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The thesis explores the determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) adoption and its implications on company financial performance (CFP) and investment in China. In doing so, we aim to answer two primary research questions: (1) how a company's dynamic capabilities-its ability to respond to the changing environment-can influence the company at incorporating CSR into its operations; and (2) how corporate social performance (CSP) is associated with a company's financial accounting and investment performance. The study is divided into three empirical research papers as outlined below. The purpose of paper one is to investigate the determinants that influence a company to incorporate CSR into its operations, which is to adopt strategic CSR (SCSR). The paper primarily examines how a company's dynamic capability can affect the adoption of SCSR. This study draws on the stakeholder, dynamic capability, and neo-institutional theories. Data were collected from 134 Chinese companies listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange (SZSE) and Shanghai stock exchange (SHSE) over the period 2017 to 2019 to examine the role of dynamic capability on SCSR adoption. The findings suggest that a higher level of dynamic capability than the average industrial level negatively affects SCSR adoption. The findings also reveal that dynamic capability, stakeholder pressures, and regional culture are important predictors of the adoption of SCSR. The empirical findings provide valuable insights into how CSR can affect company performance if used strategically. The use of dynamic capability theory in the study explains SCSR adoption from the perspectives of dynamic capabilities. The study partially supports DCT by focusing on the impacts of dynamic capability on SCSR adoption within companies operating in a developing country, China. Paper two aims to investigate how CSP relates to CFP across the company life cycle (CLC) stages, including the introduction, growth, maturity, and decline/shake-out stages. This paper also examines how the focus of CSP, in terms of stakeholder dimensions, shifts across the CLC stages. To examine the two research objectives, we used quantitative data collected from 1,628 large, listed Chinese pharmaceutical companies from 2010 to 2018. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), stakeholder theory and CLC theory, the study finds supporting evidence that CFP is improved with better CSP across the CLC stages. It also finds, on the basis of different stakeholder groups and across the CLC stages, that the effects of CSP are different. Investors, employees, suppliers, and the government are the most influential stakeholder groups influencing CFP. The study results suggest that CFP is directly linked to CSP and CLC and that the link is associated with stakeholder dimensions of CSR. Overall, the findings highlight the important role of CLC and CSP, which are often cited as important factors for enhancing CFP. This study provides valuable insights into the influence of CLC on CSP, which in turn may shed light on management practices to allocate resources and improve CFP. Paper three explores the association between CSP and company performance through capital market effects and the role of cash flow volatility (CFV). This paper uses investment-cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) to capture the capital market effects. Drawing on the RBV and stakeholder theory, the association between CSP and ICFS was tested in this paper. To investigate the research objective, this paper used quantitative data collected from 4,082 companies listed on the SZSE and SHSE in China over the period 2010 to 2020. The study finds that companies with better CSP tend to have a greater and significant ICFS in a developing economy such as China. It also finds that the positive association between CSR and ICFS is weaker for companies with a more volatile current CFV and stronger for companies with a more volatile expected CFV. This demonstrates that CFV partially mediates or moderates the relationship between CSP and ICFS. The role of CFV on the association between CSP and ICFS highlights the need for regular management attention and evaluation on the investments and performance in non-financial engagements. This management attention should also be paid when making decisions relating to resource allocation and investment policies. In addition, managers should consider the company's cash flow stability and uncertainty sides in the competitive market environment. These findings suggest that the emphasis on the role of CFV is important in evaluating the performance effect of CSR through the capital market's response. This study contributes to the CSR, financial accounting and investment literature by responding to the call for research in ICFS in the context of developing countries in general and research on the role of CFV on CSP-ICFS association in particular.

