The Municipal Manager is responsible for the overall financial management of the municipality as requirement of MFMA. However, section 79(1) of the MFMA makes a provision for the municipal manager to delegate the financial management to the senior manager. The legislative requires that all municipalities should appoint a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who must be a member of the Senior Management of the municipality. The act, furthermore, requires the municipality to establish the budget and treasury office to be headed by the CFO. In 2007, the Minister of Finance released guidelines for the minimum competency requirement regulation of CFOs implemented on the first day of July 2007. According to the literature review, the CFO should move away from being number crunchers to become more visible in strategic and leadership management. Generally, according to the literature review, financial management within local municipalities in Gauteng is not properly managed. This was revealed in the general report on the audit outcomes of local government for the financial year ended 30 June 2003, 2004 and 2005. The summary of these reports shows that the Auditor-General expressed disclaimer of opinion to 50% of the financial statements and 13.1% adverse opinion of the municipalities. The reports further revealed that most of the municipalities do not have effective internal risk management or internal audit departments, late submission of financial statements is rife, and failure to implement newly enacted legislation prevails. Therefore, the municipalities' overall financial management is not well managed. The data gathered from the municipalities by administering questionnaires show that the local municipalities' finances are properly managed and they have effective systems of internal control. The municipalities have internal audit or risk management departments, they have functional audit committees and lastly, they implement recommendations from the Auditor-General's office and internal audit diligently. Information from the Auditor-General's office contradicts the information received from municipalities. The researcher is biased towards accepting the Auditor-General's point of view since the Auditor-General has no reason to paint a good or bad picture about the municipalities. The problem presented is that the municipalities do not have welt-established governance structures in place, in the first place; secondly, the contradiction highlights the perceptions of the people involved with the day-to-day financial management about its effectiveness and the Auditor-General's opinion of it. To overcome the problems, municipalities are advised to include competency assessment in their job selection processes, develop their staff members, establish and implement succession planning, and adhere to the legislation and submission timeframes. It is further recommended that the municipalities should adhere to the policy framework and develop strategies that support enhanced service delivery, as well as to instill energy and thought to overcome loss of skill and expertise due to high staff turnover. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The Municipal Manager is responsible for the overall financial management of the municipality as requirement of MFMA. However, section 79(1) of the MFMA makes a provision for the municipal manager to delegate the financial management to the senior manager. The legislative requires that all municipalities should appoint a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who must be a member of the Senior Management of the municipality. The act, furthermore, requires the municipality to establish the budget and treasury office to be headed by the CFO. In 2007, the Minister of Finance released guidelines for the minimum competency requirement regulation of CFOs implemented on the first day of July 2007. According to the literature review, the CFO should move away from being number crunchers to become more visible in strategic and leadership management. Generally, according to the literature review, financial management within local municipalities in Gauteng is not properly managed. This was revealed in the general report on the audit outcomes of local government for the financial year ended 30 June 2003, 2004 and 2005. The summary of these reports shows that the Auditor-General expressed disclaimer of opinion to 50% of the financial statements and 13.1% adverse opinion of the municipalities. The reports further revealed that most of the municipalities do not have effective internal risk management or internal audit departments, late submission of financial statements is rife, and failure to implement newly enacted legislation prevails. Therefore, the municipalities' overall financial management is not well managed. The data gathered from the municipalities by administering questionnaires show that the local municipalities' finances are properly managed and they have effective systems of internal control. The municipalities have internal audit or risk management departments, they have functional audit committees and lastly, they implement recommendations from the Auditor-General's office and internal audit diligently. Information from the Auditor-General's office contradicts the information received from municipalities. The researcher is biased towards accepting the Auditor-General's point of view since the Auditor-General has no reason to paint a good or bad picture about the municipalities. The problem presented is that the municipalities do not have welt-established governance structures in place, in the first place; secondly, the contradiction highlights the perceptions of the people involved with the day-to-day financial management about its effectiveness and the Auditor-General's opinion of it. To overcome the problems, municipalities are advised to include competency assessment in their job selection processes, develop their staff members, establish and implement succession planning, and adhere to the legislation and submission timeframes. It is further recommended that the municipalities should adhere to the policy framework and develop strategies that support enhanced service delivery, as well as to instill energy and thought to overcome loss of skill and expertise due to high staff turnover. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Seminario para optar al título de Ingeniero Comercial, Mención Administración / Este estudio busca reconocer las oportunidades y desafíos, que implica el Big Data, en la industria financiera y en el Rol de directores financieros (CFOs) y sus colaboradores en las empresas Chilenas. Los directivos de hoy se ajustan a un rol cambiante dentro de las empresas, dónde este nuevo rol puede ser apoyado por las herramientas del Big Data y una agenda corporativa que lo soporte. En este contexto, el rol del CFO debe ser estudiado desde una nueva perspectiva, vinculándolo a una función más comercial pero manteniendo la expertise técnica, todo bajo un creciente ecosistema de abundancia de información. Reconocer desafíos y oportunidades, tanto para la industria financiera, cómo para los CFOs, puede resultar clave en la consecución de un cambio de agenda corporativa que soporte al Big Data y el nuevo rol del CFO. El documento representa un punto de partida, hacia una “plataforma de descubrimiento” que posibilite mejoras en los modelos de riesgo, el desarrollo de propuestas de valor o modelos de negocio basados en datos y la disminución de los costos operativos, al permitir automatizar procesos, producto de la implementación de una agenda corporativa, que soporte el Big Data y permita a los Directivos, encontrar la forma de ejecutar este cambio. Algunos de los beneficios de la implementación de una estrategia Big Data para los CFOs, podrían ser; una toma de decisiones más veloz, con nuevos puntos de vista. Igualmente, proveer un mejor soporte, gestión y mitigación de los riesgos en la empresa. También, mejorar el modelo de negocios existente, seleccionando indicadores clave de la performance que se conecten con una ejecución efectiva de la estrategia. En los resultados exploratorios destacan la percepción positiva que otorgan los participantes, la mayoría de grandes empresas y con un título universitario y postgrado, al rol del Big Data en apoyar la labor del CFO, dando el punta pie inicial para cambios en la agenda corporativa de las empresas, cambios en su propuesta de valor y estrategia, para aprovechar al máximo el valor que el Big Data puede aportar a sus organizaciones.

