Running a social enterprise (SE) is more difficult than running a small or medium-sized enterprise because SEs have to achieve both economic sustainability as business enterprises and their social mission for the benefit of society. After a few years of operation, many SEs fail or struggle for...

Running a social enterprise (SE) is more difficult than running a small or medium-sized enterprise because SEs have to achieve both economic sustainability as business enterprises and their social mission for the benefit of society. After a few years of operation, many SEs fail or struggle for...

Financially distressed companies are more likely to be rescued as going concerns if they enter into debt restructuring early whilst still high up on the ‘demise curve’. In Hong Kong, early-stage non-consensual debt restructuring is effected via the scheme of arrangement. Yet, despite the...

COVID-19 had a devastating impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) globally. Hong Kong implemented an Anti-Epidemic Fund (AEF) which aims to address, among others, the financing needs of SMEs through subsidies and government-guaranteed loans. To shed light on the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs...

Taking advantage of the agency conflicts between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders and the weak corporate governance in a transition economy, we investigate the relationship between tax avoidance (proxied by effective tax rates) and tunneling (proxied by related-party lending)...

Local governments play dual, but conflicting roles in China's tax system. That is, they are both tax collectors and controlling shareholders of firms subject to tax payments. We investigate how local governments balance their tax collection and tax avoidance incentives. We find that the...

We examine the relevance of the disclosure of internal control weaknesses (ICWs) by target firms for acquirers in making their merger-and-acquisition (M&A) decisions. Based on a sample of M&A transactions in 2005–2018, we find that acquirers offer lower premiums for targets that disclose ICWs...