Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Impact of Corporate Governance on Firm Performance

Impact of Corporate Governance on Firm Performance—an Empirical investigation from the Insurance Industry of Pakistan Hafiz Muhammad Raheel Arif* [email  protected] com 00923216190575 *COMSATS Institute of Information Technology and Science Lahore, Pakistan Abstract The study is devoted to check the impact of corporate governance (CG) on the firm performance (FP) of the insurance industry of Pakistan. Four measures have been used in the paper to check the firm performance being affected by the corporate governance. These measures are Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Market to Book ratio and Price Earnings ratio.Data of 24 insurance companies is taken from websites of the companies and Karachi Stock Exchange website for the years 2007-2011 making up 107 observations excluding the missing observations. Pooled Ordinary Least Square (POLS) regression technique is used to regress the data. Findings of this study conclude that Institutional Shareholding ratio, B oard Size and Independent Directors’ ratio affect firm performance in the positive way whereas, CEO duality, Firm size, and Leverage have negative impact on firm performance overall when firm performance measured through four different measures.In future, the study may be extended to more corporate governance variables and increased sample size so that more generalized results may be achieved. Key words: Corporate Governance, Firm Performance, Insurance Industry, Pakistan. Introduction C orporate governance has now gained very much importance in the corporate world. Almost in all the countries around the globe corporate governance has become mandatory and is regulated by the concerning bodies. Like in Pakistan, this is mandatory for the corporations to comply with the best practices according to the Code of Corporate Governance [*].Various studies have attempted to probe into the relationship of corporate governance with the firm performance in the corporate world across vari ous countries. The study strives to investigate the impact of corporate governance on firm performance in the Insurance industry of Pakistan. The study basically extends the findings of Naser Najjar (2012), in his study; Naser * Code of corporate governance is included in the Regulation No. 37 for the listing regulations of Karachi Stock Exchange to ensure the best practices of corporate governance in Pakistan.Najjar (2012) investigated the relationship of corporate governance with firm performance by empirically examining this relationship of CG and firm performance in the insurance industry of the Behrain. In his study Naser Najjar (2012) used only Return on Equity as a measure of the financial performance. This study employs more financial performance measuring variables like Return on Assets, Market to Book ratios, and Price Earnings ratios by controlling firm size and the leverage ratio.Naser Najjar (2012) found a positive association between firm size and the performance of th e insurance companies suggesting that as the size increases the assets are more with the firms in the form of insurance policies and firms efficiently manage things to an ultimate gain. In their study Ming-Cheng Wu, Hsin-Chiang Lin, I-Cheng Lin, and Chun-Feng Lai found the positive relationship of firm size with the performance when measured by Return on Assets.Board size showed a negative relation in the past studies as in the study of Ming-Cheng Wu, Hsin-Chiang Lin, I-Cheng Lin, and Chun-Feng Lai; they found that board size is negatively associated with the firm performance due to the reason of board’s composition of inside as well as outside directors, and inside directors would have relatively high level of information regarding company’s internal affairs than outside directors and inside directors would work in their own interest and may confiscate the rights of shareholders and as the number of inside directors increases it makes the performance down.While anothe r study, Bacon (1973) gave a different opinion that larger board size positively affects the performance justifying in a way that larger board usually comes with a diversified background and qualifications which generates different viewpoints and hence increases quality of managerial decisions. One another very important way to control corporate bodies by reducing agency issues is to separate the CEO from Chairman (William et al. 2003).If these two characters are performed by a single individual, is known as CEO Duality. This situation if exists, reduces firm performance as there would be no one to â€Å"watch the watchers† (Zubaidah 2009). Independency of directors yet another variable to reduce confiscation of shareholders’ rights as independent directors would work in the best interest of the shareholders. The more the independent directors in the board, higher will be the performance of the firm (Zubaidah 