Cette thèse étudie différentes questions en lien avec la régulation des coopératives de crédit (CC, credit unions en anglais), et plus particulièrement les régulations de capital et de liquidité. Elle comprend trois essais. Les données utilisées proviennent essentiellement du National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) des États-Unis. Dans le premier essai, nous étudions l’effet du capital sur les activités de prêt des CC en utilisant les régressions quantiles. Nous trouvons que la croissance des prêts des CC diminue à mesure que leur ratio de capital augmente, et cela pour les 60 premiers centiles du taux de croissance des prêts. Pour chaque quantile, l'impact négatif est plus marqué lors de la crise financière de 2007-2009. Les résultats ne sont pas identiques pour les CC complexes (taille des actifs > 100 millions$-US) et les CC non-complexes (taille des actifs ≤ 100 millions$-US). Pour les CC non complexes, des ratios de capital plus élevés se traduisent par un taux de croissance des prêts plus faible pour la plupart des quantiles, tandis que le ratio de capital n'est pas déterminant dans la croissance des prêts des CC complexes. Dans cet essai, nous fournissons également un moyen de tester laquelle de la demande ou de l'offre est le facteur le plus important de la variation des prêts pour les CC. Dans le deuxième essai, nous analysons l’interaction entre le capital et la liquidité dans les CC. L’essai examine le comportement d'ajustement de la liquidité des CC à la suite de chocs exogènes de capital. Nous trouvons en premier lieu que la majorité des CC non complexes auraient satisfait à l’exigence du ratio de liquidité NSFR s’il avait été en vigueur tandis que les CC complexes n’y auraient pas satisfait. De plus, après avoir subi des chocs exogènes du capital, les CC non complexes augmentent leur position de liquidité tout en améliorant simultanément leur ratio de capital, ce qui n'est pas le cas pour les CC complexes. Ainsi, malgré l'absence de réglementation explicite de la liquidité imposée aux CC américaines, il existe une synergie entre le capital et la liquidité de sorte que les normes minimales de capital réglementaire suffisent à elles seules à atténuer, au moins en partie, le risque d'insolvabilité et le risque d'illiquidité dans les CC non complexes. Dans le troisième essai, nous testons si et comment les CC américaines gèrent activement leurs ratios de liquidité, et estimons la vitesse d'ajustement pour chaque CC séparément. La majorité des coopératives gèrent activement un ratio de liquidité assimilable au NSFR. Pour ce ratio de liquidité, les ajustements au niveau du passif du bilan sont plus fréquents que celles au niveau de l’actif mais les vitesses d'ajustement au niveau de l'actif sont plus élevées. Les CC qui ont une taille plus grande, celles dont le taux de croissance des prêts est plus élevé et celles dont le niveau de liquidité est plus bas, sont plus susceptibles de gérer activement leurs ratios de liquidité. / This thesis studies different questions related to the regulation of credit unions (CUs), and more particularly the capital and liquidity regulations. It includes three essays. The data used comes mainly from the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) of the United States. In the first essay, we study the effect of capital on lending activities of CUs using quantile regression. We find that CUs’ loan growth decreases as their net worth ratio increases for the first 60 percentiles of loan growth. For each quantile, the negative impact is stronger during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. The results are not identical for complex CUs (asset size> US$-100 million) and for non-complex CUs (asset size ≤ US$-100 million). For non-complex CUs, higher capital ratios imply lower loan growth rates for most quantiles, while the capital ratio is not determinant in the loan growth of complex CUs. In the first essay, we also provide a way of testing which of demand and supply is the more important driver of loan variation for CUs. In the second essay, we analyze the interaction between capital and liquidity in CUs. The essay examines the adjustment behavior of CUs’ liquidity following exogenous capital shocks. We find that the majority of non-complex CUs would have met the NSFR requirement if it had been in effect, while complex ones would not have. Moreover, after experiencing exogenous capital shocks, non-complex CUs increase their liquidity position while simultaneously improving their capital ratio, which is not the case for complex CUs. Thus, despite the absence of explicit liquidity regulation imposed on CUs, there is a synergy between capital and liquidity such that minimum regulatory capital standards alone are enough to mitigate, at least partly, both insolvency risk and illiquidity risk in noncomplex CUs. In the third essay, we test whether and how CUs actively manage their liquidity ratios and estimate the adjustment speed for each CU separately. The majority of CUs actively manage a liquidity ratio consistent with the NSFR. Adjustments on the liability side are more frequent but adjustment speeds on the asset side are higher. Larger CUs, CUs with higher loan growth rates and CUs with lower liquidity ratio levels are more likely to actively manage their liquidity ratios.

