Although much research on corporate dividend policy exists, the evidence is far from conclusive. Understanding how dividend taxes affect firm-level decisions is crucial to evaluating dividend imputation credits which provide shareholder-level tax credits for dividends received or decreased shareholder-level dividend tax rates, which reduce the double taxation of dividends. Using changes in New Zealand and Australia’s tax regimes, this dissertation provides new evidence on the relationship between tax incentives for R&D investment and dividend payment. The results show that the theory that the tension between R&D investment and dividend payment decreases when a country previously not offering tax incentives for R&D investment or dividend payout, implements one, does not hold using New Zealand firms. Further, New Zealand dividend-paying firms with higher marginal tax rates behave in the manner predicted for firms moving from a tax regime offering a tax incentive for R&D investment to a tax regime offering tax incentives for both R&D investment and dividend payment. The results using Australian data, demonstrate that that the tension between R&D investment and dividend payment increases when a country previously offering only a tax incentives for R&D investment, offers one for both R&D investment and dividend payment. This result is driven by firms with high marginal tax rates. These findings demonstrate that the relationship between tax incentives for R&D investment and dividend payment varies according to firm marginal tax rates and typical dividend payment policies. It also reiterates the importance of considering firms’ abilities to use R&D tax incentives, via their marginal tax rates, when contemplating the effects a shareholder-level dividend tax decrease will have on R&D investment. This dissertation also provides new insight into the corporate dividend policy views. The results support the double taxation and tax irrelevance views in dividend-paying firms operating in a tax regime with dividend imputation and capital gains taxes. By documenting a significant decrease in R&D investment after a change in dividend taxes, this dissertation also highlights a void in the current corporate dividend policy views and shows the need for the inclusion of R&D investment.

Business ethics is a fragmented and well covered scientific field. This Master thesis study concerns two type of organizations, namely family businesses (FB’s) and venture capital firms (VCF’s), in relation to the ethical decision-making process, which is a relatively undiscovered field. The study is conducted in the way it sheds a light on the influences on a manager when taking decisions concerning ethical considerations. Important scholars such as Colby and Kohlberg (1987) and Rest et al. (1999) framed the field of moral development of individuals, and what makes managers unaware of their unethical decisions (Bazerman, 2008). However, a manager’s possibility to take decisions is also influenced by organizational factors and actors. The type of management and ownership structure, and the expectations these actors have with regard to profits, as well as situational factors such as business strategy, maturity of the company, human and financial resources and market position are shaping the environment and possibility for managers to pursue ethical behavior because they affect the decision-making process.The purpose of this study is to understand how managers in FB’s and VCF’s manage ethical considerations. The creating of the conceptual framework was used as a foundation to visualize how ethical behavior is constructed, while the focus laid on the influences and possibility to take decisions including ethical considerations and content. While performing this research, we have conducted eight semi-structured interviews with managers in three VCF’s and two FB’s in Sweden. The respondent companies and interviewees remain anonymous. We did that to increase the chance of honest and unbiased answers since we saw a risk to receive adjusted and image improving responses.The empirical findings show that the VCF’s do not pay attention to ethical considerations in the same extent as FB’s do. Discovered reasons were lack of time and know-how, financial and human resources, business maturity and the fact that they were to generate a high ROI to the venture capitalist. Such a relationship makes the managers focus on profit maximization and short term objectives rather than ethical considerations. The two FB’s did have an ethical code of conduct with the employees and was constructed in order to fulfill acceptance, integration and efficiency with this management tool. The ethical codes of conduct were created with the goal to steer behavior and ensure ethical commitment in certain areas of interest. The major finding is that situational factors either suffocate or give room for ethical considerations in companies when taking decisions.In particular, this research contributes to the field of business ethics and VCF’s in general, but also with regard to FB’s. The results of this thesis are constructed in the decision-making model which is different than the ethical decision-making model we constructed based on the theoretical research. However, reality did not allow us to recognize the fragmented patterns we interpreted from the theory. We therefore created a new top-down model which takes the need for a decision in companies into account, the actors and factors in the organization, the situational factors that influence the happenings in the organization and the outcome of the decision, which possibly contains ethical considerations and content. With the improved model we visualize the decision-making process while taking influences towards ethical decision-making into consideration and visualize organizational reality as we discovered it.Key words: business ethics, ethical considerations, ethical code of conduct, moral awareness, ethical decision-making, ethical behavior, family business, venture capital firm, profit maximization, shareholder preferences.

