Characterisation of foreign entities for tax purposes

The thesis explores the characterisation of foreign legal entities from the perspective of Australia's taxation regime. It also examines entity characterisation methodologies in the US, the UK and Germany. It proposes how juristic existence conferred on foreign forms of association should be dealt with in an Australian tax context.

Determinants of electronic commerce adoption in small businesses in New Zealand

The findings of this thesis suggest that the inexpensive nature of eCommerce, the extent of CEO innovativeness, the need to remain competitive, the relevance of the Internet to the type of business, the SME's size and the apparent compatibility of eCommerce in business were the only determinants of eCommerce adoption in SMEs in New Zealand.

Earnings management and the performance of Australian IPOs

This thesis examines earnings management in the Australian initial public offering (IPO) market. In general, the results show that Australian IPO firms do engage in earnings management at the offer date. There is sufficienct evidence to suggest that firms that manage earnings at the offer date suffer poorer long-run performance.

Development of a model to create entrepreneurial technology businesses

A unique technology business creation model called "Mentrix Model" was created which achieved above 85% success using state of the art selection tools. Based upon the author's research and experience in establishing the world class Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Australia and the extension to the prestigious OptixLab in Malaysia.

Overseas Chinese as expatriate managers in China : is their recruitment a solution to cross-cultural management problems for multinationals operating in China?

The rapid economic development has gravitated businesses into the Chinese market. It’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 made her an even more formidable player in the global economy and direct foreign investment surged. Yet it is acknowledged that for the foreign investor in China, cross-cultural issues create difficulty at every level, from the intercultural level relating to communication and negotiation, to the organizational level relating to decision making, human resource management practices, corporate legal institutions and dealing with governments. Western multinationals have considered the advantages of posting overseas Chinese, from Southeast Asian countries, Taiwan Hong Kong and etc. But has this policy been successful? In terms of language expertise and cultural literacy this would seem to be a good strategy, yet organizational case material contradicts this in reality. Overseas Chinese, while sharing some elements of Chinese culture with mainland Chinese, the Confucian heritage and other aspects such as language, diet, etc, nevertheless have different world views and values and behave differently from mainland Chinese in areas critical to business management. As a survival strategy, overseas Chinese often developed dual identities operating simultaneously. For many of them, for political and historical reasons, they have had to adapt to the local culture or even hide their own ethnicity in order to survive. On the other hand, the mainland Chinese are different in the sense that their behaviour has only had to be Chinese, but overlaid with this has been the experience of participating in a communist political environment for decades, which has left its mark on mainland Chinese culture. On the basis of this, in the current business environment in China confusion, difficulties and conflict may occur for the overseas Chinese. This paper aims to provide insights of the cultural differences between the overseas Chinese and mainland Chinese. It provides evidence that overseas Chinese are not often favoured by the local Chinese. This problem has yet to be researched in depth within international business and international management studies. It draws the attention to issues on how to manage the local Chinese.

Modelling organisational informational privacy practices

This thesis contributes to our understanding of organisational informational privacy management practices. None of the case studies employed holistic systemic management processes; decision-making was shown to be based on a relatively narrow conception of value, was driven largely by compliance requirements, and typified by a number of boundedly rational behaviours.

The impact of political behaviours on internationalisation : the case of Australian companies internationalising to China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test a model of cooperation between internationalising businesses and local and host country governments in the context of Australian companies internationalising to China.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a model for the political dimensions of internationalising based on corporate political theory and the cooperative view of management. Data were collected from personal interviews with representatives from 40 Australian organisations with businesses or operations in China. The data were analysed using NVivo.

Findings – Assistance provided by the Australian government was often sought and was perceived to be beneficial. Most participants experienced policies and regulations which affected their entry modes. In ten cases they acted as barriers and significantly influenced entry mode choice. The majority of participants viewed the development of relationships with the Chinese government as important and employed a variety of relationship behaviours. Over half of the participants identified the need to understand and deal with the psychically distant government structures of the Chinese government, namely government intervention in business.

Practical implications – The model links the organisational objectives of businesses internationalising to China, understanding the political/regulatory environment, selecting an entry mode and developing/maintaining a successful business. To achieve these objectives corporate political behaviour must reflect the sovereign powers in place at the time.

Originality/value – The paper presents a model which develops the literature for the political dimensions of internationalisation. It also presents empirical data on the political dimensions of internationalising into China. These findings will assist businesses in understanding political factors when internationalising to China.

Thai hedging practices : post Asian financial crisis

This paper provides survey evidence captured from a sample of 113 respondents to a 2008 questionnaire that was sent to 344 listed non-financial companies in Thailand. The study examines how Thai companies manage their exchange rate exposure post Asian Financial Crisis.

Thailand is an interesting case study because it was a country at the core of the 1997 financial meltdown and was one of the first forced by the crisis to move from a fixed to a floating exchange rate regime. It is therefore constructive to examine how businesses in Thailand have coped with a shift from a fixed to floating exchange rate and to examine how they manage their exchange rate exposure post 1997.

Findings indicate that companies that use currency derivatives do so to reduce volatile cash flows are less risky and tend to be more profitable than companies that do not use currency derivatives. This is consistent with the theory that hedging increases the value of the firm.

The type of instruments that companies in Thailand use and how they are used is similar to what other studies find in other countries. Matching and the use of forward contracts are the most common ways that companies manage transaction exposure. The study also confirms that companies with higher levels of international business engagement are more likely to use currency derivatives.

What is unique in Thailand is that Thai businesses are less rigorous in their internal control of their currency hedging activities. It is therefore recommended that companies consider a documented hedging policy and that senior management actively monitor the policy and currency hedging activity.

About global leadership and global ethics, and a possible moral compass : an introduction to the special issue

This paper reviews a number of huge challenges to ethical leadership in the twenty-first century and concludes that the need for global ethical leadership is not merely a desirable option, but rather – and quite literally – a matter of survival. The crises of the recent past reveal huge, and in some cases criminal, failures of both ethics and leadership in finance, business and government. We posit that mainstream economic theory’s construct of ‘homo economicus’ and its faith in the ‘invisible hand’ of the market constitute deeply flawed foundations upon which alone policy may be built and, farthermore, that these problematic foundations exert substantial shaping power over the institutional and discursive landscapes in which international business is transacted. Analogously, we argue that dominant approaches to business ethics and corporate social responsibility are, if not incorrect, at least in need of revisiting in terms of questioning their basic assumptions. Instead of the smugness of Western (especially Anglo-American) attitudes towards other ways of thinking, valuing and organising, it appears clear that openness, cooperation and co-creation between the developed and developing worlds is a basic prerequisite for dealing with the global challenges facing not just leaders, but humanity as a whole. This objective of stimulating discussion between dominant and marginal voices has guided our selection of papers for this Special Issue. We have thus included not only representatives of research from within the parameters of mainstream business ethics, IB or leadership scholarship, but also innovative contributions from fields such as military history, information technology, regulation, spirituality and sociology.

Post Asian financial crisis : a survey of Thai hedging practices

This thesis examines how companies in Thailand coped with exchange rate volatility post Asian Financial Crisis. Findings indicate businesses quickly adjusted to the transition from a fixed to floating regime. However, Thai businesses appear to be less rigorous in their internal control of currency hedging activities. The thesis recommends strategies to overcome this risk.