A research report submitted to The School of Accountancy, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Commerce in Accounting / The role and importance of a company’s CEO has become an increasingly important topic of research. The executive leadership has an important role to play in defining the strategy of the firm and its ability to compete. The value relevance of the CEO of a company and thus any changes pertaining thereto is understood to be due to developments in information technology and reporting requirements. This characterizes an information environment whereby investors are better equipped at making more informed investment decisions. The current business has become increasingly more competitive and volatile. In response to this, market participants place greater value on the importance of the CEO of the company. The CEO of a company may possess the ability to lever the company above its competitors through the development and implementation of company strategy. This research report assesses how market participants react in response to CEO appointment announcements using a sample of 105 announcements using an event study methodology. The value relevance pertaining hereto can be ascertained by observing the abnormal returns of the company’s share price on the date of the announcement. In furtherance of this assessment, the sample is disaggregated in accordance to event specific, firm-specific and non-event specific factors. Prior research suggests that this analysis facilitates more robust inferences to be made on how market participants react to CEO appointment announcements. In both Africa and South Africa, a strong body of literature is yet to be established on this effect. In general, findings display significant market reactions in response to the CEO change, thus suggesting that market participants perceive the CEO change as a significant event in the life of the firm. On the day of the event strong positive abnormal returns were generating thereby indicating that investors react positively to the appointment of a new CEO. However, the negative cumulative abnormal returns displayed in the periods before and after the event can be interpreted as the contrary. In addressing these conflicting views, the analysis of share performance in relation to firm-specific, event-specific and non-event related factors proves useful. The findings in this part of the section explain that negative returns are due to increased uncertainty over the future of the company, the positive returns on announcement date are found to be strongly associated with the type of successor appointed. These findings further reveal market participants react significantly strongly to a CEO change as seen by high negative cumulative abnormal returns. These findings contextualize how the value attached to CEOs by market participants vary in relation to different conditions. / MT2017

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have become recognised as brands in the academic and popular domain, but little is known about the relationship between these senior manager ¿brands¿ and the corporate brand of the organisation they represent. Since stakeholders associate the CEO¿s reputation with that of the company, they may negatively or positively affect each other, and there is little research into this dynamic. Indeed there is only a limited understanding about the field of people branding in general and much less into CEO brands in particular. Consequently this doctoral thesis investigates the people and CEO brands phenomena, the relationships between CEO, corporate brand and stakeholder¿s self-image and how these can be effectively managed in order to enhance brand equity for the company. Based on a critical realist perspective, this research examines traditional product brand elements from the literature and develops a new conceptual framework for people brands, which is subsequently applied to CEOs. Furthermore a survey is performed with business school students. The findings are analysed by using content analysis, descriptive statistics and by developing and testing a Structural Equation Model. The contribution to knowledge is threefold. Firstly a conceptual framework of people brands is constructed. Second this model is applied to CEO brands. Third five propositions about stakeholder perceptions of CEO brand differentiation and equity are empirically tested. The main findings are that visual presentation is not the main factor to differentiate CEO brands from each other, nor is their association with the company. Positive perceptions of corporate brands can influence the reputation of the CEO brand and lead to an enhancement of their brand equity. Importantly this indicates that stakeholders do not distinguish between CEO and company. Brand equity is also created if there is a relationship between stakeholder self-image and company brand, which in turn can improve the reputation of the CEO brand. Finally brand equity is enhanced through stakeholder perceptions of an ideal self-image. Overall this research has important implications for academia and managerial practice as it extends the knowledge about people and CEO brands and provides an insight into ways in which the relationships between CEO, company and stakeholders can be managed to enhance brand equity for the company

This research explores leadership effectiveness in organisations in Kuwait from the perspective of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). This is an area that has been neglected by the extant literature, and no integrated model for assessing CEO effectiveness exists for us to fully understand the phenomenon. Based on a positivist qualitative research approach, evidence was drawn from 16 CEOs using semi-structured interviews. The evidence was corroborated by using data obtained from participant observations of two CEOs working in the same organisation as the researcher. The results indicated that CEOs perceive leadership effectiveness as driving execution and not necessarily the realisation of goals themselves. Their experiences of leadership lead to CEOs in Kuwait believing that leadership effectiveness depends on their leadership style, relationship with the Board and the Executives, experience and family ground, societal and organisational culture, the business environment and CEO characteristics. On the basis of the participants’ perceptions of leadership effectiveness, it is recommended that CEO leadership development in Kuwait should focus on these areas, as this should equip CEOs to be effective in formulating clear visions and executing strategies to enable economic development of the country, and this should help them to compete globally. As the study focused on private and public companies, future research could consider CEOs from governmental and not-for-profit organisations to expand the sample of CEOs.

