natural language processing techniques on annual reports’ management discussion and analysissections.We construct exposuremeasuresforten human capitalmanagement dimensions and synthesize them into one comprehensive measure of human capital management disclosure. We conduct empirical analysis on the measure using a sample of Chinese listed companies during 2009–2022. Findings – We construct a measure of human capital management disclosure for 5,153 Chinese companies during 2009–2022. We find that firms with high HCM disclosure are more labor intensive and have more cash holdings and R&D expenditure but have lower sales growth, market-to-book ratio and leverage. HCM disclosure is associated with better future accounting performance but poor future market valuation. There are substantial variations in HCM disclosure across industries, geographic regions and ownership types. HCM disclosure has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social implications – The increased HCM disclosure and its association with firm operating performance and market valuation indicate the relevance of HCM in corporate management and underscore the need for more robust and standardized disclosure of HCM in China. Our findingssupport recent regulatory efforts by CSRC to enhance the transparency and accountability in HCM disclosures and advocate for more explicit and specific HCM disclosure requirements in the future. Originality/value – We propose a quantitative measure of human capital management disclosure, which can be modified to apply to other markets. We construct a comprehensive, ready-to-use dataset for HCM disclosure for Chinese listed companies and conduct descriptive analysis on the dataset. We identify the patterns of human capital management disclosure and its determinants in China.