Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 19, 2023
Decision Letter - Wajid Khan, Editor

PONE-D-23-11373Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sun,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 06 2023 11:59PM. f you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Wajid Khan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: 

"This paper is a general project of 2021 Henan Higher Education Teaching Reform Research and Practice Project (Research and Practice of "Integration of Competition and Teaching" in Accounting major under the background of National Vocational College Skills Competition 2021SJGLX826)"

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. 

Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

"This paper is a general project of 2021 Henan Higher Education Teaching Reform Research and Practice Project (Research and Practice of "Integration of Competition and Teaching" in Accounting major under the background of National Vocational College Skills Competition

2021SJGLX826)"

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

"This paper is a general project of 2021 Henan Higher Education Teaching Reform Research and Practice Project (Research and Practice of "Integration of Competition and Teaching" in Accounting major under the background of National Vocational College Skills Competition 2021SJGLX826)"

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

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Please complete your Competing Interests on the online submission form to state any Competing Interests. If you have no competing interests, please state "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.", as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now 

This information should be included in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

6. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

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We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

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8. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 3.1 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure.

9. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Tables 3.1 and 4.3 to 4.5, in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors,

Thabnk you so much for your effort.

The manuscript was very good prepared and designed. However, I have one main concern which is about the hypotheses.

You have presented 14 hypotheses but i did not see the tests of the same 14 hypotheses if they are accepted or rejected. The authors should add one main table includes all the hypotheses and why each hypothesis statistically accepted or rejected.

Al the best.

Reviewer #2: I have reviewed the article and I am of the view that the article needs lot of improvement. The following points need consideration:

1. The research gap is not clear.

2. The reason that why China is considered research ground is missing.

3. Grounding of hypotheses is not appropriate.

4. The authors has discussed the agency theory and steward theory. These theories need to be embedded in hypotheses development and results.

5. Variable measurement is not appropriate. The board independence should be measured using proportion of independent directors.

6. None of the correlation coefficient is significant.

7. The results are not discussed in the light of literature

Reviewer #3: The current work is new topic and cater ongoing issues among the academics and policy makers. However, I have following suggestions, which can further improve the quality of the manuscript.

1. There is large number of Hypothesis….. 14 hypothesis mentioned ….I would suggest to club some the hypothesis as possible……

2. The authors used non-financial firms for the study sample…. I would suggest add some justification.. why you exclude the financial sector of the economy.

3. Page 17, “China on the basis of random sampling that has the greater market capitalization from the 1000 top market capitalized firms” mentioned by author with reference…… I am unable to understand about this…. I would suggest to add more explanation.

4. The explanation/ Definition of the depended variable i.e. Auditor lag is missing….. Throughout the paper… Also missing in the Table 3.1.

5. The correlation matrix fail to discuss the significance of the correlation coefficient among the variables. My suggestion to mentioned the significance level with correlation coefficients.

6. I would suggest to club the Table 4.3 and Table 4.4 into one table…. Which, may improve the quality and reduced the length of the paper…. Further, It looks that the current manuscript is extracted from Research thesis/project. Usually, the Table 4.1, 4.3… 2.1 not used research articles. Suggest to revisit the table numbering…….

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Mr. Ali Amin

Reviewer #3: Yes: shahab ud din

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 1

All the suggestion are answered in the file attached

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Wajid Khan, Editor

PONE-D-23-11373R1Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sun,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 18 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Wajid Khan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

I have reviewed the article entitled “Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern”. This is an interesting study and the authors have collected a unique dataset for a unique and progressive methodology. The paper is generally well written and structured. However, in my opinion the paper has some shortcomings in regards to some data and text, and I feel this unique dataset has not been utilized to its full extent. Below I have provided numerous remarks on the text:

1. In several instances, I suggest to cite more relevant and recent studies in the introduction and methodology sections.

2. The introduction should be expanded to include importance, uniqueness and contribution to the literature.

3. You need state clearly the contributions of the paper. For example, "Consequently, the current paper seeks to make the following contributions to the existing literature. First,…, Second,…., Third, …, Fourth,… and so on". The description of the contribution needs to be more forensic, needs to be more focused.

4. The authors should discuss the relevant theories in detail and relate their findings to a specific theory of Corporate governance and Ownership pattern in the developing country context

5. There are multiple misspellings throughout the manuscript that needs attention.

I recommend Minor REVISIONS for publication after the author/s addressing the above queries and suggestions.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: authors have professionally incorporated all the my manners. They have done great job.

Best of luck.

Reviewer #4: Introduction

1. The scholar has presented quite in-depth details about the Corporate governance, FRQ and a very good approach is used to address the problem.

2. Formatting, check spelling, punctuations and grammar issue.

3. Research objectives and questions are missing.

LITERATURE Review

1. Part 2 starts with a systematic approach and provides thorough literature review, but theoretical support must be more vital to justify the topic.

2. The candidate has set the several hypothesizes from H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5 .

For example H1: Board characteristics of corporate governance have significant positive relationship with reporting quality of financials.

For hypothesis testing , if the outcome is yet to be known, it is sufficient to mentions positive impact

(drop the significant word).

