Business Commons^™

Accountability, Democracy And The World Economic Forum, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Concerns about the state of the global environment has provided the catalyst for significant participation in 'anti-globalisation' protests. These concerns have led many to protest the general lack of social and environmental accountability displayed by multinational companies and elected government officials. This paper considers these issues within the context of a growing protest movement.

The Corporate Connection: Financial Reporting In A Large Religious/Charitable Organization In Australia, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Nonprofit organizations operate in an increasingly corporatised, competitive environment. More and more, as institutions with charitable agenda, they need to promote an image that will enhance their ability to attract the funding they require in order to continue their operations. Competition for donations is becoming more intense and society is increasing its expectations about the level of accountability desirable from such organizations. One means by which nonprofit organizations can address this issue of accountability, and present themselves to the public as financially sound and worthy of receiving donations, is through their annual financial statements. As accounting practices have changed over …

The Politics Of Sociotechnical Intervention: An Interactionist View, Karin Garrety, R Badham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism - a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology - to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping …

A View On The Process Of Accounting Standard Setting In The People’S Republic Of China, Y. Zhang, J. Andrew, H. W. Collier

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a discussion of how the People’s Republic of China is attempting to revise accounting standards. Historically, China’s accounting standards were dominated by ‘management’ accounting and compliance and achievement of goals and objectives established by central planning authority. As China seeks Foreign Direct Investment in formerly State Owned Enterprises, competitive pressures demand a change of emphasis in financial reporting. Much of the Western world is adapting IFRS for financial reporting. IFRS seems to privilege western dialogue in the adoption and acceptance of standards if PRC wishes to access the world wide capital markets. Consistency and comparability of financial …

The Truth Games Of Public Relations Politics, Judy M. Motion, Shirley Leitch

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article employs thematic analysis to examine the relationships between public relations practitioners, their women politician clients, and the media they seek to influence in order to create and popularise particular truths. The six key themes considered within this article are truth, news values, coterie communication, gatekeepers, media training, and informalization. The article draws upon interviews conducted with women elected to New Zealand's national Parliament in 1994 and women who held mayoral office in 1996. It also draws upon interviews with the public relations practitioners who undertook media relations work for these women politicians.

Australia's External Debt: Is It A Symptom Or A Cause Of Economic Slowdown?, Khorshed Chowdhury

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Amidst the debate surrounding the 'debt problem' in Australia, the key analytical issue of whether external debt is a symptom or a cause of economic slowdown has been ignored. Sachs (1990) and Kenen (1990) argued that the external 'debt overhang' is a primary cause of economic slowdown and acts as an obstacle to economic growth. The second view is by Bulow and Rogoff (1990) who argue that the external debts are a symptom of poor economic management and performance rather than a primary cause of stifled economic growth. The statistical tests of causal relationships between the GDP growth rate and …

Desperately Seeking Synergy: Interdisciplinary Research In Accounting And Business History, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In responding to the recent call for interdisciplinary research where synergies can be gained and institutional knowledge broadened, it is argued that a particularly strong case exists for aligning work on business and accounting history. The greater breadth and context about the structure of firms and their operating environment provided by business history facilitates an enhanced understanding of the forces that have driven the changing provision of management accounting services. In turn, it might be argued that historians analyzing the success or failure of firms can learn much by studying more closely the appropriateness of the accounting systems that they …

The Nature And Structure Of Trade-Financial Networks: Evidence From The New Zealand Pastoral Sector, 1860-1939, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study applies modern network theory to trade and finance networks in the New Zealand pastoral sector before World War Two It particularly examines the manner in which networks can include trading and financial business transactions simultaneously. In addition, it provides evidence of the role of leadership in such networks, in this case played by the stock and station agents as intermediaries bringing farmers into contact with a wide range of service providers.

