Generational and cultural indicators of technology and innovation in family business

The internet revolution has affected everybody in some way. Technologies used in business range from telephones to industry-specific machinery. Mostly though, business technology has come to mean the internet. In literature concerning innovation and the adoption of technology in business, research invariably centres on small to medium businesses (SI'v1Es), as these can be defined reasonably easily. Statistics on family businesses are limited, however, because family businesses are so difficult to categorize and define.

The Australian Family Business Survey of 1993 (Institute of Chartered Accountants) determined that family business is the largest form of business ownership in Australia and represents 83% of all business enterprises, although Basu (2004) believes that over two thirds of all world-wide businesses are owned or managed by families and around half of all businesses in Australia are family businesses. The Australian Institute of Management (AIM) (2004) states that the wealth of family and private businesses is estimated at $3.6 trillion and that family firms generate 50 per cent of Australia's employment growth, account for 40 per cent of Australia's private sector output, and are a seed bed for innovation and the information of large companies.

The difficulty in defining a family business is heightened because family businesses can take many forms ranging from sole traders to private companies to public companies. Hence, when talking about family business, you could be referring to the sole trader dealing with organic produce to an IT organisation employing hundreds of staff. Basu (2004) thinks that while ordinarily, in non-family businesses, the business and family domains remain separate, the key distinctive characteristic of family businesses is that family members work together for economic purposes. In other words, the family is not merely a social unit but also an economic unit. Craig and Lindsay (2002) believe that family involvement in the business is what makes the family business different... researchers, however, cannot seem to agree as to what constitutes 'family involvement' in a business so that it can be defined as a family business and that family business is ... a business that is governed and/or managed with the intention to shape and pursue the vision of the business held by a dominant coalition that is controlled by members of the same family or a small number of families in a manner that is potentially sustainable across generations of the family or families.

Gender stereotypes and drinking cognitions as indicators of moderate and high risk drinking among young women and men

The study examined differences in gender stereotypes, restrained drinking and self-efficacy for alcohol refusal between moderate and high risk drinkers among a university sample of 301 women and 118 men. Both female and male high risk drinkers displayed a response conflict, typified by high scores on restrained drinking but low scores on self-efficacy. This pattern of response conflict was more pronounced for high risk drinking women, who also identified poorly with feminine traits (e.g. ‘nurturing’, ‘love children’, ‘appreciative’). The findings are discussed in relation to society's double standard that accepts intoxication in men but condemns it in women.

Social comparisons and negative affect as indicators of problem eating and muscle preoccupation among children

The present study examined the utilization of social comparison practices and the role of negative affect in predicting body dissatisfaction, problem eating, and muscle preoccupation among young children. Participants were 236 children aged between 8 and 10 years. Children's eating, exercising, and muscle concerns were examined using a modified version of the Children's Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT), which included additional items pertaining to muscle bulk and exercising. Consistent with past findings, body mass index (BMI) was found to be the sole unique indicator of body dissatisfaction for both boys and girls. Utilization of social comparison practices with adults was the main unique indicator of the modified ChEAT factors for boys, while BMI was the main unique indicator of the modified ChEAT factors for girls. In addition, negative affect was associated with binging, food preoccupation, and social pressure to eat for boys and dieting and muscle preoccupation for girls. Findings are discussed in relation to previous studies with adolescents and adults.

Comparison of multifactor productivity indicators for real estate sectors using the OECD input-output database

"Research on the international comparison of productivity has gained significant interest throughout several previous decades. Relatively little work has however been done in the real estate sector. This paper aims to develop a new productivity measurement framework for the international comparison of the real estate sector based on the newly-published OECD input-output database. Three multifactor productivity indicators are formulated using the ratio of the sectoral final demand to value added, the intermediate output to intermediate input and the total output to total input effect respectively in the input-output table. Historical analyses and comparisons are also carried out to indicate the differences of productivities of the real estate sectors in seven selected countries. Findings can improve the understanding of how technological, organisational and policy influences combine to affect productivity growth and aid the policy makers, real estate agencies and researchers in evaluating the competitive ability of the real estate sector."

The reliability of clinical indicators of oxygenation: a literature review

Despite oxygen being one of the most frequently administered substances in the hospital environment, there is little empirical data regarding its use. Review of the literature regarding the clinical assessment of hypoxia and hypoxaemia reveals inconsistency in the definition of terms and raises questions as to the reliability of the clinical indicators currently used to assess the need for supplemental oxygen. Assessment of the need for supplemental oxygen and continued re-evaluation of the patient's oxygen requirements is a nursing responsibility. Physical assessment, in combination with pulse oximetry, is the most common method used by nurses to assess oxygenation status. This paper critically appraises the literature to examine the reliability of clinical indicators of oxygenation used by nurses in acute care settings.

Snapshop of current Australian biotechnology boom indicators

Presents an update on the indicators of biotechnology growth in Australia as of December 2005. Estimated public sector spending on biotechnology research & development in the period 2002-2003; Employment status in 2004; Mergers and acquisitions in the 3rd quarter of 2005.

