How small business advisory program delivery methods (collective learning, tailored, and practice-based approaches) affect learning and innovation

Past studies relate small business advisory program effectiveness to advisory characteristics such as advisory intensity and scope. We contribute to existing literature by seeking to identify the impact of different advisory program methods of delivery on learning and subsequent firm innovation behavior. Our research is based on a survey of 257 Australian firms completing small business advisory programs in the three years preceding the research. We explore the range of small business advisory program delivery methods in which our surveyed firms participated and, with reference to the literature on organizational learning and innovation, we analyze predictors of firms' learning ability and innovativeness based on the identified delivery methods. First, we found that business advisory programs that involved high levels of collective learning and tailored approaches enhanced firms' perceptions of their learning of critical skills or capabilities. We also found that small business advisory programs that were delivered by using practice-based approaches enhanced firms' subsequent organizational innovation. We verified this finding by testing whether firms that have participated in small business advisory services subsequently demonstrate improved behavior in terms of organizational innovativeness, when compared with matched firms that have not participated in an advisory program.

Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum v6 : a bird’s-eye view

This paper presents an analysis of inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum version 6. It juxtaposes the inquiry skills strands in the scope and sequence of Science, History, Geography,Economics and Business,and Civics and Citizenship with the Critical and Creative Thinking and Information and Communication Technology general capabilities. In doing so, it reveals the extent of inquiry skills embedded in the Australian Curriculum and identifies some misalignments and omissions.

'Doing-things-with-music'-the newest arm of the industry

Even though revenues from recorded music have fallen dramatically over the past fifteen years, people across the world are not listening to less music. Actually, they listen to more recorded music than ever before. Recorded music permeates throughout almost every aspect of our daily lives...

The stewardship performance of forms of privatised water infrastructure

In this research Agency Theory and Stewardship Theory are used to analyse the relative performance of different forms of privitisation of water infrastructure and in doing so enriches understanding of previously underdeveloped aspects of both theories. The prior Agency Theory literature had established assumptions about the behaviour of principals and agents in contracts and these were found not to be correct in the context of contracts between modern government and private organisations. Agency theory was extended to include steward-like behaviour of an agent and Stewardship Theory was developed by the identification of factors within the contractual relationship which promote the sense of responsibility to the principal. The alliance, joint venture and Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) forms of privatisation were found to achieve stewardship of the infrastructure.

Commercial friendships between gay salesmen and straight female customers

Perhaps it is now sacrosanct in marketing to contemplate that many service encounters, especially those in retail settings, are social encounters in which bonds between and among customers and employees are critical drivers of consumption (Beatty et al., 1996; Rosenbaum, 2006). Indeed, within retail settings, it is often possible for salespeople and customers to form so-called “commercial friendships” (Price and Arnould, 1999). These friendships result in both salespeople and their customers having social interactions that are close to those experienced in personal friendships (Swan et al., 2001), and which are extremely satisfying for all parties. Outside of marketing, the social science literature (Grigoriou, 2004; Rumens, 2008; Russell, DelPriore, Butterfield, and Hill, 2013) and popular press (de la Cruz and Dolby, 2007; Hopcke and Rafaty, 1999; Tilmann-Healy, 2001, Whitney, 1990) is replete with knowledge regarding the “absolutely fabulous” friendships (Hopcke and Rafaty, 1999) that often form between gay men and straight women. In fact, Western culture regularly highlights the compatibility of gay men and straight women in film, television, and writing, to the extent that they have now influenced popular thinking on the topic, so that gay men and straight females are viewed as sharing common plights and interests (Rumens, 2008). Yet, thus far, marketing researchers have looked askance at the effect of friendships between gay male employees and heterosexual female customers in consumption settings, such as retail stores and boutiques. Indeed, with the exception of Peretz’s (1995) participant observation regarding how young and outwardly gay salesmen use their ambiguous gender to sell women’s clothing, in a Paris-based luxury boutique, any theoretical explorations regarding retail-based commercial friendships between gay salesmen and female customers are non-existent—until now. This research addresses this apparent chasm in the literature by putting forth an original framework that shows how the emotional closeness between gay salesmen and female customers, due to the absence of sexual interest and inter-female competition, results in an intense emotional closeness, that facilitates pleasurable retail transactions, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth. In doing so, this work extends the commercial friendship paradigm by considering retail-based, commercial friendships between an under-researched marketplace dyad; gay men and straight females. It is worth noting here that some straight women may find the idea of commercial friendships with gay salesmen as undesirable, due to the very notion of having relationships with retail organizations or employees (Noble and Phillips, 2004), or a personal disdain for homosexuality.

Clinical data warehousing : a business analytics approach for managing health data

Heterogeneous health data is a critical issue when managing health information for quality decision making processes. In this paper we examine the efficient aggregation of lifestyle information through a data warehousing architecture lens. We present a proof of concept for a clinical data warehouse architecture that enables evidence based decision making processes by integrating and organising disparate data silos in support of healthcare services improvement paradigms.

Globalisation and national curriculum reform in Australia : the push for Asia literacy

This chapter explores the policy context for the push for a national curriculum and the inclusion of Asia literacy for schooling in Australia in the light of current links between globalisation, education and policy analysis and the notion of the learning/knowledge society of the twenty-first century. It is anticipated that discussion of the Australian context will be insightful for those other nations concerned with positioning Asia in school curricula, including for example, New Zealand, Canada, USA and UK. In doing so, the chapter considers the challenges to the implementation of Asia literacy in Australia with specific reference to current and future teachers for, as with many nations, the teaching profession in Australia is on the cusp of generational change as large numbers of teachers aged in their mid to late fifties embark on retirement (Teaching Australia, 2007). A major challenge in addressing these demographic shifts in Australia, lies with meeting the demand for replacement teachers and preparing future teachers (Skilbeck, & Connell, 2004; McKenzie, 2012) with Asia-related knowledge.

Sustainability in infrastructure investment : building the business case

Many infrastructure agencies adopt sustainability objectives at a corporate level and incorporate sustainability targets and indicators as part of corporate reporting processes. These objectives are expected to translate to all stages of the project delivery process, including project selection. For infrastructure capital works projects and programs, a robust project management approach involves the development of a business case to guide investment decision making. A key tool in the assessment of project options and selection of a delivery strategy is Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). Infrastructure providers are required to undertake cost benefit analysis to support project selection through regulatory approval and budgetary processes. This tool has emerged through the prism of economic analysis rather than sustainability. A literature review reveals the limitations of CBA alone to effectively evaluate economic, environmental and social externalities or impacts that apply over a long time frame, and that are ultimately irreversible. Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) has been introduced as a means to incorporate a wider array of factors into decision making such as sustainability. This, however, presents new challenges with issues around how to transparently represent wider community values in the selection of a preferred solution. Are these tools effective in assessing the wider sustainability costs and benefits taking into account that these are public works with long life spans and significant impacts across institutional boundaries? The research indicates a need to develop clear guidelines for investment decision making in order to better align with corporate sustainability objectives. Findings from the literature review indicate that a more sustainable approach to investment decision-making framework should include: the incorporation of sustainability goals from corporate planning documents; problem definition and option generation using best practice investment management guidelines; improved guidelines for Business Case development using a combination of both Cost Benefit Analysis and Multi-Criteria Analysis; and an integrated public participation process.

Managing impressions during institutional change – The role of organisational accounts in legitimation

Public relations literature has only recently drawn on institutional theory to provide insights into legitimacy that go beyond strategic organisational level processes. Many of the existing crisis management studies are approached from a strategic perspective, which have limitations in terms of how organizations manage their legitimacy in relation to broader and often changing social agendas. This study focuses on how impression management is used to deal with legitimacy gaps between organizations and public expectations that draw on an institutional theory perspective. This qualitative study examines the use of organizational accounts through a lens that marries institutional theory and impression management in order to understand how organizations manage their legitimacy. This study of accounts around legitimacy concerns of corporate social responsibility matters shows that organizations relied on their own tangible technical attributes rather than shared norms of what is considered responsible when there are no hard or institutionalised laws and regulations in place around corporate social responsibility concerns. This study offers insights into public relations concerns around impression management during institutional change and in doing so extends existing public relations approaches to crisis management.

Business transformation management : composition and orchestration of management services

This research develops a better understanding on how large-scale and complex IT-enabled business transformations are managed. Evidence from three global case studies suggest that business transformations can be composed and orchestrated like a jazz band, where improvisation plays a fundamental role to maintain the melody, harmony and rhythm of such initiatives. The thesis details how the jazz metaphor can assist senior management on how to reuse and reconfigure capabilities as services for transforming organizations. To the academic body of knowledge, the thesis provides a study on the use of management services as a theoretical lens to examine Business Transformation Management.

In-memory business process management

In-memory databases have become a mainstay of enterprise computing offering significant performance and scalability boosts for online analytical and (to a lesser extent) transactional processing as well as improved prospects for integration across different applications through an efficient shared database layer. Significant research and development has been undertaken over several years concerning data management considerations of in-memory databases. However, limited insights are available on the impacts of applications and their supportive middleware platforms and how they need to evolve to fully function through, and leverage, in-memory database capabilities. This paper provides a first, comprehensive exposition into how in-memory databases impact Business Pro- cess Management, as a mission-critical and exemplary model-driven integration and orchestration middleware. Through it, we argue that in-memory databases will render some prevalent uses of legacy BPM middleware obsolete, but also open up exciting possibilities for tighter application integration, better process automation performance and some entirely new BPM capabilities such as process-based application customization. To validate the feasibility of an in-memory BPM, we develop a surprisingly simple BPM runtime embedded into SAP HANA and providing for BPMN-based process automation capabilities.

Engaging expert contractors: The work health and safety obligations of the business or undertaking

This article examines the legal principles governing the statutory work health and safety general duties of principals who engage expert contractors to carry out work beyond the expertise of the principal. The article examines recent case law in which superior courts accepted the principal’s argument that the engagement of the expert contractor was sufficient to discharge the principal’s statutory work health and safety general duty. It then reframes the debate within the principles of systematic work health and safety management, and key provisions in the harmonised Work Health and Safety Acts—the primary duty of care; the key underpinning principles; the positive and proactive officer’s duty; and the horizontal duty of consultation, cooperation and coordination. It argues that it is likely that courts examining the issue of the principal’s work health and safety obligations under the harmonised Work Health and Safety Acts will require principals to do more to actively manage the work of expert contractors to ensure the health and safety of all workers and others potentially affected by the work.

Transforming the core business of teaching and learning in classrooms through ICT

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an integral part of societies across the globe. This study demonstrates how successful technology integration by 10 experienced teachers in an Australian high school was dependent on teacher-driven change and innovation that influenced the core business of teaching and learning. The teachers were subject specialists across a range of disciplines, engaging their Year Eight students (aged 12–14 years) in the Technology Rich Classrooms programme. Two classrooms were renovated to accommodate the newly acquired computer hardware. The first classroom adopted a one-to-one desktop model with all the computers with Internet access arranged in a front-facing pattern. The second classroom had computers arranged in small groups. The students also used Blackboard to access learning materials after school hours. Qualitative data were gathered from teachers mainly through structured and unstructured interviews and a range of other approaches to ascertain their perceptions of the new initiative. This investigation showed that ICT was impacting positively on the core business of teaching and learning. Through the support of the school leadership team, the built environment was enabling teachers to use ICT. This influenced their pedagogical approaches and the types of learning activities they designed and implemented. As a consequence, teachers felt that students were motivated and benefited through this experience.

Government grants - an abrogation or management of risks?

New public management (NPFM), with its hands-on, private sector-style performance measurement, output control, parsimonious use of resources, disaggreation of public sector units and greater competition in the public sector, has significantly affected charitable and nonprofit organisations delivering community services (Hood, 1991; Dunleavy, 1994; George & Wilding, 2002). The literature indicates that nonprofit organisations under NPM believe they are doing more for less: while administration is increasing, core costs are not being met; their dependence on government funding comes at the expense of other funding strategies; and there are concerns about proportionality and power asymmetries in the relationship (Kerr & Savelsberg, 2001; Powell & Dalton, 2011; Smith, 2002, p. 175; Morris, 1999, 2000a). Government agencies are under increased pressure to do more with less, demonstrate value for money, measure social outcomes, not merely outputs and minimise political risk (Grant, 2008; McGreogor-Lowndes, 2008). Government-community service organisation relationships are often viewed as 'uneasy alliances' characterised by the pressures that come with the parties' differing roles and expectations and the pressures that come with the parties' differing roles and expectations and the pressurs of funding and security (Productivity Commission, 2010, p. 308; McGregor-Lowndes, 2008, p. 45; Morris, 200a). Significant community services are now delivered to citizens through such relationships, often to the most disadvantaged in the community, and it is important for this to be achieved with equity, efficiently and effectively. On one level, the welfare state was seen as a 'risk management system' for the poor, with the state mitigating the risks of sickness, job loss and old age (Giddens, 1999) with the subsequent neoliberalist outlook shifting this risk back to households (Hacker, 2006). At the core of this risk shift are written contracts. Vincent-Jones (1999,2006) has mapped how NPM is characterised by the use of written contracts for all manner of relations; e.g., relgulation of dealings between government agencies, between individual citizens and the state, and the creation of quais-markets of service providers and infrastructure partners. We take this lens of contracts to examine where risk falls in relation to the outsourcing of community services. First we examine the concept of risk. We consider how risk might be managed and apportioned between governments and community serivce organisations (CSOs) in grant agreements, which are quasiy-market transactions at best. This is informed by insights from the law and economics literature. Then, standard grant agreements covering several years in two jurisdictions - Australia and the United Kingdom - are analysed, to establish the risk allocation between government and CSOs. This is placed in the context of the reform agenda in both jurisdictions. In Australia this context is th enonprofit reforms built around the creation of a national charities regulator, and red tape reduction. In the United Kingdom, the backdrop is the THird Way agenda with its compacts, succeed by Big Society in a climate of austerity. These 'case studies' inform a discussion about who is best placed to bear and manage the risks of community service provision on behalf of government. We conclude by identifying the lessons to be learned from our analysis and possible pathways for further scholarship.

International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries : Film, Video and Photography

This volume examines how disruptive innovations are reshaping industry boundaries and challenging conventional business models and practices in the industries for film, video and photography. The thirteen chapters provide a rich and diverse account of these processes from a wide range of country contexts. The book fills the gap between the study of disruption by innovation scholars in business schools and the recognition of disruption by academics and practitioners from non-business school disciplines and contexts, including the broader social sciences.