published_or_final_version / abstract / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Accountancy, 2017 / Research into corporate governance has shown that there are a number of factors that influence company performance, one of them being ownership structure. The objective of this study is to determine how ownership structure affects the performance of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Five categories of shareholders were identified namely, managerial shareholders, institutional investors, family shareholders, government shareholders and foreign shareholders. Some shareholders of a company may be entirely passive whereas others may play a more active role in the company or perform an important monitoring service. The various motivations and abilities of the different types of shareholders may directly impact their ability to influence the major corporate decisions of the company that will ultimately impact the performance of the company. Using return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as performance measures this study investigates the effect of ownership structure on the performance of 143 companies from the year 2004 to 2014. The results of the study reveal that of the five different categories of shareholders identified it was only managerial shareholders and institutional shareholders that had a significant impact on a company’s performance / GR2018

Debt holding by managers, i.e., inside debt, aligns the incentives of managers more closely with those of debtholders, reducing agency costs of debt (Jensen and Meckling (1976) and Edmans and Liu (2011)). My thesis investigates the effect of managerial ownership of debt on corporate risk-taking, bank loan contracting, and accounting conservatism. / In the first chapter I examine the effect of managerial ownership of debt on agency costs of debt problems related to risk-taking. I find that higher managerial ownership of debt implements lower corporate risk-taking, in terms of less investment in R&D, more investment in capital expenditures, and more corporate diversification. The role of inside debt in moderating risk-taking is more pronounced in firms with high level of default risk. These findings suggest that managers with large inside debt holdings are less likely to pursue risky projects that potentially transfer wealth from debtholders to shareholders. / In the second chapter I examine how terms of bank loans are related to managerial ownership of debt. Specifically, the analysis uncovers significant evidence of lower loan spreads for firms with larger debt ownership by CEOs. The negative relation is more pronounced when creditors face higher expropriation risk and when the CEO's expected retirement horizon is beyond loan maturity. I also find that loans to firms with larger managerial debt holdings are associated with smaller lending syndicates, fewer covenant restrictions, and less collateral requirement, consistent with lenders anticipating lower expropriation risk at these firms. / In the third chapter I examine the relation between accounting conservatism and managerial ownership of debt. Consistent with debt holdings by managers mitigating the debtholder-shareholder conflicts and reducing debtholders' demand for accounting conservatism, I find significant evidence of less conservative financial reporting at firms whose CEOs have accumulated more deferred compensation and pension benefits. This negative relation is more pronounced in firms with higher expected agency costs of debt and in firms that can credibly commit to a higher level of conservatism if required by debtholders. These findings are robust to using a number of alternative accounting conservatism measures and to correcting for potential endogeneity of managerial ownership of debt. / Xin, Xiangang. / Advisers: Danqing Young; Oliver M. Rui; Cong Wang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-07(E), Section: A. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-140). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Essay one. For banks, good governances can reduce both the abilities and incentives of insiders to expropriate bank resources and promote bank efficiency, and are supposed to have real economic effect on their customers and firms in that country. This study examines how banking sector's ownership structure is related to the firm-level investment efficiency on a sample of 88,764 firm-year observations across 36 developed and developing countries between 1995 and 2006. I find that, ceteris paribus, a country's banking sector with more cash flow rights by controlling owners improves firms' investment efficiency; whereas, a country's banking sector with larger divergence between cash flow rights and control rights by controlling owners reduces firms' investment efficiency. In addition, I find that the relation between a country's banking sector ownership structure and firms' investment efficiency is stronger for low growth firms, suggesting banks' stronger debt monitoring role on firms with free cash flow problem. Besides, banks have more influence on investment efficiency of firms, which rely on more external financing. Finally, the relation between banking sector's ownership structure and firms' investment efficiency is more pronounced in countries with stronger private monitoring for banks and better information environment of banks. On the whole, the results suggest that banking sector's ownership structure is an important instrument to govern banks' operation with regard to efficient lending and sound governances on firms' investment decision. / Essay two. In this study, we examine whether and how incentives in bank lending, in emerging market like China, influence firms' investment behaviors, the key determinant of firms' productivity. First, being connected with bureaucrats provides firms with a comparative non-economic advantage of access to debt in China. Our empirical results show that loans granting to political connected firms is less sensitive to those firms' profitability, which is consistent with "rent-seeking" hypothesis. Second, political connection is a violated factor in debt markets and politically connected lending is accompanied by less monitoring posted by banks. Consequently, we find that firms with political tie invest less efficiently than firms without political tie when they can access to abnormal debt through political tie. Moreover, the negative relation between politically connected lending and firms' investment efficiency is stronger for SOE firms and low growth firms. Finally, we find that region development with regard to financial development and government quality improvement reduces politically connected lending's negative impact on firms' investment efficiency. In sum, soft lending, like politically connected lending, destroy economic growth because of misallocation of scary resources among firms and also because of less incentive to monitor firms' project selection. / essay 1. Bank ownership structure, bank regulation, and firm investment: international evidence -- essay 2. Bank lending incentives and firm investment decisions in China. / Zheng, Ying. / Adviser: Joseph P.H. Fan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2173. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-90). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Leung Shek Ling Olivia. / "August 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-64). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

