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South Africa had formally introduced a policy of inflation targeting (IT) in February 2000. By December 2001, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, after reading the latest statistics, was concerned with the disappointing economic data. Economic activity had slowed drastically, to the point that the country appeared to be heading for a recession. The gloomy statistics forced the governor to consider whether the country had pursued the right policy. Persistently high unemployment, one legacy of the apartheid era, meant that South Africa did not have the luxury of waiting for new policies to bear fruit. With the inflation forecast to exceed the mandated target, the governor would have to tighten monetary policy, which would further restrict investment. Was it is time for South Africa to change course?

I seek to identify whether cash flow management can affect the performance and risk of the Greek listed companies.

This study examines the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using a sample of 80 non-financial companies listed in the Athens Exchange. The study covers the period 2018–2022, and panel data analysis is applied. Both financial performance and stock return are taken into consideration, while risk concerns the volatility of the companies’ share prices. The various explanatory variables used include the net cash flow, free cash flow, cash conversion cycle days, cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, cash flow from financing activities, inventory days, customer days and supplier days.

The empirical results provide evidence of a positive relationship between financial performance and net cash flow and free cash flow. In addition, operating cash flow is positively related to financial performance. The opposite is the case for investing and financing cash flow. Finally, some evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and inventory and customer days is provided too. On the other hand, stock return and risk are not related to the cash flow management variables at all.

To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the few studies to examine the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using data from the Greek stock market. The results can form an effective selection tool for investors seeking Greek companies with the highest financial performance potential, which may reward them with higher dividends.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a recent innovation in the uranium market, the Global X Uranium Exchange-Traded Fund (URA), on the trading characteristics of constituent and non-constituent stocks.

The authors analyse bid-ask spread measures, relative effective spreads and adverse selection costs to assess changes in information asymmetry among uranium stocks. The authors also study abnormal returns to assess the impact of URA on the market.

Over a three-month period, following the introduction of URA, the authors find uranium stocks display decreased bid-ask spread measures, driven by reductions in information asymmetry. Relative effective spreads decrease by 36% after the introduction of URA, and adverse selection costs decline by 24% over the same period. Uranium stocks experience a significant positive abnormal return of 5.0% the day after the introduction of URA with subsequent price reversals. These suggest that the introduction of URA prompted uninformed traders to rebalance portfolios and migrate to the less information-sensitive Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), causing temporary deviations in trading characteristics.

The authors demonstrate that the introduction of new financial securities to the market can have a significant impact on the trading characteristics of related equities. As URA is the only ETF in the uranium sector, the authors thereby avoid the influence of multiple ETFs that may have impacted previous studies.

Are franking credit balances priced? This paper aims to investigate the valuation of franking credit balances via a determinant analysis and value relevance analysis.

The determinant analysis examines the factors that contribute to the increasing cumulative level of franking credit balances. Value relevance studies explore whether franking credit balances are priced in the market.

The results provide strong evidence of a size effect that the level of franking credit balances increases with firm size and weak evidence of an international focus effect that the level of franking credit balances increases with international ownership. They also find an individual dividend clientele effect that the level of franking credit balances decreases with individual ownership. They find significant evidence that franking credit balances are priced in the market. One dollar of franking credit is worth 1.4 dollars in firm value. That franking balances are capitalized at more than their face value suggests that franking credits signal firms' future dividend policy. They also find that the market valuation of franking balances increases with firm size but decreases with international focus.

This study provides direct evidence that franking credit balances are capitalized into equity prices. In the determinant analysis, this paper improves Heaney's (2009) model by using the percentage of international ownership as the proxy of international focus, thus addressing the limitation of his measure. In the value relevance tests, the study uses a modified model that includes log-transformation to reduce the skewness of variables based on Tanza's (2014) value relevance model. Moreover, the study suggests that the market valuation of franking credit balances increases with firm size, which contradicts Heaney's (2009) findings.

This paper aims to present issues of deterrence related to stalking.

The authors have combined recent mixed method research findings and existing general deterrence literature with their practitioner experiences of working with this population, to provide a novel viewpoint paper intending to influence advancements in knowledge in this area.

Recent qualitative research investigating the function of stalking in a small sample (see Wheatley et al., 2020a) noted the participants’ focus on the lack of deterrence. For example, participants described feeling emotionally stuck in their pursuits, experiencing poor access to help and support, being ignorant of the potential custodial consequences of their offending and even stating that imprisonment provided a harsh yet necessary moment of reality.

