Finance

The entrepreneurship is one of the factors accelerating economic growth. There is a strong relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth. Many of the earlier studies had established this relationship and had constructed theoretical models based on the empirical findings (Casson, 1990 and Livesay 1995, Goel 1997, Glancey and McQuaid, 2000,). Access to finance is one of the factors determining entrepreneurship. The small and medium enterprises in developing countries face significant barriers to finance. The small and medium enterprises are constrained by gaps in the financial system such as high administrative costs, high collateral requirements and lack of experience within financial intermediaries. Increased access to finance for small and medium enterprises can improve economic conditions in developing countries by fostering innovation, macro-economic resilience, and GDP growth. Many studies had identified the access to finance as the major factor determining entrepreneurship. The World Bank and the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) rank economies according to their ease of doing business. In this framework, the ability for business to get credit is an important criterion. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Entrepreneurship Framework Condition also highlights the availability of financial resources for small, medium enterprises in the form of debt and equity, as one of the key factors for stimulating and supporting entrepreneurial activity. The World Bank Enterprise Surveys reveal that, in low-income countries, on an average 43% of businesses with 20 to 99 employees’ rate, access to finance or cost of finance as a major constraint to current operations. In high-income countries, only 11% of businesses of the same size rate, access to finance as a constraint. In this backdrop, an attempt was made to analyze the impact of financial inclusion on entrepreneurship in India.

This study focused on the impact of ICTs usage on the performance of women entrepreneurs in the South Western States of Nigeria .The purpose of the research was to highlight the types of ICTs tools frequently used by women entrepreneurs and its effect on their performances. A total of 120 women entrepreneurs who were randomly selected participated in the study and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results indicated that the use of mobile phones, television, radio, magazines and newspapers are the tools frequently used by entrepreneurs while internet services, electronic mails and computers are underutilized due to the fact that they are expensive and also because majority of the women entrepreneurs lack computer skills. Furthermore, it was discovered that mobile phones being one of the ICTs tools are sources of cheaper and faster communication and majority of the respondents believed that it has contributed positively to their performances. However, it was concluded that women entrepreneurs’ use of ICT infrastructure and systems in South-Western Nigeria is limited and even the ones in use are not widely explored and channeled for business development. Therefore, the study recommended that efforts should be made by governments and service providers to ensure that women entrepreneurs are made aware of new ICT applications and innovative services that are of use to the business sector. Also, government should ensure prompt and adequate electricity supply in order to overcome the problems of incessant power failure which served as a major challenge to the usage of ICTs tools by the entrepreneurs.

This study was conducted to check the random walk behavior in the Karachi Stock Exchange. Daily, weekly and monthly stock returns of KSE 100 index for the period from 1st Jan. 1998 to 29th Feb. 2012 was tested by using descriptive statistics, VAR test, RUN test, KS test and unit root tests (ADF test and PP). Results of all the tests indicate that the KSE don’t follow random walk behavior and thus not weak form efficient, and there are chances of abnormal profit for the technical investors.

This study aims to analyze relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) using content analysis from 1972 to 2012. In this study, strategy of Margolis and Walsh (2001), Orlitzky et al. (2003), and Dam (2008) is implemented and financial measures such as stock market returns, Tobin’s Q, and accounting profits ratios e.g. return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and return on sales (ROS) are targeted. Study concludes that strong positive relationship exists between CSR and CFP using Tobin’s Q as financial performance measure, mostly studies found positive relationship between CSR and CFP using ROA, ROE, & ROS as financial performance measure, and mostly studies found negative relationship between CSR and CFP using stock market returns as financial performance measures. This study will provide literature evidences as record about CSR and CFP to empirical as well as theoretical prospective researcher and limitations are discussed also.

In the modern commercial era, companies and their managers are subjected to well publicized pressure to play an increasingly active role in society – so called “Corporate social responsibility”. It has been argued that an element in this development is simply enlightened self-interest in that social responsibility enhances corporate image and financial performance. To date the evidence to support this thesis derives from North America. Outside this continent evidence for any relationship is sparse. This study will initially attempt to definethe concept of corporate social responsibility and to examine its guiding principles. Subsequently, the available empirical research into the link between corporate social responsibility and economic performance will be evaluated this study examines different impacts of positive and negative CSR activities on financial performance of hotel, restaurant and airline companies, theoretically based on positivity and negativity effects. Findings suggest mixed results across different industries and will contribute to companies’ appropriate strategic decision-making for CSR activities by providing more precise information regarding the impacts of each directional CSR activity on financial performance.