Powerful Friends: The Institutionalisation Of Corporate Accounting Practices In An Australian Religious/Charitable Organisation, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The profile of accounting in the nonprofit sector has been raised substantially in recent years, due to profound changes in the institutional environment in which organizations in that sector operate. One of the factors that has resulted in the adoption of corporate-style financial management techniques, including accounting, in the nonprofit sector, has been the need for such organizations to achieve financial legitimacy. This can be achieved by means of their accounting practices, as they demonstrate a level of financial accountability that proves them to be legitimate recipients of funds from the public, from governments, and increasingly from the corporate sector. …

Denying Accountability? Australia’S International Mining Shame , Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australian mining companies are under considerable international scrutiny due to a number of high profile environmental disasters. This paper is concerned with analysising our ability to hold these companies accountable for their actions.

Poverty Intensity In Australia, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Even though poverty indices with axiomatically sound properties have been advocated for several decades, most empirical studies of poverty in Australia and elsewhere continue to use the crude, but easily understood, head-count ratio. The difficulty of interpreting the axiomatically more desirable indices is a major reason why their use has been resisted in applied poverty measurement. This paper demonstrates how the more sophisticated poverty indices can be converted into a form that is readily interpreted as a measure of poverty intensity of a group, relative to the population to which the group belongs. The resulting poverty-intensity index is easy to …

The Effect Of Geographic Mobility On Male Labour-Force Particpants In The United States, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

We use both fixed-effects and random-effects regression models to measure the effect of geographic mobility on earnings of labor-force participants in the United States. The results support the human-capital hypothesis: six years after moving, real earnings of male labor-force participants are about 20 percent higher than they would have been had the move not occurred. Men younger than 40, and men with family-unit incomes no more than five times the poverty line, experience even larger benefits from moving. The geographic mobility that is characteristic of the United States’ flexible labor market, in general, is beneficial to the movers.

Behavioral Market Segmentation Of Binary Guest Survey Data With Bagged Clustering, Sara Dolnicar, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Binary survey data from the Austrian National Guest Survey conducted in the summer season of 1997 were used to identify behavioural market segments on the basis of vacation activity information. Bagged clustering overcomes a number of diffculties typically encountered when partitioning large binary data sets: The partitions have greater structural stability over repetitions of the algorithm and the question of the "correct" number of clusters is less important because of the hierarchical step of the cluster analysis. Finally, the bootstrap part of the algorithm provides means for assessing and visualizing segment stability for each input variable.

International Trends In Evaluating University Research Outcomes: What Lessons For Australia, Samuel Garrett-Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

An international study compared methods used to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of university research in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and elsewhere. It aimed to provide a foundation for improving the evaluation of research and research training in Australian universities. Evaluation methods were considered in terms of their audience, the type of outputs, outcomes or impacts being measured, and the types of research funding support schemes to which they were applied. The study found that Australian research agencies are generally in line with ‘common practice’ in the countries studied, and in some cases in advance of it. The …

Some Recent Developments In The Evaluation Of University Research Outcomes In The United Kingdom, Samuel Garrett-Jones, David K. Aylward

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Three specific recent developments in the evaluation of UK university research—the Research Assessment Exercise, the common performance indicators for the research councils, and the ‘evaluation portfolio’ of the Economic and Social Research Council — are described, and how they work in practice is examined. As in other countries, we find some tension between the criteria of excellence and socioeconomic benefit in valuing research outcomes. Driven by government policy, the primacy of peer evaluation based on publications is being strongly augmented by methods and performance measures that attempt to capture the broader benefits and impacts of academic research within the context …

Celebrating The Past: Financial Management In The Third Sectore, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The centrality of the mission, as opposed to the importance of fmancial outcomes, created many problems in the early financial management of third sector organisations. Thus, it is important to celebrate the contribution made by these early managers as they struggled to guide their organisation in a fiscally responsible manner. This paper has two parts. First, it considers the need for accountability from an internal organisational perspective and also as a response to the external demand for accountability. Secondly, it provides a case study of an eighty year old organisation whose early leaders were responsible for putting in place procedures …

Management Consultant - Client Relationships: Their Impact On Consultancy Outcomes In Smes, Gary I. Noble

