Small Business and entrepreneurship policy

There are two key approaches to entrepreneurship, each of which has different implications for small business policy (Danson 2002). The first conceives of entrepreneurship as an economic process and can be traced to the work of Joseph Schumpeter who developed the concept of creative destruction to describe the entrepreneurial process that led to the simultaneous elimination of old industries and activities and the creation of new activities through the commercial application of new ideas. While entrepreneurship as a process of creative destruction might include start up activity amongst small firms, it does not exclusively involve small firms as large firms may contribute to the entrepreneurial process through the generation of new knowledge and by assisting in financing the development of new ideas amongst small firms. Although innovation occurs in large as well as small firms, the literature on small enterprise innovation draws heavily on Schumpeter’s depiction of the central role of the entrepreneur in the process of creative destruction, whereby the economic system is transformed from within and new cycles in economic life emerge in which new industries and markets replace old industries and markets. Schumpeter argued that entrepreneurs drove the process of innovation and that innovation was a stimulus to economic development and involved the development of new products, processes, methods of production or new forms of commercial or financial organisation (Schumpeter 1911). At a time when technological development and structuraleconomic change are occurring at a rapid pace, small firm innovation is seen to be critically important because empirical evidence, although not undisputed, indicates that SMEs make an important contribution to radical innovations in new industries (Nooteboom 1994). The second view of entrepreneurship focuses on the individual entrepreneur more than the entrepreneurial process. The entrepreneur is depicted as an owner of small businesses, and is regarded as having particular personal characteristics such as self-reliance, individual initiative and self-motivation. Entrepreneurs are also considered to have a behavioural orientation towards the exploitation of new ideas and opportunities. They are the risk takers who are able to see an opportunity and pursue it commercially despite the uncertainty of rewards. The capacity to plan, manage and lead is also seen to be identifying characteristics of entrepreneurs. Different small business policy approaches arise from these different perspectives on entrepreneurship. Small business policy approaches that emphasise the process by which new ideas are generated and applied commercially arise from the first and broader view of entrepreneurship. Policies designed to generate a population of risk taking and self-motivated individuals with highly developed management and commercial skills are more in keeping with the second approach, which is focused on the individual entrepreneur rather than the entrepreneurial process.

Communication of business process models via virtual environment simulations

Games and related virtual environments have been a much-hyped area of the entertainment industry. The classic quote is that games are now approaching the size of Hollywood box office sales [1]. Books are now appearing that talk up the influence of games on business [2], and it is one of the key drivers of present hardware development. Some of this 3D technology is now embedded right down at the operating system level via the Windows Presentation Foundations – hit Windows/Tab on your Vista box to find out... In addition to this continued growth in the area of games, there are a number of factors that impact its development in the business community. Firstly, the average age of gamers is approaching the mid thirties. Therefore, a number of people who are in management positions in large enterprises are experienced in using 3D entertainment environments. Secondly, due to the pressure of demand for more computational power in both CPU and Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), your average desktop, any decent laptop, can run a game or virtual environment. In fact, the demonstrations at the end of this paper were developed at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on a standard Software Operating Environment, with an Intel Dual Core CPU and basic Intel graphics option. What this means is that the potential exists for the easy uptake of such technology due to 1. a broad range of workers being regularly exposed to 3D virtual environment software via games; 2. present desktop computing power now strong enough to potentially roll out a virtual environment solution across an entire enterprise. We believe such visual simulation environments can have a great impact in the area of business process modeling. Accordingly, in this article we will outline the communication capabilities of such environments, giving fantastic possibilities for business process modeling applications, where enterprises need to create, manage, and improve their business processes, and then communicate their processes to stakeholders, both process and non-process cognizant. The article then concludes with a demonstration of the work we are doing in this area at QUT.

A comparison of two business cycle dating methods

We study the suggestion that Markov switching (MS) models should be used to determine cyclical turning points. A Kalman filter approximation is used to derive the dating rules implicit in such models. We compare these with dating rules in an algorithm that provides a good approximation to the chronology determined by the NBER. We find that there is very little that is attractive in the MS approach when compared with this algorithm. The most important difference relates to robustness. The MS approach depends on the validity of that statistical model. Our approach is valid in a wider range of circumstances.

