M.A. (Information Science) / As organisations exist in the constantly overwhelming information age, more emphasis is put on information as resource and the economic value it has in the organisation. The South African life insurance industry is no different from other organisations and deals with a vast number ofinformation that flows through these organisations daily. In this study, the role of information, the management of information and the existence and implementation of an information policy are examined. The appointment of an information manager to manage information is also examined. The study was done to determine the level of importance and value of information in this type of industry and whether the South African insurance industry has identified information as a valuable resource in the organisation. Information as resource and the management thereof as competitive advantage is studied. The research methods applied were to carry out a literature study on information and its role as resource in an organisation, the roles and responsibilities of an information manager and the advantage and implementation of an information policy in the organisation. A questionnaire was compiled and sent to all the major South African life insurance companies to determine the above aspects and the current status in this industry.

The study has sought to examine knowledge management practice in the Old Mutual, Buffalo City Metropole. The study has been conducted against the backdrop of measuring how far South African companies are in applying Knowledge Management (KM) tools and techniques to improve their competitive advantage. The study was conducted based on the assumption that insurance companies in South Africa are at the forefront in the use and application of technology. Various concepts are defined throughout the study. In reviewing literature for example, the study introduces the reader to various theories, views and approaches to KM. The most significant of these are the cultural and social systems approach on one hand and the product or process approach on the other. The study relied on the use of a variety of data collection methods such as questionnaires, interviews and participant observation for the purposes of collecting primary data. From the primary data collected, it was discovered that the largest number of responses came from marketing, sales and customer services departments. The employees have limited flexibility in terms of decision making and team work, due to the rigidity of tasks. The findings revealed that the company has a loosely structured infrastructure, where each strategic business unit (SBU) manages its own IT tools and documents. All these underlying aspects are not conducive to the promotion of and growth of KM in any company. The final chapter concludes with a model for KM implementation and the procedures to be followed to ensure that the practice adds value to the company.

In this study the service quality from a Metropolitan Broker Division towards contracted brokers in the southern region was investigated. From the industry and competitor analyses it can be concluded that service quality has become an important factor in the financial service industry, especially in the insurance industry. It is therefore important to look at options to outperform competitors. The literature survey was aimed at improving the level of quality service to contracted brokers. Based on the information obtained through the literature study and survey, a guideline to assist a Metropolitan Broker Division to improve the level of service quality was developed. The purpose of the empirical study was to determine if the service that contracted brokers receive from the Metropolitan Broker Division is of an acceptable level. The answers from respondents were analysed and compared with findings from the literature study. Recommendations were formulated for improving the level of service quality towards contracted brokers. The empirical study results were satisfactory and informative. The positive responses identified can be utilised to strengthen the marketing strategies by Metropolitan Broker Division while attention should be given to the negative responses.

This research was designed to investigate the relationship between audit risk and the conduct of the audit engagement in the specific context of an oil and gas audit. Because reserve estimates are in the financial reports of oil and gas entities (in the depreciation, depletion and amortization calculation, the limitation on capitalized costs for companies using the full-cost method, and the required supplementary disclosure for companies subject to Securities and Exchange Commission requirements) and because the reserve estimation process is considerably affected by numerous factors, there is a chance that a material error could be incorporated into the financial statement representations with which the auditor is associated. The objective of the research was to (1) identify conditions which are important in an assessment of audit risk in associating with reserve estimates, and (2) determine the impact of some of these conditions on the conduct of the audit.

The thesis constitutes an examination of contemporary dance in the 1990s in Greece as exemplified in the case of three dance companies - SineQuaNon, Oktana Dancetheatre and Edafos Company – major exponents of the bourgeoning dance scene of that time. The focus is on a particular historical moment, the year 1995, and on three choreographies – ProsOlotoixos [Tour de Force] by Apostolia Papadamaki (SineQuaNon), Daphnis and Chloe by Konstantinos Rigos (Oktana Dancetheatre) and Enos Leptou Sigy [One Moment of Silence] by Dimitris Papaioannou (Edafos Company) - as indications of the vitality of contemporary dance of the times which caused major changes in dance policy. The main hypothesis is that contemporary dance of the 1990s became a site where ideas of change and renewal, pertinent in social milieu became embodied, but at the same time, the companies proposed alternative notions of community, cosmopolitanism and gay identities. The three cases reveal the complex interplay between dance and its social, political and historical context, centering on processes of modernisation of the country and cultural discourses. The thesis explores the emergence of a new generation of artists who negotiated and captured aspects and tensions of the process of modernisation and connected their practices to new artistic identities in accordance with the changing context. The research has been influenced by recent efforts outside Greece to re-examine dance in its social, historical and economic context and to bring the body into historical and contemporary analyses of culture. This methodology highlights the web of power within which contemporary dance was involved, and following post-structuralist critique of history, examines dance history, not as a linear progressive development but through a re-negotiation of power balances between discourses, bodies and institutions.

No description available.