This study is based on observation on court-domination; it tries to answer how the governmental organs and their staff who were not chosen by people directly should answer people. The same essay has introduced some concepts of answering, it is to examine some answering goals in the governmental centers and their different aspects. This study is to assign an example as a theoretical form in order to compare some of usual answering systems in the world. The writer, by using the same examples of answering systems in English and America which are two political (parliamentary and boss) systems and those of Pakistan and Bangladesh have explained all details. The writer hops to study the reply systems in the foresaid societies, let us know about these systems and their effects.

This study seeks to assess the Impact of the Contributory Pension Scheme on employee retirement benefits of quoted firms in Nigeria. In line with this objective, the population of the study is the one hundred and eighty-two (234) firms quoted on the first- tier market of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and ten (10) quoted firms selected as sample size based on the fact that they are some of the companies that had complied with SAS 8. The study utilized data from secondary source. Data were obtained from the annual accounts and reports of the (10) quoted firms that made up the sample of the study. The time frame for the study is ten years, covering the period of 1998 to 2007. The techniques of analysis used in the study were the Student’s T-test and the qualitative grading. We concluded that even though the Contributory Pension Scheme has positive impact on employee retirement benefits of quoted firms in Nigeria, variation in application still exists among them. The study recommended an effective monitoring/supervision and enforcement of the provisions of the Pension Reform Act, 2004, in addition to effective implementation of the penalties provided by the Act on non-compliers regardless of their status or origin. The study calls on the appropriate authorities such as the government, professional accountancy bodies on academics to commission research and activities geared towards developing not only accounting policies that would ensure swift compliance with Statement of Accounting Standards (SAS 8), but strategies that would ensure optimum investments that enhance net worth and profitability of firms.

The present study empirically investigates the risk and return relationship by loading the macroeconomic information in standard CAPM in addition to market information. One hundred financial and non financial companies listed on Karachi Stock Exchange are investigated over a period of January 2005 to August 2011. Monthly data is used for the company asset prices, market portfolio and macroeconomic variables in this study. The macroeconomic variables are used as additional risk forces in the model. The study makes use of CAPM with unconditional and conditional specification for the prediction of future asset prices. The time varying conditional information and lagged macroeconomic variables are added in the model. The GARCH (1, 1) – M technique is applied to capture the conditional volatility clustering of asset returns. The findings of the current study reveals that conditional multifactor CAPM have better results than unconditional multifactor CAPM model. The residuals and conditional variances have significantly positive impact and are helpful in explaining time varying behaviour of asset returns. The macroeconomic variables such as oil prices, foreign exchange rate, foreign exchange reserves, inflation rate, interest rate, and money supply play significant role while industrial production index, unemployment rate, and market returns have inconclusive role in this study. The study concludes that macroeconomic risk factors play a prominent role in explaining stock returns.

This study seeks to explore the factors determining the capital structure of banking sector of Pakistan. A panel data set of 26 banks for the period of 2007 to 2011 was selected to fulfill the objective of this study. The findings of two econometric techniques of panel data i.e. fixed effects and random effects models reveal that size, tangibility, profitability, growth opportunities and liquidity are the significant determinants of capital structure. The size and liquidity of the banks in the sample have direct impact on leverage, whereas, tangibility, profitability and growth opportunities have a negative association with leverage. These outcomes are in line with corporate finance theories such as Trade-Off Theory, Agency Cost Theory and Pecking Order Theory. This study certifies that banking sector has determinants similar to non-financial sector, so, this study will help financial analysts and managers in understanding the dynamics and underlying premises on capital structure of banking sector of Pakistan.

Considering the fact that approximately 80% of problems of organizational security have to do with negligence or lack of users’ awareness of knowledge management (KM) , the users’ knowledge about information security has been identified to be one of the most fundamental issues in information security management. Accordingly, in the present study we analyzed different factors of knowledge management for recording, storage, sharing and dissemination of information security. The current paper is a type of descriptive-correlative in terms of collecting data and pragmatic in goal. The findings come from a field study on knowledge management experts at Iranian universities. Also, a questionnaire was the means for collecting the data. Finally, the data were analyzed using the partial least square and path analysis methods. The findings suggest that the information system users remarkably apply security factors of knowledge management. Furthermore, the authors realized that it is possible to use security factors of knowledge management by increasing the users’ awareness in order to enhance informational security.