Why business academics remain in Australian universities despite deteriorating working conditions and reduced job satisfaction : an intellectual puzzle

In the last two decades, Australia's 38 universities have been subjected to profound changes affecting the working lives of their academic staff. That the working conditions of staff have deteriorated cannot be denied, while many studies have shown that job satisfaction has been affected adversely. Paradoxically, there is little evidence that academics are seeking employment outside the university system. In this article, the authors report the findings from their survey of over 3000 academics employed in business disciplines in Australian universities, which aimed to find explanations for this phenomenon.

Changes in higher education and valuing the job : the views of accounting academics in Australia

In a previous article (Bellamy et al., 2003), the authors reported on survey research that investigated reasons why academics from business disciplines enter and remain in academia, and the conditions they deem necessary to creating ideal work satisfaction. For both entering and remaining, as well as in achieving ideal work satisfaction, the most important factors were found to be autonomy and flexibility, with teaching and research the next most important factors. In a subsequent analysis of the data, reported in this article, the authors identify and explore significant differences between accounting academics and other business academics in the relative importance placed on these key factors. The findings may be used to inform policy makers and university administrators of the importance of discipline differences when identifying key factors for recruitment and retention of accounting academics specifically, and business academics generally.

Understanding the concept of elasticity in supply chain relationships : an agency theory perspective

The issue of flexibility in supply chains has been receiving heightened attention by scholars and practitioners especially as business environment becoming more turbulent and uncertain. Notwithstanding, one of the important aspects of flexibility – relationship flexibility – which has the potential to proliferate responsiveness and postpone bifurcation in buyer -supplier relationships has not been well understood and researched. Identifying this gap within the literature, this paper proposes a concept of elasticity as an important element of relationship flexibility in supply chains. It is argued that the tolerance threshold of coopering parties in presence of their sudden behaviour change will determine their state of relationship elasticity (i.e. elastic or inelastic). The theoretical development of this paper has been primarily based on review of the literature and insights from agency perspective. It is proposed that relationship governance mechanisms advocated by agency theory has the potential to influence elasticity status of principal agent relationships.

Australian farmers' and food processors' values

Purpose – The aim of this exploratory study was to examine and compare a range of business values held by farmers and food processors.

Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaires with a section on business values were posted to 200 farmers and 200 food processing businesses in Victoria, Australia, with response rates of 44 per cent (n=69) and 31 per cent (n=48), respectively, achieved.

Findings – The most important of the 28 value items for farmers were high quality produce, honesty, and caring for employees. For processors, the most important values were quality products, customer value, and caring for employees. Between group differences reached statistical significance for one-third of the items. In particular, processor businesses valued innovation and convenience products more highly and had a stronger process orientation than did farming businesses. Environmental sustainability, caring for the community, and providing healthy products were more integral to farming than processing businesses.

Research limitations/implications – The main limitation was the small sample sizes, although it is likely that response bias was not high. Future research could survey a larger sample of food industry representatives and examine the values held by other food industry sectors.

Practical implications – This information could increase the effectiveness of communications with industry groups on a range of issues and in the formulation of appropriate health and environmental policies.

Originality/value – To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to compare the values of farmers and food processors. This information is particularly important for those in the food industry and health and environmental policy makers.

Measuring entrepreneurial activity in low-teledensity countries

In 2009, a team of 38 researchers carried out the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey of social and business entrepreneurial activity in the Kingdom of Tonga. The GEM survey estimates the proportion of the population involved in business and social start-ups and new firm creation. This paper describes not the results of the survey but rather the methodology employed. Because Tonga is spread out over a swath of the Pacific Ocean, the team faced challenges in terms of survey design, field work, logistics, and quality control. To meet the standards of rigour, we designed a 'ruggedised method' for measuring entrepreneurial activity. Countries with a teledensity threshold of less than 30% (fixed lines per 100 inhabitants) present serious challenges to survey designers. The study discusses questionnaire preparation, recruitment and training of interviewers as well as survey design issues such as sample size, response rate, sampling weights, and lessons learned. The report will assist other teams in measuring entrepreneurial activity in low-teledensity countries and provides guidelines when the study is repeated elsewhere. The study also proposes a way forward to incorporate new technologies such as tablet PCs, GPS, and GIS to address the dilemmas of measuring entrepreneurial activity in low-teledensity countries.

