April Wright

Can mergers ensure the survival of credit unions in the third millennium

Abstract The survival of small financial institutions in the third millennium depends on their competitiveness against large bank rivals. Accordingly, credit unions in Australia and the United States have attempted to increase efficiency through mergers. Our paper uses the data envelopment analysis methodology to evaluate the post-merger gains in technical and scale efficiency achieved by 31 Australian credit union mergers in 1993/1994 and 1994/1995, relative to non-merging credit unions. When compared with the only US study of credit union mergers [Journal of Banking & Finance 23 (1999) 367–386], our findings suggests that mergers are not associated with improvements in efficiency superior to those achieved by internal growth.

Technology as an Enabler of the Global Branding of Retail Financial Services

The market for retail financial services has been transformed in the past decade by new distribution and processing technologies and their impact on consumer attitudes to banking and banks. These factors have removed the geographic and cost barriers to the global distribution of retail financial services and have led to a convergence in the key benefits sought by consumers in developed countries. This increases the need for and the effectiveness of globally consistent brand images.

Threshold Concepts and Conceptions Student Learning in Introductory Management Courses

This article explores how insights from the broader education literature on threshold concepts and conceptions can be applied to improve the teaching of undergraduate introductory management courses. The authors propose that these courses are underpinned by the threshold conception, or “underlying game,” that management is a practice informed by theory. This threshold conception is both troublesome and transformative for novice management students. Using the redesign of the undergraduate introductory management course the authors teach as an exemplar, they demonstrate how student learning can be improved by designing learning activities and assessment that help students “see” the threshold conception that connects management theory and practice.

Domination in Organizational Fields: It’s Just Not Cricket

This article demonstrates how deep engagement with Bourdieu’s theory of the field enriches scholarly understanding of institutional processes. A historical narrative of institutional formation and change in firstclass County cricket in England as a field of restricted cultural production is presented. The narrative illustrates how focusing attention on the position of agents within the field, the relations of production within the field, and the social context, which includes social class, provides a path for analysis of institutional processes which is dynamic, multi-level and nuanced. Bourdieu’s conception of fields as a struggle for capital between agents strategizing to improve field position illuminates the importance of social class to institutional processes, an effect that has been under reported by the most popular approaches to institutionalization in the extant literature.

The Lagging Development of Small Business Internet Banking in Australia

The most recent technological advance with the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry worldwide is Internet banking. Given that on-line banking transactions cost substantially less than physical branch transactions, banks throughout the world are rushing to develop their Internet strategies. This is a boon for home banking consumers, who can now enjoy more convenient and timely access to funds at lower cost (Harper 1997). Furthermore, on-line mortgage brokers, such as e-loan and mortgage. com, are reshaping credit markets in the U.S., Europe and Asia. While Australian financial institutions have been slower to join the Internet banking trend, almost all banks and other financial establishments now offer on-line banking facilities or are planning to do so in the near future. However, Australian financial institutions are primarily targeting their Internet banking strategies on the personal home banking segment. The small business segment has been largely ignored.

The Impact Of Competition On The Operations Of Foreign Banks In Australia In The Post-Deregulation Period

In 1985, Australia removed its long-standing embargo on the entry of foreign banks. The Australian market therefore provides an opportunity to study the factors influencing multinational bank expansion in a new host country. This paper tests a model of the size of multinational banking operations in Australia in the post-embargo period. One major finding is that a push for market share in a highly competitive environment led to risky lending practices in the global boom-bust economic climate of the late 1980s, which adversely affected the foreign banks’ performance. Another is that competition from home country banks had a significantly negative effect on foreign banks’ asset volumes.

Combining crisis management and evidence-based management: the Queensland floods as a teachable moment

Natural disasters, such as floods, provide teachable moments for students to learn about crisis management. The authors argue that evidence-based management offers a pedagogical tool for leveraging these teachable moments to deepen student learning about the management challenges of crisis situations. An emerging area in management education, evidence-based management involves using best available scientific evidence as the basis for management decision making and practice. Using data from 782 student assignments in an undergraduate introductory management course, the authors show how combining crisis management and evidence-based management in an assignment task in the aftermath of the 2010-2011 Queensland floods in Australia deepened student learning of general and crisis management concepts and increased students’ engagement in learning an evidence-based management approach.

Lending procedures and the viability‐social objectives conflict in credit unions

Sound lending procedures in retail financial institutions involve identifying high‐risk applicants, modifying loan conditions such as security requirements, and monitoring repayments post‐loan approval. For managers of credit unions, this procedure is complicated by the need to achieve balance between the institution’s social objective of improving loan accessibility so members can attain lifestyle goals and the possibility of reducing the institution’s viability through loan default. The results of our survey of Australian credit unions, in which 70 per cent of respondents reported experiencing some bankruptcy‐related default on personal loans, indicate managers do not impose more stringent lending conditions on high‐risk borrowers. However, social and viability objectives could be better balanced through careful loan monitoring and timely arrears practices.

Evidence‐Based Management in Practice: Opening Up the Decision Process, Decision‐Maker and Context

Evidence‐based management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over‐privileges rationality as a basis for decision‐making; ‘scientific’ evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is limited; and, although ideas were originally taken from evidence‐based medicine, individual‐situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, the authors adopted an approach of ‘opening up’ the decision process, the decision‐maker and the context (Langley et al. ([Langley, A., 1995]). ‘Opening up decision making: the view from the black stool’, Organization Science, 6, pp. 260–279). The empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emergency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, it describes how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. It identifies the role of ‘fit’ between the decision‐maker and the organizational context in enabling an evidence‐based process and develops insights for EBM theory and practice.

Strategies for Teaching Evidence-Based Management What Management Educators Can Learn From Medicine

Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is a growing literature stream in management education which contends that management decision making should be informed by the best available scientific evidence (Rousseau, 2006). Encouraged by the success of evidence-based practice in the field of medicine, advocates of EBMgt have increasingly called for management educators to develop graduates into evidence-based practitioners who—like physicians—value and use evidence in their daily practice in organizations. In this essay, we contribute to these debates by exploring three strategies that are used in medicine to train physicians to engage with evidence: embedding the normative foundation of evidence in problem-solving routines, role modelling being a reflective research consumer, and creating teachable moments through lived experience of research. We consider whether and how these strategies can be adapted to inform teaching the teaching of EBMgt. Drawing on these insights from physician training, we suggest a range of methods and techniques that management educators can implement in their teaching to facilitate student learning about evidence-based practice. We also consider the challenge of developing evidence-based cultures in organizations.