Incremental entrepreneurship : best practice professionalization across generations

This chapter will introduce Australia’s Dennis family – a case of ‘incremental entrepreneurship’ in the business transition from the first to the second generation. Following the second generation’s formal involvement and ownership in the business, Dennis Family Corporation (DFC) undertook a major professionalization process to formalize the family business and ensure its continued success. The members of the second generation have successfully sustained the entrepreneurial spirit of their family business (albeit in a different style), adding value to the firm in an ‘incremental’ manner. Throughout the chapter there will be a strong emphasis on the family element of DFC and the roles that each family member has played. Bert Dennis, as the founder and incumbent leader of the firm, has witnessed major changes to the business he built from the ground up. His children, in particular his son Grant Dennis as the primary next generation issue champion, have seen the changes from another perspective – ensuring the business remains within the family into the second generation and beyond. The professionalization process was sparked by a commitment from the second generation to continue to ‘make a real go’ of the family business rather than simply liquidating and distributing the assets. The dedication of all the family members to this objective has ensured the success of this process, and ultimately, the longevity of the firm. Although DFC has become more ‘professional’, it has not lost its entrepreneurial character; rather, it has improved the ways in which entrepreneurialism is fostered and pursued in the company. In essence, this case outlines how the implementation of appropriate governance and management practices has allowed the Dennis family to overcome the challenges and maximize the opportunities associated with owning and operating a multigenerational family fi rm. From a theoretical perspective, this case uses the concepts of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (Lumpkin and Dess 1996) and the resource- based view (RBV) (Habbershon and Williams 1999; Barney 1991; Wernerfelt 1984) to demonstrate how the fi rm has leveraged its familiness to foster an enduring spirit of entrepreneurship and to maintain a sustained competitive advantage.

Stop whining and make the best of it: a cross-national comparison of response to regional disadvantage in the wine industry

Our cross-national field study of wine entrepreneurship in the “wrong” places provides some redress to the focus of the “regional advantage” literature on places that have already won and on the firms that benefit from “clusters” and other centers of industry advantage. Regional “disadvantage” is at best a shadowy afterthought to this literature. By poking around in these shadows, we help to synthesize and extend the incipient yet burgeoning literature on entrepreneurial “resourcefulness” and we contribute to the developing body of insights and theory pertinent to the numerous but often ignored firms and startups that mostly need to worry about how they will compete at all now if they are ever to have of chance of “winning” in the future. The core of our findings suggests that understandable – though contested – processes of ingenuity underlie entrepreneurial responses to regional disadvantage. Because we study entrepreneurship that from many angles simply does not make sense, we are also able to proffer a novel perspective on entrepreneurial sensemaking.

Big, bigger, best? The impact of reforms on the not-for-profit sector in Queensland

Organisations within the not-for-profit sector provide services to individuals and groups that government and for-profit organisations cannot or will not consider. The not-for-profit sector has come to be a vibrant and rich agglomeration of services and programs that operate under a myriad of philosophical stances, service orientation, client groupings and operational capacities. In Australia these organisations and services are providing social support and service assistance to many people in the community; often targeting their assistance to the most difficult of clients. Initially, in undertaking this role, the not-for-profit sector received limited sponsorship from government. Over time governments assumed greater responsibility in the form of service grants to particular groups: ‘the worthy poor’. More recently, they have entered into contractual service agreements with the not-for-profit sector, which specify the nature of the outcomes to be achieved and, to a degree, the way in which the services will be provided. A consequence of this growing shift to a more marketised model of service contracting, often offered-up under the label of enhanced collaborative practice, has been increased competitiveness between agencies that had previously worked well together (Keast and Brown, 2006). Another trend emerging from the market approach is the entrance of for-profit providers. These larger organisations have higher levels of organisational capacity with considerable organisational slack to allow them to adopt new service roles. Shaped almost as ‘shadow governments’ they appear to be a strong preference for governments looking for greater accountability of outcomes and an easier way to control the interaction with the conventional not-for-profit sector. The question is will governments’ apparent preference for larger organisational arrangements lead to the demise of the vibrancy of the not-for-profit sector and impact on service provision to those people who fall outside of the remit of the new service providers? To address this issue, this paper uses information gleaned from a state-wide survey of not-for-profit organisations in Queensland, Australia which included organisational size, operational scope, funding arrangements and governance/management approaches. Supplementing this information is qualitative data derived from 17 focus groups and 120 interviews conducted over ten years of study of this sector. The findings contribute to greater understanding of the practice and theory of the future provision of social services.