Fraudulent insurance claims : recent legal developments

Insurance fraud continues to be a major problem worldwide. This article will canvass recent legal developments in relation to selected issues and matters of particular concern to the insurance industry. This article is confined to fraudulent claims. Fraud may arise at various points in the insurance relationship, including initial fraud on placement and fraudulent breach of contract by the assured. Fraud at the outset by the assured is treated differently from innocent or negligent conduct. "Fraud" in the context of this paper embraces all claims where an insured intednds to deceive an insurer by getting out i money to which the insured knew he had no right. This article will examine fraudulent insurance claims.

Efficient and accurate retrieval of business process models through indexing

Recent years have seen an increased uptake of business process management technology in industries. This has resulted in organizations trying to manage large collections of business process models. One of the challenges facing these organizations concerns the retrieval of models from large business process model repositories. For example, in some cases new process models may be derived from existing models, thus finding these models and adapting them may be more effective than developing them from scratch. As process model repositories may be large, query evaluation may be time consuming. Hence, we investigate the use of indexes to speed up this evaluation process. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate that our proposal achieves a significant reduction in query evaluation time.

Doing business : knowledges in the internationalised business lecture

This paper investigates the oracy (listening/speaking) genres enacted in an undergraduate entry point unit in the internationalised university of the 21st century, and the kind of knowledges these genres elicit and perform. This paper focuses on a series of lectures in the business studies unit and how anecdotal knowledge from both the lecturer’s and the students’ lived experiences was elicited as grist for the curriculum. The analysis of lecture talk suggests that the lecture today is no longer a monologic display of expert disciplinary knowledge bestowed upon the learner. Rather, it is increasingly a multimedia performance with an underlying ethic of engagement and interactivity. Of particular interest is the way international students’ knowledges were elicited to resource the internationalised curriculum with authenticity and insight. The knowledges thus assembled are analysed through Bernstein’s conceptual distinction between vertical and horizontal knowledge structures. The paper offers suggestions on how to maximise the potential and minimize the risks of this more interactive genre of lecture, with particular regard to enabling the participation of the international student.

Ties that blind? How strong ties affect small business owner-managers’ perceived trustworthiness of their advisors

This research investigates how a strong personal relationship (strong tie) between a small business owner-manager and his professional or informal advisor affects the relationship between the advisor's recent performance and the owner-manager's perceptions of the advisor's trustworthiness in terms of ability, benevolence and integrity. A negative moderating effect could point to a 'tie that blinds': the owner-manager may be less critical in evaluating the advisor's perceived trustworthiness in light of their recent performance, because of the existing personal relationship. A conceptual model is constructed and examined with survey data comprising 153 young Finnish businesses. The results show that strong ties increase the owner-manager's perception of the advisor's integrity, disregarding their recent performance. For professional advisors, strong ties reduce the impact of recent performance in the owner-manager's evaluation of their ability. For informal advisors, a strong tie makes it more likely that their benevolence will be evaluated highly in light of their recent performance. While the results show that 'ties can blind' under certain circumstances, the limitations of the study raise the need for further research to specify these contextual factors and examine the causal link between the choice of advisor and business performance.

How can entrepreneurial musicians use electronic social networks to diffuse their music

