Related party transactions and firms financial performance

The study investigated related party transactions and firm’s financial performance using Secondary data obtained from Nigeria stock Exchange. We tried to determine whether RPT is used by firms to manipulate and bloat Return on Asset, Return on Equity and Earnings per share of manufacturing firms. RPT was subjected to Hausmann test for selection of appropriate model and regressed against performance variables. Test of causality was conducted to determine whether causal relationship exist amongst variables of study. Result showed RPT has no significant effects on ROA and EPS and not used to manipulate ROA and EPS. Conversely, RPT has significant relationship with ROE without any causal relationship which may be attributable to the shareholding structure of the firms. The study confirmed positive relationship of RPT with ROA, ROE and EPS implying that increases in RPT increases performance and in contrast decreases in RPT decreases performance. Based on findings, we concluded that firms are currently not using RPT to bloat earnings but probably use it to enhance its effectiveness in collaboration with efficient transaction hypothesis. However, positive relationship espoused by the study indicates its potential of being used for manipulative motive

UNDERSTANDING FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF THE CURRENT STATE OF HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNANCE IN KAZAKHSTAN

"In this paper, we have examined faculty perceptions of the current state of higher education governance in Kazakhstan. The purpose was to analyse the faculty's opinions and attitudes towards governance in their institutions. Several conclusions can be drawn from the findings. The first is that faculty was mostly unsatisfied with their level of involvement in governance, particularly in terms of the ways in which they communicate with upper management. Faculty would like to see proper feedback mechanisms in their communication channels with Vice Rectors and Rectors. Interestingly, the majority of faculty respondents claim that contemporary governance systems cannot respond appropriately to new social and academic realities. Most faculty members take their inactiveness for granted as they do not feel that their decisions will have an impact on institutional governance. However, the research has shown that faculty members are involved at the departmental level and feel comfortable about that." - ..

Corporate Tax and Corporate Social Responsibility of Firms in Nigeria

This study examined whether corporate tax (CT) is a substitute of and mutually exclusive to corporate social responsibility (CSR), or a complement thereof, using secondary data obtained from firms listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange. It also sought to determine the nature of CSR practiced in Nigeria. Result confirmed that CT is positively and complementarily related to CSR of firms that practice environmental remediation, and is negatively related to, mutually exclusive and a substitute to CSR of firms that embark on poverty alleviation and enhancement of educational development. This later inverse relationship imply that such firms have the potential to indulge in aggressive tax planning behaviors. Also, firms that practice poverty alleviation as a form of CSR activity are more dominant in Nigeria with the mean of such firms higher than that of firms practicing environmental remediation. Interestingly, the size of firms are positively and significantly related to CSR for firms practicing environmental remediation implying the larger the size the more investment in CSR activities. Also, size is negatively and not significantly related to CSR for firms practicing poverty alleviation CSR activities implying that size does not influence such firms’ decision on whether to invest on CSR and avoid tax or whether to pay tax and mitigate investment in CSR. Based on these findings we recommend government should encourage firms practicing CSR as a complement to CT through awards and recognition, discourage aggressive tax planning behavior of mutually exclusive firms by setting up controls and monitoring mechanisms to ensure fair reporting in addition to provision of tax incentives for CSR investments to discourage tax avoidance. Keywords: Taxation, Complements, Substitutes, poverty alleviation, environmental remediation, environmental accountin

UNDERSTANDING FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF THE CURRENT STATE OF HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNANCE IN KAZAKHSTAN

"In this paper, we have examined faculty perceptions of the current state of higher education governance in Kazakhstan. The purpose was to analyse the faculty's opinions and attitudes towards governance in their institutions. Several conclusions can be drawn from the findings. The first is that faculty was mostly unsatisfied with their level of involvement in governance, particularly in terms of the ways in which they communicate with upper management. Faculty would like to see proper feedback mechanisms in their communication channels with Vice Rectors and Rectors. Interestingly, the majority of faculty respondents claim that contemporary governance systems cannot respond appropriately to new social and academic realities. Most faculty members take their inactiveness for granted as they do not feel that their decisions will have an impact on institutional governance. However, the research has shown that faculty members are involved at the departmental level and feel comfortable about that." - ..

