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This paper presents a method designed to measure the value of Knowledge Based Systems (KBSs) to the employees involved in their development, implementation and use at an organisation. The method is based upon the scoring approach to valuation. The major advantage of using this approach stems from the fact that many KBSs are typified by numerous intangible benefits and costs. Traditional cost benefit models are unable to account for the contribution of intangible benefits to the value of an evolving KBS project. The method presented here overcomes this difficulty by using managers, users, and experts involved in a KBS project to measure its perceived value from both tangible and intangible sources. It produces an overall measure of value which is separated into three critical categories ‐ time, finances, and quality. Time and finances are tangible, while quality is intangible. These categories are meaningful to decision makers at all organisational levels and are critical in making an informed investment decision. The paper applies the method to two KBS projects from a large manufacturing and sales organisation. Suggestions are made for practical uses to which the method can be applied.

The purpose of this study is to determine what initiatives have been undertaken by universities across North America in implementing environmental management systems (EMS). Many universities have discovered that their activities can have significant impacts on the environment. As a result, some institutions have implemented systems to help them organize activities in order to recognize and reduce adverse environmental effects. This paper contributes to our understanding of these systems. A framework is developed that identifies important characteristics of effective EMS currently in use at some North American universities. The framework also provides guidance for those universities that have not yet developed effective EMS.

Suggests that businesses need a method specifically designed to assess the value of knowledge‐based system (KBS) investments. Explains the inadequacies of current valuation methods when they are applied to KBS investment decisions. Proposes a graphical valuation method which adapts the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to overcome these inadequacies and help business executives make informed KBS investment decisions. Presents an example of the method’s application to a KBS at a large multinational sales and manufacturing company.

This paper examines public budgeting in the first 30 years of China under central economic planning and one-party system. The research question is whether budgeting operates as it does under market economy in a democratic system. Analysis of historical documents finds that as a subordinate to central economic planning, budgeting was not able to play its functions. Though China was successful in employing all fiscal and monetary means to channel resources into targeted policy areas, budgeting was not effectively used as an administrative instrument. In the 30 years examined, the country seemed to be searching in vain for a workable budgeting system so as to avoid repeated financial frustrations.

The purpose of this study is to use the theory of planned behavior to test a structural model of retirement timing intentions of older workers in Canada following the abolishment of mandatory retirement.

A survey of 281 working individuals was conducted in order to test a model of retirement timing.

The model was a good fit to the data. Attitudes toward people at work predicted people's attitudes toward work. Attitudes toward work predicted age and life perceptions. Age and life perceptions predicted control. Control predicted social/policy influences, and finally social/policy influences predicted planned retirement age.

The main limitations of this study were that the authors tested a model based on self report data. Furthermore the data were correlational therefore they cannot make causal inferences.

Work attitudes predict people's own perceptions of their life and age. And these are predictive of norms. Organizations need to consider people's perceptions of their work, if they are to retain workers past the normal retirement age. Implementing work practices/policies, e.g. flexible work, become key considerations for these organizations.

The authors now have empirical support for the contention that norms are important for investigating the short term effects of lifting mandatory retirement, but also when considering the long term effects that changing mandatory retirement policies may have on individual's retirement timing. Furthermore, they have a more comprehensive model of retirement timing.

This paper examines public budgeting in the first 30 years of China under central economic planning and one-party system. The research question is whether budgeting operates as it does under market economy in a democratic system. Analysis of historical documents finds that as a subordinate to central economic planning, budgeting was not able to play its functions. Though China was successful in employing all fiscal and monetary means to channel resources into targeted policy areas, budgeting was not effectively used as an administrative instrument. In the 30 years examined, the country seemed to be searching in vain for a workable budgeting system so as to avoid repeated financial frustrations.

This study offers empirical evidence from a nationally representative panel dataset of nascent entrepreneurs (PSED-II) regarding when external financing is acquired and how certain factors affect this timing during the cumulative process of nascent entrepreneurs taking actions toward establishing an operational entity. By assessing the relationship between the external financing event and the cumulative set of actions that nascent entrepreneurs undertake to create new businesses, we improve our understanding of how the timing of acquiring external financing affects organizational survival and growth.