Principal Topic: ''In less than ten years music labels will not exist anymore.'' Michael Smelli, former Global COO Sony/BMG MCA/QUT IMP Business Lab Digital Music Think Thanks 9 May 2009, Brisbane Big music labels such as EMI, Sony BMG and UMG have been responsible for promoting and producing a myriad of stars in the music industry over the last decades. However, the industry structure is under enormous threat with the emergence of a new innovative era of digital music. Recent years have seen a dramatic shift in industry power with the emergence of Napster and other file sharing sites, iTunes and other online stores, iPod and the MP3 revolution. Myspace.com and other social networking sites are connecting entrepreneurial artists with fans and creating online music communities independent of music labels. In 2008 the digital music business internationally grew by around 25% to 3.7 Billion US-Dollar. Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15 % in 2007 (IFPI Digital music report 2009). CD sales have fallen by 40% since their peak levels. Global digital music sales totalled an estimated US$ 3 Billion in 2007, an increase of 40% on 2006 figures. Digital sales account for an estimated 15% of global market, up from 11% in 2006 and zero in 2003. The music industry is more advanced in terms of digital revenues than any other creative or entertainment industry (except games). Its digital share is more than twice that of newspapers (7%), films (35) or books (2%). All these shifts present new possibilities for music entrepreneurs to act entrepreneurially and promote their music independently of the major music labels. Diffusion of innovations has a long tradition in both sociology (e.g. Rogers 1962, 2003) and marketing (Bass 1969, Mahajan et al., 1990). The context of the current project is theoretically interesting in two respects. First, the role of online social networks replaces traditional face-to-face word of mouth communications. Second, as music is a hedonistic product, this strongly influences the nature of interpersonal communications and their diffusion patterns. Both of these have received very little attention in the diffusion literature to date, and no studies have investigated the influence of both simultaneously. This research project is concerned with the role of social networks in this new music industry landscape, and how this may be leveraged by musicians willing to act entrepreneurially. Our key research question we intend to address is: How do online social network communities impact the nature, pattern and speed that music diffuses? Methodology/Key Propositions : We expect the nature/ character of diffusion of popular, generic music genres to be different from specialized, niche music. To date, only Moe & Fader (2002) and Lee et al. (2003) investigated diffusion patterns of music and these focus on forecast weekly sales of music CDs based on the advance purchase orders before the launch, rather than taking a detailed look at diffusion patterns. Consequently, our first research questions are concerned with understanding the nature of online communications within the context of diffusion of music and artists. Hence, we have the following research questions: RQ1: What is the nature of fan-to-fan ''word of mouth'' online communications for music? Do these vary by type of artist and genre of music? RQ2: What is the nature of artist-to-fan online communications for music? Do these vary by type of artist and genre of music? What types of communication are effective? Two outcomes from research social network theory are particularly relevant to understanding how music might diffuse through social networks. Weak tie theory (Granovetter, 1973), argues that casual or infrequent contacts within a social network (or weak ties) act as a link to unique information which is not normally contained within an entrepreneurs inner circle (or strong tie) social network. A related argument, structural hole theory (Burt, 1992), posits that it is the absence of direct links (or structural holes) between members of a social network which offers similar informational benefits. Although these two theories argue for the information benefits of casual linkages, and diversity within a social network, others acknowledge that a balanced network which consists of a mix of strong ties, weak ties is perhaps more important overall (Uzzi, 1996). It is anticipated that the network structure of the fan base for different types of artists and genres of music will vary considerably. This leads to our third research question: RQ3: How does the network structure of online social network communities impact the pattern and speed that music diffuses? The current paper is best described as theory elaboration. It will report the first exploratory phase designed to develop and elaborate relevant theory (the second phase will be a quantitative study of network structure and diffusion). We intend to develop specific research propositions or hypotheses from the above research questions. To do so we will conduct three focus group discussions of independent musicians and three focus group discussions of fans active in online music communication on social network sites. We will also conduct five case studies of bands that have successfully built fan bases through social networking sites (e.g. myspace.com, facebook.com). The idea is to identify which communication channels they employ and the characteristics of the fan interactions for different genres of music. We intend to conduct interviews with each of the artists and analyse their online interaction with their fans. Results and Implications : At the current stage, we have just begun to conduct focus group discussions. An analysis of the themes from these focus groups will enable us to further refine our research questions into testable hypotheses. Ultimately, our research will provide a better understanding of how social networks promote the diffusion of music, and how this varies for different genres of music. Hence, some music entrepreneurs will be able to promote their music more effectively. The results may be further generalised to other industries where online peer-to-peer communication is common, such as other forms of entertainment and consumer technologies.

Micro-family-owned business : transitory survival mechanism or long term wealth creator?