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reports on the findings of an empirical study that examined aspects of the consultant - client relationship (CCR) that affect the adoption of a consultant's recommendations in the context of a small or medium enterprise (SME). In addition, this study found that a SNlE client's judgement of the success of a consultancy project was based on three key factors - the financial change in the business, the gaining of new knowledge on operating an SME learnt through the consultancy and any new perspective on the business gained as a result of the consultancy. These findings are drawn from …

The Importance Of Critical Thinking In Distance Education, Joseph A. Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the particular importance of critical thinking in distance education. It poses that the unique challenge of distance education lies in giving responsibility to the students for their own education. This is particularly important in distance education, as giving direction with face to face contact is not possible.

Project Report On The Impact Of Planning And Control Sophistication On Financial Performance Of Small And Medium Manufacturing Enterprises In Australia, Hema Wijewardena, Anura De Zoysa

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Although there has been a limited amount of prior research on the relationship between planning sophistication and small enterprise perfonnance, no attention has been given to the control aspect of planning and its possible impact on financial performance. This points to a major limitation of prior research on planning and perfonnance. It is common knowledge that effective control is often necessary for achieving the maximum results from a predetermined plan of action in any organisation. Even an excellent plan may not produce the results as expected due to numerous unforseen circumstances which are internal or external to the fInn. Therefore, …

Cultural Tourism In Austria - Empirical Warning Signs Against Implicitly Setting Cultural Tourism And City Tourism Equal, Sara Dolnicar, Walter Ender

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Kulturlourismus beschaftigt tourism research and tourism development since many decades. Many concepts and classifications, surveys and studies have emerged, and yet it seems more stable einige'sehr prejudices ilber to give KultUltourismus. One of these, though hardly explicit. is pronounced, but usually implicitly but resonates is the fact and that Kulturlourismus Stadtetourismus are equated, or at least a broad vetfilgen ilber Oberschneidungsbereich. this impHzite Hypothesis is examined below, using an empirical data set. In the course of this debate kulturlouristische a priori Segments of the terms of their socio-demographic Qsterreichischen Sommerlourismus and behavioral variables characterized.

(Article written in German)

The Steel Leadership Program: Telling The Stories, Karin H. Garrety, Viviane Morrigan, Richard Badham, Michael Zanko

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Introduction

• Between October 1999 and June 2000 fifteen interviews were conducted with Springhill employees who had participated in the SLP course.
• The OD Team at Port Kembla intends using these stories to help build a new culture.

An analysis and representation of participants' stories of their experiences arising out of the BHP Steel Leadership Program (SLP) does not lend itself readily to executive summary and bullet points. However, we have been able to discern a number of key themes from the process of gathering these stories and, of course, from the stories themselves.

Financial Intermediaries And The Design Of Loan Contracts In The Australasian Pastoral Sector Before World War Two, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the pooling and separating contracts designed by Australasian financial intermediaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We show that after an initial screening process these agents altered interest rates and collateral requirements to separate out risk types to reveal additional information on borrowers. In multi-period contracts agents opted for flexible contract structures which permitted changes in individual or community-wide circumstances.

The Development Of Large Scale Enterprise In Australia, 1910-64, Simon Ville, D. Merrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the evolution of large scale enterprise in Australia in the twentieth century. It applies a methodology common in the historical study of other nations, notably identifying and analysing the top firms by asset size for benchmarked years through the period. High concentration levels are identified among big businesses although they may have been slow to develop modern managerial systems

The Environmental Crisis And The Accounting Craft, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

If the purpose of environmental accounting research is to develop, suggest ad analyse ways out fo the environmental crisis, then it is fundamental that the ethical positions informing our research are developed and explored fully before we make choices about the path and direction of our own work. This paper reviews two alternative approaches to environmental ethics, namely, radical ecology (of which deep ecology, social ecology and eco-feminism are regarded as sub-divisions) and the emerging area of postmodern environmentalism. The aim is to encourage environmental accounting researchers to consider and explicitly state the ethical position adopted within their work.