The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is the only legislated corporate governance structure, and is aimed at increasing investor confidence in public companies by forcing them to be transparent in their financial affairs. In order for companies to comply with the legislation, significant costs need to be incurred without any guarantee that the benefits will accrue to the investors or the company. The legislation will be regarded as being successful if a) the benefits and costs can be identified and b) the benefits exceed the costs. This study reviews the SOX legislation elements using documentary and secondary interview research, and reveals a convergence between the two. While the purpose of the regulation is to prevent fraud and restore investor confidence, there was no empirical evidence suggesting that investor confidence has increased after complying with the legislation. The benefits of complying with the legislation appear to be access to capital markets in the United States, and awareness of the controls environment by all employees. The costs incurred are listed as initial implementation costs and ongoing sustainable costs, and the overall costs are greater than benefits obtained. In the long term, benefits should exceed the costs, as the sustainable costs are low compared to implementation costs. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This study explored the political-economic dimension of corporate governance reform in South Africa. Such reform in South Africa is especially significant in view of the history of South African society. This study investigated the relationship between corporate governance institutions and systems on the one hand and the political, economic and historical context of South African society that produced these corporate governance institutions and systems on the other. The purpose of the study was to establish the political, economic and historical determinants of corporate governance reform, as they evolved in the course of South African corporate history. A literature review was done in order to provide a backdrop for the study, after which a number of documents in the public domain were observed, in particular, a number of historical sources, newspaper reports, internet resources, and analyses of selected statutes and South African case law. The study concluded that South African corporate governance reform and such reform in the Commonwealth economic systems have a lot in common in terms of their historical evolution. The outcome of the political process in South Africa, for very specific reasons, was that a specific shareholder model of corporate governance became the corporate governance system in South Africa. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Corporate scandals such as Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat, have focused recent governance efforts in the domain of financial reporting due to fraudulent and/or erroneous accounting practices. In addition, the ineffectiveness of the current system of controls has been highlighted, including that some directors have been weak and ineffective monitors of managers. This board of director ‘weakness’ has called for additional mechanisms for monitoring and controlling of management, focusing on financial reporting. This problem intensifies in that today companies function in real-time, and decisions are based on available realtime financial information. However, the assurances provided by traditional auditing take place months after the transactions have occurred and therefore, a trust problem arises because information is not verified in real-time. Consequently, the errors and fraud concealed within the financial information is not discovered until months later. To address this trust problem a conceptual causal model is proposed in this study based on the principles of systems theory. The emergent property of the causal model is increased trust and control. This study establishes that mutual assurances assist in building trust and that information security assists in safeguarding trust. Subsequently, in order to have a positive relationship between the company directors and various stakeholders, uncertainty needs to be contained, and the level of trust needs to surpass the perceived risks. The study concludes that assurances need to be provided in real-time to restore stakeholder confidence and trust in the domain of financial reporting. In order to provide assurances in real-time, continuous auditing is required to verify the integrity of financial information when it becomes available, and not months later. A continuous auditing process has its foundations grounded in information technology and attends to the challenges in real-time by addressing the standardisation of data to enable effective analysis, the validation of the accuracy of the data and the reliability of the system.

No abstract on disk

Hao He. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-86). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.3 / Chapter 2.1 --- Recent Work on Synchronicity --- p.3 / Chapter 2.2 --- Recent Work on Corporate Governance --- p.5 / Chapter 2.3 --- Motivation´ؤWhy Stock Return Synchronicity Matters --- p.6 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Theory and Hypotheses --- p.9 / Chapter 3.1 --- Derivation of Dependent Variables --- p.9 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.9 / Chapter 3.1.1.1 --- Static Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.9 / Chapter 3.1.1.2 --- Dynamic Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.11 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Regional Governance Mechanisms --- p.12 / Chapter 3.2 --- Quantification of Dependent Variables --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Quantifying corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2.1.1 --- Quantifying Static Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2.1.2 --- Quantifying Dynamic Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Quantifying Regional Governance Mechanisms --- p.19 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Quantifying Control Variables --- p.22 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- Data --- p.23 / Chapter 4.1 --- Sample --- p.23 / Chapter 4.2 --- Definitions of Main Synchronicity Measures --- p.25 / Chapter 4.3 --- Methdology --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Empirical Results --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1 --- Results on Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Results on Static Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Results on Dynamic Corporate Governance Mechanisms --- p.29 / Chapter 5.1.2.1 --- Results on President-Changing Variables --- p.29 / Chapter 5.1.2.2 --- Results on General manager-change Variables --- p.31 / Chapter 5.2 --- Results on Regional Governance Mechanisms --- p.34 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Conclusion --- p.36 / Reference --- p.38 / Tables and Figures --- p.41

Zugleich: Diss. Nr. 1926 Wirtschaftswiss. St. Gallen, 1996 u.d.T.: Das Konzept des Economic Value Added (EVA) : Massstab für finanzielle Performance und Bewertungsinstrument im Zeichen des Shareholder value : Darstellung und Anwendung auf Schweizer Aktiengesellschaften. / Literaturverz.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-215). Also available in print.

The concept of "corporate governance", which has appeared in the United States, is however recently subject to vivid discussions across the world. The notion is understood differently in distinct jurisdictions. Nevertheless, corporate governance widely refers to the way corporations are managed. The present study firstly concentrates on the United States since the latter has been the first country to host debates on the topic. Different governance models basically distinguish the North-American and European (Continental Europe) governance systems. However, debates in the United States and Canada concentrate on distinct issues. The third studied country, France has also its own characteristics. International organisations' initiatives on the topic such as the OECD, illustrate the importance given to "corporate governance". Although the uniformity of distinct national governance systems is not likely to be reached in the near future, certain similarities might be pointed at, especially through the recent activism of institutional shareholders.

Universiẗat, Diss.-2006--Passau, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. XIX - XLVII.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Emory University, 2007. / Adviser: Grace Pownall. Includes bibliographical references.