Competitive advantage has received considerable attention. Few studies have however chosen a holistic approach taking multiple aspects and organisational levels into consideration. This research has the goal of filling parts of this void. The aim is to deepen the understanding of competitive advantage in the service industry by analysing how alignment of strategy, control and organisation structure on multiple organisational levels impacts competitive advantage of a service company over a long period of time. Based on the idea of multiple factors and the importance of connecting different levels with each other, including production level, a framework for the service industry is developed based on the ideas of Nilsson and Rapp (2005). The framework is used to analyse the rich data gathered in a longitudinal case study of an insurance group embracing the environmental changes and the choices taken as well as the resulting competitive position. According to the analysis, the Insurance Group is not ensuring an overall coordination of its activities, although there is a fit among some dimensions. The level of misalignment increased over the time, as a result of changes in the environment and less than consistent management decisions. Although the Insurance Group has been profitable and increased its market share since its foundation, the competitive advantage, measured as performance compared to market average, decreased. The declining performance combined with the increasing level of misalignment supports the assumed importance of reaching a consistent positioning among strategy, control and organisational structure. It can therefore be presumed that strategic congruence, integrated control and coherent organisational structure influence competitive advantage. However, due to the semi-protected insurance market the effects are weaker than they probably would have been in a more competitive and unpredictable market. The Insurance Group inherited valuable and unique resources at its foundation. Their apparent stable value ensures the Insurance Group a competitive advantage, although no activities are undertaken to strengthen or even to maintain them. It can therefore be concluded that an integrated approach of competitive advantage where both positioning framework and valuable resources are used as complementarities seems to be beneficial when competitive advantage is studied. / Strategy, Control and Competitive Advantage

Over the last decade, numerous changes have occurred in the insurance industry due to international expansions and stiff competitiveness. As a result of these changes, employees are suffering from stressful work conditions such as pressure to perform and work-life conflict, which lead to feelings of distrust, tension, strain in interpersonal relations, interpersonal conflict and difficulty in coping with pressure to perform. Tracking and addressing the work wellness of these employees are important to improve their work-related performance, as well as the quality of their service. Burnout, work engagement and workaholism are focal points in this regard. In order to measure these constructs it is important to have valid and reliable instruments. However, there is a lack of research which measures burnout, engagement and workaholism in the South African context. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between burnout, work engagement and workaholism amongst employees in the insurance industry. The research method consisted of a brief literature review and an empirical study. A cross-sectional design was used. An availability sample (N = 153) from employees in the insurance industry was taken. The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), an adapted version of the Work Addiction Risk Test (AWART), and a biographical questionnaire were administered. The statistical analysis was conducted with the aid of the SPSS program and AMOS program. The statistical method employed in the study consisted of descriptive statistics, Cronbach alpha coefficients, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients and a structural equation modelling method. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to determine the significance of differences of workaholism between demographic groups. It was evident in this study that employees in the insurance industry experience workaholism due to their tendency to work long hours overtime, to work weekends and to take work home. Results indicated that work wellness of employees in the insurance industry does comprise well-being (Burnout and Work Engagement) and Workaholism. Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis deals with methods of financial analysis in the insurance industry followed by application of selected methods and approaches to the insurance company Komerční pojišťovna, a.s. Financial analysis is performed from the perspective of the owner. Theoretical part is determined to the description of financial analysis with a focus on the insurance industry. Practical part is determined for application of methods of financial analysis and comparison of assessed insurance company with the insurance industry and its competition.

The diploma thesis deals with data quality in connection with legal requirements of the Solvency II regulation, which must be met by insurance companies in order to keep their licences. The aim of this thesis is to consider opportunities and impacts of implementing data quality for Solvency II. All data quality requirements of the regulation were specified and supplemented with possibilities how to meet them. Related data quality areas were also described. Sample variants of manual, partially automated and fully automated solutions with regard to expenditure of costs and time were compared based on knowledge and acquired information. The benefit of this thesis is evaluation of possible positive and negative impacts of implementing data quality for Solvency II taking into account the possibility of introducing data quality across the entire company. General solution variants can be used for decision-making on implementing data quality in most companies out of insurance industry.

