The impact of Working Capital Management on shareholders’ wealth and profitability: evidence from Colombo Stock Exchange

Working capital management plays a pivotal role in enhancing the operational efficiency of firms and their ultimate profitability. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the trends in working capital management and its impact on the financial performance of listed manufacturing firms on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE). A panel data methodology was used with different regression estimators to analyze this relationship based on an unbalanced panel of 69 manufacturing firms listed during the period 2007–2016.
The findings revealed that the average collection period and the average payment period are negative and statistically significant for profitability, implying that firms which efficiently manage their accounts receivable and those that pay their creditors on time perform better than those that do not. Additionally, a positive statistically significant relationship between the number of days in inventory and profitability was supported suggesting that firms which stock-up and maintain their inventory levels suffer less from stock-outs and avoid challenges of securing financing when needed. This increases their operational efficiency and ensures profitability in the long run. It could not be ascertained whether a shorter or longer cash conversion cycle enhances firm profitability, since findings to support this premise were weak. However, it was observed that manufacturing firms are on average, carrying lot of debt in their capital structures.
The present study contributes to existing literature by presenting one of the very recent findings on this topic while simultaneously testing the validity of recent local and international methodologies, in order to inform policy change.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between economic development and environmental degradation regarding the emissions of CO₂ and SO₂ in Southeast Asia (SEA). The pooling data consist of 10 countries, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, in the period 2003-2012. Furthermore, income elasticity of CO₂ and SO₂ emissions is computed for each country to observe the sensitivity of environmental degradation through the emissions of CO₂ and SO₂ brought by economic development.
The results indicate that CO₂ displays an inverted U-shape pattern, whereas SO₂ has decreased at an increasing rate since 2003. It is expected that SO₂ will increase as the SEA economies further develop. The turning points for both CO₂ and SO₂, indicate that the current SEA income level has not reached the turning point. The income elasticities show that income elasticities for CO₂ are positive for all 10 countries. Both Singapore and Malaysia are classified as countries with high income. However, Singapore, with 0.64%, has the highest income elasticity, and Malaysia, with 0.15%, has the second lowest. There is no indication that wealthy countries have a significant impact on CO₂ through economic development. Income elasticities for SO₂ of each country are all negative. This suggests that SO₂ is an inferior good. Brunei, with 8.41%, has the most sensitivity toward change in SO₂ emissions, whereas Myanmar, with only 0.58%, is the least sensitive to SO₂ emissions.

The recent development of integrated reporting intends to address the limitations associated with corporate reporting practices. This paper aims to examine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between integrated reporting quality and financial performance. Secondary data was used, namely the integrated reports and annual financial statements of South African banks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) for 2010–2014. For the period 2005–2009, only the financial statements were used, since integrated reporting was not yet mandatory. The research design was longitudinal and it combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Descriptive statistics and Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) were used to explore the relationships between financial performance and integrated reporting quality. The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and earnings per share (EPS). However, there is no significant relationship between IRQ and Tobin’s q (Q-Ratio), IRQ and return on equity (ROE), IRQ and return on assets (ROA) as well as IRQ and economic value added (EVA). Moreover, there are no significant differences on the financial performance of the listed banks before and after the introduction of integrated reporting.