This article investigates the current state of the accountancy profession in South Africa in light of the recent accounting scandals and how these negative perceptions impact the response of Trainee Accountants’ (TAs). An anonymous questionnaire was directed to TAs affiliated with two local professional accounting organisations. Results were generalised using descriptive statistics which followed a deductive approach. Findings suggest that majority of TAs were influenced by the current state of the profession. These recent scandals have created negative perceptions of the profession as TAs indicated that these reports make them ‘pessimistic’. Analysis of the EVLN (Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Neglect) employee behavioural response model suggests that TAs with negative perceptions were more inclined to demonstrating E and V rather than L and N.
The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of constructing optimal portfolios using the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) tradable sector indices. Three indices were employed, namely Financials, Industrials and Resources and these were benchmarked against the JSE All Share Index for the period January 2007 to December 2017. The period was split into three, namely before the 2007-2009 global financial crises, during the global financial crises and after the global financial crises. The Markowitz’s mean-variance optimisation framework was employed for the construction of global mean variance portfolios. The results of this study demonstrated that it was feasible to construct mean-variance efficient portfolios using the tradable sector indices from the JSE. It was also established that, on the other hand, global mean variance portfolios constructed in this study, outperformed the benchmark index in a bullish market in terms of the risk-return combinations. On the other hand, in bear markets, the global mean variance portfolios were observed to perform better than the benchmark index in terms of risk. Further, the results of the study showed that portfolios constructed from the three tradable indices yielded diversification benefits despite their positive correlation with each other. The results of the study corroborate the findings by other scholars that the mean-variance optimisation framework is effective in the construction of optimal portfolios using the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. The study also demonstrated that Markowitz’s mean-variance framework could be applied by investors faced with a plethora of investment constraints and choices to construct efficient portfolios utilising the JSE tradable sector indices in order to realise returns commensurate with their risk preferences.
Most of the small and medium-sized enterprises in developing nations, particularly Tanzania lack the relevant business capabilities that would foster their growth and sustainability. Most of the studies have recommended networking as a viable technique that can influence SME performance. However, Tanzanian SMEs are still facing challenges in understanding viable networking strategies. This study defines networking strategies in terms of network formation, intensity, and interdependence. We seek to establish the contribution of these strategies on SME performance that has been categorized as number of customers, and sales level. Our study focuses on the food sector particularly the bakery business whose contribution to the Tanzania’s agriculture sector, one of the leading sectors in Tanzania is noticeable. We adopt both the concurrent nested design and a multi-stage sampling technique and were able to collect data from 161 bakeries throughout Tanzania by using questionnaires. We also carried out 20 in depth interviews from bakery owners/managers and adopted a moderator analysis in confirming that both size and age of the bakery moderate the relationship between networking strategies and bakery performance. The moderator analysis was preceded by the principal component analysis, and the qualitative content analysis (manifest analysis). Our study concludes that the development, implementation, and improvement of networking practices in Tanzanian bakeries should be greatly emphasized by bakeries that seek to attain competitiveness, growth, and sustainability. Additionally, we argue that, SMEs need to develop strategic linkages with all relevant players from the business environment aiming at enhancing their networking capabilities.
This paper appraises the influence of government fiscal policy on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the economy of Nigeria pre and post-military rule. To achieve the objectives of this work, time series data spanning from 1981-1999 (military era) and 2000-2018 (post-military era) were employed and analyzed with the aim of assessing the influence of fiscal policy on FDI during these significant political periods in the annals of the country. In order to prevent the presence of false estimation outcomes, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test was employed to assess the stationarity and sequence of integration of the variables. The Ordinary Least Square technique and correlation analysis were deployed to test the long-run association that exists among the variables. The outcomes of the analysis reveal inflation has a significant positive influence on FDI in the military era in Nigeria; government expenditure is positively and significantly associated with FDI for both military and post-military era; government domestic debt is adversely and insignificantly associated with FDI for both military and post-military era; the foreign exchange rate is positively and significantly associated with FDI in the military and adversely associated with FDI in the post-military era. The results further suggest the existence of a positive and insignificant association of government tax revenue with FDI for both military and post-military era.
