1,720,956 research outputs found
The relationship between board characteristics and dividend payment policies in JSE top 40 listed companies
Full text linkAbstract: There are mixed findings on the factors that impact dividend payout in emerging market economies. It is well established in literature that corporate governance affects the level of dividends paid out by a firm. Even so, it remains unclear whether dividend payout is an outcome or a substitute of effective governance...M.Com. (Finance
The impact of racial diversity of executive managers on financial performance of South African State-Owned Enterprises
Full text linkAbstract: Globally corporate company are embracing both gender and racial diversity and they are beginning to witness its impact on performance. Several researchers have revealed that with increased diversity, companies can gain access to unique networks, information and human capital which ultimately improves financial performance (Carter, D’Souza, Simkins, & Simpson, 2010). In this paper, we investigate whether racial diversity at executive management level bears financial benefits, particularly in a South African context where since the dawn of democracy, regulations such as the Employment Equity Act of 1998 require companies to racially diversify their workforce. This research analyses data from 21 major State Owned Companies (SOC) from (2011 to 2014). The study used correlation and regression analysis to examine the relationship between the racial composition of executive managers (i.e. whether they are Black, White, Indian or coloured) in these companies and the companies’ financial performance (i.e. Profit Margin, Return on Assets as well as Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure as a percentage of revenue). The results indicate that there is slow progress made by the South African government on including blacks at their executive management teams within SOCs. Furthermore, we also find no correlation between the racial diversity of the management teams and the financial performance) of these SOCs. These findings are significant, particularly for South African regulators and policy makers, as they provide justification for increased efforts to racially diversify the South African executive management teams in SOCs. This is important since numerous studies have demonstrated that such diversity was financially beneficial particularly in the private sector
The impact of women executives on companies’ financial performance: A study of south Africa’s state-owned companies
Full text linkSouth Africa’s former apartheid government deeply entrenched racial and gender inequalities amongst South Africans and excluded both blacks and women from participating in the economy and the workplace. Since the advent of democracy in the country in 1994, regulations such as the Employment Equity Act of 1998 were introduced to include both women and blacks in the working environment. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of gender diversity on 21 State-Owned Companies (SOCs), from 2010 to 2014. Correlation and regression analysis were used to investigate the relationship between women who are executive managers and the companies’ financial performance (i.e. profit margin, return on assets and fruitless and wasteful expenditure as a percentage of revenue). The results indicate that there has been slow progress made by the South African government in recruiting women at the executive management level in SOCs. Furthermore, an insignificant relationship was found between women in executive positions and the financial performance of those SOCs. These findings are useful for South African regulators and policymakers as they justify efforts to employ women in the executive management teams in SOCs. The study adds to existing research in the private sector, demonstrating the financial benefits of gender diversity
Gender and racial diversity in South Africa’s companies : an exploration of barriers and solutions in the literature
Full text linkAbstract: South Africa’s Apartheid regime deeply entrenched racial and gender inequalities amongst South Africans, which negatively affected all spheres of the economy, the working environment as well as society. However, since the dawn of democracy more than two decades ago, South Africans have experienced changes in the landscape of employment. This has been mainly due to numerous legislation that were implemented to redress previous unfair discrimination in the workplace. Recently, researcher have identified slow progress in transformation of the working environment. This article is based on a literature analysis on the state of gender and racial diversity in the workplace, the barriers that are hindering the progression of women and blacks in the working place as well as the strategic methods adopted to retain women and blacks in the working environment. The results from the analysis indicate that legislation on its own is not sufficient to efficiently achieve diversity in the working environment. Organisation and countries need to also implement other strategic programs in order to achieve this goal. The outcomes from this study are significant for South African regulators, as they provide justification for increased efforts to transform or diversify the South African working environment, particularly since some studies have recognised that diversity can have a positive impact in an organisation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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