Small entrepreneurial ventures culture, change and the impact on HRM: A critical review

Effective management of people is increasingly recognized in the literature as a vital contributor to organizational performance and indeed survival. Nevertheless, studies of the dynamics of human resource management in small entrepreneurial ventures are relatively sparse. In this paper we draw upon a range of behaviourally-informed research publications to demonstrate that a culture of owner-influenced individualism and informality pervades these ventures, affecting prime human resource issues such as performance related practices, training and development, work–life balance and other critical dimensions of employee welfare. A preference for informality and an absence of strategy to inform owner–employee relations sits uneasily alongside growing political pressures toward codification of the management of employees in small entrepreneurial ventures. The response to these pressures may have significant implications both for relationships with employees and for organizational performance.     

Accounting for Executive Stock Options: A Case Study in Avoiding Tough Decisions

We review the development of accounting requirements for executive stock options (ESOs) and find that the standard-setting process has been susceptible to pressure groups including the corporate sector, politicians and even the accounting profession itself. The failure of Australian and overseas accounting regulators to take tough decisions may have created a systematic bias towards the use of ESOs which can result in grossly inefficient compensation structures motivated by a desire to maximise reported profits rather than to create optimal managerial incentives. We conclude that most of the arguments against recognition of stock option expense can be dismissed as blatant self-interest at worst, or remarkably muddled thinking at best.     

Call for papers and participation

Call for papers and participation     

Approaches to teleconferencing justification: Towards a general model

For organizations considering teleconferencing, five major justification perspectives are identified: the intuitive leaf; cost efficiency; timeless of decisions, improved work coordination; and reaching out. The perspectives are combined to form a model that charts their likely impacts on productivity. Proper planning through teleconferencing feasibility studies is advocated. That, and learning from others' experience, can help prospective users avert many pitfalls, avoid repeating past failures, and develop a teleconferencing system that will fulfill the promises of the justifications.     

Long-term valuation effects of stock splits

This study attempts to determine if stock splits affect the long-term stock performance of forms, and to explain cross-sectional variation in this performance proxy among firms. The consequences of both higher percentage transaction cost following a stock split and an investor overreaction hypothesis are expected to render negative effects on stock values. The consequences of any earnings and dividend signaling accompanying splits are expected to have a positive impact on stock values. The results of the analysis suggest that the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) are positive and statistically significant through the eleventh month after a stock split. The CARs then decrease nearly monotonically through the thirty-sixth month after the split (CAR=?8.23%). This indicates that initially the signaling effects dominate, but later the consequences of investors' downward revisions of previous expectations and the increase in percentage transaction cost dominate. The cross-sectional results indicate that firms with higher earnings-growth rates exhibit higher CARs, and firms with higher share prices just before the split exhibit lower CRRs.     

A COMPARISON OF PROCEDURES FOR ESTIMATING RETURNS TO RESEARCH USING PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS

The production function approach has been one of the two main ex-post procedures used to estimate the rate of return to agricultural research. A critical part of estimating the marginal internal rate of return (MIRR) is the procedure adopted to spread the benefits of research through time. Past studies using this approach have given only brief consideration to this computational procedure. The objective in this study was to review the different computational procedures used and, then, using cross-section production function estimates for U.S. agriculture, determine whether the MIRR estimates are sensitive to the computational procedure used. The results from this comparison indicate a large range in the estimates. The implication, then, is that careful consideration should be given to the choice of computational procedure, both when undertaking such a study and when comparing the results of different studies.     

What are the real prospects for total EC integration?

Nothing can stop the momentum behind the movement for total European integration, or so it would seem. But what about the impact of Gemn reunijication, strong nationalistic feelings, and the socialist tradition in Europe? The authors look at what impact these might have on the move toward creation of a Single Market.     

Operations change interactions in a service environment: Attitudes,behaviors, and profitability

An attitudinal and behavioral change program was developed and implemented in a service operations function. Changes were (1) stabilizing operations management (reducing turnover) and (2) improving attitudes and behaviors of employees with strong union affiliations in a common carrier trucking terminal when compared to similar employees in a control terminal undergoing no planned change. Management turnover was reduced. Other results from the eighteen-month longitudinal study indicated that employee attitudes in both groups remained negative toward work, management, and the company throughout the study period. Behaviors relating to attitudes — particularly turnover, absenteeism, and accident rates—improved at the experimental terminal, even though expressed attitudes remained negative. Operating efficiencies and profitability improved at the experimental terminal. It was found that these employees, pick-up and delivery drivers, retain positive attitudes toward customers and customers the same toward them, in spite of the drivers' negative attitudes toward the company. The operative service employee appeared to discriminate between attitudes toward the company and the customer; the drivers' negative attiudes toward most everything (except the customer) not affecting the customer's perceptions of the driver or the company.     

Tracking innovation: The need for reliable measures of its presence and effects

It is generally accepted that innovation is an essential ingredient of corporate success and, when pervasive, strengthens the economy while warding off foreign competition. Many point to a perceived weakening of this process in U.S. firms as a contributing factor to the steady decline of productivity growth vital to our nation's stability. They clamor for government programs to encourage technical venturing, embracing the “R & D hypothesis” which declares that privately sponsored research is the wellspring of innovation, and thus the key to a producer's prosperity — leading to more vigorous industries.In response, Washington is seeking ways to spur private spending on R & D during this era of diminished Federal backing for research. Such initiatives are handicapped by a lack of data establishing the existence and extent of the apparent slump in industrial creativity. Also there is scant information available to management that demonstrates a close correlation between fortunes of the firm and activities characterized as innovations. Without such evidence, business appears reluctant to abandon its cautious attitude towards support of R & D that cannot be readily commercialized.Little is known about innovation's economic impact or bearing on the survival of an enterprise. The connection between industrial research and the launch of desirable products is too abstruse to permit the assumption that in-house R & D inevitably spawns viable innovations. We do not have data which permit rational decisions for the effective management of innovation by firms, or the design of a workable model for the process. This information gap has a deleterious effect in industries traditionally dependent upon research, and leads to strategies — aimed at fostering innovation — that are inadequate, badly timed or ill conceived.An innovation stems from a series of management decisions motivated by the quest for profits and tempered by industry conditions — government incentives notwithstanding. Companies pay for R & D which promises revenues that would not otherwise appear, and back a new product when the expected return is comparable to that from less risky alternative investments. They require an easily administered method for verifying, in accounting terms, the outcome of an innovation so its contribution to profits can be contrasted with the yield from product improvements or line extensions. Management could then weigh a proposed innovation the same way it evaluates other commitments.Authors of public policy need to monitor the pace of innovation on a regional or national scale so that they can determine when stimulants are called for — to restore this activity to the desired level. The traditional indices of innovation's intensity are imprecise, and misleading if the purpose be to identify a trend. “R & D expenditures” must be viewed with circumspection for they are not always incurred in pursuit of innovations, especially with increasing outlays for compliance with government regulations. “Patents awarded” or “technical articles published” are scant proof of seminal activity, and “government contracts awarded” is not a useful statistic. A true “index of innovation” is needed to guide public policy — one founded on data tied to the launching of products.In conclusion, this article suggests a technique for quantifying innovation inside the firm, as a planning tool of management and to provide the data base for a meaningful “index of innovation”. It describes the index, to be derived from data reported by a representative sample of geographically dispersed companies. A procedure is outlined for generating such data in firms, collecting it by a central authority, and calculating the index.