In response to the academic gaps in the existing literature, this research aims to investigate EM motives and techniques within the Egyptian context. This research is devoted to exploring the positive purpose of EM in terms of signalling a firm's value over the long-term to its outsiders, hence bringing advantages and future success to the firm, which will be reflected in the achievement of managerial long-term selfinterests and not short-term opportunistic self-interests. In order to serve the aims of the research, the New Institutional Sociology analytical framework and the interpretive approach are drawn on to explain the phenomena theoretically and empirically. Conducting semi~structured interviews and analysing official documents are two research methods used here for collecting primary and secondary data respectively. The research sample comprises thirty four individuals involved in EM, and is divided into four main categories, namely: firms' executives (service and industrial companies); auditors (big and small audit firms), users of financial reports (Le. financial analysts); and Stock Exchange regulators. The empirical results are consistent with the theoretical suggestions. Since this research has provided empirical evidence that firms' contexts and their unique circumstances have a significant influence on shaping executives' motives for managing a firm's financial image and on determining the mechanisms used for making such adjustments. The first part of the findings pertaining to the managerial motives reveals that, in the Egyptian context, there are two kinds of motivating factors: the first is the pressures or motives exerted by bodies that exist within a firm's external context, including: financial providers; EGX's listing rules and employees (coercive pressure); beating the prevailing level of profit (mimetic pressure); economic reform (economic pressure); and executives' characteristics, e.g. experiences and morals (normative pressures). The second is managerial self-interested motives, including: job security; managerial professional reputation; and cash bonus._ Importantly, the latter .motives can be served by complying with external motives or pressures. However, in Egypt, material suppliers and customers, and stock-based compensation plans have little or no motivating effect. The results also indicate the superiority of external motives over self-interested motives and of job market motives over monetary self~ interested motives. The findings further show the effect of the dominant type of ownership of a firm and of each firm's circumstances, such as their definition of the profit in its bonus managerial compensation scheme on managers' motives. Part two of the findings related to the EM mechanisms reports empirical evidence that each mechanism is effectively chosen in accordance with a firm's circumstances. In the Egyptian context, there are two rule~ based and unquestionable alternatives which can be used (in order to comply with the external requirements, i. e. pub lishing favourable FRs): accounting action mechanisms, including depreciation and inventory evaluation methods; and real economic activity mechanisms, including sale activities, advertising and R&D expenses, overproduction and sale of fixed assets. Importantly, empirical evidence shows that executives prefer to resort to a package of real business activities comprised of the most favoured mechanisms, including sale activities, followed by discretionary expenses. The reasons for the executives' preferences include: the real effect of using the mechanism on the firm 's profits and on its cash flows; the morality of using a particular mechanism; its ability not to attract scrutiny from outsiders; and its flexible use. The results additionally indicate a close association between better understanding EM motives and the accurate identification of the EM mechanisms that are preferred.