This novel discussion paper reviews these findings in relation to both the available research based on deterrence generally and deterrence related to stalking and the experience of working with stalking cases in clinical practice. This paper explores what we know about the motivations that underlie stalking behaviour and how that relates to the effectiveness of deterrence, including the role of traditional criminal justice approaches to this type of offending.

Appearance is part of a person's non-verbal communication, and looks are often associated with the perceived ‘attractiveness’ of individuals for hiring practices in the workplace. As such, physical attractiveness can be a ‘prized possession’ when it comes to leaving a positive impression on managers who are interviewing candidates. In the twenty-first century environment, our society seems to be more obsessed with physical appearance than ever before because society has conditioned us to associate beauty with other favourable characteristics. Of course, such appearance norms, regarding attractiveness, ‘good looks’ and beauty are linked to years of socialisation in culture, cultural norms and materialistic personality standards.

In a business context, managers and employers often make hiring decisions based on the appearance and attractiveness of the job applicants since outward appearance seems to play a significant role in which candidates eventually might get the job. Physically attractive job applicants and candidates tend to benefit from the unearned privilege, which often comes at a cost to others who are equally qualified. Preferring employees who are deemed to be attractive, and consequently discriminating against those who are perceived as unattractive, can present legal and ethical challenges for employers and managers. In this chapter, we provide a discussion and reflection of appearance-based hiring practices in the United States with relevant legal, ethical and practical implications for employers, human resources professionals and managers. We focus on ‘lookism’ or appearance discrimination, which is discrimination in favour of people who are physically attractive. As such, we examine federal, state and local laws regarding appearance discrimination in the American workplace. We also offer sustainable policy recommendations for employers, HR professionals and managers on how they can be fair to all candidates in order to hire, promote and retain the most qualified professionals in their departments and organisations.

This study is a comment on Geoffrey Hodgson’s “Discovering Institutionalism: One Person’s Journey.” In this self-description of the evolution of his thought, Hodgson distinctly acknowledges Thorstein Veblen’s influence on his own institutional perspective. This is the issue that I explore in this study. My argument is that Hodgson can be understood as a Veblenian, but he does not fit in the Veblenian notion that became popular in the mid-twentieth century. I argue that Hodgson’s notion of habits is the strongest Veblen’s influence on him, and his reconstitutive downward and upward causations are in line with Veblen’s institutionalism, albeit without the mid-twentieth century Veblenian writings. I also address the approach to the content of habits as a break between Hodgson’s and Veblen’s institutionalism. By offering an unprecedented Veblenianism, I argue that Hodgson’s institutional economics can be understood as a new institutionalist segmentation.

A central question of public administration is how political principals secure the cooperation of administrators within organisational frames and contexts; increasingly, rational influences are being considered alongside bounded rationality and non-rational influences. This paper aims to explore the intent of New Zealand’s Public Service Act 2020 in managing administrative behaviour.

The methodology is primarily ethnographic, combining emic and etic perspectives. A mixed-methods approach comprises participant observer field notes and meeting documentation, substantiated by official documents; documents were analysed thematically and triangulated with other data sources.

The Public Service Act introduces new bounds on administrative behaviour. The stated rationale for these changes reveals an attempt to set limits on the principal–agent relationship between politicians and administrators and causes predictable deviations from rational behaviour by cultivating public service motivation and a unified public service identity.

As the legislation in question was only passed in 2020, it is too early to definitively assess the ultimate impact of legislation on administrative behaviour. This case study demonstrates that behavioural approaches to public administration are being applied intentionally by governments. The choice architecture created in the case study blends rational, bounded, and non-rational influences. Together, this produces a bricolage of semi-relevant theories from other disciplines, especially psychology, to explain administrative behaviour. Further refinement is needed to develop a cohesive and comprehensive theory of administrative behaviour that can account for contemporary practice.

Administrators act as agents of political principals, within ethical and rules-based limitations and influenced by public service motivation and social identity. Shifting from implicit to explicit choice architecture does not negate possible tensions between bounds and can signal them more explicitly. Shared symbols are sometimes intended to influence identity and therefore adherence to behavioural norms.

This paper explores the manipulation of choice architecture as a viable strategy for altering behaviour for the better and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first known instance of choice architecture being “legislated in” rather than merely “showing through”. This study illustrates the blending of rational, boundedly rational and non-rational factors into a choice architecture for public administrators that help mediate the biases and challenges of principal–agent relationships (which form a cascade in New Zealand’s public administration system).