Thesis (M.M. (Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess corporate entrepreneurship behaviour and identify elements that influence and promote corporate entrepreneurship in a South African financial services organisation. The study also defines corporate entrepreneurship and assists in gaining an understanding of corporate entrepreneurship behaviour in a context of a financial services organisation in the South African financial services sector. Data collection Online questionnaires were used to collect data. The online questionnaire was sent out to via email to employees at different hierarchal levels of a financial services organisation. The email contained a link which directed the participants to the online survey. Completed responses were sent back to a centralised system for collation with only one response per computer possible. Key findings The key findings of the study elucidate corporate entrepreneurship in a financial services organisation as not perceived as demonstrated and or used. There is a neutral sentiment towards CE which is widespread across the organisation regardless of hierarchal levels. Management support for corporate entrepreneurial activities was significantly low which goes to show that there by-in-large a low acceptance for CE. Key contribution This research contributes to the further improves the understanding of corporate entrepreneurship in financial services organisations in South Africa, and benefits. The study will additionally provide an improved understanding of the financial services industry. The outcome of this study will challenge executives in the insurance sector to consider the benefits of executing on corporate entrepreneurship intentions. To this end, the study adds value to the financial iii services sector and may potentially change how the players in this sector operate. / DH2016

The protection of consumers of financial services has attracted a lot of debates following the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. As a result, there have been series of reforms in a number of jurisdictions across the globe. Despite this development some countries still lag behind and Nigeria is no exception. This study examines the problems of consumer protection in Nigeria, with specific reference to the bank consumers. The aim is to consider whether the Nigeria consumer protection regime provides "sufficient protection to bank consumers and whether it should be reformed". The study also focuses on the role of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in consumer protection, its dispute resolution mechanism and the practical challenges. The test of sufficiency will be analysed and discussed, using 'consistency', 'efficiency' and 'accessibility' in order to illustrate the existing weaknesses in resolving consumer dispute. The approach in this study is doctrinal analysis. In all, the findings suggest that there is need, to reform the consumer protection regime in the banking sector and enforce laws which will address issues highlighted in the study to enable the users of banking services in Nigeria to obtain an appropriate level of protection through regulatory processes. This study, therefore, also provides a comparative analysis between United Kingdom and Nigeria, using current consumer protection framework in the United Kingdom in making proposals for the needed reforms in Nigeria. The study thus concludes with the recommendation that the current Nigerian consumer protection regime does not offer adequate protection; hence protecting consumers require a holistic approach which includes effective consumer protection framework, enforcement, coordination and cooperation from different stakeholders.

Business owners and leaders have committed resources, time, and funding to understand and mitigate the phenomenon of employee turnover. The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies that managers used to mitigate employee turnover in the financial services industry in Nigeria. The transformational leadership model was the conceptual framework for this single case study. Semistructured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 10 middle-level managers who had experience and knowledge of employee turnover at an organization in the financial services industry in Nigeria. The company's policy documents and audited financial statements were also reviewed. Thematic coding was used for data analysis, and qualitative data analysis software was used to achieve accuracy in data classification and organization of the analysis. Data analysis led to the emergence of 8 themes: human resources, industry comparison and benchmarking, training, good relationship management and communication, conducive work environment, rewards and compensation, low employee turnover as a post strategy implementation benefit, and increased productivity and efficiency as a post strategy implementation benefit. The implications of this study for positive social change include the potential to reduce the unemployment rate, create financial independence, and reduce the poverty level in the financial services industry in Nigeria. Leaders and business owners may use the strategies from this study to promote satisfied employees who earn a satisfactory income, find fulfillment in their jobs, and support for their families and communities.

The thesis extends previous loyalty research by comparing the performance of brands in subscription markets, specifically financial services and insurance, on a cross-category basis. Large investments are made in these industries on cross-selling initiatives with the hope of bringing about brand growth through increased loyalty. This research found very little variation between the loyalty scores for major brands in each market, suggesting that cross selling attempts are likely to play only a minor role in brand performance. / thesis (MBusiness-Research)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Business Administration. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-265). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR29492