Performance Based Compensation and Firm Value of Commercial Banks in Nigeria

  The study examined performance-based compensation and firm value using Secondary data obtained from Nigeria stock exchange and tries to ascertain the nature of relationship between bonuses and commission and value of firm measured by enterprise value, market capitalization and price to book ratio of commercial banks in Nigeria for the period 2012-2017. Findings indicate no significant relation between profit sharing and enterprise value, no significant relationship between profit sharing and market capitalization. Also, there is no significant relationship between bonuses and enterprise value and no significant relationship between bonuses and price to book ratio. Interestingly, we found significant relationship between bonuses and market capitalization and significant relationship between profit sharing and PBV. The moderating variables liquidity significantly negatively relate with market capitalization and insignificantly relate with PBV and enterprise value. Loan loss provisioning negatively and insignificantly relate with PBV and MCAP while also negatively and significantly relating with enterprise value. Interestingly result indicates that value of banks in Nigeria are driven by market conditions and factors external to compensation as pay does not motivate enough productivity to enhance value. This may be because of delayed promotion, job may not be enriched and meaningful, long hours of work, poor job security and poor job environment. These factors discourage commitment to long-term goal and interest of shareholders. Also, the low compensation- earnings ratio in banks may serve as a disincentive to high productivity hence the negative relation of pay and firm value. We recommend improved pay, job security, promotion and recreational facilities thus aligning with Hertzberg motivational theory Keywords: Compensation, bonuses, profit sharing, Enterprise value, Market Capitalization, price to book value, Firm value DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/10-10-20 Publication date:May 31st 201

Capital Structure Composition and Financial Performance of Food and Beverage Firms in Nigeria

The study examined capital structure composition and Financial performance of Food and Beverage firms using Secondary data obtained from Nigeria stock exchange. Leverage composition; Short term debt to total Asset, Long Term debt to total asset and debt-equity ratio were regressed against market performance proxies earnings yield, price/earnings ratio and Tobin Q. Variables were subjected to Hausmann test for selection of appropriate model. Findings indicate Significant positive relationship between short term debt over total asset ratio and Tobin Q, Long term debt to total asset relate significantly positively with Tobin Q and earnings yield Also, there is Significant positive relationship between Debt Equity ratio and Earnings yield. We also found significant negative relationships between Short term debt and Earnings yield, Long term debt and P/E ratio, and between Debt Equity ratio and Tobin Q. Additionally, we found insignificant negative relationship between Short term debt and Price earnings ratio and between Debt equity ratio and P/E ratio. Also, a shift in capital structure composition from STD/TA to LTD/TA has a positive effect on TBQ which is statistically significant and a Shift from LTD/TA to STD/TA still maintains an equally positive effect on TBQ. However, it is more rewarding for the firm to shift to more long-term debt in its capital structure as it has higher effect on TBQ. A shift from TD/TA to LTD/TA has a significant positive effect on Earnings Yield and a shift from LTD/TA to STD/TA has a positive insignificant effect on EY. It will be rewarding for the firms to increase their earnings yield by shifting from STD to LTD. Based on findings, we conclude different compositions of leverage have different effects on market valuation of firms. We recommend Firms should optimally use LTD to increase market valuation. And should also examine capital structure composition to ascertain which of the combination maximises firm value Keywords: Capital Structure Composition, Tobin Q, Earnings Yield, Debt/Equity ratio, Price Earnings Ratio DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-24-01 Publication date: August 31st 201

The Pattern Speed of the Galactic Bar

Most late-type stars in the solar neighborhood have velocities similar to the local standard of rest (LSR), but there is a clearly separated secondary component corresponding to a slower rotation and a mean outward motion. Detailed simulations of the response of a stellar disk to a central bar show that such a bi-modality is expected from outer-Lindblad resonant scattering. When constraining the run of the rotation curve by the proper motion of Sgr A* and the terminal gas velocities, the value observed for the rotation velocity separating the two components results in a value of (53+/-3)km/s/kpc for the pattern speed of the bar, only weakly dependent on the precise values for Ro and bar angle phi.Comment: 5 pages LaTeX, 2 Figs, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Admixture Patterns and Genetic Differentiation in Negrito Groups from West Malaysia Estimated from Genome-wide SNP Data

