The study examined the impact of financial risk management practices on the financial performance of commercial banks in Botswana. The study used Return on Asset and Return on Equity to measure financial performance. Inflation, Interest rates, total debt to total assets, total debt to total equity, total equity to total assets and loan deposit ratios were used as proxies for financial risk management. The research population was all the 10 commercial banks in Botswana and the study covered a period of 8 years from 2011 to 2018. This descriptive study sourced monthly secondary data from Bank of Botswana Financial Statistics database. Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses were applied to analyze the data. The results from regression analysis showed that interest rates had a negative and significant impact on return on assets and on return on equity. On the other hand, total debt to total assets showed a negative and insignificant effect on return on assets. However, total debt to total assets, revealed a positive and insignificant effect on return on equity. The loan deposit ratio indicated a negative and significant impact on return on assets and on return on equity. Findings suggest that banks should strike a proper balance between financial risk management practices and financial performance by engaging in appropriate market, credit, and liquidity risk management practices that will ensure safety for their banks and yield positive profits.

This study had dual purposes: (1) to examine relationship between profitability and internal and external factors of commercial banks in Botswana and (2) to perform trend analysis of factors indicating banks' performance. The study analysed the secondary data obtained from Bank of Botswana reports. Profitability measures were return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and net interest income (NIM) as dependent variables. The independent variables comprised internal factors: bank liquidity, capital adequacy, credit risk, bank size, market profit opportunity, cost efficiency, and bank diversification as well as the external factors: economic growth, inflation and bank interest. We utilised regression technique to analyse the relationship between bank performance and internal and external variables presented in 3 models: ROA, ROE and NIM. The results suggest that ROE is the best measure of the bank profitability followed by ROA and NIM. The combination of inflation, cost efficiency, bank liquidity, credit risk, market profit opportunity and bank diversification was the best predictor of bank profitability as represented by ROE. The implications drawn from this study are that banks should match their operating expenses with revenue growth, and try to strike a balance between asset, liquidity, and liability management in order to remain competitive and earn higher profits. As for the regulator, effective controls should be placed on deposit rates, bank charges, inflation, and banks rates.

The study examined the impact of liquidity management on the financial performance of commercial banks in Botswana. The study used Return on Assets and Return on Equity to measure financial performance. Cash and cash equivalents to total assets ratio, Cash to deposits ratio, Loans to deposits ratio, Loans to total assets ratio, Liquid assets to total assets ratio, and Liquid assets to deposits ratio were used as proxies for liquidity management. The research population was all the 9 commercial banks in Botswana and the study covered a period of 9 years from 2011 to 2019. This descriptive study sourced monthly secondary data from Bank of Botswana Financial Statistics database. Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses were applied to analyse the data. The results from regression analysis show statistically significant positive relationships for Loans to total assets ratio and Liquid assets to total assets ratio with return on assets and return on equity. Loans to deposits ratio and Liquid assets to deposits ratio had statistically significant negative relationships with return on assets and return on equity. Cash and cash equivalents to total assets ratio had statistically insignificant positive relationship with return on assets and return on equity whilst cash to deposits ratio had statistically insignificant negative relationship with return on assets and return on equity. Findings suggest that the commercial banks should try to optimize liquidity variables to boost bank performance. The policy makers also, through the Central Bank, should come up with initiatives such as prescribing minimum liquidity requirements that will help banks to stay profitable.

The paper presents the findings of the analysis of the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on working capital management efficiency in the listed companies of the Consumer service sector in Botswana. Eight corporate governance elements and seven working capital components were extracted from the annual reports of a sample of six companies for the period 2012 to 2017 for the analysis. Thirty six observations were obtained. Pearson correlations were executed to determine the relationship between corporate governance elements and working capital components. OLS regression analysis was performed to establish the explaining power of the combination of corporate governance elements on each of the working capital components. The correlation analysis shows that number of non-executive directors has a significant negative but moderate relationship with cash conversion cycle and number of board subcommittees has significant positive but moderate relationship with Debt ratio. The regression results suggest that corporate governance mechanisms have a significant impact on working capital management, the highest impact being reflected on inventory conversion period. The implications of these findings are that boards of directors have a significant role to play in working capital management efficiency of the companies they govern. They should therefore continue providing attainable policies on working capital management and remain vigilant on demanding feedback on their implementations.

The current study is borne out of an interest on the ethical views of accounting majors, as well as evaluating their perceptions on certain ethical behaviour. The study is timely since it was undertaken at a time when the University of Botswana's Accountancy degree curriculum had been reviewed and a course in ethics in accounting was introduced. The Attitudes Towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) was distributed to students who had completed the ethics and auditing courses. Willing respondents were invited for focus group discussions in order to gain additional insight on respondents' views and ethical perceptions.The results of the current study were compared to the results of similar studies carried out in South Africa and Turkey. The findings of the study revealed that the mean average of the Botswana study was approximated by the South African results for some variables, and that there were isolated similarities with the Turkey findings. The results also indicated that an overwhelming number of respondents belief that business ethics can be taught, an encouraging result for a course in its infancy. It was however the qualitative results which, though limited, provided insight into the perceptions and thoughts of respondents on various aspects of ethical behaviour. Subsequently the study concluded that more concerted qualitative studies could provide further insight on the phenomenon and augment what has been learnt from the many quantitative studies.