Principal Topic: Entrepreneurship is key to employment, innovation and growth (Acs & Mueller, 2008), and as such, has been the subject of tremendous research in both the economic and management literatures since Solow (1957), Schumpeter (1934, 1943), and Penrose (1959). The presence of entrepreneurs in the economy is a key factor in the success or failure of countries to grow (Audretsch and Thurik, 2001; Dejardin, 2001). Further studies focus on the conditions of existence of entrepreneurship, influential factors invoked are historical, cultural, social, institutional, or purely economic (North, 1997; Thurik 1996 & 1999). Of particular interest, beyond the reasons behind the existence of entrepreneurship, are entrepreneurial survival and good ''performance'' factors. Using cross-country firm data analysis, La Porta & Schleifer (2008) confirm that informal micro-businesses provide on average half of all economic activity in developing countries. They find that these are utterly unproductive compared to formal firms, and conclude that the informal sector serves as a social security net ''keep[ing] millions of people alive, but disappearing over time'' (abstract). Robison (1986), Hill (1996, 1997) posit that the Indonesian government under Suharto always pointed to the lack of indigenous entrepreneurship , thereby motivating the nationalisation of all industries. Furthermore, the same literature also points to the fact that small businesses were mostly left out of development programmes because they were supposed less productive and having less productivity potential than larger ones. Vial (2008) challenges this view and shows that small firms represent about 70% of firms, 12% of total output, but contribute to 25% of total factor productivity growth on average over the period 1975-94 in the industrial sector (Table 10, p.316). ---------- Methodology/Key Propositions: A review of the empirical literature points at several under-researched questions. Firstly, we assess whether there is, evidence of small family-business entrepreneurship in Indonesia. Secondly, we examine and present the characteristics of these enterprises, along with the size of the sector, and its dynamics. Thirdly, we study whether these enterprises underperform compared to the larger scale industrial sector, as it is suggested in the literature. We reconsider performance measurements for micro-family owned businesses. We suggest that, beside productivity measures, performance could be appraised by both the survival probability of the firm, and by the amount of household assets formation. We compare micro-family-owned and larger industrial firms' survival probabilities after the 1997 crisis, their capital productivity, then compare household assets of families involved in business with those who do not. Finally, we examine human and social capital as moderators of enterprises' performance. In particular, we assess whether a higher level of education and community participation have an effect on the likelihood of running a family business, and whether it has an impact on households' assets level. We use the IFLS database compiled and published by RAND Corporation. The data is a rich community, households, and individuals panel dataset in four waves: 1993, 1997, 2000, 2007. We now focus on the waves 1997 and 2000 in order to investigate entrepreneurship behaviours in turbulent times, i.e. the 1997 Asian crisis. We use aggregate individual data, and focus on households data in order to study micro-family-owned businesses. IFLS data covers roughly 7,600 households in 1997 and over 10,000 households in 2000, with about 95% of 1997 households re-interviewed in 2000. Households were interviewed in 13 of the 27 provinces as defined before 2001. Those 13 provinces were targeted because accounting for 83% of the population. A full description of the data is provided in Frankenberg and Thomas (2000), and Strauss et alii (2004). We deflate all monetary values in Rupiah with the World Development Indicators Consumer Price Index base 100 in 2000. ---------- Results and Implications: We find that in Indonesia, entrepreneurship is widespread and two thirds of households hold one or several family businesses. In rural areas, in 2000, 75% of households run one or several businesses. The proportion of households holding both a farm and a non farm business is higher in rural areas, underlining the reliance of rural households on self-employment, especially after the crisis. Those businesses come in various sizes from very small to larger ones. The median business production value represents less than the annual national minimum wage. Figures show that at least 75% of farm businesses produce less than the annual minimum wage, with non farm businesses being more numerous to produce the minimum wage. However, this is only one part of the story, as production is not the only ''output'' or effect of the business. We show that the survival rate of those businesses ranks between 70 and 82% after the 1997 crisis, which contrasts with the 67% survival rate for the formal industrial sector (Ter Wengel & Rodriguez, 2006). Micro Family Owned Businesses might be relatively small in terms of production, they also provide stability in times of crisis. For those businesses that provide business assets figures, we show that capital productivity is fairly high, with rates that are ten times higher for non farm businesses. Results show that households running a business have larger family assets, and households are better off in urban areas. We run a panel logit model in order to test the effect of human and social capital on the existence of businesses among households. We find that non farm businesses are more likely to appear in households with higher human and social capital situated in urban areas. Farm businesses are more likely to appear in lower human capital and rural contexts, while still being supported by community participation. The estimation of our panel data model confirm that households are more likely to have higher family assets if situated in urban area, the higher the education level, the larger the assets, and running a business increase the likelihood of having larger assets. This is especially true for non farm businesses that have a clearly larger and more significant effect on assets than farm businesses. Finally, social capital in the form of community participation also has a positive effect on assets. Those results confirm the existence of a strong entrepreneurship culture among Indonesian households. Investigating survival rates also shows that those businesses are quite stable, even in the face of a violent crisis such as the 1997 one, and as a result, can provide a safety net. Finally, considering household assets - the returns of business to the household, rather than profit or productivity - the returns of business to itself, shows that households running a business are better off. While we demonstrate that uman and social capital are key to business existence, survival and performance, those results open avenues for further research regarding the factors that could hamper growth of those businesses in terms of output and employment.

How environmental and organizational complexity affects opportunity recognition and exploitation in development projects

Principal Topic: Project structures are often created by entrepreneurs and large corporate organizations to develop new products. Since new product development projects (NPDP) are more often situated within a larger organization, intrapreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship plays an important role in bringing these projects to fruition. Since NPDP often involves the development of a new product using immature technology, we describe development of an immature technology. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) F-35 aircraft is being developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and eight allied nations. In 2001 Lockheed Martin won a $19 billion contract to develop an affordable, stealthy and supersonic all-weather strike fighter designed to replace a wide range of aging fighter aircraft. In this research we define a complex project as one that demonstrates a number of sources of uncertainty to a degree, or level of severity, that makes it extremely difficult to predict project outcomes, to control or manage project (Remington & Zolin, Forthcoming). Project complexity has been conceptualized by Remington and Pollock (2007) in terms of four major sources of complexity; temporal, directional, structural and technological complexity (See Figure 1). Temporal complexity exists when projects experience significant environmental change outside the direct influence or control of the project. The Global Economic Crisis of 2008 - 2009 is a good example of the type of environmental change that can make a project complex as, for example in the JSF project, where project managers attempt to respond to changes in interest rates, international currency exchange rates and commodity prices etc. Directional complexity exists in a project where stakeholders' goals are unclear or undefined, where progress is hindered by unknown political agendas, or where stakeholders disagree or misunderstand project goals. In the JSF project all the services and all non countries have to agree to the specifications of the three variants of the aircraft; Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL), Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) and the Carrier Variant (CV). Because the Navy requires a plane that can take off and land on an aircraft carrier, that required a special variant of the aircraft design, adding complexity to the project. Technical complexity occurs in a project using technology that is immature or where design characteristics are unknown or untried. Developing a plane that can take off on a very short runway and land vertically created may highly interdependent technological challenges to correctly locate, direct and balance the lift fans, modulate the airflow and provide equivalent amount of thrust from the downward vectored rear exhaust to lift the aircraft and at the same time control engine temperatures. These technological challenges make costing and scheduling equally challenging. Structural complexity in a project comes from the sheer numbers of elements such as the number of people, teams or organizations involved, ambiguity regarding the elements, and the massive degree of interconnectedness between them. While Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor, they are assisted in major aspects of the JSF development by Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Pratt & Whitney and GE/Rolls-Royce Fighter Engineer Team and innumerable subcontractors. In addition to identifying opportunities to achieve project goals, complex projects also need to identify and exploit opportunities to increase agility in response to changing stakeholder demands or to reduce project risks. Complexity Leadership Theory contends that in complex environments adaptive and enabling leadership are needed (Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey, 2007). Adaptive leadership facilitates creativity, learning and adaptability, while enabling leadership handles the conflicts that inevitably arise between adaptive leadership and traditional administrative leadership (Uhl-Bien and Marion, 2007). Hence, adaptive leadership involves the recognition and opportunities to adapt, while and enabling leadership involves the exploitation of these opportunities. Our research questions revolve around the type or source of complexity and its relationship to opportunity recognition and exploitation. For example, is it only external environmental complexity that creates the need for the entrepreneurial behaviours, such as opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation? Do the internal dimensions of project complexity, such as technological and structural complexity, also create the need for opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation? The Kropp, Zolin and Lindsay model (2009) describes a relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), opportunity recognition (OR), and opportunity exploitation (OX) in complex projects, with environmental and organizational contextual variables as moderators. We extend their model by defining the affects of external complexity and internal complexity on OR and OX. ---------- Methodology/Key Propositions: When the environment complex EO is more likely to result in OR because project members will be actively looking for solutions to problems created by environmental change. But in projects that are technologically or structurally complex project leaders and members may try to make the minimum changes possible to reduce the risk of creating new problems due to delays or schedule changes. In projects with environmental or technological complexity project leaders who encourage the innovativeness dimension of EO will increase OR in complex projects. But projects with technical or structural complexity innovativeness will not necessarily result in the recognition and exploitation of opportunities due to the over-riding importance of maintaining stability in the highly intricate and interconnected project structure. We propose that in projects with environmental complexity creating the need for change and innovation project leaders, who are willing to accept and manage risk, are more likely to identify opportunities to increase project effectiveness and efficiency. In contrast in projects with internal complexity a much higher willingness to accept risk will be necessary to trigger opportunity recognition. In structurally complex projects we predict it will be less likely to find a relationship between risk taking and OP. When the environment is complex, and a project has autonomy, they will be motivated to execute opportunities to improve the project's performance. In contrast, when the project has high internal complexity, they will be more cautious in execution. When a project experiences high competitive aggressiveness and their environment is complex, project leaders will be motivated to execute opportunities to improve the project's performance. In contrast, when the project has high internal complexity, they will be more cautious in execution. This paper reports the first stage of a three year study into the behaviours of managers, leaders and team members of complex projects. We conduct a qualitative study involving a Group Discussion with experienced project leaders. The objective is to determine how leaders of large and potentially complex projects perceive that external and internal complexity will influence the affects of EO on OR. ---------- Results and Implications: These results will help identify and distinguish the impact of external and internal complexity on entrepreneurial behaviours in NPDP. Project managers will be better able to quickly decide how and when to respond to changes in the environment and internal project events.

