Measuring impacts of an holistic farm business management training program

A case study approach within an action research framework incorporating qualitative and quantitative domains was adopted to explore the impact on Queensland farmers of a farm business management extension programme. Three new indices were developed to quantify changes perceived by participants. The first measure, the Bennett Change Index, provided statistically significant evidence that attitudinal and behavioural changes were more frequent in participants with less formal education, but also more frequent in participants who had high urbanisation and self-directed learning index scores. The other 2 new indices, Management Constructs Change and Management Objectives Change, provided evidence of statistically significant changes in participant beliefs about, and attitudes towards, farm business management. Although highly correlated with each other, these changes were unrelated statistically to any of 6 other commonly used biographical or psychometric indices employed; including level of formal education. It is concluded that these new measures, with context-relevant modifications, have potential as aids to programme impact evaluation in a range of agricultural and wider applications. They may provide insights into personal psychological issues that complement direct behavioural measures of change.

Undergraduate performance in accounting and business-based information technology

The pervasiveness of information systems (IS) in organizations mandates the need for high levels of IS skills. In recognition, professional bodies impose IS course requirements for accreditation. For both students and employers, performance in IS courses has become important. The tertiary entrance overall performance score accounted for 19.7 per cent of the variance in students' passing grades. Thereafter, proficiency in office automation software and programming accounted for 1.5 and 0.8 per cent of the variance, respectively. Students living in a stable, family home-based environment performed better and it is likely that this environment underpinned other factors affecting performance.

Business communication in interactions between mainland Chinese and western firms through Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries

Purpose-The paper aims to analyse the nature of business communication and its influence on relationships development between Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries sourcing from Mainland Chinese sellers involved in manufacturing for sale to Western buyer firms. Design/methodology/approach-A case study-driven methodology with purposeful sampling is applied to yield maximum variation in the sampling to elicit underlying tendencies and generative mechanisms that exist within and across the multiple cases of relationships. Findings-The paper finds that Mainland Chinese sellers and Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries tend not to have the close ties that might be expected. Mainland Chinese sellers constrained their use of social information, requiring Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries to use commercial information transfers to evaluate the trustworthiness of their Mainland Chinese partners. An ingroup/outgroup bias exacerbates the modesty bias of the Mainland Chinese and also hinders learning through the transfer of technical information within these Chinese interactions. On the other hand, Western buyers tend not to prefer social information interactions with their Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries, requiring these intermediaries to emphasise commercial information interactions to evaluate the trustworthiness of their Western buyers. Research limitations/implications-This research uses a restricted sample of case study respondents. Representative sampling across multiple contexts will assist in testing the generality of the findings. Practical implications-For the West to source increasingly attractive manufactures from Mainland China, Hong Kong intermediaries will remain fundamentally important even though this creates further interactions. The aggregate of these multiple exchange arrangements is less problematic than would be the case if Western business were to deal directly with the Mainland Chinese. Originality/value-This article sheds light on the nature of business communication interactions in a group of relationships between Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries and Mainland sellers, and buyers from the West. Implications for relationships development among the Chinese and Western actors are identified with propositions framed to guide further investigation.

Postcolonialism and the politics of qualitative research in international business

This paper offers a re-configuration of international business research by subjecting it to a postcolonial critique. This critique sees international business research as exhibiting continuities with the colonial project in the way it appropriates the Other. Qualitative research in international business often reproduces a neopositivist separation of theory and method, which can marginalize discussion of the important ontological, epistemological and political issues inherent in any research process

The risky business of doctoral management

Universities are under no less pressure to adopt risk management strategies than other public and private organisations. The risk management of doctoral education is a particularly important issue given that a doctorate is the highest academic qualification a university offers and stakes are high in terms of assuring its quality. However, intense risk management can interfere with the intellectual and pedagogical work which are essentially part of doctoral education. This paper seeks to understand how the culture of risk meets the culture of doctoral education and with what effect. The authors draw on sociological understandings of risk in the work of Anthony Giddens (2002) and Ulrich Beck (1992), the anthropological focus on liminality in the work of Mary Douglas (1990), and the psychological theorising of human error in the work of James Reason (1990). The paper concludes that risk consciousness brings its own risks—in particular, the potential transformation of a culture based on intellect into a culture based on compliance.

Levinasian ethics and the representation of the other in international and cross-cultural management

In this paper, we seek to further the discussion, problematization and critique of west/east identity relations in ICM studies by considering the ethics of the relationship – an issue never far beneath the surface in discussions of Orientalism. In particular we seek to both examine and question the ethics of representation in relation to a critique of what has come to be known as international and cross-cultural management (ICM). To pursue such a discussion, we draw specifically on the ethical elaborations of Emmanuel Levinas as well as his chief interlocutors Jacques Derrida and Zygmunt Bauman. The value of this discussion, we propose, is that Levinas offers a philosophy that holds as its central concept the relationship between the self and Other as the primary ethical and pre-ontological relation. Levinas’ philosophy provides a means of extending the post-colonial critique of ICM, and ICM provides a context in which the Levinasian ethics can be brought to bear on a significant issue on contemporary business and management.

Comparing the conditions for small business and entrepreneurship in Sweden and Australia: Lessons for the European Charter for Small Enterprises

A growing body of literature is concerned with explaining cross-national performance of small business and entrepreneurs in advanced economies. This literature has considered a range of policy and institutional variables which create an environment supportive of small firms and entrepreneurial activities including macroeconomic variables such as taxation, labour market regulation, social security and income policy; regulatory factors such as establishment legislation, bankruptcy policy, administrative burdens, compliance costs, deregulation and competition policy; and cultural factors such as social and cultural norms that support entrepreneurship. However, this literature has not always distinguished between the policy environment of small firms operating in different industry sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional and policy environment of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors. The characteristics of the business environment of particular relevance to knowledge intensive firms are somewhat different from the conditions for entrepreneurship and small business success more generally. This paper compares the science, technology and industry infrastructure of Australia, Denmark, Sweden with other OECD countries. The purpose of the paper is to identify cross-national differences in the business environment of small knowledge intensive firms. The paper seeks to explore whether particular institutional environments appear to be more supportive of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors.