Purpose The purpose of the study is to explore how financial leverage influences profitability of 1,503 listed manufacturing firms in China. Design/methodology/approach The sample of the study is composed of the listed manufacturing firms in China. For the manufacturing firms, the annual financial information from 2008 to 2016 is obtained from the ORBIS database. In this study, initially a simultaneous equation approach is used to control for potential endogeneity. Then, additional regression analyses are conducted with panel data over the period of 2008-2016 using OLS, Fixed-effects, First-difference, Random-effects and Arellano and Bond’s (1991) two-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methods. Findings The results reveal that the impact of leverage on profitability is inverted U-shaped. In this inverted U-shaped relationship, the positive impact of financial leverage on profitability could be attributed to tax shield, whereas the negative impact might be because of bankruptcy cost, financial distress, severe agency problems and information asymmetry that the listed Chinese firms suffer from because of some institutional characteristics of China. Research limitations/implications First, this study focuses on only listed manufacturing firms in China. Second, ownership types are not taken into account in this study. Practical implications First, the Chinese government should direct its efforts toward developing the bond markets and promoting alternative privately owned loan creditors to state-owned banks. Parallel to this, the transformation process toward market economy should be accelerated to facilitate the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In addition to this, development of the bond market and privatization of SOEs will also mitigate the agency conflict between creditors and managers and between shareholders and managers. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the impact of capital structure on profitability of the listed firms in China.

Purpose -The aim of this study is to explore whether there are statistically significant differences in the influence that various career-choice factors may have on a decision to choose accounting and non-accounting majors in Iran. The findings derived from this study could assist accounting educators and professional accounting bodies to understand the reasons why students may want to choose an accounting major. In this regard, the findings could help accounting academics and the policy makers in the accounting sector in Iran and in other similar countries develop appropriate strategies to attract proper students into the accounting programs and to recruit bright accounting graduates into the accounting profession. Design/methodology/approach -At the univariate level, t-tests of significant differences were performed in order to investigate the similarities and differences between the accounting and non-accounting students with respect to the importance placed on the career-choice factors. At the multivariate level, discriminant analysis was conducted in order to find out the important determinants of the choice of an accounting major. Moreover, t-test and ANOVA statistics were employed in order to explore whether differences in gender, age, and university affect each factor. Findings -The results reveal that the accounting students attach profound importance to financial and job-market factors and opinions of referents. Intrinsic factors, aptitude for and genuine interest in the subject, perception of the accounting course, and perception of the accounting profession are not found to have significant influence on students' decision to major in accounting. Originality/value -This study is unique in that it is the first empirical paper which explores Iranian students' perceptions of the career-choice factors in pursuing an accounting major.

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This study investigates the bank selection criteria of undergraduate students who are future potential customers of banks from different regions of the world in a small island economy by comparing the selection factors of international students for the first time. Survey results of 258 respondents show that there are not huge differences in the bank selection factors between Turkish and non-Turkish international students in the case of a state university in North Cyprus. “Availability and convenient location of ATM services” and “speed and quality of service” are the most important factors for considering banks and their services for both Turkish and non-Turkish undergraduate students.

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