Progressive and Retrogressive Phenomena of Economic Activity in Africa

This study examines the concept of globalisation in its characteristics ramifications. The research used empiricism or an empirical method of data collection and analysis. The research used feasibility and affordability in gathering of data for the work using empirical approach in which statistics and figures from credible sources are relied on. The data obtained were discussed using empirical methodological analysis where some themes are identified and discussed from the topic of the study using scientific tools such as tables, charts, bars and figures where necessary. The research discovered that globalisation is not a good phenomenon in African continent owing to slow economic growth, trade disequilibrium and parallel development comparatively because of disadvantages in terms of export, volume of trade exchange and low level of technological development. The research recommends that there is an urgent need for the African countries to restrategise and reshape their economic and political interest at the global level through the creation of a competitive means of relevance at the global centre-stage of world economy and politics.

Relationship of Value-Added Measures, Accounting Measures and Cash Flow Measures With Shareholders? Wealth: An Empirical Evidence of Psx Listed Non-Financial Firms

Measuring performance is an important part of monitoring the state of affairs and progress of an organization. It comprises of measuring the actual performance of management in an organization against the pre-set goals that were set for the given period. When it comes to performance, it is always a challenge to determine what to measure and of course, how to measure it. Traditionally, organizations use accounting based performance metrics to determine the performance of management in an organization. These accounting based performance metrics are considered vulnerable to mislead the end user. As a result, reliance on these measures has resulted into major corporate failures like Enron, World Com etc. Secondly, stock investors particularly institutions have now been focusing on intrinsic value for their investment decisions. These two changes have put accounting based measures under question and call for other measures that are more reliable. Researchers and practitioners in industry have devised new metrics that include cash flow measures and value added measures. Some researchers consider cash flow measures more effective in determining enterprise effectiveness and competitiveness in the market as it is a more dynamic examination of actual return on assets and equity. Others take value added measures as a yardstick in measuring the performance by reflecting the impact of managerial decisions in stock returns. The primary objective of this study was to find evidence whether accounting measures, cash flow measures or value added measures, as a yard stick to measure managerial performance, are the best suitable to measure performance of corporate firms working in Pakistan. The hypothesis of this study was to check the significance of all these measures in determining stock returns translated into market value added (MVA) and the relationship with MVA. These variables include accounting variables - net profit margin (NPM), return on assets (ROA), earning per share (EPS), cash flow variables ? operating cash flows (OCF), free cash flows (FCF) and value added variables ? economic value added (EVA) refined economic value added REVA), created shareholder value (CSV). This hypothesis was tested on the cross section data of 33 non-financial Pakistani companies listed on the Karachi stock exchanges for a period of 8 years (2007-08 to 2014-15). This study proved that OCF gives better results as compared to other variables in explaining variation in MVA.