This research project explores the rise of Chinese cross-border finance. Cross-border investment programmes have been at the heart of China's financial liberalisation. Yet, we know little about what drives the expansion of these new market entry channels and the effects they have on global finance. This thesis explores the role that formal and informal institutions play in China's financial system, by addressing three main research goals: (1) to rethink analytical frameworks of global financial networks, by shifting the focus to channels of state power; (2) to investigate how such formal institutions shape competitive hierarchies in financial markets, both inside and outside of China; (3) to demonstrate that informal institutions such as a common cultural identity are equally important to explain behaviour and outcomes in Chinese cross-border finance. The thesis pursues this agenda through four substantive papers, each with its own subset of research goals and findings. The papers follow a three-fold structure. The thesis begins with an analytical focus on agents (micro-level), by examining the evolution of state-firm relations in Chinese cross-border finance. The first paper develops a politically sensitive framework of global financial networks, which conceptualises how bargaining dynamics within China's party-state shape competitive hierarchies in Chinese capital markets. Drawing on these theoretical insights, the second paper breaks new empirical ground, by explaining the asymmetrical nature of market access criteria for foreign investors. The third paper zooms out on the global consequences that Chinese state control has for money centres (macro-level). It sheds light on how state-firm relations shaped London's development as the first Western offshore trading centre for Chinese currency. The fourth paper shifts the attention to the role of informal social institutions in Chinese equity markets. It presents the first empirical study of how a common cultural identity with Mainland China governs the behaviour of different investor categories (group-level). The thesis distils the following findings: Bargaining conflicts inside the Chinese party-state have a decisive impact on competitive outcomes and behaviour in Chinese cross-border finance, both domestically and globally. Strategic state interests form an interdependent relationship with the resources supplied by foreign investors and domestic corporate players. Domestically, these resource interdependencies explain the asymmetrical nature of market access under China's cross-border investment schemes. Globally, the shift in state-firm bargaining dynamics from strategic alignment to an increasing bifurcation of interests explains the patchy integration of RMB finance into London's financial architectures. Informal social institutions equally shape competitive outcomes in China's capital markets. Whilst the literature identifies shared cultural identity as a source of local information advantage, this thesis finds the opposite: A common cultural background with national Chinese investors reduces information asymmetries for foreign investors but it does not equate to local information advantages. Overall, the four substantive papers add up to a multifaceted yet integrated perspective on the drivers, dynamics and consequences of Chinese cross-border finance. They clarify that the intersection of formal state governance and informal social forces is essential for understanding how the spread of neoliberal market forces unfolds across Chinese capital markets. This thesis thus affirms that space and place remain central to our understanding of financial market outcomes.

This thesis aims to address the efficacy of the three main International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes when they are conducted in a context far removed from their original mandate, namely that of mainland China. One of the primary goals of Geneva-registered IB programmes is to instil an attitude of international mindedness (IM) in their graduates, principally through the 10 attributes of the Learner Profile. However, within the current literature, there is little to suggest what this may look like in practice, especially in a Chinese context, and also whether the existing structures within the IB framework are conducive to producing what the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) would consider 'internationally minded' students. A more nuanced understanding of how IM develops and grows in this context is becoming increasingly pertinent with the near exponential rise in elite IB international schools in mainland China. Much of the literature that addresses the concept of IM, what it is, and how it should be delivered has been approached through a Western liberal-humanist lens and tends to be inconclusive about practice. This has potentially neglected the educational and national cultures of other significant areas of the globe, such as China. I conducted a case study of an 'IB Continuum' school in a tier-1 city in mainland China. Through a mixed-methods approach of surveys with students (n = 264), teachers (n = 60), parents (n = 136), and focus groups with students (n=29), I set out to address this discrepancy. I created a unique conceptual framing for my findings with the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his theories on fields, structures, and habitus being combined with the Bioecological Model of Urie Bronfenbrenner. I used the critical realist understanding of a stratified reality to ontologically position my work. This work contributes to knowledge in the following way: I was able to postulate a conceptual model to understand the process of creating internationally minded students within this context. Additionally, I found that, even in this Chinese context, IM is not thought to be supported through 'traditional' teaching methods but instead grows through exposure and is linked strongly to the educational field and structures within it - namely student and teacher demographics and interactions, specific pedagogy, curriculum outlook, and extracurricular activities. Additionally, due in part to cultures external to the school, time spent within the programme and age of commencement were found to be significant, with exposure to the programme at an early age considered a powerful factor in the development and internalisation of IM. Furthermore, the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) was considered the least conducive to producing internationally minded students. The practical implications of this thesis could be significant for the IBO and international schools within similar contexts while complementing and addressing issues raised in several recent papers (Barratt Hacking et al., 2018; Bunnell, 2020; Hayden et al., 2020; Mansilla and Wilson, 2020; Wright, Ma and Auld, 2021). A re-evaluation of how the IBDP is conducted and its primary goals and focus may need to be undertaken, with a greater emphasis on pedagogical approach and social interactions suggested. However, there would undoubtedly appear to be benefits to running all three tiers of the IB programme, provided that the school can create internal structures in their institution that are conducive to the growth of IM.

