Thesis (Ph.D.)-- Western Michigan University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-116).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Murdoch University, 2006. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 316-349).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2009. / Title from PDF cover (viewed July 7, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-244)

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-88). Also available via the Internet.

Aim: There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of Social Enterprises (SE) to improve the welfare of society. Few empirical studies have attempted to investigate what are the challenges SEs face and how they manage them. A number of researchers have reported that SEs often have a negative connotation. The aim of this study is to investigate challenges social enterprises face in Sweden.Method: The study adopted a Qualitative approach. Primary data is gathered by interviewing 10 managers of social enterprise from 5 different SEs in Sweden. The interview was made in three different locations, Gävle, Uppsala and Tierp. De-coding the qualitative research data through content analysis, an interpretive analysis was used classifying the data concerning responses by highlighting important messages.Findings and Conclusion: SEs face diverse challenges: Funding, Public Image, Sales, Network and Cooperation, Governance/Structure, Leadership and Management. One of the more significant finding to emerge from this study is that, the foundations-access to finance is one of the critical challenges on which the fate of each SE depends. Most of the times, societies do not acknowledge the role of social enterprises and the values they bring to the society. From this, SEs cannot attract support of any kind. SEs lack the understanding and significance of marketing. Making people understanding SEs’s role, would provide them with a positive public image and thereafter support.Suggestions for future research: The study has a small sample size and results cannot be generalizable. A natural progression of this work is to analyse: Challenges on SEs with focus on Society, The impact of Society on SEs, Public identity of SEs and importance of Society.Contribution of the thesis: Dependency on fundraising, grants and donations are heavily connected with widespread lack of understanding the impact of SEs on society. SEs managers should apply different marketing tactics to communicate their role in welfare of the community.

In several countries, the contributions of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in promoting the livelihood of the communities can clearly be identified. As a matter of fact, international development agencies increase their trust to NGOs in running development projects because they have proven capable of running these projects at a lower cost while reaching the huge number of poor communities. However, several factors have influenced the development of NGOs had little participation, contribution, and impact in undertaking the more structurally-entrenched causes and indicators of poverty. In addition, in most of the countries in Africa, local NGOs are weak with regards to the implementation of development projects. Consequently, there are ongoing questions towards these challenges faced by NGOs, especially at the local level. Most of the research focus on the external factors such as corruption, political instability, climatic unreliability, inadequate resources as the main reasons for less performance of the projects. Additionally, other researchers pinpoint the issue of upward accountability from sponsors and donors, but still they do not tell us the full story, therefore, realizing the gap of internal factors that have been overlooked by many researchers in the successful implementation of projects in Africa. This research seeks to explore the concept of leadership within local NGOs that conduct Economic Empowerment Projects, in East Africa. Through the qualitative study, our research findings would be analyzed to provide an insight to management team on how managerial and entrepreneurial thinking may influence the performance of the community development projects. In this study, the capacity development model will be identified and proposed as a guideline for organizational leaders in the capacity building interventions. This would support development practitioners of NGO sector in tackling the ongoing practical challenges in developing countries. In several countries, the contributions of Non-government Organizations (NGOs) in promoting the livelihood of the communities can clearly be identified. As a matter of fact, international development agencies increase their trust to NGOs in running development projects because they have proven capable of running these projects at a lower cost while reaching the huge number of poor communities. However, several factors have influenced the development of NGOs had little participation, contribution, and impact in undertaking the more structurally-entrenched causes and indicators of poverty. In addition, in most of the countries in Africa, local NGOs are weak with regards to the implementation of development projects. Consequently, there are ongoing questions towards these challenges faced by NGOs, especially at the local level. Most of the research focus on the external factors such as corruption, political instability, climatic unreliability, inadequate resources as the main reasons for less performance of the projects. Additionally, other researchers pinpoint the issue of upward accountability from sponsors and donors, but still they do not tell us the full story, therefore, realizing the gap of internal factors that have been overlooked by many researchers in the successful implementation of projects in Africa. This research seeks to explore the concept of leadership within local NGOs that conduct Economic Empowerment Projects, in East Africa. Through the qualitative study, our research findings would be analyzed to provide an insight to management team on how managerial and entrepreneurial thinking may influence the performance of the community development projects. In this study, the capacity development model will be identified and proposed as a guideline for organizational leaders in the capacity building interventions. This would support development practitioners of NGO sector in tackling the ongoing practical challenges in developing countries.

