Volume 01 Number 01
The Effects of the Subject to Qualification on Bankers' Perceptions of Risk: A New Zealand Study
Ferdinand A Gul and Judy SL Tsui
This study, using 43 New Zealand bank lending officers as subjects, investigates the effects of the "Subject to" audit qualification on bank lending officers' perceptions of loan risk. Loan risk was measured in terms of the subjects' estimates of interest rate premium they would charge in granting loans to their clients. A two group design was employed whereby the subjects were administered identical financial information, except for the type of audit report being given. One group was given the clean report with footnote disclosure whereas the other group was given the "Subject to" qualified report with an identical footnote disclosure. On the basis of the financial information and the audit report, subjects were requested to estimate the loan interest rate premium they would charge. Data which was analysed using a one-tailed t test showed that bankers who were provided with the "Subject to" recommended significantly higher interest rate premium than those provided with a clean report. This indicates that the "Subject to" was communicating higher levels of uncertainty thus suggesting the retention of the "Subject to" in New Zealand Auditing Standards.
Marketing Effectiveness in Australia: Profiles of the Better Performers
Oliver HM Yau and Wayne Kwan
This article seeks to identify the better performing companies in Australia and examine the contribution that marketing has made to their performance. Using a sample of 447 companies, the study reveals that organisation that move from production and selling orientation to a marketing lapproach will be more effective.
Keywords: effectiveness, better performers, marketing, marketing approach, strategies.
Evolution of Fiscal and Monetary Management in the Open Economy
Chris Czerkawski and John R Prestage
No abstract - opening paragraph reads: The neoclassical theory of exchange rates denies that the general condition that both internal and external economic equilibrium can be achieved in the Keynesian theory of an economy operating below full employment with wage and price rigidity unless financial policy is combined with exchange rate variations (Meade) or unless financial policy and monetary policy are considered separate instruments (Mundell). In the neoclassical model an economy with flexible wages and prices, full employment is automatically guaranteed provided the stability conditions are met, and external balance can be achieved by either financial policy alone under fixed exchange rates or by fluctuating exchange rates. It has also been argued that the mechanism of the two exchange rate regimes is essentially equivalent provided that internal prices are flexible.
Ex parte accord: The Business Council of Australia and Industrial Relations Change
Peter Sheldon and Louise Thornthwaite
No abstract - opening paragraph reads: Reviewing the ways in which unions and employers in four countries, including Australia, had responded to global economic crises during the 1970s, Levine (1980) suggested that the different strategies chosen tended to adopt and adapt previous or existing patterns. In concluding his overview, Levine (1980: 80) argued that:
Only truly major economic, political and social calamities and upheavals such as great depressions and wars would seem capable of launching a reshaping of the industrial relations strategies in these countries.
Labour Struggles and Union Bureaucracy in the Malaysian Plantation Sector
Poniah Arudsothy
No abstract - opening paragraph reads: This paper will briefly sketch the history of trade unionism in the Malaysian plantation sector and try to account for its early struggles, achievements and the long period of its unchallenged supremacy in the trade union movement and government patronage which we shall argue has led to its decline. It is not without irony that the largest and most powerful trade union in Malaysia should have continued to thrive over three decades and build up a portfolio of wealthy assets despite the fact that it continued to represent some of the poorest income earners and who were identified as a major "poverty group" in the recent Fifth Five Year Plan (1986-90). European Community Standard
Setting Experience: Lessons for Other Regional Groupings
M Atique Islam
No abstract - opening paragraph reads: Since the Second World War, several regional economic communities and trading blocks have been evolved in various parts of the world. The European Community is probably the oldest and the most developed (integrated) one among them.
Women in Management: An Exploratory Singapore Study
Stanley Petzall, Chan Siok Cheng, Selena Ong, Pauline Sim
Research in western countries shows that women have faced a number of obstacles in their endeavours to enter the ranks of management, as compared with their male counterparts. Profiles of women managers in these countries show that certain characteristics appear to be associated with success in entering the ranks of management.
This article, based on a survey of Singapore women managers, compares and contrasts the experience of local managers with their overseas counterparts. It concludes that broadly the experience of Singapore women in seeking to enter the ranks of management has been similar to that of their western counterparts, though the profile of female managers seems to be slightly different to that in most western countries. It appears, too, that the progress of women may have been more rapid, despite an Asian context in which traditional female roles as homemakers, wives and mothers have been strongly emphasised.
The Determinants of Capital Structure in Japanese Corporate Sector
M. Ishaq Bhatti and Chris Czerkawski
Capital structure and the nature of financial and economic risk of Japanese companies differ considerably from those of the US and European companies. Large Japanese companies pay out a lower proportion of their profits as dividends and finance a large proportion of their investments from external sources. Japanese banks extend more long-term finance to the corporate business and are more influential in financial decisions made by non-financial companies. This paper analyses the differences in industry leverage vis--vis market values, profitability and risk indexes.
Guidelines for Establishing Trade Credit Terms
Gary W Emery
This paper provides guidelines for establishing the payment terms to offer customers as part of a firm's trade credit policy. Deduced from discussions of trade credit theory, these guidelines are simple modifications of the usual marginal revenue equals marginal cost condition for a maximum. This paper's practical value is that it bridges the gap between these theories and simple net present value decision models.
The Effects of Culture on The Negotiation Process In Marketing to the Asia-Pacific Region
John Wincott
The process of negotiation, between parties of differing nationalities, is often vitally affected by behaviour patterns generated by the different cultural backgrounds of the participants. Activities which work well in one country may well fail in another. An attempt is made, in this paper, to summarise the nature and the potential effects of some of these differences in cultural approach to negotiation on outcome. The emphasis of the paper is upon operations within the Asian-Pacific business environment, with a particular reference to the Chinese/Japanese business environment.