Olubunmi Florence Osemene1, Joshua Solomon Adeyele2 and Pauline Adinnu3
In many countries, there are a certain number of organizations going through severe crises due to a failure in corporate governance. In this study, the main aim is to determine how the ownership structure and the characteristics of the boards of Nigeria’s listed deposit money banks (DMBs) affect aggressive earnings management for a period of 5 years (2011-2016). The panel least-square method was used to analyze the data collected. The findings revealed that private, foreign and government shareholdings have a negative and significant impact on aggressive earnings management. Also, directors’ tenures status has a significant effect on aggressive earning management, while the board size, the gender and the size of the firm have no such significant effect in the period observed. Based on these findings, the study concludes that the ownership structure has a significant impact on aggressive earnings management, whereas the characteristics of the board, excluding directors’ tenures status, do not have any significant effect. Hence, the study recommends that the 10% threshold imposed by the CBN on the government shareholding should be maintained, while regulatory and supervisory agencies are advised to pay adequate attention and conduct the monitoring of the activities performed by the CEOs of the banks, especially upon expiry of the directors’ tenure, so as to protect shareholders.
Alphonse Kumaza
Corporate innovation and technology application for the purpose of improving business profits are a permanent fixation in management. The study explores corporate innovation and its capability to ensure social accountability and environmental responsibility. Innovation is necessary for growth, the maintenance of the market share and for the continual expansion and exploration of business opportunities, yet difficult to secure sustainable communities. The results of an SPSS statistical analysis show that business innovative technology and new thinking capabilities are not so designed to promote environmental accountability and social welfare, but rather to enhance corporations’ growth. The insufficient poor understanding of business management of the enterprise’s externality contributes to corporations’ poor environmental performance. This contribution, which might be the subject matter of possible future research, exposes corporations’ inability to promote sustainable stakeholder communities and environmental responsibility, contrary to the perceptions that business innovation works for environmental sustainability.
Marko Slavković, Goran Pavlović and Marijana Simić
The transformation of a capital-intensive to knowledge-driven economy has marked the beginning of a new epoch in business doing. Carrying out business activities in an extremely dynamic environment has greatly reduced the importance of traditional concepts and techniques, which is the reason why the focus has shifted to human resources and their management. Accordingly, a company should attract, retain and motivate its employees in order to ensure a high level of their satisfaction by ensuring the achievement of strategic goals. A possible direction of achieving the desired position is based on the development of the employer brand. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine the impact of practice in conducting employee recruitment activities on their satisfaction, as well as the influence of the employer brand as a mediator on the identified relationship between the recruitment and satisfaction of employees in Serbia. The results of the conducted empirical research study have proven the existence of a statistically significant positive influence of employee recruitment on satisfaction, while the mediating influence of the employer brand has also been fully confirmed.
Joshua Solomon Adeyele
The inability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to access funds from financial institutions has been identified as one of the major problems limiting their expansion horizons. This study assesses the criteria and mechanisms used by financial institutions when granting loans to SMEs. The data were sourced from the relevant financial institutions and analyzed by using different statistical tools. One of the findings revealed that the financial ratio and the internal control system accounted for 28.7% of the part of the conditions for granting loans to SMEs. Similarly, good working capital and the ease of asset conversion accounted for 94.5% of the criteria used by financial institutions to extend credits/loans to SMEs. Also, the educational background of SMEs’ operators significantly influenced the financial institutions’ choice of SMEs to finance. Based on these findings, the study recommends that there is a need for SMEs’ operators to align their business activities with financial institutions’ lending criteria.
Edvard Jakopin
Are the transitional countries of SEE trapped in institutional transition or not? The institutional transition that has been lasting for almost three decades, and almost two decades in the Republic of Serbia, initiated the rapid destruction of the institutions of the previous political and economic system, but the construction of new market institutions has been slow, inefficient and partial. The Republic of Serbia lost the three decades of economic growth and development, which, as evidenced by economic law, takes twice as much time to restore the system to the previous equilibrium of the length of the time which the system is located in off-balance. The average 3% growth in the seventeen transition years is insufficient to compensate for the enormous backlog of the 1990s. The contribution of the research study to the work focuses on the analysis of the interdependence of economic growth and institution building. A special viewpoint is aimed at the corruption factor destroying institutions in all transition countries, reducing their economic growth and productivity, and negatively affecting the attractiveness of FDIs.
