Thesis (MTech (Business Information Systems))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / Knowledge Management (KM) is a role player in assisting organisations to accomplish their desired goals and objectives by managing the knowledge embedded within individuals and available in systems. Furthermore, knowledge management considers the use of advanced technology to enhance existing knowledge, create new knowledge, and transfer knowledge. However, the process of managing knowledge cannot be successful without proper communication. When this knowledge and the associated expertise are not transferred, organisations are faced with a loss of intellectual capital as employees enter and leave with knowledge and expertise. It is therefore critical to understand who knows what, who needs to know what, and how to transfer the knowledge throughout the organisations. Hence, this research explores the dynamics of knowledge transfer in relation to communication strategies, tools, methods or systems that the selected company can implement in order to transfer knowledge between interest groups and throughout the organisation. The research philosophy adopted is subjectivism with an interpretivist stance. A qualitative research approach was applied. The data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires and analysed using descriptive data analysis techniques. The results point to poor levels of understanding the concept of knowledge management and knowledge transfer in the organisation, resulting in departments following silo processes in an effort to transfer knowledge within their specific areas. However, these processes are not sufficiently effective and cause crucial man risk within departments. The results of this study should help the organisation improve its knowledge management processes and organise internal communication in a way that will improve knowledge transfer.

M.Comm. / Financial Condition Reporting is the new proposed risk-based approach to calculating the solvency requirements of the short-term insurance companies in South Africa by the regulator, the Financial Services Board. A risk-based approach to calculating capital requirements is currently the most popular in the developed nations with the United States of America being the champion of this. Australia has implemented its own version of the risk-based capital approach and the United Kingdom has implemented ICAS which is a prelude to Solvency II to be implemented by the European Union. It is unknown how Financial Condition Reporting in South Africa will affect the levels of competitiveness of the short-term insurance industry. Qualitative study was done firstly to develop an understanding of the regulation of financial services and secondly to get an appreciation of how the regulation of financial services affects the levels of competition within the industry. Due to the fact that different people (organisations) have different views on the proposed financial reporting, qualitative data methods provide participants with an opportunity to discuss their reasons. The intention of the researcher was to get as much information as possible from the interviews and hence one of the data collection techniques employed was the use of a tape recorder.. Generally all participants indicated that Financial Condition Reporting was more than welcome in the short-term insurance industry. It was evident that this will force the board of directors of short-term insurance companies to be involved in the risk management of the organisation. In turn this will allow an in-depth understanding of the risks that the organisations are facing. i Financial Condition Reporting will certainly not come without costs; these could either be the cost of implementing the internal models as this will inevitably require the use of qualified actuaries or the capital required as dictated by the prescribed model as this is an industry average. Both costs can result in some companies merging or some being bought out and this could change the scales of competition within the short-term insurance industry.

