The recent addition of Karoo Lamb to South Africa’s repertoire of products with a regional identity attracted extensive publicity. The news headlines that spoke of challenges to protect the geographical name, discrepancies among supply chain stakeholders and the outright opportunism and exploitation of the geographical name made Karoo Lamb a particularly interesting case study to examine. Regrettably, the niche product “Karoo Lamb” has not yet come to its own. In an effort to support the development of this initiative, the thesis sets out to address the central question; “How do we increase farmer participation in differentiated product supply chains, whilst discouraging opportunistic behaviour so that the performance of these chains can be optimised?” The overarching question, mentioned above, is addressed in four independent but related research papers by using the differentiated Karoo Lamb supply chain as a case study. The specific questions considered in these papers are:  What are the claims most vulnerable to opportunistic behaviour?  What drives a farmer’s tendency to behave opportunistically, and how can these drivers be used to prevent opportunistic behaviour?  What factors encourage a farmer to participate in a differentiated supply chain?  What enforcement mechanisms are best suited to prevent the opportunistic behaviour of farmers?  What governance mechanisms are currently employed to govern the supply chain?  Are the governance and enforcement mechanisms properly aligned to guarantee the authenticity of the differentiated product? The thesis employed the principals of agency theory, transaction cost economics, and contract theory to address the practical problems faced by the Karoo Meat of Origin certification scheme. The thesis combined quantitative and qualitative research methods to analyse the data collected from four primary stakeholders involved in the Karoo Lamb supply chain. From the total population of 209 certified Karoo Lamb farmers, 73 farmers were interviewed on their farms in the Karoo region. In addition to the farmers, five abattoirs, two processors and/or packers and five retail outlets were interviewed. Results supported the expectation that a farmer’s decision to invest in the collective reputational capital of a product is shaped by his/her relationship with the abattoir, and the ease with which business is conducted. The easier it is for the farmer to do business with the abattoir the more likely the farmer is to invest in the Karoo Lamb initiative. Other, more personal attributes, such as the farmer’s risk profile, education and his/her network also proved to influence his/her willingness to invest in the collective reputation. The efforts to increase the membership base of Karoo Lamb contributes to the success story of Karoo Lamb. The success of the initiative, however, remains threatened by opportunism. The investigation revealed the “from the Karoo” and “free range” claims as the most vulnerable to opportunistic behaviour specifically during times of droughts. The study further revealed a lack of information exchange between the farmers and abattoirs, specifically regarding droughts, feeding practices and disease treatments, as the leading driver for opportunistic behaviour. An increase in information sharing, within the farmer network, and with the abattoir, is therefore recommended. This is the main strategy to reduce or eradicate the opportunistic behaviour of farmers. In addition to broadening farmer investments in the reputational capital of Karoo Lamb and to preventing the opportunistic behaviour of farmers, the success of the Karoo Lamb initiative also requires an alignment between the enforcement and governance mechanisms. The investigation supported the notion that the State-appointed third party is relatively unsuccessful when it specifically comes to the monitoring of the Karoo farmers for compliance with production standards. Due to the failure of the third party, the thesis made an attempt to explore alternative monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. The results indicate that the majority of the Karoo Lamb stakeholders preferred monitoring and enforcement mechanisms that include more frequent monitoring and stricter prosecution strategies to deal with non-compliant stakeholders. Owing to many years of commodity style operations throughout the supply chain, the correct vehicle for ensuring the proper implementation of the enforcement mechanisms remains a challenge. The assessment of the Karoo Lamb supply chain reveals non-contractual arrangements with qualified partners as being the most frequently utilised governance mechanism. However, this mechanism is not sufficient when the third party fails to monitor and enforce the production standards accurately. Therefore, with a view to ensuring the credibility of Karoo Lamb, a move to toward more hierarchical arrangements, are expected, which would provide a stronger focus on private or mutual enforcement mechanisms. This means that the stakeholders in the supply chain would be jointly responsible for the credibility of the product and therefore jointly responsible for the enforcement of quality and origin standards. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Red Meat Research and Development SA / Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD / Unrestricted

