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The purpose of this paper is to close the transparency gap by comparing ex ante and ex post performance disclosure, thus providing important conclusions regarding the transparency of this important German market segment.

Closed-ended real estate funds (CEREFs) are one of the biggest segments of unlisted private equity funds in Germany. CEREFs have a central “profitability promise” that is based on ex ante forecasts given in the prospectus. Typically, equity is tied to these investments for up to 20-30 years, leaving investors highly insecure whether their expectations will be fulfilled and fund managers actually achieve prospected performances ex post.

The performance variance analysis of all German CEREFs outstanding during the global financial crisis reveals that prospect-performance disclosures as well as prospect-performance variances cause substantial problems in Germany due to overestimation biases of many fund managers.

As typical for the recent scholarly debate, also the past disclosure practice in Germany prohibits a long-term performance analysis, unless researchers apply instruments of modern investment analysis like comprehensive financial plans (“Visualisation of Financial Implications)”.

The transparency developments in CEREF-reporting of the last decade deliver precise recommendations regarding the internal and external performance variance analysis, risk-profiles and stress tests for the future fund management.

The introduced methodology would increase transparency in the segment of CEREF and, thus, improve investor protection. Since private households in Germany mainly acquire these funds, this is a contribution to sustainability in private asset management.

The paper develops a new methodological framework for performance measurement of unlisted funds. It then assesses for the first time the impact of transparency and trust on fund performances by applying a performance variance analysis.

The authors of “The Digital Fallacy” are interviewed by veteran strategist David Rader. They envision digital implementation as a learning journey rather than a time-boxed program. They name the journey “Digital Maturity.”

Explains how Digital Maturity is a way of applying digital technology – at first to promote efficiency and ultimately in creative ways to innovate new business models – an operation that continues to grow and evolve.

Digitally mature companies are more likely to be agile, experimental, risk tolerant, collaborative and learning organizations.

Getting started can begin with identifying leaders within the organization with characteristics exhibited by digitally mature organizations and tasking them and a team with an effort that allows them to test fast, learn fast and scale fast.

Companies often start by focusing on efficiency gains, then move to better use of data for decision making and then lastly to employ technology to transform their offerings and business models. The final stage is where the greatest value from digital maturity is achieved.

The key to effective management in times of tumult is organisation fit — the integration or congruence of the organisation. Tumult increases the need to manage the two major areas of fit more closely — organisation domain and external environment. Fit must be considered with equal emphasis in the short, mid and long term. An on‐going, strategic assessment of organisational fit is needed. The nature of the change process and the change variables must be identified. There are six ways that management can intervene between change variables to enhance their fit and four organisation interfaces which are directed towards adaptation to the external environment. This multi‐level change typology identifies three methods of directly managing organisation fit — intrusion, interface and intervention. These methods are discussed and interventions and interfaces described.

Most strategists would likely agree with the statement that company boards need to have a good understanding of corporate and business unit strategy in order to contribute to and oversee decision making. Recent McKinsey research suggests, however, that a majority of senior executives do not believe the board members adequately understand company strategy. This paper aims to investigate what is the best way to educate a board so it will be knowledgeable about strategy.

The paper compares and contrasts two sets of best practices for educating a board so that its members can add greater value to strategy making – advice in the current McKinsey Quarterly and that of David Nadler, author of Building Better Boards.

The paper concluded that the prescriptions of the McKinsey authors Dennis Carney and Michael Patsalos‐Fox are helpful, but consultant David Nadler offers a more comprehensive explanation in Building Better Boards.

Some key practices worth considering: raise strategy's profile in board work. Surprisingly no US company has a board committee devoted to the formulation and review of strategy; populate the board with at least three to four members who have industry expertise in the core business and market conditions the company faces; and reform board processes. To keep pace with change, CEOs should lead regular strategy updates at least every other board meeting.

By synthesizing the practical suggestions from the two sources, companies can put together a package of best practices.

The main aim of this study is to gauge international offshore students’ perceptions of virtual office hours (VOH) to consult with their offshore unit coordinators in Australia.

This paper employs a quantitative and qualitative approach where data was sourced from three offshore campuses over a 12‐month period using a survey instrument. SPSS v20 was used to perform basic descriptive analysis, cross tabulations and chi‐square statistics.

The study revealed that 81 per cent of respondents indicated a willingness to use VOH. A number of perceived benefits of VOH were also identified, including support my learning, instant feedback, feeling valued and convenience.

Participants may have inaccurate perceptions which can manifest in misguided data being presented. The willingness by the majority of undergraduate offshore students to use computer‐mediated communication to conduct VOH provides a platform to explore new ways to promote out‐of‐classroom communication. Students may become more engaged in the teaching and learning process and ultimately provide a more enriched and quality experience.

This study addresses a distinctive gap in the existing literature relating to gauging international offshore students’ perceptions of VOH. Furthermore, the study adds richness to a relatively new trend amongst educators in exploring students’ perceptions of VOH.

Although a large contingency of theory and research has been conducted in the area of individual and interpersonal communication, relatively few theoreticians have focused on the broader character of communication at the organizational level of analysis. With the increasing emphases on total quality, leadership, adaptive cultures, process reengineering, and other organizational change and development efforts, however, the need to understand the process and function of organizational communication at a broader, more systemic level is paramount. The following paper attempts to address this issue by providing: (1) a comparative review and critique of three “classic” theoretical approaches to describing the importance of communication in organizations and the relationship between communication and organizational functioning (open systems theory, the information‐processing perspective, and the communication as culture framework); and (2) a new integrative framework—the CPR model of organizational communication—for conceptualizing and understanding the nature of communication in organizations based on constructs adapted from these three perspectives. The model is then used both in an applied example to help diagnose an organizational system and to stimulate suggestions for future research.

This paper focuses on the concept of fit as a topic of research. The concept of fit has been viewed as an internal consistency among key strategic decisions or the alignment between strategic choices and critical contingencies with the environment (external), organization (internal), or both (external and internal). A number of research perspectives or approaches related to fit are presented.Research design problems are discussed: definition of terms, theoretical issues, and empirical issues. Emphasis is on how key variables or dimensions of fit are defined and measured in research.

A six-celled matrix is proposed as a conceptual scheme to distinguish different perspectives of fit and to portray congruence relationships more accurately. The matrix includes three common dimensions: strategy, organization, and environment. The matrix also suggests two levels of strategy—corporate or business—and three domains of fit—external, internal, or integrated. These suggest different research perspectives for the study of fit. Examples from the literature are provided to illustrate and support this conceptual scheme. Finally, implications for management and furtherstudy are outlined.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of change which is both academically rigorous and practitioner‐friendly.

A theoretical meta‐analysis is conducted by clustering themes from across a broad range of change‐related literature including: learning; personal, social, situational and emergent change; helping, systems thinking, process improvement and leadership.

Common themes emerge across all the change‐related literature, which suggests the existence of a common underlying “change progression”.

Whilst the literature covered is extensive, it is not comprehensive. The intention is to draw attention to the kinds of variables that need to be conceptualised, observed or enacted when change is studied or implemented.

The meta‐model has already proved a useful guide to implementing change and is presented here to stimulate scholarly debate among those studying it.

The benefit of considering such a broad range of change‐related fields is that each brings a different perspective to the stages of the common underlying journey. As a consequence, the meta‐model offers both a lens, to provide focus on the stages in this common “change progression”, and a prism, to reveal the full spectrum of applicable concepts and activities.

This case example is about working in an organisation characterised by conflict and low trust within the top and senior management levels. It sets out the stages of the work that was done, and the resulting, and continuing, positive pay‐offs which have taken place.