On 13 April, the Division of Business and Management (DBM) arranged a research seminar titled “Achieving stability and prosperity—the Chinese way" given by Dr. Alex Ng. Dr. Ng has decades of teaching experience at Thompson Rivers University. He is an expert on finance and corporate social responsibility / sustainability. His current research interests include China finance, the Belt and Road Initiative, and corporate social responsibility.

Dr. Alex Ng at the seminar

Dr. Ng started his presentation with giving some background of corporate governance of Chinese state owned enterprises (SOEs). His study tests the notion that the Chinese SOEs pursue two objectives: maximization of economic value and employment. Unlike the singular objective of value maximization in Western firms, the SOEs have an additional employment objective to maintain stability and prosperity in China.

The Audience

Dr. Ng and his collaborator examined the Chinese SOEs’ employment and financial performance with a large sample of public firms. They found that the employment objective is real in determining state governance and privatization in Chinese corporations. The employment objective does not conflict with the corporate objective of wealth creation for the shareholders. Rather, it contributes to the stability and prosperity of China.

Dr. Alex Ng was discussing with the Audience

With his rich experience in both academia and the financial sector, Dr. Ng delivered a seminar highly relevant to the Chinese economy. All the participates of the seminar enjoyed Dr. Ng’s light-hearted presentation of an important topic.

(Division of Business and Management)