I investigate the relation between CEO equity compensation and employee layoffs. In particular, this study seeks to examine CEO stock-based incentives and managerial opportunism behavior for the sample of CEOs of firms announcing layoffs during 1997-2006. I investigate two issues. First, I measure the extent of CEO stock selling in the year of the announcement of employee layoffs. CEOs may want to avoid negative press coverage regarding their compensation because it may send a negative signal to the market if they reduce the companies' work force and may choose to not sell equity, which is consistent with efficient contracting theory. I find different responses by layoff CEOs toward stock option awards and toward option exercise. Layoff CEOs sell substantial shares after receiving stock options to diversify their portfolio risk, especially during a boom economy and with layoffs constituting a greater percentage of a firm's workforce. They, however, retain substantial amount of shares acquired on the exercise of options to avoid intensive negative press coverage on both layoff and option exercises. Second, I examine CEOs' opportunistic behavior to maximize their stock-based compensation value by controlling the timing of stock option awards surrounding layoff announcements, or by controlling the timing of layoff news announcements. My finding provides evidence that CEOs of firms announcing employee layoffs are more likely to receive stock options in advance of value-enhancing layoff announcements but subsequent to value-destroying layoff announcements. However, my results show that these stock prices start declining after news of CEO stock option awards are disclosed in proxy statements (which are published approximately three months after the end of company fiscal years). This may indicate that the stock market responds negatively to this "your pain, my gain" leadership style, as that corporate executives of firms announcing layoffs may have no ethic of shared sacrifice. Overall, I find that negative press coverage may motivate CEOs of firms announcing layoffs to substantially change their portfolio or ownership. Public scrutiny also limits CEOs' ability of conducting opportunistic behavior regarding manipulation of the timing of option awards and layoff announcements.

Prior literature suggests that tax avoidance is an effective way to enhance firm value. However, there appears to be considerable cross-sectional variation in tax avoidance, and it is not clear why some firms do not take full advantage of the tax avoidance opportunities being used by others. This study examines whether managerial reputation, as proxied by high-profile awards to top managers, is helpful in explaining corporate tax avoidance. The empirical results show that, relative to a matched control group, firms managed by a celebrity manager have significantly higher cash and GAAP effective tax rates in the three year period following the manager's first award than preceding the award. This result is consistent with the conjecture that celebrity managers, for fear of being labeled as "poor citizens," engage in less tax avoidance once they have an established reputation.

This study examines whether firms' decisions to offer company stock in defined contribution (DC) plans are explained by managers' corporate control motives. Using a large sample of proxy voting outcomes, I find that employee ownership in DC plans is significantly and positively associated with the level of voting support for management sponsored proposals. This suggests that managers encourage employee DC holdings in company stock in order to receive higher voting support in favor of management. The effects of employee ownership on voting outcomes are significantly greater in subsample tests than in full sample tests: management proposals opposed by Institutional Shareholder Services, management proposals of close votes, director election votes receiving more than 20% of votes withheld, and say-on-pay frequency proposals.

Problem statement: Management accounting is not given enough emphasis, at the board level, as a provider of timely and relevant information to facilitate the execution of good corporate governance. Without management accounting information corporations in Botswana may find it difficult to create sustainable corporate governance. Methodology:A questionnaire was used to investigate the use of management accounting tools by the directors in the target organisations.The researchwas carried out among listed companies on the stock exchange and the parastatal organisations in Botswana. Main findings: Most directors in the organisations don‟t emphasise the use of management accounting in decision making.Management accountants have also failed to provide theinformation at board level. Conclusion:To execute their duties efficiently, directorsmay need to call for more management accounting reports from the senior management level up to the board level and regularly use them to facilitate their decision making. / Management Accounting / M. Com. (Accounting)