Regulating non-executive directors in Australia : a socio-legal approach

Discusses the role of legislation and codes of conduct in influencing the behaviour of non-executive directors. Outlines the functions of a board of directors and considers the role on non-executive directors in particular. Traces the development of standards of skill required on non-executive directors both under the Australian Corporations Act 2001 and under common law. Questions whether these have brought about a real change in behaviour. Considers whether professionalisation of directorship could be more effective.

Virtual Environment Visualisation of Executable Business Process Models

Business Process Modelling is a fast growing field in business and information technology, which uses visual grammars to model and execute the processes within an organisation. However, many analysts present such models in a 2D static and iconic manner that is difficult to understand by many stakeholders. Difficulties in understanding such grammars can impede the improvement of processes within an enterprise due to communication problems. In this chapter we present a novel framework for intuitively visualising animated business process models in interactive Virtual Environments. We also show that virtual environment visualisations can be performed with present 2D business process modelling technology, thus providing a low barrier to entry for business process practitioners. Two case studies are presented from film production and healthcare domains that illustrate the ease with which these visualisations can be created. This approach can be generalised to other executable workflow systems, for any application domain being modelled.

Collaborative business process modeling using 3D virtual environments

Process modeling is a complex organizational task that requires many iterations and communication between the business analysts and the domain specialists involved in the process modeling. The challenge of process modeling is exacerbated, when the process of modeling has to be performed in a cross-organizational, distributed environment. Some systems have been developed to support collaborative process modeling, all of which use traditional 2D interfaces. We present an environment for collaborative process modeling, using 3D virtual environment technology. We make use of avatar instantiations of user ego centres, to allow for the spatial embodiment of the user with reference to the process model. We describe an innovative prototype collaborative process modeling approach, implemented as a modeling environment in Second Life. This approach leverages the use of virtual environments to provide user context for editing and collaborative exercises. We present a positive preliminary report on a case study, in which a test group modelled a business process using the system in Second Life.

Enablers and barriers to the organizational adoption of sustainable business practices

Individuals, organizations, and governments are increasingly becoming aware of the necessity of sustainability in living, organizing, performing, and managing work. In this context, “green IS” has become an established colloquial term, acknowledging that information technology, corporate information systems, and the surrounding practices are both a contributor to the sustainability challenge and a potential enabler for green and sustainable practices. To date, however, there are few reported studies on the role of information systems for the challenge, and solution, of sustainability. This paper presents results from a case study of a world-wide operating IT software solution provider that is engaged in the development and adoption of sustainable practices. Our study suggests that the adoption of sustainable practices comes along with a number of particularities. We found information technology to be a key enabler of transparency about the progress of sustainability operations. We further found personal, motivator factors as well as organizational factors such as business inclusion, strategy definition, and a dialectic top-management and bottom-up support, to play a role in enabling a company to manage their sustainability. We describe a set of conjectures forthcoming from our case analysis, and detail some implications for further research in this area.

On the usage of labels and icons in business process modeling

The value of business process models is dependent not only on the choice of graphical elements in the model, but also on their annotation with additional textual and graphical information. This research discusses the use of text and icons for labeling the graphical constructs in a process model. We use two established verb classification schemes to examine the choice of activity labels in process modeling practice. Based on our findings, we synthesize a set of twenty-five activity label categories. We propose a systematic approach for graphically representing these label categories through the use of graphical icons, such that the resulting process models are easier and more readily understandable by end users. Our findings contribute to an ongoing stream of research investigating the practice of process modeling and thereby contribute to the body of knowledge about conceptual modeling quality overall.