Bakgrund: Det finns idag ett stort utbud av banker på den svenska marknaden och den allmänna diskussionen påvisar att intresset för att välja en hållbar bank ökar från samhället. I dagsläget har merparten av bankerna i det svenska samhället implementerat sin egen hållbarhetspolicy, med egna riktlinjer och kravställningar de skall följa, samt en beskrivning om vilka principer de sägs stå bakom. I och med att begreppet hållbarhet inte är reglerat i lagstiftningen leder detta till att begreppet tolkas på olika sätt och kan innebära svårigheter för kunder, eftersom det kan finnas skillnader i hållbara bankers inriktning när det gäller investeringar och utlåningar. Därmed kan det ifrågasättas om kunden är medveten om vad den investerar i. Med utgångspunkt utifrån detta finns det ett intresse att analysera och belysa hur de olika aktörerna på banksektorn själva definierar begreppet för att sedan komma fram till en mer konkret förklaring av vad som menas med begreppet för att underlätta för kunderna. Syfte: Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera och belysa hur den svenska banksektorn tolkar och implementerar hållbarhetsaspekten i dess verksamhet och hur den rådande mångtydiga definitionen av begreppet hållbarhet påverkar sektorn och dess aktörer. Metod: För att besvara studiens syfte har ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt använts. Efter att ha studerat relevant litteratur samt analyserat hur den svenska banksektorns hållbarhetsarbete så har en egenkonstruerad analysmodell utvecklats. Denna analysmodell ligger till grund för referensramen, utformandet av intervjumallen samt analys av den insamlade datan. Sammanlagt har nio semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med banker, externa oberoendegranskningsparter och kunder. Slutsats: En hållbar bank är en bank som aktivt arbetar för att minimera dess negativa påverkan på människa, samhälle och miljö, såväl som aktivt tar till vara på de möjligheter de har för att främja hållbar utveckling. Bristen på transparens och tydlighet i kombination med en banksekretess ger utrymme för opportunistiskt beteende hos bankerna. Lemonsproblematiken råder inte för banker generellt i dagsläget men det finns tendenser inom mindre verksamhetsgrenar såsom fondförvaltning. Slutligen är dagens regelverk och övervakning inte tillräckliga för att reducera informationsasymmetrier och opportunistiskt beteende. Externa oberoende granskningsaktörer synar opportunistiskt beteende men kanäven ge upphov till opportunistiskt beteende i form av vitmålning. / Background: Today, there is a wide range of banks on the Swedish market and the general discussion shows that interest in choosing a sustainable bank is increasing from the society. At the moment, most of the Swedish banks have implemented their own policies, guidelines and requirements regarding sustainability, which they are following, as well as a description of the international principles they are said to stand behind. As the concept of sustainability is not regulated in the legislation, this means that the term is interpreted in different ways and may cause difficulties for the customers, as there may be differences in the focus of sustainable banks in terms of financing and investing. Therefore, it can be questioned if the customer is aware of what they invest in. Based on this, it is found interesting to analyse and enlighten how the different actors, in the banking sector, define the term sustainability, in order to clarify and explain what the definition of sustainability means, within the banking sector, to facilitate for the customers. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to analyse and illustrate how the Swedish banking sector interprets and implements the sustainability aspect in their organisation and how the current ambiguous definition of sustainability affects the sector and its agents. Method: In order to answer the purpose of the study, a qualitative approach has been used. A unique analysis model has been developed. This after studying relevant literature and analysing how the Swedish banking sector works regarding sustainability. This analysis model forms the basis for the theory, the design of the interview template and the analysis of the collected data. In total, nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with banks, external independent auditors and customers. Conclusion: A sustainable bank is a bank that actively works to minimize its negative impact on humans, society and environment, as well as actively embracing the opportunities they have for promoting sustainable development. The lack of transparency and clarity in combination with bank secrecy creates a space for opportunistic behaviour from the banks. The Markets for “Lemons” do not exist at the moment in the banking sector, as a whole, but there are tendencies in specific operation groups, such as fund management. Today's regulatory and monitoring is not enough to reduce information asymmetries and opportunistic behaviour. External independent auditors bring opportunistic behaviour to the surface but can also cause opportunistic behaviour in terms of whitewashing.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:31:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adilson Aderito da Silva.pdf: 1146737 bytes, checksum: 8cd5e83fb0f914d05834ba4cd0ffbb5b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-03 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / Based on the transaction cost reasoning this doctoral dissertation proposed a model that theorizes on the relationship between uncertainty, bounded rationality, asset specificity, opportunism and vertical integration in supply chains. An extensive literature review was conducted in three basic fields: transaction cost economics; organizational theory; and strategy to better understand the definition of those variables and their theoretical relationship. The review also helped to identify scales used in previous research to measure the research variables. The identified scales were then back translated and adapted to be used in this research. The research