With recent trends in miniaturization in the electronics sector, ferroelectrics have gained popularity due to their applications in non-volatile RAM. Taking one step further researchers are now exploring multiferroic devices that overcome the drawbacks of ferroelectric (FE) and ferromagnetic (FM) RAM’s while retaining the advantages of both. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on the growth of FE and FM thin film structures. The primary goals of this work include, (1) optimization of the parameters in the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of FE and FM films and their heterostructures, (2) development of a structure-property relation that leads to enhancements in electric and magnetic polarizations of these structures, (3) investigation of doping on further enhancement of polarizations and coupling between the FE and FM layers. The materials of choice are La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) as the ferromagnetic and PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3 (PZT) as the ferroelectric component. Epitaxial thin film capacitors were grown using PLD. The work starts with the establishment of the optimum deposition conditions for PZT and goes on to describe results of attempts at performance enhancement and tuning using two methods. It is demonstrated that ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties can be tuned by inserting a ferromagnetic buffer layer of CoFe2O4 (CFO) between PZT and LSMO. One of the key findings of this work was the anomalously high ferroelectric polarizations produced by lanthanum (La) doped PZT films. This work attempts to shine light on a possible mechanism that leads to such high enhancements in polarization.

Background: While technologies are progressing exponentially and inevitably becoming an essential as a means for business to adapt and survive, no exception is the finance division. Digitalization activities have become do or die tasks for many companies and have been a challenging process for finance departments. Yet, in the context of Finance 4.0 it is barely researched. Due to evolving understanding of how finance departments should look, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as the leader of the whole finance division is going through a lot of changes surrounded by uncertainty. The expectations for CFO and finance department are increasing and it becomes unclear what financial specialists should actually deliver for business. Hence, this paper aims to identify how CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0, otherwise known as finance function digitalization, and what skills will be needed to successfully work as CFO in the new environment that seeks to become fully digital and automated. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis research is to identify and analyze how the CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0 and what skills will be required in future for the CFO position.  Method: A qualitative study with interpretivism philosophy, inductive approach and narrative inquiry strategy is taken as the best options for this particular study. Semi-structured interviews with Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) is a method for primary data collection as well as thematic data analysis for gathered data analysis are chosen in order to answer research questions. Conclusion: This research investigates how Finance 4.0 is changing the role of CFO as well as explores what future skills are required for the profession. The research clearly reveals that digitalization is affecting CFO’s role significantly and brings more uncertainty. Research results show that fundamental responsibilities of a CFO will not undergo changes any time soon as well as the skills required for work will remain largely the same. This is because the professional skills of a CFO directly reflect the responsibilities and working tasks, and, moreover, the finance departments are not completely undigitized. However, even though the foundation of the CFO role remains the same, digital disruption causes expansion and increased complexity. While existing academic knowledge is focused mostly on the change process itself and the benefits of digitalization, CFOs revealed what is challenging for them during this digital journey and what negative effect they have experienced.

