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The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyse how intellectual capital (IC) is created and deteriorated in a meta-organization by assessing the interdependency between the collective IC of the meta-organization and the individual IC of its members.

A case study conducted in a seaport is adopted to explore how creation or deterioration of IC at one level of analysis affects the IC at the other. Four different illustrations are provided, depicting different instances of articulation between both types of IC.

Evidence suggests that, in a meta-organization, IC appears as a function of both individual and collective IC dimensions. Changes in the meta-organization’s IC or in its members’ IC may have different impacts on each other, generating intellectual assets or intellectual liabilities at both levels. Evidence also suggests that those changes in IC should be analysed in a longitudinal way, since both levels affect each other in different ways over time.

Despite the validity of the interpretations provided in the context of the case study, generalization to other situations should be conducted only in a theoretically framed manner.

This study provides important strategic and managerial implications for meta-organizations and their members, who are concerned with their performance.

Although there have been some efforts to apply the traditional IC methodologies to a bigger scope, such as regions or nations, some meso level empirical contexts are yet far unexplored, such as the case of meta-organizations. Furthermore there is a gap in management sciences’ research on seaports.

Mutual funds, along with other open‐ended instruments such as investment companies, investment trusts, and unit trusts, fall into the category of collective investment schemes (CIS). The OECD estimates that CIS assets in the 16 largest developed countries increased from $3.4 trillion to $15 trillion between 1992 and 2003. The laws governing CIS differ substantially from country to country. This article restates the business principles of fund governance that underlie the 1940 Investment Company Act and compares the U.S. principles with those of other developed countries. In doing so, the article highlights the risk of abuse when different categories of investors entrust their funds to others.

The purpose of this paper is to give an updated overview over the development of employee-ownership in Italy, France, Spain including Mondragon, the UK and the US with relatively many employee-owned firms. How have the barriers for employee-ownership been overcome in these countries?

The overview is based on updated descriptions of the development of employee-ownership included in this special issue. The analysis follows the structure of overcoming five barriers: the organization problem; the problem of entry and exit of employee-owners; the startup and takeover problem; the capital- and the risk problem.

Italy, France and Spain have overcome the barriers by specific legislation for worker cooperatives, this includes rules for entry and exit of employee members. Cooperative support organizations play an important role for monitoring and managing the startup problem and for access to capital. The Mondragon model includes individual ownership elements and a group structure of cooperatives. The EOT and ESOP models are well suited for employee takeovers, financing are eased by tax advantages and they are all-employee schemes. While the EOT has no individual risks, the ESOP model has the possibility for capital gains for employees but also the risk of losing these gains.

Comprehensive and updated overview of the development in employee-ownership in the five countries to identify successful formats of employee-ownership for implementation in countries with few employee-owned firms.

The anti-apartheid movement represented a cornerstone for socially responsible investors in the 1970s and 1980s driven by the willingness to promote lasting social change. What happened next in terms of socially responsible investing (SRI) in the free South Africa? This chapter explores the local development of SRI in South Africa post-apartheid.

An in-depth literature review combined with a content analysis 73 SRI funds’ investment mandates were undertaken to investigate the local development of SRI in South Africa over the period 1992–2012.

Mechanisms of local divergence and global convergence have both shaped the phenomenon of SRI in South Africa. SRI in South Africa represents a melting-pot of societal values anchored in a local developmental and transformative political vision, some local and global Islamic religious values, and worldwide SRI and CSR homogenisation trends.

This chapter is the first attempt to outline the mechanisms of local divergence and global convergence that have moulded SRI in a democratic South Africa.

Product intervention power is introduced under the markets in financial instruments regulation (MiFIR) and packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs) Regulation for all EU Member States and gives National Competent Authorities (NCAs), European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and European Banking Authority (EBA) powers to monitor financial products (and services) under their supervision and to “temporarily” prohibit or restrict the marketing, distribution, or sale of certain financial instruments, or to intervene in relation to certain financial activities or practice. This extends the supervisory measures defined in MiFID II to any PRIIPs (including insurance-based investment products “IBI products”) that would not otherwise fall under the scope of MiFID II. Product intervention power is given to the NCAs, and in order to use power, it requires to take the specifics of the individual case into account and a series of conditions, criteria, and factors to fulfill. Moreover, ESMA and the EBA have a type of control function and ability to override national regulators on product. The aim of product intervention powers is to ensure strengthening of investor protection, but given the potential significant impact of this power, calls into question of possibility to delay innovation and slow down product developments on the capital market.

This paper provided an overview of supervisory measures on product intervention, that is, scope of the product intervention power, criteria, factors, and risks which have to be taken into consideration when using this regulator’s tool.

