Univ., Diss.--Montpellier.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2007. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-06, page: 3063.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2007. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-06, page: 3068.

Zugl.: Hamburg, Helmut-Schmidt-Univ., veränd. Habil.-Schr., 2007

Zugl.: Nizza, Universiẗat, Masterarbeit, 2004.

M.Comm. / The previous narrow view that directors are accountable to shareholders only and that reporting of company affairs should be left to them alone is changing. With the world moving into an ever-developing era of transparency, a dynamic participating approach is required in which directors' reports would be directed at all stakeholders and should consequently address all matters of concern and interest. In respect to similar expectations overseas, the Treadway Commission in the United States of America and the Cadbury Committee in the United Kingdom, addressed the financial issues of corporate governance and made certain recommendations for change. After the publication of these recommendations, the Institute of Directors verified similar expectations in South Africa and the King Committee was formed. The King Report on Corporate Governance published in 1994 (the King Report) has advocated fundamental changes to current corporate governance practices in South Africa. The objective of the Report is to improve the system by which companies in South Africa are directed and controlled and to improve openness and accountability. The King Report recommendations were drafted to supply the necessary guidelines in the providing of relevant and comprehensive information to all stakeholders concerned. The query which arises from a review of the Report's recommendations is whether the stakeholders, whose only access to relevant information is in most instances the published interim and annual financial statements, will be able to determine if the King recommendations were in actual fact implemented. In view of the fact that one of the main objectives of the King recommendations was to ensure that relevant, timeous and understandable information is available to users, it is imperative to be able to determine if the recommendations were in actual fact implemented. The question which this research report addresses is whether it would be possible to determine from an examination of the published financial statements of a listed company if the King recommendations were implemented in practice. To obtain an answer to this question, a questionnaire was drafted which addresses the specific recommendations. The questionnaire was then applied to the published annual financial statements of three selected companies, namely Edgars, Alpha Limited and the Seardel Group. The finding of the research is that the companies indicated, as required by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, that they do comply with the King recommendations, even though certain instances were found where the Code of Corporate Practices and Conduct were not complied with. Numerous references were also made to the companies' commitment to the implementation of the recommendations. There is, however, no indication, or verification, of the extent to which the recommendations were implemented in practice. The conclusion from the research is that the King recommendations can only be truly successful once the actual implementation of the recommendations, the problems experienced in implementation and the contribution to the enhancement of better corporate governance, are verified by an independent party and these findings published in an accessible document.

IT governance has emerged as a fundamental business imperative because of its strategic role in realising business value. This comes from the fact that IT in many organisations has grown to become one of the most valuable assets and major driver of business success and revenue. As a result, executives in many organisations have come to realise that IT needs to be governed if business success and revenue are to be achieved. This article seeks to compare the status of IT governance in South Africa as reported by the ITWeb in their IT governance survey with the global IT governance status report released by the IT governance Institute (ITGI). The intention is to show whether South Africa is in line with the rest of the world or if it is ahead or behind in terms of IT governance.In order to compare the two surveys, results of the 2006 ITGI global report was collected including their very first results which came out in 2003. These were compared to check for progress. Similarly, ITWeb results of 2006 were collected together with the previous survey results of 2005 and compared against each other to see which practises had improved or weakened. Finally the ITGI global results were compared and contrasted to the ITWeb results to see if the local results were out of synchronisation or in line with the global results.The results indicate that overall South Africa is in line with the rest of the world in terms of IT governance although there are some practices where catch up is necessary. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Over the past years, IT governance has become a key focus area for IT stakeholders around the world, especially in companies with high IT spend. IT governance is about making choices about the IT spend. It uses a set of management practices by which business and IT management together determine the level of IT investment, decide where to invest IT resources, track IT performance, and establish the strategies and principles on which IT is managed. The aim of this study was to assess the status of IT governance in the Top 20 IT spending companies in South Africa. This descriptive study examines how IT governance is being implemented through number of IT governance practices and assesses the maturity levels of IT governance in the Top 20 IT spending companies. The paper also focused on how internationally recognized standards such as COBIT and ITIL are being utilised. The study revealed the number of findings with regards to the state of IT governance based on secondary objectives, which were to understand the levels of IT maturity in the top 20 IT spending companies, the drivers of IT governance and the implementation of IT governance practice. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Includes bibliographical references. / Many developing democracies have attempted to systematically engineer the party system in order to help reduce the salience of particularistic identities. In Sub-Saharan Africa, government intervention in political party development has been often been concerned with countering the political mobilization of ethnic, racial, and/or religious identities. This concern has led at least 19 Sub-Saharan African nations to design legislation to ban political parties based on ethnicity, race, tribe, religion, region or any other particularistic identity. This paper employs two measures to determine the particularistic nature of parties and compares the results across countries with particularistic party bans which have been enforced, those with bans which have not been enforced and countries without a ban. The paper argues that particularistic party bans do not consistently accomplish their intended effects. However, it is clear that particularistic identities are not primordial and do indeed react to political forces. If particularistic party bans are executed with oppression, the results can be detrimental to reducing the salience of ethnicity. On the contrary, if particularistic party bans are enforced or employed in a fair-handed manner the effects may be beneficial to the consolidation of democracy in divided societies. More important are the political and social contexts of a nation which either reinforce non particularistic politics or undermine it.

Policy research and analysis is a complex and dynamic field of study and practice. This study explores the field i l l terms of assessing the utility of contemporary policy techniques ill the intematiollal context and the implications thereof for environmental policy-making in South Africa. More recently, the politics of envirollmental policymaking has emerged as a major issue 011 both the agendas of the developed and developing nations. As underscored by the seminal Rio Earth Summit of 1992 the e11viro11melil is probably the most pressing challenge facing tile globe in the new millennium. Addressing and prioritising these policy issues may require radical policy shifts. However, this study shows that policy conditionalities prevailing i l l the more industrialised nations have been developed in a different context and may therefore be irrelevant and of limited utility to less developed nations, forcing the latter to subvert the conventional policy cycle. Specifically, this study has explored the context of environmental policy-making in South Africa and extrapolated essential policy proci!dures and elements for its environmental policy-making along the policy-making continuum. In addition, an over-arching framework of sustainable development must support environmental policy development in South Africa. International experience regarding the emerging sustainability paradigm and its relevance for South African policy development is paramount if it is not to lag global environmental policy innovations and developments. Sustainability should emerge as a key organising principle for debate around policy content and structure with the imperative of responding to local policy conditionalities and priorities. As long as South Africa and many developing nations employ industrialised policy techniques, its policy processes and principles will lag effective and context specific policy research and development.