Regional economic growth and development is triggered by a combination of many factors such as public sector intervention, national and regional policies, and private sector investments. Regional development funds, through the application of pertinent objectives, focusing, participation, and co-ordination can certainly make an important contribution on regional development. In Chile one of the main public sector policy instruments for regional development are the Regional Investment Funds. The role of these funds in the economic and social development of regions in difficulty or whose development is lagging has significantly increased in recent years. The country has had a regional development fund, the "Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Regional" (FNDR) since the mid-1970s. This fund, modest in its beginning, was significantly increased starting in 1985 due to loans from the Inter American Development Bank. The FNDR has played an important role providing basic social infrastructure in regions. However, despite the increasing amount of resources channelled to regions, twenty five-years of existence of the FNDR, and almost a decade since establishment of Regional Governments in Chile, few improvements can be recorded in the way the Regional Funds are being used or on their overall effect on regional development. The main purpose of the study is to analyse the action of the regional development fund of Chile (the FNDR) and its relationship with the overall objective of regional development. Two different empirical approaches evaluated specific effects of the FNDR. The first was concerned with the analysis of particular aspects of the fund labelled as the "key elements" in the running of the FNDR. The second presents and compares the experience of a similar fund for regional development. The fund selected to carry out this comparison was the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The specific questions to the "key elements" address three different aspects of the existence and performance of the fund: questions 1 and 2 deal with the very existence or the overall aim of the fund; questions 3 and 4, with the way the fund is being allocated and used; and question 5 is rather different as it tries to explore the possibility of finding other potentials for regional development, not exploited as such, due to the dominance and statutory primacy of the fund.

This thesis examines the reaction of monetary policy to income inequality and the effect of asset price changes and financial sector development on income inequality. The actions of monetary authorities in the U.S and elsewhere during the financial crisis period have had a major impact on financial markets. Given that financial asset prices respond quickly to new information about monetary policy shifts, the Fed’s low interest rate policy stance that started in August 2007 led to a significant increase in asset prices, particularly stock prices. Stock prices appreciation transfers wealth to those households who already own stocks; generally speaking, the wealthier American households. Consequently, it is important to examine empirically the dynamics of monetary policy, asset prices and financial development on income inequality. First, we examined the response of monetary policy to income inequality. We tried to provide empirical answers to the following questions; is there any evidence that monetary policy responds to income inequality? If there is evidence of such a response, what is the nature symmetric or asymmetric? Secondly, is there any significant relationship between changes in stock prices and income inequality? Thirdly, what are the implications of financial sector development on income inequality? This area of literature draws from monetary economics, financial economics and welfare economics disciplines, and has become increasingly important given the massive levels of income inequality that is witnessed around the world. Chapter 2 of this thesis looks at the reaction of monetary policy to income inequality using data from the U.S. We provided evidence of a positive and significant reaction of monetary policy to income inequality measured using the income share accruing to the top 1 percent income earners. We also found evidence of asymmetric reaction of monetary policy to the income of the top 1 percent between 1960 and 2009. In chapter 3 we focused on the role of asset prices on income inequality using data from the U.S. We found that stock market developments and income of the top 1 percent wage earners are well integrated with the direction of causality running from stock returns to top 1 percent income share. One of the practical policy implications of this finding is that monetary policy stance that is directed towards the propping up of asset prices will have a concomitant effect on the income of the top 1 percent income earners. Also in chapter 3 we used the Generalized Methods of Moment GMM to examine the reaction of inequality measured using the income share of the top 1 percent, the bottom 90 percent and the lowest fifth percent households to changes in asset prices. Our task here is to examine whether changes in both financial and nonfinancial assets affects everyone in the top and bottom of the income distribution the same way, or if there are remarkable differences on how these variables affect individuals within the top and bottom income percentiles. Our results detected widespread and subtle effects of asset prices on income at the selected percentiles of the income distribution. These findings hold practical implications for policy makers because the distribution of stocks and homes has important consequences on who benefits from asset prices appreciation and who is hurt by its depreciation. Finally in chapter 4 we analysed the distributional consequences of financial sector development on income inequality using a large unbalanced dataset of 91 countries, classified according to World Bank’s income categories. The results in almost all the models suggested that increasing access to credit for households will reduce income inequality. This finding is important in the light of the potential for using financial development as a policy tool to reduce the widening income inequality around the world.

