Professor Guochao Yang, a researcher of the base, has published a collaborative paper titled "Repairing damaged reputations through targeted poverty alleviation: Evidence from private companies’ strategies to deal with negative media coverage" in the China Journal of Accounting Research.

Abstract:

When negative media coverage causes reputational crises, companies must find suitable tools to repair their reputation and reverse their negative image. As a CSR activity with political- and livelihood-related implications, targeted poverty alleviation may be an effective tool. Using data on negative media coverage of Chinese A-share private listed companies, we examine whether companies engage in targeted poverty alleviation in response to reputational crises caused by negative media coverage. We find that negative media coverage leads private companies to engage more actively and intensively in targeted poverty alleviation because of the significant increase in public attention to the bad news. These companies must urgently rebuild their positive image using targeted poverty alleviation to resolve their public opinion crisis. Further analyses suggest that original and in-depth negative media coverage is more likely to cause companies’ active participation in targeted poverty alleviation. In addition, negative media coverage is more likely to lead companies to engage in targeted poverty alleviation when they are in heavily polluting industries or face greater pressure from external investors. Finally, we find that active involvement in targeted poverty alleviation helps companies improve their market reputation and thus effectively manage public relations crises caused by negative media coverage.

Keywords：Targeted poverty alleviation; Negative media coverage; Corporate reputation; Crisis management; Impression management

Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjar.2023.100306

Teacher profile

Guochao Yang, Professor of the school of accounting, Zhongnan University of economics and law, director of the big data center of "income distribution and modern financial discipline innovation and talent introduction base" of the Ministry of education and the Ministry of science and technology, and Wenlan young scholar. The papers have been published in (including to be published) Economic Research (4), management world, China Economic Quarterly (4), world economy, financial research, accounting research (2), China Journal of Accounting Studies (2) and other top-level domestic academic journals. He has won the 2017 China Financial Research Conference (CFRC) best paper award, the first prize of the 12th Hubei social science outstanding achievement award, the first prize of the 16th Wuhan social science outstanding achievement award, the "top ten papers" of the first China empirical research (Finance) paper competition, the special prize of the annual accounting excellent paper of Hubei Accounting Society (twice), and the 2019 national MPAcc excellent teaching cases. He presided over the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of education and a number of projects in Hubei Province.