Business Commons^™

Extending The Use Of Market Orientation: Transforming A Charity Into A Business, Paul A. Chad

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Charities play a crucial role within society but are facing growing competition. Adopting a market orientation assists for-profit organisations to improve performance and can potentially also assist charities. This paper examines the under-researched topic of how market orientation can be appropriately introduced into a charity, and the resultant effect upon performance. A charity that introduced market orientation is examined using a discourse transformation framework. Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews of employees identifies how management changed the organisation through use of a three-phase process of new managerialism, professionalism and embedding. Few if any papers have previously examined how management of a …

Does The Interest Rate For Business Loans Respond Asymmetrically To Changes In The Cash Rate?, Abbas Valadkhani, Amir Arjomandi, Martin J. O'Brien

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article examines the dynamic relationship between the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA's) cash rate and the variable interest rate for lending to small businesses. The relationship is evaluated via an asymmetric GARCH model using monthly data spanning from August 1990 to October 2012. Our results show that a 1 percentage point increase in the cash rate results in an instantaneous 1.086 percentage point rise in the variable rate for small businesses, whereas an equivalent 1 percentage point cut only leads to a 0.862 percentage point fall with a delay of up to 2 months. This outcome has obvious implications …

Why Do Some Business Relationships Persist Despite Dissatisfaction? A Social Exchange Review, Venkata K. Yanamandram, Lesley White

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reviews the relevant theories and marketing literature to develop a theoretical foundation for understanding the process and outcome of struggling business-to-business (B2B) customer relationships. Specifically, the paper provides a social exchange perspective of the factors that influence the likelihood of dissatisfied customers remaining in a present relationship by serving as deterrents to discontinuing the relationship. In doing so, the paper identifies the common features of, noteworthy differences among, and gaps in these theories. The paper also connects determinant factors to an outcome variable in order to explain what drives a customer in managing an unsatisfying business relationship, and …

Banking Records, Business And Networks In Colonial Sydney, 1817-24, Leanne Johns, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Examining accounting transactions between depositors in the first accounts ledger of the Bank of New South Wales contributes to our knowledge of early Australian colonial businesspeople and their business activities. A social network analysis framework is applied to the transactions to disclose business networks and prominent individuals in the networks. The analysis seeks to ascertain the importance of these people to commerce and the significance of their networks in facilitating commercial relationships in a business environment fraught with uncertainty. The results illustrate the importance of networks to colonial trade and mercantile activity, especially for smaller scale businesspeople.aehr_348

Organization-Based Social Marketing: An Alternative Approach For Organizations Adopting Sustainable Business Practices, Mary Franks Papakosmas, Gary Noble, John Glynn

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article conceptualizes a new area for social marketing practitioners by focusing on individual behavior change that might occur within organizations. Organization-Based Social Marketing (OBSM) draws from organization change theory and internal marketing theory, while maintaining social marketing’s focus on beneficial behavior modification. The article argues that as such, OBSM represents a viable approach for organizations seeking to address the increasing demand for change strategies that promote proenvironmental behavior among their employees

Trust In Business Collaboration, Yu Zhang

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - Trust is vital for business collaboration. However, few empirical studies have assessed trust because it is hard to be measured and is influenced by too many factors. The purpose of this research is to find the factors that influence firm level trust in Australia and China.

Methodology - This paper used quantitative research method to examine the key determinants of trust in Australian and Chinese business collaborations. Qualitative face-to-face interviews are also conducted in Australia and China to examine the results and provide complimentary support for the quantitative research results.

Findings - Trust is influenced by different factors …

Australia: The Challenge Of Father-Daughter Succession In Family Business: A Case Study From The Land Down Under, Mary Barrett, Ken Moores

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This chapter examines the case of an Australian woman, Roz, who succeeded her father as the CEO of a large fourth-generation family business, Hawkins Family Group, in the traditionally male-dominated transport industry. The case is described in three phases. First, we outline Australian culture how it influences business life, including the position of women in the Australian workforce especially as managers and entrepreneurs. We then describe the history of the Hawkins Family Group and how Roz eventually came to lead it. Finally, we return to aspects of Australian values and culture and other literature to draw conclusions about the case. …

Using Decision Tree In Business Collaborator, Chao Sun, Yu Zhang

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - Business collaboration is important for small and medium sized enterprises. The traditional method of choosing business collaborator is largely based on individual's experience and subjective criteria. However, the failure rate of business collaboration is still high for less experienced small firms. The purpose of this research is to find a different solution for managers in choosing business collaborators.