The effects of perceived business uncertainty, external consultants and risk management on organisational outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relations between perceived business uncertainty (PBU), use of external risk management (RM) consultants, formalisation of RM, magnitude of RM methods and perceived organisational outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a questionnaire survey of members of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the UK. Using AMOS 17.0, the paper tests the strength of the direct and indirect effects among the variables and explores the fit of the overall path model.
Findings – The results indicate significant and positive associations exist between the extent of PBU and the level ofRMformalisation, as well as between the level ofRMformalisation and the magnitude of RMmethods adopted. The use of externalRMconsultants is also found to have a significant and positive impact on the magnitude of RM methods adopted. Finally, both the extent of RM formalisation and the magnitude of RM methods adopted are seen to be significantly associated with overall improvement in organisational outcomes.
Research limitations/implications – The study uses perceptual measures of the level of business uncertainty, usage of RM and organisational outcomes. Further, the respondents are members of a management accounting professional body and the views of other managers, such as risk managers, who are also important to the governance process are not incorporated.
Originality/value – This study provides empirical evidence on the impact ofRMdesign and usage on improvements in organisational outcomes. It contributes to the RM literature where empirical research is needed in order to be comparable with the traditional management control system literature.

Survey of market research managers' views about customer analytics

Data based on survey responses from an online questionnaire directed at market research managers in the US.

Using an online questionnaire 435 market research managers in the United States were surveyed about their views on using customer analytics to provide reliable customer information to gain market edge.

Using SPSS AMOS software, the resulting data identifies new trends in the business intelligence industry in transition and particularly the usage by market relations managers of customer analytics information.

A maturity model of enterprise business intelligence

The implementation of an enterprise-level business intelligence initiative is a large-scale and complex undertaking, involving significant expenditure and multiple stakeholders over a lengthy period. It is therefore imperative to have systematic guidelines for business intelligence stakeholders in referring business intelligence maturity levels. Draw upon the prudent concepts of the Capability Maturity Model, this research proposes a multi-dimensional maturity model with distinct maturity levels for managing enterprise business intelligence initiatives. The maturity model, named Enterprise Business Intelligence Maturiy (EBIM), consists of five core maturity levels and four key dimensions, namely information quality, master data management, warehousing architecture, and analytics. It can be used to assist enterprises in benchmarking their business intelligence maturity level and identifying the critical areas to attain higher level of maturity.

Enhancing business intelligence traceability through an integrated metadata framework

The Business Intelligence (BI) system provides users with multi-dimensional information (so-called BI product) to support their decision-making. However, very often business users still could not fully understand the BI product, nor have a clear picture of the entire information manufacturing chain of the BI product. In response to this situation, this paper presents an integrated metadata framework (“BIP-Map”) to facilitate the traceability and accountability of a BI product following the design science research approach. Specifically, the salient modelling and management techniques from the business process modelling notation (BPMN), the information product map (IP-Map), and the metadata management are adapted to construct a three-layered integrated metadata framework enabling the business users to make timely and informed decisions. A BIP-Map informed prototype system has been developed in collaboration with online job recruitment firms. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with seven key BI stakeholders of the recruitment firms to evaluate the usefulness of the BIP-Map. It is envisaged that the metadata framework allows the technical personnel to understand the business processes that relate to certain information provided in the BI reports. Business users will also be able to gain insights into the logic behind any BI report.

Gender differences in the performance of individuating acts

Although several studies in social psychology suggest that male participants are more likely than female ones to engage in individuating behaviors, other studies have found no gender differences in willingness to perform individuating acts. This study posits that differences in findings across past investigations may be attributed to the chosen domain of individuating behavior. The content of the Individuation Scale (Maslach, Stapp, & Santee, 1985) is examined in terms of Bakan's (1966) agency‐communion theory to identify two types of individuating behaviors that are consistent with men's gender role orientations (i.e., eliciting conflict, leadership), one type of individuating behavior that is consistent with women's gender role orientations (i.e., personal disclosures), and a gender‐neutral type of individuation (i.e., performance). Responses to the scale are obtained from a sample of business school students (N = 273) and a more heterogeneous mail survey sample (N = 621). A sequence of measurement invariance tests of a 4‐factor correlated model of the individuation measure indicates a high degree of equivalence in the meaning of the measure across gender groups. Subsequent latent‐means structure analysis examines gender differences in willingness to perform the 4 types of individuation behaviors captured in the scale. In the student sample, there were no mean differences in willingness to perform any of the 4 types of individuating acts. However, in the mail survey sample, findings of mean differences supported hypotheses derived from agency‐communion theory: For men as compared with women, the latent means for leadership and eliciting conflict were higher and the latent mean for personal disclosure was lower.