Abstract The aim of this work was to determine the extent of land ownership by companies in Northern Finland over the period 1885-1939, what companies acquired land, what prices they paid for it and the reasons for them doing this. Attention is also paid to the general and regional causes of these sales of land. The perspective adopted is largely that of the industrial sector, so that the economic and social repercussions are deemed to lie beyond the scope of this work, and even the immediate consequences of the purchases of land are touched on only in passing. The timber companies were most active in acquiring land in 1900-1920, over which period their holdings increased more than 6-fold (from 79 690 ha to 513 450 ha). In 1915 the companies owned 3.6% of the total surface area of Northern Finland, 8.8% of the private land and 5.7% of the total number of farm or forest properties. The land holdings of the timber companies decreased from 1920 onwards and became established at around 450 000 ha in the 1930s. This took place through the companies releasing land for settlement purposes, either voluntarily or under the Land Restoration Law of 1925, seeking in this way to rid themselves of land that was of no use to them. The chief focus of purchases of land by the timber companies in Northern Finland was in Kainuu, where they owned a total of 292 820 ha at the peak in this trend, in 1920. Over the period 1915-1939 about 60% of the land owned by such companies in Northern Finland was situated in Kainuu, and even by 1915 they had acquired about 27% of all the privately-owned land in the region. The main reason for the timber companies' interest in purchasing land was the expansion in sawn timber production, which meant that the volume of timber required for this purpose increased from 2.6 million stems in 1870 to 34 million by 1910. At the same time the pulp and paper industries were also stepping up production. There was a fear that Finland's forest reserves would be exhausted by this level of utilization. At the time of this great expansion in the forest industries the peasant farming population of Finland were still living at a more or less subsistence level. Productivity in agriculture was low, poverty and years of crop failure tried the limits of human endurance, and there were few opportunities for the farmers of Northern Finland to gain anything in the way of an income. One possible means of raising some cash was by selling timber from one's forest or undertaking lumbering work, and another was to sell one's whole farm to a timber company. Gradually a situation arose in which the peasant farmers became anxious to sell forest land and the industry was eager to buy it. The most prominent landowners were the trading houses of Oulu. Their land ownership was transferred in 1912 to Ab Uleå Oy, whose landed property was over 200 000 ha at its peak. Another prominent landowner was Puutavara Osakeyhtiö Kemi with its 75 000 ha of land. From 1925 onwards the companies' land ownership was concentrated in the hands of three major owners owing to selling and buying of land between the companies. Kajaanin Puutavara Osakeyhtiö owned 223 000 ha, Puutavara Osakeyhtiö Kemi 84 000 ha and Kymmene Ab 36 600 ha. The companies cannot be accused of having been dishonest in their buying of land. A market price was formed to woodland, and this price determined the value of the forests. The state also exercised some influence on the market price by selling its own forests.

This thesis compares the tax legislation of business corporations and their members in Czech and Austrian law. The aim of the thesis is to describe different taxation systems of business corporations in the Czech Republic and in Austria, and to compare certain aspects of their taxation regimes, and to draw conclusions and de lege ferenda recommendations from performed comparison. The initial part of this thesis briefly describes business-related aspects of Czech and Austrian business companies, because these aspects form the basis and are a prerequisite for understanding of their taxation. The merits of this thesis begins with a description and an analysis of the elements of corporate income tax in the Czech Republic, followed by a more detailed analysis of selected non-tax deductible expenses. The following part relates to a particular taxation regime of Czech business companies and to the determination of the corporate income tax of Czech resident taxpayers. This part is divided into income taxation of capital companies and their members and shareholders and into income taxation of partnerships and their members. Practical knowledge is also mentioned. The following part of the thesis is dedicated to Austrian tax law. The elements of Austrian corporate income tax are also described and analysed....

No abstract / Dissertation LLM--University of Pretoria, 2014 / hb2014 / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

LL.M. (Commercial Law) / Section 81(1)(d) of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 allows a company, one or more of its directors or shareholders to apply to a court of law to wind up a solvent company. In essence, they can do so under three specified circumstances namely, where the directors are deadlocked in the management of the company and the shareholders are unable to break the deadlock, the shareholders are deadlocked in voting power and have failed for a period that includes at least two consecutive annual general meeting dates, to elect successors to directors whose terms have expired, or it is otherwise just and equitable for a company to be wound up. Item 9 schedule 5(1) of the Companies Act 2008 states that chapter 14 of the Companies Act 1973 continues to apply in regard to winding-up and liquidation of companies under the Companies Act 2008 as if the Companies Act 61 of 1973 has not been repealed. By virtue of this schedule, section 347 of the Companies Act 1973 still remains applicable. However, section 347(1) of the Companies Act 1973 still makes reference to section 346 of the Companies Act 1973 which is no longer applicable for winding-up of a solvent company and for that very reason it appears as though the intention is that section 347(1) of the Companies Act 1973 should not apply in such circumstances, I recommended that an amendment be made to the Companies Act 2008 to rectify this discrepancy. In light of the inclusion of section 347(2) of the Companies Act 1973, by virtue of item 9 schedule 5 of the Companies Act 2008, an application brought by shareholders places a definitive onus and an additional burden on the applicants to prove that they have exhausted all remedies available to them and they had no other alternative but to bring a winding-up application as a last resort. The all encompassing provision of section 81(1)(d)(iii) of the Companies Act 2008, I argued, should allow for a winding-up of a company, even in respect of the weaker forms of deadlock, where it does not fit neatly within section 81(1)(d)(i) and section 81(1)(d)(ii) of the Companies Act 2008. The word ‘otherwise’, in my opinion, has been correctly included in section 81(1)(d)(iii) of the Companies Act 2008. The courts will inevitably be 8 | P a g e left to determine the perimeters of section 81(1)(d)(iii) of the Companies Act in relation to the sections 81(1)(d)(i) and 81(1)(d)(ii) of the Companies Act 2008. I discovered striking similarities to the wording of the just and equitable provision and this wording has been consistent in various versions of the companies acts (both current and previous) in various jurisdictions. The ejusdem generis principle, I argued, is not applicable and the just and equitable provision needs to be looked at independently of the other grounds. From the recent case law arising on the interpretation of section 81(1)(d) of the Companies Act 2008, it is clear that the various principles which were developed during the era of the previous companies acts were still applicable and relevant to the Companies Act 2008, unless the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa decides otherwise.