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South African companies have, in the past, not recognised an asset for unused Secondary Tax on Companies (“STC”) credits. AC 501, Accounting for “Secondary Tax on Companies (STC)”, which is effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2004, now requires South African companies to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits, to the extent that it is probable that an entity will declare dividends of its own, against which the unused STC credits can be utilised. In terms of AC 501 and IAS 12 (AC 102), Income Taxes (the local and international accounting standard on income taxes), the recognition of a liability to pay STC has to be postponed until the declaration of a dividend. Some accounting commentators have indicated that they find it anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset in respect of unused STC credits, while no liability is recognised for the STC that would be payable on the future distribution of retained earnings. The objective of the study is to consider whether it is conceptually anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits while no liability is raised for the STC that would become payable on future dividend declarations on profits already recognised in the financial statements. The study concludes that it is conceptually anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits when no corresponding liability is raised.

According to AC 501, Accounting for ‘Secondary Tax on Companies (STC)’, a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits is recognised if it is probable that an entity will declare dividends against which unused STC credits can be used. This study examined the dividend declaration profile of companies recognising a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits to satisfy AC 501. In a literature review, the term ‘probable’ was analysed, showing that future dividend declarations are only regarded as ‘probable’ if their likelihood is 64% to 79%. A survey revealed that 45% of the surveyed companies with unused STC credits recognised a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits in their 2004 financial statements, and therefore believed they had satisfied the probability recognition criterion in AC 501. The survey also showed that companies that recognised a deferred tax asset have a dividend policy shareholders are familiar with, and most declare dividends annually. These two indicators can help assess the probability of future dividend declarations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical examination of the current law and the proposed changes made by the Law Commission, after consultation, in relation to non‐fraudulent pre‐contractual duties in insurance law.

The research is addressed using case law, statutes, current academic and law commission publications in the UK and Australia.

First, the paper finds that the current state of the law is unfair in relation to consumers and small businesses and much reform is needed to rebalance the nature of insurance contracts to reflect modern day practice.

This work does not address detailed issues in relation to fraudulent misrepresentations.

The law will be brought into line with current practice by the Financial Ombudsman Service.

This paper will be of interest to legal practitioners and academics and those in the insurance industry.

This chapter provides an introduction to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), a project under Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regional approach. As a region, the countries of LAC correspond to the second-highest representation in GEM after Europe. The chapter describes the GEM project, summarizes some key longitudinal indicators for the region, and analyzes the contributions and importance of GEM project for the systematic study of entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between internal branding (IB) and employees' brand commitment and analyze how transformational leadership (TFL) moderates this relationship.

Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 394 employees in Indian telecommunication sector. The hypotheses and conceptual model were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM), using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS).

The results suggest that employees' brand commitment is higher when organizations implement IB supported by transformational leaders. Results also indicate that impact of IB on affective commitment (AC) and normative commitment (NC) is greater than its impact on continuance commitment (CC).

Consistent with the brand commitment dimensions, the findings present an empirically tested comprehensive and integrative model of IB moderated by TFL. This study provides scholars a deeper understanding of relationship among IB, employee's commitment and TFL. Though multicollinearity is addressed, presence of cross-sectional data is a limitation in the study.

The study would help practicing managers to gain a new perspective to manage their internal brand mechanisms through TFL style by stimulating change among employees and create emotionally committed brand advocates.

This paper suggests an empirically validated framework of IB tested for moderation effect by TFL. It adds value to literature by reinforcing the effect of IB employees' AC and NC, especially among customer contact employees who represent brand during customer service delivery in telecommunication sector.

This study distinctively explores the firm-level and national-level determinants of audit committee effectiveness (ACE) in the Libyan banking sector (LBS).

A mixed-methods approach has been employed to enhance the quality of the collected data and reduce the risk of bias. Five groups of actors in the Libyan banking sector were surveyed, including board members, AC members, executive managers, internal auditors and external auditors, further to interviewing a representative sample of these groups. In total, 218 survey responses were gathered, and 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted.

The study results show that AC authority, financial expertise and diligence are positively and significantly attributed to ACE, although AC independence and resources are not significantly related to ACE. The authors find that the legal and regulatory environment, government intervention, and the accounting and auditing environment are perceived as important and associated with ACE regarding national-level factors. These findings are strongly supported by semi-structured interviews and suggest that both firm-level and national-level factors are essential in understanding ACE in Libya's banking sector.