Methodology - Decision Tree is an advanced technology, which is used in different business and industry areas. It is adopted in this study to help the managers choosing business partners. This study using the data collected from 339 firms in …

Embedding Professionally Relevant Learning In The Business Curriculum Through Industry Engagement, Michael Zanko, Theo Papadopoulos, Eveline Fallshaw, Tracy Taylor, Clare Woodley, Christine Armatas

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reports on preliminary findings from an ALTC funded project on how to build curriculathat meet the needs of business students and employers of business graduates. The project grew outof an Australian Business Deans Council Teaching and Learning Network scoping study whichidentified widespread concern among industry, academic and professional associations about the lackof engagement with real world problems by business graduates. In the paper we discuss the need forindustry engagement, define professionally relevant learning, and outline the study objectives andmethodology. We present a typology of industry engagement in the curriculum that emerged from ourfieldwork, and tools that business faculties …

Looking Anew At Women's Entrepreneurship: How The Family Firm Context And A Radical Subjectivist View Of Economics Helps Reshape Women's Entrepreneurship Research (Women Entrepreneurs In Family Business: A Radical Subjectivist View), Mary Barrett, Ken Moores

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

As noted in a current call for papers (Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice 2010), there has recently been a dramatic expansion of scholarly interest and activity in the field of women's entrepreneurship. The U.S. based Diana Project, to name just one research group in the field, has grown rapidly into a global network of researchers, generating numerous conferences, symposia, and publications. Journals such as Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice and more specialised publications including Family Business Review have sponsored special issues on women's entrepreneurship, allowing scholars to synthesize insights in the field from empirical and conceptual work worldwide.

Enhancing Industry Association Theory: A Comparative Business History Contribution, James Reveley, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Our comparative business historical examination of industry associations aims to enrich the under-theorized study of this distinctive type of meta-organization. We compare two New Zealand industry associations operating in the same supply chain but with differing degrees of associative capacity and types of external architecture. Our analysis of these associations builds on two strands of theory that rarely communicate with each other: New Institutional Economics (NIE) and Organizational–Institutional Theory (OIT). We demonstrate how NIE describes the structural potentialities for associational strength, while OIT addresses the relational context within associations. In turn, NIE’s examination of external influences reinforces OIT suggestions that …

Size Still Matters When Firms Choose Business Collaborators, Yu Zhang, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Collaborate with peer-sized or larger-sized partner helps the firm to enhance its process, product quality, reputation, and market position. Therefore, when choosing collaborator, firms prefer peer-sized or lager-sized partners. Many empirical researches try to link the firm’s size with the performance and result of collaboration. However, there are still many debates. Instead of using the firm’s size, this paper use the compared size or size difference between collaborating firms to examine its influence on the performance of inter-firm collaboration. The results from qualitative case study and quantitative online survey in both Australia and China supported that size matters when firms …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Retention Of Dissatisfied Business Services Customers Using Structural Equation Modelling, Venkata K. Yanamandram, Lesley White

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study extends the body of literature concerning service switching, complaint handling, dependence and commitment by investigating why dissatisfied B2B customers do not switch service providers. Specifically, it develops and tests a social exchange-based model examining how dissatisfied, but behaviourally loyal, customers act in terms of their repurchase intentions. A conceptual model, specifying a set of hypothesised relationships between dimensions of switching costs, interpersonal relationships, dimensions of complaint handling, satisfaction with complaint handling, attractiveness of alternatives, dependence, calculative commitment and repurchase intentions, was examined using AMOS 17.0 on a sample of 376 business directors/managers from responding organisations. The results show …

The Performance Wheel And The Small Business Pyramid: The Next Generation Of Performance Scorecards, Carol J. Mcnair, Edmund W. Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A common shortcoming with respect to performance scorecards within today's businessenvironment is the misconception that one size fits all. This paper considers the historicaldevelopment, as well as the increasing variety and poorly integrated status of one of business management's most important tools - the performance scorecard.This paper traces the development of performance management systems from itshistorical inception to the present examining ways that some approaches do not addressthe specific decision making needs of many enterprises. Performance scorecards aregenerally developed with a specific type of enterprise in mind, but few have integratedthe different emphases of the different approaches.With the focus on …

