This thesis investigates the effectiveness of Corporate Governance (CG) reforms in Pakistan. Using a sample of 160 Pakistani firms from 2003 to 2013 and governance data collected manually from the annual reports, this thesis investigates seven closely related and important corporate issues that are related to the compliance of governance rules. Specifically, it aims to : (i) investigate the degree of CG compliance with 2002 Pakistani Code of CG (PCCG); (ii) determine whether the introduction of 2002 PCCG has improved Pakistani CG practices; (iii) investigate the determinants of CG compliance and disclosure for Pakistani listed firms; (iv) test the nexus between CG compliance with the 2002 PCCG and firms’ cost of capital (COC); (v) investigate the impact of different individual CG mechanisms on listed firms COC; (vi) examine how different ownership structures impact on firms’ COC; and (vii) analyse relationship between CG structures and Cost of Equity (COE) as well as Cost of Debt (COD) for Pakistani listed firms. These empirical investigations report some important results. First, the reported findings suggest that Pakistani firms have responded positively to governance disclosure requirements over the eleven year period from 2003 to 2013. The results also show that the introduction of the PCCG in 2002 has improved CG standards by Pakistani listed firms. Second, the reported results related to the determinants of CG compliance demonstrate that significant and positive association between institutional, government and foreign ownership with CG compliance. However, findings relating to the determinants of CG compliance show a negative and significant association between board size and block ownership with CG compliance and disclosure. The study finds no significant relationship between director ownership, audit firm size and the presence of female board members with the constructed Pakistan Corporate Governance Index (PCGI). Third, the investigation on the relationship between CG and COC report a significantly negative nexus between PCGI and firms’ COC. The investigation on the association between ownership structures and COC report a negative and significant nexus between block ownership with firms’ COC. Further, a number of robustness analyses performed in this study suggest that the empirical results reported in this study are generally robust to the alternative CG variables, alternative COC variables and potential endogeneity problems.

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This thesis investigates four interrelated research issues in the context of takeover likelihood modelling. These include: (1) the determinants of target firms’ takeover likelihood, (2) the extent to which targets can be predicted using publicly available information, (3) whether target prediction can form the basis of a profitable investment strategy, and – if not – (4) why investing in predicted targets is a suboptimal investment strategy. The research employs a UK sample of 32,363 firm-year observations (consisting of 1,635 target and 31,737 non-target firm-year observations) between 1988 and 2010. Prior literature relies on eight (old) hypotheses for modelling takeover likelihood – determinants of takeover likelihood. Consistent with prior studies, I find that takeover likelihood increases with the availability of free cash flow (Powell (1997, 2001, 2004)), the level of tangible assets (Ambrose and Megginson (1992)) and management inefficiency (Palepu (1986)), but decreases with firm age (Brar et al. (2009)). The empirical evidence lends no support to the firm undervaluation, industry disturbance, growth-resource mismatch or firm size hypotheses (Palepu (1986)). I extend prior research by developing eleven (new) hypotheses for target prediction. Consistent with the new hypotheses, I find evidence that takeover likelihood is an inverse U-shaped function of firm size, leverage and payroll burden. Takeover likelihood also increases with share repurchase activity, market liquidity and stock market performance and decreases with industry concentration. As anticipated, the new hypotheses improve the within-sample classification and out-of-sample predictive abilities of prior takeover prediction models. This study also contributes to the literature by exploring the effects of different methodological choices on the performance of takeover prediction models. The analyses reveal that the performance of prediction models is moderated by different modelling choices. For example, I find evidence that the use of longer estimation windows (e.g., a recursive model), as well as, portfolio selection techniques which yield larger holdout samples (deciles and quintiles) generally result in more optimal model performance. Importantly, I show that some of the methodological choices of prior researchers (e.g., a one-year holdout period and a matched-sampling methodology) either directly biases research findings or results in suboptimal model performance. Additionally, there is no evidence that model parameters go stale, at least not over a ten-year out-of-sample test period. Hence, the parameters developed in this study can be employed by researchers and practitioners to ascribe takeover probabilities to UK firms. Despite the new model’s success in predicting targets, I find that, consistent with the market efficiency hypothesis, predicted target portfolios do not consistently earn significant positive abnormal returns in the long run. That is, despite the high target concentrations achieved, the portfolios generate long run abnormal returns which are not statistically different from zero. I extend prior literature by showing that these portfolios are likely to achieve lower than expected returns for five reasons. First, a substantial proportion of each predicted target portfolio constitutes type II errors (i.e., non-targets) which, on average, do not earn significant positive abnormal returns. Second, the portfolios tend to hold a high number of firms that go bankrupt leading to a substantial decline in portfolio returns. Third, the presence of poorly-performing small firms within the portfolios further dilutes its returns. Fourth, targets perform poorly prior to takeover bids and this period of poor performance coincides with the portfolio holding period. Fifth, targets that can be successfully predicted tend to earn lower-than-expected holding period returns, perhaps, due to market-wide anticipation. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by developing new hypotheses for takeover prediction, by advancing a more robust methodological framework for developing and testing prediction models and by empirically explaining why takeover prediction as an investment strategy is, perhaps, a suboptimal strategy.

