Factors influencing Australian SMEs knowledge sharing online

The Web offers a powerful tool for knowledge-sharing among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Such online initiatives have, however, frequently been unsuccessful. This paper examines factors motivating SMEs to share knowledge online. It reports data from a telephone survey of 192 SME members of two successful regional business networks comprising members from diverse industries. Although the majority of SMEs actively used the Web in their daily business operations and most were willing to share knowledge face-to-face, this did not translate into willingness to share online. The most significant factors affecting the willingness to share knowledge online were the how many of networks SMEs were involved in, the number of years an SME had been in business, the geographical scope of their operations, and intensity of their use of the web. These findings challenge the commonly-held view that SMEs will automatically share online if the infrastructure is provided.

Regional differences in business start-up rates in Australia : implications for future research and public policy

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project in Australia provided both data and theoretical framework for this investigation of regional differences in entrepreneurial activity within Australia and the factors that might underlie such differences.

This study found that entrepreneurial activity as measured by participation in business start-ups varied significantly between 11 defined regions of Australia. Factors found to be associated with high start-up activity were personal acquaintance with someone who had recently started a business (strong and statistically significant) and the perception of good opportunities for starting a business locally (indicative only). Participation rate by age range across region varied widely. Sample size precluded more in-depth analysis.

The study indicates a need for a research program designed to produce data and analysis that might be constructively shared by those who wish to foster entrepreneurship in Australia.

Providing legal services to rural and regional small business : gaps and opportunities

This article examines the findings from a survey of 207 regional small businesses and 68 regional lawyers that explored the small business experience of accessing legal services in rural and regional Victoria. In particular, it considers small business expectations of local legal practices, their degree of satisfaction with existing legal services and identifies current and potential demand and supply gaps. By doing so it seeks to determine potential areas in which regional law firms can improve, expand and refine their services in response to the current and emerging demands on them and the communities they serve.

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.

Virtual communities of practice for regional small businesses: bringing informal networks online

Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) are online business networks which are increasingly used by large organisations as a key strategy for creating value in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st Century.This paper examines the applicability of VCoPs to cross-industry regionally clustered small business networks. Interviews conducted with government and industry informants in two regional areas of Australia indicate that these strategies used for establishing VCoPs are applicable to such small business networks. Both regions had regional networks with active member involvement displaying CoP characteristics. Significant social capital existed on which VCoPs could be built, and there were viable alternatives to satisfy the roles of sponsors and leaders. There were, however, significant impediments that will have to be addressed before VCoPs can be  implemented such as the apparent reluctance of many SME owners to use the Internet and ICT generally, and the preference for informal networking. Funding to ensure that VCoPs are sustainable was also an issue. VCoPs appear to be extremely useful in linking small businesses in regional areas and in the development of viable regional clusters.

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.

G21 healthy region project part 1 : business plan

Executive Summary
Background
G21 Geelong Region Alliance (G21), through the partnership activities of the
G21 Health & Wellbeing Pillar, seeks to position health and wellbeing as a
central element to all regional planning processes and outcomes. As a result, G21 wanted to explore the potential application of the World Health
Organisation’s (WHO) ‘Healthy Cities’ approach across the region to provide a comprehensive framework and set of principles to inform future planning and decision-making.
With this aim, G21 commissioned Deakin University to undertake a 6-month
independent research project. The research project involved two stages:
Part 1: A Healthy Region Research Report involved scoping and determining:
- The suitability of the World Health Organisations (WHO) ‘Healthy Cities’
approach to the G21 region; and
- The capacity of G21 Geelong Region Alliance to be the organisation to
facilitate this approach across the region.

Global and regional dispersion of publishing in the field of international marketing

This paper empirically examines the research productivity of academic institutions in the leading international marketing journals, leading generalist marketing journals, and leading international business journals between the years 1999 and 2003 from a regional and country-specific perspective. The research found that across the three groups of journals, the majority of works were authored by academics at institutions located in North America, although North Americans contribute significantly less in the international marketing and international business journals than leading generalist marketing journals. The findings suggest that there is a broadening of non-U.S. influence within the international marketing and international business journals, which should lead to a broadening of international marketing theory.

Socio-technical factors influencing channel use for knowledge-sharing in regional SME networks

The economic sustainability of regional areas is dependent on cross-industry innovation and knowledge-sharing among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The web-based initiatives deployed in regions worldwide to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing have typically been unsuccessful. This paper argues that the main reason for these failures is the lack of understanding of the socio-technical factors which influence the use of web-based channels (websites, online forums and expertise databases) as well as the more conventional channels (face-to-face and e-mail). This paper reports the findings of interpretive case studies of two regional SME business networks. It evaluates the major channels on six socio-technical criteria: link strength; trustworthiness; tacitness; usability; durability and currency. None of the channels were strong against all socio-technical factors. This highlights the importance of achieving an appropriate mix of channels to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing.

Regional-scale models for relating land cover to basin surface-water quality using remotely sensed data in a GIS

Plant-based management systems implementing deep-rooted, perennial vegetation have been identified as important in mitigating the spread of secondary dryland salinity due to its capacity to influence water table depth. The Glenelg Hopkins catchment is a highly modified watershed in the southwest region of Victoria, where dryland salinity management has been identified as a priority. Empirical relationships between the proportion of native vegetation and in-stream salinity were examined in the Glenelg Hopkins catchment using a linear regression approach. Whilst investigations of these relationships are not unique, this is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a link between land use and in-stream salinity in the study area. The results indicate that higher percentage land cover with native vegetation was negatively correlated with elevated in-stream salinity. This inverse correlation was consistent across the 3 years examined (1980, 1995, and 2002). Recognising the potential for erroneously inferring causal relationships, the methodology outlined here was both a time and cost-effective tool to inform management strategies at a regional scale, particularly in areas where processes may be operating at scales not easily addressed with on-site studies.

Communities of enterprise : developing regional SMEs in the knowledge economy

Purpose – This paper proposes the concepts of Communities of Enterprise (CoEs) and Virtual Communities of Enterprise (VCoEs) to describe business networking patterns in regional areas where there is no central organisational or industry focus and small and medium enterprises dominate the economy. Design/methodology/approach – Based on analysis of the literature this paper builds on theoretical understandings of knowledge management, clustering and regional development.
Findings – The concept of CoEs is most appropriate for regional areas characterised by many small enterprises in diverse industries. CoEs enhance development of regional clusters by contributing to their intellectual capital, innovation culture, value networks and social capital. The incorporation of ICT creates VCoEs which provide added potential by enabling regions to expand their learning potential through innovation.
Research limitations/implications – This paper provides a conceptual foundation for empirical research into regional network or cluster development using ICT.
Practical implications – Virtual Communities of Enterprise value creation potential is substantial but only when the socioeconomic elements of regional clusters are understood. The VCoE approach addresses the fact that without an industry focus it can be difficult to engage and link SMEs from different industries, although this is where the greatest potential
for value creation in regional clusters is to be found.
Originality/value – The Virtual Communities of Enterprise (VCoEs) concept specifically addresses the unique requirements of SMEs in regions. It has the potential to provide value for regions in a way few ICT based regional development initiatives have been able to achieve.

Is there global inclusion of authors in the five leading advertising journals? A regional comparison 1998-2007

A question that has been raised in academia has to do with whether there is global inclusion of authors in publishing. While this issue has been explored in some areas in business and marketing it has generally not been investigated across 30 years of advertising research activity. This paper seeks to examine the global inclusion of authors in five advertising-focused journals. We found that, while there appears to be an increase in international publishing activity in advertising compared to data extrapolated from past studies, published advertising research still reveals a North American bias/domination. A failure to be globally inclusive may lead to an under-exploration of academic issues and perspectives, as important 'non-US' issues could possibly be ignored.

History of the Geelong Regional Commission

This thesis is the first systematic history of the Geelong Regional Commission (GRC), and only the second history of a regional development organisation formed as a result of the growth centres policy of the Commonwealth Labor Government in the first half of the 1970s. In particular, the thesis examines the historical performance of the GRC from the time of its establishment in August 1977 to its abolition in May 1993. The GRC Commissioners were subject to ongoing criticism by some elements of the region's political, business, rural and local government sectors. This criticism focused on the Commissioners' policies on land-use planning, their interventionist stance on industrial land development, major projects and industry protection and their activities in revitalising the Geelong central business district. This thesis examines these criticisms in the light of the Commission's overall performance. This thesis found that, as a statutory authority of the Victorian Government, the GRC was successful over its lifetime, when measured against the requirements of the Geelong Regional Commission Act, the Commission's corporate planning objectives and performance indicators, the corporate performance standards of private enterprise in the late 1990s, and the performance indicator standards of today's regional economic development organisations in the United States of America, parts of the United Kingdom and Australia. With the change of Government in Victoria in October 1992 came a new approach to regional development. The new Government enacted legislation to amalgamate six of the nine local government councils of the Geelong region and returned regional planning responsibilities to the newly formed City of Greater Geelong Council. The new Government also made economic development a major objective of local government. As a result, the raison d'etre for the GRC came to an end and the organisation was abolished.