Using a random sample of transactions data from the time period of September 1, 1978 through August 31, 1985, the high end-of-day transaction returns noted by Wood, Mclnish and Ord and by Harris were examined to determine their persistence over time and their relationship to a commonly used measure of daily security performance. Additionally, final transactions were classified by type of price change-reversal or continuation-in order to document whether the high end-of-day returns are the result of security price appreciation or the result of increases in transactions at the ask price. New information provided by this study can be summarized as follows: 1. The end-of-day anomaly persisted over the time period of the study and appeared to be strongest in the last three years. 2. A Friday effect was found in that the mean return to the final transaction on Friday was at least as great or greater than the mean final transaction returns on the other days of the week. 3. A relationship was found to exist between CRSP excess return level (good day/bad day) and the final transaction return, and there was evidence that the final transaction may have had a large impact on the CRSP excess return. 4. Reversals are more frequent than continuations on the final trade, particularly after 3:56pm, and the mean return to reversals is greater than the mean return to continuations. / Ph. D.

« Thèse présentée à l'École des gradués de l'Université Laval comme exigence partielle pour l'obtention du grade de docteur ès sciences de l'administration (Ph. D.) » / « Dans cette recherche nous tenterons d'analyser l'effet de la taille de la firme sur la valeur de l'information fournie dans les états financiers. Plusieurs facteurs ont motivé notre choix de la variable taille: i. tout d'abord la taille de la firme a été souvent proposée comme variable explicative de plusieurs comportements de la firme. ii. plus précisément dans le cas de l'évaluation de l'information dans les états financiers, nous présumons que la taille a un effet significatif sur la quantité d'information disponible sur la firme. En particulier, les sources et la quantité d'informations qui sont des substituts ou des compléments à l'information comptable nous semblent reliées à la taille de la firme. iii. cette approche est enfin compatible avec l'hypothèse de Gonedes et Dopuch (33) selon laquelle les propriétés stochastiques des données comptables dépendent en général de l'environnement économique de la firme: la fonction de demande pour les produits et celle des coûts de production, et les lois, régies et contraintes imposées par la législation, les organismes de réglementation et autres. S'il y a une relation entre la taille et l'environnement d'une part et les données comptables et l'environnement d'autre part, on devrait observer également une relation entre la taille et les données comptables. Pour ce qui est des motivations pratiques, notre étude et les résultats que nous avons dégagés pourraient être utiles aux investisseurs, aux analystes financiers et autres producteurs de l'information pour le marché des capitaux, à la profession comptable, aux administrateurs, ainsi qu'aux organismes publics de réglementation du marché des capitaux, tels que les commissions de valeurs mobilières. Dans le chapitre I nous avons brièvement défini le cadre théorique général de cette recherche en rappelant la nature et le rôle de l'information dans le cadre d'un marché des capitaux efficient et dans le cadre du marché de l'information. Dans le chapitre II nous avons traité des principaux facteurs qui favorisent la production et la diffusion d'une plus grande quantité d'information sur les firmes de grande taille par la firme elle-même et par les autres producteurs d'information sur le marché. Dans le chapitre III nous avons analysé les implications de la présence d'une grande quantité de compléments et de substituts à l'information fournie par les états financiers des firmes de grande taille. Dans ces conditions nous avons émis l'hypothèse que la publication des états financiers des firmes de grande taille, (contrairement à celle des états financiers des firmes de petite taille), apporte relativement peu d'information qui n'aurait pu être prévue par le marché des capitaux, à partir d'autres sources d'information concurrentielles. Dans le chapitre IV, nous avons identifié les sources de données, la période étudiée et un échantillon de 16,119 annonces de publications d'états financiers appartenant à 1,402 compagnies. Nous avons défini ensuite les principaux aspects méthodologiques relatifs à la mesure de la taille de la firme et à l'évaluation de l'information dans ces états financiers. Nous avons adopté la valeur au marché des actions ordinaires comme mesure de la taille de la firme, et nous avons développé deux mesures de la valeur de l'information dans les états financiers: la première en terme des rendements boursiers et la deuxième en terme du volume de transaction. Selon ces deux mesures les états financiers semblent en moyenne avoir un contenu informationnel très significativement utile aux investisseurs. Le chapitre V est consacré à la vérification de l'hypothèse principale de cette recherche, soit l'effet de la taille de la firme sur la valeur de l'information dans les états financiers. Les résultats d'une analyse de variance et d'une analyse de régression basés sur un total de 4,002 observations nous ont permis de rejeter l'hypothèse selon laquelle la taille de la firme n'a aucun effet sur la valeur de l'information dans les états financiers. »--Pages 3-6

