This mixed-methods study examines the perceptions and opinions of United Kingdom FTSE 350, and US Fortune 500 board of director members regarding the significance of gender and racial diversity on board governance. Perceptions were gathered from eighty-two directors using self-reported surveys and semi-structured interviews. This thesis provides: (1) an opportunity to investigate the perceptions (opinions) of directors regarding the effects of board gender and racial diversity on new board appointments and on the dynamics of board decision making (2) an opportunity to investigate the perception (opinions) of directors regarding the effects of social capital, new board appointments and the dynamics of board decision making, and (3) an opportunity to investigate comparatively the differences between UK and US director perceptions regarding the effects of board gender and racial diversity on new board appointments and board decision making. My findings indicate that directors believe that expertise and experience are by far the most important attributes when decisions on the selection of new directors are being considered. While US directors report observing tangible benefits to gender and racial diversity, for their firms, as well as a willingness to consider diversity as an attribute in the selection process; most UK directors were strongly opposed to positive discrimination measures.1 A majority of directors do not believe that their own demographic characteristics, such as race or gender were attributes to their being selected to a board position; however white males perceive that these attributes were considered attributes to the appointment of diverse directors. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, male directors reported that they may be at a disadvantage for board selection when compared to their female counterparts, hence advocating for a selection process with minimal considerations of the demographic characteristics of new directors. Directors do not seem to consider diverse social capital of directors when making board appointments. Instead, US directors were more likely to be assisted in board appointments by their having similar social capital, and UK directors indicated that they only consider director expertise, and that expertise is considered to ensure a broad mix of skills and professional experience on the board.

Fictions and Frictions. Are capital markets impeded by frictions or fuelled by fictions? The focus in the study is on two important decisions of corporations: capital investments and raising of finance. It has a three-fold purpose: (i) to investigate the role that timing plays in the industrial environment within which firms make investments (ii) to test for frictions in the investment decisions of firms and (iii) to examine the equity issuing behaviour of firms. Not un surprisingly controversy surrounds the issue of whether capital markets are prone to failures and frictions. We investigate three different but associated aspects of the wider economic policy debate surrounding this perennial thorn. The first is an industry level study employing novel data collected from surveys conducted by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). The second and third studies are at firm level and seek evidence of capital market frictions in the investment and financing decisions of UK firms. Employing an unbalanced panel of company data collected from Thomson Reuters' DataStream database from 1994-2010, we estimate investment-cash flow sensitivities, estimate valuation models as well as marginal likelihoods within probit models, to help address three associated aspects of this wider debate. The motivation for the industry level study is whether there is evidence managers make investment expenditures in a manner that accounts for irreversibility - a features of all large fixed capital additions. Though a sophisticated theory of real options addresses this shortcoming, empirical evidence relating to it is sparse, since reliable evidence requires gathering of forward looking data concerning expectations of the future, as seen from the perspective of managers facing such capital investment decisions. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conducts a quarterly survey of a representative sample of senior mangers of British manufacturing firms through its Industrial Trends Survey (ITS), primarily seeking forward-looking perceptions and expectations with respect to future demand and the need to make additions to capital. The issue we investigate is whether there is an increased chance that capital investments will be made in forthcoming quarters conditional on supposed determinants and whether this likelihood is driven by anticipations and expectations of the future in the manner prescribed by real options theory. We have several interesting findings: the lower the prices for second hand fixed assets (i.e. higher the irreversibility), the lower the rate at which shocks to investment demand are experienced; shortage of labour presents a major concern for managers when shocks are imminent; interestingly, shortage of internal financing has a significant impact, whereas inability to access external financing is not; surprisingly competition does not appear to be of concern to managers. AB regards friction in capital investment, one line of empirical research has been to establish whether investments of firms are sensitive to the availability of internal funds. While we find cash flow matters, given the surprising finding that cash flow is not important in driving investment decisions of any type of firm other than small high- payout UK manufacturing firms, the major part of UK evidence runs contrary to earlier US evidence supporting Fazzari, Hubbard and Petersen (1988) and aligns more with recent evidence for the UK and US. We also sought to assess the relative contributions of market misvaluation (fictions) and growth options (fundamentals) to motivating equity issuance among UK firms. We evaluated the impact investor sentiment has on the issue of equity by the public offerings of shares for a higher price than fundamentals would justify. In this line of investigation, we further study clustering of equity issues where firms appear to raise funds by issuing in waves. We find growth trumps misvaluation in explaining who issues, while misvaluations trumps growth in explaining who issues on and off the wave as well as in explaining who issues late rather than early on the wave.

