Purpose: Over the years, social and environmental reporting has been marred with theories and approaches that lack guidance on how companies can simultaneously uplift lives of social and environmental stakeholders (SEs) while creating measurable economic value. Shared value creation is a new model that promotes simultaneous creation of economic, social and environmental value, in collaboration with social and environmental stakeholders (SEs). This study analyses the level at which Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies (JSE) are collaborating with social and environmental stakeholders in the process of simultaneously creating economic social and environmental value. Methodology: A qualitative interpretive research methodology was used in this study. Random sampling was used for twenty-one interviews from civil society organisations that had participated in protests during the period understudy. Two hundred seventy-eight integrated reports were collected over a period of five years from top 100 JSE-listed companies as soon as they became available. Media reports sample was not predetermined but accumulated as events related to the study occurred. The study adopted grounded theory design for analysing perceptions, experiences of participants and narratives in order to socially construct reality using those interpretations. ATLAS ti software and excel was used to analyse the data. Findings: From the analysis, the study identified weaknesses in collaboration processes. From the interpretations, it emerged that JSE-listed companies intensely involve SE stakeholders in the collection of material concerns but inadequately collaborate with SE stakeholders during implementation process. Originality/Value: The study recommends an improvement in relational collaboration for empowerment of SEs.

Purpose: The implementation of the lockdown on 28th March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted business and economic activities completely, which has serious consequences for SMME survival in South Africa and the world at large. Subsequently, there was a contingent need to provide funding to SMMEs to ensure their survival. This study, therefore, explored the meaning of SMME in the South African context and their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study further investigated the palliative funds given to SMMEs during COVID-19 by the South African government, the challenges encountered during its implementation process, and the measures to improve the funding implementation.

Methodology: The study adopted a qualitative research approach with an exploratory research design, and this enhanced in-depth findings through the adoption of interviews as the only source of primary data collection. Data collected from the participants were analyzed using a thematic analytical technique with the help of Atlas-ti software (Version 22).

Findings: Findings obtained from the study revealed that SMMEs are separate and distinct business entities, including co-operatives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), managed by one or more owners, including their branches and subsidiaries. Another finding revealed that during the COVID-19 period, SMMEs experienced supply chain disruptions, inventory shortages, cash flow issues, and low income due to the inability to engage in active business. In the empirical study, participants attested that the scoring system, lack of business and managerial experience, communication barriers, and business registration requirements are some of the challenges encountered in funding implementation by the government departments. Furthermore, the participants highlighted that funding based on merit, consideration of the scoring system, and the application of communication dynamics to reach SMMEs should be applied to improve SMME funding implementation.

Originality/Value: This study is meant to inform the government on how to handle SMME funding and measures to assist them to enhance employment and to improve economic development.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate CAMEL variables' effects on deposit money banks' share prices for twelve Nigerian banks, nine Kenyan banks, and five South African banks.

Methodology: The panel regression approach was utilised to analyse the study data. The share price was measured by the total of the daily closing share price divided by the number of trading days. Capital adequacy was proxied by the equity-to-total-asset ratio, management efficiency was measured by asset turnover, earnings quality was measured by gross profit margin, and liquidity was measured by the loan-to-deposit ratio.

Findings: The findings showed that asset quality positively and significantly influenced the share prices of the South African sample but had an insignificant influence on the share prices of the Nigerian sample. The managerial efficiency significantly and positively influenced the share prices of the South African sample but had an insignificant effect on the share prices of the Kenyan and Nigerian samples. Lastly, findings showed that liquidity negatively and significantly influenced the share prices of our Kenyan and Nigerian samples but had an insignificant influence on the share prices of our South African samples. Originality/Value: The study's findings will help the management of African banks make good management decisions and provide information that will help stakeholders make better investment decisions. The study sheds new insight into the impact of CAMEL variables on the share price of banks in sub-Saharan Africa.

Purpose: Recognizing the importance of effective policymaking requires an understanding of Monetary Policy Shocks and Output Growth in Nigeria. The purpose of the paper is to examine how interest rate and exchange rate channels of the transmission mechanism affect output growth in Nigeria in response to monetary shocks.

