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The structure of an organization is no longer viewed as a rigid definition of hierarchical levels and interrelationships among different groups. Managers use the organizational design process as a fundamental tool for implementing and communicating the strategic direction selected for the firm.

In 1979, the company's Annual Report stated that Monsanto operations included “more than 180 manufacturing plants, laboratories, and technical centers in 20 nations. The company's products [were] sold in 123 nations.” According to the April 30, 1984, Fortune, “Monsanto hit its nadir in 1980; though sales increased 6 percent to $6.57 billion, earnings plunged 55 percent to $149 million….[The company] lost over $300 million on old‐line businesses, with fibers and styrene proving the worst performers.” Its return on stockholder equity was 5.3 percent.

This paper examines the determinants of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The study uses a firm‐level panel data set of all publicly traded firms on the Amman Stock Exchange between 1989 and 2000. The study develops eight research hypotheses, which are used to represent the main theories of corporate dividends. A general‐to‐specific modeling approach is used to choose between the competing hypotheses. The study examines the determinants of the amount of dividends using Tobit specifications. The results suggest that the proportion of stocks held by insiders and state ownership significantly affect the amount of dividends paid. Size, age, and profitability of the firm seem to be determinant factors of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The findings provide strong support for the agency costs hypothesis and are broadly consistent with the pecking order hypothesis. The results provide no support for the signaling hypothesis.

This paper examines the dynamic determinants of signaling firm’s market value. The underlying assumption is that when a firm changes its capital structure, it actually changes the relative position and the market values of its capital suppliers’ securities holdings. As for the determinants of capital structure, the paper examines a comprehensive number of factors that have been examined or pointed out in the literature. The paper utilizes the properties of partial adjustment model where the desired (or target) level of market value is adjusted according to both of the changes in actual market values and changes in firm’s capital structure. The results indicate that firm’s market value is not affected by neither factors of tradeoff theory nor free cash flow theories of capital structure. If firm’s liquidity position is taken as a source of short‐term financing, the results indicate that factors of pecking order theory do exist. The premises of dividend irrelevancy and information asymmetry do exist with a negative estimate of the dividend payout ratio. The results also indicate that firms’ financial‐agency signaling is affected by eight factors. These factors are (1) debt financing, (2) bankruptcy risk, (3) type of industry, (4) size, (5) financial flexibility, (6) liquidity position, (7) interest rate and (8) transaction costs of borrowing or paying off debt.

Five hundred financial executives from North American companies were surveyed by means of a mailed questionnaire to gain a view from outside the operations functions of the basis on which aggregate inventory decisions are taken. The response indicated that more functions than might have been expected were involved in the process of determining inventory levels and, partly because of this, policy tended to be of a shorter rather than longer term nature.

The market for mergers and takeovers, often referred to as the market for corporate control [Manne (1965)], has always attracted the attention of investors and researchers because takeovers represent corporate investment decisions on a scale several times larger than the normal, ongoing, growth‐maintaining capital outlays by the typical value‐maximising firm. Although the theoretical justifications for such corporate actions are reasonably well understood, the true motives for the mergers and the strategies adopted by acquiring firms to consummate them can be complex and diverse in scope. Corporate acquisitions can therefore have widespread effects on the wealth of various groups of agents involved in the market for corporate control.

Leadership and management gain success from understanding that organisational participation comes through the commitment and involvement of individuals working with one another. The question facing managers is how to encourage and develop organisational participation. The key to unlocking participation is the types of individual behaviour necessary for an effective organisation. These behaviours are classified into four operating modes, referred to as levels — each sequential and interlocking. They are Level I — the individual, Level II — face‐to‐face teams, Level III — the group or divisional level, and Level IV — the organisational policy and strategy level. Each of these is divided into tasks for its members.

Many companies have either rejected or reduced the size of risk management (hedging) programs because they do not believe that the market will reward them sufficiently for the reduction in earnings volatility. In fact, many commodity companies would take the argument a step farther and argue that the market will punish them for reducing their commodity exposure.

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of capital structure decisions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. The issue is very relevant considering that SMEs have been noted as important contributors to the growth of the Ghanaian economy.

Regression model is used to estimate the relationship between the firm level characteristics and capital structure measured by long‐term debt and short‐term debt ratios.

The results of the study suggest that variables such as firm's age, size, asset structure, profitability, and growth affect the capital structure of Ghanaian SMEs. Short‐term debt is found to represent an important financing source for SMEs in Ghana.

The findings of this study have important implications for policy makers and entrepreneurs of SMEs in Ghana.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between business‐level strategy and organisational performance and to test the applicability of Porter's generic strategies in explaining differences in the performance of organisations.

The study was focussed on manufacturing firms in the UK belonging to the electrical and mechanical engineering sectors. Data were collected through a postal survey using the survey instrument from 124 organisations and the respondents were all at CEO level. Both objective and subjective measures were used to assess performance. Non‐response bias was assessed statistically and it was not found to be a major problem affecting this study. Appropriate measures were taken to ensure that common method variance (CMV) does not affect the results of this study. Statistical tests indicated that CMV problem does not affect the results of this study.

The results of this study indicate that firms adopting one of the strategies, namely cost‐leadership or differentiation, perform better than “stuck‐in‐the‐middle” firms which do not have a dominant strategic orientation. The integrated strategy group has lower performance compared with cost‐leaders and differentiators in terms of financial performance measures. This provides support for Porter's view that combination strategies are unlikely to be effective in organisations. However, the cost‐leadership and differentiation strategies were not strongly correlated with the financial performance measures indicating the limitations of Porter's generic strategies in explaining performance heterogeneity in organisations.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature by identifying some of the gaps in the literature through a systematic literature review and addressing those gaps.