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By integrating the environmental regulation literature and managerial ties theory, this research explores how regulatory ties and firm visibility shape formalism and self-determination, two distinct corporate coping strategies for complying with environmental regulatory demands. Based on survey data collected in China, our empirical results show a U-shaped relationship between firms' regulatory ties and their strict adherence to formal rules (formalism), and an inverted U-shaped relationship between regulatory ties and firm discrepancy in complying with regulations (self-determination). Further, the inverted U-shaped relationship is stronger among firms with less organizational and environmental visibility. Additional analysis further indicates that these relationships are particularly evident in privately owned enterprises. Our study may contribute to the public performance literature by furthering our understanding of regulatory ties as a double-edged sword in corporate compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CHANGING FACES AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS Public management reform in China did not begin with a comprehensive and far-reaching vision, but has grown steadily as the cumulative results of fragmented changes [...]

What drives regulatees' behaviors when the institution of law is weak? This study seeks to answer the question by examining environmental regulation enforcement in China. Based on survey and interview data on Hong Kong-owned manufacturing enterprises in the Pearl River Delta Region, Guangdong Province, we found that their decisions to adopt basic and proactive environmental management practices were less driven by concerns for legality than by their perceptions of the regulators' actions and gestures. Enterprises adopted basic environmental practices to avoid potential punishment and more proactive practices to avoid potentially arbitrary impositions from regulatory officials. Regulated enterprises were more likely to adopt both basic and proactive environmental practices if they had less difficulties in understanding the enforced regulations. These findings suggest important ways in which regulatory compliance behaviors in a developmental context may differ from those in Western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, service organizations refer to many semi-governmental organizations that perform social or public functions, partly or fully on a self-financing basis. A key item on China's governance reform agenda is about which service organizations should be integrated into the core government bureaucracy and which should be turned into self-financing enterprises units or private, nonprofit organizations. By examining 12 organizations affiliated with the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau using an institutional choice perspective, our analysis suggests that although various political and institutional factors have remained key constraints, such transaction cost concerns as probity, accountability, legitimacy, efficiency, and reliability have increasingly been raised as criteria in deliberating institutional choices in China's governance reform, paving the way for the gradual development of a more rational and accountable governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors find some support for the cross-cultural validity of the Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) three-component model of occupational commitment in samples of Chinese and British accountants. Normative and affective commitments are higher in the Chinese sample, and continuance commitment is higher in the British sample. There is some support for hypotheses on the consequences of the components of occupational commitment (occupational withdrawal cognitions and the intention to participate in professional activities). However, contrary to the hypotheses, the authors' analysis suggests that there are no significant differences in these relationships between the two samples. The authors find a significant interaction between affective and continuance commitment in the analysis of occupational withdrawal cognitions, such that the relationship between each of these components and withdrawal cognitions is stronger where commitment on the other component is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although half of the administrative units in China are said to have implemented their local Agenda 21, the promotion of sustainable communities is not pervasive. In this paper, we adopted a relatively untried mode of analysis and a socioeconomic context to illustrate the potentials and failures of China's grassroots local government bodies in achieving sustainable waste management. Our study shows that, among the three main functions of sustainable waste management (ensuring environmental hygiene, provision of recycling logistics and changing the consumption pattern of the local community) for local governments, grassroots local government bodies in mainland China are only able to do the minimum, i.e. ensuring environmental hygiene and handling complaints. One of the reasons for the failure is that, despite the emphasis on capacity building in China's Agenda 21, the reality is that no action is taken to empower grassroots local government. Despite the high profile accorded by the Chinese central government to motivating local governments to formulate their own Agenda 21, local sustainability and waste management performance have little relevance to the appraisal systems of these government agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores antecedents of commitment among 1,300 municipal employees in three Chinese cities. Six potential antecedents, drawn from the rational choice and organizational behavior literatures, are investigated. Regression analysis indicates that role fit is the most important antecedent, followed by job challenge and management support. Extrinsic rewards and shared belief in the organization's mission and values are not as strongly or consistently related to commitment level. Compatible with findings from studies in Western Countries, the results suggest that commitment among Chinese public employees may depend on the extent to which they experience their organization as being committed to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role can public participation play in environmental management? Among major tools for environmental management, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been widely practised in many countries. Its effectiveness, however, varies depending on the extent to which transparency and public participation are incorporated in its process. In this article, we analyse the role of public participation in environmental management by examining the operation of EIAs in two polities, Mainland China and Taiwan. In both cases, a lack of transparency and public participation had severely limited the effectiveness of EIA during the initial years when it was first introduced. Both polities have attempted to address the respective limitations of their EIA systems, and both have made some progress while encountering problems inherent in their underlying political institutions. The two cases illustrate the dynamic connections between political institutions and environmental management in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body of literature that examines how institutional contexts affect environmental governance in advanced industrial countries finds that style of environmental regulation is country-specific. In the pluralist form of democracy like the United States, environmental policy formulation involves bargaining and compromises among interest groups and regulation enforcement through relatively formal and legalistic means. In the corporatist form of democracy like Sweden and Great Britain, in contrast, environmental policies are more accommodating to divergent societal interests and tend to be less formal in their enforcement. These variations in regulatory style have been attributed to differences in basic constitutional structures, regime types and cultures. How do institutional contexts affect the style of environmental regulation in China, which is both a non-democratic and developing country? This article examines China's regulatory style by focusing on environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulation in Shanghai. The Shanghai EIA system is analyzed in terms of policy ideology, policy content, regulatory process, public participation and policy consequences. It is shown that China's being a single-party regime with a 'rule of persons' tradition has heavily shaped its environmental governance. Based on Shanghai experience, China's style can be characterized as formal in requirement, agency-dominated in the regulatory process, legalistic in enforcement, and informal politics as the substance of regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the interactions between environmental agencies and public opinion in developing countries. Environmental governance in Guangzhou, China; Effort of the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau to cultivate an environmentally sensitive community; Bureau's handling of complaints and its institutional constraints on mobilizing greater public support.

This article examines the impact of China's liberal political reforms on its reunification with Taiwan from the perspective of linkage theory. Through the liberalization of domestic politics, the post-Mao leadership has effected a fundamental change of regime type, transforming the Maoist totalitarian state to an established single-party regime. Because of this change, the Chinese Communists have increasingly considered China more as a developing country than a Marxist regime that needs a favorable regional and international environment for implementing its modernization programs. This has led to the emergence of a secular and stable China. The liberal tendencies in internal politics have produced four domestic-international linkages favoring China in the settlement of the Taiwan issues. Despite the presence of some negative linkages against China, it seems that the post-Deng leadership can take charge of the reunification issues as long as they can continue to make progress in institutionalizing its political system and in liberalizing its monolithic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]