No / Purpose- Promoting a safe workplace for everyone is a key tenet of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG-8), which focuses on promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all. Therefore, this study explores how responsible leadership ensures a psychologically safe workplace for everyone, leveraging employee-oriented human resource management. Specifically, drawing on signalling theory, this study aims to examine the impact of responsible leadership on employee-oriented HRM and the subsequent effect of employee-oriented HRM on employees' psychological safety. Furthermore, it investigates the mediating role of employee-oriented HRM in the relationship between responsible leadership and psychological safety. Design/methodology/approach- Data was collected from banking professionals through a survey questionnaire. A total of 270 samples were collected using both online and face-to-face data collection strategies. The data was analysed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. Findings- The findings reveal that responsible leadership significantly ensures employee-oriented HRM, which subsequently enhances employees' psychological safety. Further, the results suggest that employee-oriented HRM acts as a mediator between responsible leadership and psychological safety. Originality/value- Past studies have often emphasized HRM practices as antecedents of various attitudes and behaviours. The present study offers a novel contribution by conceptualizing and empirically validating employee-oriented HRM as a mechanism that links responsible leadership and psychological safety. It stands as the first of its kind to establish this significant relationship, shedding new light on the dynamics between responsible leadership, HRM practices, and employees' sense of psychological safety.

Syfte: Valet av utdelningspolitik är ett av de viktigaste och svåraste finansiella beslut som företag ställs inför. Samtidigt blir socialt ansvarstagande (CSR) en allt viktigare fråga för företagens lönsamhet då konsumenter och övriga intressenter blir allt mer medvetna och ställer allt högre krav på företagens ansvarstagande. Men om det finns ett samband mellan dessa två högt aktuella punkterna är oklart. Denna studie avser att studera hur CSR-nivå påverkar utdelningspolitiken, samt om olika dimensioner av CSR har olika effekt.   Metod: Studien tillhör kvantitativ forskning och tar avstamp från positivismen med en hypotetisk-deduktiv ansats. Studien är utförd med sekundärdata för åren 2009–2017 inhämtat från databasen Thomson Reuters. Urvalet består utav 207 europeiska börsnoterade företag och analysen genomfördes i statistikprogrammet IBM SPSS.   Resultat & slutsats: Studien visar att CSR inte påverkar beslutet om utdelning ska ges men har en positiv effekt på utdelning i de företag som ger utdelning, vilket indikerar att CSR inte reducerar utdelningen. Dimensionerna samhälle och bolagsstyrning har en positiv effekt på utdelning, medan miljödimensionen inte har något samband, vilket indikerar att aggregerad CSR kan ge missvisande resultat. Resultaten ger stöd för signaleringsteorin men inte för agentteorin.   Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien ger ett teoretiskt bidrag till den företagsekonomiska forskningen genom att studera och därmed även utveckla kunskapen om hur CSR-nivå, både aggregerat och uppdelat i dimensioner, påverkar utdelningspolitik. Studien ger ett praktiskt bidrag genom att hjälpa investerare i sina val och visa att spendera resurser på CSR inte reducerar kassaflödet som går till ägarna.   Förslag till fortsatt forskning: I studien har endast ett mått för utdelning används men inom litteraturen förekommer flera. Det skulle därmed vara intressant att använda flera olika mått för att se att detta inte förändrar resultaten. Även andra mått på CSR samt andra dimensioner skulle vara intressant att studera. Slutligen skulle det även kunna vara intressant att inkludera andra områden/länder i en liknande studie. / Aim: The choice of dividend policy is one of the most important and difficult financial decisions that a firm must face. Concurrently, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming an increasingly more crucial question for the profitability of a firm, since consumers and other stakeholders are becoming more aware and have rising demands on the level of responsibility taken by firms. But if there is any correlation between these two highly current topics is unclear. This study aims to study how CSR-level affects the dividend policy, and if different dimensions of CSR have different effects.   Method: The study belongs to quantitative research and applies a positivistic research philosophy with a hypothetical-deductive approach. The study is made with secondary data for the years 2009-2017 retrieved from the database Thomson Reuters. The sample consists of 207 public European firms and the analysis was conducted in the statistics program IBM SPSS.   Result & Conclusions: The study show that CSR does not affect the decision whatever dividend should be distributed but has a positive effect on dividend in firms that does pay dividend, which indicate that CSR does not reduce dividend. The dimensions social and government have positive effects on dividend, while the dimension environment has no effect, which indicates that aggregated CSR can give misleading results. The results support signalling theory but not agent theory.   Contribution of the thesis: The study gives a theoretical contribution to business research by examining and therefore develop the knowledge about how CSR-level, both aggregated and divided in dimensions, affects dividend policy. The study gives a practical contribution by helping investors in their choices and show that spending resources on CSR does not reduce cash flows to owners.   Suggestions for future research: This study has only included one measurement for dividend but in the literature many occurs. Is could therefore be of interest to use several different measurements to see if this changes the results. Also, other measurements for CSR and other dimensions could be interesting to study. Finally, it could also be interesting to include other areas/countries in a similar study.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the current communication techniques and strategies used by political parties resulting in these parties achieving significant growth, understand the components of those communication techniques in order to isolate the factors attributing to this achieved success and develop a model that can be replicated from a business organization in order to achieve similar beneficial results.The study revealed that there is a clear connection between political parties and business organizations, broadening the research fields of both entities respectively. Furthermore, the findings were categorized based on potential value, with practices such as “thriving on dissatisfaction”, “taking advantage of emotions”, “showing visible structures as an organization / political party”, “intentional use of weak signals”, “leader’s direct connection to audience” and “formulating receiver interpretation of signals” appearing to have high potential in achieving success if implemented correctly in the communication strategy.