The purpose of this study was to identify perceptions of selected two-year and four-year higher education chief executive officers as to the sources of stress associated with the presidency, and what, if any, coping strategies they have developed. This study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What perceptions do selected two-year and four-year higher education chief executive officers have of sources of stress associated with their job that may cause distress? 2. What is the degree of distress associated with each source of stress as perceived by each individual? 3. What are the coping strategies utilized by each individual when distress replaces the normal tension and pressure associated with his job? A survey packet containing a descriptive questionnaire and open-ended questions was used to determine the perceptions of selected two-year and four-year public chief executive officers in the states of Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Five Carnegie Classifications of colleges and universities were selected in order to establish a control group (N = 140) with similar types of distress that may be associated with the presidency based on the level of the degree offered and the comprehensiveness of the mission of the institution. The data collected from the 92 useable returned questionnaires were entered into a data base for computer analysis and calculations. Specifically, descriptive statistics of the mean, standard deviation and Z-score were used to calculate the degree of distress for each source of stress. Open-ended questions were used to clarify responses on the questionnaire and to examine coping strategies utilized by the respondents. Based on the results, eight primary sources of job stress were identified. The top three were budget, state coordinating/governing agency and career conflict with spouse. Positive and potential negative initial and preferred coping strategies were listed by the respondents. In conclusion, presidents were able to identify primary sources of stress · in order to develop positive coping techniques. Further research is needed to explore stress and coping within the leadership of higher education. / Ed. D.

This study is based on the multiple-frame leadership orientation theory developed by Bolman and Deal. In August 1999, the Leadership Orientations (Self) (1990b) survey instrument, designed by Bolman and Deal to enable leaders to rate themselves on their use of four organizational frames, was mailed to 538 chief executives of nonprofit organizations in central Florida. The useable return rate for this study was 44.1 % (N=202) useable surveys. This study sought to identify the chief executives' use of the structural, human resource, political, and symbolic frames and to examine the relationship between frame usage and age, gender, highest degree major, years in current position, years of experience as a chief executive of any nonprofit organization, size of the organization, and types of post-degree management training. The chief executives' self-ratings of leadership effectiveness and their self-ratings of managerial effectiveness were also examined. Major findings of this study included: (1) the human resource frame was the primary frame used by the chief executives; (2) the symbolic frame was the second most frequently used frame; (3) the political frame was the least used frame; (4) less than half (41.3%) of the chief executives used multiple frames, i.e., three or four frames; (5) female chief executives were more likely to use the symbolic frame than were male chief executives; ( 6) frame use for the chief executives did not differ based on age, highest degree major, years in current position, years of experience as a chief executive of any nonprofit organization, size of the organization, or types of post-degree management training; and, (7) the chief executives rated themselves as slightly more effective leaders than managers.

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2018-01-16T15:55:23Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Adolpho Cyriaco Nunes de Souza Neto.pdf: 806566 bytes, checksum: 3ab6b4aea584e8eb38a7bd6f6199c151 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-16T15:55:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Adolpho Cyriaco Nunes de Souza Neto.pdf: 806566 bytes, checksum: 3ab6b4aea584e8eb38a7bd6f6199c151 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-20 / This study intends to verify the presence of earnings management (EM) in the periods surrounding CEO changes in Brazil. Earnings management can be defined as the use of managerial discretion when making accounting choices, within the limits of the standards, with the intention of producing a skewed view of the entity???s earnings to obtain gains. The work is classified as an explanatory research, with a quantitative and empirical approach, and uses the financial results of 227 companies listed on the BM&FBOVESPA between 2010 and 2016. For the CEO who is leaving the company, the reasons for undertaking earnings management include, among others, the possible need to hide a poor performance, obtain financial advantages, and build a successful professional image. In the case of the CEO who enters the company, the EM can be used to establish a depressed earnings base in the year of his/her entry, improving the conditions to present an evolution of earnings in later years. In order to verify these hypotheses, two EM detection models based on accruals were used, the modified Jones and the modified Jones with ROA. The results of the study demonstrate that, although there is no evidence that the average EM level is influenced by the CEO being in his/her last year in office, there was a statistically significant presence of earnings management in the first year of the incoming CEO with the intention of reducing reported profits, confirming the hypothesis of creating a depressed comparison basis so that the earnings of subsequent years are analyzed more favorably. / Esse estudo busca averiguar a presen??a do gerenciamento de resultados (GR) nos per??odos afetados pela substitui????o de CEOs no Brasil. O gerenciamento de resultados pode ser definido pelo uso da discricionariedade gerencial na realiza????o de escolhas cont??beis, dentro dos limites da norma, com a inten????o de produzir um resultado enviesado da entidade, buscando a obten????o de benef??cios. O trabalho classifica-se como uma pesquisa explicativa, com abordagem quantitativa e g??nero emp??rico, e utiliza os resultados financeiros de 227 companhias listadas na BM&FBOVESPA entre os anos de 2010 a 2016. Para o CEO que est?? deixando a empresa, as raz??es para realizar o gerenciamento de resultados incluem, entre outras, a poss??vel necessidade de ocultar uma performance ruim, obten????o de vantagens financeiras e a constru????o de imagem de profissional bem-sucedido. No caso do CEO que ingressa na empresa, o GR pode ser utilizado para estabelecer uma base de resultados deprimida no ano de sua entrada, visando melhorar as condi????es para apresentar uma evolu????o dos resultados nos anos posteriores. Para a verifica????o dessas hip??teses foram utilizados dois modelos de detec????o do GR baseados em accruals, o Jones Modificado e o Jones Modificado com ROA. Os resultados demonstram que, apesar de n??o haverem evid??ncias que o n??vel m??dio de GR ?? influenciado pelo CEO em seu ??ltimo ano no cargo, detectou-se a presen??a, estatisticamente significante, do gerenciamento de resultados no primeiro ano do CEO entrante com a inten????o de redu????o do lucro corrente reportado, confirmando a hip??tese de criar uma base de compara????o deprimida para que os resultados dos anos subsequentes sejam analisados de maneira mais favor??vel.

