The Current State of BPM Education in Australia : Teaching and Research Challenges

As business processes, services and relationships, are now recognized as key organizational assets, the demand for the so-called boundaryspanning roles and process-aware professionals is continuing to grow. The world-wide demand for these roles will continue to increase, fueled by the unprecedented interest in Business Process Management (BPM) and the other emerging cross-functional disciplines. This, in turn, creates new opportunities, as well as some unforeseeable challenges for BPM education, both in university and industry. This paper reports on an analysis of the current BPM offerings of Australian universities. It presents a critical review of what is taught and how it is taught, and identifies a series of gaps and concerns. Explanations and recommendations are proposed and a call made for BPM educators worldwide, for urgent action.

Social engineering in social networking sites : phase-based and source-based models

Social networking sites (SNSs), with their large numbers of users and large information base, seem to be perfect breeding grounds for exploiting the vulnerabilities of people, the weakest link in security. Deceiving, persuading, or influencing people to provide information or to perform an action that will benefit the attacker is known as “social engineering.” While technology-based security has been addressed by research and may be well understood, social engineering is more challenging to understand and manage, especially in new environments such as SNSs, owing to some factors of SNSs that reduce the ability of users to detect the attack and increase the ability of attackers to launch it. This work will contribute to the knowledge of social engineering by presenting the first two conceptual models of social engineering attacks in SNSs. Phase-based and source-based models are presented, along with an intensive and comprehensive overview of different aspects of social engineering threats in SNSs.

Export readiness index : construction and analysis

The internationalisation process of firms has attracted much research interest since the 1970s. It is noted, however, that a significant research gap exists in studies with a primary focus on the pre-internationalisation behaviour of firms. This paper proposes the incorporation of a pre-internationalisation phase into the traditional Uppsala model of firm internationalisation to address the issue of export readiness. Through extensive literature review, the concepts fundamental to the ability of an Uppsala type firm to begin internationalisation through an export entry mode are identified: exposure to stimuli factors, attitudinal commitment of decision makers towards exporting, the firm’s resource capabilities, as well as the moderating effect of lateral rigidity. The concept of export readiness is operationalised in this study through the construction of an export readiness index (ERI) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The index is then applied to some representative cases and tested using logistic regression to establish its validity as a diagnostic tool. The proposed ERI presents not only a more practical approach towards analysing firms’ export readiness but has also major public policy implications as a possible tool for government export promotion agencies.

The value of political connections : evidence from Korean chaebols

This thesis examines the value of political connections for business groups by constructing a unique dataset that allows us to identify the form and extent of the connections. Results show firms' membership to family-controlled business groups (South Korean chaebol) play a key role in determining the value of political connections. Politically connected chaebol firms experience substantial price increases following the establishment of the connection than other firms, but the reverse is found for other (non-family-controlled) connected business groups.

The role of the market sub-system and the socio-technical sub-system in innovation and firm performance : a dynamic capabilities approach

Organizational learning has been studied as a key factor in firm performance and internationalization. Moving beyond the past emphasis on market learning, we develop a more complete explanation of learning, its relationship to innovation, and their joint effect on early internationalization. We theorize that, driven by the founders’ international vision, early internationalizing firms employ a dual subsystem of dynamic capabilities: a market subsystem consisting of market-focused learning capability and marketing capability, and a socio-technical subsystem comprised of network learning capability and internally focused learning capability. We argue that innovation mediates the proposed relationship between the dynamic capability structure and early internationalization. We conduct case studies to develop the conceptual framework and test it in a field survey of early internationalizing firms from Australia and the United States. Our findings indicate a complex interplay of capabilities driving innovation and early internationalization. We provide theoretical and practical implications and offer insights for future research.

Dimensions of business processes quality (QoBP)

Conceptual modeling is an important tool for understanding and revealing weaknesses of business processes. Yet, the current practice in reengineering projects often considers simply the as-is process model as a brain-storming tool. This approach heavily relies on the intuition of the participants and misses a clear description of the quality requirements. Against this background, we identify four generic quality categories of business process quality, and populate them with quality requirements from related research. We refer to the resulting framework as the Quality of Business Process (QoBP) framework. Furthermore, we present the findings from applying the QoBP framework in a case study with a major Australian bank, showing that it helps to systematically fill the white space between as-is and to-be process modeling.