This research examines the impact of dividend payout (DP) on future effective firm value for a large international sample of publicly listed companies. Besides the known share price drop right after dividend announcements, literature provides a solid basis for argumentation towards a positive as well as a negative relationship on a longer horizon, going beyond this initial market reaction. The underlying research is the first to discuss and directly examine this issue, following the valuation model introduced by Fama and French (1998). The statistically significant and robust results show a positive impact of DP towards future firm value on a one- and two-year horizon. This research further accounts for the effect of National Governance (NG), proxied by the World Governance Index, as country level moderator on the main relationship. The interacting effect on the main variables is statistically significant on horizons beyond one year.

What do we do when we realise that others with whom we interact already know something about relevant qualities of ours? Do we relying on the information that we naturally emit to get our message across, or do we take actions to try to change the situation in our favour? And, does the information that we emit, generated intentionally or unintentionally, allow us to cooperate with others and conflict to be resolved peacefully? Drawing on signalling and 'countersignalling' theories, and a recent behavioural theory, I explore these questions using two experiments in which the relevant qualities are trustworthiness and toughness, and observational data from the 1997 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities concerning violence among prisoners. In the experiments, subjects, who do not know what will follow, initially create a natural indicator of their qualities, and subsequently, have the opportunity to send another indicator, this time fully informed. In one experiment, consistent with countersignalling theory, subjects whose generosity is clear deign to send further information, while those whose generosity can be called under question choose to update their initial action the most. In the other, the toughest subjects put the most effort into getting their message across. Consistent among both, senders' actions correspond to receivers' evaluations. Finally, I find that pertinent information can allow conflicts to be resolved successfully; it is linked with less violence in prison and in a laboratory-based contest.

The topic of capital structure has been one that has plagued the academic world for a number of years. There have been numerous works published on the subject which have presented such theories as the Modigliani and Miller Propositions, the Trade-off Theory, Pecking Order Theory, Signaling Theory and Agency Cost Theory to name a few. However, little research has been done on the application of these and other theories to banking institutions located in Southern Africa. This adds increased complexity to the determining of a local bank’s capital structure policy and the difficulty is further exacerbated by the increased application of regulatory control. In the wake of the recent global financial crisis, banking institutions have been placed under the spotlight and their capital adequacy levels come into question. A need was identified to investigate the impact that capital adequacy has on a bank’s performance and whether it achieves its purpose of increasing stability amongst banks. This study analysed the determinants of the capital structure of banks in South Africa based on secondary financial data and by performing this analysis attempted to establish trends in capital structure policy and regulatory compliance. The study also attempted to identify best practices that contribute to the overall value and performance of the banking institution. The expectation is that the correct application of capital structure theory and compliance with regulations will decrease a bank’s risk profile and in turn result in a more stable monetary system and economy. Overall, the results of the analysis were inconclusive, but lay the basis for potential future research. Conclusions drawn from the results and literature create greater understanding of the dynamics of capital structure and its implications to South African Banks. Copyright 2011, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Naidu, W 2011, The implications of capital structure theory and regulation for South African banking institutions, MCom dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-01272012-122305 / > C12/4/97/gm / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Financial Management / unrestricted