The study investigates the debt financing on financial performance, focusing on Retail firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for a period of ten 10 years from 2010 to 2019. The fixed effects (FE), random effects (RE), pooled effect and the Generalized Least Square (GLS) panel data regression analysis models was applied using the financial performance ratios, Return on Equity (ROE) is used as the profitability measure and is the dependent variable, whereas; lagged ROE (LROE), Long Term Debt to Total Asset (LTDA), Total Debt to Total Asset (TDA) are used as independent variables, while Size, Sales Growth are used as control variables. The study found that LROE, TDA and GRS strongly influence financial performance (ROE) with high statistically significant of 1% level where as LTDA and SZ negatively influence financial performance with a statistically significant of 1% and 5% respectively. The study will assist retail firms to make a good decision when financing their assets to increase profit. The study contributes to literature and inform all stakeholders in the retail sector to make a profitable form of financing.
Despite Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) being numerically predominant and the most vulnerable role players in the economy of many countries, little research has been conducted on risk management and sustainability of SMEs operating in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector of South Africa. This paper fills in this gap in knowledge by investigating the extent to which risk management processes of SMEs operating in the FMCG sector of South Africa incorporate robust analysis of the sustainability factors. To achieve this, questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 320 FMCG SMEs in the Cape Metropolitan area. Qualitative data was then gathered by interviewing 2 risk experts in order to validate the quantitative data gathered through a survey questionnaire. The results show that the risk management processes of FMCG SMEs do not incorporate a robust analysis of the components of sustainability and this have a negative bearing effect on their survival. Apart from filling in the gap in knowledge, the paper has also important implications for FMCG SME owner-managers and policymakers while revealing future research avenue.
This study focuses on examination of the relationship between entrepreneurship financing from the perspective of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and poverty eradication in Nigeria from 1990 to 2018. Data were collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and World Development Indicators. Consequently, Autoregressive Distributed Lagged, Bounds test and Error Correction Model techniques were utilized to address the objective of the study. Agriculture and forestry financing did not eradicate poverty in the short run in Nigeria. However, the aggregate commercial banks` SMEs financing, the manufacturing and food processing business financing contributed to poverty eradication in in the short run and long run respectively. But broad money supply contributed to poverty eradication in the short run only. However, this study recommends that any time the goal of the policy makers is to eradicate poverty in Nigeria, entrepreneurship financing with reference to manufacturing and food processing should be embarked upon since it has the capacity to alleviate poverty in the both short run in the country. Similarly, the Central Bank of Nigeria should implement appropriate policies that will increase commercial banks’ lending towards agricultural sub sector.
The study examined the impact of working capital management on profitability in manufacturing firms in Nigeria between the period of 1988 and 2019. The study disaggregated capital management into trade receivables, inventory, cash, and bank balances and trade payables in line with the theories reviewed. The data were obtained from the company review published audit financial report. Based on the mixed level of stationarity of the variables as revealed by the unit root test, the study made use of the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique to analyze the data. The bound test revealed that; there was a presence of co-integration (long-run relationship) among the dependent and all the explanatory variables consequently the study estimated the ARDLECM. The result further showed that Cash and Bank Balances (CBB), Trade Payables (TAP) and Trade Receivables (TAR) had a positive and significant impact on the profitability of manufacturing firms in Nigeria which is a clear indication that working capital management has a positive and significant impact on company profitability in Nigeria both in the short and long run. The findings of this study are in tandem with the Keynesian Liquidity preference theory. This study recommends that financial managers increase their working capital and ensure that it is properly managed in order to enhance sales revenue, thus strengthening firm profitability. Furthermore, the study suggests that financial managers should increase investment in working capital to accelerate their productivity so that they can also improve the profitability of the firms.
Lack of consensus on the multifaceted concept of tax avoidance has caused us to witness a plethora of proxies that have been developed to measure and capture tax avoidance for the purpose of empirical analysis. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature on tax avoidance as it seeks to find out the similarity or differences between tax avoidance measures, with specific emphasis on effective tax rate based measures. Conducting the ANOVA and the Games Howell multiple comparison tests on a sample of 673 unbalanced firm-year observations, the study found that there is a significant difference between the examined measures, while the Games Howell test further showed that the H & S measure differs significantly from the ETR based measures. The implication of the findings for researchers is that they are to consider their research objectives before deciding on the measure of tax avoidance to use in their study, as there are significant differences between these measures.
The study examined the effect of forensic accounting services on unethical practices in Nigerian banking industry. The study made used of a cross sectional survey research design were data were collected through questionnaire cross the banks and analyzed using the ordinary least square technique. The result revealed that forensic accounting services have a significant effect on cheque fraud, credit card fraud and mortgage fraud. Conclusively, Based on the findings of the study, it study deduced that banks in Nigeria have adopted some forensic accounting services which include litigation support, fraud investigation, and expert consultancy. A bank wishing to grow with minimized level of unethical practice must therefore put into place sufficient resources to be able to properly practice forensic accounting services in its different departments. Just as the banks use other means of reducing the occurrence of unethical practices, forensic accounting services can provide confidence in financial statements as it has a significant effect on unethical practices. The study recommended that in order to sustain effective operations in the bank, unethical practices must be monitored, detected and prevented in the banking sector with forensic accounting services being a tool that can be used to aid this.