We apply nonparametric and semiparametric survival analysis techniques to a nationally representative panel dataset of nascent entrepreneurs. This ascertains the probability of an external financing event at any given moment in time and a set of startup conditions that we hypothesize will affect this timing. First, we use Kaplan–Meier analysis to explore when external financing occurs during new business creation. We then use discrete-time survival analysis to investigate whether certain startup conditions affect when external financing occurs. Finally, we conduct a test of independence to examine the external financing event relative to other startup activities completed during new business creation.

Nascent entrepreneurs tend to acquire external funding relatively late in the new venture startup process – on average, about two-thirds of the way from conceiving of the idea and becoming operational. They tend to take actions that are less resource-demanding early in the startup process to build their organizations to a fundable stage. Net worth tends to speed up the acquisition of external funding as wealthy entrepreneurs tend to ask for funding earlier in the process. Finally, entrepreneurs in capital-intensive industries do not seem to get outside funding before entrepreneurs in other industries.

This study is unique in three ways. First, we investigate the timing of the highly important external financing event. Timing is critical in unpacking and making sense of the very early stages of a new business and in guiding entrepreneurs and students about when to do what. Second, we do so in a subsample of preoperational, nascent, funded entrepreneurs derived from a nationally representative panel dataset of startup attempts. Third, our findings provide a counter-intuitive yet systematic understanding of organizational emergence and very early-stage financing.

This publication is based on a research thesis which examined self‐help ethnic minority organisations and their activities in order to construct an accurate picture of the library and information needs of their members. It identified the kinds of co‐operation that existed between self‐help ethnic minority organisations and public libraries and other relevant official agencies. A series of models for co‐operation that could take place between public libraries, other relevant agencies and self‐help organisations was constructed.

The chapter studies the problems of formation of regional mechanisms of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, which are determined by complexity of attracting private capital in financing of infrastructure, which is limited by a long return period and the level of profitability of projects. The mechanism of public–private partnership is offered, which allows leveling high risks of implementation of infrastructural projects under guidance of the state. Also, the methodology of foresight control is studied, which is the last stage of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, as innovational tools of forecasting the future, which is aimed at leveling the risks, allows determining and neutralizing the danger of nontarget usage of invested financial resources, and seeing the threats to internal environment and external environment.

Benedictine abbeys are highly stable organisations that have existed for almost 1,500 years. The extant literature ascribes this stability in part to the notion of Benedictine governance, which centres on the Rule of St Benedict (RB). An integral part of Benedictine governance is the cellarer, who plays a role comparable to that of a chief financial officer (CFO) in a traditional corporation. Unlike corporations, however, in which the CFO has emerged into a more important role over the past few decades, the cellarer has been an official position in Benedictine abbeys since the introduction of the RB in the sixth century. The present paper aims to explore the cellarer's role and assesses which parts of it could be reasonably transferred to the corporate world.

Informed by organisational role theory, the authors conducted a single case study in an Austrian Benedictine abbey. The authors used group discussions and semi-structured interviews as the main research instruments.

The authors find that the cellarer's behaviour shows strong signs of stewardship, which could serve as a role model for corporate CFOs. However, because of the studied abbey's situation of financial distress, the cellarer also experienced severe role conflicts rooted in his obedience to the abbot, the high involvement of the abbey in the local economy, and the cellarer's conscience as a Christian monk. From these findings, the authors describe those aspects of the cellarer's role that should thus be avoided for corporate CFOs.

The presented findings are based on a single case study. Therefore, because of the contextual factors idiosyncratic to the abbey under investigation, the results must be interpreted with care. Nevertheless, the findings explain the cellarer's role and depict its potential benefits for the corporate world, which should induce further research.

This is the first paper to explore in-depth the cellarer's role as well as one of the first to transfer the potential benefits of single roles rooted in Benedictine governance to the corporate world.