ABSTRACT Using the reform of the professional manager system in Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) as a quasi‐natural experiment, this study examined how the external managerial labor market's governance effects influence corporate safety performance. Focussing on listed SOEs in eight high‐risk industries, we find that the reform significantly reduces employee fatalities, indicating that introducing governance from the external managerial market can effectively improve corporate safety performance. Mechanism analysis reveals that professional managers enhance safety performance primarily by improving internal control quality. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that professional managers have a positive effect on safety performance regardless of whether they are externally recruited or internally promoted, although this effect is stronger for externally recruited managers. Additional heterogeneity analyses further show that this positive impact is particularly pronounced in firms with professional managers who have shorter tenure, higher media attention, weaker pre‐reform managerial capability and lower governance foundations. Overall, our results suggested that the reform of the professional manager system can effectively enhance corporate governance and promote SOEs' healthy long‐term development.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices on corporate financing constraints in China, with a focus on how board networks shape this relationship through distinct governance functions. Using a sample of Chinese A‐share listed firms from 2010 to 2022, we establish two key empirical findings. First, our results demonstrate that robust ESG practices significantly alleviate corporate financing constraints. Second, we find board networks amplify this effect through dual governance channels of information bridges and monitoring anchors. The moderating role of board networks is particularly pronounced among firms operating in environments characterised by high information opacity or weak institutional oversight. The results remain consistent across robustness tests, including controls for endogeneity and alternative variable specifications.

ABSTRACT We examine the association between US state‐level economic freedom and audit fees. We argue that economic freedom lowers clients' perceived business risk, thereby requiring reduced audit effort and exposing auditors to a lower probability of litigation risk, which enables auditors to charge lower audit fees to clients headquartered in states with high economic freedom. Using a US sample, we find a negative association between economic freedom and audit fees. Our study contributes to the emerging literature on socio‐economic determinants of audit fees by providing evidence that economic freedom reduces overall inherent risk, thereby reducing audit risks.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact and mechanism of turnover among supplier and customer executives on the ESG preferences of listed companies, using data on A‐share listed companies and their supply chains from 2010 to 2022. We find that the executive turnover of the top five customers and suppliers has a significant impact on the ESG preferences of listed companies. Moreover, this preference tendency aligns with the ESG strategies of both supplier and customer enterprises. Finally, this preference shift is more pronounced among listed companies that are non‐state‐owned enterprises, face higher industry competition, and do not purchase D&O insurance for their executives.

ABSTRACT User incentives influence decision‐making in credit markets; however, the influence of incentives on the credit relevance of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) remains unexplored. This study examines how competition among credit rating agencies in Japan, where firms can choose between single or multiple ratings when issuing bonds, shapes their incentives. The findings reveal that competition‐driven incentives to build and maintain reputational capital enhance agencies' efforts to gather, process, and effectively use IFRS data. This study highlights the role of user incentives, particularly those arising from competition, in shaping the impact of IFRS adoption on credit markets.

With the development of economy, people's pursuit of quality of life is increasing day by day, which lays a foundation for the development of sports industry in China. For example, in some western developed countries, the contribution of sports industry to economy has far exceeded that of traditional industry and become a new growth point of economic development. Although China's sports industry has made certain development, it is still in its infancy. Compared with the western developed countries, the development of China's sports industry is still relatively slow, and there are still some problems to be solved in the development of sports industry. This paper mainly studies the relationship between sports industry and economic development in China. Based on the statistical index data of national economy and sports industry development from 2011 to 2020, the relationship between sports industry development and national economic growth in China is empirically analyzed by using mathematical statistics and VAR model. According to the research results, there is a high correlation between the sports industry and economic development. The development of the sports industry is based on a certain level of economic growth of the country, while the development of the sports industry at a certain stage will have a multiplier effect. It is proved that the state should contribute to the development of the sports industry, because this ensures the symbiotic development of the national economy, which generally leads to an increase in the quality of life. To do this, it is necessary to stimulate the activity of the sports market and create a fair and open system of legal support, as well as standardize the assessment and supervision system.

Features of state and regional management of financial flows in the transport industry significantly affect on all elements of the financial support mechanism for public transport enterprises (forms, types, tools, sources of financial resources). The purpose of the article is to determine the elemental composition of the financial support mechanism for public transport enterprises, to study the features of the formation of its structure, to characterize the advantages and disadvantages of possible sources of financing in this area in the context of limited attraction of budgetary resources. As a result of the study, the elemental composition was clarified and a model of the financial support mechanism for public transport enterprises (form of financing, method of financing, type of financing, financing instruments) was built, taking into account the specifics of the transport industry. It was substantiated that the financial support mechanism for public transport enterprises should be understood as a system of financial relations, implemented through a set of forms, methods and tools of influence on the financial and economic activities of public transport enterprises in order to effectively form, distribute and use financial resources and perform a socially important function of ensuring transportation passengers. The advantages and disadvantages of sources of financial support for public transport enterprises were determined. The expediency of using alternative sources of financial resources was substantiated, in particular, local government bonds and concessions within the framework of public-private partnership. The advantages of the introduction of local government bonds at various levels of government were determined.

The effectiveness of accounting for marketing costs depends on the correct documentation of the consumed resources of the enterprise. The purpose of the article is to justify the methodical foundations of documenting the marketing activities. As analysis of the practical activities of trade enterprises in the Kharkiv region shows, in many of them accounting does not control the consumer - relationship, so the result of this is the perception of the financial and managerial reporting of the enterprise to a large extent in terms of costs. Planning the information-analytical system for managing the marketing activities, it is necessary to remember that the costs of marketing activities, due to the difficulty of confirming their connection with the enterprise economic activities, are the object of close attention of fiscal authorities. Therefore, the approach to their documenting should be clearly regulated by the internal documents of the enterprise for the organization of accounting. The sequence of stages of the process of documenting the marketing operations was determined with taken into account the features of marketing activities in trading enterprises. According to determined stages of the process of documenting the marketing operations, a set of administrative, primary and generalizing documents was proposed. Two options of marketing activity are considered: a) marketing services are provided by a third-party organization; b) measures are carried out by the internal marketing service of the enterprise. To ensure effective planning of marketing activities, recommendations have been developed on the construction and implementation of a system for documenting the marketing operations. A well-established system of documentation will allow to form a marketing strategy, to select priorities for the development of marketing activities, taking into account the stage of the life cycle of the enterprise, a separate area of activity or a specific product.

In the conditions of the economic crisis, there is more and more growth in the need for reliable information about the prospects for the enterprise development for making economic decisions. The audit of the continuity of enterprise activity allows to improve the quality of information contained in the financial statements, as well as to provide all stakeholders with information resource, which contains an independent professional judgment of the auditor on the activities of the entity on a continuous basis. The purpose of the article is to reveal the essence of the going concern principle in accounting and audit and to substantiate practical tools for conducting an audit of the continuity of enterprise activity. The theoretical provisions on the definition of going concern principle and going concern assumption were disclosed. Analytical procedures used in the audit of the continuity of enterprise activity were characterized. The analytical procedures given in the study can be used at all stages of the audit of financial statements. The methods of carrying out express-diagnostics under the hour of finding out the factors of influence on the continuity of the enterprise activity was presented. The content of the test questionnaire for assessing the continuity of the enterprise activity was proposed. Criteria for assessing indicators depending on their actual level were substantiated to determine the possibility of continuous operation of an enterprise. Using the rating of indicators of the financial condition, the auditor will be able to determine the class of the enterprise and, accordingly, the risk of bankruptcy and the relationship of interested users with this enterprise. The influence of the assessing result of adhere to the going concern principle on the auditor's opinion was revealed.

Tax evasion and tax avoidance and is part of tax planning which aims to reduce the amount of tax payments. As an illegal act, it is clear that tax evasion violates the law so that the practice is not allowed. The tax evasion action is cheating, because taxpayers try to manipulate transactions so that costs arise that reduce income and even cause losses. Tax evasion is detrimental to the state, because the tax value paid by taxpayers is not the value it should be. It could even be that taxpayers are free from tax burden if their income is minus or experiences a loss. The purpose of the study is to find out how tax knowledge, tax service quality, tax audit and use of tax sanctions affect tax evasion, using a basic approach to the theory of attribution. The sample of the study consists of 114 respondents. The materiality and consistency of all factors selected for analysis were verified by testing and using the Cronbach's alpha. According to the results of the study, all factors (knowledge of tax legislation, quality of tax services, tax audit and use of tax sanctions) have a positive and significant impact on the level of tax evasion, i.e. lead to a reduction in such actions by taxpayers. Future research on this topic can be developed by adding research variables; such as the modernization of the tax administration system, transparency of tax spending, audit risk, taxpayer awareness, tax justice, tax regulations, and other variables that may affect tax evasion (tax evasion). In addition the research sample can also expand by increasing the number of respondents in order to represent the population accurately and more deeply and using different research methods such as purposive sampling method and direct interviews with taxpayers and tax officials to obtain deeper data.