The roles and importance of formal and informal sources of business support in young firms : evidence from the UK’s 2008 Federation of Small Business Survey

Objectives This research explores the relationship between young firms, their growth orientation-intention and a range of relationships which can be seen to provide business support. Prior-work Research indicates that networks impact the firm’s ability to secure resources (Sirmon and Hitt 2003; Liao and Welsch. 2004; Hanlon and Saunders 2007). Networks have been evaluated in a number of ways ranging from simple counts to characteristics of their composition (Davidsson and Honig 2003), strength of relationships (Granovetter 1973) and network diversity (Carter et al 2003). By providing access to resources and knowledge (from start-up assistance and raising capital, (e.g. Smallbone et al, 2003), networks may assist in enabling continued persistence during those times where firms may experience resource constraints owing to firm growth (Baker and Nelson 2005). Approach The data used in this research was generated in the 2008 UK Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) survey. Over 1,000 of the firms responding were found to fall into the category of “young”, ((defined as firms under 4 years old). Firms were considered the unit of analysis with the entrepreneur being the chief spokesperson for the firm. Preliminary data analysis considered key demographic characteristics and industry classifications, comparing the FSB data with that of the UK government’s own (BERR) Small Business Surveys of 2007 and 2008, to establish some degree of representativeness of the respondents. The analysis then examined networks with varying potential ability to provide support for young firms, the networks measured in terms of number, diversity, characteristic and strength in its relationship to young firm growth orientation. The diversity of business-support-related relationships ranged from friends and family, through professional services, customers and suppliers, and government business services, to trade associations and informal business networks. The characteristics of these formal and informal sources of support for new businesses are examined across a range of business support-type activities for new firms. The number of relationships and types of business support are also explored. Finally, the strength of these relationships is examined by analysis of the source of business support, type of business support, and links to the growth orientation-intention of the firm, after controlling for a number of key variables related to firm and industry status and owner characteristics. Results Preliminary analysis of the data by means of univariate analysis showed that average number of sources of advice was around 2.5 (from a potential total of 6). In terms of the diversity of relationships, universities had by far the smallest percentage of firms receiving beneficial advice from them. Government business services were beneficially used by 40% of young firms, the other relationship types being around the 50-55% mark. In terms of characteristics of the advice, the average number of areas in which benefit was achieved was around 5.5 of a maximum of 15. Start-up advice has by far the highest percentage of firms obtaining beneficial advice, with increasing sales, improving contacts and improving confidence being the other categories at or around the 50% mark. Other market-focused areas where benefits were also received were in the areas of new markets, existing product improvements and new product improvements, where around 40% of the young responding firms obtained benefit. Regression techniques evaluating the strength of these relationships in terms of the links between business support (by source of support, type of support, and range of support) and firm growth orientation-intention focus highlighted a number of significant relationships, even after controlling for a range of other explanatory variables identified in the literature. Specifically, there was found to be a positive relationship between receiving business advice generally (regardless of type or source) and growth orientation. This relationship was seen to be stronger, however, when looking at the number of types of beneficial advice received, and stronger again for the number of sources of this advice. In terms of individual sources of advice, customers and suppliers had the strongest relationship with growth, with Government business services also found to be significant. Combining these two sources was also seen to increase the strength of the relationship between these two sources of advice and growth orientation. In considering areas of support, growth was most strongly positively related to advice that benefited the development of new products and services, and also business confidence, but was negatively related to advice linked to business recovery. Finally, amalgamating the 4 key types and sources of advice to examine the impact of combinations of these types and sources of advice also improved the strength of the relationship. Implications The findings will assist in the understanding of young firms in general and growth more specifically, particularly the role and importance of specific sources, types and combinations of business support used more extensively by new young growth-oriented firms. Value This research may assist in processes designed to allow entrepreneurs to make better decisions; educators and support organizations to develop better advice and assistance, and Governments design better conditions for the creation of new growth-oriented businesses.

Laughs and legends, or the furniture that glows? : television as history.

John Hartley uses the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne to discuss the notions of a history of TV and TV History and concludes that the internet offers entirely new possibilities for TV as History.

