Alternative analyses of market value added: a case study of Thailand

Risk management is one of the prominent issues which are pivotal to the success of a business and may adversely affect profitability if not properly practised. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to determine risk management practices in manufacturing SMEs in Cape Town. The research conducted was quantitative in nature and constituted the collection of data from 74 SME leaders, all of whom had to adhere to a list of strict delineation criteria. All data collected were thoroughly analyzed through means of descriptive statistics. From the findings made, it is clear that SMEs in the manufacturing sector do in fact understand risk management initiatives applicable to ‘manage’ their respective businesses towards sustainability, but not to a large extent. It was found that respondents are unaware of the elements which make risk management effective, which ultimately aids to the development of problems for SMEs. All employees, managers and owners must coordinate their efforts together to identify and manage organizational risks within their ambit to obtain total risk coverage, as well as provide assurance that these risks are effectively managed from a coordinated approach. Further studies may be carried out to identify measures that can be taken to improve the effectiveness of risk management practices in SMEs.

In today’s increasingly competitive markets, it is essential to be able to determine the position of a company as opposed to its competitors. Today the traditional financial ratios are most widely used to measure corporate performance, but more and more authors begin to criticize their use. It is difficult to use financial ratios as a complex measurement tool. It is crucial to use an appropriate method or tool to measure corporate performance, which can measure the company’s performance in a complex way represented by one indicator. In this study, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method is used, which is one of the potential tools available. Several researchers have used the DEA method to measure corporate performance. Many authors consider DEA as a useful tool for measuring corporate performance, while others criticize it. The authors analyze the performance of retail food companies in Hungary’s Northern Great Plain region. The companies analyzed were chosen from the region investigated, and they have “food retail grocery store” as their main activity, and they had six cleared annual reports in the period 2012–2017. There was a total of 887 companies in the region examined, and 563 (63.5%) met the conditions. The analysis was made using the time-series data of companies for 2012–2017 based on their financial reports, and the authors dealt with various possibilities for extending DEA, which can support its more accurate use. Based on evaluating the retail food companies’ performance in the Northern Great Plain region, one can state that the efficiency of companies shows a very mixed picture over the years examined. The study suggests solutions to the indicated problem. The findings indicate that the application of extended DEA methods gives better results; that is, one can get better estimates of the efficiency of companies.