Critical factors influencing employment: a study of small manufacturing firms in South-East Australia

Compliance with legislation has been highlighted as a factor influencing the reluctance of small and medium sized enterprises to take on new employees. With the objective of determining factors influencing smaller firms in their employment decisions, mailed questionnaires were used to survey small to medium manufacturing businesses in the Australian States of Victoria and New South Wales. Significant critical factors and deterrents to further employment were identified.

Critical factors for electronic commerce success in small business : a meta study

Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute significantly to the national economies and to the employment levels of different countries and represent a viable source for inventions and innovations. The recent emergence of electronic commerce in the early nineties could provide different opportunities to the small business sector to overcome its inadequacies. However, in view of the electronic commerce/business (EC) literature in organisations in general and in SMEs specifically, it was observed that EC research is scarce. Therefore, this research attempts, by reviewing relevant EC literature, to develop deeper understanding about the factors influencing EC success in SMEs. The researcher found the following issues significantly influence EC success in SMEs: e-Value, e-Cost, e-Transformation, e-Product, e-Nvolvement, e-Nnovativeness, e-Competition, external e-Support, and e-Pressure. These factors are of importance to researchers, SMEs, professionals including educational institutions and policymakers in driving SMEs and EC forward.

Exploring critical factors for achieving successful risk allocation in public-private partnership projects

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as a procurement mechanism for infrastructure projects is becoming increasingly common. This is principally due to the value for money opportunities it offers the public sector sponsors. This value for money is primarily achieved through the optimisation of the allocation of risk inherent in the project being transferred from the public sector sponsors onto private sector bidders. This paper analyses the influence that these factors have on successful risk allocation with the aim of providing clearer parameters for optimal risk allocation in PPP projects. Through an extensive review of existing literature, the critical success factors for optimal risk allocation in PPP projects are identified. It is found that the optimisation of risk allocation in PPP projects is critically influenced by the identified factors, which will undoubtedly aid in the successful outcome for future PPP projects.

Critical factors to the success of alliances in Australia

Governments in Australia face the challenge of meeting the growing demand for new infrastructure, which can be delivered more quickly in an increasingly complex environment. Alliance Contracting has been introduced to overcome some of the challenges by, aligning the incentives of the partners, clearly defining their rights and responsibilities, and providing the means for resolving disputes when they arise. The purpose of this research was to explore the critical success factors of Alliance Contracting in order to understand the roles of the various terms and conditions and how they fit together to create a relationship-based contract. A qualitative technique of semi-structured in-depth interviews was used to gather primary data in response to the research questions. The research aimed to develop an in-depth understanding of Alliance Contracting. The results show that the key contributor to the success or failure of Alliances is whether all the partners benefit equitably from the venture. Analysis of the data indicates that, in general, trusting attitudes/behaviour is perceived to be the most important critical success factor for Alliance Contracting in the broader construction industry. The second most popular critical success factor was shared and aligned goals. The third issue was the evidence of open behaviour, and the final issue was the presence of shared knowledge. The implication of this research is that there are several key factors that were necessary preconditions for successful Alliances.

Critical factors in the adaptation and implementation of Japanese Lesson Study in the Australian context

Worldwide interest in Japanese Lesson Study as a vehicle to improve mathematics teaching practice through professional learning has left largely unanswered questions about the extent to which it can be replicated elsewhere. This paper reports on a small-scale research project, Implementing structured problem solving mathematics through lesson study, carried out in three Australian schools during 2012, and continued in a modified form during 2013 and 2014. Two major aims of the project were to investigate critical factors in the adaptation and effective implementation of (1) structured problem-solving mathematics lessons, and (2) Japanese Lesson Study as a model for teacher professional learning in the Australian context. This paper discusses the specific affordances that contributed to both the implementation of structured problem solving and to teachers' professional learning as a result of their participation in this project, as well as the constraints encountered, and the implications of these for the sustainability of lesson study in the Australian context. Critical factors identified by the teachers as contributing to the success of the project included the opportunities for in-depth lesson planning, the presence of large numbers of observers at the research lessons and the post-lesson discussions, and the insight provided by the " knowledgeable other". Major constraints included the difficulty in finding suitable problem solving tasks to match the Australian curriculum, and the teaching culture that emphasises small-group rather than whole-class teaching

Critical success factors for the requirements engineering process, with reference to quality management of information systems development

Preliminary research into the critical factors associated with software development/implementation identified three dimensions for successful implementation based on alignment of the requirements engineering process with business needs, change management process and quality of the implementation process. Research results demonstrate the link between the conceptual model for process quality and the process management attributes determined during the research.

Managing the implementation of business intelligence systems : a critical success factors framework

The implementation of a BI system is a complex undertaking requiring considerable resources. Yet there is a limited authoritative set of CSFs for management reference. This article represents a first step of filling in the research gap. The authors utilized the Delphi method to conduct three rounds of studies with 15 BI system experts in the domain of engineering asset management organizations. The study develops a CSFs framework that consists of seven factors and associated contextual elements crucial for BI systems implementation. The CSFs are committed management support and sponsorship, business user-oriented change management, clear business vision and well-established case, business-driven methodology and project management, business-centric championship and balanced project team composition, strategic and extensible technical framework, and sustainable data quality and governance framework. This CSFs framework allows BI stakeholders to holistically understand the critical factors that influence implementation success of BI systems.

