International Journal of Business and Economic Development

Expected returns, stock valuation methods, and capital structure management have a major influence on the effectiveness of the company’s financial strategy. This study analyzes a sample portfolio to consider how the expected rate of return is assigned, how common stock is valued, and how equity and debt are targeted in the firm’s capital structure. The validity of an algorithm that values common stock depends on accurate assessment of the expected return. Company policy for acquiring capital and paying dividends could alter the expected return. The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) helps judge the role of certain factors in determining expected return and stock value. In the sample portfolio, we shall work with one valuation method, the Gordon Model of constant growth, and compare its expected returns with the CAPM. The CAPM considers the risk-free rate, the market risk premium, and a systematic risk index, while the Gordon Model assigns value of stocks based on dividend growth. We examine dividend payout policy to find that it influences differences between the Gordon Model and the CAPM’s expected returns. Both methods help determine how the cost of equity may be applied to the firm’s capital structure, usually in the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). Tax factors in the WACC influence the proportions of debt and equity in the capital structure. The tax benefit of debt makes debt the least expensive source of capital funding, but its use should be limited due to the higher risk of debt. Manipulations within the WACC have an influence on the mix of funding sources in the capital structure, the cost of both debt and equity, and the stock price. Therefore, the discussion will further consider the topic of capital structure optimization. This previously unpublished paper is the original work of the author.

As South Africa struggles to deal with many of its socio-economic challenges including poverty, this paper was interested to empirically unpack how trade specifically manufacturing exports are contributing towards poverty reduction. The paper was motivated by the decent surge in exports especially in the manufacturing sector whilst on the other side, poverty levels increased. The paper employed time series data spanning 1990-2020 in a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The food poverty line index was used as the dependent variable, and it was found that exports from the manufacturing sector were significant in explaining food poverty reduction for South Africa. Further, economic growth and the human development index (HDI) were found to have poverty reducing effects in the long run. Interestingly, we found foreign direct investment increasing food poverty in South Africa in the long-run but reducing it in the short-run. Policy recommendations arising from our results are that South African authorities should consider pursuing more export led growth policies especially in industries that can absorb labour from those with little or no skills. Also, foreign direct investment should be encouraged in sectors that are not labour substitutive so that more inflows can lead to reduced food poverty through job creation in the long run.

The current intensive global competition compels exporters to adapt to innovative ways of doing business to remain competitive. Many exporters are unable to meet international regulatory requirements to service their exports. South African government has implemented growth-enhancing reforms that aim at igniting economic activity while promoting industrialisation and transformation to broadening the exporter base of the country. This article sought to find out the effects of the National Exporter Development Programme (NEDP) on South African emerging exporters within Gauteng Province. The NEDP as well as the Provincial Investment and Promotion Agencies are very critical in supporting emerging exporters in the Gauteng province.

The organizational and digital transformation projects are very complex to finalize, because of many reasons, and they mainly depend on the initial project’s phases. The initial phases depend on the critical Building Blocks (BB) based Reorganizational Process’ (RP) success, knowing that the Unbundling Process (UP) success and the deliverance of pool(s) of extracted and refined BBs, is the most important phase. BBs are combined to offer reusable Composite BBs (CBB), which are used to (re)build and optimize Organization’s Units (OU) Platform (OUP). The optimization of OUs takes into account mainly intangible and non-financial objectives. The Enterprise’s (ENT) RP is a sequence (or a set) of RPs on the OUP (RPOUP), which goal is to disassemble ENT’s: Legacy OUs’ archaic structure(s), Organizational processes, Information system’s administration, Resources/Artefacts, Applications/Modules, Working models, and Components; into dynamic reusable CBBs which can be (re)used in standardized or In-House-Implemented (IHI) Organizational BBs (OBB); where a OU is a set of OBBs and different OUs can share OBBs, and hence CBBs.  The conversion of the legacy OUs and their subsystems need an IHI Methodology, Domain, and Technology Common Artefacts Standard (MDTCAS) that maps to existing BBs, CBBs and OOBs. In generating Micro-Artifacts (MA) the RP can face major difficulties because of the ENT’s heterogenous human profiles/cultures, system parts, OU’s Resistances (OUR), managers/stakeholders exaggerated financial ambitions, and project’s limited time/budgets. In this chapter the author uses an adapted version of the Applied Holistic Mathematical Model (AHMM) for DEOM (AHMM4DEOM) (Trad, & Kalpić, 2020a) to support RPOUP’s feasibility that uses the initial phase’s pool of secured BBs that result from the Automated Refine Processes (ARP) based UP (Trad, 2023b). OU is a set of OBBs, and a Dynamic Enterprise Organizational Models (DEOM) is a set of OUs; and finally, an ENT is a set of OUs.

This research focused on examining the motivational factors that determine the behaviour of consumers in pre and post pandemic times in South Africa by conducting a secondary literature study in the selected universe, with the aim of exploring the key factors in the changes of consumption in men and women, due to the situation of isolation caused by COVID 19. The economic factor referring to the consumption of basic necessities in consumer behaviour is a benchmark for marketing sanitary. Because cleaning, sanitizing and medicinal products have become part of the basic (emerging) consumption of men and women in South Africa. Likewise, the psychological factor, from an exercise and health perspective, is another important factor in times of pandemic. The present study conducted in two phases, pre and post COVID-19 in South Africa. During those period consumers used to buy in a hybrid mode of shopping. Twelve variables (items) are used for the scale development of buying behaviour and taken from the literature and further improved through EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) in the study. The questionnaire was developed using the five-point Likert scale. The survey tool consisted of 30 items. There are 258 respondents were replied through online questionnaire. Two set of questions were asked, and responses were analysed.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to ascertain the environmental impact of renewable energy sources.

Methodology: The research combines a pragmatist epistemology and an exploratory, inductive technique. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, the study collects primary data on participants' perspectives, perceptions, and attitudes regarding the connection between renewable energy sources and the environment through a self-administered survey (with 400 subjects) and in-depth interviews (sample size 25).

Findings: Participants expressed worry about climate change and a keen understanding of the favourable effects of renewable energy sources on the environment, particularly in terms of pollution reduction, global warming reduction, and climate change mitigation.

Practical Implications - The primary rationale for increased calls for the transition away from non-renewable energy sources is the desire to mitigate their negative environmental implications. Renewable energy sources must be expanded to meet this goal. Additional study is needed to identify viable policy pathways for accelerating the transition to renewable energy.

Originality: To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this is the first study combining self-administered survey with 400 subjects and in-depth interviews with 25 subjects in the United Kingdom on the public's perspective of renewable energy, its status of development, hurdles, and role in mitigating global warming and climate change.

This study examines the factors affecting people’s desire to hold money in liquid form (relative to investing it) in sixteen countries in Africa. Earlier studies on this subject matter examined the connection between the demand for money and income, exchange rate, price and interest rate. This study extends this work by including debt and population. The method of analysis of this study is unprecedented as it incorporates the Auto-regressive Distributed Lag technique, Panel Data and Elasticity concepts. Furthermore, most studies on the demand for money made use of data of almost a decade ago. The world is evolving and studies on money demand should be contemporaneous with this trend. The study found out that debt service, income and population significantly affect money demand. With the exception of population, there is no short run causality of all the regressors and the outcome variable. However, they become cointegrated in the long run at -0.1918. Furthermore, there is no problem of serial correlation, heteroscedacity and poor distribution of residuals in the model. All variables are tested at 5% level of significance.