The relationship between religion and development is a relatively new research area, complicated by the arguably "secular reductionism" and "materialistic determinism" of mainstream development theory and practice. Against this backdrop, this doctoral study examines the relationship between Islamic and mainstream development discourses, analysing the complex power relations at work within the discursive practices of the development field through a conceptual apparatus comprised of a Foucauldian notion of power and discourse and a Laclauan view of hegemony. The objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of how Islamic development policy making and makers have made meaning of the central issues of development and progress as expressed in the body of theory and practice that makes up the development field. Interestingly, Islamic thinkers were already criticising the Euro-centric nature of the development discourse in the 1950s and 60s. They proposed an Islamisation of knowledge, particularly in the field of economics, as a way of overcoming a perceived Western‘ domination. In pursuit of the question as to how "Islam" relates to the issue of development and progress, this thesis explores the genealogy of the mainstream and the Islamic development discourses, illustrated by a selected case study within the development field in Bangladesh.

This thesis provides an in-depth discussion on banks' capital structure which has drawn very little attention from the literature. It consists of three major empirical essays. The first essay (Chapter III) reviews the major conclusions drawn from the traditional corporate finance literature that has at length examined the capital structures of non-financial firms, while compares their findings with the limited work on the leverage decisions of banking firms. It aims to provide an insight into the factors that actually govern banks' capital choices, cast doubt on whether capital requirements are binding and primarily decide the bank leverage, and introduce the core assumption of this thesis - information asymmetry as an important determinant of capital structure decisions. The second essay (Chapter IV) empirically investigates the effects of information asymmetry on capital structure adjustments of US bank holding companies (BHCs) during 1986 to 2015. By identifying BHCs with bankrupt subsidiaries and arguing that their managers possess better knowledge than market investors concerning the failure of their subsidiaries, this chapter disentangles the real effect of private information on the capital structures of holding banks. The results show that subsidiary failure significantly affects financial policies of the parent companies. Specifically, BHCs increase leverage as early as one year prior to the failure of their subsidiaries, and substantially lower leverage after subsidiary failure. Further tests document that the parent BHCs increase not only debt borrowing but also liquidity assets, and curtail lending in advance to avoid further liquidity and financial constraint problems after their subsidiary failure. Examinations on the dynamic patterns of these BHCs' performance around the subsidiary failure time confirm a smoother performance transition. The third essay (Chapter V) adds to the evidence in Chapter IV and discusses the information asymmetry effect by identifying a different treatment group - BHCs with subsidiaries engaging in M&A activities. The findings lend further support to the core assumption in this thesis. The chapter also finds the indication that financial constraints of BHCs are on average mitigated following their subsidiaries receiving capital infusion following the M&A deals. Overall, this thesis has important implications for the public to understand various incentives that banks may have in making their capital structure decisions.