Southeast Asia houses various culturally and linguistically diverse ethnic groups. In Malaysia, where the Malay, Chinese, and Indian ethnic groups form the majority, there exist minority groups such as the negritos who are believed to be descendants of the earliest settlers of Southeast Asia. Here we report patterns of genetic substructure and admixture in two Malaysian negrito populations (Jehai and Kensiu), using ~50,000 genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We found traces of recent admixture in both the negrito populations, particularly in the Jehai, with the Malay through principal component analysis and STRUCTURE analysis software, which suggested that the admixture was as recent as one generation ago. We also identified significantly differentiated nonsynonymous SNPs and haplotype blocks related to intracellular transport, metabolic processes, and detection of stimulus. These results highlight the different levels of admixture experienced by the two Malaysian negritos. Delineating admixture and differentiated genomic regions should be of importance in designing and interpretation of molecular anthropology and disease association studies

The Nexus of Asset Composition with Accounting and Market Performance of Firms in Nigeria

This ex-post facto design study examined the link between asset composition and accounting and market performance of insurance, banking and manufacturing firms quoted on Nigeria Stock Exchange using cross sectional secondary data from 2013 to 2017. The asset structure decomposed into plant property and equipment, long term investment, intangible asset and current assets were regressed against accounting measures of return on asset and return on equity on the one hand and market measures of price earnings ratio, earnings yield, Tobin’s Q and market valuation on the other hand. Property plant and equipment, long term investments, intangible asset and current assets all returned a positive and statistically significant relationship with return on assets. Similar result were equally returned by the assets components in relation to return on equity except property, plant and equipment and long-term investment that posted negative and statistically significant result. The result further indicate a positive but not statistically significant relationship of current assets with price earnings ratio contrary to the negative but statistically significant relationship of property, plant and equipment with the same performance measure. Also, long term investment and intangible assets both have a positive and statistically significant relationship with price earnings ratio.   The result also indicate that long term investment and current assets have a positive and statistically significant relationship with earnings yield. Conversely, property plant and equipment and intangible asset posted a negative and statistically significant relationship with earnings yield.  Intangibles and current asset have a positive and statistically significant relationship with market valuation while on the other hand increases in property, plant and equipment and long term investment reduces market valuation and Tobin’s Q in view of their negative but statistically significant relationship. The macroeconomic control variables of inflation and GDP and the microeconomic control variables of leverage and liquidity effectively performed their moderating roles between the dependent and the independent variables by differentially returning both positive and negative relationships. We recommend that IPO firms should invest less in PPE and Long-Term Assets to avoid negative investors pricing while at the same time increasing investment in current assets and developing intangibles. Also, firms with high asset base should increase leverage to enjoy tax advantage. We also recommend that firms with low asset base should avoid increased borrowing to mitigate risk of bankruptcy Keywords: Earnings Yield, Price Earnings Ratio, Tobin’s Q, Return on Assets, Return on Equity, Gross Domestic Product, Inflation, Leverage DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-22-01 Publication date: November 30th 201

Representation of people of South Asian origin in cardiovascular outcome trials of glucose-lowering therapies in Type 2 diabetes

Aims : Our aim was to investigate the proportional representation of people of South Asian origin in cardiovascular outcome trials of glucose-lowering drugs or strategies in Type 2 diabetes, noting that these are among the most significant pieces of evidence used to formulate the guidelines on which clinical practice is largely based. Methods : We searched for cardiovascular outcome trials in Type 2 diabetes published before January 2015, and extracted data on the ethnicity of participants. These were compared against expected values for proportional representation of South Asian individuals, based on population data from the USA, from the UK, and globally. Results : Twelve studies met our inclusion criteria and, of these, eight presented a sufficiently detailed breakdown of participant ethnicity to permit numerical analysis. In general, people of South Asian origin were found to be under-represented in trials compared with UK and global expectations and over-represented compared with US expectations. Among the eight trials for which South Asian representation could be reliably estimated, seven under-represented this group relative to the 11.2% of the UK diabetes population estimated to be South Asian, with the representation in these trials ranging from 0.0% to 10.0%. Conclusions : Clinicians should exercise caution when generalizing the results of trials to their own practice, with regard to the ethnicity of individuals. Efforts should be made to improve reporting of ethnicity and improve diversity in trial recruitment, although we acknowledge that there are challenges that must be overcome to make this a reality