Download or read book Three Essays on Entrepreneurial Finance written by Jialong Li and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays that explore different areas within the framework of entrepreneurial finance. In my first essay, I investigate the relation between corporate financial distress and earnings management in politically-affiliated private firms in China. I further examine the joint moderating effects of political affiliation and regional development on this relation. The findings suggest that financially-distressed firms engage more in reporting small positive earnings relative to financially-healthy firms. In addition, political affiliation weakens the association between financial distress and small positive earnings management. In the second essay, I intend to shed light on social performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) with respect to gender equality in MFIs' outreach and promotion of entrepreneurship. Rooted in the principles of homophily and risk aversion, I pinpoint a novel topic which is the association between female leadership in MFIs and their services targeting women clients, and find that when more women serve as managers, board members, and/or loan officers in MFIs, the MFIs increase their outreach to women due to gender affinity. Applying the institutional theory, I also analyze the relationship between MFI's outreach to female borrowers and entrepreneurship in an international setting, and highlight the moderating role played by legal environment in this relationship. Findings indicate that in countries with stronger legal environment, women are more inclined to enter entrepreneurship. In my last essay, I turn to look at family firm, which is perceived to behave quite differently compared with non-family firm. From socioemotional wealth preservation and board experience perspectives, I compile a sample of family-owned and -managed firms on the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500 Index and examine the effect of family involvement on firm internationalization. The results show that the presence of a family member chairing the board impedes internationalization, but that this negative effect is reduced when board members are highly experienced. I also find that the involvement of multiple generations in the business contributes to the firm's internationalization, and that this effect is more pronounced when firms internationalize to geographically distant rather than closer regions. The contributions and implications of this study are also discussed.