Education Into Employment? Indonesian Women And Moving From Business Education Into Professional Participation, Ang Lindawati, Ciorstan J. Smark

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of possible cultural and historical explanations of why Indonesian women’s higher participation in tertiary accounting studies has failed to lead to a commensurately higher participation in the upper echelons of public accounting careers. This paper has adopted the ideographic subjectivist approach which suggests that research should be culturally and historically informed. Women interviewed for this study repeatedly mentioned two cultural and historical barriers to their fuller participation in the public accounting profession. Firstly, it was noted that Javanese expectations of “proper” behavior in women did not lend itself to some …

Spotlights And Shadows: Preliminary Findings About The Experiences Of Women In Family Business Leadership Roles, Mary Barrett, Ken Moores

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In an earlier study (Moores & Barrett 2002) we found successful CEOs had learned leadership of family controlled businesses (FCBs) in a series of distinct learning phases. Because that study's sample did not include many women, our present study focuses on women in FCBs to better understand how they exercise leadership and entrepreneurship in the family firm context. Case study analysis of an international sample of women FCB leaders, using frameworks which avoid essentialist assumptions about women's and men's approach to leadership, suggests there are some characteristic ways women leaders learn FCB leadership and entrepreneurship roles. We have tentatively labelled …

Untying The Gordian Knot: Small Business And The Strategy Balance Scorecard, Ted Watts, Vicki Baard, Carol J. Mcnair

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Research confirms that small business (SB) is important for the dynamics and stability of the economy; the size, composition, and quality of employment; and the socio-political structure worldwide. Given this significance it is surprising that SBs have not taken advantage of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Research suggests it is because the BSC was designed for use in medium to large organizations and does not provide the correct “fit” for SBs. This paper 1) identifies performance dimensions applicable to SB, 2) develops a model, the Comprehensive Performance Management System (CPMS), which overcomes some of the major problems of previous measurement models, …

Perceptions Of Business Challenges Facing Malaysian Smes: Some Preliminary Results, Ali S. Saleh, Peter Caputi, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper develops an instrument to measure perceptions of business barriers facing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) based upon a sample of 138 Malaysian businesses. An exploratory factor analysis yields five key factors covering: perception of government policies; perception of human capital; perception of availability of infrastructure; perception of business competition; and perception of financial issues. Reliability and item analyses provide support for the internal consistency of the factors and the discriminatory power of items that constitute the factors. In particular, this study finds that perceptions of government policies and infrastructure availability have the highest mean scores, suggesting that …

Teaching And Learning Business Innovation By Successive Approximations, Jorge E. Fernandez-Pol

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper describes a strategy for teaching and learning business innovation by successive approximations. This novel strategy has two major sources: the book An Introduction to the Creative Economy by Pol and Carroll (2007), and intense observation of how novices learn the discipline. I will draw an analogy between the observation of an unknown planet and the study of business innovation as a tool for helping participants to connect with the suggested pedagogical approach. In essence, the approach consists of three approximations: first, identification of the dimensions or areas that are of absolutely fundamental importance for teaching and learning business …

Turning Marketing Promises Into Business Value: The Experience Of An Industrial Sme, Victoria Little, Judith Motion, Rod Brodie, Richard Brookes

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

How can businesses create more value for their customers and shareholders? One way of understanding this task is to apply the promises framework: promises made to customers, promises kept, and promises enabled. Traditionally marketers made the promises, leaving keeping and enabling activities to other departments (e.g. logistics, manufacturing and customer service) and to senior management. However, marketers are increasingly acknowledging that creating and delivering value to customers requires a synchronised effort from the whole firm, not only marketers.

Taking Care Of (E)-Business? Australian It Professionals' Views Of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments, Keir Dyce, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

M-commerce, a growing sub-category of E-business, allows business to be done 'anywhere, anytime'. However security of wireless devices remains problematic. It is unclear whether protocols to alleviate security problems, such as wireless vulnerability assessments (WNVAs), are being used or are effective. The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals' use of and opinions about two types of WNVA: wireless monitoring and penetration testing. An initially surprising finding was how little both types are used, despite the ease with which wireless networks can be attacked and the fact that penetration testing is fairly well understood. In the …

A Time Series For Business Profitability In Twentieth-Century Australia, David Merrett, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australia has historical time series for a wide range of economic data covering most of the twentieth century. These include statistical information relating to national income, demography, prices, external trade, financial markets, and the government sector. However, we lack a long time series for business profits. We have calculations for some industries, especially banking, and national figures from 1985 using the IBIS database.

