A model for the uptake of E-business by building small and medium enterprises

The adoption of e-business by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in construction lags from other service and product businesses within the building sector. This paper develops a model to facilitate the uptake of electronic business, especially in relation to SMEs within the Australian construction sector. Ebusiness is defined here as “the undertaking of business-related transactions, communications and information exchanges utilising electronic medium and environment”, the elicited model highlights significant changes needed including skills development, social, economic and cultural issues. The model highlights barriers for SMEs to migrate towards e-transactions, e-bidding, e-tendering and ecollaboration and provides learning and skills development components. The model is derived from case study fieldwork and is to inform diffusion and awareness models for best practice. Empirical techniques included ‘focus group’ interviews and one to one ‘interviews’. Data was transcribed and analysed using cluster analyses. Preliminary results reveal that current models for e-business adoption are not effective within the construction context as they have emerged from other service and product industries - such as retail or tourism. These generic models have largely ignored the nature of the construction industry, and some modifications appears to be required. This paper proposes an alternative adoption model which is more sensitive to the nature of the industry – particularly for e-business uptake in building SME’s.

Barriers to e-business adoption in construction: international literature review

The adoption of e-business by the Australian construction industry lags other service and product industries. It is assumed that slow adoption rate does not reflect the maturity of the technology but is due to adoption barriers peculiar to the nature of construction. This paper examines impediments to the uptake of e-business nationally and internationally. A systematic and extensive literature search of barriers (also referred to as obstacles, impediments or hindrances) to adoption has been undertaken and the findings discussed in this paper. This review included more that 200 documents and these have been published in a searchable database as part of a larger research initiative funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation. The influence of levels of e-business maturity seen in other sectors such as retail, tourism and manufacturing was also captured and a number of major barriers were identified some including: privacy, trust, uncertainty of financial returns, lack of reliable measurement, fraud, lack of support and system maintenance. A total of 23 barriers were assessed in terms of impact to organisational type and size across reviewed documents. With this information it was possible to develop a reference framework for measuring maturity levels and readiness to uptake e-business in construction. Results have also shown that barriers to e-business adoption work differently according to organisational type and culture. Areas of training and people development need to be addressed. This would include a more sensitive approach to the nature of construction organisations, especially to those small and medium enterprises. Raising levels of awareness and creating trust for on-line collaboration are other aspects that need attention, which current studies confirm as lacking. An empirical study within construction, to validate these findings, forms the subsequent phase of this research.

Teaching business process modelling : experiences and recommendations

A curriculum for a university-level course called Business Process Modeling is presented in order to provide guidance for the increasing number of institutions who are currently developing such contents. The course caters to undergraduate and post graduate students. Its content is drawn from recent research, industry practice, and established teaching material, and teaches ways of specifying business processes for the analysis and design of process-aware information systems. The teaching approach is a blend of lectures and classroom exercises with innovative case studies, as well as reviews of research material. Students are asked to conceptualize, analyze, and articulate real life process scenarios. Tutorials and cheat sheets assist with the learning experience. Course evaluations from 40 students suggest the adequacy of the teaching approach. Specifically, evaluations show a high degree of satisfaction with course relevance, content presentation, and teaching approach.

Forecasting trends in the Brisbane central business district office market

The Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW) holds a significant interest in the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD) in controlling approximately 20 percent of the office space within its confines. This comprises a total of 333,903 square metres of space, of which 170,111 square metres is owned and 163,792 square metres is leased from the private sector. The department’s nominal ownership extends to several enduring, landmark buildings as well as several modern office towers. The portfolio includes the oldest building in the CBD, being the former Commissariat Stores building and one of the newest, a 15,000 square metre office tower under construction at 33 Charlotte Street.

Produsage and business : sharing your brand with users

Relations between brands and their users continue to be affected by a traditional perspective that sees the producers and consumers of goods and services as inherently different animals. In the emerging information and knowledge economy, and especially in online contexts, this model is no longer sustainable. Instead, spearheaded by the Web 2.0 phenomenon, there is a trend towards the fusing of production and usage as a new, hybrid process of produsage. This presentation presents the key characteristics driving produsage processes, and describes four guiding principles for businesses as they share their brand with users: * Be open. * Seed community processes by providing content and tools. * Support community dynamics and devolve responsibilities. * Don't exploit the community and its work.

Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation : Submission to the Productivity Commission

The need to “reduce red tape” and regulatory inconsistencies is a desirable outcome (OECD 1997) for developed countries. The costs normally associated with regulatory regimes are compliance costs and direct charges. Geiger and Hoffman (1998) have noted that the extent of regulation in an industry tends to be negatively associated with firm performance. Typically, approaches to estimation of the cost of regulations examine direct costs, such as fees and charges, together with indirect costs, such as compliance costs. However, in a fragmented system, such as Australia, costs can also be incurred due to procedural delays, either by government, or by industry having to adapt documentation for different spheres of government; lack of predictable outcomes, with variations occurring between spheres of government and sometimes within the same government agency; and lost business opportunities, with delays and red tape preventing realisation of business opportunities (OECD 1997). In this submission these costs are termed adaptation costs. The adaptation costs of complying with variations in regulations between the states has been estimated by the Building Product Innovation Council (2003) as being up to $600 million per annum for building product manufacturers alone. Productivity gains from increased harmonisation of the regulatory system have been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars (ABCB 2003). This argument is supported by international research which found that increasing the harmonisation of legislation in a federal system of government reduces what we have termed adaptation costs (OECD 2001). Research reports into the construction industry in Australia have likewise argued that improved consistency in the regulatory environment could lead to improvements in innovation (PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2002), and that research into this area should be given high priority (Hampson & Brandon 2004). The opinion of industry in Australia has consistently held that the current regulatory environment inhibits innovation (Manley 2004). As a first step in advancing improvements to the current situation, a summary of the current costs experienced by industry needs to be articulated. This executive summary seeks to outline these costs in the hope that the Productivity Commission would be able to identify the best tools to quantify the actual costs to industry.

Professional ethics : the IT experience

IT professionals work in an environment which is under continual innovation, exerts a global influence and yet is relatively young. In such a context, how can professionals be effectively supported in their ethical practice? IT professional ethics has predominantly focussed on external standards or internal reasoning. However, attention also has to be paid to professionals’ experience of ethics, which influences how they interpret standards and construct reasoning. A comprehensive experience of ethics will embrace the professional’s inner circle, their employer, their client and humanity. In order to promote such a comprehensive view, we need to re-conceptualise a) the IT discipline, focussing on information users; b) professional ethics, adopting other-centred attitudes; and c) professional development, pursuing a change in lived experience. This book is written for those interested in professional ethics (practitioners, educators, professional bodies and employers), especially in the computing field.

FM as a Business Enabler

As a functioning performing arts centre, commercial enterprise, tourist attraction and major national asset, Sydney Opera House must continue to demonstrate the optimal use and effectiveness of its facilities management (FM) to provide value for its stakeholders. To better achieve this, the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation focussed on the following three themes for investigation in the FM Exemplar Project — Sydney Opera House: digital modelling — developing a building information model capable of integrating information from disparate software systems and hard copy, and combining this with a spatial 3D computeraided design (CAD)/geographic information system (GIS) platform. This model offers a visual representation of the building and its component elements in 3D, and provides comprehensive information on each element. The model can work collaboratively through an open data exchange standard (common to all compliant software) in order to mine the data required to further FM objectives (such as maintenance) more efficiently and effectively. services procurement — developing a multi-criteria performance-based procurement framework aligned with organisational objectives for FM service delivery performance benchmarking — developing an FM benchmarking framework that enables facilities/ organisations to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) to identify better practice and improvement strategies. These three research stream outcomes were then aligned within the broader context of Sydney Opera House’s Total Asset Management (TAM) Plan and Strategic Asset Maintenance (SAM) Plan in arriving at a business framework aligned with, and in support of, organisational objectives. The Sydney Opera House is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust on behalf of the Government of the State of New South Wales. Within the framework of the TAM Plan prepared in accordance with NSW Treasury Guidelines, the assimilation of these three themes provides an integrated FM solution capable of supporting Sydney Opera House’s business objectives and functional requirements. FM as a business enabler showcases innovative methods in improving FM performance, a better alignment of service and performance objectives and provides a better-practice model to support the business enterprise.

Certainties and uncertainties : ethics and professional identities of early childhood educators

This study is an inquiry into the professional identity constructions of early childhood educators, where identity is conceptualised as social and contextual. Through a genealogical analysis of narratives of four Queensland early childhood teachers, the thesis renders as problematic universal and fixed notions of what it is to be an early childhood professional. The data are the four teachers’ professional life history narratives recounted through a series of conversational interviews with each participant. As they spoke about professionalism and ethics, these teachers struggled to locate themselves as professionals, as they drew on a number of dominant discourses available to them. These dominant discourses were located and mapped through analysis of the participants’ talk about relationships with parents, colleagues and authorities. Genealogical analysis enabled multiple readings of the ways in which the participants’ talk held together certainties and uncertainties, as they recounted their experiences and spoke of early childhood expertise, relational engagement and ethics. The thesis concludes with suggestions for ways to support early childhood teachers and pre-service teachers to both engage with and resist normative processes and expectations of professional identity construction. In so doing, multiple and contextual opportunities can be made available when it comes to being professional and ‘doing’ ethics. The thesis makes an argument for new possibilities for thinking and speaking professional identities that include both certainty and uncertainty, comfort and discomfort, and these seemingly oppositional terms are held together in tension, with an insistence that both are necessary and true. The use of provocations offers tools through which pre-service teachers, teachers and teacher educators can access new positions associated with certainties and uncertainties in professional identities. These new positions call for work that supports experiences of ‘de-comfort’ – that is, experiences that encourage early childhood educators to step away from the comfort zones that can become part of expertise, professional relationships and ethics embedded within normative representations of what it is to be an early childhood professional.

What’s in a handshake? Exploring business-to-business relational exchange

Despite its importance in the development of competitive advantage, attempts to unify diverse classifications of business-to-business relational exchange have been largely unsuccessful. We used 18 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with managers from a wide range of industries to explain the business-to-business relational exchange construct. Analysis of the data revealed that business-to-business relational exchange comprises five key dimensions. These are communication, compatibility, commitment, trust and power symmetry. The research highlights the importance of personal interaction in business relationships and provided additional insights into the importance of affective commitment. In addition we reveal a number of negative consequences of affective commitment, which have been previously unexplored. A new conceptual model of business-to-business relational exchange is presented, which synthesises these findings and directs future research.

Decision support system for improving construction companies’ business performance

As part of a decision making process, the controlling process in construction companies can be supported by computer application that provides faster and reliable decision. This paper discusses the development of a knowledge-based decision support system for controlling construction companies’ business performance. The knowledge-base was developed using questionnaire survey and case studies. A questionnaire survey was conducted to identify potential problems that can occur in construction companies as well as the source of the problems and their impact on companies’ performance. Case studies were used to identify and analyse various corrective actions. The result of the study shows that decision support system using knowledge-based management system improves the effectiveness and the efficiency of decision making process for selecting the most appropriate corrective action that can improve construction companies’ performance. The application, which had been developed in this research, was designed to support the process of controlling construction companies’ business performance and to assist young manager in selecting the most optimum corrective actions for the problems related to achieving companies’ objectives. This computer application can be used as a learning tool for identifying potential problems that a construction company faces and the most optimum corrective action.

Configurable multi-perspective business process models

A configurable process model provides a consolidated view of a family of business processes. It promotes the reuse of proven practices by providing analysts with a generic modelling artifact from which to derive individual process models. Unfortunately, the scope of existing notations for configurable process modelling is restricted, thus hindering their applicability. Specifically, these notations focus on capturing tasks and control-flow dependencies, neglecting equally important ingredients of business processes such as data and resources. This research fills this gap by proposing a configurable process modelling notation incorporating features for capturing resources, data and physical objects involved in the performance of tasks. The proposal has been implemented in a toolset that assists analysts during the configuration phase and guarantees the correctness of the resulting process models. The approach has been validated by means of a case study from the film industry.

Towards a framework for business process standardization

Organizations increasingly seek to achieve operational excellence by standardizing business processes. Standardization initiatives may have different purposes, such as process streamlining, process automation, or even process outsourcing. However, standardization of processes is easier said than done. Standardization success depends on various factors, such as existent IT capabilities, available standard frameworks, market situation, and the processes’ nature, such as their level of routine or structuredness. This paper uncovers the complex nature and relative influence of process-internal and -environmental factors relevant to process standardization, by discussing three case studies from different industries. The findings are summarized in a set of initial conjectures about successful process standardization. This exploratory research is a first step towards uncovering the characteristics of successful process standardization efforts.

Towards Humane Technologies: Biotechnologies, New Media and Ethics

What are the ethical and political implications when the very foundations of life —things of awe and spiritual significance — are translated into products accessible to few people? This book critically analyses this historic recontextualisation. Through mediation — when meaning moves ‘from one text to another, from one discourse to another’ — biotechnology is transformed into analysable data and into public discourses. The unique book links biotechnology with media and citizenship. As with any ‘commodity’, biological products have been commodified. Because enormous speculative investment rests on this, risk will be understated and benefit will be overstated. Benefits will be unfairly distributed. Already, the bioprospecting of Southern megadiverse nations, legally sanctioned by U.S. property rights conventions, has led to wealth and health benefits in the North. Crucial to this development are biotechnological discourses that shift meanings from a “language of life” into technocratic discourses, infused with neo-liberal economic assumptions that promise progress and benefits for all. Crucial in this is the mass media’s representation of biotechnology for an audience with poor scientific literacy. Yet, even apparently benign biotechnology spawned by the Human Genome Project such as prenatal screening has eugenic possibilities, and genetic codes for illness are eagerly sought by insurance companies seeking to exclude certain people. These issues raise important questions about a citizenship that is founded on moral responsibility for the wellbeing of society now and into the future. After all, biotechnology is very much concerned with the essence of life itself. This book provides a space for alternative and dissident voices beyond the hype that surrounds biotechnology.