The financial crises experienced worldwide have contributed to the rising importance of corporate governance. South Africa is unique in that it has strong corporate governance structures and as a result, it would prove useful to assess the effects of these corporate governance structures on critical sectors such as the long-term insurance industry, which is the largest insurance industry in Africa. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of corporate governance mechanisms and firm efficiency in the South African long-term insurance industry using data on 73 long-term insurers from 2007 to 2014 in a two-stage analysis. In the first stage, firm efficiency is estimated using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) bootstrapping technique of Simar and Wilson (2007), which corrects for biases associated with non-parametric techniques. In the second stage analysis, the truncated bootstrapping regression technique is employed to examine the effect of corporate governance on the estimated efficiency scores. The corporate governance variables used were board size, board independence, audit committee size, CEO tenure and audit independence, while controlling for firm size, reinsurance usage and leverage. The findings indicate that long-term insurers in South Africa operated at approximately 21% of their optimal capacity which suggests high levels of inefficiency in the provision of life insurance services. The results of the second-stage analysis identify board size, non-executive directorship, CEO tenure and audit independence as the significant corporate governance indicators that impact on efficiency over the study period. In addition, firm size, reinsurance usage and leverage were also observed to be significantly related to the estimated efficiency scores. The findings suggest that non-executive directors are not as effective as expected, which may be due to a myriad of reasons, such as under-representation on sub-committees, a lack of relevant skills, experience or financial expertise. Insurers should use more stringent criteria to screen potential non-executive directors and provide training and regular updates to adequately capacitate the non-executive directors with the necessary skills and knowledge. The positive relationship between CEO tenure and efficiency suggests that frequent CEO rotation is not advisable. Most of the corporate governance indicators have a negative effect on efficiency, which is not the intended effect. This is an indication that corporate governance measures should not be viii enforced on insurers as a 'one size fits all’ measure, rather, a focus should be placed on corporate governance measures that have the intended impact, such as audit committee independence.

The corporate culture present within any organization has a significant effect on the decisions the organization makes in regards to its daily operations, goals, the environment that its employees work in and customers interact with when doing business with the company. There are various factors beyond the control of the organization that. have an effect on the culture, one of them being the economic environment. The decisions that corporations make during times of economic expansion and how they cope with times of economic contraction is a reflection of the culture that is present. The insurance industry and its participants are especially sensitive to these economic movements and make their decisions to grow and create products on their perception of economic movement. The cultures of AXA, a French insurance company, and Prudential, a British insurance company will be compared alongside the culture of the formerly prominent AIG to discover what aspects of corporate culture a corporation within the life insurance industry should have present in order to have sustainable growth during times of economic expansion and remain viable during times of economic contraction.

This study focuses on what impact the Management Control System of Non-life Insurance Industry under Financial and Non-financial Holding Company has on a company¡¦s financial and business performance. (Management Control System, hereinafter referred to as MCS) . The scope of the MCS is not conclusive, it consists of management accounting and other control methods. This study adopts Simons¡¦s Diagnostic Control Systems and Interactive Control Systems as a yardstick, and the indicators of the financial and business performance are collected from Taiwan Insurance Institute. This study is based on the exploratory study --- in-depth interviews in case studies. In order to understand what types of the MCS a Non-life Insurance Industry company choices , and each respondent¡¦s feedback on the MCS , the study is followed by semi-structured interviews. By the comparison of multiple-case designs and a more in-depth discussion , this study has found that: (1) There is no special relationship of the MCS selection between Non-life Insurance Industry under Financial and Non-financial Holding Company . (2) Both Non-life Insurance Industry under Financial and Non-financial Holding Company have Strategic Alliances in marketing . (3) Only Non-life Insurance Industry under Financial Holding Company could take the advantage of the joint-marketing in the distribution channel of a bank. (4) Non-life Insurance Industry under Non-financial Holding Company tends to have better business performance when using Interactive Control Systems . Therefore, the study suggests that when Non-life Insurance Industry under Non-financial Holding Company tries to design the control system of an organization, it is better to use the Interactive Control System to help the performance of a company.