Dejan Jovanović and Vesna Janjić
With an increase in the number of the companies that have adopted the ISO 14001 standard, the interest demonstrated in research studies regarding the assessment of the motives for and benefits from the ISO 14001 standard implementation has also been increasing. Nevertheless, in spite of the importance of the ISO 14001 standards, a discussion on their importance and the role of accounting in this process yet remains an open issue among researchers and practitioners. Starting from the above said, the main purpose of the research conducted in this paper is to identify the motives for and benefits from the implementation of the ISO 14001 standard and to examine the role of accounting in the implementation process. The empirical research in this paper was performed on the example of the 33 companies that have the obligation to submit their data on the sources of environmental pollution to the National Pollution Register. The data were collected through a poll of the management of the companies via a questionnaire, whereas the data analysis was performed by using various quantitative statistical methods and techniques, and primarily through the application of descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. The results of the research indicate that the primary motives for the introduction of the ISO 14001 standards are an environmental responsibility, creating the image of a socially responsible company and the improvement of performances, whereas the benefits can be synthesized through the improvement of environmental performances, efficiency and profitability. Also, the results of the research study indicate that the managers of the companies partly recognize the role of accounting in the implementation of the ISO 14001 standard. The main conclusion of the research is that the management of the companies partly recognize the role of accounting in the ISO 14001 standards implementation. The main conclusion of the research is that the management of the companies in Serbia understand the importance of the implementation of the ISO 14001 standards, but not to a proper extent, as well as the role of accounting in that process.
Amaechi Patrick Egbunike and Godsday Edesiri Okoro
Quite a few studies have argued that green accounting does matter to the profitability of a firm; however, little is known about Nigerian firms. To address this gap, this paper seeks to investigate whether green accounting matters to the profitability of Nigerian firms or not. Towards achieving this, an expo-facto research design was adopted and ten non-consumer goods firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange were selected during 2012-2016. The data were sourced from the annual reports and accounts of the selected non-consumer goods firms. The data comprised of green accounting (expenses of community involvement and the amount spent on environmental protection) and profitability (return on equity and Tobin Q) indicators. The data obtained were analyzed by using canonical correlations. The study revealed that there was no significant relationship between green accounting and profitability measures among the non-consumer goods firms. The implication is that whether or not firms engage in green accounting, their profitability level remains unchanged. In addition, this provides evidence that the practice of green accounting among non-consumer goods firms in Nigeria is still at its ad-hoc stage. On the basis of the above findings, we proposed that the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria and corporate entities should, as a matter of fact, accommodate the growing awareness in green accounting and formulate a disclosure requirement aimed at improving the profitability of firms. This will no doubt enhance green accounting practices among firms and in general policies aimed at enhancing their competitiveness in the industry in which they are domiciled.
Slavica Manić, Ljubinka Joksimović and Siniša Zarić
The gender role hierarchy in the Republic of Serbia is an inspirational topic on several grounds: first, this is a specific issue within a wider gender equality problem, which has recently become the priority of structural reforms; second, it is a separate segment of gender segregation, the research issue unjustifiably ignored by the domestic academic community; finally, it is just a piece of the “puzzle” that reflects the situation in the gender inequality field, but exactly the one which neither national nor European statistics provide detailed information for. The above-mentioned reasons represent the basic motivation for writing this paper. In order to determine whether the position of women in science varies according to their position on the career scale, as it usually happens all over Europe, we shall examine the situation in the higher education system in the Republic of Serbia. That is why we apply the methodological procedures of descriptive statistics to the micro-data obtained from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development in order to calculate the following relative indicators: the teaching staff structure by gender and grades across different fields of science and the glass ceiling index. We believe that such a relatively precise insight into the range of vertical segregation could be useful in conceiving future initiatives aimed at the systemic introduction of a gender perspective in the adoption, implementation and monitoring of public policies.
Amaka E. Agbata1, Chizoba M. Ekwueme1 and Edirin Jeroh2
The study determined how the administration of the Pension Scheme could be perked up in Nigeria through effective management that would reduce fraudulent practices apparent in the scheme. By following the precept of library research via the survey design, a 5-point Likert Scale questionnaire was designed to educe primary information about pension matters from a sample of 435 knowledgeable respondents. The collected data were presented and analyzed. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested based on Multiple Regression Analysis models with the aid of Minitab version 17. The findings show that, despite the provisions of the Act (the Pension Reform Act – PRA), intents for committing Pension Fraud have not reduced to a significant extent. Also, the accumulated assets of pension funds have not been adequately diversified into profitable investment alternatives. Therefore, we recommend that, among other things, amendments should concertedly be made to the PRA to at least discourage acts of pension frauds by instituting severe punitive measures for culprits, while simultaneously inculcating moral ethics among public servants in Nigeria.
Nguyen Thi Nguyet
This paper focuses on the evaluation of the impact of the fiscal policy on the growth of Vietnam at the provincial level. A fiscal policy plays a huge role in a national economy. Policy-makers often use flexible fiscal and monetary policies to achieve the overall goal of economic growth. In order to assess the impact of the fiscal policy instruments on economic growth, integrated analyses combined with quantitative analyses are used in the paper so as to find the relationship between the key expenditure items. The government has an impact on economic growth. The results and methodology will elicit quantitative approaches in policy reviews.