Systematic mispricing by the state-of-the-art option pricing models is a paradox in financial economics as both the magnitude and direction of the mispricing is debated. The models have been found to overprice out-of-the-money and deep-in-the-money call options while underpricing in-the-money and deep-out-of-the-money calls. In addition, research has shown these biases have different signs in different time periods. We propose that when investors maximize expected utility for Friedman-Savage-Markowitz utility functions, the option mispricing observed in the market will result. The theories and empirical tests in the literature of higher-order utility functions and risk-neutral valuation (RNV) in the options market are presented. Though investor attitudes towards risk are irrelevant in the non-arbitrage world of modern option pricing, to the extent the options market does not meet the non-arbitrage conditions, investor risk preferences will affect the pricing of options. Risk-loving traders will bid up market prices relative to risk-neutral model prices; risk-averse traders will bid down prices. And investor risk preferences can, and do, change over time as market conditions change. New tests are run to analyze the relationship between mispricing biases and investor preferences before and after the historic stock market crash of October 19, 1987. We find mispricing biases which imply a decreased risk aversion on the part of investors in the IBM call option markets for the period prior to the market crash and mispricing biases which imply an increased risk-averse (and decreased risk-loving) behavior in those markets following the crash. Similar analyses are also performed in the Microsoft call options markets with less conclusive results. / Ph. D.

This thesis focuses on a central behavioral paradox in the asset management community. Recent decades have brought an upsurge in initiatives throughout the investment community to voluntarily integrate sustainability issues into investment decisions. The financial crisis has however revealed behavioral inconsistency and deepening irresponsibility. Today, sustainable investments represent USD 10.7 trillion, or 7% of the entire market, of assets under management and it is growing steadily. <p>One important driver of this growth was the emergence of specialized research agencies that standardized measurement of companies’ environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance and sold such information as a tool to evaluate or pressure corporate conducts. More recently, sell-side research, financial news, and market-index providers joined the ESG information market, where they aim to support more mainstream asset managers in integrating ESG information into investment decisions. <p>A dominant assumption has taken hold in a large part of the investment and regulatory circles: asset managers’ use of ESG information will induce a behavioral change so that they automatically integrate companies’ sustainability to investment return concerns. Understandings of what constitutes sustainable investment have been largely practitioner-driven. The academic community took little interest to challenge the assumption. Remarkably, more scholars have come to assume that conformance to institutional pressures to add ESG information to investment strategies will induce more sustainable and long-term behavior of investors and companies. ESG information integration is believed to be a behavioral enabler for mainstream investors to systematically embed sustainability in investment strategies. Because of the assumption, theory building of asset manager intrinsic motivations to engage in sustainable investment remains unexplored. Main contribution of this research is to generate a deep theoretical understanding of asset manager non-conformance to the ESG pressure to engage in sustainable investment. <p>The research starts by questioning the dominant assumptions made in the sustainable investment field. While working in the industry, I witnessed some asset managers’ practices of replacing the externally defined ESG information with their own research based on narratives to better understand investee companies. The research question came out of this experience: why do some asset managers use ESG information to engage in sustainable investment while others do not? Do pressures to integrate ESG information really induce more sustainable behaviors on the part of asset managers? These self-inquiries led to a wide array of literature review to search for conformance and non-conformance drivers. Surprisingly, non-conformance was an under-researched theme. Given the scarcity of the research, I sought a method that would enable grounded theorizing based on asset managers’ own experience and interpretations. <p> Grounded theory research draws on asset manager interviews, archival documents, expert and practitioner consultations and feedback during 2007 and mid-2011. To reflect the global nature of sustainability, I focused on global equity asset managers working in thirteen institutions in three lead markets with most geographically diversified sustainable investment, UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. <p>Theory building from the ground up does not happen in vacuum. I developed a framework to study conformance and non-conformance drivers to facilitate the concept elicitation. The question of conformance and non-conformance has been studied by institutional, resource-based view of the firm, behavioral finance, cognitive and sensemaking theorists but in a disintegrated manner. I enhanced insights by way of aggregating and exploring the drivers. The framework illuminates the viability of both conformers and non-conformers in sustainable investment practices. Both are leadership activities of asset managers based respectively on explicit and implicit motivations. It illustrates short-term and opportunistic motivations of conforming managers, as opposed to long-term and substantial motivations of non-conforming managers to integrate sustainability and return-making in their investment decisions. <p>The research results presented hereafter provide a significant theoretical and empirical contribution. Drawing from insights and perspectives from the practitioners, a grounded theory model of asset manager conformance and non-conformance highlights a pivotal concept of sensemaking capacities. It reveals a counter intuitive pattern of asset manager learning. Non-conforming asset managers have developed a distinctive capacity to integrate sustainability and investment return concerns regardless of public pressures to do so. This distinctive sensemaking capacity, founded on behavioral integration of external expectations with own motivation, goal, competence and know-how, was the strategic resource for the organization. Their behavioral integration of sustainability and return generation is so highly developed, that adding the ESG information in their investment strategy would actually impair their capacity to make sense of sustainability. Indeed, I find that non-conforming asset manager teams have sustained consistent returns and increased client assets throughout the financial crisis. In absence of such behavioral integration and sensemaking capacities, conforming managers failed to sustain consistency or suffered from under-funding. To stay competitive, the latter managers have fervently demonstrated the ESG information use in their investment strategies. However, such explicit demonstration of leadership has not been accompanied by distinctive sensemaking capacities. I find that conforming managers were less capable of integrating sustainability and return-generation, which subsequently reinforced their short-termism and opportunism. <p>The finding of this thesis points to the importance of ‘behavioral integration’ instead of ‘explicit conformance’ of asset managers. The academic community may need to shed a more critical eye on ESG integration by asset managers. Institutional pressures to adopt such information may not induce more sustainable behavior, as ESG know-how is likely to deprive a chance to develop distinctive sensemaking capacities. Furthermore, it may even hurt the sensemaking capacities of managers who have behaviorally integrated sustainability and return-generation. While I hope to trigger a re-think amongst academics how to promote sustainable investment, my findings has theoretical and empirical contributions. The most important theoretical contribution is identification of non-conformance variables to engage intrinsically in sustainable investment. Empirical evidence on non-conformers, corroborated with resource-based view of the firm, also enhances the understanding of non-conformers’ motivation to sustain competitive advantage. <p>Findings also lead to managerial and policy implications. I carried out this research in the midst of the financial crisis, a time of mounting European policy debates how to build investor capacity to induce long-term and sustainable behaviors. The European Commission’s Internal Market Directorate-General is set to publish a directive proposal that mandate ESG information disclosure to companies and ESG reporting by investors. This adds weight to already published procedural measures to strengthen corporate governance at financial institutions. These policy initiatives emerged largely because of expert consultation and anecdotal evidences. In addition to recommendations to specific pieces of legislative proposals, this research makes an overarching policy proposal. The EU Commission needs to reexamine if the current policy measures lead to further symbolic demonstrations of ESG usage without accompanying sustainable behavior at the cost of real economy. EU equally needs to pay more attention to non-conforming asset managers’ distinctive capacities and enabling mechanisms. Reporting burdens may inadvertently impair non-conforming managers’ capacities to sustain long-term performance and may induce a contradictory policy consequence of increased public distrust. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La persistance des fraudes financières depuis les origines de la création de la bourse conduit au constat selon lequel la sanction est un élément fondamental du bon fonctionnement des marchés financiers. En l’état actuel du droit positif, notre système de sanction repose pour l’essentiel sur l’Autorité des marchés financiers. À première vue, le droit français offre le visage d’une architecture moderne. Pourtant, l’actualité n’en finit pas de démontrer l’existence d’affaires et de fraudes sensibles affectant drastiquement la confiance des investisseurs dans le système. En vue d’une amélioration de notre système de sanction, la comparaison avec le droit canadien se révèle très enrichissante. Il en ressort que le système de sanction en droit des marchés financiers français pourrait être rendu plus efficace par la création d’une juridiction spécialisée à laquelle serait confiée l’ensemble du contentieux relatif aux marchés financiers. Une telle réforme favoriserait l’harmonisation et la cohérence du système de sanction. / The persistence of financial frauds since the creation of the stock exchange has made it clear that sanctions are a fundamental aspect to ensure the effective functioning of financial markets. Currently, our sanction system relies, for the most part, on the action of the financial regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers. At first sight, French law offers a very modern system. However, frauds keep on happening, affecting drastically the trust of the investors in the system. In order to improve our sanction system, the comparison with Canadian law has revealed to be very rewarding. It is possible to make our system more efficient by implementing a special jurisdiction, which would be responsible for all the financial markets disputes, in order to make our sanction system more coherent and unified.