Methodology: The structural vector autoregression method is the empirical model. In the empirical analysis, quarterly data from 2000 to 2020 were used for the gross domestic product, nominal effective exchange rate, consumer price index, monetary policy rate, and open buyback.

Findings: The results of the impulse response function showed that in Nigeria, monetary policy shocks are more significant because they have a long-lasting impact on growth up to the sixteenth quarter of the forecast horizon.

Originality/value: The study's conclusions would enable Nigerian policymakers to anticipate consequences of monetary policy shocks through indirect demand-side Keynesian monetary policy transmission mechanism through the channels of exchange and interest rates. The study recommends that to move the economy toward pre- determined directions, monetary authorities should be cautious of the level/quantity of money in circulation rather than focusing on increasing or decreasing the monetary policy rate.

Purpose: Traditionally, the Nigerian pension fund system was based on a defined benefit scheme for the public and private sectors and coincided with serious challenges in the payment of retirement benefits to retirees. These challenges led to the introduction of a defined contribution scheme in terms of the Pension Reforms Act. Since the management of pension fund assets is the sole responsibility of pension fund managers, there is a need to investigate the adequacy of pension fund managers’ financial performance since the change in pension fund regime. The pertinent research question in the study was: To what extent do pension cost incurred, revenue, the inflation rate and total contribution affect benefits paid and cash inflow? The extent to which federal government bonds, securities, total contribution and the inflation rate affect investment income were also examined. Methodology: Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration and multiple regression were used in the analysis of the data. Findings: The results of the study revealed that in both the short- term and long-term analysis, other costs incurred by pension fund management lead to lower benefits paid to retirees. Furthermore, higher administrative costs lead to higher benefits paid, given that increases in administrative costs promote higher inflow contributions, and investing in federal government bonds and, in particular, Treasury bills promotes higher investment income. Thus, securities increase investment income, and the higher the inflation rate, the higher the investment income. Originality/Value: The policy implication signifies a need to reduce pension costs incurred on pension fund management and to encourage more investment in real assets that can militate against inflation.

Purpose: This study is set out to establish the perceptions of the Zimbabwean top management concerning the measurement and disclosure of human capital in the financial statements of listed mining companies. This study has been prompted by the fact that despite companies considering human capital as an important resource that drives value, and competitiveness and contributes to a company’s economic growth, its value remains not properly accounted for in the financial statements. This implies that human capital is not being accorded the importance it deserves in the financial statements. Methodology: This study adopted a qualitative research approach. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interview guides from the six largest Zimbabwean-based mining companies. The collected qualitative data was analysed through the thematic analysis process and the results established four main themes. Findings: Obtained results reveal that top management agreed that top management is of the view that human capital has a strong relationship with the value of a company and its financial performance. They also indicated that the value of a company, its competitiveness, and economic growth is largely dependent on employee competencies (skills and expertise). Recommendations: After a synthesis of results, this study suggests a context-based framework offering human capital metrics for enhancing its measurement and disclosure practices. This will help to provide a better valuation of human capital in the financial statements and also various stakeholders will be able to derive useful information for decision-making. Managerial Implications: The study gives more insight into the major roles played by the phenomenon in the achievement of companies’ strategic objectives which include value creation among others. Furthermore, it provides a better internal understanding from top management on how the companies gain competitive advantage and economic growth in the era of the fourth industrial revolution through utilisation of human capital. From the aforementioned, chances are high that the human capital reporting by the mining companies in Zimbabwe will be enhanced forthwith.

This paper proposes a context-based framework for measuring and disclosing human capital in the financial statements of the Zimbabwean mining companies. The study was prompted by the lack of universal standardised framework that can be adopted by companies for use and existing of varied models with conflicting measurement metrics. The developed model is meant to bring harmony within the industry and across other sectors, particularly in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. This paper adopted an integrative literature review approach also known as the critical review approach in the development of the human capital measurement and disclosure framework. Corporate annual reports, existing related literature, and various human capital models were critically and systematically reviewed to conceptualise different views from various authors concerning human capital measurement and disclosure framework. A thematic analysis approach was adopted to analyse the qualitative findings. The analysis was conducted until a point of saturation was reached. The paper proposed a context-based human capital measurement and disclosure framework with six key primary factors. Furthermore, the paper proposed the measurement criteria and the disclosure requirements of the six primary factors established. The framework also acts as a starting point for human capital reporting since there is a lack of an established and generally accepted reporting framework in Zimbabwe. The benefit of this framework is that it is flexible, and it allows companies to develop human capital reporting guidelines based on key features specific to an individual company's human capital and can be applied to other similar contexts in the SADC region. This paper recommends the adoption of the human capital measurement and disclosure framework as to increase companies’ value, financial performance as well as economic growth at large. The proposed framework is envisaged to reduce information asymmetry and improve corporate governance practices for both practice and policy formulation.