2009).Upcoming sections are composed as; Next section review s the literature regarding the variables of corporate governance and performance measure. Then there comes the methodology section followed by the findings and results with conclusion at the end. Review of Literature Enormous studies empirically investigated the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance regarding various types of industries and across the world. Insurance industry is one of the financial sectors of any economy and it continuously gaining importance in Pakistan.Likewise, the issues of governing corporate bodies are raised during practices, the reason the study intends to check impact of corporate governance on the firm performance in the insurance industry of Pakistan. A number of studies used ROE and ROA as a measure of performance while checking for the impact of corporate governance on these variables. Naser Najjar (2012) found that there does not exist any significant association between CEO Duality as a measure of corporate governance and Re turn on Equity (ROE) as a performance measure.Masood Fooladi Chaghadari (2011) found negative relation between CEO Duality and firm performance which tells about the fact that if a single person acts as CEO and Chairman of the board it will reduce the performance of a firm. The study of Sanjai Bhagat & Brian Bolton (2007) also suggests the same results; the separation of CEO and Chairman of the board is positively and significantly associated to the firm performance. Anthony Kyereboah-Coleman (International Conference on Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets) in his study found that CEO duality has negatively relationship with the firm performance.Sanjai Bhagat & Brian Bolton (2007) found very interestingly the negative relationship of board independence with operating performance and made it relevant that with respect to the board independence which received corporate governance listing requirement from NYSE and NASDAQ. Masood Fooladi Chaghadari (2011) found negative relation of leverage with ROA and positive relation of the same variable with ROE. Anthony Kyereboah-Coleman (International Conference on Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets) also found negative relation of leverage with Return on Assets. Methodology I. Sample DataThe study initially undertook data of randomly selected 27 insurance companies of Pakistan from 2007-2011 making up 135 observations out of which 3 companies showed incomplete information due to which they were excluded from the study and 13 observations were missing in the data. The study then includes 107 observations. Data is collected from Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) and websites of insurance companies. Current study has used Pooled Ordinary Least Square (POLS) regression method to regress the data collected to fulfill the objective of measuring impact of corporate governance on firm performance. II.Models In order to measure the firm performance the current study uses 4 different measures viz. Return on Assets (ROA), Retur n on Equity (ROE), Market to Book ratio (MB ratio), and Price Earnings ratio (PE ratio) and variables Board Size (BS), Institutional Shareholding ratio (ISH ratio), CEO duality (CEOD) and Board Independence as corporate governance variables while Leverage ratio (LEV) and Firm Size (FS) are controlled and included in the models as follow:- Perf(ROA) jit = ? 0 + BS jit? 1 + ISH jit? 2 + CEODjit? 3 + IDjit? 4 + LEVjit? 5 + FSjit? 6 + ? Perf(ROE) jit = ? 0 + BSjit? 1 + ISHjit? 2 + CEODjit? + IDjit? 4 + LEVjit? 5 + FSjit? 6 + ? Perf(MB) jit = ? 0 + BSjit? 1 + ISHjit? 2 + CEODjit? 3 + IDjit? 4 + LEVjit? 5 + FSjit? 6 + ? Perf(PE)jit = ? 0 + BSjit? 1 + ISHjit? 2 + CEODjit? 3 + IDjit? 4 + LEVjit? 5 + FSjit? 6 + ? Where: Perfjit= Firm Performance measured by ROA, ROE, MB, and PE ratios form firm j, ith observation at time t. ?0= the intercept. BS = Board Size ISH = Institutional Shareholding CEOD = CEO Duality ID= Independent Directors LEV = Leverage Ratio FS = Firm Size ? = Stochastic distur bance term, and all the betas are coefficients of change rate in the variables against one unit increase.III. Variables Definition Table 1 AcronymVariable NameProxies Dependent Variables ROAReturn on AssetsProfit Before Tax/Total Assets ROEReturn on EquityEarnings Available to Stockholder/Total Equity MBMarket to Book ratioMarket price Per Share/Book value Per Share PEPrice Earnings ratioMarket price Per Share/Earning Per Share Independent Variables BSBoard SizeNumber of Directors in the Board of Directors ISHInstitutional ShareholdingPercentage shares held by Institutional Investors CEODCEO DualityDummy variable, equals to 1 if CEO and Chairman is the same person or 0 otherwise.IDIndependent DirectorsThe ratio of No. of Independent Directors/Total Number of Directors in the Board of Directors LEVLeverage ratioTotal Debt/Total Assets FSFirm SizeNatural Log of Total Assets Results Table 2 discusses the descriptive statistics of all the variables including dependent variables Return o n Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Market to Book ratio (MB), and Price Earnings ratio (PE). The mean value of PE 5. 