micro-Business Community Responsibility in Australia: Approaches, Motivations and Barriers

Micro and small businesses contribute the majority of business activity in the most developed economies. They are typically embedded in local communities and therefore well placed to influence community wellbeing. While there has been considerable theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the nature of micro-business community responsibility (mBCR) remains relatively under-explored. This article presents findings from an exploratory study of mBCR that examined the approaches, motivations and barriers of this phenomenon. Analysis of data from 36 semi-structured interviews with micro-business owner-operators in the Australian city of Brisbane revealed three mBCR approaches, suggesting an observable mBCR typology. Each mBCR type was at least partly driven by enlightened self-interest (ESI). In addition to a pure ESI approach, findings revealed ESI combined with philanthropic approaches and ESI combined with social entrepreneurial approaches. The combination of doing business and doing good found amongst participants in this study suggests that many micro-business owner-operators are supporters of their local communities and, therefore, driven by more than profit. This study provides a fine-grained understanding of micro-business involvement in community wellbeing through a lens of responsible business behaviour.     

Scarce collateral and bank reserves

If collateral for bank loans is scarce and, if as a result, access to secured loans is restricted, the allocation of resources is inefficient. In anticipation of future borrowing constraints, individuals over-invest in collateralized types of capital, and consume and invest inefficiently low levels while they are borrowing constrained. The dual counterpart of this misallocation of resources is inefficiently low interest rates. In this situation, bank reserves play a positive welfare role by adding liquidity to the economy and by increasing not only bank lending rates, but also, paradoxically, bank deposit rates. As a result, in economies with scarce collateral the optimal reserves–requirement ratio is positive.     

Exchange rate bifurcation in a stochastic evolutionary finance model

This paper analyzes the stability and fluctuations of the exchange rate with a speculative bubble using the methods of evolutionary finance and stochastic differential equations. It constructs a hybrid stochastic system for the financial market involving a discrete time process and a continuous time process. The discrete process models the bubble and is meant to capture the behavior of less sophisticated investors who trade infrequently. The continuous time process is a stochastic differential equation for monetary policy together with a backward stochastic equation for the exchange rate. Monetary policy is affected by the bubble and in turn affects the exchange rate as well as speculation. The bubble and exchange rate exhibit a form of bifurcation. This means the bubble and exchange rate experience fluctuations as the propensity to chase trends or switch predictors changes.     

Collegial Entrepreneurialism

Abstract

In recent decades, Australian universities have corporatized. Encouraged by government policies, universities adopted modernization practices that have been widely questioned. ‘Collegial entrepreneurialism’ is an approach that builds on collegial processes to protect academic values from the excesses of modernization. This paper examines the perceptions of business academics about the impacts of modernization in autonomous graduate schools of business. The research was undertaken prior to the most recent wave of higher education reform under which most of these schools disappeared. Their experience of three consequences of modernization, ‘hard’ managerialism, academic consumerism and fragmentation of work, provides insight into whether collegiality and academic values can exist within an entrepreneurial academic unit. Results indicate that overt manifestations of modernization are not threatening to ‘collegial entrepreneurialism’. However, in the absence of academic leadership, the more covert influences of consumerism and fragmentation pose a threat to the survival of ‘collegial entrepreneurialism’.     

Impact of Funding Targeted Pre-school Interventions on School Readiness: Evidence from the Netherlands

We analyze the effectiveness of the early childhood programme (ECP) in the Netherlands. The programme is designed for 2.5–4 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds. 37 municipalities received an additional subsidy to expand ECP programmes, which allows us to analyze the effects of the programme within a difference-in-difference-in-differences framework. Most children first enroll in primary schools at age 4 in the Netherlands, but pupils begin to learn reading and mathematics in grade 3 at age 6. We use grade repetition constructed from school registry data from 2008 to 2015 in the first two grades as an indicator of school readiness. Our results show significantly lower grade repetition rates for targeted boys who are in regions that receive the subsidy. Grade repetition drops by 0.8–1.8 percentage points from a mean of 10.5% for the disadvantaged group targeted by the programme.     

Getting from “just-in-case” to “just-in-time”: Insights from a simple model

Many factory managers are hesitant about implementing a just-in-time system due to concern about the dip in productivity that occurs. Here, a simple analytic model is used to study the trade-off between disruption and learning/improvement on a production line. While simple, the model is shown to capture many of the effects of just-in-time mentioned in the literature.Using insights from the model, an attempt is made to identify those factors to which successful implementation of just-in-time is most sensitive.     