Intresset för frivillig rapportering har under de senaste åren ökat. Tidigare studier har fått varierande resultat avseende vad som påverkar företags frivilliga rapportering, men managers personliga egenskaper har antagits kunna ha en påverkan. Syftet med studien är att förklara hur personliga egenskaper, som CEO:er respektive CFO:er i svenska börsnoterade företag besitter, påverkar den frivilliga rapporteringen i företagens årsredovisningar. Såväl påverkan på den totala mängden frivillig information som på vilka kategorier av frivillig information som läggs vikt vid studeras. Studien visade att kvinnliga CFO:er bidrar positivt till den totala mängden frivillig rapportering och att CFO:ers personliga egenskaper generellt har en större påverkan än CEO:ers personliga egenskaper på den frivilliga rapporteringen. Managers personliga egenskaper visades påverka den totala mängden frivillig rapportering mer än vilka kategorier som läggs vikt vid. Dock visade resultatet också på att agentteorin och de systemorienterade teorierna bättre förklarar vad som påverkar frivillig rapportering än vad managers personliga egenskaper gör. Studien bidrar till ökad kunskap om vad som påverkar företagens frivilliga rapportering. Genom att utgå från företagens CEO respektive CFO bidrar studien med förståelse för hur personliga egenskaper hos dessa påverkar den frivilliga rapporteringen, både den totala mängden och vilka kategorier av information som läggs vikt vid.

Dagens organisationer verkar i en komplex miljö. För att manövrera en framgångsrik organisation i denna miljö ställs det krav på att chefer ska skapa riktning gentemot de anställda. När anställda upplever svårigheter att förstå vad som förväntas av dem och åt vilket håll organisationen vill gå mot uppstår en problematik. Denna studie ämnar att undersöka hur Key Performance Indicators (KPI) utformas och används, samt vilken funktion det fyller för riktningsskapande inom organisationer. Studien är av kvalitativ form, där det empiriska underlaget insamlas genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Det empiriska underlaget utgör grunden till analysen, vilket indikerar att KPI:er är komplext men viktigt inom organisationer. Vidare belyser analysen att KPI:er behöver vara både välutformade och korrekt använda för att de ska kunna ha en positiv påverkan för riktningsskapandet, där kompetens och kommunikation är de mest framträdande faktorerna.

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Yes / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of insider trading on subsequent stock returns in the UK, with a specific focus on the impact of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 on the relation between CEO and CFO stock purchases and returns. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis uses 10,230 purchases executed in 679 UK firms by 1,477 directors during the period from 2000 to 2010. Subsequent market-adjusted stock returns are regressed on a set of firm-specific accounting, market and corporate governance variables as well as the characteristics of CEOs and CFOs. Additionally, the analysis distinguishes between the opportunistic and routine trades. Findings – The findings reveal that the position of the trading director and the nature of their trades are important in determining the impact on returns of insider trades. In particular, CEO purchases are on the whole more informative than CFO purchases and opportunistic purchases. The trades in the post-crisis period have a greater impact on subsequent stock returns. Research limitations/implications – The empirical analysis is limited to the trades made by two executives. Future research should consider inside trades by all directors and distinguish between executive and non-executive directors. Also, a behavioral measure should be developed to test if the financial crisis affected the trading behavior of directors and whether directors use insider trading strategically to signal information to the market. Practical implications – The impact of directors’ dealings on stock returns is not homogeneous. Financial analysts and investors should pay more attention to different types of trades and the identity of trading director. Originality/value – This paper, to the authors’ knowledge, provides the first attempt that combines in the same framework the identity and personal attributes of trading executive directors, firm-level corporate governance features, the nature of purchase transactions and the trading period characteristics. Furthermore the empirical analysis is carried out during a period that also covers the recent global financial crisis period and its immediate aftermath.