134 is less as compared to the other dependent variables which denote the lower earnings gained by insurance companies as compared to the mean value of ROE which is 12. 91 which is almost double and depicts the picture that insurance companies earn more on equity. BS mean value 10. 654 shows that on average nearly 11 numbers of directors is part of the board having a standard deviation of 1. 108. On the average 40. 489% of all the issued share of an insurance company are held by institutional investors with a standard deviation of 6. 333%. The ratio of CEOD in the insurance industry of Pakistan is 0. 477 which expresses that on the average there are 47. 7% companies where CEO and Chairman is the same individual.The mean value of ID, 0. 425 tells about the average ratio of board independence in an insurance company in Pakistan. Leverage value of 0. 581 shows that on average an insurance company employs 58. 1% debt in the capital structure ratio. Table 2 Descriptive Statistics MeanMinimumMaximumStd. Deviation ROA9. 631-25. 63852. 78320. 035 ROE12. 791-53. 85989. 36936. 980 MB5. 1343. 427. 781. 456 PE10. 3428. 716. 62. 059 BS10. 6549121. 108 FS16. 72916. 17917. 2130. 288 ISH40. 48931. 23053. 9306. 333 CEOD0. 477010. 502 ID0. 4250. 2220. 6670. 091 LEV0. 5810. 3990. 6930. 073Table 3 models summary tells about the R-Square(s), Adjusted R-Square(s) and the Durbin-Watson values which tell about the fact that is there any auto-correlation problem? The calculated values for the models individually tell that there is not auto-correlation problem as all the values are in the range 1. 5-2. 5. Adjusted R-Square of model 4(PE) is largest 0. 897 which tells that all the covariates explain the model by 89. 7%, while the Adjusted R-Squared value of model 3 is smallest 0. 722 which explains about 72. 2% of the model. Table 3 Models Summary ModelRR SquareAdjus ted R SquareStd.Error of the EstimateDurbin-Watson 1 (ROA)0. 9370. 8770. 8707. 22601. 913 2 (ROE)0. 8620. 7430. 72819. 3001. 982 3 (MB)0. 8590. 7380. 7220. 7681. 907 4 (PE)0. 9500. 9020. 8970. 6622. 257 Table 4 tells about the individual significance of the four models used in the study. The F-value of model ROA is 119. 139 and p-value is 0. 000 which tells that the model is significant, while the F-value for model ROE is 48. 189 and p-value is 0. 000 which is significant. F-value of model MB is 48. 863 and p-value is 0. 000 which is again significant and the model PE is also significant as the p-value for that model is 0. 00. All the models are significant at 5% level of significance. Table 4 ANOVA Model Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig. 1 (ROA)Regression37325. 50766220. 918119. 1390. 000 Residual5221. 53310052. 215 Total42547. 040106 2 (ROE)Regression107706. 536617951. 08948. 1890. 000 Residual37250. 738100372. 507 Total144957. 274106 3 (MB)Regression165. 773627. 62946. 8630. 000 R esidual58. 9571000. 590 Total224. 730106 4 (PE)Regression405. 554667. 592154. 0760. 000 Residual43. 8701000. 439 Total449. 424106 Table 5 narrates the Pearson correlation coefficients for the model 1 where the dependent variable is ROA.Institutional Shareholding has the largest coefficient 0. 845 which means that it has a strong positive relationship with Return on Assets. Firm size also has significantly positive relation with the return on assets. Board size unexpectedly showed a very weak relationship with the return on assets, the coefficient is 0. 048. CEO duality is another case which has a weak positive relationship with ROA, the coefficient of CEOD and ROA is 0. 034. The empirical evidence shows that there is negative relation between firm size, institutional shareholding, leverage and board size either the relations among these variables are not strong.Leverage also have negative but near to zero relation to the firm size. Board independence (ID) is also negatively associat ed to the institutional shareholding. Table 5 Pearson Correlation ROABSFSISHCEODIDLEV ROA1 BS0. 0481 FS0. 556-0. 0451 ISH0. 845-0. 2130. 3911 CEOD0. 0340. 2140. 0360. 0921 ID0. 2360. 0750. 707-0. 097-0. 0301 LEV0. 441-0. 010-0. 0010. 425-0. 321-0. 1531 Table 6 discusses the regression coefficients when the dependent variable is ROA. The results show that all the coefficients are significant except the firm size and CEO duality.Firm size has negative relation with the return on assets which is consistent with the literature. CEOD has negative impact on the firm performance when it is measured by ROA; the results are not significant but support the literature. While, Board Size (BS), Institutional Shareholding (ISH), Independent Directors (ID), and Leverage has positive impact on firm performance. There is no multi-collinearity problem with the variables as suggested by the VIF values. Table 6 Coefficients ModelVariablesUnstandardized Coefficients Standardized CoefficientstSig.Colline arity Statistics BetaStd. ErrorBeta ToleranceVIF 1(Constant)-179. 