Ocular characteristics of anisometropia

Animal models of refractive error development have demonstrated that visual experience influences ocular growth. In a variety of species, axial anisometropia (i.e. a difference in the length of the two eyes) can be induced through unilateral occlusion, image degradation or optical manipulation. In humans, anisometropia may occur in isolation or in association with amblyopia, strabismus or unilateral pathology. Non-amblyopic myopic anisometropia represents an interesting anomaly of ocular growth, since the two eyes within one visual system have grown to different endpoints. These experiments have investigated a range of biometric, optical and mechanical properties of anisometropic eyes (with and without amblyopia) with the aim of improving our current understanding of asymmetric refractive error development. In the first experiment, the interocular symmetry in 34 non-amblyopic myopic anisometropes (31 Asian, 3 Caucasian) was examined during relaxed accommodation. A high degree of symmetry was observed between the fellow eyes for a range of optical, biometric and biomechanical measurements. When the magnitude of anisometropia exceeded 1.75 D, the more myopic eye was almost always the sighting dominant eye. Further analysis of the optical and biometric properties of the dominant and non-dominant eyes was conducted to determine any related factors but no significant interocular differences were observed with respect to best-corrected visual acuity, corneal or total ocular aberrations during relaxed accommodation. Given the high degree of symmetry observed between the fellow eyes during distance viewing in the first experiment and the strong association previously reported between near work and myopia development, the aim of the second experiment was to investigate the symmetry between the fellow eyes of the same 34 myopic anisometropes following a period of near work. Symmetrical changes in corneal and total ocular aberrations were observed following a short reading task (10 minutes, 2.5 D accommodation demand) which was attributed to the high degree of interocular symmetry for measures of anterior eye morphology, and corneal biomechanics. These changes were related to eyelid shape and position during downward gaze, but gave no clear indication of factors associated with near work that might cause asymmetric eye growth within an individual. Since the influence of near work on eye growth is likely to be most obvious during, rather than following near tasks, in the third experiment the interocular symmetry of the optical and biometric changes was examined during accommodation for 11 myopic anisometropes. The changes in anterior eye biometrics associated with accommodation were again similar between the eyes, resulting in symmetrical changes in the optical characteristics. However, the more myopic eyes exhibited slightly greater amounts of axial elongation during accommodation which may be related to the force exerted by the ciliary muscle. This small asymmetry in axial elongation we observed between the eyes may be due to interocular differences in posterior eye structure, given that the accommodative response was equal between eyes. Using ocular coherence tomography a reduced average choroidal thickness was observed in the more myopic eyes compared to the less myopic eyes of these subjects. The interocular difference in choroidal thickness was correlated with the magnitude of spherical equivalent and axial anisometropia. The symmetry in optics and biometrics between fellow eyes which have undergone significantly different visual development (i.e. anisometropic subjects with amblyopia) is also of interest with respect to refractive error development. In the final experiment the influence of altered visual experience upon corneal and ocular higher-order aberrations was investigated in 21 amblyopic subjects (8 refractive, 11 strabismic and 2 form deprivation). Significant differences in aberrations were observed between the fellow eyes, which varied according to the type of amblyopia. Refractive amblyopes displayed significantly higher levels of 4th order corneal aberrations (spherical aberration and secondary astigmatism) in the amblyopic eye compared to the fellow non-amblyopic eye. Strabismic amblyopes exhibited significantly higher levels of trefoil, a third order aberration, in the amblyopic eye for both corneal and total ocular aberrations. The results of this experiment suggest that asymmetric visual experience during development is associated with asymmetries in higher-order aberrations, proportional to the magnitude of anisometropia and dependent upon the amblyogenic factor. This suggests a direct link between the development of higher-order optical characteristics of the human eye and visual feedback. The results from these experiments have shown that a high degree of symmetry exists between the fellow eyes of non-amblyopic myopic anisometropes for a range of biomechanical, biometric and optical parameters for different levels of accommodation and following near work. While a single specific optical or biomechanical factor that is consistently associated with asymmetric refractive error development has not been identified, the findings from these studies suggest that further research into the association between ocular dominance, choroidal thickness and higher-order aberrations with anisometropia may improve our understanding of refractive error development.

