Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-222). / Conventional market orientation philosophy holds that behavioural and philosophical/cultural aspects of marketing are fundamental to an organisation. Prior research on strategic orientation in marketing research has focused on the construct of market orientation, which has been shown to have strong positive relations on business performance. In the present research, the effects of market orientation on performance are assessed concurrently with two other types of strategic orientation: technology orientation and learning orientation. In addition, we assess the mediating properties of entrepreneurship and innovativeness on the relationship of these three types of strategic orientation on business performance.

Convergence trade, by definition, is buying an asset now to be delivered at some date in the future and selling a similar asset, to be delivered at the same future date, at a higher price. In this paper, implementation of bond convergence trade is explored in the South African market. This is in spite of the features of the South African bond market. The South African bond market is significantly different from markets where bond convergence trade has previously been tested. Duration was subsequently introduced in identifying similarities between bonds, and this is the major difference introduced compared to prior work in the literature. The results showed that the trades give, on average, negative returns. However, further investigation into the impact of interest rates not only on the trade, but over the period of investigation and future expected interest rates, is required, before the results can be appropriately interpreted.

This study seeks to establish if companies use derivatives and if so what kinds of derivatives. It does not seek to establish the reasons for derivative usage as is commonly done in Wharton Survey Style study.