18670. 247 -2. 5510. 012** BS4. 1100. 6870. 2275. 9850. 000*0. 8501. 176 FS-0. 8464. 625-0. 012-0. 1830. 8550. 2783. 595 ISH2. 8300. 1730. 89516. 4020. 000*0. 4132. 424 CEOD-2. 2511. 620-0. 056-1. 3900. 168***0. 7461. 341 ID71. 95713. 3210. 3275. 4020. 000*0. 3342. 993 LEV26. 02312. 1630. 0952. 1400. 035**0. 6201. 613 Dependent Variable: ROA. *, **, *** show 1%, 5% and 10% significance level respectively. Table 7 discusses the Pearson correlation coefficients now taking Return on Equity as dependent variable.Again consistent with the previous model, Institutional Shareholding has the largest coefficient which shows a strong relation of ISH with ROE. COED has the smallest coefficient but has positive association with the ROE. BS has negative relation with Firm size, ISH and Leverage which in line with the literature. Independent directors’ ratio is negatively associated to the ISH but has a weaker relationship. ID has also inverse relation with leverage and also has weak relation. Table 7 Pearson Correlations ROEBSFSISHCEODIDLEV ROE1 BS0. 0531 FS0. 485-0. 0451 ISH0. 739-0. 2130. 3911 CEOD0. 0190. 2140. 0360. 0921ID0. 2890. 0750. 707-0. 097-0. 0301 LEV0. 371-0. 010-0. 0010. 425-0. 321-0. 1531 The results of some of the variables are now different form the results of the previous model where dependent variable was ROA. In the table 8, the dependent variable is Return on Equity (ROE), the reason why leverage has become insignificant. Board size, Firm size, Institutional Shareholding, and Independent directors’ ratio are the statistically significant variables. While COED and Leverage are insignificant but both have positive impact on firm performance. The Institutional Shareholding has largest beta coefficient of 0. 20 which means every 1% increase in Institutional Shareholding will increase firm performance by 0. 920. CEOD has negative impact on firm performance which is consistent wi th the findings of Masood Fooladi Chaghadari (2011). VIF values depict the absence of multi-collinearity problem in the variables. Table 8 Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized CoefficientstSig. Collinearity Statistics BetaStd. ErrorBeta ToleranceVIF 2(Constant)138. 509187. 627 0. 7380. 462 BS7. 1561. 8340. 2143. 9020. 000*0. 8501. 176 FS-31. 18112. 354-0. 243-2. 5240. 013**0. 2783. 595 ISH5. 3790. 4610. 92111. 6720. 00*0. 4132. 424 CEOD-5. 4804. 326-0. 074-1. 2670. 208***0. 7461. 341 ID218. 28535. 5810. 5386. 1350. 000*0. 3342. 993 LEV20. 27232. 4860. 0400. 6240. 5340. 6201. 613 Dependent Variable: ROE. *, **, *** show 1%, 5% and 10% significance level respectively. Consistent with previous models, Institutional shareholding ratio has largest coefficient which strong relationship with firm performance. Board size, CEO duality and independent directors’ ratio found to have negative but weak relation with firm performance in this model. Independent direct ors’ ratio has negative association with Institutional shareholding.Independent directors’ ratio is negatively associated to the leverage ratio also. Firm size has strong positive relation with independent directors’ ratio; the correlation coefficient between these two variables is 0. 770. Table 9 Correlations MBBSFSISHCEODIDLEV MB1 BS-0. 0411 FS0. 005-0. 0451 ISH0. 624-0. 2130. 3911 CEOD-0. 2240. 2140. 0360. 0921 ID-0. 0310. 0750. 770-0. 097-0. 0301 LEV0. 375-0. 010-0. 0010. 425-0. 321-0. 1531 In Table 10 dependent variable is Market to Book ratio. In this model Firm Size (FS), COE Duality and Leverage have negative but significant impact on firm performance.Variables Board Size, Institutional Shareholding and Independent Directors’ ratio have positive and significant impact on firm performance. Negative coefficient of FS -0. 927 means every unit increase in firm size will lead to -0. 927 times decrease in firm performance. The results are consistent wit h the previous literature. VIF statistics show that there is no multi-collinearity problem. Table 10 Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized CoefficientstSig. Collinearity Statistics BetaStd. ErrorBeta ToleranceVIF 3(Constant)67. 2377. 464 9. 0080. 000* BS0. 2590. 0730. 1973. 5540. 001*0. 501. 176 FS-4. 6920. 491-0. 927-9. 5470. 000*0. 2783. 595 ISH0. 2740. 0181. 19014. 9240. 000*0. 4132. 424 CEOD-1. 0680. 172-0. 368-6. 2070. 000*0. 7461. 341 ID11. 0621. 4160. 6927. 8140. 000*0. 3342. 993 LEV-2. 8151. 292-0. 142-2. 1790. 032**0. 6201. 613 Dependent Variable: MB. *, **, *** show 1%, 5% and 10% significance level respectively. In table 11, dependent variable is Price Earnings ratio and it shows the Pearson Correlation coefficients. Inconsistent with the previous models, Institutional Shareholding has negative and strong relationship with Price Earnings (a measure of firm performance).In this model Leverage also has strong negative relationship with firm performance . Firm Size, ISH, and LEV are negatively associated with Board Size. But only the leverage has negative relation with Firm size, CEO duality and Independent Directors’ ratio. Independent Directors’ ratio has strongly positive relationship of 0. 