Using Statistics and Statistical Thinking to Improve Organisational Performance

A systematic approach to measuring organisational performance is fundamental to the pursuit of business excellence. As such, the area of organisational performance measurement, and its use of data and analysis to inform business decisions, affords statisticians a potentially high value-adding opportunity. To be effective in this area, statisticians need to appreciate the differing requirements for statistical information in various management zones of an enterprise.
This paper describes a strategy that seeks to link measurement to all facets of organisational performance, particularly to desired business outcomes, and also to mesh measurement with process improvement in a natural way. The use of statistics and statistical thinking is then discussed in this context, with particular focus on the opportunity for statisticians to have a key role at the top decision-making level of the organisation. We argue that the role requires skills in both advanced technical statistical modelling and analysis, and in statistical thinking. It also requires a preparedness to form an appreciation of the business and management imperatives faced by the leaders of an enterprise, and a willingness to work from this basis.     

EXPERIENCING FILM TOURISM: Authenticity & Fellowship

Authenticity, existential authenticity, sincerity, hyperreality and simulacra are overlapping concepts often used in accounting for the tourist experience. This study discusses these concepts in the context of a case study of Lord of the Rings film-induced tourism to New Zealand. Findings support an elaborated and extended version of authenticity that incorporates aspects of object and existential authenticity, sincerity of relationships and embodied experiences of place. These factors underpin tourists’ judgments and experiences of authenticity. Links are drawn between this analysis and the theoplacity framework for religious pilgrimage. It is concluded that value emanates not only from objects or sights but also from the moments of embodied interaction with place and others, which actively constitute those objects and sights.     

The Development of the Institutional Investor: The Case of Australian Life Insurers 1945–85

This paper considers the post‐war development of asset management practices among Australian life insurers, which have historically been among the largest institutional investors in Australia. A complex process of adaptation and organisational restructuring allowed life insurers to transform from basic investors of policy‐holders’ funds to large multifaceted institutional investors in just three decades. Three stages in the development of investment practices are identified. These phases trace the process of expanding existing knowledge bases; diversification; and the acquisition of new skills; consolidation and the integration of these skills into institutional structures; thus completing one cycle of organisational learning and setting the stage for the next.     

DEVELOPING A NEW PARADIGM FOR UK FOREIGN AID

This paper makes recommendations for policy on bilateral foreign aid. The recommendations are based on criticism of the current structure and also a wave of new policy suggestions that have, to date, not been implemented on a significant scale. The paper concludes that we need to move away from the orthodoxy of bilateral aid payments, and experiment in new policy areas with a focus on scientific, independent evaluation of results.     

CUSTOMER‐OWNED BANKING IN AUSTRALIA: FROM CREDIT UNION TO MUTUAL BANK

Since the 1990s financial sector regulation in Australia has treated credit unions and building societies the same as banks under the designated title of authorized depository institutions. This allows credit unions to choose between different organizational structures: cooperative; convert to customer‐owned banks or to demutualize. This article utilizes semi‐structured interviews to analyse the key motivations for organizational change. It examines a number of credit unions and their conversion experience to customer‐owned banks. It finds that adaptation of the credit union model was necessary to change customer perceptions, ensure future growth in the customer base and assets, and facilitate access to capital raisings with the credit rating of a bank. Despite this change customer‐owned banks retain the core principals of mutuality.     

Fostering Self-Regulation Skills in Youth: Examining the Effects of a Mentoring Curriculum in a Summer Recreation Program

This study examined the effects of a mentoring curriculum embedded within a recreation program on youth's self-regulation. Self-regulation scores were collected on 64 youth participants: 29 in the comparison group and 35 in the treatment group. Using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (Guy, Isquith, &; Gioia, 2004 Guy, S., Isquith, P., &; Gioia, G. (2004). Behavior rating inventory of executive function—self-report version: Professional manual. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. [Google Scholar]) as a measure of self-regulation, scores were collected pre-, middle, and postrecreation program. Results indicated significant (p <. 008) differences among the treatment and comparison conditions with the treatment site exhibiting greater increases in self-regulation over time compared with the comparison site. Implications from the study suggest that recreation programs are well positioned to incorporate formalized mentoring that supports the development of self-regulation in youth.     

Coordinating on lower prices: pharmaceutical pricing under political pressure

We investigate the effects of political activity on pharmaceutical prices, focusing on the health care reform period in the early 1990s.We characterize firms based on their vulnerability to future price regulation and find that the more vulnerable firms were more likely to take various actions to forestall regulation, most notably coordinating on a specific percentage price increase during 1993. Since moderating price increases could have averted regulation, the coordination appears to be the industry's response to a collective action problem.     

Survey of recent developments

Sri Mulyani's resignation as finance minister in May disturbed markets and aroused concern about the government's commitment to reform. This concern was partly alleviated by the appointment of two well-respected individuals as finance minister and deputy finance minister. Further progress with reform will depend heavily on this new team and other key officials. Strong presidential support will also be needed to resist attempts by parliament to interfere excessively with the finance ministry's work.

The economy continued its steady recovery from the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC), but the recovery could still be jeopardised if sovereign debt concerns in Europe persist and block the rebound in global trade and commodity prices. Inflation continues to accelerate, suggesting little room for complacency on monetary policy. Fiscal policy, on the other hand, remains conservative. The higher deficit in the revised 2010 budget is not excessive, and is unlikely to be realised in any case. The real budget challenge is to spend budgeted amounts fully and well. The new five-year plan is also conservative and does little to clarify spending priorities, including for the president's ‘connectivity’ agenda.

Despite the GFC, poverty continued to decline, thanks largely to the uninterrupted expansion of GDP and to cash transfers to the poor. Unemployment also continued to fall, although particular groups suffered slight increases in unemployment (young workers 15–25 years old) and somewhat larger reductions in working hours (urban, non-poor, and male-headed households). Nevertheless the large and sustained deceleration of manufacturing growth and the closely related dramatic shift of employment from the formal to the informal sector provide cause for concern. Distortionary labour market policies may help to explain both.

A new mining law significantly alters the legal environment for firms in this industry, and also introduces long discredited policies intended to ‘increase value added’ by requiring the domestic processing of minerals. A new law on local government taxes attempts to reduce uncertainty for citizens and investors, but the nature of overall spending by local governments is of much greater importance for the investment climate. The central government has recently been seeking to restore the role of the ‘missing intermediate’ level of government and to boost the centre's indirect control over local governments through provincial governments and governors. This strategy is unlikely to succeed, but it highlights the conflicting requirements for provincial governors to act as agents of the central government while also being accountable to their provincial electorates.     

Experimental Foreign Exchange Markets

The paper analyzes experimental markets where subjects buy and sell two different assets. The assets' properties vary across treatments, and their relative price is the exchange rate. Although both assets uniformly exhibit bubbles, the exchange rate satisfies cross‐currency arbitrage. There is no evidence of a positive risk premium in these markets, and almost all subjects' forecasts of the exchange rate are rational.