instrument was pre-tested and then it was made available on the internet from April to October 2008 and managers from industrial organizations classified in the D section in the Brazilian SIC and also listed in the database of FIESP (São Paulo State Industry Association) were asked to participate in the survey. The section D includes industries that perform physical, chemical and biological transformation of inputs into new products. From the population we selected only firms classified by the association as medium or large sizes which resulted in a target of three thousand potential subjects. Electronic messages which explained the survey proposal and instructions to fill in the questionnaire were sent through the internet. All those that not answered the first message received another message few days later and they were again contacted by phone. Due to the nature of the study only middle managers and directors working in the target firms were asked to answer the questionnaire. Some 111 good responses were available in the end of data collection process and they represent 87 different firms and 14 economic activities the collected data were analyzed using the EQS 6.1 software, which allowed the validation of the research constructs through SEM. The use of this methodology represented an innovation in the research field, because it gives the possibility to include more variables in the basic model, and they are simultaneously considered in the search of explanations for vertical integration. This choice brought important methodological contributions to the research field. Validation of the uncertainty construct as multidimensional derived from three types of uncertainty. The second contribution was to test the construct bounded rationality as a second order latent variable and in the first order were used two types of uncertainty effect and response. The third contribution refers to the level of refinement introduced by the use of the EQS software and structural equation modeling. This approach allowed us to verify the validation of the theoretical model. The statistical significance of most tested direct and indirect relationships among constructs confirmed the proposed theoretical model. Another finding derived from the data is that the explanation of degree of vertical integration in supply chain has to consider all research constructs included in the model to interact together. So no single construct in the TCT can explain alone the vertical integration. / Neste trabalho um modelo teórico para testar o relacionamento entre incerteza, racionalidade limitada, especificidade dos ativos, o comportamento oportunista e o grau de integração vertical em cadeias de suprimentos foi proposto e testado. Para tal foi realizada uma revisão na literatura de Teorias das Organizações, Teoria dos Custos de Transação e Economia visando fundamentar os conceitos subjacentes nessas variáveis latentes e identificar escalas com indicadores que se apresentaram confiáveis em estudos prévios. A partir dessa revisão, elaborou-se um instrumento para a coleta de dados que ficou disponível on-line entre os meses de abril a outubro de 2008. O universo da pesquisa foi definido pelo conjunto de empresas da indústria de transformação classificadas na seção D do CNAE (2004) constantes na base da Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo - FIESP envolvendo a transformação física, química ou biológica de materiais, substâncias ou componentes para a obtenção de novos produtos. Nesse universo foram selecionadas e convidadas para participar da pesquisa 3000 empresas. O convite foi efetuado, num primeiro momento, a partir do envio de mensagens eletrônicas contendo os objetivos, as instruções e o link de acesso à pesquisa e, num segundo momento, o convite foi ratificado junto aos respondentes por meio de contatos telefônicos. Dada a sua natureza, a pesquisa de campo foi limitada àqueles que desempenhavam funções de Gerentes ou de Diretores em suas empresas, resultando numa amostra com 111 respondentes, que representaram 87 empresas em 14 setores de atividades econômicas. Os dados coletados foram processados com o software EQS 6.1 que permitiu operacionalizar e validar os construtos propostos por meio da Modelagem por Equações Estruturais. A utilização dessa metodologia de análise representou um avanço em relação aos estudos anteriores, pois possibilitou a inclusão de um número maior de variáveis latentes no modelo de mensuração para avaliar o grau de integração vertical em cadeias de suprimentos. Nesse sentido o estudo trouxe contribuições metodológicas importantes no campo da pesquisa empírica em Teorias das Organizações e Teoria dos Custos de Transação. A primeira foi a validação do construto de incerteza como um construto multidimensional que subsiste em incerteza de estado, de efeito e de resposta. A segunda foi operacionalização do pressupostode racionalidade limitada como um construto de segunda ordem a partir das incertezas de efeito e de resposta. A terceira contribuição está relacionada ao nível de refinamento introduzido pelo processamento dos dados com o EQS 6.1 por meio de Equações Estruturais. A partir dessa abordagem foi possível verificar que a validação do modelo proposto, foi suportada pelos dados empíricos. As significâncias estatísticas dos efeitos diretos e indiretos entre os construtos propostos confirmaram empiricamente o relacionamento entre: incerteza, racionalidade limitada; especificidade dos ativos; e, comportamento oportunista. Estes conceitos, que são apresentados como pressupostos e dimensões básicas na Teoria dos Custos de Transação, são relevantes para explicar o grau de integração vertical em cadeias de suprimentos somente se considerados conjuntamente.

