The world has witnessed a series of corporate accounting scandals. Earnings management, as a phenomenon at the core of these scandals, is one of the main challenges confronting the effectiveness of different monitoring mechanisms such as corporate governance. Recently, and more precisely after the financial crises of 2008 2009, Jordan has shown substantial interest in integrating the pillars of corporate governance. Therefore, this research examines the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on earnings management activities among all publicly listed commercial banks on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the period 2013-2018. Earnings management was measured by the modified Jones’ model. The characteristics examined are board size, CEO duality, board independence, managerial ownership, institutional ownership, audit committee size, audit committee independence and audit committee activity. In addition, two control variables have been used: firm size and firm performance. The findings of the study reveal that earnings management has a significant positive relationship with both board size and institutional ownership, and a significant negative relationship with total assets.

The textile industry has grown significantly in recent years, reaching a global fiber production of 53 million tons which 12 % are recycled; Construction sector has been using more and more recycled materials from different industrial sources, to apply them in their constructions and to reduce CO2 emissions and final energy consumption. The present study aims to study the behavior of concrete blocks of fć= 210 kg/cm2 adding polyester textile waste with 3 %, 6 %, 9 %, 12 % and 15 %; void content, compressive strength and thermal conductivity decrease, and water absorption, acoustic insulation and unit price increase by 3 %, 34 % and 16 % compared to conventional concrete block.

No abstract.

Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) has long been recognised as a potentially viable means for promoting and sustaining corporate competitiveness (Covin & Miles 1999). Turbulence and rapidly changing knowledge - especially in the Information and Communications Technology sector (ICT) - has forced companies to become more entrepreneurial in order to capitalise on new business opportunities and to create value. The research study was quantitative and data was collected through an online survey, which used closed-ended questionnaires. The questionnaires entail assessing the degree of CE in an organisation in relation to its performance. The analysis had 114 samples of companies in the ICT sector. The study indicated that there is a strong positive association between level of CE and company performance. Companies that sustain their businesses and are able to prosper are likely to have a high level of CE. The most important contribution of this study is the testing of CE theories in the South African context. The ICT managers can contribute to entrenching CE by being the champions in creating the environment that stimulates entrepreneurial behaviour.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. / Unable to load abstract

The world is in the midst of a new wave of economic development with entrepreneurship and innovation as the catalysts. The ability to continually innovate and to engage in an ongoing process of entrepreneurial action has become the source of competitive advantage and a lack of entrepreneurial actions in today’s global economy could be a recipe for failure (Kuratko, 2009). Organisations need to keep abreast of developments in their business environment and continually identify and evaluate opportunities if they are to prosper in a rapidly changing world, and they must become more entrepreneurial as their corporate environments become more dynamic and increasingly competitive (Shepherd, Patzelt and Haynie, 2009). Opportunity recognition remains an important issue for academic research. This research report aims at making a modest contribution to further understand opportunity recognition behaviour of employees within their existing work environment. The research focussed on employees working in the South African financial sector, and examined their perceptions of opportunity recognition behaviours and motivators. An understanding of these important behaviours and motivators will allow senior management of corporate entities to have a better understanding of the opportunity recognition processes by employees, and to put in place mechanisms that facilitate and support these processes in search of robust entrepreneurial activities. Apart from the economic rationale, the motivations for studying employees’ behaviour come mainly from the limited number of studies of this nature that have been carried out in emerging economies. The study is performed using data from 195 employees drawn from 23 financial sector companies in South Africa. This research concludes that South African financial sector employees perceive themselves as showing strong levels of opportunity recognition behaviours, and opportunity recognition motivators are also perceived important in promoting entrepreneurial initiatives. The empirical study reveals that there is a significant positive relationship between opportunity recognition behaviours and the frequency of opportunities recognised. vi Success is found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between frequency of opportunity recognition and perceptions of opportunity recognition behaviours. Respondents, who have a low or medium number of successfully implemented opportunities, recognise a higher number of opportunities as their opportunity recognition behaviour increases. However, those respondents with a high number of successfully implemented opportunities tend to show a slight decrease in the total number of opportunities identified as their opportunity recognition behaviour increases. A cluster analysis was carried out to provide a deeper understanding of opportunity recognition behaviours and motivators, and three distinct clusters with differing characteristics were identified. These clusters are named according to the characteristics displayed by the respective clusters (corporate achievers, mavericks, and doers). The corporate achievers cluster tends to perceive high levels of opportunity recognition behaviours and motivators. This high proportion of perceived alignment to company strategy combined with high levels of opportunity recognition behaviours may encourage more of the proposed opportunities to be in line with company strategy, which in turn may lead to the higher proportion of successfully implemented opportunities. The mavericks cluster recognise a large number of opportunities, but are behind the corporate achiever cluster when it comes to the proportion of successfully implemented opportunities and perceive low alignment to company strategy. Although this cluster shows a large proportion of opportunities proposed for their current company, their low perception of alignment to company strategy may mean that the opportunities they recommend do not always fit into the company strategy, which may explain their lower proportion of successfully implemented opportunities. The doers cluster tends to perceive low levels of opportunity recognition behaviour and motivators, as well as low levels of alignment to company strategy. Respondents in this cluster seem to do their work, but show low levels of entrepreneurial orientation.