The UK authority published its first regulatory guidance on crypto-assets in July 2019. This paper aims to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the crypto-asset regulation in the UK and the consistency of the existing regulatory scheme.

This paper adopts comparative methods to carry out the analysis. The paper begins by elaborating the development of crypto-assets alongside the financial innovation in the world and pinpointing the core Acts and Regulations applied to crypto-assets in the UK. The paper also discusses a court case in the EU to highlight an argument among legal professions concerning crypto-assets classification.

Through carefully analysing relevant primary and secondary legislation of the UK and EU, this paper identifies some unclarified issues in the regulatory framework and discovers three flaws in the regulatory system. The paper concludes that the effectiveness of the current regulatory scheme is poor and room for improvement exists.

The paper provides the first review and a thorough analysis of the Laws and Acts applied to the crypto-asset regulation in the UK. It also calls on a simpler and clearer regulatory scheme from the perspectives of market participants and consumers. The discovered issues in the crypto-asset regulation in the UK may urge authorities to improve the existing regulatory frameworks and legal provisions.

It has been observed that the practices of corporate governance in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) do not sufficiently address the rights of unrestricted investment account holders (UIAHs). Given that such account holders are generally the ones who bear the risk of the performance of the investment pool, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance practice and the safeguarding of the interests of UIAHs as major stakeholders.

A qualitative research methodology is applied to a sample of 16 managers from 12 Islamic financial institutions from Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Malaysia. A theoretical model built around the GC principles featured in the King report underpins the research design.

The findings reveal that the current practices implemented by IFIs in protecting the rights of UIAHs are not effective enough, in the light of standard corporate governance principles. It was also found that lack of responsibility, accountability and independence in decision making, as corporate governance principles, is contributing to the ineffectiveness of current practices in the investigated IFIs.

The major limitation of the research is the small size of the sample used. Hence, the work reported here must be considered as exploratory and a further study employing a larger sample is recommended as future research.

A number of recommendations for corporate governance practice in IFIs aimed at the unique relationship between IFIs and UIAHs are put forward.

The originality and the value of this paper rest on its topic which, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, has not been investigated empirically before. Hence, the authors believe it will be of value not only to academics but mostly to practitioners in IFIs.

The purpose of this paper is to review the development of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) and examine the manner in which this has been implemented for investment firms in Malta. The paper also assesses the challenges that small and medium‐sized investment firms may face as a consequence of the proposed CRD IV, which seeks to safeguard the stability of the European banking sector.

A literature review of relevant EU and Malta legislation and policy documents has been carried out. The arguments made in the paper are the result of the author's reflections on the subject and discussions held with other policy experts on capital adequacy in Malta and the UK.

The paper considers the CRD from the perspective of small and medium‐sized investment firms and sheds light on the challenges faced by Malta with regards to the implementation of the CRD for these type of firms. It also examines the approach taken by the Malta Financial Services Authority in order to address these challenges.

Possible future challenges that might arise in view of CRD IV are also considered. It is a central argument of this paper that capturing investment firms, particularly small and medium‐sized firms, within the scope of regulation, the main purpose of which is to address systemic risk, may result in over‐regulation.

This paper examines comparative aspects of Arab securities regulation. It provides a general introduction, overviews the aims of securities regulation and the UK regulatory framework, and outlines the obstacles facing equity financing under Shari'a and hindrances to effective Arab securities regulation. It accounts for the major macroeconomic reasons which have enhanced interest in Arab securities markets, examines lack of Arab rules on fraud, insider dealing and possible contractual remedies. It concludes with a case study shedding light on the term ‘securities’ as understood by Article 3 of the 1997 Jordanian Securities Act.

Information disclosure requirements are a relatively common feature of consumer protection regimes generally. In the case of retail investment products such requirements have been in place since the late 1980s. Now the European Distance Marketing of Financial Services Directive will impose a similar disclosure regime wherever a contract is concluded at a distance. But, despite the popularity of disclosure regimes with policy makers, the available evidence suggests that such regimes may not be particularly effective. The purpose of this paper is to discuss first, the extent to which disclosure regimes are underpinned by a solid understanding of consumer decision‐making behaviour, and secondly, the implications the development of the internet as a delivery channel for retail investment products might have for their effectiveness. The paper concludes that, despite the indeterminacy of consumer decision‐making research such that it fails to provide a ready model on which to (re)design disclosure regimes, the development of the internet as a delivery channel both compounds the challenges for the regulator in devising an effective disclosure regime, but also provides the regulator with an opportunity to explore the potential to deliver interactive capabilities which would enhance the potential to better influence consumer decision making. As such, the paper should be of interest to regulators, the industry (which has expressed doubts about the cost‐effectiveness of such regimes) as well as academics interested in regulatory policy.