Hållbarhet och etik är ett högst aktuellt ämne i dagens samhälle som även påverkar den finansiella sektorn. Ämnen som CSR och hållbarhetsfrågor har tidigare haft fokus på företagsvärlden men under de senaste åren har även finansvärlden uppmärksammat ämnet, i och med uppkomsten av sociala och etiska investeringar.Tidigare forskning inom området etiska fonder har framförallt handlat om avkastningen och urvalsprocessen av bolag, få studier har gjorts av fondernas etiska prestanda. Den här studien syftar till att fördjupa diskussionen kring de etiska fonderna. Detta görs genom att studera hur fondbolagen bedriver urvalsprocessen och förvaltningen av dessa fonder.I studien används en abduktiv ansats. Det har inneburit att vi har fått komplettera den ursprungliga teoridelen utifrån de svar vi fick under den empiriska insamlingen. Studien är kvalitativ och empirin samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Vi valde att kontakta de fyra storbankernas fondbolag, två AP-fonder samt ytterligare ett fondbolag. Respondenterna som intervjuades bestod av fondförvaltare eller specialister inom hållbarhetsområdet.Resultatet av studien visar att benämningen etiska fonder är på väg bort. Branschen vill inte definiera etik istället talar man om efterträdarna, hållbara och ansvarsfulla fonder. Trots förnekelsen av etiska fonder används en liknande urvalprocess för de hållbara fonderna, därmed kvarstår den problematiken som funnits för de etiska fonderna. Den stora skillnaden idag är att fondbolagen vill agera hållbart och ansvarsfullt på alla plan, både gällande sociala- och miljömässiga aspekter.Studies resultat skiljer sig från tidigare forskning genom att den fokuserar på den etiska prestandan. Undersökningen konstaterar att etikfonderna håller på att försvinna, men ur dem har hållbara fonder fötts. Den här studien har gett ökad kunskap inom ett område som är relativt outforskat. Studien kan därför lämpligtvis användas för framtida forskning. / Sustainability and ethics are discussed all over the world. Subjects as CSR and sustainability related questions were earlier only highlighted by companies. Nowadays even the financial industry has started to focus on those questions, with the emergence of social and ethical investments.Previous research have focused on return or the selection process, very few have studied the ethical performance. This study aims to deepen the discussion about ethical funds. This is done by studying how the fund companies conduct the management of ethical funds.This study is using an abductive approach, which means that we have completed the original theory with more theory after we had done the research on the field. We have used a qualitative method and collected the empirical data by semi-structured interviews. The four largest banks fund companies of Sweden, two pension funds and one additional fund company were interviewed. The respondents were either fund managers or specialists in the area of sustainability.The results of the study show that the term ethical fund is slowly disappearing. No one of the respondents were willing to define ethics, they would rather discuss the successors sustainable- and responsible funds. Despite the denial of ethical funds, similar selection processes for sustainable funds are used as for ethical funds. The problems that have existed for the ethical funds are moving to the sustainable funds. The big difference today is that fund companies have a vision of acting responsible and sustainable at all levels, both in terms of social and environmental aspects.The results differ from previous research, since it focuses on the ethical performance. The study finds that ethical funds are disappearing as time goes by, but out of them have sustainable funds developed. This research has provided increased knowledge in an area that is relatively unexplored. The study can therefore be suitable for future research.

Les actionnaires sont au centre du gouvernement des entreprises. Bien qu'une certaine passivité leur soit parfois reprochée, simultanément, des craintes existent qu'une démocratie des actionnaires ne limite excessivement la gestion quotidienne des entreprises. Loin d'être incompatibles, ces deux remarques reflètent la diversité des actionnaires. En pratique, leurs attentes et leur comportement dépendent fortement de deux éléments : la part du capital ou des voix qu'ils détiennent de même que leur identité. Notre recherche porte sur la protection des actionnaires minoritaires dans le cadre d'opérations de prises de contrôle de sociétés publiques. Le sujet soulève une problématique d'une grande actualité dans le contexte canadien, contexte caractérisé par une concentration de l'actionnariat des sociétés publiques. Le sujet fait la conjonction de deux problèmes d'actualité. D'une part, la multiplication des prises de contrôle s'est accrue lors des dernières décennies et ce phénomène semble, plus que jamais, promis à un brillant avenir. D'autre part, le problème de la protection des actionnaires minoritaires se pose de façon toujours plus aiguë, dans le cadre des sociétés par actions de plus en plus importantes où leur rôle tend à s'amenuiser. / Shareholders are at the heart of corporate governance. While some reproach them a certain passivity, others, at the same time, fear that a shareholders' democracy could unduly limit the daily management of corporations. Far from being incompatible, these two statements reveal the wide diversity that surrounds shareholders. In practice, their expectations and their behavior strongly depend on two items: their share in capital or their share of votes, as well as their identity. Our thesis deals with the issue of minority shareholders' protection in the context of takeover operations involving public companies. This topic raises issues of great relevance and is particularly current in the Canadian context that is characterised by a shareholding concentration of public companies. Our topic brings together two current problems. On the one hand, the rise in takeover operations has, in the last decades, been significant and this phenomenon seems, more than ever, to be destined to a very bright future. On the other hand, the issue of minority shareholders' protection also arises, ever so sharply, in the context of growing shareholding companies where shareholders' role seems to be fading.

