La influencia de la religión en la formación de la nación, estudio de caso: el budismo en Bután

El Reino de Bután es el único Estado de la cordillera del Himalaya cuya población es en su mayoría practicante del Budismo Mahayana Tántrico y cuyo desempeño tanto en la arena internacional como en su administración interna está estrechamente vinculado con los valores y principios budistas de reciprocidad, felicidad, solidaridad, vida familiar, cooperación, entre otros. Ejemplo de esto es la creación del Índice de Felicidad Nacional Bruta y la iniciativa del Nuevo Paradigma de Desarrollo. El presente artículo analiza los factores nacionales fundamentales que han permitido el desarrollo de la nación hacia las mencionadas políticas; y explica la influencia del Budismo en la formación de la Nación butanesa, para lo cual se hace un análisis cualitativo de fuentes, biografías, documentos oficiales y encuestas nacionales. Lo anterior permitirá explicar la estrecha relación ente el budismo y la nación butanesa actual, así como la importancia del Nuevo Paradigma del Desarrollo.

Submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage : Inquiry into a Sustainability Charter by the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation

The Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation1 (hereafter called Construction Innovation) supports the notion of the establishment of a Sustainability Charter for Australia and is interested in working collaboratively to achieve this outcome. A number of challenges need to be addressed to develop this Charter. This submission outlines these challenges and possible responses to them by a Sustainability Commission.

Internal audit quality, audit committee independence, growth opportunities and firm performance

This study explores whether the relation between internal audit quality and firm performance is associated with firm characteristics of information asymmetry and uncertainty (growth opportunities) and certain governance controls (audit committee effectiveness). The results from this preliminary study of 60 Malaysian companies show that the association between internal audit quality and firm performance is stronger for firms with high growth opportunities and that this positive association is weakened by increasing audit committee independence. These findings demonstrate the internal auditors conflicting roles and question the governance recommendations that require all members of the audit committee to be non-executive directors.

Steering towards pinnacle of success : the NEC tenets in Australian construction contracting

Contractual relationships have become increasingly strained in recent years in the construction industry result in the use of the judicial system for the settlement of contractual disagreements. Why is this so? Evidence from anecdotes suggest that the lack of capacity amongst owners and contractors to carry out a contract using a good practice approach during the construction of a project contribute to the occurrence of conflicts, losses, deficient contractual relationships and poor performance of the construction work. Recognizing that current forms of contract in use today perpetuate a legacy of construction problems, we are conducting explanatory research to examine whether the widely publicized benefits of New Engineering Contract (NEC) could be realized in the Australian construction industry. This paper outlines a research agenda that will help shed light on how contract forms are able to be used as a mechanism to ensure construction projects are delivered successfully whilst also meeting the goals of multiple stakeholders. Understanding the Critical Success Factors (CSFs), commonly used construction contracts and the NEC system can help us address some of these issues. However, there are gaps in the validation of the benefits of NEC and its link with project success. We identify some of these gaps and propose a methodology by which to gain insights into this phenomenon. Keywords: Project Success, Construction Contracting, New Engineering Contract (NEC)

The role of the audit committee and institutional investors in constraining earnings management : evidence from Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong

Using data from 2004 to 2008, we find that an audit committee is an important monitoring mechanism as audit committee independence, expertise and size are associated with reduced levels of abnormal accruals, our measure of earnings management. This study also attempts to discern when the monitoring role of the audit committee is more salient for the firm. We find that ownership concentration and the presence of government officials on the audit committee are important determinants of the negative association between audit committee characteristics and earnings management. In contrast, we find no significant associations between the audit committee and abnormal accruals for Chinese firms listed only on the Chinese domestic Stock Exchanges. The paper contributes to the corporate governance literature in a transitional economy. Identifying the role of audit committees of firms listed on markets other than the domicile market demonstrates the importance of considering the institutional setting in governance research.

Can an effective audit committee help to mitigate earnings management in Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong?

This paper attempts to determine whether the adoption of recommended corporate governance practices by Chinese firms is associated with less earnings management proxied by abnormal accruals. We examine the role of the audit committee and ownership concentration in preventing earnings management using Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong. The results of this preliminary analysis show that the frequency of audit committee meetings is associated with reduced levels of abnormal accruals, our measure of earnings management. We conclude that audit committee activity is an important factor in constraining the propensity of managers to engage in earnings management. In contrast, we find that the size of the audit committee is associated with increased levels of abnormal accruals and suggest that increasing the size of the audit committee creates information asymmetry between the audit committee and management that reduces the monitoring capacity of the audit committee. We do not find any association between audit committee independence, financial and industry experience, or ownership concentration and abnormal accruals.

Steering (towards a post apology Australia) without a rudder

After Kevin Rudd’s Apology to Indigenous Peoples after his election as Prime Minister in 2008 the climate was hopeful with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (and non-Indigenous women, too) breathing a sigh of relief that the disastrous effects of White Australia’s government policies had at last been symbolically, publicly and officially acknowledged. There was also, though, skepticism about the ‘real’ change this Apology might have for Indigenous Australians. Many of us wondered if the Apology would make any difference at all in the ‘real’ world, where the gaps between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians is still so glaringly apparent in areas such as health, education, housing and employment.

Submission to Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure

In the networked information driven world that we now inhabit the ability to access and reuse information, data and culture is a key ingredient to social, economic and cultural innovation. As government holds enormous amounts of publicly funded material that can be released to the public without breaching the law it should move to implement policies that will allow better access to and reuse of that information, knowledge and culture. The Queensland Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) Project4 is one of the first projects in the world to systemically approach this issue and should be consulted as a best practice model.