Financial regulation is a subject that is more often than not regarded as distant and yet another level of bureaucracy that has to be endured by both the public and private sectors. The significance of creating and maintaining an efficient and effective system to regulate financial markets, financial institutions and financial service providers is a salient feature in the development of a country’s economic health. The recent global economic crises of 2007/2008 and the economic hurdles accompanying those events are perhaps the most dramatic instances of how necessary the implementation of efficient and effective financial regulation is. The international financial system has experienced a retinue of changes in the last two decades. One of the main challenges of financial regulators has been to keep abreast of as well as adapt to these changes, which are of an international nature. In a majority of countries, the financial sector is one of the most intensely regulated and supervised industries. Over a period of time, it has become evident that regulatory arrangements have a formidable impact on: i. The size, structure and efficiency of a financial system; ii. The business operations of financial institutions and markets; iii. Competitive conditions both overall and between sub-sectors of the system. The impact of regulation can either be stagnant or progressive; this depends on how the objectives of regulation are defined and how efficiently regulatory arrangements are related to their objectives. The issue at hand is to engage regulatory institutions, structures and mechanisms for supervision and enforcement need to be implemented because they are pertinent to the formal regulatory requirements in the overall regulatory regime. Effective financial regulation would be unable to exert its objectives in the absence of efficient supervision and enforcement. In numerous countries the institutional structure of regulation has experienced change or is in the process of change. Different models of institutional structure are availed such as the single/consolidated model, the twin-peak model and the multiple regulator model. For example, the United Kingdom has embraced the single/consolidated regulator model while Australia has employed the twin-peak regulator model. Kenya operates on the multiple regulator model. This report addresses the role of financial regulators in the Kenyan economy. The objectives of the research are to: Provide comprehensive information about the theory and practice of financial regulation; Identify the financial regulators in Kenya and define their roles; Address the issue of multiple regulators and the duplicity of roles; Discuss international trends in regulation and examine different regulatory regimes; Consider the viability of a single/consolidated regulatory regime in Kenya; Suggest a possible future regulatory regime for Kenya and identify the key issues associated with such a regime; Suggest areas for further investigation and research.The approach of this report will constitute the following: Chapter 1 discusses the rationale for the research, objectives, scope and scale of the research, preliminary literature review and the research methods to be employed. Chapter 2 focuses on financial regulatory systems in general as well as an extensive analysis of financial regulators in Kenya. Chapter 3 combines the research methods employed and also contains a comparative analysis of the regulatory regime. Chapter 4 examines the findings of the research, the lessons learnt and the regulatory responses. Chapter 5 includes recommendations towards improvement of regulatory systems and an executive summary of outstanding policy issues and priorities in Kenyan financial regulation.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / South Africa’s Financial Sector Charter of 2003 to 2008 contributed in many ways to financial inclusion of the excluded masses, resulting in a decrease in proportion of excluded excluded from over 50% in 2003 to 23.5% in 2010. Commercial banks around the world have been known to bank the unbanked or downscale using various models. The report investigates the motivation for commercial bank downscaling in South Africa, leading to the various models of downscaling chosen by the Big 4. The reports finds that commercial banks in South Africa are moving away from fragmented methods of engagement of the bottom of the pyramid due to the large market which exists at that segment. This market accounts for on average 50% of the banks’ clients which indicates that banks have been dealing with this market for some time. The recent rise of a Microfinance bank has been credited as the stimulus for the more aggressive approach that banks have taken in recent years. Bank employees believe they have the resources and support to explore models of serving the market profitably while external stakeholder to the bank believe the banks are not geared for the market due to their cost structures and mentality and are therefore not fully exploring the potential in the market.

The aim of this thesis is to explore differences between consumer expectations of web site functionality in the context of online banking in terms of whether the task under consideration is information seeking or account access and whether the expectation is predictive or normative. The Internet has emerged as a new and distinct information source. Statistics show that the Internet is used extensively by companies for information provision and in general by consumers for information acquisition. The context of this study is the financial services sector where online service provision is increasing to meet consumer demand. Numerous studies into online banking seek to identify the attributes of successful financial services web sites but the focus of these studies has been on account management rather than information search activity. Yet, there is limited research into whether consumer evaluative criteria differ when deciding to adopt a bank’s web site as a source of information as compared to use as a channel for account access. Regardless of task focus, the rationale behind theory of adoption models is that, if after trial, web site performance does not match expectations then the consumer will decide that the web site does not contain features of value and will not continue to use it. Expectations are conceptually close to, but not the same as, beliefs and have been defined as both the anticipation of future outcomes (predictive expectation) and the desire for the occurrence of future outcomes (normative expectation). Since the only type of evaluation a consumer may hold about an untried technology is expectation, several technology adoption models use expectations as referent states however the focus of research to date has been on contrasting expectation with postadoption perception. This thesis follows an approach developed by Sirgy (1984) that utilises different levels of expectation. Normative and predictive expectations are used not only as a referent state but also as a perceived state thus providing an understanding of the expectation “gaps” of users and non-users. A two-phase methodology was used. First a preliminary study based on a convenience sample of 253 students was used to generate a range of expectation statements relating to online information search. Second a web-survey was administered to 10,000 Internet users to explore differences in normative (should) expectations and predictive (will) expectations across a set of system quality and information quality attributes in two task scenarios: information search and online bank account access. This thesis identifies differences and points of similarity across task scenario. It shows that across task scenario there are statistically significant and practically substantive differences in terms of attributes that reduce risk, enable two-way communication and the provision of product information.