International financial centre (IFC) development is a hot topic in today’s global arena at the political state level and within academic circles as they can have a significant impact on national, regional and local economies. A critical review of the literature on this topic reveals that not much scholarly attention has been directed towards how IFCs develop from within, more specifically how local entrepreneurial activity contributes to the advancement and evolution of an IFC. In addition, a number of different theories such as path dependence and the concept of social networks have been used as alternative frameworks to explain the phenomena of spatial agglomeration in international financial centres (IFCs); however, these theories haven’t either been properly constructed in a geographical context, empirically applied in a convincing manner or been further investigated using different methodological frameworks. Through the lens of the entrepreneurial hedge fund (EHF) firm and by incorporating a multiple methodological approach (quantitative, descriptive and spatial analysis); this research investigates four separate empirical lines of inquiry in regard to either the firm, its proprietor or the IFC that focuses on micro characteristics, spatial characteristics, the general business arena and development mechanisms. The major empirical findings are that the EHF firm can be classified as small and large based on a number of different factors; while the proprietor is a well educated individual who was previously employed as a high level manager of a large multinational corporation and has previous career ties to the investment banking and traditional fund management sectors. EHF firms agglomerate in IFCs with the most intense clustering occurring within close proximity to the nucleus of the main financial district and other agglomeration patterns are evident. Categorically, government and regulatory factors and people factors are considered as the most important competiveness factors of an IFC. When compared as a whole with previously conducted studies, the findings were found to be statistically indifferent; however, at the individual factor level there are distinct differences. The factors that trigger entrepreneurial behavior are endogenous in nature and the top barriers encountered were customer related followed by employee recruitment and regulatory issues. Finally, human agency and social networks are an integral part of the entrepreneurial process and can be categorized into five separate groups with professional and associate considered to be the most important. This study makes three theoretical contributions on developmental aspects of IFCs. First, a spatial agglomeration model is proposed based on areal differentiation that is derived from the established and changing patterns in the human landscape and its institutions. Second, the theory of path creation is introduced along with social network interaction to account for the genesis of new financial firms at a micro level and a ‘path as processes’ model that incorporates ‘place dependence—path creation—path dependence’ as an economic process is proposed to illustrate the development of the alternative asset management sector which ultimately contributes to the advancement and evolution of an IFC in the defined study area. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The present study represents an in-depth empirical investigation into the service elimination process in the British financial services sector. It aims to make a contribution towards the concise development of the literature on service elimination and to provide empirically based recommendations, which can improve the way financial service elimination is practised. The theoretical part of the study focused first on a review of the characteristics of services in general and of financial services in particular and of the service range management activities of financial institutions. Second, the literature on product and service elimination was reviewed. The bulk of this material refers to conceptual propositions and empirical evidence on elimination from manufacturing settings, while conceptual and empirical material from service and financial service settings is alarmingly sparse. The presents tudy conceptualisedth e service elimination process as consisting of three broad stages, a) the pre-elimination stage, b) the actual service elimination decision-making process and c) the post-elimination stage. The study adopted a research approach based on the broad hypothesis that service elimination decisions are not made in a vacuum (as the limited literature on service and financial service elimination assumes explicitly or implicitly) but that they are influenced by contextual organisational and environmental characteristics of companies. Based on the above conceptualisations, the research objectives were to a) identify the content of the service elimination process (i. e., the decision variables involved in the various steps of the process) b) measure the relative importance/frequency of use of the above content and c) measure the influence of a set of contextual independent variables on the relative importance/frequency of use of the content of the service elimination process. To meet the above research objectives, a pluralistic research method was adopted. For the identification component of the research objectives qualitative research (in-depth interviews) was conducted, while for the measurement component quantitative research was conducted(mail survey). The findings indicated that service elimination decisions were the outcome of a multi-step process, which with very few exceptions (i. e., the way in which British financial institutions identified financial services as candidates for elimination) was found to be largely informal and unsophisticated. Moreover service elimination was rated as the least important service range management activity and was allocated the least amount of resources (temporal, monetary and human). The findings also suggested that the content of the service elimination process was both similar and different to elimination practice in manufacturing settings. Among the most obvious similarities was the paramount importance of sales and profitability considerations in making products and financial services candidates for elimination. Among the most striking differences was that while a product is fully eliminated, partial elimination was the predominant outcome of the service elimination process in the studied setting. With regards to the contextual influence, it was found that the relative importance/frequency of the decision variables involved in the service elimination process varied in relation to the type and the size of individual financial institutions, the pursued overall business strategy, and degree of market orientation, the degree of formalisation of the service elimination process, the number of services in the range (service diversity), the type of financial service which is considered for elimination, the method of its delivery process, the intensity of competition and of the legislative environment and the volatility of the technological environment. As such, the findings confirmed the hypothesised dynamism of the service elimination decisions and suggested that any attempt to describe the service elimination process in a golden rule way that fits all companies, all financial services and all environmental circumstances would be misleading.

In terms of effective branding, several recent trends have indicated the need for greater attention within the organisation than has traditionally been the case. With increased emphasis on corporate branding, the team responsible for managing a brand is becoming larger and more diverse and <i>all</i> staff, as the corporate brand's representatives, affect consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand. Furthermore, the shift in emphasis in the literature from the externally perceived brand image to the internally created brand identity entails actively creating how an organisation wishes to be perceived. To project a consistent corporate brand successfully to consumers, all staff need to have congruent perceptions about the brand's identity. The aim of this research was to identify internal factors influencing brand team members' and consumer-facing staffs perceptions of their brand's identity and the impact of these factors and perceptions on consumers' perceptions and brand performance. A conceptual model was developed and associated hypotheses formulated. Studies were conducted using postal questionnaires with three stakeholder groups in the financial services sector: (i) brand team members, (ii) consumer-facing staff and (iii) consumers. Although failing to identify correctly all of the intervening variables, support was found for sections of the conceptual model. The research confirmed that larger corporate brand teams increased the diversity of members' functional backgrounds. While brand teams composed of members with diverse functional backgrounds potentially have a wider range of knowledge and information available to them, diversity in brand team members' characteristics was found to impair the congruency of their brand perceptions. The importance of congruent brand perceptions among different stakeholder groups and the effect of congruent brand perceptions on brand performance were demonstrated. The results emphasised the need for improved internal brand communications and highlighted the influence of consumer-facing staff on consumers' brand perceptions.

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The thesis extends previous loyalty research by comparing the performance of brands in subscription markets, specifically financial services and insurance, on a cross-category basis. Large investments are made in these industries on cross-selling initiatives with the hope of bringing about brand growth through increased loyalty. This research found very little variation between the loyalty scores for major brands in each market, suggesting that cross selling attempts are likely to play only a minor role in brand performance. / thesis (MBusiness-Research)--University of South Australia, 2005.