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Traces the growth in the use of economic value added (EVA, previously known as residual income) and uses two previous research studies to assess some claims for its merits. Compares EVA’s ability to explain stock returns with that of earnings before extraordinary items (EBEI) and cash flow using 1984‐1993 US data; and finds EBEI is most closely related. Examines EVA’s incentive effects on management investing, financing and operating decisions and shows that, although EVA users decreased new investment, increased dispositions of assets, increased share repurchases, used assets more intensively and increased residual income, market reactions to this were weak. Suggests possible reasons for this and concludes that EVA may align management incentives with shareholders’ interests but this does not necessarily increase shareholder value.

Considers the implications for budgeting and performance measurement of the emphasis on strategic management of human and information resources to obtain global competitive advantage. Summarizes relevant research, noting increasing use of economic value added, non‐financial measures and the balanced scorecard; and explaining Simons’ (1995) “levers of control” framework. Illustrates how this can be applied to the budgeting process, stressing the importance of interactive control systems which capture an integrated set of critical performance measures, and uses Skandia (insurance, Sweden) as an example. Lists the ten non‐financial performance metrics identified by Ernst & Young (1997) as important to investors and discusses the ten differences between budgeting in a traditional as opposed to a balanced scorecard environment put forward by Govindarajan and Shank (1992). Concludes that the need for multinationals to be flexible means that control and measurement systems must be aligned with strategic goals, taking account of national cultures, investors’ expectations and demands for employee empowerment.

On 6th February, 1987, Goldman Sachs (the plaintiffs in the action from which this appeal arose and the respondents to the appeal hereinafter referred to as the Plaintiffs) purchased US$10m face value worth of Exxon bonds for which they paid US$2.26m. They sold them on and a month later it transpired that the bonds were forgeries. The London brokers from whom the Plaintiffs bought the bonds revealed, following police enquiries, that they acted on the instructions of a Mr Philip Lyons (the Defendant). Mr Lyons was a Chartered Accountant, and had delivered the bonds to the clearing house when the sale was concluded and he also controlled the Liechtenstein Anstalt (a form of nominee trust) to which the purchase price had been paid. In April 1987 Mr Lyons was arrested and charged with forgery and deception.

Provides a bibliography of CD‐ROM for librarians, covering case studies, costs, product evaluation guidelines, databases, CDI, downloading/copyright and CD vs. online, for use when making decisions about the adoption of CD‐ROM.

Enforcement as a concept imports compulsion to comply with a particular norm. Of course, the nature of enforcement might vary considerably with the norm in question or society within which action is desired. Professor Gower, in his ‘Review of Investor Protection’, expressed the view that a rule that could not be or was not enforced brought the system, within which that rule was supposed to operate, into disrepute. Whether this is true or not may be a matter for debate. Most systems of control envisage rules that in practical terms are unenforceable, but that are expected to have a normative or educational effect. Such functions, in the context of securities regulation, may be thought to be of some significance. Thus, the fact that simply because a rule cannot either in its terms or in practice be sanctioned by a predictable and determinate action intended to promote compliance, does not necessarily undermine that rule let alone the system within which it exists. To assume without more that a rule that cannot be enforced is not a legal rule, or to be precise a rule of law, while no doubt appealing enough to the positivist school of jurisprudence, is simplistic and outdated. Furthermore, in the context of the sort of economic regulation that we are discussing, whether a rule is characterised as one of law or not may or may not have significance. While there is a problem with determining the appropriate degree of interface between rules bearing differing qualities, purely in terms of achieving a defined regulatory objective it might well be that a rule which is not law in the formal sense of having been promulgated by an authority with legislative power, promotes a satisfactory degree of compliance. Therefore, many of the rules that pertained prior to the creation of the regime of regulation under the Financial Services Act 1986 were essentially non‐legal in the sense that they did not carry determinate sanctions ordained by a legal process consequent upon a violation and were not promulgated by an authority with legislative power. However, to dismiss them because they were unenforceable at law would give a very false picture of the efficacy of what was for many years a satisfactory regulatory structure. Even today, although the interrelationships of legal and non‐legal rules is very much more complex, it is still the case that significant areas of regulation have been left to non‐legal authorities.

Prior studies on determinants of shareholder value creation have reported conflicting and sometimes confusing results. In this study, to obtain more refined and industry-specific results regarding variables determining shareholder value creation, an analysis was performed focusing on different categories of firms or industries.

Two dependent and 11 independent variables were applied to five different industries to obtain the best set of significant value drivers of shareholder value creation for a particular industry.

Market value added (MVA) is a better indicator of shareholder value created compared to a market adjusted return. Accounting-based variables (EPS, ROA and NOPAT) are superior to economic-based variables (EVA and ROCE) in explaining shareholder value creation, but results differ, depending on the dependent variable chosen as shareholder value creation measure. For each industry, there is a unique set of variables that determine shareholder value creation; the industrial goods industry has seven significant value drivers, namely, EPS, NOPAT, ROCE, the Spread, EVA, EBEI and REVA, whilst for the food and beverages industry, there were only two significant value drivers (EPS and ROA).

These findings imply that management, analysts and shareholders should, depending on the specific industry in which their firm operates, take into account a more specific set of variables when making their financial decisions, including compensation or reward structuring.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the shareholder value creation measure best suited to express shareholder value creation for a particular industry.

The analysis was performed on 192 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, classified into nine different samples or industries. Five shareholder value creation measures were examined, namely market value added (MVA), a market-adjusted stock return, the market-to-book ratio, Tobin’s Q ratio, and the return on capital employed divided by the cost of equity.

An analysis of the nine categories of firms led to the identification of different measures that are suited to express value creation. Stock returns did not provide an appropriate value measure. Instead, depending on the specific industry, Tobin’s Q ratio, MVA, and the market-to-book ratio should be used to measure and express value creation.

For management, the value drivers identified for each industry present a clear indication of industry-specific variables upon which they can focus in operating activities to most efficiently increase shareholder value.

Unlike previous studies that use only one or two different shareholder value creation measures as dependent variables, this study uses five different value creation measures. Another contribution of this study is the compilation of a unique set of value drivers that explain shareholder value creation separately for each of the nine different categories of firms.

Studies that examine the relationship of economic value added (EVA) to market value did not isolate the EVA effect in conjunction with controlling for the economic effect of the market. Since the EVA metric is viewed as value‐added apart from the market, operational managers will benefit from a procedure that separates the market driven versus firm driven (EVA) effects. Our paper examines the effects of the economy and EVA on MVA. The results indicate that EVA and GDP significantly affect MVA. Furthermore, the MVA‐EVA relationship shows a systematic bias between the largest MVA firms and the smallest MVA firms. Overall, our study provides implications for corporate executives utilizing EVA to evaluate managerial performance linked to MVA.

Of all the measures that corporations use to gauge their performance, none is more accurate or use‐ful than economic value added, or EVA. Used to its fullest, EVA can help corporations achieve remarkable success. In fact, most of the companies using EVA as their framework for financial management and incentive compensation have substantially outperformed their competitors.

It sounds so simple: Just align executive compensation with a company's strategy—strategy being to make a profit, of course—and all with benefit. In looking at economic profit, there are several easily understandable measures of how well a company's strategy is doing: sales growth rate, incremental operating profit margin, free cash flow, cost of capital, and the ratio of return on equity to investor's required return.