3. The candidate should demonstrate how the research relates to the literature. The research findings and discussion should be linked with the literature and theoretical grounds for the conducted research in a better way.

Methodology

1. Appropriate research methods have been used. The research methodology is acceptable to justify the result.

2. Mention the proper approach of moderating technique.

Analytical tool

i. Why descriptive statistic important for your data?

ii. In this analysis part , researcher need t explain that how and why your selected sampling needs descriptive analysis and correlation analysis.

iii. Mention recent studies for ownership structure as moderating variable.

Conclusion

After all of the analysis is completed , each objective should be highlighted again in the conclusion chapter by providing discourse demonstrating where the analysis is leading the work and what the outcome is, and then linking that to literature reviews.

6 References Please check the references again and references are not as per APA format that requires attention.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Report.docx
Revision 2

Reviewer #4:

Introduction

1. The scholar has presented quite in-depth details about the corporate governance, FRQ and a very good approach is used to address the problem.

2. Formatting, check spelling, punctuations and grammar issue.

3. Research objectives and questions are missing.

Response to section Introduction:

The Grammarly, misspelling and punctuation error removed. The research objective and questions included in the introduction. Please find page 3-4 yellow highlighted as

“The main objective of this research is to assess the impact of organizational characteristics and corporate governance practices on the accuracy of financial reporting for companies listed in China. The study will specifically examine how ownership concentration and inter-organizational corporate governance (including the board of directors, audit committee, and CEO duality) are related to the reliability of financial reporting. Along with the primary goal, the study has several other specific objectives. Firstly, it aims to evaluate the current state of financial reporting quality in China. Secondly, …………………. Third, …………………. The quality of financial reports will be measured by analyzing the audit reports from the annual financial reports of listed firms.”

LITERATURE Review

1. Part 2 starts with a systematic approach and provides thorough literature review, but theoretical support must be more vital to justify the topic.

2. The candidate has set the several hypothesizes from H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5 .

For example H1: Board characteristics of corporate governance have significant positive relationship with reporting quality of financials.

For hypothesis testing , if the outcome is yet to be known, it is sufficient to mentions positive impact

(drop the significant word).

3. The candidate should demonstrate how the research relates to literature. The research findings and discussion should be linked with the literature and theoretical grounds for the conducted research in a better way.

Response to section Literature Review:

The theoretical support was added in the literature review section. Moreover, the significant words removed from the hypothesis. Please find page 8-11 yellow highlighted. The findings are related to literature and theory in the discussion in detail (please find page 23-27 and yellow highlighted).

Methodology

1. Appropriate research methods have been used. The research methodology is acceptable to justify the result.

2. Mention the proper approach of moderating technique.

Analytical tool

i. Why descriptive statistic important for your data?

ii. In this analysis part , researcher need t explain that how and why your selected sampling needs descriptive analysis and correlation analysis.

iii. Mention recent studies for ownership structure as moderating variable.

Response to section Methodology:

The moderating techniques used in the analysis are defined in the methodological section also. The data description and correlation analysis reasons are written (please find page 15 and yellow highlighted). Moreover, the recent studies on moderating variables are also included (please find page 10 and yellow highlighted).

Conclusion

After all of the analysis is completed , each objective should be highlighted again in the conclusion chapter by providing discourse demonstrating where the analysis is leading the work and what the outcome is, and then linking that to literature reviews.

6 References Please check the references again and references are not as per APA format that requires attention.

Response to section Conclusion:

The conclusion is developed according to the reviewer suggestions by supporting previous theory and literature evidence in conclusion section that justified the findings and make significant contribution of the study. Please find page 23-26 yellow highlighted. All the references are corrected and style APA numbered.

Thank you.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Responce to Editor and reviewer Comments.docx
Decision Letter - Wajid Khan, Editor

PONE-D-23-11373R2Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sun, 

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 17 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Wajid Khan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #4: Comments to the Author

This work investigates “Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.” I am reasonably familiar with the literature on the topic and have ongoing research interest in this subject matter. I believe the topic of the research is quite interesting as the current draft attempts to unfold some hidden layers which are yet not been tackled by the previous scholars. Below, I list and comment on the findings presented:

1. The abstract should be short,” and these information: "What does the author(s) want to know? (Purpose): Why do they want to know? (gap) How do they want to know? (Methodology): What are the outcomes? (Results): What are the developments of the study? (Contribution): What are the limitations of the study? (future research direction)” must be included in the abstract. The rest of the irrelevant information should be deleted.

2. I believe the introduction is quite comprehensive. Anyway, the following information should be added at the second last paragraph in the introduction section: (a) The introduction should underline the aim of the paper; (b) stress why this aim is important (with the support of the literature); (c) summarize the methodology; and (d) describe the development of the study.

3. In my opinion, this section needs to be developed a bit. The authors have not critically reviewed the existing works.

4. The methodology should be explained properly so that the readers can understand it easily. Operational definition of variables must be presented in appropriately. Data sources must be defined. Sampling technique used must be justified.

5. Discussion should include comparing and contrasting with previous studies, discussion of the results, theoretical contribution, practical implication, and future research direction. Results should include diagnostic statistics presented in appropriate manner.