There is increasing concern for scarcity of natural resources and deterioration of the environment due to economic activity. Although theoretically the Hotelling rule not only provides an optimal extraction for the resource owner's profit maximization problem but also provides the optimal solution for society as a whole, the rule fails to fit the facts and only applies to the idealised world for which it was constructed. In particularly, when the resource firm realises it can affect its price depending on extraction, shareholders will disagree on the extraction rate. Thus, how to deal with the shareholders' interests and make decisions for resource firms is of central importance. Endogenizing firms' objectives through shareholder voting via majority rule is considered as the solution. This thesis analyzes the behaviour of resources firms in shareholder voting equilibrium when the firms' decisions are taken through shareholder voting. Firstly, theoretical models are formulated for the extraction rate and pollution intensity of resources firms respectively. We show that the share ownership owned by the largest shareholder is an important determinant of extraction rate and pollution intensity. Moreover empirical studies using panel data are conducted to test the hypothesis. We find strong evidence supporting our theoretical implications. As for the extraction rate in resource firms, the results indicate a significant and negative relation between extraction rate and the share owned by the largest shareholder. However, a significantly positive relation is found using oil fields level data. As for the pollution emissions in firms, we find the firm where the largest shareholder holds a larger share will have lower pollution intensity.

Main Purpose: This study aims to explain the processes of management accounting change in the Jordanian Customs Organization (JCO) as well as in the Jordanian public sector within its socio-economic contexts, as influenced by NPM ideas and institutional pressures. It focuses on the regulative way in which new budgeting systems together with the managing-for-results approach were implemented throughout three levels of institutional analysis: political and economic level, organizational field level and organizational level. It also highlights the interaction process between these three levels from one side, and between management accounting and organizational change from another side. Design/methodology/approach: The study presents the results of an interpretive case-study (JCO) in the public sector. It adopts six steps of qualitative research design and uses triangulation of data collection methods including interviews, observations, and documents and archival records. It is also inspired by a contextual framework (Pettigrew 1987), since it has a holistic view that comprises different perspectives. Particularly, it draws on theoretical integration by synthesizing three recent approaches, respectively: Dillard et al’s (2004) framework inspired NIS for external processes and pressures; Burns and Scapens' (2000) framework inspired OIE for internal processes of change; and Hardy's (1996) framework inspired power and politics mobilization. Key Findings: The study recognizes that management accounting change was carried out in the 'from-top-to-bottom' level of institutional analysis, which confirms the 'path-dependent' and evolutionary nature of the change. It confirms the evidence that other factors, beyond economic factors, may also play an influential role in the implementation of management accounting change. It also concludes that there was a radical change of management accounting systems in the JCO case-study, which was not only a decorative innovation in management accounting but was also represented in the working practices. The study also confirms that management accounting is not a static phenomenon but one that changes over time to reflect new systems and practices. Management accounting change is a part of organizational change; hence management accounting rules and routines are part and parcel of organizational rules and routines. Research implications: The study has important implications for the ways in which change dynamics can emerge, diffuse and be implemented at three levels of institutional analysis. It provides a new contextual framework to study these dynamics based on an intensive and holistic view of an interpretive case-study in accordance with qualitative research-based 'Convincingness Criteria'. It also explains the interaction between the 'external' origins and 'internal' accounts, which identified that management accounting is both shaped by, and shaping, wider socio-economic and political processes. This broad sensitivity to the nature of management accounting has important implications for the ways of studying management accounting change. For example, changes in the political and economic level, particularly with respect to the introduction of the National Agenda, have resulted in changes in structures and systems at the organizational level, particularly regarding budgeting systems. Originality/value: The study contributes to both MA literature and institutional theory by providing further understanding and 'thick explanation' of the dynamics of management accounting change in the Jordanian public sector: i.e. explaining the implications of the contextual framework for studying management accounting change; overcoming some of the limitations of NIS and OIE; and clarifying the necessity for bridge-building between the institutional theories to expand their level of analysis.

