One of the basic assumptions associated with the theoretical model as described in this article is that an organisation (a system) can acquire capabilities through intentional strategic and operational initiatives. This intentional capability-building process also implies that the organisation intends to use these capabilities in a constructive way to increase competitive advantage for the firm. The creation of conducive and attractive conditions for enhancing a firm’s capability-building process is central to the theoretical model as described in this article. The key building blocks that create favourable conditions for the development of organisational capabilities from an Intellectual Capital perspective are defined in the theoretical model and consist of the following five constructs: - A Strategic Architecture that provides guidance on the strategic intent, focus and boundaries of the organisation. - An Intellectual Capital Framework that creates a basis for a normative-, strategic- and operational view to stimulate ideas on how to make intellectual capital a practical reality and to utilise these insights in the development of the organisation’s core capabilities. - A Core Capability Framework that reflects the content and processes related to the identification, description, evaluation and assumptions associated with the firm’s core capabilities. The Core Capability Framework also facilitates the integration of the concepts “core capabilities” and “intellectual capital”. - An Operationalisation Framework to leverage core capabilities from an Intellectual Capital perspective in a pragmatic way to realise tangible competitive benefits not only from individual capabilities, but also through the conscious collective use of bundles of capabilities. - A change enablement process that stimulates knowledge flows between the above key constructs of the conceptual model. This creates the basis for cognitive and emotional leverages to increase the potential of an organisation to successfully implement a strategic approach to the management of core capabilities from an Intellectual Capital perspective. Raising the awareness and capacity of the organisation on the above five constructs creates the basis for an increase in the potential to make positive progress on this strategic journey of discovery to manage the growth of intellectual capital in a holistic way by focusing on core capabilities. / Prof. Koos Uys

M.Comm. / Globalization initiates rapid change and innovation that is: “… no longer an option, but it has become a business imperative” (Grulke, 2002, p. 18). Innovative organizations have developed the ability to satisfy both the shareholders’ demand for wealth (Hamel, 2000) and the customers’ demand for more creative and innovative products that facilitate ease of use (Kelley, 2001) while at the same time ensuring business sustainability (Skarzynski & Gibson, 2008). The development of creative and innovative thinking and problem-solving skills are crucial for the survival of organisations in the 21st century. Creative problem-solving training was generally found to be the most effective when organizations wanted to equip their employees with creative and innovative thinking and problem-solving skills. A specific financial services organisation in South Africa realised that they had to join the innovation revolution in order to remain commercially competitive in the twentyfirst century. With retailers and other competitors such as the telecommunication role players entering the traditional financial services domain, the organisation recognised that they required a novel approach to conduct their business. The highly regulated and to some extent conformist environment of the financial services organization constitute the sphere within which the research problem is situated. The organisation commissioned the researcher to design a Creativity and Innovation Workshop with the intent to improve the creative and innovative thinking and problem-solving skills of their employees. The evaluation question that the study purports to address therefore is whether employees in a corporate context such as a financial services organisation can develop appropriate creative and innovative thinking and problemsolving skills through an intervention such as a workshop and can a benefit for the business unit and organisation be identified. The unit of analysis is a niche business unit in a South African financial services organization. The sample used in this study comprises of managers (employees) and senior or executive management of those employees who attended the Creativity and Innovation Workshop.