707 with Firm size. Table 11 Pearson Correlations PEBSFSISHCEODIDLEV PE1 BS0. 0531 FS0. 406-0. 0451 ISH-0. 582-0. 2130. 3911 CEOD-0. 1050. 2140. 0360. 0921. 0 ID0. 6680. 0750. 707-0. 097-0. 0301 LEV-0. 575-0. 010-0. 0010. 425-0. 321-0. 1531In table 12 all the independent variables are significant except for Board Size, the only variable which is insignificant but is negatively associated to the firm performance. This is also consistent with previous literature. Values of VIF tell about the absence of multi-collinearity in the variables. Table 12 Coefficients ModelUnstandardized CoefficientsStandardized CoefficientstSig. Collinearity Statistics BetaStd. ErrorBeta ToleranceVIF 4(Constant)-38. 3486. 439 -5. 9560. 000* BS-0. 0720. 0 63-0. 039-1. 1460. 2550. 8501. 176 FS3. 6760. 4240. 5148. 6700. 000*0. 2783. 595 ISH-0. 2000. 016-0. 615-12. 6330. 00*0. 4132. 424 CEOD-0. 6570. 148-0. 160-4. 4250. 000*0. 7461. 341 ID4. 3461. 2210. 1923. 5590. 001**0. 3342. 993 LEV-9. 4391. 115-0. 336-8. 4670. 000*0. 6201. 613 Dependent Variable: PE. *, **, *** show 1%, 5% and 10% significance level respectively. Conclusion Corporate governance plays a pivotal role in the performance of Insurance Companies. There are different statutory bodies in different countries which control and ensure the best practices in the corporations like in Pakistan Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan is responsible for monitoring and controlling such practices in the corporations.This study finds that Board Size (BS), Institutional Shareholding (ISH) and Independent Directors’ ratio have positive and significant impact on corporate governance. The reasons are if Board size is large, the board has members having diverse background, mo re viewpoints, and competitive and experienced individuals which lead towards right decision making and towards better performance as compared to the industry norms. Institutional investors have more interest in the investment and management skills which adds to the performance of the firm.The more the Independent Directors in the board, the more the transparency and integrity which ultimately leads towards enhanced performance. CEO duality have negative impact on the firm performance due to reason that inefficiencies and mismanagement in the operations is not watched by any independent person which make the performance of the company worse. The study also finds that Firm Size and Leverage also have negative impact on firm performance. As the size of the firm increases due to the reason of diseconomies of scale it puts worse impact on the financial performance of the firm.For the future research, scholars may increase the sample size to get more generalized results and there should be included more corporate governance variables like family ownership, concentration, directors’ remuneration and many others. References Najjar, Naser (2012). â€Å"The Impact of Corporate Governance on the Insurance Firm’s Performance in Bahrain†. International Journal of Learning & Development ISSN 2164-4063 2012, Vol. 2, No. 2 Zubaidah Z. A. , Kamaruzaman J. and Nurmala M. K. (2009). Board structure and corporate performance in Malaysia.International Journal of Economic and Finance 1(1): 150-164. Williams S. M. and Ho C. A. (2003). International Comparative Analysis of the Association between Board Structure and the efficiency of Value Added by a Firm from its Physical Capital and Intellectual Capital Resources. 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ISSN 1328-4991, ISBN 0 7325 0955 6 Kader Sahin, Cigdem Sahin Basfirinci2 and Aygun Ozsalih (2011). â€Å"The impact of board composition on corporate financial and social responsibility performance: Evidence from public-listed companies in Turkey†. African Journal of Business Management Vol. 5 (7), pp. 2959-2978, 4 April, 2011 Farshid Navissi a nd Vic Naiker (2006). â€Å"Institutional ownership and corporate value†. Managerial Finance Vol. 32 No. 3, 2006 pp. 247-256 John E. Core, Robert W.Holthausen*, David F. Larcker (1999). â€Å"Corporate governance, chief executive officer compensation, and firm performance†. Journal of Financial Economics 51 (1999) 371? 406 Dong-Sung Cho* and Jootae Kim (2007). â€Å"Outside Directors, Ownership Structure and Firm Profitability in Korea†. Volume 15 Number 2 March 2007 Victoria Wise, Muhammad Mahboob Ali (2009). â€Å"Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility in Bangladesh with special reference to Commercial Banks†. 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Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Healthcare Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