A qualitative investigation of sources of value in social marketing from the lens of a public health service

This paper seeks to identify the sources of value in a government health screening service. Consumers' use of such services for their won benefits demonstrates desirable behaviour and their continued use of these services indicates maintenance of the behaviour. There are also positive outcomes for society as the health of its members is improved overall through this behaviour. Individual-depth interview with 25 women who use breast cancer screening services provided by BreastScreen (BSQ) revealed five categories of sources of value. They are information sources, interaction sources, service, environment, and consumer participation. These findings provide valuable insights into the value construction of consumers and contribute towards our understanding of the value concept in social marketing.

Control and protection of a microgrid with converter interfaced micro sources

This paper describes protection and control of a microgrid with converter interfaced micro sources. The proposed protection and control scheme consider both grid connected and autonomous operation of the microgrid. A protection scheme, capable of detecting faults effectively in both grid connected and islanded operations is proposed. The main challenge of the protection, due to current limiting state of the converters is overcome by using admittance relays. The relays operate according to the inverse time characteristic based on measured admittance of the line. The proposed scheme isolates the fault from both sides, while downstream side of the microgrid operates in islanding condition. Moreover faults can be detected in autonomous operation. In grid connected mode distributed generators (DG) supply the rated power while in absence of the grid, DGs share the entire power requirement proportional to rating based on output voltage angle droop control. The protection scheme ensures minimum load shedding with isolating the faulted network and DG control provides a smooth islanding and resynchronization operation. The efficacy of coordinated control and protection scheme has been validated through simulation for various operating conditions.

Glycaemic index and glycaemic load intake patterns in older Australian women

Aims: Dietary glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) have been associated with risk of chronic diseases, yet limited research exists on patterns of consumption in Australia. Our aims were to investigate glycemic carbohydrate in a population of older women, identify major contributing food sources, and determine low, moderate and high ranges. Methods: Subjects were 459 Brisbane women aged 42-81 years participating in the Longitudinal Assessment of Ageing in Women. Diet history interviews were used to assess usual diet and results were analysed into energy and macronutrients using the FoodWorks dietary analysis program combined with a customised GI database. Results: Mean±SD dietary GI was 55.6±4.4% and mean dietary GL was 115±25. A low GI in this population was ≤52.0, corresponding to the lowest quintile of dietary GI, and a low GL was ≤95. GI showed a quadratic relationship with age (P=0.01), with a slight decrease observed in women aged in their 60’s relative to younger or older women. GL decreased linearly with age (P<0.001). Bread was the main contributor to carbohydrate and dietary GL (17.1% and 20.8%, respectively), followed by fruit (15.5% and 14.2%), and dairy for carbohydrate (9.0%) or breakfast cereals for GL (8.9%). Conclusions: In this population, dietary GL decreased with increasing age, however this was likely to be a result of higher energy intakes in younger women. Focus on careful selection of lower GI items within bread and breakfast cereal food groups would be an effective strategy for decreasing dietary GL in this population of older women.

Diagramming the interior

Mark Taylor's new essay assesses the impact of the diagram on interior design from the late 19th century to the present. Taylor identifies the pop-cultural discourse of advice writing in both books and magazines as a starting point for his analysis. Drawing on diverse sources, his analysis focuses on texts relating to the dynamics of use and flexibility by Catherine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Haweis and Christine Frederick among others. The examples in these texts use the home, domestic housekeeping and kitchens as the sites and practices of intervention through which interior design innovations can be enacted. Taylor's analysis identified the innovations in both the social and the political aspects of space and the critique of static space behind these seemingly amateurish and innocuous texts. Identifying these contributions as early precursors of Modernism's open-plan and flexible, dynamic spaces, Taylor also interprets them with a critical concern for the oppositions and hierarchies that can exist in spatial design, and which are the hallmarks of recent Postmodern, phenomenological approaches to interior design and its theorisations. The progressive and subversive "paradigms for living" implicit in these diagrams can be argued to present a model of greater economic, social and political equality as well as representing a more balanced set of power relations in the home. Progressing through the 20th century to the present, Taylor's analysis shifts byond the dressed body and on to the more intimate rituals of the revealed body to further examine how diagrams of the interior, and the interior as a set of diagrams, are also mediators, sites and grounds for the design of social and sexual intimacy. Through a consideration of the link between design, indentity and intimacy (whether of the invisible, fashioned or sexualised body), the diagrms of interiors are reconfigured as radical and critical tools for an animate, material and emancipatory "redressing" of the balance between the body, identity, sexuality, gender, function, mis(use), aesthetics and the interior.