Technology for mathematics education : equity, access and agency

In this chapter, issues of equity – including gender, access, and agency – with respect to the learning of mathematics with technology are examined. Research findings are not equivocal. Compared to late developing countries, where issues of access to technology can be complicated by educational and cultural values and beliefs, there seems to be greater access to technology to be used for the learning of mathematics in developed nations. There also appears to be some disparity in findings on the relationship between technology use and gender differences in mathematics achievement; in some countries the gender gap favoring males may be closing, while in other countries, where there have been little or no gender differences in the past, the gap may be widening. Areas in which more research is needed have been identified.

Commitment to business ethics in UK organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to determine the commitment to business ethics in UK corporations. This study reports on the responses of those organizations that participated in the survey and possessed a code of ethics.

Design/methodology/approach – An unsolicited questionnaire was sent to the top 500 private sector organizations by market capitalization in the UK. A total of 92 companies responded, of which 56 possessed a code of ethics.

Findings – The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in developing business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level. The supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be under-utilized by many of these UK organizations. This suggests that many organizations have not so far developed a strong organizational commitment to embedding their codes of ethics into organizational practices.

Research limitations/implications – While the responses provided a rich picture of organizational actions, further research exploring internal culture and attitudes would add to an understanding of organizational commitment.

Practical implications – It is found that in order to influence practice, it is not enough to have the artefacts of an ethical culture, such as codes, without ensuring that all employees are assisted in understanding what is required of them.

Originality/value – Despite a history of business ethics research, there are a limited number of studies seeking to understand UK companies' commitment to ethical codes. The paper provides guidance on steps that organizations can take to develop a higher level of commitment.

Multifaceted role of nitric oxide in an in vitro mouse neuronal injury model: transcriptomic profiling defines the temporal recruitment of death signalling cascades

Nitric oxide is implicated in the pathogenesis of various neuropathologies characterized by oxidative stress. Although nitric oxide has been reported to be involved in the exacerbation of oxidative stress observed in several neuropathologies, existent data fail to provide a holistic description of how nitrergic pathobiology elicits neuronal injury. Here we provide a comprehensive description of mechanisms contributing to nitric oxide induced neuronal injury by global transcriptomic profiling. Microarray analyses were undertaken on RNA from murine primary cortical neurons treated with the nitric oxide generator DETA-NONOate (NOC-18, 0.5 mM) for 8–24 hrs. Biological pathway analysis focused upon 3672 gene probes which demonstrated at least a ±1.5-fold expression in a minimum of one out of three time-points and passed statistical analysis (one-way anova, P < 0.05). Numerous enriched processes potentially determining nitric oxide mediated neuronal injury were identified from the transcriptomic profile: cell death, developmental growth and survival, cell cycle, calcium ion homeostasis, endoplasmic reticulum stress, oxidative stress, mitochondrial homeostasis, ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, and GSH and nitric oxide metabolism. Our detailed time-course study of nitric oxide induced neuronal injury allowed us to provide the first time a holistic description of the temporal sequence of cellular events contributing to nitrergic injury. These data form a foundation for the development of screening platforms and define targets for intervention in nitric oxide neuropathologies where nitric oxide mediated injury is causative.

Perceptions of quality in higher education : a comparative study of Turkish and Australian business academics

Finding a common definition of ‘quality’ in studies of quality and quality improvement in higher education institutions is very important. This study identifies the views of a key stakeholder group, academics, with reference to their beliefs (what is currently occurring) and their attitudes (what ought to be occurring) in relation to quality in their departments. The focus of this paper is on the collection of data from 64 business administration academics in Turkish universities. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using an instrument titled ‘Quality in Accounting Education Survey’. The questionnaire was developed by Watty and is based on the conceptions of quality framework, developed by Harvey and Green. The results are compared with the beliefs and attitudes of Australian accounting academics as reported in an earlier paper by Watty. The findings show that academics from Turkey adopt the perspective of quality as excellent or élitist, both in their beliefs (current situation perception) and in their attitudes (desired situation perception). This compares with the findings that Australian academics’ attitudes reflect a quality perspective as fitness for purpose in the current situation and beliefs that reflect a transformational quality perspective as the desired situation (what ought to be).