Due to the complexity and multidisciplinary nature of place branding, there is no universal explanation or theory that is commonly accepted despite decades of commitment and research. This research aims to explain how place branding is conceptualised in China. The similarities and differences of Chinese place branding in comparison to western concepts of place branding are presented through a review of both western and Chinese literature. However, a theoretical foundation remains elusive, as all existent literature directly applies either marketing theory or branding theory to local contexts, or only focus es on practice perspectives, such as the influence of mega events. This research attempts to close this research gap and provide a path to a better understanding of place branding. Taking a case study approach, the paper examines a vast body of discussion a rising from in depth interviews with branding authorities and government officials in the case study city of Chongqing. The analysis shows that place branding in China is influenced, and largely controlled by the government. Cases of place branding in the three major aspects of tourism, commerce and resident identity, are described, and the role of government in place branding is revealed. Rationales for government engagement in place branding and the general branding processes are investigated in detail, which constitute s the major practical contribution of this study. Discussion of the agents of Chinese place branding, place branding as a government tool and the trend towards policization contribute to the theoretical expansion of place branding beyond a neoliberalism perspective.

The occupational structure of late Imperial China, 1736-1898 Cheng Yang Today’s enormous global disparities in national average income levels are overwhelmingly a product of differential rates of economic growth over the last 200 years. China was the world’s most developed economy at the beginning of the last millennium, with the flow of technological knowledge overwhelmingly moving west. Following the British Industrial Revolution, Europe, North America and Japan surged ahead and fundamentally diverged from most of the rest of the world. Historians have hence long debated the timing of this “Great Divergence.” Since its inception, the Great Divergence debate has created tremendous interest in comparative global economic history and directed both academic and public attention toward linking modern-day global disparities with our past. However, the discussion still faces serious empirical limitations, particularly on the Chinese side. Faced with this empirical challenge, many scholars have nonetheless made impressive progress on both primary sources and methodology in the past two decades. By producing new estimates of Chinese occupational structure using a challenging, underused but abundant historical source (刑科题本the Xingke Tiben, a collection of trial papers for all homicides in China, 1736-1898), this PhD thesis aims to improve this empirical basis. Although the source contains rich occupational data, it is noted that the resulting dataset cannot be considered as a random sample of all work carried out in the economy due to the source’s inherent biases. Assessments of the source’s representativeness and a series of rectifications of the different biases were thus necessary and carried out in this thesis. The comparison with other sources indicated that the biases in the source are systematic, consistent, and modest. These comparisons suggest that the secondary-sector share is most reliable, while the primary sector is somewhat under-represented and the tertiary sector slightly over-represented. Meanwhile, the secondary-sector labour force has clearly gendered characteristics, with the female’s secondary-sector employment share being much higher than the male’s. This study thus follows a gendered approach, although the current male estimates are much more robust than the female estimates due to the relatively small female sample size. Further, to take full advantage of the source’s spatial coverage and temporal consistency, the thesis attempts regional and long-run analysis. Although the sample is created through random sampling, in the cases of smaller areas or sparsely populated prefectures or the post-1860 periods when the total XKTB available dropped greatly, the sample size can be very small and does not have the strength of statistical significance. What I present in these cases are thus preliminary findings and a possible interpretation. They are hypotheses. The research presented in the thesis makes a contribution to Chinese economic and social history by improving its empirical basis, and, through this, further hopes to contribute to global comparative economic history. Following a concise introduction, chapter one of this thesis provides a discussion of current literature, illustrating the critical need for improving its empirical basis. Chapter two unveils the primary source, demonstrates its quality, richness and challenges as a source for occupational data, and summarises the XKTB dataset created in this thesis. Chapter three provides the methodological core for the full utilisation of the source, as well as addressing potential biases. Using this new evidence, chapter four to seven presents and discusses the new estimates for the occupational structure of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China and its regions of disparate trajectories, including but not limited to, her economically-advanced region of the Lower Yangtze. Chapter seven summarises the key findings, main contributions and future directions of this research. Preliminary analysis using this new source suggests that both China and the Lower Yangtze lagged well behind England by 1736, and most probably even before 1700, with higher primary-sector shares, considerably lower secondary-sector shares, and higher tertiary-sector shares – the latter explained by the presence of substantial excess labour. Thereafter, it seems that China probably did not undergo major sustained structural change until the twentieth century, as the occupational structures in 1761-70, 1821-30 and 1881-90 are remarkably similar, although we cannot rule out fluctuations in 1771-1820 and 1831-80. Indeed, the timing of the Great Divergence between China and England might need to be pushed back earlier than 1700. Further, these estimates might prove useful later as a new factor to be considered alongside other factors such as man to land ratio, wage level or sectoral productivity in the broader discussion about the diverse paths of development in the modern-era global context, although these evidence in the thesis could not do this justice to them at the current moment.

