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The purpose of this study is to examine whether European production firms, that reshore parts of their manufacturing processes back to the originating country of the firm, perform financially differently than prior to the reshoring process. The performances of the firms are quantified by the financial indicators of return on equity, return on assets, and net profit margin. It also examines if these three performance indicators are affected differently depending on the scale of the reshoring operation relative to the total size of the firm. To effectively analyse the aforementioned, the study performs a paired-sample T-test for the three metrics, comparing the pre and post reshoring. Three OLS-regressions are also conducted to gain further insights into how a reshoring process has affected the performance indicators of a company. Based on a sample of 34 European companies that have performed a reshoring, the results of the conducted tests show no significant difference in performances for the sampled companies’ ex-ante or ex-post a reshoring of manufacturing activity. This suggests that firms that are planning to make a reshoring move cannot expect a certain outcome of that decision, either positive or negative, in terms of this paper's chosen variables.

As banks have an extensive impact on the market economy while the continuous and ambiguous work for sustainability is more topical than ever before, our study analyses if corporate social responsibility has a positive, negative or no impact at all on the Financial Performance of banks. In particular, the banks of choice are JP Morgan Chase & Co, SEB and UBS. The dependent variables used to measure Financial Performance in this thesis were ROE and ROAA from the year 2002 to 2019. The independent variables were the pillars for the ESG Score, in particular, Environment, Governance and Social, with the control variable Total Assets. As a result, multiple regression analysis shows no significant results for the independent variables of interest. Thus, our study concludes that corporate social responsibility has no impact on the financial performances for the three banks.

In my PhD thesis I investigate the relationship between corporates' financial and environmental performances. The concept of quantitative environmental performance measures was introduced to enable to compare and analyse environmental impacts of different socio­economic units e.g. companies, countries, regions. In my dissertation, I use environmental performance measures to examine their effect on the financial performance of different companies. In the first chapter, I apply a meta­analysis to examine the results of the previous studies which investigate the impact of firms' environmental performance on their financial performance. The outcomes propose that it is important to account for the omitted variable bias such as unobserved firm heterogeneity. The results suggest that it takes time for the environmental regulation to materialize into the financial performance, too. In the subsequent two chapters I study Czech firms over 2004­2008. First I study the intertemporal effects of corporates' environmental performance on financial ...

The purpose of this study was to identify whether firms that implement and develop core competencies perform significantly better than firms that do not. A model of core competency implementation and development in restaurant firms was developed and tested in three casual dining restaurant firms. The amount of co-alignment in the core competency process was compared to financial performance. Results indicated that firms that had a greater amount of alignment performed better. The highest performance was evidenced in the firm that not only had internal alignment but that appeared to have competencies that are also critical to success in the restaurant industry. / Ph. D.

Purpose The high yield debt market has evolved into a $1 trillion market over the last 25 years. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the riskadjusted performance of individual mutual funds that investors use to invest in this asset class. Design/methodology/approach Conditional excess returns are calculated for individual high yield bond mutual funds. Performance persistence over time is measured and size, asset growth, asset duration, the expense ratio, turnover, and manager tenure are used to determine if differences across funds can be explained. Findings Overall, high yield bond funds significantly underperform the CSFB high yield index by 1.6 percent on an annualized basis which is 0.5 percent more than the average expense ratio. Individually, funds do exhibit performance persistence and top ranked funds in one period outperform bottom ranked funds over the proceeding period by an average of 2.7 percent annually. However, except for the expense ratio, commonly used explanatory variables do not appear useful for explaining riskadjusted excess return differences across funds leaving 86 percent of the variation unexplained. Research limitations/implications This paper examines only noload mutual funds that have at least ten years of return data. Historical data for the explanatory variables used to explain alpha differences are limited which constrains any longterm definitive conclusions. Practical implications For investors wishing to invest in this asset class, it appears that past performance does indicate future success, and investors should concentrate on the top performing funds with the lowest expense ratios. Originality/value This paper usefully reaffirms previous evidence on the persistence of high yield bond mutual funds, but casts doubt on the viability of using standard variables other than the expense ratio to explain riskadjusted returns across funds.