Au lendemain de la crise financière de 2008, les autorités se sont emparées de la question du risque de contrepartie associé aux produits dérivés de gré à gré. Les dix années qui se sont écoulées depuis permettent de dresser le bilan de l’efficacité du cadre règlementaire alors mis en place. Cette étude s’attache à cartographier les différents éléments qui composent ou alimentent le risque de contrepartie en matière de dérivés de gré à gré et analyse l’efficacité des diverses techniques déployées pour le gérer. Les outils de gestion utilisés en matière de dérivés de gré à gré afin d’atténuer le risque de contrepartie reposent sur une pluralité de mécanismes juridiques (légaux ou contractuels). Si certains sont à la libre disposition des parties, d’autres leur sont imposés par la règlementation. Tous ces instruments participent – seuls ou conjointement – à atténuer réellement le risque de contrepartie. Mais chacun d’eux ne traite néanmoins qu’un aspect particulier de ce risque et aucun ne permet de l’annihiler totalement. Certaines situations viennent même parfois perturber l’efficacité des outils de gestion du risque de contrepartie et anéantissent leurs effets bénéfiques. On comprend in fine que la gestion efficace du risque de contrepartie suppose le respect de trois étapes : l’identification des risques attachés à chaque opération en présence doit précéder l’élaboration des outils de gestion en vue de leur atténuation, laquelle suppose enfin la prévention du risque d’inefficacité des outils utilisés. Dans tous les cas, la gestion du risque de contrepartie en matière de dérivés de gré à gré s’avère non seulement imparfaite mais aussi éminemment fragile. / Ln the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the authorities tackled the issue of counterparty risk associated with OTC derivatives. The ten years that have passed since then allow us an opportunity to take stock of the effectiveness of the regulatory framework then put in place. This study aims to map the different elements that make up or feed the counterparty risk in OTC derivatives and analyzes the effectiveness of the various techniques deployed to manage it. The management tools used in OTC derivatives to mitigate counterparty risk rely on a variety of legal mechanisms. If some are at the free disposal of the parties, others are imposed by the regulations. All these instruments participate -alone or jointly-in actually mitigating the counterparty risk. But each of them only deals with a particular aspect of this risk and none of them can completely neutralise it. Some situations even sometimes disrupt the effectiveness of counterparty risk management tools and negate their beneficial effects. Ultimately, it is understood that the effective management of counterparty risk requires three stages: the identification of the risks attached to each operation, followed by the development of relevant management tools with a view to the mitigation of such risks, and finally steps to avoid the risk of inefficiency of the tools used. ln any case, counterparty risk management in OTC derivatives is not only imperfect but also eminently fragile.

À la suite de scandales financiers notoires, et au vu de l’évolution des marchés financiers et des nouvelles technologies, l’Union européenne vient renforcer le cadre législatif européen des abus de marché, au nom de l’intégrité des marchés. Loin de constituer un simple regroupement d’infractions boursières, le concept d’abus de marché pourrait être analysé comme une véritable notion juridique. Dès lors, l’essai d’une définition générique de l’abus de marché permettrait d’en clarifier le domaine et d’en guider sa mise en œuvre. L’étude du sens de la notion d’abus de marché permettrait d’éviter les révisions successives de la norme nationale et européenne afin de conférer à l’abus de marché des règles propices à l’intégrité et à l’efficience du marché. Une fois la notion d’abus de marché définie avec précision, sa lutte préventive ou répressive ne pourra être que renforcée. Pour autant, la nouvelle coexistence de la répression administrative et de la répression criminelle de l’abus de marché en droit financier européen conduit à s’interroger sur l’application du principe non bis in idem en la matière. Afin de rendre effective cette refonte, il est ainsi primordial que le droit de la responsabilité civile vienne soutenir le droit de la répression de l’abus de marché. Finalement, pour maintenir la place financière européenne comme une place concurrentielle, il est essentiel que la refonte de l’abus de marché ne se fasse pas de manière déséquilibrée en faveur de l’impératif d’intégrité et au détriment de l’efficience du marché. On ne doit pas omettre que le droit des abus de marché est un droit économique au service de l’efficience du marché. / Following notorious financial scandals, and looking at the evolution of the financial markets and the new technologies, the European Union has reinforced the market abuse's European legal framework in the name of markets integrity. Far from being a mere grouping of financial offenses, the concept of market abuse could be analyzed as a real legal construct. Henceforth, testing a generic definition of the market abuse would allow clarifying its scope and guiding its implementation. Studying the meaning of the market abuse notion would avoid the successive revision of the national and European norm in order to provide the market abuse rules suitable to the market integrity and efficiency. Once the market abuse notion precisely defined, its preventive or repressive fighting could only be reinforced. However, the new coexistence of the administrative and criminal repressions of the market abuse in European financial law leads to some interrogations regarding the non bis idem principle application. In order to make the recast efficient, it is mandatory for the civil responsibility law to sustain the market abuse repressive law. Eventually, in order to maintain the European financial market competitiveness, it is essential that the market abuse recast is not unbalanced in favor of the integrity requirement and against the market efficiency. We shall not forget that the market abuse law is an economic law serving the market efficiency.