Dissertation presented in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Management (in the field of Public and Development Management) to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand September 2017 / The linear market model is the City of Johannesburg’s most recent street trading developmental intervention intended to manage and locate street traders in highly pedestrianised streets. The inner city of the City of Johannesburg is known for receiving a high influx of migrants from inside South Africa and outside the country seeking economic opportunities. Some of these migrants find themselves in the streets of the City of Johannesburg engaging in illegal street trading. The City of Johannesburg municipality has come up with various strategies to regulate and manage street trading including the introduction of By-laws. In 2008 the City of Johannesburg municipality introduced the linear market model as a means to provided proper structures for street traders, and models that are intended to organise them and assist in unlocking their entrepreneurial skills. The implementation of the linear market model had its own challenges, including some stakeholders believing that it is not beneficial and some traders believing that the entire process of moving them around undermined their rights. However, this research had not examined the conflicts that the municipality has with the street traders but focused on assessing the situation relating to the market, street traders’ challenges and the support they receive from the municipality. This research was conducted in the form of a case study to critically assess the linear markets located in the inner city of one of the busiest cities of the continent. The research assessed the functionality of the model focusing on the benefits that this market model brought to the street traders. The methodology applied to carry out this research does not generalise the findings for broader scope and consideration. However, the significance of the outputs through this research could be of use to provide insights within the City of Johannesburg where such infrastructure is developed. The research found that the linear market model is structurally functional but with some administration challenges. Maintenance and inadequate support by the municipality was the main challenge in these markets. This research study made recommendations to assist the municipality as it implements the linear market model in other regions of the municipality. / E.R.

No description available.

La definición de perfiles para puestos de informática por parte de las empresas de software y servicios informáticos en la Argentina estipula competencias genéricas que no se encuen-tran explicitadas en los planes de estudios vigentes de la disciplina. La reciente definición de contenidos básicos y recomendaciones del Ministerio de Educación de la Nación respecto de dichos planes de estudios incluyen la formación de dichas competencias. Para aquellos profesionales que se hayan graduado con anterioridad a estas disposiciones minis-teriales, la educación continua puede resultar un modo de desarrollar las competencias que no se estimularon en la formación de grado. Con el fin de valorar el grado en que la formación continua facilita el desarrollo de competencias genéricas para los profesionales de informática, se revisa documentación relacionada y se realizan entrevistas y encues-tas a distintos actores del sector. Se interpretan los datos resultantes de la aplicación de los métodos empíricos y se propone una estrategia de formación continua para capacitar en las competencias genéricas que más lo requieran, evaluan-do en qué grado dicha capacitación contribuye a la mejora esperada. La mayor parte de los profesionales encuestados requiere formación continua sobre ciertas competencias, por ejemplo la capacidad de comunicación oral y escrita, y apren-der y actualizarse permanentemente, cuya importancia para los mismos coincide con la manifestada por las empresas y el Ministerio de Educación de la Nación. Surge como trabajo futuro, encuestar a profesionales egresados de otras univer-sidades del país, para conocer sus realidades y realizar un estudio de las demás competencias genéricas y de la totali-dad de las específicas para determinar con precisión otros posibles problemas de la formación actual, y el modo de aportar soluciones desde la formación continua. / The definition of profiles for positions by computer software and services companies in Argentina includes generic skills that are not explicitly mentioned in the existing curricula of the discipline. The recent definition of basic contents and recommendations of the Ministerio de Educación de la Nación in respect of such curricula include the formation of such powers. For those professionals who have graduated prior to these ministerial resolutions, continuing education could be a way to develop the skills that were not stimulated in their degree studies. To assess the extent to which training facilitates the development of generic skills for IT professio-nals, documentation is reviewed and interviews and surveys are conducted with various stakeholders in this sector. The data resulting from the application of empirical methods are interpreted, and a continuing education strategy is proposed for training in those generic skills mostly required, evaluating to what extent such training contributes to the expected improvement. Most of the professionals surveyed require continuous training on certain skills, e.g. communication skills oral and written, and the skill of learning and updating on a permanent basis, the importance of which is also expressed by the companies and the Ministerio de Educación. It emerges as future work, surveying professionals graduated from other universities in our country to know their realities, and conducting a study of other generic and all specific skills, to pinpoint other potential problems of current degree studies, and how to provide solutions from continuing education.

This is a conceptual paper whose aim is to relate the development of ‘individualization’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002) to organizational leadership. It does this by examining individualization alongside the implicit assumption on which orthodox approaches to leadership are founded, namely that leadership is an individualized phenomenon. Despite the expanding literature on these topics, particularly that on leadership, these concepts have not been examined in relation to one another. This paper seeks to do this in two ways. Firstly, it highlights the increased attention given to leadership in the UK public sector, locating leadership as a continuation of public sector managerialism. Secondly, it discusses the development of the trend of individualization more broadly. The paper’s main discussion focuses on leadership as an individual activity and of the consequences of that approach. In particular, it argues that individualized leadership presents a restrictive perspective which does not allow for exploration of a broader range of leadership approaches, particularly that of distributed leadership, which have especial relevance for public sector organizations.