Islamic microfinance is a growing sector that is expected to provide a long-term solution to poverty in the Muslim world, home to more than 600 million poor people. The role of microfinance institutions in poverty alleviation is still debatable, however established literature provides assurance that microfinance does contribute to the development of financial sector and reduction of poverty in developing countries. Nonetheless, the rise of competition in the microfinance sector has forced many microfinance institutions to resort to commercial funding and lending activities, which according to some studies has led microfinance institutions to trade off poverty alleviation objective with commercial goals of profitability and sustainability. This thesis examines the impact of commercialisation push and its subsequent impacts on Islamic microfinance institutions in three empirical chapters. They are a) comparison of financial performance i.e. profitability and sustainability, between Islamic microfinance institutions with conventional microfinance institutions, b) examination of portfolio risk and vulnerability of Islamic microfinance institutions (IMFIs), and finally c) survey of the presence or absence of ‘mission drift’ at IMFIs. The thesis benefits from the latest panel data provided by MIX Market database, which is obtained from the publicly accessible websites at www.mixmarket.org. MIX Market provides reliable dataset for many microfinance institutions from all regions in the world. However, the dataset used for this research covers 1,320 microfinance institutions during the period of 1998 to 2014, from four regions where IMFIs exist, namely East Asia and Pacific, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. IMFIs represent about 2.88 per cent, or only 38 IMFIs, in the dataset from the overall sample. Using Ordinary Least Squares regression to analyse financial performance, portfolio risk, and poverty outreach, the research finds mixed results. Overall, although IMFIs are worse off than their conventional counterparts in terms of financial performance, i.e. lower profitability and high cost, they are relatively better off with outreach to the poor, indicated by lower average loan balance per borrower to income per capita (depth of outreach) and positive number of active borrowers (breadth of outreach). In addition to lower or negative profitability, the first empirical chapter also indicates that IMFIs are operating at higher cost per borrower than conventional MFIs. However, interestingly IMFIs manage to record positive operational self-sufficiency (being a ratio of financial revenue over expenses, or OSS), which is an important indicator of sustainability, in addition to return on assets (ROA). Lower ROA is attributed to higher operational cost, e.g. cost per borrower, while OSS is higher mainly due to irregular funding mechanism of IMFIs. Many of the IMFIs rely on donations or charitable funds and also to a certain extend grants from government and donors. The second empirical chapter explores portfolio and default risk of IMFIs and find that they are facing relatively lower risks than conventional MFIs. The result defies expectation, as IMFIs are face challenging working environment and operate in some of the poorest countries in the world with frequent natural disasters or armed conflicts. They are also less vulnerable despite their clients are from the poorest segment in the society, often with lower educational level, and the nature of Islamic financial products are relatively unknown to most clients. Many of the IMFIs and their clients live in countries considered to be high risk or have histories of instability, either politically or economically. Finally, the third paper examines poverty outreach performance of MFIs to find any evidence of mission drift in Islamic microfinance institutions. Using similar method with the first empirical chapter, the paper finds that there is no clear evidence of mission drift at Islamic microfinance institutions, as indicated by lower Average loan balance per borrower to income/capita and at the same time significantly lower percentage of women borrowers. However, this claim requires more explanations to qualify as convincing evidence. The findings contradict the argument for mission drift, i.e. the presence of higher Average loan balance and lower Percentage of women borrowers. The results do not confirm nor reject the hypothesis that there will be no mission drift at Islamic microfinance institutions. Nonetheless, the results are consistent with literature i.e. there is no clear evidence of mission drift in existing and mostly conventional microfinance institutions. Overall, the regression results of all three empirical chapters of the thesis indicate that IMFIs are still loyal to their primary mission of poverty alleviation, despite operating at a loss and high operational cost. Their relatively positive outreach, in both scale and depth, is complementary to consistently high operational self-sufficiency. Although sustainability is important in microfinance, IMFIs are not currently concerned with sustainability objectives as their funding mechanism can still support their pursuit of poverty alleviation. However, as the drive of commercialisation and intensifying competition continue, especially with many international donors becoming more selective, IMFIs must abandon over-reliance on subsidy or grants. Should their current financial performance persists, i.e. lower return and higher cost, IMFIs may soon discover poverty alleviation mission as liability, not an achievable goal.