Governments participate in financial markets through various methods, such as issuing policies, providing subsidies or directly owning firms. This thesis examines the effects of two under-researched ways in which the government influences the market-political endorsement and political visits. Chapter 3 explores firms that are endorsed by the central government of China and finds that the government's underlying motive for endorsing firms is its social goals rather than vested interests. Political endorsement is positively associated with market reactions, especially when firms are endorsed for their achievements and advanced operation. Moreover, political endorsement has significantly positive impact on firms' operating performance, and the results are consistent after controlling for selection on observables through applying PSM methodology and controlling for selection on unobservables through applying treatment effects model with the instrumental variable technique, no matter which performance measurements are used. The positive effects are more salient for firms with weak pre-event performance, fewer connections, a greater dependence on external financing, and those located in places with better institutions. Moreover, the increase in subsidies, the reduction in cost of debts, and the improvement in investment efficiency are identified as three channels of value creation after political endorsement. In Chapter 4, another under-researched way in which government influences the market is examined -political visit. I examine the effects of political visits by Chinese state leaders based on a sample of firms that hosted political visits from 2009 to 2016. This paper first finds that representativeness, political connections and alignment with government goals are the three basic criteria for choosing firms to visit. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the positive market reactions to political visits vary according to the political power of different administrations and different government officials. Further investigation reveals a positive association between political visits and operating performance, which is contingent on different firm and institutional characteristics and is robust after applying propensity score matching and institutional variable techniques. Moreover, the results show that political visits can be substituted as a source of legitimacy for CSR activities and increase the social attention and expectation on the firms, which reduces firms' incentive to donate while motivating their unethical behaviour in order to meet social expectations. Chapter 5 introduces the concept of passive signalling to extend existing signalling theory. Political endorsements and visits are discussed as two examples of passive signals, and the effects of passive signals are examined in an IPO setting wherein information asymmetry is a serious problem. The results show that passive signals can efficaciously influence the views of shareholders, potential institutional and private investors, regulators and partners, thus affecting every part of the IPO process, including IPO application, valuation during issuing and post-IPO performance. Specifically, the results demonstrate that firms with passive signals are associated with higher likelihood of IPO success, narrower offer price spread, lower underpricing and better long-run performance. This chapter also provides a theoretical background for the previous two chapters about the mechanisms of endorsements and visits to influence investors' evaluation. Overall, this thesis provides evidence supporting the effectiveness of the two under-researched ways in which the government influences the market and contributes to the literature on the role of government, political economy, political connection, signalling theory, entrepreneurship and CSR.

China's futures market has undergone a significant structural change. It was a 'vertical silo' and now it is being developed into a 'horizontal' structure with Chinese characteristics. Such a change involves a series of changes in institutional arrangement. If researching the phenomenon when it was settled, the observation and, consequently, the conclusion would likely to see it was the state that had led the change. However, participated and observed through the change, this thesis is going to argue that the grassroots heroes, the practitioners from a marginalized sub-sector, have contributed significantly. The state is powerful and dominant whereas the regional exchanges leveraged their resources to corral the state and shape the institutional field. The focus of organizational and management studies can be roughly categorized as three dimensions: how changes occur within organizations, how the institutional environment shapes organizations and how organizations influence the sociocultural context within which they operate (Parsons, 1956). In the recent decades, organizational studies have made significant progress in the first two but little in the third (Barley, 2010). Research should progress in the third dimension regardless of the untidy and unaesthetic nature of the reality, as organizations have influenced the sociocultural context substantially. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the third dimension by arguing that institutional bricolage characterizes the process by which individuals and organizations change institutions to fulfil their purposes, be it changing the institutions, building a market or protesting the constraints imposed upon them. Institutional bricolage is the strategy, mentality and philosophy for grassroots heroes who have no political power but are still ambitious to have their voices heard and hence influence the change from the lower strata. The ideas in this paper are informed by the experience of China's futures market, where the researcher participated as a strategy manager for about a year. The organization in question is a regional exchange that previously had no place in China's official market structure and became legitimized as the outcome of a regulatory crackdown. This thesis, therefore, uncovers the underexplored part of China's financial market, the regional exchanges, and sheds light on China's institutional change.