This thesis addresses the question of who votes in Africa and why. It uses three sets of quantitative data at three different levels to test its claims: an original compilation of national level institutional and socioeconomic indicators for over 700 elections from independence until 2006 compiled by the author; the Afrobarometer survey of almost 50 000 voters in 17 multiparty African regimes; and the first ever purpose-built survey aimed at testing rational choice turnout models in an African case study, which was designed, administered and analysed by the author in 2005 in Durban, South Africa. It uses a mixture of statistical methods to test comprehensively the determinants of voting in pooled and multilevel, logistic and linear, individual and national level models. It finds that the central claims of the rational choice model do not generally apply in African elections. Both the closeness of the election and the costs of participation are not found to be central to the voting calculus of African voters. Instead those citizens who face the highest barriers to participation in the West: the rural, poor and minimally educated, are the citizens who vote most in Africa. The thesis argues that this is because turnout in Africa is mobilised turnout and these are the groups of people targeted by mobilising agents. It further finds that three central institutions of African politics; ethnicity, clientelism and regime type further structure patterns of mobilisation in ways that have been entirely neglected in studies of turnout until now. Finally, it confirms that voting is habitual and that voters are socialised by formative experiences in their youth, especially the nature of the regime that they grow up in and how democratic they think the country is.

Language is arguably one of the most salient features that distinguish humans from other animal species. However, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical research, there is currently no consensus as to why language emerged exclusively in the human species or how it evolved its unique communicative structure. In this thesis, I therefore take a multi-pronged approach to analysing and testing several different hypotheses for the biological function and evolution of language. In Chapter I, I review the evidence and theoretical arguments for each of these proposals and provide, in place, a synthetic perspective which integrates or eliminates each of these ostensibly competing hypotheses for the biological function of language. In Chapter II, I employ the first experimental test of the interdependence hypothesis: the unique proposal offered to explain the emergence and potential coevolution of language and cooperation in the human species. In pursuit of this experiment, I employed a cooperative social foraging task using small and large groups to determine what factors enable individuals to make sense of information from others and converge upon a group consensus. In Chapter III, I take an experimental approach to determine whether aspects of human language can be characterised in terms of honest signalling theory. In this respect, I test several different proposals predicted by the sexual selection and deception hypotheses for human language function. In Chapter IV, I divert attention away from biological function to focus more closely on language structure. More specifically, I take an experimental approach to the problem of how and indeed whether recursive syntax evolved to be a consistent feature of human language. In pursuit of this experiment, I utilized the Imposing Memory Task (IMT) and a recursive syntax measure, to determine relative performance on each of these cognitive tasks, thereby testing whether recursive syntax may have evolved in tandem with higher-order intentionality (also known as embedded mindreading). Finally, in Chapter V, I discuss the results and implications of these experiments, and possible suggestions for future studies.

This paper examines what effects announcements of green bond issuances have on publicly traded firms’ stock prices in Europe. Signalling theory is used in line with suggestions from previous research to investigate potential abnormal returns. Using a dataset of 432 green bond issuances from 165 unique publicly traded firms on European stock exchanges, we conduct an event study around the announcement day [0,1] estimating abnormal returns using the market model. To further investigate determinants of abnormal returns we conduct a multiple linear regression analysis. We document no statistic or economic significant effect in our full sample. Only first-time issuances of green bonds have a significant abnormal return of 0,74% in the period after announcement but show no significant results on the announcement date. Green bonds being a credible signal of environmental commitment thus has inconclusive support in our study and equity investors seem largely indifferent to firm’s green bond announcements.

This research reviews the existing Tax Planning (TP) measures and explores the consistency of UK firms’ engagement in TP; evaluates incentives for TP and its value relevance in a signalling theory framework; and studies corporate governance effects on TP for the firms in an institutional theory framework. It analyses a unique set of 1,482 hand-collected firm-year observations and proposes ‘undisclosed TP’ as a new TP measure. It finds that firms consistently engage in TP and their TP disclosures have improved; internationally oriented firms do not engage in TP to save taxes; risky firms, firms with low operating cashflows and growing firms, however, do not engage in TP to arrange funds internally – so they signal their non-engagement in TP to the market. Further findings confirm public awareness and market valuation of firms’ TP engagements. Boards’ tax affiliations result in reductions in tax payments (expenses) for strongly (weakly) governed firms. Professional accountancy qualifications on the board result in significantly higher tax payments for weakly governed firms. The auditors’ provided tax services (institutional ownership) result in higher tax payments for weakly (strongly) governed firms suggesting supplementary (complementary) role of auditors (institutional ownership) for the internal governance on TP. This research concludes that there is a need for further TP disclosures to reduce the information asymmetry associated with negatively valued TP activities; recommends auditors’ involvement in TP services; and recommends tax affiliates on the board to bring tax savings in a strongly governed environment. The current study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications. / University of Bradford