This thesis presents an approach for company valuation by a replication portfolio of traded assets in discrete time. The model allows us to value companies with an uncertain cash flow stream without having to revert to any discount rates including premia. Modelling of asset values can be achieved in two steps: (i) Choosing a suitable stochastic process and calibrating its parameters to fit the historical asset time series behaviour, and (ii) generating a state space transition graph to implement the stochastic process dynamics in discrete time. For company valuation, a selected number of "assets" (economic, financial, and other factors) should be captured that may reasonably be assumed to influence future cash flows of the company. Each vertex of the transition graph represents a "state of the world" and is accompanied with a corresponding cash flow caused by the sales (or other company activities) at that vertex. These possible future company cash flows can be "replicated" (without the existence of the company) by investing in a self-financing portfolio of non-company assets at the beginning, and trading this portfolio as the future evolves. The minimum cost of such a self-financing portfolio equals the value of the company. A dynamic programming algorithm for this valuation problem has been derived in discrete time. Due to the fact that an exact duplication is not possible for all cases, the replication strategy will be generated by minimising the deviations in each state to approximate an exact replication. The company valuation algorithm in discrete time is based on two main ideas: The replication approach for arbitrage-free valuation as it is known for the valuation of contingency claims (Cox, Rubinstein 1985) as well as an optimisation to compute the least value replication portfolio following an approach originally established by Alexander Christofides (Christofides A. 2004). The research results derived in this thesis contribute to the further integration of some methodologies for contingent claim valuation and optimisation techniques. The derived algorithm has been applied for the valuation of companies with a high uncertainty in their expected cash flows (like start-up companies), and gives further insight in the valuation of non-traded companies. With the application of the derived company valuation algorithm, the limitations and shortcomings of determining the companies' weighted average cost of capital (WACC) can be by-passed. In a further step, the algorithm has been extended to calculate the potential value contribution of the companies' real options. Part of the contribution is the generalisation of the algorithm in the way that decision-making strategies from the capital markets, as well as strategic decisions from inside corporates can be implemented and evaluated. The optimal timing of the additional investment can be computed, and the attached additional value of the "optimal" execution of these investment options is calculated. The implementation of the algorithm is performed in C++. The extended algorithm has been applied for two high growth companies in the area of Life Sciences, confirming the applicability of the algorithm. Results will be reported for Qiagen and GPC Biotech.

This study makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on corporate risk disclosure (RD)in emerging economies with a focus on the Saudi Arabian economy in the context of the Middle East. The vast majority of previous RD literature has placed emphasis on the context of developed nations. This study undertakes a detailed analysis of RD practices by adopting a quantitative approach for the collection and analysis of datasets using a sample of non-financial firms listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawal) over the period 2010 to 2014. The measurement of risk reporting is thus based on a manual content analysis technique, regression analysis models are used to identify the factors that affect risk reporting, and the value of firms in the stock market were measured using the Tobin's Q valuation model. Regression analysis is used to examine the impact,if any, of risk reporting on the value of the firms in the sample. The data gathered shows that the average RD level among all the samples is 17%. The result of the examination of the effect of the corporate governance mechanisms on risk disclosure shows that, of board related characteristics,board size and independent directors are negatively related to a statistically significant degree. Auditor type is positively statistically significant at the 1% level, and governmental ownership is negatively associated with RD to a statistically significant degree at the 1% level. The result of the examination of the impact of RD on firm value shows that the relationship between RD and firm value (as measured by TQ) is found to be negatively statistically significant.

This thesis explores the role of social capital and domestic savings mobilisation, as demand and supply determinants of access to formal credit for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in developing countries. The thesis provides evidence on how the domestic banking sector in developing countries can address information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers, and supply of loanable funds for SMEs, by considering other non-conventional determinants. The research focuses on Malawi, a developing economy in Sub Saharan Africa, to conduct micro-level and macro-level analyses. Analysis of cross sectional data uses probit models to reveal evidence of the effect of social capital on access to formal credit. Analysis of time series data uses vector autoregressive model to document evidence of the effect of domestic savings mobilisation on credit extended to the private sector by banks. The findings indicate that social capital is a determinant of access to formal credit and should be considered in credit risk assessments, for a more comprehensive process. The Findings also suggest that bank deposits influence credit provided to the private sector, providing evidence that domestic savings mobilisation also matters for economic growth in less developed countries. Evidence further suggests that although banks lend to the Government, the effect of the lending on mobilised deposits is not significant. The research recommends acknowledgement of, and more use of social capital, especially for first-time borrowers, to complement other quantitative risk assessment approaches. Initiatives to improve the flow of information between lenders and borrowers would not only improve access to credit but also increase savings mobilised domestically, to provide a readily available pool of funding for banks, and hence the supply of credit to entreprises, ceteris paribus.