China has seen tremendous economic growth in the past three decades, and in the order of eight to ten per cent since 2000. This development has come with ever increasing energy consumption, and thus emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). This trend has been an important topic in the international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; China is under constant pressure from other large economies to contribute to reversing the GHG emissions trend in order to avoid dangerous climate change. At the same time, the Chinese government has pursued an environmental and energy security agenda focussed at increasing the energy efficiency of its economy and the supply of energy from renewable sources. Alongside, a domestic climate change discourse has developed, and changed over time. This thesis examines elements of the country-specific political ecology in the area of greenhouse gas mitigation in China, looking closely at what climate change means in China, and discussing how this influences the development and institutionalisation of mitigation mechanisms. I take a political ecology approach to scrutinize the nature and evolution of a climate change discourse in China, and the influences and implications of existing governance structures and institutions that affect greenhouse gas mitigation in the country. Adopting mixed empirical methods comprising semi-structured interviewing, media and numerical data analyses, and participant observation in research processes close to the government, data was collected between 2008 and 2011. In five academic papers with distinctive angles, I show the importance of engaging deeply with the formative, distinctly Chinese political, economic and ecological environment when discussing mitigation in China. The Chinese climate change discourse has changed significantly in recent years, for example resulting in different discursively acceptable ways for the country to engage in mitigation. These meanings of climate change in China have developed through specific interactions of the political and academic spheres, based on Chinese understandings of nature and history (and China’s place in it), as well as with limited involvement of the media compared to western developed country cases. The notion of historical responsibility is a major component of what climate change means in China; in this thesis I therefore illuminate the numerical and conceptual ramifications of this part of the discourse, noting that the re-active nature of this frame, with China positioned against the developed countries, has not lend itself to support new mitigation action. Low carbon economy is another newer and now very important element of the discourse, a frame that locates China in an active, entrepreneurial subject position. My study on two cases – mitigation in the Beijing transportation sector and the introduction of seven local emission trading systems through a approach of governance through pilots – shows how this part of the discourse allows for the development of new mitigation approaches when they follow established institutions and governance mechanisms in a path-dependent manner. This thesis contributes to the research of global environmental change by advancing theoretical and practical ways of engaging with climate change in general, and mitigation in particular in China. It stresses the importance of considering the country-specific political ecology when formulating global climate change policy.

In this study, the first clashes between Western explorers and the Far East, as well as relations between Britain and China from the eve of the First Opium War (FOW) to the establishment of the British diplomatic residence in Beijing under the treaty regime, have been discussed from a legal point of view. This thesis provides a look at the circumstances of Britain’s encounter with China, their defeat of China through two Opium Wars and their use of unequal treaties to put China into a position of disadvantage. A study of British archives demonstrates the complexity of, and nuance in international law between China and the West from the 1830s to 1860. British national archives allow investigation of the legal perspective on the issues around the opium trade and the way in which it led to the FOW. The archives also shed light on the Second Opium War (SOW) and on the Western acquisition of privileges through the unequal treaties signed at the end of both wars. In its relations with China, Britain left behind the rules and practices which they recognised as the contemporary law of nations and instead, whenever the British financial and economic interest was affected, resorted to force. This paper’s purpose is to show the limitation, according to Chinese Confucian thought, of the self-perception of the Western conception of law and the justice. In fact, this thesis will also show how some British legal advisors and politicians took the side of China and how they argued that Britain had violated the principles of international law. They recognised that China was a sovereign nation and that international law applied in its relations with Britain. Thus this study uncovers aspects of history of international law in the 19th century neglected because of the later prospering of racial theories.

Essay test is an indispensable part of public examinations. However, there does not seem to exist a general method that can be used to estimate its reliability in the routine operation of the examination. The aim of present research is to develop a general model to study the reliability of essay tests due to betweenmarker inconsistencies, within-marker inconsistencies and question choice. The model is making use of multilevel analysis, since data from essay tests naturally fall into a three-level hierarchy: questions within candidates and candidates within markers. For cases where only one score is available for each candidate, the three-level model would degenerate into a two-level model. Analyses using the two-level model and three-level model have been performed to illustrate how between-marker inconsistencies, factors affecting between-marker inconsistencies, within-marker systematic inconsistencies during marking period, and inconsistencies due to question choice can be analysed. By performing a common factor analysis on the covariance matrix of question scores, taking the factor score of the most dominant factor to be the true score, the reliability due to question choice and between-marker variability can be estimated. The study is illustrated by performing analyses on the question scores of the 1985 Hong Kong Advanced Level Physics Paper IIA. The data set comprises 22,544 question scores of 7,844 candidates marked by 18 markers. Parameters are estimated using iterative generalised least square. All the analyses reported in this study achieved convergence within a reasonably short time, using the software ML3E running on a personal computer, showing that the model is practicable in the routine operation of public examinations.