Charity box collection schemes: The retailers' view

Most UK charities, both national and local, place boxes in outlets such as shops, bars, cafés, filling stations, banks and building societies. Usually the box is placed by a representative of the charity visiting the potential site and inviting whoever is on duty to accept the box. This research sampled 2,308 UK retailers in order to determine their perceptions of the boxes held on their premises, the number of boxes held, their location and security. From the responses to the survey the authors discuss the distribution of boxes over different retail types and analyse retailers perceptions.     

Productive Capacity, Product Varieties, and the Elasticities Approach to the Trade Balance

Most macroeconomic models imply that faster income growth tends either to lower a country’s trade balance by raising its imports with little change to its exports or to reduce its terms of trade in order to maintain balanced trade. Krugman (1989 ) proposed a model in which countries grow by producing new varieties of goods. In his model, faster‐growing countries are able to export these new goods and maintain balanced trade without suffering any deterioration in their terms of trade. This paper analyzes the growth of US imports from different source countries and finds strong support for Krugman’s model.     

The way we live: understanding the acquisition of living skills to facilitate the consumer empowerment of young people in the 21st century

This research seeks to understand the perceived sources of acquisition of living skills by young people and to examine the formal and informal channels of acquisition. The study focuses particularly on the concept of living skills. These are the skills of transition, of growing up, and independence. For the purpose of the research the skills investigated are those associated (or formerly associated) with the school subject of Home Economics and were distilled from past curricula and documentation (DES, 1985; SCP, 1971). They cover three types of skill: social/interpersonal, cognitive and manual. Social skills include awareness of others, and a sense of responsibility, which is the basis of child‐care and showing tolerance of and concern and consideration for others. Cognitive skills are those associated with decision‐making and management, they involve thinking, reasoning and the use of knowledge. Manual skills are concerned with the use of the hands, with dexterity and with the achievement of specific goals, for example the ability to use tools and appliances with emphasis on the safe handling of them. They can also be linked to knowledge in terms of, for example aspects of food safety and hygiene. Research to date has failed to tackle the concept of acquisition of the skills of transition from home to independent living. Most research is focused on skills pertaining to a particular occupation role (Newman and Newman, 1988; Blustein et al., 1989; Nurmi et al., 1994) rather than those of living skills. Respondents were asked where they had learnt most about manual, cognitive and social skills. To facilitate analysis the channels were condensed to family (mother, father, other family members), community (friends, voluntary organisations), self (trial and error, television, books and magazines), taught (at school, university and work), with a final category of ‘never learnt’ (categories adapted from Macbeth, 1989). The findings revealed that the perceived acquisition of these living skills was through informal channels. From this research it can be argued that the family, being the main perceived source of acquisition of living skills creates the right time, the right place and facilitates exchange efficiencies. However, in this over‐dependence on an informal framework it is unlikely that discrepancies of skill provision can be alleviated. Additionally, standardisation may be difficult if not impossible to achieve. Compounding this is the tendency of young people to have to resort to self‐learning, which it could be argued is acceptable for some skills but not for those reliant on correct information input (such as food hygiene and nutrition).     

Certified public accountants: Ethical perception skills and attitudes on ethics education

This study investigated the proficiency of CPAs in recognizing and evaluating ethical and unethical situations. In addition, CPAs provided attitudes on ethics education. Respondents were asked to evaluate the ethical acceptability of CPA behavior as presented in six vignettes involving a variety of ethical dilemmas from questions of conflict of interest to questions of personal honor. The results tend to signify that CPAs can, to a degree, distinguish ethical and unethical behaviors. It appears that ethical behaviors and very specific unethical behaviors were more easily identified by practitioners. This may reveal uncertainty and apprehension as to exactly what constitutes unethical behavior since, in many circumstances, this resolution is made on a case-specific basis rather that via a universal rule. In addition, it is interesting to note that CPAs tend to picture themselves as more ethically-oriented than their peers.With respect to ethics education, the CPAs indicated that instruction in ethical concepts and literacy was important and should definitely be embodied in the accounting curriculum as well as at all educational levels. However, the CPAs were remarkably uncertain and ambivalent as to the qualifications of university faculty to provide this instruction and guidance.Suzanne Pinac Ward, CPA, is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, LA 70504. She received her Ph.D. in Accounting. Dr. Ward is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Louisiana Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Accounting Association.Dan R. Ward is a Professor of Accounting at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, LA 70504. He received his DBA in Accounting. Dr. Ward is a member of the International, Taxation, and Accounting Behavior and Organizations Sections of the American Accounting Association, the Society of Petroleum Accountants, and the Academy of Accounting Historians.Alan B. Deck, CMA, is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, LA 70504. He received his Ph.D. in Accounting. Dr. Deck is a member of the Institute of Management Accountants and the American Accounting Association.