The fluctuation in the price of crude oil on the global market has created a lot of attention to the researchers to investigate its price movement. This study tries to address the problem of predicting crude oil prices in a situation of unusual circumstances. In this study, Box Jenkins methodology was used to analyze monthly dynamics of the Brent oil price from January 2002 to February 2022. Data were first differenced to achieve stationarity, and then ACF and residual diagnostics were utilized to choose models that were used for analysis. The performance of various models were evaluated and ARIMA (0, 1, 1) was found to be the best model for forecasting crude oil prices. This study further reveals that despite the corona virus and the Ukraine war having a considerable impact on crude oil prices, such a model is still capable of capturing the underlying volatility in crude oil prices. Oil demand suddenly decreased as a result of the corona outbreak, but then abruptly increased as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. Therefore, there is a need to update the ARIMA model in order to best predict the price of crude oil in a time of exceptional circumstances. Because of the nature of world oil market, predictions for the medium and long term are often therefore, we have limited the scope of our forecasts in this study to a single year in order to achieve the highest level of accuracy.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to solve a real-life business problem by developing a new customised strategic cost management (SCM) model for the case study entity － a South African potato packing facility. Design/method/approach: The study followed a pragmatic philosophy where data were collected by observation and semi-structured interviews. The data focused on the following SCM techniques: Business process re-engineering, activity-based management, Kaizen costing, total quality management, and target costing. Findings: The investigation found that, except for target costing, all the SCM techniques belong in a SCM model. The investigation also revealed specific practical operational examples which were firstly analysed according to codes, and secondly aggregated, rewritten, and inductively reasoned in order to illustrate these processes in a new customised SCM model. Practical implications: After the operational processes were documented, a new customised SCM model was developed for the case study entity. The findings of the study could be helpful when other organisations manufacture, process, or pack various products to make informed management decisions. Originality/value: The value of the study lies in the likelihood to establish transferability － the process that was followed to develop a new customised SCM model could be replicated.

Purpose: This article analysed the effect of macroeconomic variables on 21 DSE-listed firms from 2006 to 2021 due to past inconclusive results from other research across the globe. Methodology: Mixed-sequential explanatory research design was used. Secondary panel data were collected from DSE while qualitative data was collected via semi structured interviews. Random effect model and thematic analysis were utilized for data analysis. Findings: The study found that GDP, inflation, and money supply had significant positive coefficients, while interest rates and exchange rates had significant negative coefficients, indicating that macroeconomic conditions have a substantial effect on firm performance. Practical implications: The findings suggest that firms should proactively manage macroeconomic conditions to remain competitive and sustainable. Originality/Value: The study's uniqueness lies in its use of qualitative data to support quantitative findings and its examination of the link between macroeconomic conditions and listed firm performance in Tanzania, where little similar research has been conducted.

Purpose: During the period 2022 until January 2023, several new global issues emerged besides the COVID-19 pandemic and had an impact on economic. This study aims to examine the weak form of market efficiency in Indonesia under the assumption that uncertain economic conditions tend to affect systematic risk and cause stock returns randomly move. Methodology: This study employs time series data based on the stock returns of 766 firms in Indonesia during the period January 3, 2022, to January 31, 2023. To detect random walk, the runs test is conducted with supporting of the variance ratio test. Findings: Systematic risk plays an important role in risky assets' efficiency during uncertain economic events which is consistent with the random walk theory. Otherwise, the impact of uncertain economic events on less risky assets gives the investors possibility to obtain extraordinary returns or abnormal returns. Originality/Value: This study examines market efficiency by taking into account the systematic risk of assets that are rarely analyzed at present.