Local perceptions of sustainability indicators: issues of scale and implications for management

A key factor impacting upon sustainable development are the perceptions people hold of their local social, economic and ecological environment. These perceptions influence how communities fashion the local landscape and in turn help to condition the ways people adapt themselves to their local spatial realities. Implicit in these perceptions are indicators of sustainability that may or may not be integrated across the social, economic and ecological realms. Further, these local indicators may not accord with those adopted at the national or global scale. Accordingly, spatial scale presents a particular set of challenges in identifying appropriate indicators of sustainability. In the same way that aggregated changes at a local scale influence sustainability on a broad scale, national and global externalities profoundly affect perceptions relating to sustainable development at the finest of spatial scales.

This paper focuses on one aspect of the issue of scale in sustainable indicator selection: local perceptions of sustainability. In this paper we report on a survey of perceptions of sustainability conducted across thirty-two sub-catchments in three major catchments in south west Victoria. We sought to uncover what people within each sub-catchment perceived as socially, economically and ecologically sustainable. Responses were compared across sub-catchments to determine whether perceptions at the sub-catchment scale were shared across the region. The results indicate that perceptions of sustainability varied between sub-catchments, which means that perceptions relating to sustainability at the regional scale may mask local trends.

Sustainability indicators: is there consensus among stakeholders?

Measuring regional sustainability must include local approaches, as sustainability will be determined by what the community values and the relative importance of these values will depend on community expectations, which vary. One of the biggest challenges for introducing strategies for sustainability is that multiple stakeholders are involved and they have differing objectives. This paper reports on a study conducted in the south-west region of Victoria, Australia, which investigated the level of consensus among stakeholders involved in determining indicators for measuring the region's progress toward sustainability. Principal Component Analysis was used to determine if there was a difference between stakeholder groups when it came to selecting appropriate indicators. The organisations demonstrated a high degree of consensus about which indicators were important. These findings suggest that although organisations have different aims and strategic goals, their views on what should be measured to determine progress toward sustainability are indeed similar.

Social indicators and social development

This paper concerns the use of social indicators to improve social development and the happiness of populations. A distinction will be drawn between the traditional indicators of wealth and health and the new subjective social indicators. These latter measures concern the subjective side of life quality, or happiness, which in contemporary science is more commonly referred to as subjective wellbeing (SWB). The SWB construct is described within the theoretical context of SWB homeostasis. This is a proposed management system which has the role of maintaining a positive view of the self. It will be described how the homeostatic system can be challenged by hardship and defended by a variety of resources. Recommended forms of SWB measurement will be considered. It is concluded that both objective and subjective social indicators should be consulted by policy makers in order to plan the most effective initiatives to enhance population wellbeing.

The measurement of socio-economic status: investigation of gender-and age-specific indicators in Australia: national health survey 1995

Objective: To investigate thecorrelations between age- and gender-specificmeasures of socio-economic status versus healthstatus as measured by the SF-36.

Design: Population based study.

Participants: 38187 people aged between18 to 79 years who participated in the NationalHealth Survey in 1995.

Results: Factor analysis producedconsistent results that were interpreted interms of five conceptually meaningful domains(employment, housing, migration, family unitand education). The relative rank of thefactors differs between groups and in somecases factor composition requires items to beadded or deleted from the conceptual domains.

Conclusions: Age- and gender-specific SESscores based on these factors had strongerassociations with the physical and mentalcomponents of SF-36 than either an area basedindex or scores derived from males aged 40–44years. Overall the results supported thehypothesis that SES measures composed of socialand demographic items exhibit important age-and gender-specific differences which arerelevant for health.

The link between self-managed work teams and learning organisations using performance indicators

Both the learning organization literature and the self-managed work team literature have alluded to the potential links between teamwork and learning. However, as yet the link between these two concepts remains undeveloped. This study uses a survey of a random sample of 200 Australian organizations to empirically examine the relationships between self-managed work teams and the learning organization using performance indicators as a medium. It was found that the learning organization concept displays a moderate to strong link with three measures of performance used in this study: knowledge performance, financial performance and customer satisfaction. Although the self-managed work team concept did not display any significant relationship with performance, the qualitative component of the survey did emphasize that there is a common belief that self-managed teams can increase performance in the right setting. While an insignificant relationship between self-managed teams and the learning organization was also found, this study suggests some methodological concerns for future research into the relationship between self-managed teams and the learning organization.

Equity indicators: measures of socio-economic status at an Australian university

After reviewing relevant literature on socio-economic status (SES) and the ways in which it is used for higher education institutional research and policy, a detailed data analysis of Victoria University (Australia) student data was undertaken. Between 10,000 and 15,000 domestic student addresses were ‘geocoded’ to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collection district level. A survey of individual reenrolling 2001 students that included parental occupation and education data was also analysed. The most important findings were: (1) The debate for practical reasons tends to focus on area versus individual measures, but SES is a richer and more complex subject and must be acknowledged as such. (2) It is apparent that VU’s student catchment is on average of lower SES than the Melbourne average, using various area measures of SES, including the DEST-Martin indicators. (3) There is only a very small difference between average area SES measures at the collection district and the postcode level. In practical terms this means that the postcode method is adequate, as well as being cheaper and more efficiently obtained, for analyses at an aggregated (or average) level. (4) Individual surveys of students do not prima facie add to the quality of aggregated institution level SES results delivered by area analyses. This again suggests that the postcode method is best for practical reasons.