I tidigare studier har det framkommit att amerikanska företag manipulerar sina finansiella räkenskaper inför en nyemission med hjälp av Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar. Detta görs i syfte att reflektera en bättre bild av företagets finansiella ställning gentemot hur det i verkligheten ser ut. Företeelsen tillämpas med avsikt att erhålla ett större finansiellt riskkapital då företaget utfärdar nyemission. Denna studie undersöker om svenska företag agerar likt amerikanska företag vid en nyemission och därför är syftet i studien att undersöka om svenska företag tillämpar Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar vid perioden då de utfärdar nyemission. Svenska företag har varit av intresse i följande studie då svenska företag verkar under ett annorlunda redovisnings- och skattesystem än amerikanska företag gör, varpå vi vill testa om teorin Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar är tillämpbar på även svenska företag, trots de skillnader som föreligger mellan ländernas lagsystem. Studien har genomförts med hjälp av en kvantitativ metod som vi presenterat med hjälp av en deskriptiv statistisk analys. De resultat som framkommit i studien är att även svenska, såväl som amerikanska, företag tillämpar Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar vid de kvartal då ska utfärda nyemission, trots de olikheter i redovisnings- och skattesystem som råder länderna emellan. Förutom detta visar studien på att svenska företag även tillämpar en extrem form av Earnings Management samt att olika branscher tillämpar Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar i olika grad då de ska utfärda nyemission. De resultat som framkommer i följande studie visar att det är av stor betydelse att investerare har en medvetenhet om att Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar förekommer när svenska företag ska utfärda nyemission. Detta är av vikt då tidigare studier har påvisat att många investerare som förvärvat aktier i företagen som tillämpat Earnings Management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar har känt en besvikelse samt upplevt att de blivit missledda av företagens publicerade finansiella rapporter efter nyemissionen. Besvikelsen grundar sig i att det rapporterade resultatet vanligtvis kraftigt sjunker kvartalen efter nyemission då företagen tillämpat Earnings management genom oförklarliga periodiseringar. / In previous studies, it has been found that US companies manipulate their financial statements before issuing Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEO) using Accrual-based Earnings Management. This is done by the company in order to reflect a better financial position compared to their true underlying financial performance. Accrual-based Earnings Management is applied with the intention of obtaining larger financial capital when issuing SEOs. This study examines whether Swedish companies, consistent with US companies, apply the phenomenon in a similar way while issuing SEOs and the purpose of our study is therefore to investigate whether Swedish companies apply Accrual-based Earnings Management in the period they issue SEOs. Swedish companies have been of interest in the following study, as Swedish companies operate under a different accounting and tax law compared to that of American companies. As a result, we want to test the theory of Accrual-based Earnings Management to see if it is applicable to Swedish companies, despite the differences in tax law that exists between the countries. The study has been conducted using a quantitative methodology which has been presented through a descriptive statistical analysis. Our results imply that Swedish- as well as American companies, apply Accrual-based Earnings Management in the period they issue SEOs. This is found despite differences in accounting and tax law between the two countries. In addition to this, the study also shows that Swedish companies apply an extreme form of Accrual-based Earnings Management, and that it exist industrial differences in the level of Accrual-based Earnings Management that is applied when issuing SEOs. The results found in the following study show that it is of the utmost importance that investors have an awareness regarding Accrual-based Earnings Management and that it occurs when Swedish companies issue a SEO. This is important as previous studies have shown that many investors who acquired shares in the companies who applied Accrual-based Earnings Management when issuing SEOs, have felt disappointed and have found that they have been misled by the companies published financial reports following the SEO. The disappointment is based on the fact that as companies apply Accrual-based Earnings Management, the companies reported earnings usually fall in the period after issuing a SEO.