La liberté contractuelle est un principe fondateur du droit civil français, en vertu duquel chaque sujet de droit est libre, non seulement de décider de s’engager ou non, mais également de déterminer les conditions de son engagement contractuel et la personnalité de son cocontractant. Malgré ses apparentes particularités, dues à son objet, le droit des marchés financiers ne constitue pas une branche autonome du droit, de telle sorte que le droit civil a toute vocation à s’appliquer sur les marchés financiers. Pour autant, un rapide examen du droit des marchés financiers fait apparaître des atteintes à la liberté contractuelle, en premier lieu à la libre détermination du contenu du contrat. Ce constat est d’autant plus frappant lorsque l’on approfondit l’étude des marchés financiers, les offres publiques étant en effet l’occasion de multiples atteintes. Plus particulièrement, l’initiative contractuelle est lourdement affectée par les offres publiques obligatoires, qu’elles soient d’acquisition ou de retrait. Cette thèse a pour objet d’examiner ces diverses atteintes portées par le droit des marchés financiers à la liberté contractuelle afin d’en déterminer le fondement. / Contractual freedom is a founding principle of French civil law, under which each legal subject is free, not only to decide whether to engage, but also to determine the conditions of his contractual commitment and the personality of the other party. Despite its apparent peculiarities, due to its object, the financial market legislation is not an autonomous branch of law, so that the civil law should apply to the financial markets. However, a quick review of the financial markets legislation revealed violations of contractual freedom, in the first place to free determination of the content of the contract. This finding is even more striking when looking further : the contractual intent is heavily affected both through the mandatory public bid and through the mandatory buyout offer. This thesis examines how the contractual freedom is affected by the financial market legislation to determine the causes.

ABSTRACT “Almost all places are in trouble, but some are in more trouble than others" Kotler, Haider & Rein (1993) Kotler, Haider & Rein (1993) contend that all places are in trouble now, or will be in the near future. The onset of globalisation of the world's economy, country political dynamics and the accelerating pace of technological changes are some of the forces that require all places to learn how to compete on the world arena. Porter (1990) states that the framework for understanding a company’s sources of competitive advantage can be extended to the level of nations. It is basically concerned with the question as to why some nations succeed in global competition when others fail. Nations must learn how to think more like businesses if they are to survive and should begin by identifying their competitive advantages and building on them. As countries compete for inward investment, tourism and export of goods and services- success or failure can accurately be chartered, and questions of reputation, image, identity and hence marketing and branding become central to the competitive edge (Olins, 1999). Faced with the challenge of a negative image, a country must adopt a proactive stance to correct this image. This is where the question of country branding comes in. Branding a country for many is misconstrued and interpreted to simply mean designing a new logo for their country and possibly a slogan to go underneath it. However country-banding proponents highlight that there is a difference between nation branding and tourism promotion. It helps even less that there are so many communications agencies that perhaps frustrated by lack of pure strategy capacity to sell to governments, have fallen into the habit of i Sibonokuhle GUMPO - 34462481 pandering to this misconception and simply selling logos and slogans to any government prepared to buy them (Anholt, 2003). However faced with the urgent need to address the crippling impact of a negative image, countries like Zimbabwe cannot simply wait and expect things to turn out for the better. Kotler et al (1993) stress that places are not able to respond to negative images concerning their nations as quickly as negative perceptions are built, be it through media, word of mouth or other channels. As a result the importance of a pro-active response cannot be overemphasized. This study explores the current negative image of Zimbabwe and tries to define the root or source of this negative image. Having defined or spelt out what is thought to be the problem, the researcher than explores possible ways of how the stakeholders of Zimbabwe can rebrand their country reflecting on known success stories. Kotler et al (1993) contend that the central tenet of marketing places is that in spite of the powerful internal and external forces that buffet them, places have within their collective resources and people the capacity to improve their relative competitive positions. Zimbabweans in general believe that their situation has been