Inquiry into broadcasting, online content and live production to rural and regional Australia : submission 19. Deakin University submission to Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts

Deakin University's submission to the inquiry into 'Bringing the arts, news and other services to rural and regional Australia' by the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts of the Parliament of Australia. The submission was one of fifty-five submissions and twelve supplementary submissions presented to the committee. The article contributed to the final report 'Arts and the news to rural and regional Australia: inquiry into broadcasting, online content and live production to rural and regional Australia’ published by The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The importance of audit committees in initial public offerings

This paper follows Balvers, McDonald and Miller (1988), and Beatty (1989), who find lower underpricing in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) when prestigious auditors are used to attest to the IPO's financial statements. Australian IPOs are not obliged to nominate audit firms in the prospectus, but often identify that they will have audit committees so as to assist in more appropriate corporate governance. This paper analyzes if IPOs identifying the existence of audit committees in the prospectus have a lower underpricing return. While our findings are consistent with previous studies concluding that both the size of the new issue and the use of an underwriter are important ingredients in the level of underpricing return, the inclusion of an audit committee in the prospectuses has actually increased underpricing returns. The capital market may view the audit committee identification with some skepticism.

Towards manadatory shareholder committees in Australian companies

A common objective in recent Australian and international corporate governance reform programs is the enhancement of shareholder participation. Active shareholder involvement brings account- ability to the board and management, and is appropriate considering that shareholders are the ultimate owners of the company. Curiously, however, while shareholder participation and representation has become a priority in the contemporary corporate governance arena, the bulk of recent governance reform initiatives operate on the assumption that there is a clear separation of the board and management from the general body of shareholders, and that this is necessary to achieve optimal performance. The requirement that directors be 'independent' of the company and its shareholders is a prime example. In this article, the authors propose the establishment of a mandatory shareholder committee in Australian companies as a way of enhancing shareholder participation and representation.]

Standing on the shoulders of giants : Are ERP success factors relevant for EDRMS implementation?

Records management has been a central concern for organisations in both private and public sectors since the beginning of the 21st century. This new focus is due both to the introduction of laws, regulations and standards affecting corporate information management; and to the way records are changing from paper-based to “born-digital” and “made-digital”. The need for an effective automated system to manage records is now greater than ever, with Electronic Document and Records Management Systems (EDRMS) being the most likely solution. Despite their increasing popularity, however, successful uptake of such systems is not yet widespread and research into their implementation is still limited. This paper investigates the possibility of applying existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) models to EDRMS by analysing the substantial body of literature on success factors for ERP implementation, both qualitatively and quantitatively; and then comparing these with the still relatively limited literature on EDRMS.

The existence and nature of risk management committees in Australian companies

A risk management committee (RMC), as a newly evolving sub-committee of the board of directors, functions as a key governance support mechanism in the oversight an organisation’s risk management strategies, policies and processes. However, empirical evidence on the factors associated with the existence and the type of RMCs remains scant. Using an agency theory perspective, this study investigates the association between board factors such as proportion of non-executive directors, CEO duality, and board size; as well as, other firm-related factors (e.g. auditor type, industry, leverage, and complexity), and (1) the existence of a RMC, and (2) the type of RMC (namely, a separate RMC versus one that is combined with the audit committee). Data was collected from the annual reports of the top 300 ASX-listed companies. The results, based on logistic regression analyses, indicate that RMCs tend to exist in companies with an independent board chairman and larger boards. Further, the results also indicate that in comparison to companies with a combined RMC and audit committee, those with a separate RMC are more likely to have larger boards, higher financial reporting risk and lower organisational complexity. The findings of this study provide additional information on the use and design of RMCs in a voluntary setting.