Individual and organisational factors influencing academics` decisions to pursue the scholarship and teaching of ICT

This paper focuses on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) academics' perceptions of factors that promote and inhibit their pursuit of scholarship in their teaching work. It identifies critical factors that influence academics' attitudes, orientations and behaviours in respect to the scholarship of teaching, and from these builds a framework for understanding the interaction between these factors. We have named this framework the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

During 2001 and 2002 a national project investigated teaching and learning initiatives in the major discipline of lCT in Australia's universities. As part of this project a mini-conference program was devised to elicit academics' perceptions of the factors influencing their teaching work and their participation in scholarly activities around this work. In total 83 ICT teachers from 29 universities participated in the mini-conference program. Attendees included staff members from a range of academic levels.

In discussions of aspects of the scholarship of teaching at the mini-conference participants referred to both attributes and responses of both university teachers and the university institutions. We have categorized these factors into those that relate to the individual academic (Individual domain) and those that relate to the tertiary institutional system (Organisational domain). Many contributions highlighted the interaction between these two domains.

Within the Individual domain, two key factors described by participants as affecting the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching were teachers' motivation towards, and their capabilities in, scholarly activities surrounding their teaching. Within the organizational domain two influential factors also emerged. These were the organizational support provided through allocation of resources and symbolic support reflected in an institution's systems, policies and processes.

Our findings indicate that both the Individual and Organizational domains contribute to university teachers' decisions to pursue (or not to pursue) the scholarship of teaching.

These two domains were seen by participants to interact within university environments to influence whether a particular environment is supportive or unsupportive in terms of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Factors both from and within the individual and the organizational domains were seen to interact with each other forming a web of interrelated factors that appear to influence individuals' decisions to pursue, or not to pursue, the scholarship of teaching. From this complexity four theoretical extremes emerged providing the dimensions and components of the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

We argue that responsive and innovative approaches to university teaching are best supported by academics undertaking scholarly activities around their teaching work, yet this article presents a picture of a university work environment where scholarly activities that focus on teaching and learning are seen as generally unsupported and unrewarded. This perception was identified as commonalities across a university system. Although some exceptions were noted, participants generally agreed that the organisational domain of Australian universities was largely unsupportive of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Similarly, in general, university ICT teachers were not thought to have the backgrounds and capabilities necessary for pursuing the scholarship of teaching, such as familiarity with literature on teaching and learning and skills in educational evaluation. However, despite perceived inhibitors in universities' organisational culture and allocation of resources, and a perceived lack in individuals' skills, participants agreed that scholarly activities and innovation in university teaching and learning do take place, These are largely driven by the intrinsic motivation of individuals. It was recognised that further work is necessary to explore how motivation can be engendered and encouraged.

The Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework is a useful tool for examining how conducive a given university teaching context is to the scholarship of teaching and, therefore, can be used for review purposes within both research and policy contexts. Such tools will become increasingly important as policy changes begin to affect practices in how university teaching work is managed, supported and encouraged.

Review of critical issues in carbon dioxide corrosion testing and monitoring techniques

This paper presents a brief review of major techniques applied in carbon dioxide corrosion testing and monitoring. The focus is on the advantages and disadvantages of variously designed testing apparatus and monitoring devices for localized corrosion detection and assessment. Critical factors affecting the reliability and accuracy of major corrosion testing techniques are briefly discussed. It is concluded that major reasons that lead to reporting of inaccurate corrosion rates and patterns include: (i) limitations in conventional electrochemical and nonelectrochemical methods for localized corrosion measurements, and difficulties in data interpretation; (ii) challenges in simulating localized corrosion mechanisms and their changes with the extension of corrosion testing. Underdeposit corrosion testing is presented as a case to illustrate challenges in simulating localized corrosion processes and mechanisms. Experiment data have been presented to show potential difficulties of the artificial pit electrode method in evaluating underdeposit corrosion and its inhibitors. The wire beam electrode method has been used to study underdeposit corrosion with and without inhibitor present. Several interesting corrosion mechanisms have been revealed at different stages of underdeposit corrosion processes.

SME myths: if we put up a website customers will come to us-why usability is important

Many businesses use their Websites primarily as an alternative marketing strategy. How a business’s image, via a Website, is presented to potential customers is therefore important. There are many factors that will influence the effectiveness of a Website, two critical factors are how easily users are able to navigate and how easy the site is to use. The research reported here examined these two factors on users’ responses to small and medium-sized business Websites. The research found that the quality of navigation and how easy a site is to use does have an impact, how much information is read, the importance of the graphical components, a user's emotional response to a Website, users’ frustration and the user’s intention to return to that Website. The research established the statistically significant elements that contribute to navigation and ease-of-use, and describes the design and successful application of a usability evaluation instrument.

Use of renewable building materials in residential construction : a review

The development of mass-produced environmentally-benign housing is one of the critical factors in the transition to global sustainability. Such housing will need to be constructed from renewable and/or recycled materials, be conditioned using minimal or no non—renewable energy, and be affordable. The universal need for such built environment resource stewardship is urgent. In developing countries, the requirement is to shelter growing populations, and in industrialised countries, there is a need for an alternative to the current resource and nergy-intensive material usage in housing. While there are some good surveys of building materials made from renewable resources, such as the BEDP Environment Design Guide Pro 11 by Gelder (2002), there does not appear to be a comprehensive database of these materials linked to abundant and reliable supply. This paper reviews the current availability and potential usage of renewable materials applicable to Australian mainstream residential construction. It concludes that the current state of publicly available information is dispersed and embedded in multiple sources with variance in detail, incomplete access and uncertain comparison across the sources.