6. The conclusion should be separated from the discussion. Policy implications should be provided in light of findings of study.

Good Luck

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #4: No

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Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: reviewe.docx
Revision 3

Thank you for your review sir, Please find the attached Reponses

1. The abstract should be short,” and these information: "What does the author(s) want to know? (Purpose): Why do they want to know? (gap) How do they want to know? (Methodology): What are the outcomes? (Results): What are the developments of the study? (Contribution): What are the limitations of the study? (future research direction)” must be included in the abstract. The rest of the irrelevant information should be deleted.

Response:

The abstract makes the short and attractive according to the suggestion of the reviewer and removed the unnecessary information as,

“Financial reporting quality is critical for businesses, stakeholders, and government to ensure transparency and accountability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance, financial reporting quality, and ownership structure as a moderating factor for Chinese stock exchange-listed firms. Quantitative data of 550 listed firms from 2012 to 2022 are collected from the annual reports. For investigating the relationship between variables, panel data analysis with random and fixed effect models is used. Our results show that corporate governance's different attributes such as Auditor brand name, Existence of an audit committee, independent board, family ownership, and profitability have a significant negative impact on the audit report lag that decreases the lags and increases the financial reporting quality in China listed firms. Auditor opinion, Board diligence Board size, and CEO duality have a significant positive impact on the audit report lag that increases the lags and decreases the financial reporting quality of China-listed firms. Furthermore, our findings show that ownership concentration has no moderating effect between corporate governance, different attributes, and financial reporting quality. Family ownership, on the other hand, has a strong moderating effect between corporate governance characteristics and financial reporting quality. However, due to limitations, this study provides the opportunity for future research on corporate governance mechanisms in different cultures and environments. Moreover, this study has some significant implications for investors, policymakers, and government.”

2. I believe the introduction is quite comprehensive. Anyway, the following information should be added at the second last paragraph in the introduction section: (a) The introduction should underline the aim of the paper; (b) stress why this aim is important (with the support of the literature); (c) summarize the methodology; and (d) describe the development of the study.

Response:

The aim of the study included in the introduction section. The significance of the aims of the study with support to previous literature are written according to the suggestion (please refer yellow highlighted in the Introduction section). The methodology and development of the study is also written in Introduction according to reviewer suggestions (please refer yellow highlighted in Introduction section).

3. In my opinion, this section needs to be developed a bit. The authors have not critically reviewed the existing works.

Response:

The most relevant critical literature review added. (please refer yellow highlighted in Literature review section)

4. The methodology should be explained properly so that the readers can understand it easily. Operational definition of variables must be presented appropriately. Data sources must be defined. Sampling technique used must be justified.

Response:

The operational definitions section included references.

“The audit report lag is the number of the days delay the audit report by the auditor to complete their audit report due to the numbers of the errors and non-compliance with the code of the corporate governance mechanism [47]. The total member in the board composition is an essential part of the corporate governance mechanism. The board size represents the number of the directors in making board decisions and taking necessary actions [48]. The independent board represents when there is independent directors involve in the board composition [48]. The CEO duality means that when CEO has the double role as CEO and the Chairman of the board of directors [50]. The numbers of the meeting of the board of directors held during the financial year is the board diligence [53]. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… The family ownership means the shareholding by one member or family has 50% or more in the respect organization [61]. (page 13 Methodology section)

Data sources is properly defined. Sampling techniques is justifying as,

“In this study, we collected secondary data from the years 2012-2022 from the annual reports of the firms that are listed in China stock markets. The annual reports of selected firms are downloaded from the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) data portal”. (page 11 Methodology section)

“A total of 550 non-financial firms are selected as a sample from the total non-financial sector listed in China. There are 4697 listed firms belonging to the non-financial sector of China that represent our populations for the study. The Sample of 550 firms is collected through random sampling from non-financial sectors of the China-listed firms [21, 45, 46]. (page 11 of methodology)

5. Discussion should include comparing and contrasting with previous studies, discussion of the results, theoretical contribution, practical implication, and future research direction. Results should include diagnostic statistics presented in appropriate manner.

Response:

The discussion is written according to the suggestion. The yellow highlighted shows the track changes in the discussion section. The findings of the study justified through previous literature in yellow highlighted.

6. The conclusion should be separated from the discussion. Policy implications should be provided in light of the findings of the study.

Response:

The conclusion is separated from the discussion. Policy implication, contribution, limitations and future research suggestions are properly written. The yellow highlighted shows the track changes in the Conclusion section.

Thank you

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Responce to reviewer comments.docx
Decision Letter - Wajid Khan, Editor

Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.

PONE-D-23-11373R3

Dear Dr. Han Sun,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Wajid Khan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #4: Yes

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Reviewer #4: Yes

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Reviewer #4: Yes

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Reviewer #4: All comments have been incorporated

A proof reading is required before making final submission

All reporting of results must follow APA style

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Reviewer #4: No

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Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Wajid Khan, Editor

PONE-D-23-11373R3

Corporate governance and reporting quality of accounts in China-listed firms. A moderating role of Ownership pattern.

Dear Dr. Sun:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

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Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Wajid Khan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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