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This research project examines how managers in local-government-owned business organisations justify their adoption of an entrepreneurial orientation and their interpretation of their role in entrepreneurial terms. To explore these justifications, interviews were conducted with the senior management of four local-government- owned business operations and one local council. They were: Metrowater, The Edge, Taieri Gorge Railway, Chatham Islands Council and Chatham Islands Enterprise Trust. These interviews were then analysed, utilising a critical discourse method. In addition, interviews were also conducted with senior managers in the Rotorua District Council and Taupo District Council who provided a sharp contrast to the former organisations and suggested a means by which the neo-liberal approach within the sector might be countered. Through speaking with the various local govermnent business managers contacted for this project, I concluded that managers of local-government-owned business operations have a strong institutional identification with the private sector. This identity is so strong that many of the managers interviewed have rejected the very notion that they are public employees of any sort. The managers have adopted an entrepreneurial approach because they see this as essential to gain professional legitimacy with their peers in the private sector. This has caused them to place distance between themselves and the owners of the business that they manage (that is, the councils), and the local citizens they ostensibly serve, to the extent that they have described their job as providing goods and services to customers rather than providing services for citizens. I will show that the adoption of such an attitude is inappropriate when placed within the context of local-government-owned and operated business concerns. From the point of view of European settlement, New Zealand is a very young country, especially in the administrative sector. To provide a background to this project and to suggest the main lines of development of local government in New Zealand, I have included a prologue that outlines the history of local government in New Zealand.

Where individuals standing outside of the corporation have been harmed by the acts of one of its directors or officers, the question becomes whether they have only a claim against the corporation or whether they may have also a personal claim against the executive inflicting the harm on them. / The issue of how far it should be possible to hold directors and officers personally liable for tort has been a contested one and even courts within one and the same jurisdiction provide different solutions. On the one hand, there is the general basic principle that individuals causing harm to others should be held responsible. On the other hand, the fact that directors and officers act as agents on behalf of the corporation might call for an exception to this basic tort law principle. / This thesis will compare the solutions proposed by Common law (with focus on the law of Ontario) and German law as an example of a Civil law jurisdiction. An attempt will be made to see in how far the proposed solutions are consistent with legal principles like the separate legal entity of the corporation and the concept of limited liability as well as with arguments related to economic efficiency.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be applied to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) remuneration of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) by defining inputs in terms of remuneration factors and outputs in terms of business factors in order to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. An exploratory study is conducted, using cross-sectional data from a secondary source. The sample consists of 221 companies listed on the JSE that disclosed their financial and non-financial information during 2010. The DEA was performed to estimate the relative technical efficiency of CEOs to convert their remuneration into company performance indicators. Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives were used as the inputs to the DEA model and company performance and size, measured by Return on Equity (ROE) and Total Assets respectively, were used as the outputs to the model. The empirical results prove that the DEA can be successfully applied as a benchmarking model for CEO remuneration that incorporates multiple inputs and outputs and establishes benchmarks and potential improvements for overpaid, inefficient CEOs. The CEOs from 80 of the 221 companies included in the sample emerged as the benchmark CEOs and formed the efficiency frontier against which inefficient CEOs were compared in order to determine the potential improvements for these CEOs. From a research perspective, this study contributes to the advancement of CEO remuneration research by introducing an alternative model by which CEO remuneration can be analysed. Future studies can analyse CEO remuneration by using other variables or time series data in the DEA model or combine the DEA with other methods like the regression analysis to perform more comprehensive investigations. From a practical perspective, the DEA can be used to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. Remuneration committees can use the results of the DEA as a guide to determine acceptable remuneration levels and decrease the pay gap between CEOs and the average worker. The originality of this study lies in the fact that it is the first South African study that used the DEA instead of the regression analysis to analyse CEO remuneration of companies listed on the JSE. This study also disaggregated Total CEO Remuneration into Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives to provide more accurate benchmark information. In addition, this is the first study that established benchmark CEO remuneration levels and suggested improvements to the remuneration package structure of overpaid, under-performing CEOs of companies listed on the JSE. / Thesis (MCom (Management Accountancy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.