What are the mechanisms behind the advance of financial actors, instruments, and models into the field of social policy design and delivery? Over the past couple of decades, the state’s function as provider of welfare and safety nets against various forms of socio-economic risk has been transformed not just by privatisation or downsizing, but also by the advent of alternative forms of social policy delivery. One example of the latter is social impact investment, a form of investing in social programmes with the intent of pursuing social (and environmental) impact alongside financial return, and yielding innovative financial instruments such as social impact bonds, social stocks, or community bonds. The emergence of this field is generally seen as an outcome of the broader process of financialisation. From this perspective, both financial return and social policy objectives can be achieved via the straightforward implementation of existing financial instruments and methodologies. However, the very process of implicating existing financial technologies in the sphere of the pursuit of social outcomes generates its own set of dynamics. This study focuses on these dynamics from the perspective of the valuation processes underpinning the emergence of social impact investment. It argues that as finance engulfs this field, it engages in a valuation process of fashioning and delineating a hybridised form of value – blended value – supporting its advance, which is distinctly separate, though not independent, from financial value creation. The result of this process is the concomitant proliferation of non-financial spaces of valuation, which come not to replace, but to accompany and support financialisation. In order to make this argument, it looks at the case of the valuation processes undergirding the launch of the world’s first social impact bond in 2010 in the UK. Besides providing an empirical account of the latter, it also makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on financialisation by deepening the understanding of the manner in which financial actors, instruments, and markets advance in non-financial realms.

This thesis quantitatively examines the extent to which UK corporate governance (CG) reforms have been effective in constraining excessive executive pay (EP) and enhancing CG compliance and corporate performance/valuation for 100 UK non-financial listed companies over the period 2008-2013 (i.e., 600 observations). In particular, this study aims to: (i) examine compliance and disclosure levels of CG rules contained in the 2010 UK Combined Code; (ii) examine factors that determine compliance and disclosure levels of CG recommendations contained in the 2010 UK Combined Code; (iii) investigate CG’s influence, using both the composite-CG-index and the individual-CG-variable models, on corporate performance/valuation; (iv) analyse the interaction effect of ownership structure variables on the UK CG index (UKCGI)-Performance nexus; (v) examine the impact of firm-level CG quality on executive pay (EP), using both models; and (vi) investigate that the interaction effect of ownership structure variables on the UKCGI-EP relationship. Firstly, this study employs one the most extensive hand-collected datasets on CG compliance and disclosure practices comprising 120 CG provisions extracted mainly from 2010 Combined Code to examine the level and the antecedents of CG compliance and disclosure. The results suggest that there is still substantial variation in CG practices among the UK firms. The study also finds that firm-level voluntary CG disclosure is significantly influenced by ownership structure and board characteristics. Secondly, and with regard to the third and fourth objectives, the findings indicate that firm-level CG quality, proxied by the UKCGI, is positively linked with both Tobin’s Q (Q-ratio) and return on assets (ROA), but has no significant link with total shareholder return (SR). Additionally, the findings obtained from the individual-CG-variable model are mixed. For example, and briefly, board size and board independence are statistically significant and positively related to Q-ratio, whereas other variables are either insignificantly or natively related to Q-ratio. The findings also suggest that, ownership structure variables moderate the association among the UKCGI, Q-ratio and ROA, but have no moderating effect on the UKCGI-SR nexus. Finally, and in terms of the final two objectives, the findings indicate that UKCGI is negatively related to executive pay (EP). Similarly, and using the individual-CG-variable model, the results are mixed. For example, and briefly, board size, board independence and board diversity are negatively related to EP, whilst other mechanisms are either insignificantly or positively related to EP. The findings also suggesting that ownership structure variables moderate the UKCGI-EP nexus.