M.Tech. (Operations Management) / This study entails and discusses Employee Involvement in Total Quality Management initiatives in a South African Bank. Total Quality Management programs are required within business to ensure that organisations seek continuous improvement in their operational capabilities. Total quality management refers to three foremost components, which has to be part of the organisational strategy namely; customer satisfaction, continuous improvement and employee involvement. This study pertains to Total Quality Management, and the link between Total Quality and Employee Involvement as the critical component based on the premise that operational efficiency must start internally, meaning that employee involvement should be the point of departure. In many instances employees find it difficult to adapt to the changes, people naturally find reasons as to why changes will not be successful, more especially if there is no employee involvement at their level and, hence their reluctance to see the benefits objectively will result in the failure of any Total Quality Management initiative. The objective of this study was to determine if TQM principles as prescribed by many authors are currently adopted by the organisation with the focus being Employee Involvement and also to ascertain if the organisational culture lends itself to the implementation of TQM initiatives. Survey questionnaires were used to obtain primary data, and interviews and document reviews were conducted subsequently to validate the results obtained from primary data collection. The literature review indicated the importance of Employee Involvement in the pursuit TQM and the results indicated that employees believed that the principles of TQM and Employee Involvement are relatively well established. With any organisation there is always improvement required and as a fundamental requirement of TQM continuous improvement is a must. Collaboration between employees and management, Empowerment of employees and Education and Training that is job specific are some key areas that were discussed.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was signed into law on November 12, 1999. This act is regarded as the most influential deregulation for the U.S. financial services industry in the past one-century. The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the wealth effects of the GLBA on U.S. and foreign banks and insurance companies. This dissertation is composed of four separate essays. In the first two chapters I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on domestic banks and insurance companies. I find that Money Center Banks followed by Super Regional Banks benefit most from this deregulation. I also find that banks with Section 20 investment subsidiaries benefit more than rest of the industry. For all types of banks exposure to systematic risk reduces following the enactment of the GLBA. In cross sectional analysis I find that banks size and change in exposure to systematic risk can explain the wealth effects at firm level. In the domestic insurance industry, property/casualty and life insurance companies have the highest wealth effect. Exposure to systematic risk also reduces for all types of insurance companies following the enactment of the GLBA. From cross sectional analysis I find that diversification opportunities and safeguards against excessive risk taking create value for property/casualty and all other (except life) insurance companies. I also test merger related hypothesis. The result shows that poor performing firms and larger firms gain more form this deregulation. In the third and fourth chapter I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on international banks and foreign insurance companies. I find that the events leading to the passage of the GLBA have significant negative wealth effects (spill-over effects) on the portfolios of banks and insurance companies for most of the developed countries I analyze. These effects are not same for any two countries. Most importantly I find that reduction in diversification opportunities for international banks and foreign insurance companies in the U.S. market can explain the wealth effects at firm level from the GLBA.

The diploma thesis aims to capture the specifics of financial products that mostly affect consumers in the market. In the first theoretical part we encounter terms such as intangibility, inseparability or contingent consumption of financial products. The thesis then incorporates those specifics into the consumer behaviour in financial markets, especially in the purchase decision process. Subsequently, it focuses on the specific situation in the banking market in the Czech Republic, including the market shares of banks as well as the offers of current accounts. The practical part of the work shows through a primary research - conducted by polling Czech consumer of bank accounts - how people not only acquire this financial service but also use it. This section is concluded by a shorter secondary research which uses data from the professional marketing database MML-TGI. Finally, on the basis of previous research findings it formulates conclusions in a form of marketing recommendations for banks.

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg A proposal for a research report to be submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce / Value-Added Tax (VAT) on imported services in South Africa and the VAT treatment of banking income / products has been a contentious issue for a number of years in South Africa. South African companies, individual taxpayers, students and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) have difficulty to interpret whether section 7(1)(c) and section 14 of the Value-Added Tax Act No. 89 of 1991 is applicable to certain transactions. The aim of the study is to discuss and analyse VAT on imported services in South Africa in order for an individual taxpayer, company and SARS to understand which section should be applied to a certain transaction. This study also aims at clearly showing the type of income / products generated in the banking industry and how VAT is treated on the types of income / products in the bank. This will give students, tax professionals in the financial industry, auditors, companies, individuals and the SARS a better understanding of how VAT is treated in the financial industry. / MT2017

