Tennis Australia : a case study of financial management for sport development at the club level

There has been substantial work that examines financial management in professional sport which has assisted scholars and practitioners to better understand processes and policies to ensure teams and leagues are sustainable (Andreff & Staudohar, 2000; Howard & Crompton, 2004; Kraekel, 2007; Lewis, Sexton, & Lock, 2007; Li, Hofacre, & Mahony, 2001). However, there has been a paucity of scholarly research that examines financial management at the grass roots levels of sport, and how this integrates with national sport organisation strategic planning, with the exception of the recent work by Havaris and Danylchuk (2007). This study aims to add to this gap in knowledge by examining financial management at the club level of tennis in Australia.

Assessing financial competence

Some people have cognitive impairments that may reduce their capacity to manage their own financial affairs. The legal decision to limit a person's right to manage his or her own finances depends, in part, on an assessment of financial competence. Currently, tribunals and courts may receive information from a variety of different sources (e.g., family members, general practitioner, psychologist, social worker etc.) and have to reconcile this information in order to make guardianship decisions. The first aim of this article is to critique contemporary methods, procedures and practices for assessing financial competence. The second aim is to suggest a standard assessment framework that could be employed by tribunals and courts to help them evaluate the status of a person's financial competence.

The role of accounting in building financial capacity of Indigenous Australians.

 This study investigated the empowering and/or disempowering role that accounting can play in the building of financial capacity of Indigenous Australians.

Securing institutional legitimacy or organizational effectiveness?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of a major initiative (the National Competition Policy) and pieces of legislation (the Local Government Act and the Local Government Finance Standards) on the internal practices of a large Australian local authority.

Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework is developed using new public management (NPM) and neo-institutional theory literatures to explain the findings. A case study approach was applied to collect the data for the research.

Findings: The findings reveal that the National Competition Policy 1993, the Local Government Act 1993 and the Local Government Finance Standards 1994 mainly have brought about significant changes to the organisation's internal management control processes, such as financial reporting, budgeting and performance appraisal. The changes brought in appeared to be coincidentally similar to NPM ideals. Furthermore, senior managers (such as the chief executive and divisional heads) played a major role in implementing new accounting technologies (activity-based costing and the balanced scorecard type performance measurement system).

Research limitations/implications: Future research on public sector financial management from the outset of organisational contexts could considerably further the stock of knowledge in this area, especially given the rapid changes occurring within the public sector throughout the world. Future research may wish to extend this study by assessing how external legitimating functions become internal reality, the perceptions of reality of the organisational members, and how these perceptions change over time.

Practical implications: The findings reported provide evidence to further our understanding of how the introduction of private sector styles of organisational practices into large areas of the public sector brought about significant changes in the demand for “new” financial management practices.

Originality/value: The findings reported on in this paper will open a new path of research that may increase our understanding about the factors that play a role in the design of management and accounting systems in a public sector context. Further, they will help policy makers and public sector managers in their day-to-day decision-making.

Organisation change and its impact on Australian Building Societies' performance

The paper examines the relation between changing ownership structure and performance of Australian building societies. An analysis and discussion of the theories of organizational development and change is undertaken to explore the mutual building societies' motivation for change. The financial performance measures, provided by financial ratios of the major mutual building societies in Australia, are examined to assess the behaviour of building societies under different governance structures in the 1980s and 1990s. The theoretical and empirical literature has suggested that mutual deposit-taking institutions should have lov^^er profitability and higher operating expenses than their publicly listed counterparts. Accounting ratios are observed over time to investigate if governance change in mutual deposit-taking organizations accounted for any discernable differences in profitability and cost efficiency pre- and post- demutualization. The study finds support for the contention that demutualized building societies will have higher profitability and lower costs than their mutual counterparts. The study is confined to investigation of the six largest building societies that undertook the demutualization process. It could he extended to the entire building society sector. The results have implications for investors, managers and 'ovraers' of firms that retain their mutual structure, suggesting the demutualization vnû benefit these groups. There is no study that compares mutual deposit-taking institutions pre- and post-conversion in Australia.

Listed property trusts and downside systematic risk sensitivity

Purpose: This paper aims to identify and examine the determinants of downside systematic risk in Australian listed property trusts (LPTs).

Design/methodology/approach: Capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and lower partial moment-CAPM (LPM-CAPM) are employed to compute both systematic risk and downside systematic risk. The methodology of Patel and Olsen and Chaudhry et al. is adopted to examine the determinants of systematic risk and downside systematic risk.

Findings: The results confirm that systematic risk and downside systematic risk can be individually identified. There is little evidence to support the existence of linkages between systematic risk in Australian LPTs and financial/management structure determinants. On the other hand, downside systematic risk is directly related to the leverage/management structure of a LPT. The results are also robust after controlling for the LPTs' investment characteristics and varying target rates of return.

Practical implications: Investors and real estate analysts should conscious with the higher returns from high leverage and internally managed LPTs. Although there is no evidence that these higher returns are related to higher systematic risk, there could be the compensation for higher downside systematic risk.

Originality/value: This study provides invaluable insights into the management of real estate risk in Australian LPTs with implications for REITs in other countries. Unlike previous studies of systematic risk in REITs or LPTs, this is the first study to assess downside systematic risk and explore the determinants of downside systematic risk in LPTs.

Dancing on a moving floor : lay women and the principalship in Catholic education

Female disadvantage has been the explanation given in previous studies to explain the under-representation of laywomen who achieve principalships in Catholic Education. Women, themselves, have overcome many of the barriers that disadvantage them. These include an apparent inability to cope with financial management and time constraints due to family commitments. The introduction of Equal Opportunity legislation and related programmes has assisted this process, but as my research shows the under-representation of women in principalship in proportion to the numbers of women teachers in Catholic Education still remains. This thesis examines the phenomenon in three dioceses in three Australian states. I have investigated this problem using a feminist research approach which is characterised by an emphasis on the significance of everyday life. Statistical material as to percentages of teachers in comparison with percentages of female principals was collected; dates of formulation and acceptance of relevant policies at diocesan levels were checked and questionnaires compiled. The questionnaires were distributed to appropriate stakeholders. Following the compilation of data from the questionnaires, themes emerged which provided the initial questions for focus groups made up of male and female principals and potential principals. These focus groups were then conducted in all three dioceses. Through all stages I carried out cross-referencing with my own journal sentries (Power, 1993—1999) . The qualitative and quantitative data generated from the focus groups was examined and analysed drawing on feminist concepts. I have found two major features emerging from the materials that I have generated. The first was the unpredictable, ambiguous and often contradictory relations that occur within Catholic Education, and how they were experienced by lay women. This aspect gave rise to the title of my thesis: 'Dancing on a Moving Floor' as many women felt the rules changed the closer they got to achieving principalship. Then both male and female participants highlighted 'male advantage' in terms that have been identified in other education systems, but this factor emerged as being further heightened in Catholic Education and occurring at systemic, organisational and individual levels. I have made a number of policy recommendations that could possibly change attitudes and practices for each of these levels. I conclude with some suggestions for further research.