Beyond tasks and gateways: discovering BPMN models with subprocesses, boundary events and activity markers

Existing techniques for automated discovery of process models from event logs largely focus on extracting flat process models. In other words, they fail to exploit the notion of subprocess, as well as structured error handling and repetition constructs provided by contemporary process modeling notations, such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). This paper presents a technique for automated discovery of BPMN models containing subprocesses, interrupting and non-interrupting boundary events, and loop and multi-instance markers. The technique analyzes dependencies between data attributes associated with events, in order to identify subprocesses and to extract their associated logs. Parent process and subprocess models are then discovered separately using existing techniques for flat process model discovery. Finally, the resulting models and logs are heuristically analyzed in order to identify boundary events and markers. A validation with one synthetic and two real-life logs shows that process models derived using the proposed technique are more accurate and less complex than those derived with flat process model discovery techniques.

Applying Enterprise Architecture to Business Networks

Globalization, financial deregulation, economic turmoil, and technology breakthroughs are profoundly exposing organizations to business networks. Engaging these networks requires explicit planning from the strategic level down to the operational level of an organization, which significantly affects organizational artefacts such as business services, processes, and resources. Although enterprise architecture (EA) aligns business and IT aspects of organizational systems, previous applications of EA have not comprehensively addressed a methodological framework for planning. In the context of business networks, this study seeks to explore the application of EA for business network planning where it builds upon relevant and well-established prescriptive and descriptive aspects of EA. Prescriptive aspects include integrated models of services, business processes, and resources among other organizational artefacts, at both business and IT levels. Descriptive aspects include ontological classifications of business functionality, which allow EA models to be aligned semantically to organizational artefacts and, ultimately higher-level business strategy. A prominent approach for capturing descriptive aspects of EA is business capability modelling. In order to explore and develop the illustrative extensions of EA through capability modelling, a list of requirements (capability dimensions) for business network planning will be identified and validated through a revelatory case study encompassing different business network manifestations, or situations. These include virtual organization, liquid workforce, business network orchestration, and headquarters-subsidiary. The use of artefacts, conventionally, modelled through EA will be considered in these network situations. Two general considerations for EA extensions are explored for the identified requirements at the level of the network: extension of artefacts through the network and alignment of network level artefacts with individual organization artefacts. The list of requirements provides the basis for a constructivist extension of EA in the following ways. Firstly, for descriptive aspects, it offers constructivist insights to guide extensions for particular EA techniques and concepts. Secondly, for prescriptive aspects it defines a set of capability dimensions, which improve the analysis and assessment of organization capabilities for business network situations.

International virtual networking capabilities and firm performance: A study of international entrepreneurial Australian SMEs

The Internet is a critical resource for a new generation of small and medium sized enterprise. Specifically, the Internet is important for small entrepreneurial firms in pursuing international opportunities through increased digital integration. As such, the Internet has been identified as a key enabler of international entrepreneurship (Reuber & Fischer, 2011). By facilitating international business for many entrepreneurial SMEs, the Internet has the ability to increase the quality and speed of communications, lower transaction costs, and facilitate the development of international networks. Although the Internet has been found to play a pivotal role in the creation of international relationships and is a mechanism for the creation of international growth opportunities in SMEs (Mathews & Healy, 2008), the role of the international entrepreneurial decision-maker in the development of international virtual networks for leveraging opportunities in internationalisation remains unclear. The findings of this research indicate that developing an ‘international virtual network capability’ forms an important part of the firm’s resource and more specifically dynamic capability base, which is just one component of a firm’s resource bundle that builds towards successful internationalisation via an Internet platform.

On governance structures for the cloud computing services and assessing their effectiveness

This research suggests information technology (IT) governance structures to manage the cloud computing services. The interest in acquiring IT resources as a utility from the cloud computing environment is gaining momentum. The cloud computing services present organizations with opportunities to manage their IT expenditure on an ongoing basis, and access to modern IT resources to innovate and manage their continuity. However, the cloud computing services are no silver bullet. Organizations would need to have appropriate governance structures and policies in place to manage the cloud computing services. The subsequent decisions from these governance structures will ensure the effective management of the cloud computing services. This management will facilitate a better fit of the cloud computing services into organizations’ existing processes to achieve the business (process-level) and the financial (firm-level) objectives. Using a triangulation approach, we suggest four governance structures for managing the cloud computing services. These structures are a chief cloud officer, a cloud management committee, a cloud service facilitation centre, and a cloud relationship centre. We also propose that these governance structures would relate directly to organizations cloud computing services-related business objectives, and indirectly to cloud computing services-related financial objectives. Perceptive field survey data from actual and prospective cloud computing service adopters suggest that the suggested governance structures would contribute directly to cloud computing-related business objectives and indirectly to cloud computing-related financial objectives.