I investigate whether and how auditors address the potential risk of CEO incentive pay and CEO incentives from their equity portfolio as an incentive to commit fraud through their pricing decisions. Using an OLS regression model I find that auditors price CEO incentive pay in the post SOX period. Also, auditors price CEOs' non-linear incentives from their holdings of stock options as a fraud risk factor but do not price linear incentives from CEO holding of stock and restricted stock. Furthermore, auditors consider CEO incentives to manipulate firm performance due to the vested portion of option holdings as a fraud risk factor which is priced, and not the unvested portion of this portfolio. Furthermore, I find evidence to suggest that auditors price CEO opportunity to commit fraud, as well as CEO rationalizing the act of committing fraud, therefore concluding that auditors price all components of the fraud triangle. / by Yezen H. Kannan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

In the period leading up to the early 2000s there were a series of large company failures attributed at least in part to audit failures. Consequently, the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) was promulgated in July 2002 to restore confidence in public company financial reporting and the work of auditors. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was established by SOX and appointed as the regulator of the accounting firms that audit the financial statements of public companies. The PCAOB is required to routinely inspect the operations of these accounting firms in an effort to satisfy its mandate to bring about an improvement in the audit quality of these companies. These inspections extend to the non-US auditors of companies that are cross-listed in the US. Despite various mainly US studies on inspections, there is limited evidence that the inspections have resulted in improved audit quality. ... I examine companies whose securities are cross-listed in the US in the periods before and after inspection in order to provide evidence on the benefits of inspections. I find some evidence that inspections improve the audit quality of companies that are cross-listed in the US. This suggests the audit quality of companies from countries that do not permit inspections may be positively affected should inspections be permitted. / by Errol G.G. Stewart. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

In essay I, I empirically examine theoretical inferences of real options models regarding the effects of business risk on the pricing of firms engaged in corporate control transactions. This study shows that the risk differential between the merging firms has a significant effect on the risk dynamic of bidding firms around control transactions and that the at-announcement risk dynamic is negatively related to that in the preannouncement period. In addition, the relative size of the target, the volatility of bidder cash flows, and the relative growth rate of the bidder have significant explanatory power in the cross-section of announcement returns to bidding firm shareholders as does the change in the cost of capital resulting from the transaction. Essay II provides an empirical analysis of a second set of real options models that theoretically examine the dynamics of financial risk around control transactions as well as the link between financial leverage and the probability of acquisition. In addition, I present a comparison of the financial risk dynamics of firms that choose an external growth strategy, through acquisition, and those that pursue an internal growth strategy through capital expenditures that are unrelated to acquisition. / by Jeffrey M. Coy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Since the dawn of the European Union, insurance and banking undertakings claimed to be subject to a special status vis-à-vis the application of EU competition law, due to the quasi social nature of the services they provide. Within the financial services industry, anti-trust concerns do arise in relation to mergers and acquisitions, possible abuses of dominant position and state aid; however Art. 101 TFEU and the regulation of forms of co-operation arguably represent the paramount and most intricate aspects of the application of the EU competition rules to the financial services sector. This is due to the fact that the insurance and banking industries historically have been characterised by intense forms of horizontal co-operation between undertakings deemed necessary for the correct functioning of the financial services industry. On a general level, any agreement establishing a homogeneous pricing structure vis-à-vis consumers represents a blatant violation of Art. 101 TFEU giving rise to serious anti-trust concerns. Nevertheless, as will be explored in this thesis, in the financial services sector the Commission has often allowed what the doctrine has correctly defined as “forms of horizontal agreements concerning a relevant cost element making up the final price vis-à-vis customers”1 through its decisions relating 1 See Faull & Nikpay, “The EC Law of Competition” OUP 2007, p. 636.to interbank fees in payment systems and through the enactment of a block exemption for the insurance industry. Art. 101 thus seems to manifest a common element for these two industries, presenting interesting and intricate teleological quandaries. This thesis endeavours to break the impasse down into questions to which an answer may be provided: Ought Art. 101 to apply to the financial services sector at all? If so, to what extent? Is there any justification for a block exemption in the insurance sector? Indeed, should the banking sector too benefit from a block exemption? This thesis endeavours to answer the above questions and thereby to contribute to the identification of an ideal regulatory framework for forms of horizontal co-operation in the financial services sector.