L'actionnariat salarié (AS) constitue un levier important pour développer le sentiment d'appartenance des salariés à leur entreprise et les fédérer autour des objectifs stratégiques. Cette forme de participation traduit la cohésion interne et la fierté qui unissent les salariés à leur entreprise. En détenant des parts de propriété, les salariés actionnaires témoignent de leur confiance à l’égard de l’avenir de leur entreprise. Constatant le développement de l'actionnariat salarié et anticipant les implications profondes de cette pratique, le sujet de ma thèse propose d'étudier la particularité de ce double statut d'actionnaire-salarié et d'analyser les conséquences de la pratique de l'actionnariat salarié sur la création de la valeur partenariale. En s’appuyant sur les développements récents que nous suggère la littérature académique, la première partie de cette recherche se propose d’examiner, dans un premier temps, les effets induits par la pratique de l’actionnariat salarié sur les performances individuelle et organisationnelle, puis, dans un second temps la place privilégiée qu’occupe l’AS, en tant que levier de création de valeur partenariale. La seconde partie de cette recherche analyse de manière empirique la contribution de l’AS à la création de valeur partenariale, et plus précisément, mesure les effets attitudinaux et comportementaux de l’AS sur les différentes dimensions de ce construit dans le contexte des entreprises du SBF 250. Mots clés : actionnariat salarié, création de la valeur, valeur partenariale. / Employee share ownership (ESOP) is an important lever to expand the membership of employees in their company and unite them around the strategic objectives. The aim of employee ownership is to associate staff not only to the company's results or determining working conditions, but also giving him the opportunity to influence the destiny of the company. Noting the development of employee stock ownership and anticipating the profound implications of this practice, the subject of my thesis proposes to study the specificity of this dual status as a shareholder-employee and analyses the consequences of this practice on creating stakeholder value. The first part of this research seeks to examine at first the effects induced by the practice of employee share ownership on individual and organizational performance, then secondly the privileged place of ESOP as a lever to create stakeholder value. The second part of this research examines empirically the contribution of ESOP to create stakeholder value, and more precisely measure attitudinal and behavioural effects of ESOP on the different dimensions of this construct in the context of SBF 250 companies.

This study is an empirical examination of a new theory that links dividends to institutional ownership in a framework of both information signaling and agency costs. Under this theory put forth by Allen, Bernardo and Welch in 2000, dividends are paid out to attract tax-favored institutional investors, thereby signaling good firm quality and/or more efficient monitoring. This is based on the premise that institutions are considered sophisticated investors with superior ability and stronger incentive to be informed about the firm quality compared to retail investors. On the agency level, institutional investors display monitoring capabilities, and can detect and correct managerial pitfalls, thus their presence serves as an assurance that the firm will remain well run. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the implications of the theory by testing various aspects of the relationship between dividends and institutional holdings. Unlike the prevalent literature on this topic, I give specific attention to the different types of institutional investors and their incentives to invest in dividend paying stocks. Moreover, I analyze the signaling and the agency effects on the market reaction to dividend initiations within the framework proposed by the theory. Finally, I test the smoothing effect institutions have on dividends by examining the firm's propensity to increase dividends given the level of institutional ownership. I find institutional holders to respond positively to dividend initiation announcements as they adjust their portfolios by buying or increasing their holdings of the dividend paying stock following the announcement. I also find that this response is displayed more strongly among tax-favored institutions. My test results also reveal that positive abnormal returns to dividend initiation announcements are a decreasing function of institutional holdings in the dividend initiating firm, and that this mitigating effect of institutional ownership on the market reaction to dividend initiations is stronger for firms with higher information asymmetry and more potential for agency problems. This evidence lends some degree of support to the tested theory. Additional support to lies in the test results of its smoothing hypothesis which reveal that as institutional ownership increases, the propensity of firms to increase dividends decreases.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

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This thesis investigates the effect of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes on employee job attitudes and behaviours by taking into account the critical role of participation in decision making. The data were obtained from a large British retail organization operating profit sharing (PS) and save-as-you-earn (SAYE) schemes. This is a quantitative study in which the data were gathered through a questionnaire. The unit of analysis is the individuals who responded to the survey, and the study is cross-sectional. To analyse the data a variety of statistical techniques, namely frequency, Pearson correlation, partial correlation, t-test, chi-square (X2), reliability, multiple regression, hierarchical regression, and path analyses, were conducted using SPSS. The sample comprised 1,000 employees subdivided into groups of managerial and non-managerial employees, and participants in schemes and non-participants in schemes. The administration of the questionnaire resulted in 450 returns (430 usable), an overall response rate of 45%. This study addresses four main research questions: (1)What are the effects of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes (financial participation) on the job attitudes of individual employees in a large organization? (2) What are the effects of participation in decision making on employee job attitudes in a large organization? (3) What are the relative effects of financial participation in comparison to the effects of individual participation in decisions? (4) Does the combination of financial participation and participation in decision making produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes than does participation in decision making on its own? The aim of this study was to construct a more advanced model of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes by reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, those developed by Long (1978) and Florkowski (1989). After reviewing the employee participation literature and testing Long's and Florkowski's models, it was found that both financial participation and participation in decision making have separate effects on employee job attitudes and behaviours, even if financial participation has a small (not statistically significant) impact on some attitudes and behaviours. Since financial participation shows a negligible effect on some job attitudes, and participation in decision making has a stronger effect on job attitudes than has financial participation, the new model is constructed on the assumption that both (a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision making and (b) participation in decision making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes, such as integration, involvement, commitment, satisfaction, motivation, perceived pay equity, and perceived performance-reward contingencies. The test of the new model shows that both (a) the combination of fmancial participation and participation in decision making and (b) participation in decision making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes and behaviours, but the combination of financial participation and participation in decision making does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes than does participation in decision making on its own. It should be noted that it is not known in this research whether financial participation changed employees' actual influence in decision making, as the study did not collect any data on this question. Therefore, there is the possibility that if the same study were conducted in organizations with financial participation schemes which increase employees' influence in decision making, the effect of the combination of financial participation and participation in decision making might be found to be stronger than that reported in this dissertation.