When is a spinoff the best way to pursue a radical innovation? Insights from Shell technology ventures

The technology and innovation management literature offers somewhat conflicting evidence with regards to the formation of spinoff companies for radically new technologies. Sometimes spinoffs seem to be a very effective strategy—but not always. An obvious question emerges: under what conditions is a spinoff the best way to pursue a radical technology? This paper sheds light on this question by presenting case study evidence from spinoff firms within the Shell Technology Ventures portfolio. The data point to industry clockspeed as a potentially important variable in the decision to create a spinoff or not.

Stop whining and make the best of it : a cross-national comparison of responses to regional disadvantage in the wine industry

Our cross-national field study of wine entrepreneurship in the “wrong” places provides some redress to the focus of the “regional advantage” literature on places that have already won and on the firms that benefit from “clusters” and other centers of industry advantage. Regional “disadvantage” is at best a shadowy afterthought to this literature. By poking around in these shadows, we help to synthesize and extend the incipient yet burgeoning literature on entrepreneurial “resourcefulness” and we contribute to the developing body of insights and theory pertinent to the numerous but often ignored firms and startups that mostly need to worry about how they will compete at all now if they are ever to have of chance of “winning” in the future. The core of our findings suggests that understandable – though contested – processes of ingenuity underlie entrepreneurial responses to regional disadvantage. Because we study entrepreneurship that from many angles simply does not make sense, we are also able to proffer a novel perspective on entrepreneurial sensemaking.

Discovering the best feature extraction and selection algorithms for spontaneous facial expression recognition

Feature extraction and selection are critical processes in developing facial expression recognition (FER) systems. While many algorithms have been proposed for these processes, direct comparison between texture, geometry and their fusion, as well as between multiple selection algorithms has not been found for spontaneous FER. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a unified framework for a comparative study on the widely used texture (LBP, Gabor and SIFT) and geometric (FAP) features, using Adaboost, mRMR and SVM feature selection algorithms. Our experiments on the Feedtum and NVIE databases demonstrate the benefits of fusing geometric and texture features, where SIFT+FAP shows the best performance, while mRMR outperforms Adaboost and SVM. In terms of computational time, LBP and Gabor perform better than SIFT. The optimal combination of SIFT+FAP+mRMR also exhibits a state-of-the-art performance.

Binocular summation improves performance to defocus-induced blur

PURPOSE. To assess whether there are any advantages of binocular over monocular vision under blur conditions. METHODS. We measured the effect of defocus, induced by positive lenses, on the pattern reversal Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) and on visual acuity (VA). Monocular (dominant eye) and binocular VEPs were recorded from thirteen volunteers (average age: 28±5 years, average spherical equivalent: -0.25±0.73 D) for defocus up to 2.00 D using positive powered lenses. VEPs were elicited using reversing 10 arcmin checks at a rate of 4 reversals/second. The stimulus subtended a circular field of 7 degrees with 100% contrast and mean luminance 30 cd/m2. VA was measured under the same conditions using ETDRS charts. All measurements were performed at 1m viewing distance with best spectacle sphero-cylindrical correction and natural pupils. RESULTS. With binocular stimulation, amplitudes and implicit times of the P100 component of the VEPs were greater and shorter, respectively, in all cases than for monocular stimulation. Mean binocular enhancement ratio in the P100 amplitude was 2.1 in-focus, increasing linearly with defocus to be 3.1 at +2.00 D defocus. Mean peak latency was 2.9 ms shorter in-focus with binocular than for monocular stimulation, with the difference increasing with defocus to 8.8 ms at +2.00 D. As for the VEP amplitude, VA was always better with binocular than with monocular vision, with the difference being greater for higher retinal blur. CONCLUSIONS. Both subjective and electrophysiological results show that binocular vision ameliorates the effect of defocus. The increased binocular facilitation observed with retinal blur may be due to the activation of a larger population of neurons at close-to-threshold detection under binocular stimulation.

Shikumidukuri vs. one best (no) way! Project and Programme Management for Enterprise Innovation (P2M) : towards a new paradigm?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Japanese answer to the 90’s depression by (i). presenting a case study of the framework developed to address the new business challenges and value creation in complex, ambiguous and uncertain environment, i.e., Development of Project and Programme Management for Enterprise Innovation (P2M) and Project Management Association Japan (PMAJ) in Japan; and (ii). Exposing what in our view are the underlying theoretical bases supporting this framework and from this drawing some theoretical lessons learnt which could be helpful to the development of sound PM standards and PM competence model. This theoretical approach is assumed to be useful to transpose the Japanese experience to other analogical contexts and situations.

