As the global challenges facing sustainability issues continue to expand, the issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical governance have become the focus of continued academic attention. CSR is important for firms to enhance their reputation and promote sustainable development. Using A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2019, this study empirically investigates the effect of CSR fulfillment on internal control and firm financial performance by constructing a regression model. The results show that there is a positive relationship between CSR and firm financial performance. Therefore, CSR fulfillment effectively improves the firm financial performance. Furthermore, this study finds that there is a partial mediating effect of internal control between CSR fulfillment and firm financial performance. Therefore, good internal control leads the firm to implement CSR, strengthen management, and improve financial performance. Further results show that the nature of ownership plays a moderating role in the mediating effect of internal control. This study enriches the mechanism of CSR on firm financial performance. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical basis for Chinese listed firms to fulfill CSR, improve ownership, and strengthen internal control.

Regional digitization became an important driving force for high-quality economic development. Digital empowerment can effectively balance factor supply and demand and promote high-quality economic development. This study selects a sample of Chinese cities from 2011 to 2018 to investigate the association between regional digitalization and high-quality economic development. This study further examines the non-linear relationship between regional digitalization and high-quality economic development using market and government governance as threshold variables. This study uses a two-way fixed effects model with a threshold effects model for the econometric analysis. The study finds that regional digitalization effectively contributes to high-quality economic development from three major changes: quality, efficiency, and power. Thresholds of effective markets and productive government characterize the impact of regional digitalization on quality economic development. The more effective the marketization process or the building of a productive government, the more effectively the digitization of the region contributes to high-quality economic development. The contribution of this paper is to reveal the internal logic of the regional digitalization process in advancing quality economic development and to provide new theoretical evidence for action plans to strengthen the construction of efficient markets and responsive government.

With the integration of sustainable development into all aspects of the economy, politics, society, culture, and ecology, the effectiveness and innovation of enterprises in sustainability have become global research issues. Internal control affects the current operation and management as the main means for enterprises to maintain normal production and operation and prevent risks. Therefore, it is closely related to the future development of enterprises. This study uses 84 papers from Web of Science to systematically trace the determinants of enterprise sustainability using Vosviewer software and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) as a manifestation of internal control to analyze the role and controversies of internal control in the process of enterprise sustainable strategic planning. The results show that internal control has, on the one hand, positive effects on enterprise sustainability by improving the quality of financial information, derived effects, and spillover effects. However, on the other hand, internal control can be detrimental to enterprise sustainability by increasing compliance costs and legal liabilities. This study points out opportunities and directions for improving enterprise internal control regulation and empirical research in response to such results. Finally, this study provides implications for enterprises seeking to achieve a sustainable level of development regarding the proper implementation of internal controls, as well as avenues for further research.