This thesis addresses the question of whether corporate risk management adds value to a firm by examining the linkage between the cost of equity capital and property insurance in China. Over the last decade or so, several studies have examined the direct impact of risk management (derivatives or insurance use) on firm value. Utilizing an agency theory framework, the present study adds to the extant literature by investigating the corporate risk management-value relation from a more focused and novel perspective using a panel data set of 395 publicly listed Chinese companies (PLCs) for the period 2003-2007. The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and modified price earnings growth (MPEG) models are employed to estimate the cost of equity. The results of the study suggest that Chinese PLCs purchasing property insurance tend to have lower costs of equity. Also a non-linear U-shape relation between the cost of equity and the extent of property insurance use is found. Given the inflection point occurs above the 90th percentile of the sample of firms, property insurance appears to be beneficial to most Chinese PLCs. The present study also shows that property insurance reduces the cost of equity by mitigating agency problems such as the managerial risk aversion incentive. Indeed, this is the first study that finds evidence that agency theory-based arguments appear to be appropriate in explaining the relation between property insurance use and the cost of equity. The empirical results are further robust to within-firm and cross-firm variations and unlikely to be driven by endogeneity problem. Therefore, the present study contributes new and important insights on the role of insurance - a pure risk hedging (indemnity) contract - in contributing to improvements in the market value of firms. This aspect of the research is particularly important in major emerging markets, such as China, that are attracting increasing attention from domestic and foreign investors but still suffer from severe market imperfections (e.g., information asymmetry) and an undeveloped financial and legal infrastructure compared with Western countries. Therefore, it is concluded that the results of this study could have potentially important commercial and/or public policy implications for corporate stakeholders with an interest in the Chinese corporate sector.

Ever since IDGVC first established its venture capital fund in Beijing in the late 1980's, venture capitalists (VCs) have been debating whether US investment selection criteria should be revised for investments in China. On the one hand, those VCs with a foreign venture capital background, such as returnees (here referring to those Chinese with an educational background from a developed Western country) and foreign VCs believe that they can replicate their successful experiences of developed VC markets in China without too many amendments. On the other hand, local VCs claim that US practices do not suit China as they do not reflect sufficient knowledge and understanding of Chinese business practices. Twenty years on, the debate still shows no sign of abating. Indeed, investment competition between foreign VCs and Chinese VCs remains as intensive as ever (Zero2IPO Research Centre 2006). In the last two years, China has experienced progressive development in its venture capital presence internationally, largely due to the diversification of industries and companies attracting investments. The segments enjoying remarkable growth include high-tech enterprises as well as such industries as the construction, hotel and leisure, and retail segments. Several other sectors are also attracting increasing attention for VC investment, including outdoor media, green technology and innovations, online education and supplementary schooling, software start-ups and the hospital care system. Cleantech innovation is especially growing as the country rigorously explores solar power generation, new materials and clean production, seeking to ameliorate its water and air pollution, which far exceeds Western safety standards. The market has also matured significantly. Concerns about whether foreign investments would only serve to enhance the personal interests and pocketbooks of the local population, as opposed to enhancing the development of the investments, have subsided. The continuous growth of the Chinese economy and the middle class has also helped to prioritise innovation and attract foreign investment to China. Notably, in the past most economic improvements came from government-led programs; this trend is beginning to dissipate as growing numbers of foreign financiers come to see China's VC and PE market as a promising growth opportunity. No doubt the PRC's government will continue to create barriers to unlimited foreign investment in China, but many of the other factors that once hindered foreign investment into the country have become much more manageable. This thesis has its roots in the debate above and draws upon the background and experiences of the researcher in the field of venture capital. The researcher has over six years experience as an investment manager in listed companies in Taiwan and for three years served as managing director of Zero2IPO Research Centre, a leading venture capital and private equity research institute in China. The researcher has a wealth of personal contacts with VCs in China and this has proved invaluable in being able to conduct the empirical study that forms the basis of this thesis. In addition, as a Taiwanese expatriate, the researcher also has the advantage of conducting this study in the Chinese language in addition to having a comprehensive knowledge of both Chinese and Western venture capital practices.

The aim of this study is to elevate the understanding of corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) by examining the nature and level of CSED by the listed companies in Saudi Arabia. It analyses CSED determinant’s which includes: firm characteristics and corporate governance aspects. Four theoretical perspectives, namely stakeholder, legitimacy, institutional, and Agency theory, used to assist in better understanding and analysing the findings on the CSED in Saudi Arabia. This study adopts a quantitative approach; the selected sample consists of 164 corporate reports of Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange, in 2012. Content analysis is used to measure the extent of social and environmental information that are reported. An information index was devised. The data were examined using descriptive and statistical tests multivariate analyses and negative binomial regression. The results show more than 70% of the companies report social and environmental information, most of the disclosures are related to human recourses, community involvement and economics. Human recourses category rate is 41.5 %, community involvement at 24.5%, and economic disclosure is 20%. Less attention is given to environmental, customers and products reporting. The Saudi government encourages companies to follow the Saudisation regulations and the Ministry of Labour regulations. Hence companies tend to report considerably more on information issues addressed by the government. This study examines the factors affecting the level of CSED which are firm characteristics and corporate governance. CSED level is positively associated with firm characteristics (firm size, age, profitability, and leverage), and corporate governance mechanism (government ownership and audit firm size). There were no significant results for managerial ownership, foreign ownership, CEO duality, board size and independency. The determinants of CSED categories indicate that firm age is the most influential factor affecting the five categories and human resource is the category that is related with most of the factors.