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Monday, August 12, 2019

E-commerce, Monster. Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

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Sunday, August 11, 2019

Deduction vs. Induction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Deduction vs. Induction - Essay Example On the other hand, an inductive argument is an argument in which the premises are expected to support the conclusion such that if the premises were to be true (which is an assumption of the arguer), it is merely improbable that the conclusion could be false in that case. Therefore, instead of there being a necessary connection between premises and conclusion, as there is in the case of the deductive argument, the connection between premises and conclusion in the inductive argument is probabilistic. In the example given, it is possible for the conclusion to be false, even if all three of the premises are true. In other words, it is possible for an argument that lacks deductive validity to be inductively valid. For instance, perhaps Newton lost his taste for tea after being struck on the head with an apple, which, according to the story, he was drinking on that occasion. Although inductive inferences may be uncertain, they are probable. That is, it is very probable that Isaac Newton liked tea. However, it is not certain based solely from the evidence given in P1-P3. Moreover, unlike deductive arguments, inductive inferences give us more information than what is contained in the premises. Careful use of inductive arguments is necessary for any field of research outside of those that rely on basic truths and assumptions. In the argument given, both of the premises are true. Consequently, it is simply not possible for the conclusion to be false. If the deductive argument has all true premises, and a false conclusion, then an error has been made and the argument lacks deductive validity. Conversely, one cannot accept the truth of the premises without accepting the truth of the conclusion. The relationship between the premises and the inference is that the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true. Even if the premises might not actually be true, the relationship between the premises and the conclusion does not change, and even if the evidence for the