Economic development and construction productivity in Malaysia

The productivity of the construction industry has a significant effect on national economic growth. Gains from higher construction productivity flow through the economy, as all industries rely on construction to some extent as part of their business investment. Contractions and expansions of economic activity are common phenomena in an economy. Three construction cycles occurred between the years 1970 and 2011 in Malaysia. The relationships between construction productivity and economic development are examined by the partial correlation method to establish the underlying factors driving the change in construction productivity. Construction productivity is statistically significantly correlated with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in a positive direction for the 1985–98 and 1998–2009 cycles, but not the 1970–85 cycle. Fluctuations in construction activities and the influx of foreign workers underlie the changes of construction productivity in the 1985–98 cycle. There was less fluctuation in construction activities in the 1998–2009 cycle, with changes being mainly due to the fiscal stimulation policies of the government in attempting to stabilize the economy. The intensive construction of mega-projects resulted in resource constraints and cost pressures during the 1980s and 1990s. A better management of the ‘boom-bust’ nature of the construction business cycle is required to maintain the capability and capacity of the industry.

Internet marketing and export market growth in Chile

Previous studies show that the Internet positively influences firms’ export activities from developed markets. However, the literature is vague as to whether the Internet has an impact on the export performance of firms from emerging markets. This study tests a conceptual model that includes the effect of Internet marketing capabilities on export market growth in an emerging market. Drawing on a cross-national sample of 204 export firms from a Latin American country (Chile), findings indicate that Internet marketing capabilities positively influence the availability of export information, which in turn impacts the development of business network relationships and export market growth.

Exploring the impact of shared domain knowledge on strategic alignment in the Australian public sector

In this age of ever-increasing information technology (IT) driven environments, governments/or public sector organisations (PSOs) are expected to demonstrate the business value of the investment in IT and take advantage of the opportunities offered by technological advancements. Strategic alignment (SA) emerged as a mechanism to bridge the gap between business and IT missions, objectives, and plans in order to ensure value optimisation from investment in IT and enhance organisational performance. However, achieving and sustaining SA remains a challenge requiring even more agility nowadays to keep up with turbulent organisational environments. The shared domain knowledge (SDK) between the IT department and other diverse organisational groups is considered as one of the factors influencing the successful implementation of SA. However, SDK in PSOs has received relatively little empirical attention. This paper presents findings from a study which investigated the influence of SDK on SA within organisations in the Australian public sector. The developed research model examined the relationship of SDK between business and IT domains with SA using a survey of 56 public sector professionals and executives. A key research contribution is the empirical demonstration that increasing levels of SDK between IT and business groups leads to increased SA.

Get a life? The impact of the European working time directive : the case of UK senior doctors

This paper seeks to identify the effect of the implementation of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) on the working hours of UK doctors. The Labour Force Survey is used to compare the working hours of doctors with a variety of control groups before and after the implementation of the directive. The controls include those unconstrained by the directive and doctor counterparts working in Europe. We use differences-in-differences and matching methods to estimate the impact of this natural experiment, distinguishing between the anticipation and enactment of the EWTD. We find that the legislation reduced the hours of senior doctors by around 8 hours in total including the component attributable to anticipation effects and allowing for (exogenously set) rising wages.

Dismantling worker categories: the primary duty of care, and worker consultation, participation and representation, in the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009

Late in 2009, the Australian Workplace Relations Ministers' Council endorsed the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009, which is to be adopted by all Australian governments (federal, state and territory) from 01 January 2012. This paper describes and analyses two key sets of provisions in this model legislation. The first establishes a 'primary' duty of care imposed not on 'employers' but on persons conducting a business or undertaking, and owed to all kinds of workers engaged, directed or influenced by the person conducting the business or undertaking. The second encompasses broad duties on all persons conducting a business or undertaking to consult with workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking and who are directly affected by a work health and safety issue, and to facilitate the election of health and safety representatives representing all workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking. These provisions arguably make a significant contribution to solving a problem faced by occupational safety and health regulators around the world – modifying regulation to accommodate all forms of precarious work.