sensationalised by the media and is not a reflection of what is on the ground. By adopting a proactive stance in rebranding their country, Zimbabweans will perhaps finally realise that when it comes to image, “being in possession of the truth is not enough, the truth has to be sold” (Anholt,all places are in trouble now, or will be in the near future. The onset of globalisation of the world's economy, country political dynamics and the accelerating pace of technological changes are some of the forces that require all places to learn how to compete on the world arena. Porter (1990) states that the framework for understanding a company’s sources of competitive advantage can be extended to the level of nations. It is basically concerned with the question as to why some nations succeed in global competition when others fail. Nations must learn how to think more like businesses if they are to survive and should begin by identifying their competitive advantages and building on them. As countries compete for inward investment, tourism and export of goods and services- success or failure can accurately be chartered, and questions of reputation, image, identity and hence marketing and branding become central to the competitive edge (Olins, 1999). Faced with the challenge of a negative image, a country must adopt a proactive stance to correct this image. This is where the question of country branding comes in. Branding a country for many is misconstrued and interpreted to simply mean designing a new logo for their country and possibly a slogan to go underneath it. However country-banding proponents highlight that there is a difference between nation branding and tourism promotion. It helps even less that there are so many communications agencies ABSTRACT “Almost all places are in trouble, but some are in more trouble than others" Kotler, Haider & Rein (1993) Kotler, Haider & Rein (1993) contend that all places are in trouble now, or will be in the near future. The onset of globalisation of the world's economy, country political dynamics and the accelerating pace of technological changes are some of the forces that require all places to learn how to compete on the world arena. Porter (1990) states that the framework for understanding a company’s sources of competitive advantage can be extended to the level of nations. It is basically concerned with the question as to why some nations succeed in global competition when others fail. Nations must learn how to think more like businesses if they are to survive and should begin by identifying their competitive advantages and building on them. As countries compete for inward investment, tourism and export of goods and services- success or failure can accurately be chartered, and questions of reputation, image, identity and hence marketing and branding become central to the competitive edge (Olins, 1999). Faced with the challenge of a negative image, a country must adopt a proactive stance to correct this image. This is where the question of country branding comes in. Branding a country for many is misconstrued and interpreted to simply mean designing a new logo for their country and possibly a slogan to go underneath it. However country-banding proponents highlight that there is a difference between nation branding and tourism promotion. It helps even less that there are so many communications agencies that perhaps frustrated by lack of pure strategy capacity to sell to governments, have fallen into the habit of i Sibonokuhle GUMPO - 34462481 pandering to this misconception and simply selling logos and slogans to any government prepared to buy them (Anholt, 2003). However faced with the urgent need to address the crippling impact of a negative image, countries like Zimbabwe cannot simply wait and expect things to turn out for the better. Kotler et al (1993) stress that places are not able to respond to negative images concerning their nations as quickly as negative perceptions are built, be it through media, word of mouth or other channels. As a result the importance of a pro-active response cannot be overemphasized. This study explores the current negative image of Zimbabwe and tries to define the root or source of this negative image. Having defined or spelt out what is thought to be the problem, the researcher than explores possible ways of how the stakeholders of Zimbabwe can rebrand their country reflecting on known success stories. Kotler et al (1993) contend that the central tenet of marketing places is that in spite of the powerful internal and external forces that buffet them, places have within their collective resources and people the capacity to improve their relative competitive positions. Zimbabweans in general believe that their situation has been sensationalised by the media and is not a reflection of what is on the ground. By adopting a proactive stance in rebranding their country, Zimbabweans will perhaps finally realise that when it comes to image, “being in possession of the truth is not enough, the truth has to be sold” (Anholt, / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL