Volume 09 Number 01
THE EFFECTS OF DEREGULATION, REREGULATION AND DIVERSIFICATION IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY: EVIDENCE FROM THE USA AND AUSTRALIA
John Evans, Kwangwoo Park and John Simpson
A number of previous studies have found risk diversification benefits to banks that were allowed to functionally diversify into other financial sectors. Evidence from the United States suggests that there are risk diversification benefits accruing to banks as regulators permit them to move into non-banking sectors such as insurance, financial planning, takeover and mergers advice and equity and debt securities underwriting. The deregulation process is currently more advanced in the United States of America than in Australia. Using a multi-factor regression model applied to United States data, this paper examines the factors behind the dramatic growth of banks, their portfolio diversification efforts and analyses the risk/return trade-off of their stock market returns. We find a percentage change in the market return leads to a smaller percentage change in the bank's stocks returns. When a comparison is made on risk and return relationships between Australian and American banks, it is found that banks in Australia, which are less advanced in functional diversification than those in the United States, have safe but lower levels of capital adequacy and lower levels of profitability.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT, GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON INDUSTRIES AND EXPORT GROWTH IN MALAYSIA
Sajid Anwar
This paper attempts to examine the impact of foreign investment and government spending on commerce and industry on Malaysia's export of manufactured goods. The paper focuses on the public input aspects of government spending and foreign investment. The manufactured products considered are (i) Consumer Electrical Products, (ii) Industrial and Commercial Electrical Products, (iii) Electrical Industrial Machinery and Equipment, (iv) Transport Equipment, (v) Textile Clothing and Footwear, (vi) Rubber Products and (vii) Paper and Pulp Products. The empirical analysis presented in this paper shows that the impact of an increase in real government spending on exports of manufactured goods is larger than the equivalent increase in real foreign investment.
GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES AND VOLUNTARY ASSET REVALUATIONS: THE CASE OF NEW ZEALAND
Kamran Ahmed and Haim Falk
Previous research hypothesised positive association between a firm's growth opportunities and voluntary upward revaluation of assets. Utilising multiple proxies for growth opportunities available from financial statements of publicly traded firms in New Zealand, where asset revaluations are permitted by GAAP, we examined this hypothesis. While the results of the univariate analysis lend some support to the hypothesis robust multiple logistic regression models yielded mixed results. Thus, the hypothesised relation is still open to question.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DISCLOSURE IN SINGAPORE: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY
Zubaidah bte Ismail, Koh Bee Eng, Alfred L C Loh
There has been increasing pressures from government and outside parties for companies to assume greater accountability for their impact on society in general. With this, corporate awareness and the disclosures of its social responsibility can only intensify in the future. The development of voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosures will in part be determined by social and economic conditions. This paper looks at a case study of an emerging economy. The objective of this longitudinal case study is to examine corporate social responsibility disclosures in Singapore over two periods, 1980-1984 and 1990-1994. Results obtained show that the level of disclosure is significantly correlated with time period, corporate size, profitability and industry grouping.
Key words: Corporate social reporting; Emerging economy; Longitudinal study; Voluntary disclosures; Corporate disclosures
Papers from the First International We-BC Conference 2000
AUSTRALIAN SMEs, CONSULTANT ENGAGEMENT AND B2C SUCCESS FACTORS
Shirley Bode and Janice Burn
The majority of Australian SMEs have neither the internal expertise nor financial resources to enable in-house development of electronic commerce and therefore turn to the services of website design consultants to assist them. As this appears to be a necessary strategy, given the operational and financial limitations of SMEs, the efficacy of this option is investigated in this paper.
The paper incorporates a pilot case study of four Australian on-line retail business to consumer SMEs who contracted website design consultants to produce their sites. The SMEs chosen were established retail businesses and all used the services of different website design consultants. The research is part of a wider study into the relationship between Australian SMEs and Website Design Consultants.
MIGRATING ISSUES FROM ELECTRONIC COMMERCE TO MOBILE COMMERCE
Raj Gururajan and Selvi Kandasaami
The recent changes in telecommunication techniques have brought about the realisation of mobile computing. With infrared frequencies and radio frequencies, it is possible to use computers in a wireless mode. Wireless mode has led to the development of wireless application protocols (WAP). The WAP has put the current development of e-commerce in the hands of consumers and it has resulted in the mobile commerce or m-commerce. Companies like Nokia and Ericsson are attempting to turn mobile phones into virtual credit cards. End-user expenditures on m-commerce services are expected to rise to more than 200 billion US dollars by the year 2005 (Young, 2000). Despite the technical developments, a number of unresolved issues are migrating from e-commerce to m-commerce. This paper examines these issues from the perspectives of consumers, businesses and governments.
WORKING FOR E-BUSINESS - THE BUSINESS ENGINEERING APPROACH
Robert Winter
Driven by IT innovations and new business paradigms, the transformation of traditional business models and business architectures to electronic business is imposing huge challenges particularly for large organisations. This paper introduces business engineering, the discipline of collaborative, model-based conceptualisation, design, and implementation of transformations in companies and in administration. Business engineering is introduced with reference to its vision for business architecture and business models of the information age, its most important components, and its methods. The roles of business engineers in 'old' and 'new' companies, are examined, and training requirements derived. The paper concludes by suggesting themes for future research.
Keywords: Electronic business, business engineering, transformation, business architecture