No description available.

Best Company to Work For (BCTWF) survey promoters argue that participation in the survey results in higher productivity and profitability of organisations. The BCTWF survey essentially follows the universalist Human Resources Management (HRM) approach and this is in conflict with the contingent HRM view. The research investigated whether participation in the BCTWF survey leads to superior financial performance. Data from thirty two companies was eventually used in the research. Bivariate fits and pairwise correlations are examples of two of the statistical tools that were used to establish if a relationship exists between the BCTWF rankings and various financial ratios. The research showed that good financial performance does lead to a high rating in the BCTWF survey and that a higher ranked company does not necessarily perform financially better than a lower ranked company.<p/> / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Advertising is everywhere. But what are the benefits of marketing for company? Why do most managers start to use variety of marketing strategies to promote the visibility of brand? This study will explore the relationship between the visibility of brand and the financial performance, and to discuss the effect of market strategy on financial performance. This study mainly uses Linear Structure Relation Model (LISREL) to explore the relationship between the latent variables of brand visibility and financial performance. As a result, the study result demonstrates that company can take advantages of adverting and increased market shares to raise the visibility of brand, which will also improve the financial performance. In addition, this study also finds that the capital market liquidity has significant ¡§Full mediation¡¨ to financial performance. For investors, this study can bring them the different ideas about the effect of brand visibility to the financial performance. Marketing information can become an important indicator for investors to make decision. For managers, they can realize the real value of marketing and the contribution of marketing to financial performance from this study. Therefore, we can understand the relationship between marketing and the finance to reach the goal of maximum shareholder¡¦s value.

Corporate finance literature suggests that the capital structure decision has played a pivotal role over the years in driving the establishment and growth of firms. There is also a body of evidence that financial markets take a keen interest in firm performance, especially for those listed on the stock exchange. There is no empirical evidence that there is a causal relationship between capital structure and the firm’s performance despite the importance of the two concepts in corporate finance.This study uses the debt/equity ratio as a proxy for capital structure and a selected few financial ratios to represent attributes of firm performance (e.g. profitability and shareholder value) in investigating the relationship between the two in the South African context.The results based on stock exchange data as input are inconclusive but they lay a foundation for potential future research. Interesting insights are drawn from using some limitations identified in the literature to try and explain why the results are the way that they are. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This study examines the effects of corporate ethics on corporate financial performance by focusing on internal stakeholders. I hypothesize that corporate ethics positively affects corporate financial performance when focusing on internal stakeholders. In order to test four hypotheses, data from 5719 companies in varying countries and industries is retrieved from the Asset4 and Worldscope database. Contrary to our expectations, the results show that corporate ethics does not affect financial performance when focusing on internal stakeholders. These findings are combined with the results of previous studies in order to formulate practical implications. Furthermore, based on our results and prior literature we identify desirable improvements in the theoretical framework, variable measurement and sample selection.

In this paper we investigate the relation between corporate governance mechanisms and performance of financial holding companies (FHCs). We find that irrecoverable loans will affect the accuracy of FHCs¡¦ performance. So we remove the factor of bad debts and use this new performance proxy. In addition, we investigate the difference of corporate governance mechanisms between the FHCs that have subsequently merged other banking firms and those that haven¡¦t. The results are as following. (1)The financial performance of FHCs and corporate governance mechanisms We find that the coefficients for the institutional investor ownership and board size are negative and statistically significant. This result is consistent with Pound¡¦s (1999) strategic alignment hypothesis and with Jensen (1993), Lipton and Lorsch (1992). However, the coefficients for the managerial, governmental ownership, and supervisor size are not statistically significant. When we investigate the 7 better FHCs as another samples. The coefficient for the governmental ownership is negative and statistically significant. We believe that the governmental ownership will make the firms conservative and is not good for company. (2)The subsequent mergers and corporate governance mechanisms The FHCs that have subsequently merged other banking firms have higher level of the managerial and institutional investor ownership, but less number of board size and supervisor size than those that haven¡¦t. But there is no difference in the governmental ownership. The findings are consistent with Amihud and Lev (1981) and Roll (1986). They believed that mangers will make money or non-money profit during merging and institutional investors will cooperate with managers to avoid the conflict of interest between them.

Abstract In prior research has addressed relationship between advertising and financial performance, it is not consistent enough to draw a clear conclusion how advertising influences financial performance of the firm. This research develops a conceptual framework and tests whether brand equity mediates the relationship between advertising and financial performance (i.e., sales and market value). If advertising can play a key role in developing and maintaining brand equity and financial performance, it should be considered an investment rather than an expense. Advertising can contribute directly to brand equity and indirectly to financial performance and how much value advertising can deliver to brands and firms. The results show support for this framework. The findings of the research showed that advertising can not only work to improve market performance measures but also to develop and maintain brands. Firms that are viewed more favorably for their advertising enjoy higher financial performance, and a firm¡¦s brand equity level mediates this influence of advertising on financial performance. Notably, this research finds the results of the mediator (brand equity) offering important implications for marketing theory and practice.

Effective risk and financial management possess a great challenge for the multinational companies operating globally. Despite the increasing development of diverse hedging strategies against foreign exchange risk, global firms cannot fully foresee and measure the degree of the impact of foreign currency fluctuations. This paper aims to evaluate the exchange risk management and financial performance of the BMW Group from the year 2005 to 2016. Moreover, this paper is devoted to provide explanatory information on the impact of foreign exchange exposure on the financial performance of the company by the usage of information provided by the annual reports. The first section of the paper establishes the theoretical concepts of risk management with emphasis on exchange rate risk and financial performance analysis, which support the following study. The analysis of the industry and BMW Group business operations worldwide, currency movement, detailed accounting examination, financial ratio, peer group, exchange rate exposure and hedging strategies are performed to examine the relation between the financial performance and foreign exchange risk management. The analysis reveals that the effective hedging strategies against the foreign exchange risk may substantially impact the financial performance and overall positioning of the company in the competitive environment.

Corporate strategy forms the foundation when considering the strategic alternatives available to an organisation. Corporate diversification and specialisation are two of the more popular configurations often proposed by corporate strategy theory in order to grow and sustain financial performance. The issue of whether or not diversification leads to financial performance has been debated since the early 1950s. Ample research has been conducted from an international perspective. However, the findings have been inconclusive/mixed/inconsistent and there remains a lack of consensus regarding the diversification-performance relationship. This study attempts to provide clarity on the matter by using a quantitative method to assess the financial performance of companies listed on the industrial sector of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) for the period 2003 to 2010. Thirty-nine companies met the criteria for inclusion in the sample and were classified as either focused, moderately or highly diversified. Three financial measures were compared for the different categories, namely return on average equity, return on average assets and market return. Two of the three hypotheses are not statistically significant and the differences in the average (mean) performance measures are due to sampling error. One of the performance measures, return on assets, indicates that the difference in the ii average (mean) performance is statistically significant. The pairwise comparisons revealed significant differences between highly and moderately diversified companies as well as between moderately diversified and focused companies. The mean difference between focused and highly diversified companies was not statistically significant. In this regard, moderately diversified companies performed better than highly diversified and focused companies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Africa as an emerging market offers firms from Multinational Corporations (MNCs) significant opportunities to expand and capitalise on the continents economic growth and combined consumer spending. Africa has significantly higher levels of state fragility and political risk in comparison to the rest of the World. Managers of firms looking to enter the African market need to analyse political risk in Africa when the firm risk taking and financial return relationship is considered. The objective of this research study was to establish if there is a relationship between political risk and financial performance of firms in Africa. This study used various financial performance ratios of 406 firms operating in five African countries and numerous country political risk variables to investigate if such a relationship exist over an eight year period. The findings indicate that there is a positive political risk financial return relationship for firms operating in Africa. Firms seem to achieve higher financial performance results in countries with higher overall political risk. This study suggest that African countries need to be analysed on an individual basis when considering political risk and published political risk data should not be used for decision making without deeper understanding and analyses of the country. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted