Auditor industry specialization, political economy and earnings quality: some cross-country evidence

Using cross-country data, we evaluate the impact of investor protection on the association between earnings quality and audits by industry specialists. Our findings show that the positive association between industry specialist auditors and earnings quality as documented in the literature is affected by the political electoral system, which reflects investor protection rights in a country. We document that audits by industry specialists are associated with higher earnings quality in countries with the proportional electoral system, reflecting weak investor protection. Our results also confirm Kwon et al.'s findings that overall there is a positive association between earnings quality and audits by industry specialists in countries with weak legal enforcement. Our findings, however, indicate that Kwon et al.'s results are valid only for countries with weak investor protection reflected by the proportional electoral system and not for countries with strong investor protection reflected by the majoritarian electoral system. These findings thus suggest that higher earnings quality of firms audited by industry specialists across countries can especially be expected when investor protection is low and legal enforcement is also weak. In addition, our research suggests that future cross-country studies could explicitly consider the role of the political electoral system of a country in evaluating corporate governance, management and accounting issues.

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks in 188 countries, 1990-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background: The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor study 2013 (GBD 2013) is the first of a series of annual updates of the GBD. Risk factor quantification, particularly of modifiable risk factors, can help to identify emerging threats to population health and opportunities for prevention. The GBD 2013 provides a timely opportunity to update the comparative risk assessment with new data for exposure, relative risks, and evidence on the appropriate counterfactual risk distribution. Methods: Attributable deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) have been estimated for 79 risks or clusters of risks using the GBD 2010 methods. Risk-outcome pairs meeting explicit evidence criteria were assessed for 188 countries for the period 1990-2013 by age and sex using three inputs: risk exposure, relative risks, and the theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL). Risks are organised into a hierarchy with blocks of behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks at the first level of the hierarchy. The next level in the hierarchy includes nine clusters of related risks and two individual risks, with more detail provided at levels 3 and 4 of the hierarchy. Compared with GBD 2010, six new risk factors have been added: handwashing practices, occupational exposure to trichloroethylene, childhood wasting, childhood stunting, unsafe sex, and low glomerular filtration rate. For most risks, data for exposure were synthesised with a Bayesian metaregression method, DisMod-MR 2.0, or spatial-temporal Gaussian process regression. Relative risks were based on meta-regressions of published cohort and intervention studies. Attributable burden for clusters of risks and all risks combined took into account evidence on the mediation of some risks such as high body-mass index (BMI) through other risks such as high systolic blood pressure and high cholesterol. Findings: All risks combined account for 57·2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 55·8-58·5) of deaths and 41·6% (40·1-43·0) of DALYs. Risks quantified account for 87·9% (86·5-89·3) of cardiovascular disease DALYs, ranging to a low of 0% for neonatal disorders and neglected tropical diseases and malaria. In terms of global DALYs in 2013, six risks or clusters of risks each caused more than 5% of DALYs: dietary risks accounting for 11·3 million deaths and 241·4 million DALYs, high systolic blood pressure for 10·4 million deaths and 208·1 million DALYs, child and maternal malnutrition for 1·7 million deaths and 176·9 million DALYs, tobacco smoke for 6·1 million deaths and 143·5 million DALYs, air pollution for 5·5 million deaths and 141·5 million DALYs, and high BMI for 4·4 million deaths and 134·0 million DALYs. Risk factor patterns vary across regions and countries and with time. In sub-Saharan Africa, the leading risk factors are child and maternal malnutrition, unsafe sex, and unsafe water, sanitation, and handwashing. In women, in nearly all countries in the Americas, north Africa, and the Middle East, and in many other high-income countries, high BMI is the leading risk factor, with high systolic blood pressure as the leading risk in most of Central and Eastern Europe and south and east Asia. For men, high systolic blood pressure or tobacco use are the leading risks in nearly all high-income countries, in north Africa and the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. For men and women, unsafe sex is the leading risk in a corridor from Kenya to South Africa. Interpretation: Behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks can explain half of global mortality and more than one-third of global DALYs providing many opportunities for prevention. Of the larger risks, the attributable burden of high BMI has increased in the past 23 years. In view of the prominence of behavioural risk factors, behavioural and social science research on interventions for these risks should be strengthened. Many prevention and primary care policy options are available now to act on key risks.

Patterns of time use among regional and rural adolescent girls: associations with correlates of physical activity and health-related quality of life

OBJECTIVES: To describe patterns of time use among regional and rural adolescent girls and compare identified clusters with respect to correlates of physical activity (PA) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

DESIGN: Cross-sectional PA and lifestyle survey.

METHODS: Data were from Year 7-9 adolescent girls (aged 12-15 years) from 16 schools involved in a cluster-randomised trial in regional and rural Victoria, Australia (n=494). Time use data were collected using 24-h Previous Day Physical Activity Recall (PDPAR-24) questionnaire, collapsed into 17 categories of time use. Differences between time use clusters with regard to demographics, correlates of PA and HRQoL measured using PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales, were investigated.

RESULTS: Two time use clusters were identified and were associated with correlates of PA and HRQoL. Girls who spent significantly more time in teams sports, non-team sports, school classes, watching TV and sleeping had higher levels of positively aligned PA correlates (e.g. self-efficacy, perceived sports competence) and HRQoL than girls characterised with high levels of computer use and video gaming. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight how different activity patterns of regional and rural girls affect HRQoL and can inform future intervention strategies to improve PA levels and HRQoL. Clusters characterised by low levels of PA and high computer use and video gaming require targeted interventions to address barriers to their participation.

No outbreeding depression at a regional scale for a habitat-forming intertidal alga with limited dispersal

Hormosira banksii is distributed throughout southern Australasia, but dispersal of propagules is thought to be limited. In the present study, the hypothesis that outbreeding depression occurs in H. banksii was tested by assessing fertilisation success and early development of embryos in crosses between populations at local to regional spatial scales. Hierarchical experiments were conducted at three spatial scales with nesting present within each scale: small scale (within a rocky shore population), intermediate scale (regions separated by 70 km) and large scale (450-km separation between two states: Victoria and Tasmania). In each experiment, eggs and sperm were crossed within and between each population located in the spatial scale of interest. There were no consistent patterns of variable fertilisation success and subsequent development within a population or at different spatial scales. It was concluded that outbreeding depression is not detected in analyses of fertilisation success or early development processes in H. banksii. The results suggest one of the following to be likely: (1) H. banksii is capable of longer distance dispersal than previously considered, thus maintaining gene flow between distant populations, (2) gene flow is restricted by limited dispersal, but populations have not been isolated for a sufficient length of time to cause genetic divergence or (3) outbreeding depression is manifested as effects on later life-history stages.

Cross-discipline collaboration and innovation in the design studio : drawing on the Bath model

As information expands and comprehension becomes more complex, so the need increases to develop focused areas of knowledge and skill acquisition. However, as the number of specialty areas increases so the languages that define each separate knowledge base become increasingly remote. Hence, concepts and viewpoints that were once considered part of a whole become detached. This phenomenon is typical of the development of tertiary education, especially within professional oriented courses, where disciplines and sub-disciplines have grown further apart and the ability to communicate has become increasingly fragmented.
One individual and visionary who was well acquainted with the shortcomings of the piecemeal development between the disciplines was Professor Sir Edmond Happold, the leader of the prestigious group known as Structures 3 at Ove Arup and Partners, who were responsible for making happen some of the landmark buildings of their time, including Sydney Opera House and the Pompidou Centre, and the founding professor of the Bath school of Architecture and Civil Engineering in 1975. While still having a profound respect for the knowledge bases of the different professions within the building and construction industry, Professor Happold was also well aware of the extraordinary synergies in design and innovation which could come about when the disciplines of Architecture and Civil Engineering were brought together at the outset of the design process.
This paper discusses the rational behind Professor Happold’s cross-discipline model of education and reflects on the method, execution and pedagogical worth of the joint studio-based projects which formed a core aspect of the third year program at the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Bath University.

Marketing of place to attract and retain population in regional Australia

In Australia, as in many other developed countries, regional and rural areas are suffering from an overall decline in population with a specific loss of young adults (16-30 year olds). A decline in population, linked with the Australia-wide problems of ageing populations and diminishing birth rates, is leading to a social and economic decline in many regional cities and towns that threatens their long-term sustainability due to the lack of skilled workers and professionals. Although the loss of population from regional and rural areas has the potential to affect the national economy, it has mainly fallen to local government to combat the problem. Local government is beginning to use place marketing to attract and retain residents in addition to its traditional use of place marketing to attract industry and investment.

This exploratory paper examines regional decline in Australia and the concept of "place" marketing as means of arresting or reversing the decline, A conceptual model of place marketing by local government in Australia has been developed and a number of hypothesis are proposed for testing in future research.

Festivals, art and mentoring : disseminating knowledge, enhancing skills and developing networks in regional Victoria

Many regional festivals use art as a vehicle to engage with a broader cross-section of the community; highlight the artistic talent of their region; introduce art to their region; and to distinguish theirs from others. Regional Arts Victoria and Arts Victoria recently piloted a mentoring program, Directions, for regional festivals that indicated an interest in developing their artistic direction. Three experienced artistic directors were selected to participate in the program as mentors, and each of these mentored two festival directors whose festivals are located in Regional Victoria. The aim of this paper is to highlight the potential of mentoring within the context of festival management by exploring the outcomes of Directions. A case study approach is used, and although this limits the generalisability of the results to other festivals, the information gained provides insights into managing festivals within the context of artistic direction. A number of themes emerged from the study that appear to have broadened the perspective of 'art' in those festivals participating in the program. Furthermore, the program has highlighted that while festivals and artistic directors in regional locations experience varying degrees of isolation, they have a great deal of creativity and skill. Directions provided organisers of the festivals with the confidence to make decisions that enable them to capitalise on their extant creativity and skills. Festivals are then able to be marketed against their competitors with unique selling positions, which is important for sustainability. The results obtained through the evaluation of this pilot program provide Regional Arts Victoria and Arts Victoria opportunities to effectively assess the need for such programs for festivals in regional Victoria in the future.

Cigarette smoking is negatively associated with family average income among urban and rural men in regional Mainland China

Socio-economic status (SES) has a strong influence on cigarette smoking behaviour. However, as a more sensitive and realistic index of SES, family average income (FAI) has little studied regarding its association with smoking. With a response rate of 90.1%, a cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected urban-rural participants (n  = 29,353) between October of 2000 and March of 2001 in Nanjing, China. The proportion of male participants who were current smokers was 54.7%; for females it was 2.2%. After adjustment for possible confounding variables (area of residence, age, education, occupation) males in the middle (OR 0.76; 95% CI 0.69–0.84) and higher (OR 0.64; 95% CI 0.57–0.71) FAI tertiles had lower odds of being smokers than did males in the lower FAI tertile. There were no differences by FAI category in the odds of being an ex-smoker. Therefore, current smoking among adult males is inversely associated with family average income in a regional Chinese population. FAI may inform the targeting of campaigns or other initiatives, particularly in populations where material prosperity is low in some social groups.

A cross-continental examination and comparison of descriptive criteria in marketing journals-AMJ, EJM and JM

The objective is to perform a cross-continental examination and comparison of non-traditional descriptive criteria in a selection of leading academic journals in marketing. The sample of journals is restricted to the examination and comparison of three academic journals in marketing. The journal sample consists of the Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), the European Journal of Marketing (EJM) and the Journal of Marketing (JM). Empirical research manuscripts dominate in the selected marketing journals. In addition, in the selected journals regular issues dominate in favour of special issues. The descriptive criteria examined and compared in AMJ, EJM and JM are based upon the content analysis of 811 manuscripts published during a six-year period, namely 2000-2005. Manuscripts of types other than empirical research, such as general reviews, literature reviews, conceptual papers, commentaries and book reviews are less likely to get published. Special issues or special sections are less frequent in these journals. This may lead to the situation that specialized journals in sub-areas of marketing may provide better and more comprehensive leading edge coverage and knowledge. The insights provided are in particular valuable for those scholars that do not usually get involved in academic publishing and consequently have a limited understanding and experience of the publication arena of manuscripts in leading academic journals. These insights also will be informative for more experienced academic publishers as they highlight certain characteristics of these journals that enlighten one as to the journals that one should target for publication and the difficulty, just on a numbers basis alone, of getting published in one of these three journals. The principal contribution of this research is the examination and comparison of descriptive criteria in AMJ, EJM and JM – a cross-continental sample of journals and criteria that have not been explored or reported previously in literature.

The resource-based view of strategy: application to the agricultural industry

IP a The paper examines the application of the Resource-Based View of strategy (RBV) to the Australian floral industry. Despite the RBV's successful application to research in a number of discipline areas and the formalisation of its relationship with Competitive Advantage (CA) 15 years ago, the empirical support for the benefit of the RBV and development of research constructs has been inadequate. This has been partly due to the difficulty of identifying and separating the contribution of resources. The RBV literature is now consistent in the criteria required of a resource for CA and identifies a range of empirical research objectives (e.g. the need for contextual constructs), data evaluation focuses (e.g. measuring the impact of management, process, regional and scale affects) and results objectives (such as identifying the causal structure of resources). Research was conducted in the Australian floral industry to produce supporting generalisable data and constructs for the RBV. This industry is well bounded with several strongly differentiating resources and operates in a global market environment, which is necessary for these research objectives. Six hypotheses were examined; (1) the use of resources as the input of the CA, (2) the impact of the development process on resources, (3) the impact of management control on the development of resources (4) the impact on capability of management, process, region and scale, (5) the impact of resource development maturity on the approach to resource development and (6) the possibility of evaluating individual resources according to various criteria. The data was collected using selected participant interviews, with validation of conclusions by industry experts. It was analysed using content analysis, comparative analysis and cognitive mapping. The research determined that organisations in the Australian floral industry possessed important resources including geography, skills, technology, R&D, supply chains and production costs. These contributed to four CA creating production outputs; quality, capacity, reliability and customer convenience. The research findings supported hypotheses 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The lack of support for the two remaining hypotheses, relating to the process of resource development, may be explained by the low resource development maturity of the industry which masks the impact of the resource development process. The results also determined that one resource could contribute to a number of CAs and that resources not meeting all of the normal RBV CA criteria could still provide a CA in an industry where few resources met all criteria. It was postulated that these resources’ contribution to competitive was not durable.

A new broad composite model of regional economic development as a framework for research

The mechanism of regional economic development has been studied extensively by economists, geographers, town planners and other academics. The existing wide varieties of theories into regional economic development are insufficient on their own in explaining how a region can develop and prosper. Each theory has evaluated a few facets of regional economic development. Research from these different perspectives is narrow and prevents any cross-fertilization of research from all these diverse
theories.

Recognition of multiple factors affecting the development process has led the author to create a new broad composite model of regional economic development. The paper first sets out to describe and explain this broad composite model. Each of the components of this new model draws heavily upon seminal work in the field. This model proposes three rings. Each ring is at a different level of abstraction. The determinants of development described in each ring can influence each and every other determinant of development shown in the three ring structure. This model recognises that development in any centre, regional or urban, nascent or established is a composite end result of the complex interplay of all the determinants of development.

The paper then goes on to show how this model can provide a broad holistic approach to regional economic development that can assist researchers in their attempts to understand and link the various theories of regional economic development.

Efficiency measurement of Australian dairy farms: national and regional performance

In this paper we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate technical efficiency for a sample of 1742 Australian dairy farms. Bearing in mind data limitations we find that average technical efficiency is 59 per cent, but there are significant regional differences. These results reflect differences in State level milk marketing arrangements in place before dairy deregulation in July 2000 providing an ex post explanation for the changing composition of dairy farms in Australia. We also examine two important technical aspects of DEA implementation. First, how changes in model input specification alter the relative performance of farms. Second, we employ a simple bootstrap procedure to show how changes in sample size affects estimates of technical efficiency. These results have simple but important implications for the use of DEA as an industry-benchmarking tool.

Data quality issues in practice and theory : a cross-cultural example

Practical considerations and traditions play a substantial role in data collection exercises, often limiting the focus of study to either qualitative or quantitative issues. An industry with a particularly strong quantitative emphasis is the insurance and reinsurance industry, where actuarial decisions are based on detailed and exacting numerical analysis of data that are assumed to be reliable and valid. However, the qualitative investigation of the quality of data in one reinsurance setting reported in this paper shows that where the meanings of the questions asked and of the answers provided are subject to interpretation, the quality of data collected for entry to databases can be poor. While this can be exacerbated in cross-cultural contexts, it is also generally true. Due to the constrained nature of insurance practice, the existence of a range of techniques combining qualitative and quantitative methods is somewhat academic. Therefore, because researchers have the latitude to investigate both qualitative and quantitative factors in the industrial context, a call is made for researchers and industry to work more closely together.