Best practice business community partnerships

In the last two years or so, the Prime Minister has made the development of a social coalition, involving business partnerships with the community, central to his Government’s vision of a fair and just Australian society. This is clearly a new and exciting era in thinking for government, business and community partnerships. However, there has been a tendency, particularly in the media reporting of these initiatives, especially the Prime Minister's Business Community Partnership awards held in 1999 and in July this year, to concentrate the agenda more on philanthropy and corporate donations, than on some of the many other ways that partnerships can develop...

Private equity bidders : barbarians or best friends

The deal value of private equity merger and takeover activity has achieved unprecedented growth in the last couple of years, in Australia and globally. Private equity deals are not a new feature of the market; however, such deals have been subject to increased academic, professional and policy interest. This study examines the particular features of 15 major deals involving listed company "targets" and provides evidence – based on a comparison with a benchmark sample – to demonstrate the role that private equity plays in the market for corporate control. The objective of this study was to assess the friendliness of private equity bids. Based on the indicia compiled, lower bid premiums, the presence of break fees and the intention to retain senior management are compellingly different for private equity bids than for the comparative sample of bids. Using these several characteristics of "friendliness", the authors show that private equity deals are generally friendly in nature, consistent with industry rhetoric, but perhaps inconsistent with the popular belief that private equity bidders are the "barbarians at the gate".

Environmental reporting in the Australian mining industry : complying with regulation or meeting international best practice?

It is nearly 10 years since the introduction of s 299(1)(f) Corporations Act , which requires the disclosure of information regarding a company's environmental performance within its annual report. This provision has generated considerable debate in the years since its introduction, fundamentally between proponents of either a voluntary or mandatory environmental reporting framework. This study examines the adequacy of the current regulatory framework. The environmental reporting practices of 24 listed companies in the resources industries are assessed relative to a standard set by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. These Guidelines are argued to represent "international best practice" in environmental reporting and a "scorecard" approach is used to score the quality of disclosure according to this voluntary benchmark. Larger companies in the sample tend to report environmental information over and above the level required by legislation. Some, but not all companies present a stand-alone environmental/sustainability report. However, smaller companies provide minimal information in compliance with s 299(1)(f) . The findings indicate that "international best practice" environmental reporting is unlikely to be achieved by Australian companies under the current regulatory framework. In the current regulatory environment that scrutinises s 299(1)(f) , this article provides some preliminary evidence of the quality of disclosures generated in the Australian market.

Visual support for work assignment in process-aware information systems : framework formalisation and implementation

Process-aware information systems, ranging from generic workflow systems to dedicated enterprise information systems, use work-lists to offer so-called work items to users. In real scenarios, users can be confronted with a very large number of work items that stem from multiple cases of different processes. In this jungle of work items, users may find it hard to choose the right item to work on next. The system cannot autonomously decide which is the right work item, since the decision is also dependent on conditions that are somehow outside the system. For instance, what is “best” for an organisation should be mediated with what is “best” for its employees. Current work-list handlers show work items as a simple sorted list and therefore do not provide much decision support for choosing the right work item. Since the work-list handler is the dominant interface between the system and its users, it is worthwhile to provide an intuitive graphical interface that uses contextual information about work items and users to provide suggestions about prioritisation of work items. This paper uses the so-called map metaphor to visualise work items and resources (e.g., users) in a sophisticated manner. Moreover, based on distance notions, the work-list handler can suggest the next work item by considering different perspectives. For example, urgent work items of a type that suits the user may be highlighted. The underlying map and distance notions may be of a geographical nature (e.g., a map of a city or office building), but may also be based on process designs, organisational structures, social networks, due dates, calendars, etc. The framework proposed in this paper is generic and can be applied to any process-aware information system. Moreover, in order to show its practical feasibility, the paper discusses a full-fledged implementation developed in the context of the open-source workflow environment YAWL, together with two real examples stemming from two very different scenarios. The results of an initial usability evaluation of the implementation are also presented, which provide a first indication of the validity of the approach.