This thesis is about the formulation of a structured sequence of events using a multimethodology approach to facilitate the intervention and subsequent management, of key factors contributing to the failure of management information system development projects undertaken in the financial services industry1. Furthermore, a clear distinction is made between information system development projects undertaken within the ambit of the broader development context of ‘information technology’, as opposed to information system development projects undertaken within the ambit of the financial services industry, the latter, the focus of this thesis. The formulation of the structured sequence of events serving as mitigating factors, was mooted specifically as a result of known failure factors of management information systems development projects undertaken in the financial services industry. In terms of this research, these factors fall into two mainstream categories2, namely: Ø The quality of business requirement functional specifications. Ø Change to business requirement functional specifications, while the latter is still in the process of being developed. From the field research undertaken for this thesis both locally and abroad, the analogy was drawn that the above two factors are normally juxtaposed, contributing to multi-faceted impacts to information system development project lifecycles. Key impacts point to not only the escalation of previously approved budgets, but also to extended timelines and already mapped processes. The research shows that these two entities would typically lead to an executive call for rework of not only the business case, but also of the processes supporting the whole development. This could invariable culminate in the termination of the project or culminate in extensive recoding and process changes, which in turn would lead to the requirement for extensive change management initiatives. Alternatively, the additional rework could result in benefits harvesting from the initiative to be delayed or severely impacted. This statement is made with the clear caveat, that should the rework result in end user effectiveness being significantly boosted as a result of the required rework, to the extent that the ratio of operating profit over the benefit life span of the system to total development cost be raised, it would undoubtedly quantify such rework. The structured sequence of events serving as mitigating factors to facilitate the intervention and subsequent management of key factors contributing to the failure of management information system development projects are formulated from selected key elements of the following system methodologies namely: Ø The ‘Capability Maturity Model’, which Herbsleb et al.5 defines as ‘a reference model for appraising software process maturity and a normative model for helping software organizations progress along an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature disciplined software’. Ø The ‘Balanced Scorecard’, which Kaplan & Norton6 defines as ‘a management system that can motivate breakthrough improvements in such critical areas as product, process, customer, and market development’. A multimethodology approach will be deployed in the formulation of the mitigating factors from the above listed systems methodologies, underpinned by the concept ‘system’. This then would be further enhanced by the author’s own contributions gleaned from experience spanning some 34 years in systems development for the financial services industry, both locally and abroad. These mitigating factors will come into play at two specific levels of a typical information technology project lifecycle namely: Ø At the formulation of business requirement functional specifications. Ø During the development and testing stages, which are typically associated with change in the systems development lifecycle. Using a multimethodology approach, the interrelationship of the various core entities, gleaned from the above listed system methodologies, ultimately supporting the structured sequence of events serving as mitigating factors are graphically depicted below. In addition, the mitigating factors are positioned to reflect their potential position in a typical systems development life cycle 7, commonly associated with information system development for the financial services industry. The purpose of this thesis is then to determine if a set of mitigating factors can be developed from a structured sequence of events using a multimethodology approach to facilitate the intervention and subsequent management of key factors contributing to the failure of management information systems development undertaken in the financial services industry. Furthermore, the thesis proposes that the structured set of mitigating factors be incorporated as an alternative methodology within the ambit of the greater information technology project management life cycle for all project initiatives in the financial services industry. / Prof. N. Lessing

This thesis aims to describe the process of rebranding SkoFIN (Volkswagen Financial Services) and especially its communication through PR tools. ŠkoFIN was present at the Czech market since 1992 and after 23 years decided for a complete rebranding of the company. It changed not only the name but also the logo and corporate colors. The thesis analyzes used PR tools, puts them in the context of marketing campaigns and deals with generated media articles. It also contains the analysis of public opinion using a questionnaire survey. This thesis focuses on the analysis of media articles and a way of perceiving the changes by public.