La crise financière de 2008 a été largement imputée à une prise de risque excessive par lesbanques US et du monde entier, qui ont été mises en grande difficulté. Une des questionsprincipales que se posent les scientifiques et les régulateurs concerne le rôle joué par lesmodes de rémunération des dirigeants des banques dans l'incitation à la prise de risque. Le butde cette recherche est d'étudier si les modes de rémunération des dirigeants des banquesinduisent la prise de risque et contribuent à la crise financière. Nous nous proposonsd'analyser séparément les effets de chaque composante de la rémunération des PDG (lesalaire, la prime, les autres rémunérations annuelles, le pourcentage du salaire, le pourcentagede la prime, le pourcentage des autres rémunérations annuelles, et les rémunérations qui sontfondées sur une participation au capital de la banque) sur la prise de risque dans le secteurbancaire. Nous tenterons aussi de déceler plus spécifiquement une éventuelle responsabilitéde ces modes de rémunération dans le déclenchement de la crise financière et lesmanifestations du risque bancaire dans les deux premières années de crise. Pour les risquesbancaires, nous utilisons de nombreuses mesures différentes : le risque total, le risquesystématique, le risque idiosyncratique, le ratio de la provision pour pertes sur prêts enpourcentage des crédits, le ratio des prêts non performants en pourcentage des crédits, lerisque de défaut mesuré par la distance par rapport au défaut (Z-score), le changement de laCDS, le changement de la notation des banques et la chute de la valeur des actions. Enutilisant un échantillon de 63 grandes banques d'Europe, du Canada et des États-Uniscouvrant une période de 5 ans de 2004 à 2008, nous trouvons que le salaire et la prime desPDG diminuent l‘essentiel des risques bancaires, alors que les autres rémunérations annuellesdes PDG les augmentent. Ces modes de rémunération des PDG n‘ont pourtant aucun lien avecles changements du risque bancaire dans la crise. En ce qui concerne les rémunérationsfondées sur une participation au capital de la banque, nous trouvons que l'utilisation desactions gratuites en rémunération pendant la période pré-crise n'a pas d'effet sur leschangements anormaux du risque bancaire dans la période de crise. Au contraire, l'utilisationdes options d'achat d'actions pendant la même période est une des raisons des manifestationsdu risque bancaire dans la récente crise financière. / The 2008 financial crisis was largely caused by excessive risk-taking of banks fromthe U.S. and also from all over the world, which have been in big trouble since then. One ofthe major questions raised by scientists and regulators is the role of executive remunerationmethods in encouraging bank risk-taking. We conduct this research to investigate whether thebanks' executive compensation payment mechanisms induced risk-taking and contributed tothe financial crisis. We analyze separately the impact of each component of CEOcompensation, which include CEO salary, CEO bonus, CEO other annual compensation,percentage of CEO salary, percentage of CEO bonus, percentage of other annualcompensation and equity-based compensation, on risk-taking in the banking sector. We alsotry to identify more specifically the possible responsibility of each remuneration method intriggering the financial crisis and the manifestations of bank risk in the first two years ofcrisis. Different measures of bank risk include total risk, systematic risk, idiosyncratic risk,loan loss provision to total loan ratio, non-performing loan to total loan ratio, distance-todefaultmeasured by Z-score, sharp drop in bank stock price, the change in bank ratings andthe change in CDS during the crisis period. Using a sample of 63 large banks in Europe,Canada and United States from 2004 to 2008 we find that both CEO salary and CEO bonusdecrease with most types of bank risk, CEO other annual compensation increases with bankrisk. These components of CEO compensation are illustrated to have no relationship to thechange of bank risk during the crisis. Regarding the CEO equity-based compensation, we findthat usage of restricted stock to compensate CEO during the pre-crisis period has no effect onany abnormal changes in bank risks during the crisis period, whereas usage of stock option tocompensate CEO in the same period augments the manifestations of bank risk in the crisis.

Corporate governance and executive remuneration are not new phenomena, but have erupted to the forefront of corporate, academic and public attention as a result of a series of well publicized corporate collapses and scandals over the last decade, which have raised both a curiosity of executive remuneration levels, and an awareness of the potential impact of conflicts of interest between owners and executives in modern corporations. Although literature on corporate governance and executive remuneration in general is plentiful, there is a lack of comment on the relationships between certain specific components of these two broad constructs. These specific components, such as disclosure, executive remuneration and governance needed to be analysed individually before they could be combined into a whole that explains both their interrelationships with each other and the larger corporate governance sub-system, and ultimately in the corporation, as an organisational system. In view of greater globalisation of the world economy, and the market for executive talent, the consequent reforms in the fields of corporate governance and executive remuneration, as well as the changing competitive dynamics of modern corporations, it was necessary to examine whether traditional theory and regulatory frameworks have kept pace with corporate development. A review of both classic and current literature show vastly different approaches to both executive remuneration and corporate governance mechanisms practiced around the world. There is however a noticeable trend towards convergence of these different sub-systems.The most prominent differences in respect of these sub-systems relate to the extent to which disclosures are made. Some of these issues relate to full or limited disclosure, internal or external corporate governance measures to regulate executive remuneration, and differences in respect of a narrow shareholder focus or broad stakeholder focus of different interests in an organisation. / Business Leadership / Ph.D. (Business Leadership)

Corporate governance and executive remuneration are not new phenomena, but have erupted to the forefront of corporate, academic and public attention as a result of a series of well publicized corporate collapses and scandals over the last decade, which have raised both a curiosity of executive remuneration levels, and an awareness of the potential impact of conflicts of interest between owners and executives in modern corporations. Although literature on corporate governance and executive remuneration in general is plentiful, there is a lack of comment on the relationships between certain specific components of these two broad constructs. These specific components, such as disclosure, executive remuneration and governance needed to be analysed individually before they could be combined into a whole that explains both their interrelationships with each other and the larger corporate governance sub-system, and ultimately in the corporation, as an organisational system. In view of greater globalisation of the world economy, and the market for executive talent, the consequent reforms in the fields of corporate governance and executive remuneration, as well as the changing competitive dynamics of modern corporations, it was necessary to examine whether traditional theory and regulatory frameworks have kept pace with corporate development. A review of both classic and current literature show vastly different approaches to both executive remuneration and corporate governance mechanisms practiced around the world. There is however a noticeable trend towards convergence of these different sub-systems.The most prominent differences in respect of these sub-systems relate to the extent to which disclosures are made. Some of these issues relate to full or limited disclosure, internal or external corporate governance measures to regulate executive remuneration, and differences in respect of a narrow shareholder focus or broad stakeholder focus of different interests in an organisation. / Business Leadership / Ph.D. (Business Leadership)