Droop control of converter interfaced micro sources in rural distributed generation

This paper proposes new droop control methods for load sharing in a rural area with distributed generation. Highly resistive lines, typical of rural low voltage networks, always create a big challenge for conventional droop control. To overcome the conflict between higher feedback gain for better power sharing and system stability in angle droop, two control methods have been proposed. The first method considers no communication among the distributed generators (DGs) and regulates the converter output voltage and angle ensuring proper sharing of load in a system having strong coupling between real and reactive power due to high line resistance. The second method, based on a smattering of communication, modifies the reference output volt-age angle of the DGs depending on the active and reactive power flow in the lines connected to point of common coupling (PCC). It is shown that with the second proposed control method, an economical and minimum communication system can achieve significant improvement in load sharing. The difference in error margin between proposed control schemes and a more costly high bandwidth communication system is small and the later may not be justified considering the increase in cost. The proposed control shows stable operation of the system for a range of operating conditions while ensuring satisfactory load sharing.

Queensland Aborigines, multiple realities and the social sources of suffering: Psychiatry and moral regions of being (Part 1)

This two part paper considers the experience of a range of magico-religious experiences (such as visions and voices) and spirit beliefs in a rural Aboriginal town. The papers challenge the tendency of institutionalised psychiatry to medicalise the experiences and critiques the way in which its individualistic practice is intensified in the face of an incomprehensible Aboriginal „other‟ to become part of the power imbalance that characterises the relationship between Indigenous and white domains. The work reveals the internal differentiation and politics of the Aboriginal domain, as the meanings of these experiences and actions are contested and negotiated by the residents and in so doing they decentre the concerns of the white domain and attempt to control their relationship with it. Thus the plausibility structure that sustains these multiple realities reflects both accommodation and resistance to the material and historical conditions imposed and enacted by mainstream society on the residents, and to current socio- political realities. I conclude that the residents‟ narratives chart the grounds of moral adjudication as the experiences were rarely conceptualised by local people as signs of individual pathology but as reflections of social reality. Psychiatric drug therapy and the behaviourist assumptions underlying its practice posit atomised individuals as the appropriate site of intervention as against the multiple realities revealed by the phenomenology of the experiences. The papers thus call into question Australian mainstream „commonsense‟ that circulates about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people which justifies representations of them as sickly outcasts in Australian society.

Sources of coding discrepancies in injury morbidity data: Implications for injury surveillance

Objective: To examine the sources of coding discrepancy for injury morbidity data and explore the implications of these sources for injury surveillance.-------- Method: An on-site medical record review and recoding study was conducted for 4373 injury-related hospital admissions across Australia. Codes from the original dataset were compared to the recoded data to explore the reliability of coded data aand sources of discrepancy.---------- Results: The most common reason for differences in coding overall was assigning the case to a different external cause category with 8.5% assigned to a different category. Differences in the specificity of codes assigned within a category accounted for 7.8% of coder difference. Differences in intent assignment accounted for 3.7% of the differences in code assignment.---------- Conclusions: In the situation where 8 percent of cases are misclassified by major category, the setting of injury targets on the basis of extent of burden is a somewhat blunt instrument Monitoring the effect of prevention programs aimed at reducing risk factors is not possible in datasets with this level of misclassification error in injury cause subcategories. Future research is needed to build the evidence base around the quality and utility of the ICD classification system and application of use of this for injury surveillance in the hospital environment.