Resumé Public and legal protection of a client of financial services This diploma thesis deals with public and legal protection of a client of financial services to which is in my opinion given relatively marginal attention in the Czech legal area. The introduction outlines meaning and role of legal protection of a client in market economy, which is one of the basic premises for the proper functioning of a democratic state represented by the rule of law. I have also defined the key terms of this paper which are "client", "consumer"¨and "financial service". After detailed analysis I have distinct a client of financial services for this work as a consumer in accordance with interpretation in the European and Czech legal framework. Second part is devoted to theoretical basics and principles of consumer protection. I have analyzed basic principles of this topic, i.e. the principle of protection of the weaker party and the principle of autonomy of the will and their respective relation. I have also elaborated in detail tools used for consumer protection. The third chapter is focused on institutions that are involved in the legal protection of a client of financial services and I have briefly defined their status, duties and powers. Next part consists of analysis of legislation which regulates client's protection...

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg, 2015 / Improved understanding of the entrepreneurial behaviours and motivations of employees would allow senior management of corporate entities a better understanding of their employees’ opportunity recognition processes, thereby guiding the provision of appropriate assistance and support of these processes in order to boost entrepreneurial activity. This research aimed to further academic understanding of the corporate entrepreneurial process and opportunity identification by employees within existing corporate entities. It investigated the influence of employee perceptions of their company’s corporate entrepreneurial building blocks, entrepreneurial alertness and meta-cognitive processing, on the extent and quality of opportunity recognition. The study focused on employees in the South African financial services sector. It proposed a model of corporate entrepreneurial activity and the individual, which attempted to combine current models of corporate entrepreneurial activity with current thinking around the individual’s entrepreneurial decision-making within the entrepreneurial process. The conceptual model aimed to add to the body of knowledge in terms of the entrepreneurial employee aspiring to fill the knowledge gap in terms of how they think and act within the corporate environment. It applied current theory, around the entrepreneurial individual, to the entrepreneurial employee. The employee’s perceptions of their company’s entrepreneurial building blocks was analysed, as were their perceptions of entrepreneurial alertness and meta-cognitive processing in stimulating corporate entrepreneurial activity within the company. A sample of 784 employees from 102 employers in the South African financial sector was examined. The conceptual model was analysed using hierarchical regression and structured equation modelling. A number of moderating influences on the model were examined using regression analyses. The integrative model showed that the entrepreneurial behaviour required of employees is primarily focused around entrepreneurial alertness and meta-cognitive processing. The central nature of entrepreneurial alertness, as portrayed in the mediation model, showed that employee entrepreneurial activity could only occur through entrepreneurial alertness. The entrepreneurially alert employee is able to make connections and identify opportunities that an employee who is not entrepreneurially alert is unable to do. It is only once the entrepreneurially alert employee has identified potential entrepreneurial ideas (by connecting the dots in terms of the business information gathered), that the meta-cognitive processing abilities of the employee are able to turn this potential entrepreneurial idea into a viable entrepreneurial opportunity. Entrepreneurial alertness can therefore be seen as the first step in the employee entrepreneurial process, after the establishment of the entrepreneurial building blocks set in place by the company. The mediation model showed the importance of employee perceptions of their company’s entrepreneurial building blocks. It is therefore not only important that the company put these entrepreneurial building blocks in place, as the precursor to employee entrepreneurial activity, but also that these entrepreneurial building blocks be adequately communicated to employees. Employee perceptions of these building blocks, not their physical existence, allow for the appropriate employee entrepreneurial behaviour necessary to produce the appropriate levels of entrepreneurial activity for their company. This mediation model was shown to have a number of moderating influences at both the individual and the company level. / MB2016

Value-added tax (VAT) and similar taxes known as General Sales Tax (GST) are indirect taxes which are currently levied in over 150 countries world-wide. The republic of South Africa (South Africa) introduced VAT through the enactment of the Value-added Tax Act 89 of 1991. Financial services are exempt, by the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991, largely due to the South African VAT system being based on the New Zealand GST system. It is generally accepted that in theory financial services should be subjected to Value-Added Tax. This study will outline the VAT effects of certain common financial services and how financial service providers may account for the related input and output tax. Additionally the application of the VAT Act against some of the more complex financial arrangements, including new financial instruments that have gained popularity with the increased availability to technologies such as the internet, will also be examined. This report is limited to the application of the VAT Act only and does not consider other fiscal legislation and its interaction with the VAT Act in this regard. Key Words Value-Added Tax, Financial Services, Exemptions, Complex Financial Arrangements / Thesis (M.Com. (Taxation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Accountancy, 2017 / Online resource (141 leaves) / GR2018