Private placement has become an increasingly important method of equity refinancing for regulators, listed companies, and investors. This paper analyzes factors influencing private placement discounts based on the controlling shareholder’s opportunistic behavior and information asymmetry. Our findings indicate that the type of subscriber is a key determinant of the private placement discount, particularly when the subscriber is the controlling shareholder. Asymmetric information between listed companies and investors is another important determinant: The higher the degree of information asymmetry, the greater the private placement discounts.

This research examines whether “the paradox of auditor reputation” exists in China’s private debt market. Two types of hypotheses are developed to explain the “paradox” in terms of ownership differences. Our findings suggest: (1) by retaining big name auditors, non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) significantly reduce the cost of debt and lower financial constraints; (2) For the non-SOEs, the effect of auditor reputation on the cost of debt and financial constraints declines over time due to the accumulation of these firms’ own reputation; (3) SOEs are more sensitive to the interest rate of bank loans than their counterparts, implying their stronger bargaining power when negotiating with potential creditors than non-SOEs due to their government connections. However, SOEs’ government connections weaken the informational role of auditors and firm reputation on signaling debt market; and (4) Corporate governance is taken into consideration by creditors as an important indicator of solvency. Further investigation demonstrates that after controlling for firm size, operating cash flow, profitability and leverage ratio, the possibility of hiring big name auditors by the younger and median-aged group of non-SOEs is considerably higher than “elder” non-SOEs. Moreover, poor-performing SOEs have greater incentives to make use of their government connections in their bargaining for lower debt cost, as compared with their well-performing peers.

Based upon the dynamic-capability view and social capital theory, this paper examines the effect of alliance orientation on firm performance. Hypotheses are tested with data collected from 195 high-tech firms in China. Results show that alliance orientation has a significant and positive effect on firm performance. Moreover, market dynamism exerts a positive moderating effect on the relationship between alliance orientation and firm performance, whereas technological dynamism negatively moderates the relationship. Moreover, relational capital partially mediates the same relationship and the interaction effects of alliance orientation and market dynamism on firm performance.

This paper investigates how institutional holding and earnings quality influence the liquidity of assets. Contrary to findings in developed markets, we document several novel results in China’s stock market: (1) institutional holding negatively affects assets’ liquidity, (2) earnings quality is negatively related with liquidity. Since earnings quality captures asymmetric information, low earnings quality induces high divergence in investor opinions and thus boosts market trading, and (3) interestingly, the effect of earnings quality on liquidity is greater if institutional investors’ holding is at a high level. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that institutional investors and earnings quality improve market liquidity. The results are robust to different measures and alternative model specifications.

This study examines the contributions of Chinese entrepreneurship research to academic knowledge and its practical implications. Specifically, we investigate how Chinese entrepreneurship research meets the standards of rigor and relevance based on a review of 64 papers published in five major scholarly journals in the Chinese mainland. Results show that Chinese entrepreneurship research has paid comparatively little attention to the “rigor” dimension, while focusing more heavily on practical relevance than on academic relevance on the “relevance” dimension. Future directions for China’s entrepreneurship research are also discussed.

On January 6, 2003, CITIC Securities Co., Ltd. (CITICS hereafter) issued A-shares in the Shanghai Stock Exchange to become the first public listed securities company through IPO in China. CITICS’s net capital rose to about 5 billion yuan, much higher than any other competitor. This teaching case aims to demonstrate how a company gains first-mover advantage as being the first company to go public in an industry, how its competitors respond by changing their strategies after the IPO, and consequently, how a series of relevant events influence the competition. This case offers important implications for understanding the competitive dynamics of a securities company in China.