Thesis M.Com. (Accounting)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, 2015 / With changes in international governance trends leaning towards integrated reporting, and the inclusion of good governance practices in the Companies Act No. 71 of 2008, it has become imperative for companies to embrace integrated reporting in order to be, and also be seen to be, responsible with regard to social, environmental and economic issues. The purpose of this report is to investigate the trends in the extent of integrated reporting by companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The report sought to investigate compliance with the recommendations of the King Report and Code of Governance Principles for South Africa 2009 (King III) by companies listed on the JSE. The report assesses the extent of reporting and disclosures made by companies in relation to the specific recommendations contained in the various chapters of King III since the inclusion of King III in the JSE listing requirements for financial years beginning on or after 1 March 2010. The report also assesses the extent of economic, social and environmental sustainability reporting as required by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The annual integrated reports of fifty-two companies listed under the various sectors of the JSE were examined to determine whether there had been significant changes in the specific disclosures provided by these companies, as recommended by King III, from 2010 to 2012. The key findings of the study show that although there has been an increase in the level of disclosure by companies, this change was not significant over the three-year period. The results also show that much improvement is needed in disclosures relating specifically to the new King III sections of risk management, compliance management and IT governance. Key words: corporate governance, disclosure, financial performance, integrated reporting, non-financial information, sustainability

For many years has sustainability been an important factor for companies to consider. Earlier has sustainability been strongly connected with environmental work, but the concept has grown to include factors like working conditions, equality, and ethical business practices. This lay the framework of the concept around ESG, which stands for Environment, Social, and Governance responsibility. In order to measure how companies work with ESG, external organizations produce grades based on corporations' ESG work. ESG has been increasing in popularity and broader use as the awareness regarding corporations and humans' effect on the environment. ESG rating has therefore become one of the most well-known metrics to measure a company's performance in sustainability  The automotive sector stands for a remarkably large portion of the global CO2 emissions worldwide and faces great challenges in the next years in redirecting the industry to a more sustainable business. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between ESG ratings within the automotive industry and their financial performance. The study also investigated the relationship between the three separated pillars in the ESG rating (Environment, Social, and Governance) to financial performance. The study will analyze financial performance through the market-based measure, Tobin’s Q, and the accounting-based measure, ROA. Despite the fact that the topic of ESG and financial performance is a well- researched subject there is still a need for further research as the previous research has shown varying results.  In order to test this relationship several regression analyses were conducted with data from 2012 to 2021 consisting of 79 automotive & auto parts companies. The regression analysis showed a significant negative relationship between ESG and Tobin’s Q and a non-significant relationship between ESG and ROA. The separated ESG pillars all showed a significant negative relationship with financial performance with one exception, ESG showed a non-significant relationship with the Governance rating. The results conclude that sustainability activities, reflected in the ESG rating, have a negative significant relationship with financial performance with two exceptions. ROA and Governance had a non-significant relationship.  The results, therefore, are in contrast with the Stakeholder Theory, which contradicts the profit- maximization viewpoint and argues that companies should focus on a larger group of people than merely its shareholders. The results from this thesis align with the Shareholder Theory, that companies should only engage in activities that maximize the profit for their shareholders.

It is known that ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) performance positively influences the company's financial performance. However, little attention has been paid to macro elements that can moderatethis relationship. Based on the maxim that "institutions matter" and considering that countries with more robust institutions tend to mitigate transaction costs, information asymmetries, and investor uncertainty, this paper aims to demonstrate whether countries' institutional quality positively moderates the relationship between companies' ESG and financial performance over time. Using financial and ESG performance information from Refinitiv database and Countries' Institutional Quality from Worldwide Governance Indicators database, an unbalanced panel was built with a total of 14,699 observations, between the years 2010 and 2020, from 2,912 companies from ten countries (High Institutional Quality -Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, and Germany and Low Institutional Quality - South Africa, Brazil, India, Thailand, and China). Through the use of Linear Regression with Random Effects, using the Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimator, and a Test of Differentiation of Regression Coefficients, it was found that the Institutional Quality of the countries positively moderates the relationship between the ESG performance and the financial performance of the companies. Upon closer analysis, it was found that institutional quality only positively and significantly moderates the relationship between environmental and social performance with financial performance. In contrast, no significant result was found for moderating the relationship between corporate governance and financial performance.

In my PhD thesis I investigate the relationship between corporates' financial and environmental performances. The concept of quantitative environmental performance measures was introduced to enable to compare and analyse environmental impacts of different socio­economic units e.g. companies, countries, regions. In my dissertation, I use environmental performance measures to examine their effect on the financial performance of different companies. In the first chapter, I apply a meta­analysis to examine the results of the previous studies which investigate the impact of firms' environmental performance on their financial performance. The outcomes propose that it is important to account for the omitted variable bias such as unobserved firm heterogeneity. The results suggest that it takes time for the environmental regulation to materialize into the financial performance, too. In the subsequent two chapters I study Czech firms over 2004­2008. First I study the intertemporal effects of corporates' environmental performance on financial ...