The concern about how business should behave as one of the dominant institutions in society, widely referred to as corporate social responsibility, has been a subject of interest among academics and practitioners all over the world. The increasing global outlook of business activities and the need to understand environments in most parts of the globe have also made this concept relevant for all time. This thesis therefore relates to a study, which assesses the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility for organisational effectiveness in a developing and African country. It was argued that ethics and social responsibility must first be perceived to be important for business success, before managers’ behaviour can become ethical and reflect greater social responsibility. Using a mainly qualitative approach and aided by some quantitative analysis, the study explored the perceived importance of this construct (ethics and social responsibility) for organisational effectiveness among insurance managers in the Nigerian insurance industry. This exploration and the analysis are based on the theoretical assumptions that personal and situational factors do influence managers’ perception of the importance of ethics and social responsibility and its business assumption. These, therefore, constitute major outcomes of the study. Given that the study is the first of its kind in the insurance industry, and Nigeria, a developing economy, its outcomes further aids our understanding of how managers in an African socio-economic context perceive the construct and their readiness to translate it into business practice. Above all, the thesis demonstrates that the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility for organisational effectiveness is a function of industry and product nature, individual moral values, corporate ethical values and organisational commitment. The findings suggest that meeting customers’ expectations reinforce trust-relationship, which in turn is moderated by some other personal-situational factors. The findings also indicate that highly idealistic managers were more sympathetic towards the welfare of others, and have higher perception of the important role of ethics and social responsibility for business success.

The thesis examines technical efficiency using frontier efficiency estimation techniques from parametric and non-parametric approaches. Five different frontier efficiency estimation techniques are considered which are SFA, DFA, DEA-CCR, DEA-BCC and DEA-RAM. These techniques are then used on an artificially generated panel dataset using a two-input two-output production function framework based on characteristics of German life-insurers. The key contribution of the thesis is firstly, a study that uses simulated panel dataset to estimate frontier efficiency techniques and secondly, a research framework that compares multiple frontier efficiency techniques across parametric and non-parametric approaches in the context of simulated panel data. The findings suggest that, as opposed to previous studies, parametric and non-parametric approaches can both generate comparable technical efficiency scores with simulated data. Moreover, techniques from parametric approaches, i.e. SFA and DFA are consistent with each other whereas the same applies to non-parametric approaches, i.e. DEA models. The research study also discusses some important theoretical and methodological implication of the findings and suggests some ways whereby future research can enable to overcome some of the restrictions associated with current approaches.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / The financial crisis of the last decade has resulted in a change in the way organisations do their reporting. The trend has been away from annual financial reports towards integrated reporting. Integrated reporting includes not only financial information but also information showing the effect the organisation has on the environment and the society in which it operates. The research conducted in this study aimed to determine the level to which organisations in the insurance industry disclosed information relating to strategy in their annual reports and their sustainability report. Five companies in the insurance industry were studied using their publicly available, sustainable and annual or integrated annual reports for the 2010 period. In order to measure the levels of strategy disclosure, three baselines were created and used in surveying the insurance companies. Baseline 1 was based on the GRI G3 reporting guidelines, baseline 2 on the strategic architecture of Ungerer, Pretorius and Herholdt (2011) and baseline 3 was based on the business model elements of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010). The conclusions reached in the study were that the overall level of strategy disclosure within the insurance industry is 69 percent. The level of strategy disclosure for the individual baselines was 69 percent for baseline 1, 67 percent for baseline 2 and 70 percent for baseline 3.