This paper argues that the deeply rooted cause of poor corporate governance practices in China's state-owned banks is the discretion enjoyed by policy makers to re-optimise their policy choices when they deem necessary and the consequent moral hazard leading to opportunistic behaviours of bank...

Summary This paper proposes a micro-level framework to account for how firms in developing economies overcome domestic institutional constraints. It illustrates that the mechanisms enabling those firms to benefit from financial globalization are more complex than the "direct" financial channels...

The objective of this paper is to gauge the extent to which Chinese state-owned commercial banks are converging with international best banking and corporate governance practices, with a particular focus on the policy of international listing given its recent popularity. Drawing on the...

A case study of Shanghai Petrochemical Company (SPC) is used to analyse how economic reforms in China have impacted on corporate governance and enterprise performance. Reforms have increased the level of competition and altered the corporate structure of large state enterprises such as SPC. The...

Resource-based theories of the firm argue that the success of one firm over another is largely due to its resource endowments. Large enterprises have long been recognised as leading sources of learning innovation and growth. This is not just restricted to large firms in developed economies, but...

Corporate governance is now a key concern in China's banking sector. Its importance is related to the important policy questions of how to foster economic growth without increasing inflation in an environment where monetary guidance does not function in a conventional manner and there exist few...

Summary China's state-owned banks have demonstrated a tremendous capacity for change, but their implications for development policy are often unclear. The paper examines why the pre-reform banking system based on moral compromise almost seamlessly changed to one based on self-advancement....