Underpricing, risk management, hot issue and crowding out effects : evidence from the Australian resources sector initial public offerings

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the role of risk management, speculative industry competition effect and hot issue markets. We used a sample of 260 initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Australian resource sector for the 1994–2004 period to test the underpricing effect. We do not find any evidence that risk management can reduce the uncertainty relating to the new issue and hence alleviate the extent of underpricing. A plausible explanation for this lack of evidence is the poor information content of publicly available disclosures regarding risk management activities of IPO firms. We further provide evidence that the underpricing returns for resources IPOs are not impacted upon by the strength of alternative speculative IPO markets. We also show that the degree of underpricing adjusts to both market return in the preceding three months and the average underpricing of resources IPOs in the 12 month period leading to the float which offers an explanation to the hot issue effect observed in the IPO market.

Phonology and lexicon in a cross-linguistic perspective : the importance of phonetics – a commentary on Stoel-Gammon's 'relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children'

In her interesting article, Stoel-Gammon (this issue) reviews studies concerning the interactions between lexical and phonological development. While the focus of the review is on vocabulary production from children acquiring American English, she also suggests that cross-linguistic research be undertaken to examine how universal and language-specific properties affect the interaction between lexical and phonological acquisition. In this regard, Stoel-Gammon referred to the study of Bleses et al. (2008) who found differences in receptive vocabulary development across languages, based on norming studies for the Communicative Development Inventories (Fenson, Marchman, Thal, Dale, Reznick & Bates, 2007). Bleses et al. showed that Danish children were slower in the early comprehension of words (and phrases). It was hypothesized that the phonetic structure of Danish may account for the difference in receptive vocabulary skills in this population (Bleses & Basbøll, 2004).

Climate change research & responses on the Eyre Peninsula : Weaving natural resources management with community resilience planning

In the last 10 years climate change risk assessment has come to a head as a matter of discussion at all levels of governance. In an attempt to gain a co-ordinated appreciation, measure of scope and impact likelihood, and to better guide a holistic natural resources management strategy, the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board has taken a comprehensive exclusive and coordinated approach at a regional level to this issue.

Water, agricultural sustainability, biodiversity enrichment and stabilisation, and community resilience planning are all integral features in this 'program' of research and engagement. The clear intent is to creatively drive change and socio-economic growth without compromising the significant aesthetic and biodiversity attributes of the landscape and its primary role as a dryland wheat producer. The 'program' involves clear practice-based research as to fact, fiction and perception, and the provision of scenarios as to vulnerability and resilience building to cater for climate change over the next 30 years but also to sensitively respond to propective mining growth for the Peninsula.

This paper reviews this 'program', the research and findings undertaken, the co-ordinated actions being taken, the importance of community engagement and resilence building, and the orchestration and propective execution of this 'program' by the Board.

The 'program' represents important case model in successful regional planning.

Students' use of online academic resources within a course web site and its relationship with their course performance : an exploratory study

Prior research suggests that the online provision of course materials can have a positive impact on students' examination performance. This study adds to the existing literature by investigating the link between the students' use of different forms of online course provisions and tools (i.e. course materials, links and discussion forums) and the final examination performance of students in a second year undergraduate accounting course. Findings indicate a positive association between the number of online files viewed by students, the number of online discussion messages posted by them, and their examination performance. A significant relationship was not found between examination performance and the amount of time spent on the subject's web site, the viewing of links to web sites that were not core to the course being studied, or the passive reading of discussion messages. These findings support the benefits to be gained by providing course materials online and encouraging students to access the materials posted and to participate actively in online discussion.

Multiliteracies : resources for meaning-making in the secondary english classroom

This chapter draws on practitioner research with classes in a surburban secondary college in Melbourne, Australia to examine some of the complex interactions between school literacy practices and the literacy practices students engage in within school and outside of school. In particular, it focuses on student texts as instances of successful experiences of using multiliteracies for reading, writing and speaking in English classrooms.