Perceptual attitudes towards safety climate among employees of a manufacturing firm: A qualitative approach

This study focused on corporate governance and performance of selected Nigerian multinational firms from 2012 to 2016. Specifically, the study focused on the effect of board size, activism and committee activism on return on asset and firm growth rate. Secondary data collected from four multinational firms were analyzed via static panel estimation techniques. While board size and board activism exerted significant negative impact on return on asset, committee activism exerted insignificant impact. The results of the study further showed that board size and board activism exert insignificant negative impact on firm’s growth rate, while committee activism insignificantly spurs firm’s growth rate. Decisively, discoveries from this study reflect that corporate governance has significant negative impact on return on asset, but has insignificant influence on the growth rate of Nigerian multinational firms. Based on these findings, the authors recommended that corporate governance dynamics in firms world over should be reconsidered, such that it gives credence to more than just numbers of persons or meetings held, but the main reasons and deliberations in such meetings. It was also recommended that excessive increase in magnitude or frequency of meetings held by board of directors cum committee should be avoided.

Working capital management plays a pivotal role in enhancing the operational efficiency of firms and their ultimate profitability. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the trends in working capital management and its impact on the financial performance of listed manufacturing firms on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE). A panel data methodology was used with different regression estimators to analyze this relationship based on an unbalanced panel of 69 manufacturing firms listed during the period 2007–2016.
The findings revealed that the average collection period and the average payment period are negative and statistically significant for profitability, implying that firms which efficiently manage their accounts receivable and those that pay their creditors on time perform better than those that do not. Additionally, a positive statistically significant relationship between the number of days in inventory and profitability was supported suggesting that firms which stock-up and maintain their inventory levels suffer less from stock-outs and avoid challenges of securing financing when needed. This increases their operational efficiency and ensures profitability in the long run. It could not be ascertained whether a shorter or longer cash conversion cycle enhances firm profitability, since findings to support this premise were weak. However, it was observed that manufacturing firms are on average, carrying lot of debt in their capital structures.
The present study contributes to existing literature by presenting one of the very recent findings on this topic while simultaneously testing the validity of recent local and international methodologies, in order to inform policy change.

Management accounting practices (MAPs) are crucial for manufacturing firms to control diverse organizational operations and improve their organizational performance. The study aimed to analyze the scope of MAPs and their association with the organizational performance of Nepalese manufacturing firms. The outcomes relied on primary data obtained through structured survey from 223 medium to top-level employees of the selected companies. It was found that traditional management accounting practices had greater dominance (β = 0.817, p = 0.000) in the package of MAPs than contemporary management accounting practices (β = 0.707, p = 0.000) in Nepalese manufacturing firms. The extent of use of contemporary management accounting practices was marginally greater (mean = 3.757) than traditional management accounting practices (mean = 3.563). The analysis also disclosed no association of MAPs with organizational performance of Nepalese manufacturing firms. Though the study had a moderately small sample size from the manufacturing industry, future studies may examine the association between MAPs and organizational performance by taking samples of the manufacturing and service industry to ensure comparability and generalizations. The study endeavored to advance management accounting literature by presenting pragmatic evidence on the association of MAPs with organizational performance in the Nepalese scenario.