Public Administration (MSc) area Research Proposal

Public Administration (MSc) area - Research Proposal Example It is provided through organizations with facilities and personnel to offer proper healthcare to people in need (Stone; 131; 2008). Most of the developing countries do not provide adequate basic health care to their population, that is, their public health systems are not functioning as countries such in sub-Saharan Africa have less than three doctors per a population of 10,000 people. Significant losses of medicines due to poorly managed storage and distribution system or are missing in some countries, lack of an effective infrastructure system which is paramount for a worthy health care system. Health amenities in these countries are situated in urban areas far from the rural folks who are most in need of these services as well as they constitute the highest numbers in terms of demography. The political and social-economy structures of these countries hamper access to health services, blocking patients and service providers out. Overcrowded houses, being short of clean water and sewerage treatment leads to spread of diseases and social stigmas especially AIDS make most of the populace to avoid testing and trea tment. In general governments in these countries spending on health care is not a priority due to lack of political will, hence fewer resources are devoted to endemics such as HIV/AIDS or Malaria. Even where health care funds are allocated they end up being unspent due to poor management and bureaucratic ties in the government machinery (Smith;379; 2002). Pharmaceutical firms have been on the fore front of solving the health problems of these countries by giving access to health services and medicines in collaboration with the governments, non-governmental organizations and other international agencies (Jenkins; 90; 1978). Policy makers in Third World Countries have had a low priority and neglect for quality healthcare at the expense of a wider coverage, as well as the health departments of these countries have poor information systems that are not reliable in documentation to assess the quality of health. The observation is that, improvement of quality is equivalent to additional inputs and costs that these countries cannot afford with their economies. For improvement of healthcare quality assurance in developing countries the focus should be on the formulation and review of health policies that are supported by a committed and willing leadership and set up of institutional framework to enable the assessment of quality in the health industry. Only through research which is home based that can help in the development and assessment of new methods to implement quality assurance without necessarily escalating the inputs which are key for quality healthcare (Paquette;59; 2002). Public administration in health care of developing countries should strategize on working along the ministries of health and finance

Saturday, August 10, 2019

A managerial approach to marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

A managerial approach to marketing - Essay Example Competitive pressures to deliver specific products to meet consumer demand have changed the way the products move from the producer to the consumer. Any company has to adopt new marketing strategies in order for it to survive in the ever competing environment. The marketing landscape has shifted in that technological innovation, new channels, regulatory compliance, bottom-line accountability and rising customer expectations are altering the playing field. Marketing managers are unraveling these complexities in order to spearhead initiatives that capitalize on the customer-driven market place. It is important to place the customer at the core of strategic decision making hence marketing managers can better align marketing resources, spend, mix and technology investments. Strategy and technology can then coalesce to profitably meet customers’ needs, which enhance brand performance, increase customer value and position the enterprise for growth capability of outpacing competitors. This strategic brief addresses central issues on the minds of today’s marketing managers. As technology advances and consumers gain clout, traditional batch and blast marketing approaches designed to maximize new customer acquisition without regard for customer needs and long-term value will under perform. Launching marketing programs around new products for short-term revenue wins will not be enough to sustain returns and surpass competitors. Technological innovations are constantly altering the playing field. Analytic solutions are bringing new levels of customer intelligence, allowing marketers to understand individual customer needs. Optimization tools have increased marketing velocity and shortened cycle times. Consolidated, clean customer data stores can be matched with event-based campaign management tools to improve message accuracy, timeliness and relevancy. As technologies come to

Friday, August 9, 2019

Who are the typical winners and losers in an inflation and how does Essay

Who are the typical winners and losers in an inflation and how does inflation make them winners or losers - Essay Example Stockholders will benefit from a higher inflation as the factors that increase the price of goods also increases the values of companies (Money Expert 7). Also, as prices of products increase, owners of small businesses will be in a position to manage fixed-rate debt from investments in different business requirements. Citizens who earn low incomes may find it tough during the times of inflation. Low-income earners tend to have their wealth in cash unlike the wealthy who invest in real and financial assets. Low-income earners face challenges because inflation affects the value of their primary asset, which is cash (Money Expert 9). When a country faces inflation, the value of money goes down, and people tend to spend often since they have to spend all the money in their possession. The people on fixed incomes will find it challenging when inflation is high; unanticipated inflation on fixed income earners will make their income go down. High inflation also affects the economy of a country since the consuming power of citizens goes down while the standard of living reduces (Miller