4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions
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Item Institutional quality, capital structure and financial performance: the case of listed firms in Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Celliers, Jacqueline; Chipeta, C.; Moletsane, M.This research report examines the relationship between institutional quality, capital structure and the financial performance of firms listed on selected African stock markets. Panel data estimation techniques are carried out on a set of 347 firms from five African countries over the period 2003 to 2022 using the two-step system Generalised Method of Moments. The results show that only the Economic Freedom Index and the significance of the stock market have a significant negative effect on total leverage. The Economic Freedom Index also has a negative significant impact on short-term debt, while the legal rights index has a significant positive effect. The other measures of institutional quality included in this study, such as rule of law, control of corruption and significance of the banking sector, have insignificant effects on total- and short-term debt, while all institutional quality indicators have insignificant effects on long-term leverage. The results also indicate that all three measures of leverage have a significant negative impact on firm performance, and that institutional quality may moderate the negative effects of total- and long-term debt on the financial performance of firms but doesn’t appear to play a part in mitigating the effects of short-term leverage. This study adds value to the literature by investigating the link between institutional quality, capital structure and firm performance in Africa, as most previous studies focus on developed countries. Furthermore, it also explores the role of institutional quality in influencing the relationship between leverage and financial performance, specifically relating to firms in Africa.Item The impact of culture and leadership on the financial performance and productivity of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) firms in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Harkison, VikashThe Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry produces non-durable products that are sold fast at inexpensive prices with low profit margins but constitute more than half of a consumer's expenditure (Chen, 2022). These goods have a brief shelf life and are quickly consumed. As of March 2019, the manufacturing sector was the fourth largest in South Africa, reflecting a 1.4% decline over the preceding ten years (Paltu & Brouwers, 2020). The organizational culture, financial performance, leadership style, and key performance indicators of a South African FMCG conglomerate were the main subjects of this study. The purpose of this research study was to address the following two research questions: How does toxic leadership affect the productivity of the South African FMCG industry? and How does organizational culture affect the industry's financial performance? The research questions were employed to correlate the impact of organisational culture on the financial performance of the chosen company and the impact of leadership on the productivity of the FMCG industry. The inquiry into organizational culture made considerable use of the Competing Values Framework; the financial analysis of the study was conducted using the Activity Based Costing model; and the Toxic Triangle was utilized to determine the nature of the leadership within the company. Data was collected via a questionnaire, productivity assessments and financial records from three different manufacturing units of one parent FMCG company for a period of four financial years. The questionnaire sample size consisted of 232 participants with 86, 86 and 60 responses received from Factories 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The findings indicate that Market Culture predominates in FMCG enterprises; yet, due to the adverse correlation of ROI and inverse ROA, it was determined that organizational factors have no bearing on the financial success of the FMCG industry in South Africa. It was established that toxic leaders had an effect on an FMCG conglomerate's workplace culture, employee loyalty, job satisfaction, and staff retention. Although, toxic leaders had less of an influence on the productivity within an establishment as compared to the type of working environment. A lack of empirical evidence deemed the effect of leadership on revenue and capital generation inconclusive. It is recommended that such an investigation be conducted on more than one FMCG enterprise. FMCG establishments are encouraged to evaluate parameters such as employee turnover, productivity metricssuch as Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) / Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and conductcustomer satisfaction surveys to allow the establishment to create a productive, safe and healthy workplaceItem Impact investment funds and the equity market: correlation, performance, risk and diversification effects – a global overview(2021) Pane, LuckyThe aim of this paper is threefold. (1) To examine the financial performance of impact investment funds relative to the MSCI World Equity Index as well as traditional asset classes in major developed and emerging economies. (2) To assess the correlation between impact funds and traditional asset classes to see if there are diversification benefits. And finally, to examine the portfolio effects of including impact investment funds in a portfolio with traditional asset classes using mean variance optimization (MVO), capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and Black Litterman (BL) model. The study found that impact investment funds in both developed and emerging market economies deliver financial returns in line with and above the equity market. Broadly there was a negative or low correlation between impact investment funds and conventional asset classes (equities, bonds and cash). This bodes well for portfolio diversification. On comparing the performance of portfolios that include impact investments to portfolios that consist only of traditional asset classes, we found that for several countries in our sample, impact investments improved overall portfolio performance and risk. This was observed using various of performance measures: exported portfolio returns, standard deviation, Sharpe ratio, portfolio beta, Treynor ratio and Jensen Alpha ratio. Based on these findings, this study advocates for fund managers to allocate more capital towards impact investments as this is likely to boost their overall returns