The cost of mining companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) have not been immune to inflationary pressures. Increasing cost pressures, lower grades, and reduced electricity supply imply that management will have to apply rigorous cost saving measures to mitigate the effect on profits. One such measure is value based management (VBM). VBM is a powerful management framework with the aim to focus all managerial processes on shareholder wealth creation. It therefore encourages all staff levels within the organisation to focus on value creation. Various metrics have been developed to measure the value creation process within the organisation. Discounted cash flow to the present value at the weighted average cost of capital lies at the heart of these metrics. Through the use of value mapping, underlying value drivers are linked to the overall strategy of value creation. While value-based management is used to increase shareholder value, one of the serious drawbacks is the short-term focus on immediate results to the detriment of long-term sustainable competitive advantage. A quantitative study was done on the mining sector to determine if investors can use productivity as a value based management measurement to predict share price movement. The results from this study indicate that productivity measures do not influence share price. Productivity is good for determining shareholder value, but not adequate for determining stock performance. Even though it was found that investors do not rely on productivity measures, companies should still focus on creating value for the shareholders. It is beneficial to investors to understand what value based management is, and to understand management actions in terms of value creation. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.

The cost of mining companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) have not been immune to inflationary pressures. Increasing cost pressures, lower grades, and reduced electricity supply imply that management will have to apply rigorous cost saving measures to mitigate the effect on profits. One such measure is value based management (VBM). VBM is a powerful management framework with the aim to focus all managerial processes on shareholder wealth creation. It therefore encourages all staff levels within the organisation to focus on value creation. Various metrics have been developed to measure the value creation process within the organisation. Discounted cash flow to the present value at the weighted average cost of capital lies at the heart of these metrics. Through the use of value mapping, underlying value drivers are linked to the overall strategy of value creation. While value-based management is used to increase shareholder value, one of the serious drawbacks is the short-term focus on immediate results to the detriment of long-term sustainable competitive advantage. A quantitative study was done on the mining sector to determine if investors can use productivity as a value based management measurement to predict share price movement. The results from this study indicate that productivity measures do not influence share price. Productivity is good for determining shareholder value, but not adequate for determining stock performance. Even though it was found that investors do not rely on productivity measures, companies should still focus on creating value for the shareholders. It is beneficial to investors to understand what value based management is, and to understand management actions in terms of value creation. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.

La tesis estudia la evolución de la estructura de propiedad de compañías y de sus efectos sobre resultados económicos reales. El capítulo 1 proporciona un análisis empírico de la privatización en Rusia en los años 90. Se utilizan datos de 530 empresas industriales rusas para estimar los factores implicados en la decisión de privatizar una empresa, en la selección entre diversas opciones de privatización, en la distribución inicial de la propiedad que resulta, y en su evolución posterior. El capítulo 2 estudia los efectos de diferencias de intereses entre accionistas sobre decisiones de inversión y el mercado de acciones en un modelo simple. Suponiendo que los mercados financieros son incompletos, la distribución inicial de la propiedad, la riqueza y las preferencias de los propietarios afectan a su nivel preferido de inversión. Las decisiones sobre la inversión son tomadas por mayoría. Dos extensiones, la protección de accionistas de minoría y ventajas privadas del control, permiten un análisis del papel de las instituciones del gobierno corporativo en las decisiones de inversión y estructura de propiedad. Las predicciones del modelo para la evolución de la estructura de propiedad son coherentes con las observaciones empíricas en el capítulo 1. / The thesis studies the evolution of the ownership structure of companies and its effects on real economic outcomes. Chapter 1 provides an empirical analysis of the large-scale privatization in Russia in the 1990s. A comprehensive data set of 530 Russian manufacturing firms is used to estimate determinants of the decision to privatize a firm, of the choice among different options of privatization, the resulting initial ownership distribution, and its further evolution. Chapter 2 studies the effects of conflicting interests of shareholders on investment decisions and share trade in a simple model. In a setting with incomplete financial markets, the wealth, initial stake and preferences of owners affect their preferred level of investment. Decisions on investment are taken by majority. Two extensions, a protection for minority shareholders and private benefits of control, allow us to analyze the impact of corporate governance arrangements on investment decisions and ownership structure. The model predictions for the evolution of ownership are in line with the empirical observations in chapter 1.

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2000.

Univ., Diss.--Frankfurt a.M., 2003.

Zugleich: Diss. Regensburg, 2008. / Literaturverz.