Business Profitability And Structural Change In Interwar Australia, Simon Ville, David Merrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Australian economy of the interwar period experienced noteworthy cyclical and secular trends. Severe cyclical fluctuations were associated with the international depression, often referred to as the ‘Great Slump’, which particularly afflicted Australia’s large traded sector, especially its cornerstone primary exporting industries. In the midst of this apparent dearth, however, came the ‘plenty’ of the initial stages of modernisation, which resulted from the broadening of the country’s economic base into new manufacturing industries. The general trends of economic activity are captured by national income data, while the expansion of particular industries has been contextualised by several authors, most notably Forster …

The Development Of An Industry Specific Performance Measurement Model For Service Organisations Within The Small Business Sector, Vicki Baard, Edmund W. Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The role of small business, as part of the value adding chain in any economy, should never be understated. In Australia small business represents 96% of all private sector business, accounts for 47% of all private sector employment and the majority fail within three to five years of establishment. Despite this contribution the small business sector, and in particular the service sector component, appear to be underrepresented in the development of specific performance measurement models, which, within the academic and professional literature appear to focus on their larger firm counterparts. Given the unique position of small business service organisations the …

Understanding Tensions And Conflict: A Phases Of Learning Approach To Family Business, Ken Moores, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Tensions inevitably arise from time to time in most business settings. But in family businesses these tensions potentially can be especially acute and even result in the cessation of the enterprise. These tensions manifest at various times and for many reasons but they generally arise when the business is undergoing a transition. Understanding these transitions and how to prepare for them enable family business leaders to lessen the threats to survival. In this paper we present results from our research into the transitions that Australian family firms typically experience and how they influence four key stages of learning for family …

Engendering Healthy Organisational Communication - Evidence From Australian Female Managers And Business People, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Keeping 'good' communication in organisations is one of the most frequently prescribed recipes for organisational well being. Training programs for employees in assertiveness, improved communication, career development, and managing oneself and others, have often called attention to the specifics of verbal interactions between managers, employees and others in the organisation. Such training programs generally suppose that direct, open approaches to communication are best. Yet it has often been asserted in sociolinguistic research that men and women communicate differently, including at work. Despite this, precepts for 'good' communication that are recommended for both genders in communication training are usually consistent with …

Government Business Process Analysis With Activity Theory, Peter A. J Larkin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Activity Theory tells us that a motivated person or group performs an activity directed at an object in order to transform the object into desired outcomes to fulfil a need. It also tells us that instruments and the community mediate human activity. The New South Wales state parliament in Australia performs the activity of creating Acts and those Acts prescribe within them the objects of the Act and the desired outcomes. To achieve the desired outcomes, the Act will establish or constitute the necessary instruments. This paper describes an application of Yrjo Engestrom's Activity Theory model, or structure of human …

Cracks In The Egg: Improving Performance Measures In Business Incubator Research, Barbara Cornelius, Rekha Bhabra-Remedios

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Early research into business incubators focused on describing how they were operated and what activities were undertaken to assist in the survival of tenant firms. The only measures of effective operation were based upon the economic agenda of those sponsoring the incubators, that is, whether jobs were created and firms successfully developed beyond the protected incubator environment. The theoretical considerations used by researchers were, as a consequence, limited largely to either economic or fmancial models of performance. Much can be learned, however, from the management literature, which examines performance through organisational theory. It is suggested that further research into incubator …

Effective Teaching And Learning: A Business Education Focus, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The need to understand the process of student learning in order to improve the quality of that learning has been identified in the education literature (for example, see Biggs, 1978, 1987a, 1987b, Malton and Saljo, 1976, Ramsden, 1992). In addition, the outcomes of this learning have been identified in quantitative, qualitative or attitudinal terms (Biggs, 1990; Marton and Booth, 1997). To this end there have been a number of models of student approaches to learning (Biggs, 1988; Kember and Gow, 1989; Marton and Saljo, 1976; Zhang, 2000). Each model has considered the antecedents, and by way of application, the effectiveness …