Stress is emerging as an increasing problem in organizations and companies over the recent decades. Despite the awareness on the risks associated with occupational stress, the growing number of literature on stress, so far no empirical research was done to study the prevalence of stress and associated work stressors of employees in Kosovo. Through quantitative research, this study sought to provide scientific contribution by examining the prevalence of stress and by identifying factors that cause stress among public and private sector employees. Findings revealed a relatively high prevalence of occupational stress among employees, where respondents with 1-20 years of work experience reporting being significantly more stressed than those with more than 20 years of work experience. Moreover, results showed that stress adversely affects job performance of employees with 1-20 years of work experience as well as of female employees. Stressors pertaining to demand, control, support, relationships, role and change were identified to be causing occupational stress among employees, all showing positive significant correlation with stress. Furthermore, both public and private sector employees considered similar factors as stressful, even though public sector employees reported experiencing slightly higher levels of stress.
The overall objective of the study was to examine empiricalevidences on how technopreneurship impacts business sustainability carriedout in some selected areas in Abeokuta, Nigeria. A sample of 126respondents were selected using Yaro Yamane random sampling method. Aprimary method of data collection was used, a well-structured questionnairewas administered, and responses were analysed using linear regression. Thefrequency of responses to each of the explanatory variables in thequestionnaire are shown using frequency tables. The study findings whichwere based on the test of two (2) hypotheses in the study, show thatintellectual property rights have significant impact (R 2 = 0.294 and P =0.000) on business profitability, research and development and innovation(RaDaI) has a direct positive (R 2 = 0.292 and P = 0.000) effect on businessearned revenue. The study recommends that businesses should possess orsell and commercialise intellectual property rights (IPRs) and engage inresearch, development and innovation as this boosts business turnover orsales revenue earned. Finally, technopreneurship should be a central concernfor government and policymakers.
Considering the vital role of strategic agility, information technology capability and strategic foresight in today’s global market, organizations in any economy cannot gain industry competitive advantage without agile workforce, information technology capability and strategic foresight. Most oil and gas companies in Nigeria faced competitive disadvantage due to poor strategic agility, information technology incapability and lack of strategic foresight. This study examined the combined moderating effect of information technology capability and strategic foresight on the relationship between strategic agility and competitive advantage in the oil and gas marketing companies in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study employed survey research design. The study population was 515 managers of major oil and gas marketing companies. Total enumeration was used and a structured questionnaire was adapted and validated. The instrument was reliable and valid: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.734 to 0.814, and KMO values were greater than 0.5. 515 copies of questionnaire were distributed and 480 returned useable, giving a response rate of 93.2%. Hierarchical regression method was used for data analysis. Findings revealed that both information technology capability and strategic foresight have significant combined moderating effect on the relationship between strategic agility and competitive advantage in the oil and gas marketing companies (F-change = 34.969, p<0.05). The study concluded that information technology capability and strategic foresight moderately affects the relationship between strategic agility and competitive advantage in the oil and gas marketing companies. Therefore, it is recommended that oil and gas marketing companies in Nigeria should utilize their information technology capabilities to derive value from their business operations, sharpen their capability for analysing the drivers, motivations and causalities associated with future opportunities and the alternative strategic decisions necessary to optimally exploit these opportunities, and deepen their engagement of strategic agility initiatives. Limitations of the study and other areas for future research were highlighted.
The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between working capital management and profitability. It was based on a sample of 12 food and beverage firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. Our study spanned 10 years from 2007 to 2016. Notwithstanding the existing literature on this relationship, very few notable studies have investigated this phenomena in this particular industrial sector. We used gross operating profit (GOP) to measure profitability, while inventory conversion period (ICP), average collection period (ACP) and average payment period (APP) were used to proxy working capital management. Applying the generalized method of moments (GMM) model, we established a negative relationship between ICP and profitability, as well as between ACP and profitability. However, we determined that there is a positive relationship between APP and profitability for our sampled firms. Based on these findings, we recommend that financial managers of such firms maintain optimal threshold levels of the various working capital components (inventory stock, accounts receivable, and accounts payable) through the adoption of an aggressive working capital management strategy to generate shareholder wealth, by enhancing the profitability of their firms.
