Finance

The ethics of a business is currently a high profile issue owing to sensational corporate scandals that had taken place in many countries causing extensive damages to the economy and society. These corporate scandals question the morality of businessmen in general and accountants in particular. It is argued that the accountants have been the main contributors to the decline in ethical standards of a business. The application of ethical standards assists auditors to overcome ethical dilemmas which, allow for the right choice of professional behavior that may not only benefit the client but the public who relies on the auditors reporting. Auditors have an obligation to the clients they serve, their profession, the public, and themselves to maintain the highest standards of ethical behaviour.They have a responsibility to be competent and to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and objectivity. An analysis of attitudes toward ethics in the accounting profession showed that chances to engage in unethical dealings exist. Ethics is considered one of the most important criteria upon which all professions in achieving its goals; particularly the internal audit. It is one of the most important and the most serious issues that are dealt with in all societies; therefore, in this study, the concept of ethics and the need for ethics is necessary, as well as the qualities of faith, the physical, mental and psychological traits of auditor, and shed the light on the methods of preparation of a good auditor. The objective of this study, clarifying the concept of ethics and the importance of ethical principles, and conceptual need for ethics should all be reviewed and upheld by the internal auditor. The importance of this study stems from the importance of the ethical concepts and its necessity. The auditor should also be characterized by a commitment to follow through with their performance of internal audit work in accordance with the professional care needed. Care of any person who is keen and faithful to their work and the origins of a conservative organization, should note the importance of this study and the several recommendations that are important for all professionals of the audit profession.

This study attempts to investigate the change, if any, in the volatility observed in the Indian stock market due to the introduction of futures trading. The change in the volatility is compared in terms of the structure of the volatility. This is done to give insights into the way the futures market is influencing the Indian spot market’s volatility. The main objective of the study is to investigate whether there has been significant change in relative volatility of the underlying spot return and futures return. The period of study is from 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2010 for the spot prices. The study used three stock indices of NSE namely Nifty, CNX IT and CNX Bank. The index futures time series analyzed here uses data on the near month contract as they are most heavily traded. The study has used four measures of volatility. The study finds that for the three NSE indices, the study rejects the null hypothesis of ‘no significant change in relative inter-day volatility between spot prices and futures prices’ over the entire period 2000-2010, but cannot reject the hypothesis fully for all the individual years. There is significant change in relative intra-day volatility between spot prices and futures prices for all the three NSE indices.

The primary objective of the study is to investigate the existence of seasonality in stock price behavior in Indian stock market and more specifically in the Gas, Oil and Refineries sector. The period of the study is from 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2010. For the purpose analysis, the study has employed daily price series that have been obtained from the official website of National Stock Exchange (NSE). The daily price series of selected eight Gas, Oil and Refineries companies were selected for this study, and used multiple regression technique to examine the significance of the regression coefficient for investigating month of the year effects. It is found that all the eight selected Gas, Oil and Refineries companies evidenced month of the year effect and mostly either on September, August or February. Only GAIL, and HPCL evidenced significant October and July effect.

Seasonal or calendar anomalies in equity markets (over specific days, weeks, months, and even years) have attracted a widespread attention and considerable interests among practitioners and academics alike. The day of the week effect refers to the existence of a pattern on the part of stock returns, whereby these returns are linked to the particular day of the week The primary objective of the study is to investigate the existence of seasonality in stock price behavior in Indian stock market, more specifically to investigate the existence of the day of the week effect in banking sector. The rationale behind the selection of banking sector is stocks in this sector always experience high volatility in the market, linked to the movement of broad market index and banking in India is critical to economic development of the nation. Thus this sector hence needs special attention by investors. The period of the study is from 3rd November 1994 to 31st December 2013. For the purpose analysis, the study has employed daily price series that have been obtained from the official website of National Stock Exchange (NSE). The daily price series of selected nine banks were selected for this study, and used multiple regression technique to examine the significance of the regression coefficient for investigating day of week effects. It is found that all the nine selected banks evidenced day of the week effect and mostly either on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Only IDBI, OBC and PNB evidenced significant Thursday effect. The existence of seasonality in stock returns violates the weak form of market efficiency because equity prices are no longer random and can be predicted based on past pattern. This facilitates market participants to devise trading strategy which could fetch abnormal profits on the basis of past pattern. These findings have important implications for the financial managers, financial analysts and investors. The understanding of seasonality would help them to develop appropriate investment strategies.

The main objective of the study is to examine the directional causality between spot and futures market in Indian scenario. For this purpose, the study has used pair wise Granger Causality test. The study has used daily prices series in both spot market and futures market for the 40 sample individual stocks drawn from six leading sectors namely Automobiles, Banking, Cement, Gas, Oil & Refineries, Information Technology and Pharmaceutical. The period of study is from 1st January 1997 to 31st May 2009. The study finds that with the exception of Tata Motors, all the remaining Automobile companies showed bi-directional causality between spot and futures prices. Seven (out of selected nine) Banks showed bi-directional causality between spot and futures prices. In the Gas, Oil & Refineries sector, BPCL, HPCL, IOC and Reliance Industries showed bi-directional causality between spot and futures prices. Out of the seven IT firms, four companies did not show any causality between spot and futures prices. All the six selected Pharmaceutical companies witnessed bi-directional causality between spot and futures prices.