The study’s evidence reiterates the vital need for more concentrated work to integrate governance, legislative and regulatory reforms to ensure the effectiveness of ACs as a key corporate governance (CG) mechanism in developing economies.

This study extends the literature relating measures of AC inputs and outputs by examining the perception of stakeholders to understand both the firm-level and national-level factors that affect ACE in a single institutional setting. Additionally, this work adds to the limited number of recent studies examining the role of ACs in the banking sector in developing economies.

Decisions made during the design stage of construction works can significantly reduce the risk of occurrence of occupational accidents, injuries and illnesses. Moreover, it has been established that design is one of the major contributors of accidents and injuries. Design for safety (DfS) studies within construction have highlighted factors affecting the implementation of DfS, among which are designer attitude; DfS knowledge/awareness and education; availability of DfS tools, including guidance; client’s influence and motivation; and legislation. The purpose of this study is to carry out an in-depth literature review of DfS studies within construction to explore the extent to which existing DfS research has looked at the above-listed DfS implementation factors.

A review of 164 journal articles related to DfS in construction (published from 1990 to 2017) within built environment, engineering and multidisciplinary safety journals was undertaken.

The findings indicate that around 60 per cent of the journal articles reviewed address designer knowledge/awareness and education issues, about 27 per cent looked at DfS implementation tools to assist designers to undertake DfS, about 23 per cent studied client influence/motivation, about 16 per cent studied designers’ attitudes towards DfS implementation and approximately 16 per cent looked at the role of legislation in DfS implementation. The literature points that client influence/motivation and legislation are very influential DfS implementation factors despite a limited number of studies in these areas.

Overall, the findings provide an indication of areas of DfS implementation, particularly client influence/motivation and legislation, where more research would be needed to promote DfS in construction to help mitigate the occurrence of accidents and injuries.

In this brief paper the authors consider the duties owed by professional indemnity insurance brokers to their insured clients. Given the prevalence of claims for financial mis‐selling this is an important issue of concern to all authorised advisers. Any failure to obtain or maintain cover leading to uninsured loss will naturally attract the potential attention of the broker’s own insurers. The authors summarise what the law expects of brokers in standard situations.

Insurance is a dynamic business highly affected by the environment it operates in. Alongside the practice of insurance, come principles on which the business of insurance is based. One of the principles, that is not short of controversy, is the doctrine of utmost good faith which requires full disclosure of material facts by the contracting parties. The author, in this chapter, explored the need for change in the regulation of this insurance principle and discussed the drivers behind these changes and the commensurate effect on the practice of insurance. The author delved into case studies, practices and literature and traced back to the origins of the long-standing principle of utmost good faith. This principle is one on which the acceptance (or otherwise) and premium of an insurance contract is based and through which certain factors and developments in the industry have led to a major reform in some jurisdiction.

The author discussed the development and drivers leading to reform and concluded that reform is ultimately the result of public outcry, through individual cases heard predominantly in court, a well-established reform committee, the socio-political environment of that country and the advent of technology. Moreover, although, different countries have their own jurisdictions, laws and regulations as well as market practices and international trade have made it imperative to have common technical practices between market players especially in insurance, which depends on the spread of risks between countries internationally. Smooth insurance business can only be established if this reform is harmonised between jurisdictions.

The purpose of this paper is to present an objective decision-making framework and conduct a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry.

The decision-making framework and benchmarking methodology evaluates the aircraft value for money (VfM) as a benefit-to-cost ratio calculated adopting a measure of relative efficiency. This efficiency score is measured as a comprehensive efficiency index obtained by combining several efficiency scores calculated by implementing four data envelopment analysis (DEA) models.

The framework is used to carry on a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry on a sample of 27 airplanes. The average VfM is 67.04 percent, with measurements between 39.96 and 116.03 percent. Only three airplanes achieve full VfM and behave as benchmarks to the remaining airplanes. Boeing B727-200 is a broad player in the market. Some old cargo models (DC 9-30F) deliver the same amount of VfM as more recent aircraft models (i.e. MD-11F and A300-600F).

The decision-making framework and benchmarking methodology can usefully support managers to make sound decisions and plans. Even though DEA generates attributes weights to different alternatives that are independent of the buyer preferences, the framework flexibility allows introducing a weighting scheme to take into account the managers preferences for certain aircraft performance/functional features. It can easily include new functional/performance measurements and adapt the VfM measurement to the particular economic context, strategy, and business model of the airlines, or be transferred to different industries.

The framework combines technical, functional performance, and economic cost measurements to get a unique efficiency index to evaluate the airplane VfM.