The role of the board of directors : perceptions of managerial elites

We highlight how directors and senior managers perceive the roles of a board to involve overseeing risk and compliance, strategy, governance, developing the CEO and senior management and managing stakeholders. We find that managers and directors perceive board effectiveness as linked to different combinations of these roles and that there appear to be differences in perceptions between different types of firms. We conclude that clarity around the board’s role set is critical to furthering the corporate governance research agenda, and that the relationship between board roles and perceived board effectiveness differs between managers and directors.

Dynamic analysis of on-board mass data to determine tampering in heavy vehicle on-board mass systems

Transport Certification Australia Limited, jointly with the National Transport Commission, has undertaken a project to investigate the feasibility of on-board mass monitoring (OBM) devices for regulatory purposes. OBM increases jurisdictional confidence in operational heavy vehicle compliance. This paper covers technical issues regarding potential use of dynamic data from OBM systems to indicate that tampering has occurred. Tamper-evidence and accuracy of current OBM systems needed to be determined before any regulatory schemes were put in place for its use. Tests performed to determine potential for, and ease of, tampering. An algorithm was developed to detect tamper events. Its results are detailed.

Static accuracy and precision of heavy vehicle on-board mass systems

Objective • Feasibility programme for on-board mass (OBM) monitoring of heavy vehicles (HVs) • Australian road authorities through Transport Certification Australia (TCA) • Accuracy of contemporary, commercially-available OBM units in Australia • Results need to be addressed/incorporated into specifications for Stage 2 of Intelligent Access Program (IAP) by Transport Certification Australia

Theorizing about board governance of nonprofit organizations : surveying the landscape

Leading scholars on nonprofit governance have urged that future research be more informed by theory in order to promote more rigorous analysis. The aim of this paper is to survey the major theories on board governance, including those based in the disciplines of economics, management, sociology, psychology, politics, history and theology, in order to respond to this challenge. In addition, the relevance of these theories to a critical set of board behaviors - that is, how boards monitor, judge and influence organizational performance - is examined. Gaps in the theoretical literature are identified, and implications for public policy are explored. We conclude that a multi-theory and multi-disciplinary perspective is needed if research on governance of nonprofit organizations is to be complete in scope, rich in content, and relevant.

The impact of brand and product placements in electronic games

In an environment where it has become increasingly difficult to attract consumer attention, marketers have begun to explore alternative forms of marketing communication. One such form that has emerged is product placement, which has more recently appeared in electronic games. Given changes in media consumption and the growth of the games industry, it is not surprising that games are being exploited as a medium for promotional content. Other market developments are also facilitating and encouraging their use, in terms of both the insertion of brand messages into video games and the creation of brand-centred environments, labelled ‘advergames’. However, while there is much speculation concerning the beneficial outcomes for marketers, there remains a lack of academic work in this area and little empirical evidence of the actual effects of this form of promotion on game players. Only a handful of studies are evident in the literature, which have explored the influence of game placements on consumers. The majority have studied their effect on brand awareness, largely demonstrating that players can recall placed brands. Further, most research conducted to date has focused on computer and online games, but consoles represent the dominant platform for play (Taub, 2004). Finally, advergames have largely been neglected, particularly those in a console format. Widening the gap in the literature is the fact that insufficient academic attention has been given to product placement as a marketing communication strategy overall, and to games in general. The unique nature of the strategy also makes it difficult to apply existing literature to this context. To address a significant need for information in both the academic and business domains, the current research investigates the effects of brand and product placements in video games and advergames on consumer attitude to the brand and corporate image. It was conducted in two stages. Stage one represents a pilot study. It explored the effects of use simulated and peripheral placements in video games on players’ and observers’ attitudinal responses, and whether these are influenced by involvement with a product category or skill level in the game. The ability of gamers to recall placed brands was also examined. A laboratory experiment was employed with a small sample of sixty adult subjects drawn from an Australian east-coast university, some of who were exposed to a console video game on a television set. The major finding of study one is that placements in a video game have no effect on gamers’ attitudes, but they are recalled. For stage two of the research, a field experiment was conducted with a large, random sample of 350 student respondents to investigate the effects on players of brand and product placements in handheld video games and advergames. The constructs of brand attitude and corporate image were again tested, along with several potential confounds. Consistent with the pilot, the results demonstrate that product placement in electronic games has no effect on players’ brand attitudes or corporate image, even when allowing for their involvement with the product category, skill level in the game, or skill level in relation to the medium. Age and gender also have no impact. However, the more interactive a player perceives the game to be, the higher their attitude to the placed brand and corporate image of the brand manufacturer. In other words, when controlling for perceived interactivity, players experienced more favourable attitudes, but the effect was so weak it probably lacks practical significance. It is suggested that this result can be explained by the existence of excitation transfer, rather than any processing of placed brands. The current research provides strong, empirical evidence that brand and product placements in games do not produce strong attitudinal responses. It appears that the nature of the game medium, game playing experience and product placement impose constraints on gamer motivation, opportunity and ability to process these messages, thereby precluding their impact on attitude to the brand and corporate image. Since this is the first study to investigate the ability of video game and advergame placements to facilitate these deeper consumer responses, further research across different contexts is warranted. Nevertheless, the findings have important theoretical and managerial implications. This investigation makes a number of valuable contributions. First, it is relevant to current marketing practice and presents findings that can help guide promotional strategy decisions. It also presents a comprehensive review of the games industry and associated activities in the marketplace, relevant for marketing practitioners. Theoretically, it contributes new knowledge concerning product placement, including how it should be defined, its classification within the existing communications framework, its dimensions and effects. This is extended to include brand-centred entertainment. The thesis also presents the most comprehensive analysis available in the literature of how placements appear in games. In the consumer behaviour discipline, the research builds on theory concerning attitude formation, through application of MacInnis and Jaworski’s (1989) Integrative Attitude Formation Model. With regards to the games literature, the thesis provides a structured framework for the comparison of games with different media types; it advances understanding of the game medium, its characteristics and the game playing experience; and provides insight into console and handheld games specifically, as well as interactive environments generally. This study is the first to test the effects of interactivity in a game environment, and presents a modified scale that can be used as part of future research. Methodologically, it addresses the limitations of prior research through execution of a field experiment and observation with a large sample, making this the largest study of product placement in games available in the literature. Finally, the current thesis offers comprehensive recommendations that will provide structure and direction for future study in this important field.

Learning to win process-control games watching game-masters

The present paper focuses on some interesting classes of process-control games, where winning essentially means successfully controlling the process. A master for one of these games is an agent who plays a winning strategy. In this paper we investigate situations in which even a complete model (given by a program) of a particular game does not provide enough information to synthesize—even incrementally—a winning strategy. However, if in addition to getting a program, a machine may also watch masters play winning strategies, then the machine is able to incrementally learn a winning strategy for the given game. Studied are successful learning from arbitrary masters and from pedagogically useful selected masters. It is shown that selected masters are strictly more helpful for learning than are arbitrary masters. Both for learning from arbitrary masters and for learning from selected masters, though, there are cases where one can learn programs for winning strategies from masters but not if one is required to learn a program for the master's strategy itself. Both for learning from arbitrary masters and for learning from selected masters, one can learn strictly more by watching m+1 masters than one can learn by watching only m. Last, a simulation result is presented where the presence of a selected master reduces the complexity from infinitely many semantic mind changes to finitely many syntactic ones.

Tamper evidence for heavy vehicle on board mass systems

On-board mass (OBM) monitoring devices on heavy vehicles (HVs) have been tested in a national programme jointly by Transport Certification Australia Limited and the National Transport Commission. The tests were for, amongst other parameters, accuracy and tamper-evidence. The latter by deliberately tampering with the signals from OBM primary transducers during the tests. The OBM feasibility team is analysing dynamic data recorded at the primary transducers of OBM systems to determine if it can be used to detect tamper events. Tamper-evidence of current OBM systems needs to be determined if jurisdictions are to have confidence in specifying OBM for HVs as part of regulatory schemes. An algorithm has been developed to detect tamper events. The results of its application are detailed here.

On-board mass monitoring of heavy vehicles : results of testing program

The Transport Certification Australia on-board mass feasibility project is testing various on-board mass devices in a range of heavy vehicles (HVs). Extensive field tests of on-board mass measurement systems for HVs have been conducted during 2008. These tests were of accuracy, robustness and tamper-evidence of heavy vehicle on-board mass telematics. All the systems tested showed accuracies within approximately +/- 500 kg of gross combination mass or approximately +/- 2% of the attendant weighbridge reading. Analysis of the dynamic data also showed encouraging results and has raised the possibility of use of such dynamic information in tamper evidence in two areas. This analysis was to determine if the use of averaged dynamic data could identify potential tampering or incorrect operating procedures as well as the possibility of dynamic measurements flagging a tamper event by the use of metrics including a tampering index (TIX). Technical and business options to detect tamper events will now be developed during implementation of regulatory OBM system application to Australian heavy vehicles (HVs).

Board members’ contribution to strategic decision-making in small firms

This article explores how the boards of small firms actually undertake to perform strategic tasks. Board strategic involvement has seldom been investigated in the context of small firms. We seek to make a contribution by investigating antecedents of board strategic involvement. The antecedents are “board working style” and “board quality attributes”, which go beyond the board composition features of board size, CEO duality, the ratio of non-executive to executive directors and ownership. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 497 Norwegian firms (from 5 to 30 employees). Our results show that board working style and board quality attributes rather than board composition features enhance board strategic involvement. Moreover, board quality attributes outperform board working style in fostering board strategic involvement

L'Impatto delle Condizioni Interne ed Esterne sul Ruolo del Cda : un'Analisi Empirica sulle Grandi Imprese Italiane [The impact of internal and external contingencies on board tasks performance : an empirical investigation of Italian companies]

Il Consiglio di Amministrazione (CdA) è il principale organo di governo delle aziende. La letteratura gli attribuisce tre ruoli: controllo, indirizzo strategico e collegamento con l’ambiente (networking). Precedenti studi empirici hanno analizzato se un Consiglio di Amministrazione è attivo o meno in tutti e tre i ruoli in un dato momento. Nel presente lavoro, invece, si propone un approccio «contingente» e si analizzano i ruoli svolti dal CdA al variare delle condizioni interne (aziende in crisi o di successo) ed esterne (aziende in settori competitivi o regolamentati).. L’indagine empirica è stata condotta su un campione di 301 imprese italiane di grandi dimensioni. I risultati supportano la tesi iniziale secondo cui le condizioni interne ed esterne incidono sul ruolo svolto dal CdA. In particolare i risultati evidenziano che il CdA non svolge sempre tutti e tre i ruoli nello stesso momento, ma esso si concentra sul ruolo o sui ruoli che assumono grande importanza nella situazione in cui si trova l’azienda. Con riferimento alle condizioni interne, nelle imprese in crisi il CdA è attivo in tutti e tre i ruoli, mentre in quelle di successo prevale un orientamento verso la funzione strategica. Nelle aziende che operano in settori competitivi il ruolo di controllo è più pressante mentre nei settori regolamentati prevale una funzione di networking.

A regulatory on-board mass monitoring application for heavy vehicles in Australia

This paper reports on the development of specifications for an on-board mass monitoring (OBM) application for regulatory requirements in Australia. An earlier paper reported on feasibility study and pilot testing program prior to the specification development [1]. Learnings from the pilot were used to refine this testing process and a full scale testing program was conducted from July to October 2008. The results from the full scale test and evidentiary implications are presented in this report. The draft specification for an evidentiary on-board mass monitoring application is currently under development.

Electronic games: A legitimate diversional therapy intervention for health care consumers?

--