Air evacuation in war : the role of RAAF nurses undertaking air evacuation of casualties between 1943-1953

Air transportation of Australian casualties in World War II was initially carried out in air ambulances with an accompanying male medical orderly. By late 1943 with the war effort concentrated in the Pacific, Allied military authorities realised that air transport was needed to move the increasing numbers of casualties over longer distances. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) became responsible for air evacuation of Australian casualties and established a formal medical air evacuation system with trained flight teams early in 1944. Specialised Medical Air Evacuation Transport Units (MAETUs) were established whose sole responsibility was undertaking air evacuations of Australian casualties from the forward operational areas back to definitive medical care. Flight teams consisting of a RAAF nursing sister (registered nurse) and a medical orderly carried out the escort duties. These personnel had been specially trained in Australia for their role. Post-WWII, the RAAF Nursing Service was demobilised with a limited number of nurses being retained for the Interim Air Force. Subsequently, those nurses were offered commissions in the Permanent Air Force. Some of the nurses who remained were air evacuation trained and carried out air evacuations both in Australia and as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, Australia became responsible for the air evacuation of British Commonwealth casualties from Korea to Japan. With a re-organisation of the Australian forces as part of the British Commonwealth forces, RAAF nurses were posted to undertake air evacuation from Korea and back to Australia from Iwakuni, Japan. By 1952, a specialised casualty staging section was established in Seoul and staffed by RAAF nurses from Iwakuni on a rotation basis. The development of the Australian air evacuation system and the role of the flight nurses are not well documented for the period 1943-1953. The aims of this research are three fold and include documenting the origins and development of the air evacuation system from 1943-1953; analysing and documenting the RAAF nurse’s role and exploring whether any influences or lessons remain valid today. A traditional historical methodology of narrative and then analysis was used to inform the flight nurse’s role within the totality of the social system. Evidence was based on primary data sources mainly held in Defence files, the Australian War Memorial or the National Archives of Australia. Interviews with 12 ex-RAAF nurses from both WWII and the Korean War were conducted to provide information where there were gaps in the primary data and to enable exploration of the flight nurses’ role and their contributions in war of the air evacuation of casualties. Finally, this thesis highlights two lessons that remain valid today. The first is that interoperability of air evacuation systems with other nations is a force multiplier when resources are scarce or limited. Second, the pre-flight assessment of patients was essential and ensured that there were no deaths in-flight.

Associations among body size dissatisfaction, perceived dietary control, and diet history in African American and European American women

European American (EA) women report greater body dissatisfaction and less dietary control than do African American (AA) women. This study investigated whether ethnic differences in dieting history contributed to differences in body dissatisfaction and dietary control, or to differential changes that may occur during weight loss and regain. Eighty-nine EA and AA women underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to measure body composition and completed questionnaires to assess body dissatisfaction and dietary control before, after, and one year following, a controlled weight-loss intervention. While EA women reported a more extensive dieting history than AA women, this difference did not contribute to ethnic differences in body dissatisfaction and perceived dietary control. During weight loss, body satisfaction improved more for AA women, and during weight regain, dietary self-efficacy worsened to a greater degree for EA women. Ethnic differences in dieting history did not contribute significantly to these differential changes. Although ethnic differences in body image and dietary control are evident prior to weight loss, and some change differentially by ethnic group during weight loss and regain, differences in dieting history do not contribute significantly to ethnic differences in body image and dietary control.

Lifting the lifegiving dollar : case samples of creative practice in health and medical research philanthropy

This study aims to stimulate thought, debate and action for change on this question of more vigorous philanthropic funding of Australian health and medical research (HMR). It sharpens the argument with some facts and ideas about HMR funding from overseas sources. It also reports informed opinions from those working, giving and innovating in this area. It pinpoints the range of attitudes to HMR giving, both positive and negative. The study includes some aspects of Government funding as part of the equation, viewing Government as major HMR givers, with particular ability to partner, leverage and create incentives. Stimulating new philanthropy takes active outreach. The opportunity to build more dialogue between the HMR industry and the wider community is timely given the ‘licence to practice’ issues and questioned trust that applies currently somewhat both to science and to the charitable sector. This interest in improving HMR philanthropy also coincides with the launch last year by the Federal Government of Nonprofit Australia Limited (NAL), a group currently assessing infrastructure improvements to the charitable sector. History suggests no one will create this change if Research Australia does not. However, interest in change exists in various quarters. For Research Australia to successfully change the culture of Australian HMR giving, the process will drive the outcomes. Obviously stakeholder buy-in and partners will be needed and the ultimate blueprint for greater philanthropic HMR funding here will not be this document. Instead it will be the one that wears the handprint and ‘mindprint’ of the many architects and implementers interested in promoting HMR philanthropy, from philanthropists to nonprofit peaks to government policy arms. As the African proverb says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go with others’.