Widespread liberalization and deregulation of financial markets, cross border mergers and acquisition, increased role of investors willing to invest abroad, rapid advances in modern technology and internet – have all resulted in remarkable increase of international capital flows in India. Foreign direct investment acts as a major medium in the development of a country through up-gradation of technical know how, managerial skills and financial resources. Rise in purchasing power, growing consumption and brand flare-up has led to transformation in retail sector. FDI in retail can enlarge market by reducing operation and transformation cost of business through implementation of advanced supply chain and benefit consumers and suppliers. As well as raised concerns about employment losses, increase in competition for domestic retailers resulting in closing of small domestic retailers from the market and distortion of urban culture development. The present paper focuses on the Indian retail sector in context of opportunities of expansion of FDI in Indian retail sector and the challenges come forward that retail sector faces.

Abstract After the corporate default of major corporations in the past years such as Enron Lehman Brothers etc the study has been a major area for research the default of US based giants has act as a distress and alarming situation for emerging economies with different areas of research regarding corporate defaults this paper focuses on examining the relationship of ownership structure with the performance of a firm through market performance ratios and firms volume of publically listed companies on Malaysian stock exchanges. Results suggested defaulted firms ownership concentration is unable to show significant relationship with the performance of these firms except for the major shareholder. Keywords: concentration of shares, corporate default, firm performance

The main purpose of this research is to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility initiative of the state bank of India on the customer satisfaction. A conceptual frame work comprised of four elements (economic, social, legal and philanthropic) developed by carroll 1991 is used to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction. A multivariate likert scale (1-5) has been developed with one additional dimension customer satisfaction. A sample of 192 customers of the bank has been used to collect the data. Regression and correlation analysis is conducted using SPSS 22 on full version of data to generate the result of analysis. The results show that there is a significant and positive impact of CSR dimensions on customer satisfaction. Also this research shows that economic CSR have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. This result is confirmed by correlation analysis. Correlation analysis shows that the CSR positively and significantly correlated with customer satisfaction. Hence the research found that there is significant and strong positive relationship between improved customer satisfaction and CSR. This study concluded that improving customer perception of CSR practices such as legal, ethical and philanthropy CSR will improve customer satisfaction. Therefore the banks should take initiatives to improve their CSR practices to enhance customer satisfaction

A bulk of the Nigeria wealth is derived from Oil and Agriculture which lies in abundant quantity in rural communities. Current estimates put the rural population at over 80% of the entire population of almost 160 million people. So far, not much in terms of infrastructural development has been done to bring this bulk of concentration of both human and material resources to contribute optimally to national economy. The neglect has resulted to the mass exodus of rural dwellers and in turn has made the rural area qualitatively and quantitatively depopulated, and progressively less attractive for socio-economic investment. It is against this backdrop that this paper evaluates the impact of Nigerian commercial banks on rural populace in Oyo metropolis and; also to determine the relationship that exists between various activities of commercial banks and its rural populace. In line with the objectives, two hypotheses were formulated. The population of the study is the eight (8) Commercial Banks in Oyo metropolis and three (3) were selected as sample size. The study utilized data from primary source. Data were obtained from the questionnaires administered. The time frame for the study is ten years, covering the period of 2002 to 2011. The technique of analysis used in the data was Analysis of variance (ANOVA). We concluded that even though commercial banks activities such as giving out loans and receiving deposit has positive impact on the rural economy, there is room for the Commercial banks to gear more of its activities towards empowerment of the rural populace. Commercial banks should also strategize on how to attract and retain more deposits so as to further improve on their lending performance towards the rural dwellers. In addition to establishing a policy framework that maximizes the incomes of the working rural dwellers through policies to promote rural self-employment and reliability.

Cost management should be regarded as a process requiring the integration of separate discipline and involvement of the internal and external experts. Effective cost management requires the implementation of methodologies and steps that are repeatable and can be integrated with organization goals. For MSMEs to compete effectively in the global market, the cost of a product should be reduced by increasing productivity, by reducing manufacturing costs at the shop floor. The need is to see the cost management practices employed and the efficacies of such practices, which will enhance the opportunity to improve the decision-making process of the MSMEs. This paper studies the significant differences among efficacies of existing cost management practices used by the enterprises and establishes a functional relationship among cost management practices, efficacy, and action to achieve business objectives. In the process, Statistical tools like ANOVA, Regression Analysis, Inter-correlation matric, Path – Coefficient Analysis were used.