The social and economic environments of developing countries differ from those of liberal market economies of the developed countries, and the differences are reflected in the accounting disclosure practices. Recent years have shown an increased attention paid by accounting research to Corporate Social Responsibility and Disclosure which is recognized as having the potential to enhance the transparency of business enterprises’ social influence, enabling the wider society to hold business enterprises more accountable for their operations. Corporate Social Responsibility and Disclosure practices in most developing countries remain fairly rudimentary and relatively few studies have focused on the corporate social responsibility disclosure practices in such countries. The aim of this study is to investigate corporate social responsibility disclosure in Libyan companies’ annual reporting in the light of the country’s economic, social and political environment. In particular, it seeks to map current corporate social disclosure in annual reports and to understand various parties’ views of that practice and its possible future development. To achieve the aim and particular objectives of the study it was necessary to utilise more than one research method. Firstly, a descriptive method is used to provide an overview of accounting and its environment in a developing country, and the economic, social and political environment in Libya. Secondly, empirical evidence covering a five year period across a sample of private and public companies in Libyan environment is presented using content analysis to analyse the companies’ annual reports. Finally, an empirical survey by personally delivered and collected questionnaire of 303 participants in four groups of research participants (academic accountants, financial managers, government officials and investors) was performed to explore the views and perceptions regarding corporate social reporting in Libya. The content analysis showed that Libyan companies generally disclose some information related to social responsibility. However, the amount of information is low compared with counterparts in developed countries. Employee and community involvement are the themes that the companies disclose most information about. The findings from the questionnaire survey indicate that participants preferred social information to be disclosed in the annual report, ideally placed in a separate section. The disclosure of more social and environmental information was widely accepted and viewed as leading to some socioeconomic benefits at the macro level.

Iranian businesses like all others around the world need to survive and grow in the global marketplace. To facilitate this, they need true executive commitment to the provision of high quality products and services. An established way to begin this important development process is to implement Total Quality Management (TQM). By applying TQM in Iranian organisations they can begin to achieve a high standard of quality products and services at a cost that enables them to compete with their international competitors. The purpose of this research, a comparative study, was to investigate the effect of organisational culture on the successful implementation and sustainability of the operation of TQM within Iran. In the programme of research data was collected from 50 organisations in Iranian and 40 in the United Kingdom (UK). Senior executives, general managers and quality managers were interviewed. They also completed comprehensive questionnaires which identified the issues relating to the implementation and operation of TQM in their organisations. The research then focused upon problems and barriers to the introduction, implementation and sustained operation of TQM that were experienced in Iranian businesses. Specifically issues concerning the relationship between organisational culture and TQM at all levels of the organization are explored. The critical issues that this study set out to address relate to the relationships and interactions that exist within a Quality Management System, organisational culture and the changes that need to be instigated for success. In his investigations the researcher divided his study into two parts. Firstly the Hofestede national culture model (2002) was tested against the organisational culture variables established in work by Denison (2006). Secondly the Denison organisational variables were used to assess the implication of culture on the successful implementation and sustained operation of TQM. The research identified that the implementation and operation of TQM in the organisations studied in the UK was highly successful whilst in the Iranian organisations such success was identified to be low. In response to this, and based upon the knowledge and understanding gained from the investigation and analysis, the researcher presents a proposed framework to aid the successful introduction and implementation of TQM within an Iranian context.

The principal aim of the thesis is to re-vision what I am calling ‘the business domain’ by showing how different archetypal energies of the collective unconscious operate in it and how they structure the domain’s creative dynamics. In this task, I am drawing on a range of Jungian theories. While the psychoanalytic organisational approach, with its focus on the personal/group unconscious, is well developed, the Jungian organisational approach is in its infancy with the result that little is said in the relevant literature to date about collective unconscious dominants, the archetypes. The introduction of this perspective involves arguing against the prevailing psychoanalytic emphasis on the pathological aspects of the business domain. The key value of the archetypal approach is that it exposes the inherent tensions within business life. In addition, it adds a much-needed catalyst for bringing insight into creativity and innovation as they manifest in the business domain. Jungian psychology, as I argue, offers a perspective that is instructive for grasping the complexities of creativity in business, which differs from manifestations of creativity in other domains such as the arts and sciences. Jungian psychology could thus make a valuable contribution to the analysis of business dynamics. I will also demonstrate how the archetypal approach can be helpful in containing the unconscious projected contents (both personal and collective) inherent in the business domain. As a first step in delineating the value and scope of an archetypal understanding of the dynamics in the business domain, this thesis invites further consideration of the question about how this approach can be used to construct a theoretical framework for analysing the business domain and what this framework could look like.