Business Commons^™

Final Report : Bellevue Sustainable Industry Project, Beth Walker, Janice Redmond, Ute Goeft

Research outputs pre 2011

This report is the result of a grant from the W A Waste Management Board's Waste Management and Recycling Fund to investigate the attitudes and practices of Bellevue business owner-managers to environmental issues and waste management since 2005. In 2005 data was collected to provide baseline information of the level of business interest in the environment and waste management practices in the Bellevue industrial area. After. the analysis of that data was reported, an intervention program was implemented by the Swan Catchment Council. The intervention program included the following...

Delivering The Business Value Of Information Technology: Evaluation Practices Of Construction Sme's, P Love, Craig Standing

Research outputs pre 2011

With cal/sfrom the govemmentfor the construction industry to improve its peiformance and openly embrace information technology (IT), this research sought to examine the practices that organisations use to evaluate and justify their investments in IT. It was considered that this would enable those areas for improving the evaluation process to be identified and the business value of IT was maximised. A questionnaire survey was used to obtain information about the evaluation practices of 126 construction organisations. The analysis of their responses identified three key findings. First, different organisation types significantly differ in the amount they investment in IT and firm …

The Performance Of Seasoned Equity Issues In A Risk-Adjusted Environment, David E. Allen, V Soucik

Research outputs pre 2011

We show that firms issuing seasoned equity possess unique risk characteristics as captured by beta. We use a benchmark to control for this risk and then measure the extent of risk-adjusted underperformance using a longer time-frame than the five-year period used in most studies. We examine the impact of various factors on post-issue performance as well as initial issue underpricing. Why do companies making seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) significantly under perform in the post-issue period? Loughran and Ritter (1997) suggested transitory over-pricing prior to issue, or agency and information costs, Healy and Palepu (1990) and Masulis and Korwar (1986). Rangan …

Small Business Owners: Too Busy To Train?, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond, Beverley Webster, Megan Le Clus

Research outputs pre 2011

Purpose – The reason often cited for the poor relationship between small businesses and their uptake of vocational education and training is that small business owner-managers claim that they are too busy to engage in training or any type of learning activity and that most training is of little value to them. The aim of the research is to examine the relationship between these factors.

Design/methodology/approach – Using qualitative research methods the study collected data of the knowledge, attitudes and needs of small business owner-managers, both before and after participation in a training program.

Findings – This study has indicated …

Explaining The Lack Of Strategic Planning In Smes: The Importance Of Owner Motivation, Calvin Wang, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond

Research outputs pre 2011

Considerable evidence shows that strategic planning leads to increased firm performance. Yet, the majority of SMEs do not plan and the reasons why are not well understood. This article questions the common approach to understanding this problem based on identifying business barriers to planning. For the majority of SME owner operators, business performance often ranks far behind intangible goals such as autonomy, personal satisfaction and lifestyle. Strategic planning may therefore have little value to owner-operators driven by such motivators. This article presents an alternative perspective to the issue by arguing that owner aspirations are integral to whether or not SMEs …

A Monetary Union In East Asia: What Does The Common Cycles Approach Tell?, K Sato, David E. Allen, Zhaoyong Zhang

Research outputs pre 2011

There is controversy about whether a monetary union is feasible in the East Asian region. Amongst the criteria for establishing a monetary union, most of the existing studies focus on the symmetric issue of fundamental shocks and the extent of correlations by applying the Blanchard and Quah (1989) structural vector autoregression (VAR) technique, which includes the firstdifferenced variables in the model and examines only bilateral relationships. When forming a monetary union, the member countries need to renounce their monetary policy autonomy. If shocks to respective economies are symmetric, the cost of relinquishing the discretionary monetary policy is likely to be …

Thoughts On Var And Cvar, David E. Allen, Robert J. Powell

Research outputs pre 2011

Value at Risk (VaR) is an important issue for banks since its adoption as a primary risk metric in the Basel Accords and the requirement that it is calculated on a daily basis. VaR calculates maximum expected losses over a given time period at a given tolerance level. Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) measures extreme risk. It calculates the risk beyond VaR. Relative industry risk measurement is also very important to Banks in their management of risk, such as for setting risk concentration limits and developing investment and credit policy. This paper examines market Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional …

Always The Optimist?, Eric Kordt, Craig Standing

Research outputs pre 2011

The purpose of this research is to determine the attributional style (optimistic or pessimistic) of Information Technology support workers and executive managers using attribution theory, This research suggests that support workers are likely to exhibit an optimistic attributional style whilst executive managers are likely to exhibit a pessimistic attributional style, The differences in attributional style reflected in aspects such as the strength to participate (support workers) or avoid (executive managers) projects destined for failure, The research suggests that managers can positively influence the causal dimensions of attributional style by increasing support worker involvement, supporting executive managers, empowering employees and supporting …