This thesis examines how to implement financial statement analysis to form some investment ideas. Specifically, we are looking at strategies such as value (going long on stocks with a high F-score and short on stocks with a low F-score), and a momentum strategy going long on stocks that have an increase in return on equity (ROE). Findings suggest that we are able to generate excess returns even after controlling for risks and recommend that the understanding of financial statement can help investors to form investment decisions and give a competitive edge over other investors in the market. There are a few lessons that investors can learn from the findings of this thesis. Value investors should focus on value firms. Momentum investors should pursue an investment strategy among firms with an improvement in return on equity. They could also benefit from forming a portfolio based on both investment ideas, which should protect them from economic downturn and offer an interesting portfolio.

This research examines the management control system (MCS) of a non-Big4 local Egyptian member firm (EMF) with the objectives of understanding and explaining how EMF's MCS is shaped by its idiosyncratic features as an accounting firm, as well as, its membership of a global network (NonA). The research situates accounting firms within the broader context of professional service firms, whose unique features, coupled with accounting firms' cost/quality conflict dilemma, require a control package approach. MCS is construed as a package of bureaucratic and clan controls. The research is theoretically informed by Ouchi's (1979, 1980) control typology, Malmi and Brown's (2008) notion of a package. A case study approach is used relying on interviews, documentation and observations in an interpretative qualitative research design.

This thesis is concerned with measurements used in economic activity and investigates how historical markets managed transactional problems due to unreliable measurements. Existing literature has generally associated the problems of measurements in historical markets with the lack of uniformity in weights and measures. This thesis shows that metrological standardization was not sufficient to ensure reliability of measurements. Markets developed mensuration practices that enabled markets to address specific transactional issues in micro-contexts. This involved, in addition to the use of standardized metrology, improved governance of transactions, third party monitoring and guaranteeing, and other institutional solutions. Historical institutional arrangements were altered or replaced as a result of changing or standardizing mensuration practices. The thesis also makes a conceptual contribution in terms of understanding the process of standardization. It shows how, while standards can be inflexible and rationalized (i.e. limited in number), standardized practices can incorporate a number of such standards and be flexible in terms which standard to be used in a given context. Analytically, standardized practices are institutional objects that are determined endogenously and are formed in 'packages' that create interlinks between standards, other artefacts, rules and people. These arguments are developed by studying three detailed cases of mensuration practices in the British economy during the nineteenth-century. The case of the London Coal Trade examines how altered mensuration practices gave buyers greater assurance that the amount of coal they received was actually the amount they purchased. The case of the wire industry illustrates the struggles to define a uniform set of wire sizes that could overcome the disputes arising from incompatible and multiple ways of measuring wire sizes. The case of the wheat markets illustrates the complexity involved in developing standards of measurements such that quality could be reliably measured ex-ante. Through these case studies, the thesis shows how markets developed different mensuration practices to manage measurements in a given context.

What does this thesis do? This thesis uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to examine how a UK retailer’s organization and strategy, and, in turn, its form of management accounting was shaped by its supply chain. The thesis does this by reporting on four related themes in the form of four inter-connected essays. The first essay undertakes a state-of-the-art review of the literature. It examines how accounting issues within supply chains permeate ‘matters of concern’. In accordance with this idea of ANT, the essay illustrates how issues emerged, controversies developed, and matters evolved through an actor-network of accounting researchers within the supply chain domain. This leads on to the second essay, which exemplifies the nature of the UK’s retailing industry within which the supply chain case organization emerged and developed. The purposes of the essay are twofold: to introduce the contextual ramifications of the case organization; and to illustrate the emergence of a new market logic, which led to the creation of a global supply chain and a new form of management accounting therein. The third essay reports on a qualitative case study. It analyses the dualistic relation between ostensive and performative aspects of supply chain strategy, reveals how accounting numbers act as an obligatory passage point within this dualism, and makes a contribution to the ANT debate around the issue of whether and how a dualism between ostensive and performative aspects exists. The final essay reports on another case analysis of institutionalizing a heterarchical form of management accounting: a distributed form of intelligence that penetrates through lateral accountable relations. The analysis reveals a new form of management accounting characterised by ambiguity; it emphasizes the possibilities of compromises and negotiations, and it thus contributes to knowledge by combining an aspect of ANT with heterarchical tendencies in the world of contemporary organizations. Finally, the thesis concludes that it is the supply chain that organises today’s neoliberal capitalism; and it is management accounting that unites both human and non-human actors within such supply chains, despite that form of management accounting being ambiguous. The thesis comprises the introduction, these four essays, and the conclusion.