John R. Evans

Dispositions of elite-level Australian rugby coaches towards game sense: characteristics of their coaching habitus

Bourdieus analytic concept of habitus has provided a valuable means of theorising coach development but is yet to be operationalised in empirical research. This article redresses this oversight by drawing on a larger study that inquired into how the ‘coaching habitus’ of elite-level Australian and New Zealand rugby coaches structured their interpretation and use of the Game Sense approach to coaching to illustrate how habitus can be operationalised. It focuses on the identification of characteristics of the individual coaching habitus of four elite-level Australian rugby coaches and how they shape their interpretation and use of Game Sense. Drawing on suggestions made by Lau, we identify the characteristics of four individual ‘coaching habitus’ by examining their views on: (1) the characteristics of good coaches; (2) characteristics of great rugby players and how to develop them; and (3) their dispositions towards innovation in coaching.

A Framework to Manage the Measurable, Immeasurable and the Unidentifiable Financial Risk

Traditionally, financial risk management has mainly focused on the types of risk that can be identified and measured. Many actuarial and statistical theories and models have been developed in the past, to quantify such risks. However, high-profile events such as Black Monday, the Asian financial crisis, 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Enron scandal, and more recently the global financial crisis, has repeatedly proven to the financial world that risks which matter to the stability of financial firms are often immeasurable and unidentifiable. Hence, simply focusing on the measurable risks is inadequate for a sound management of financial risks. In this paper, we develop a holistic framework to identify (if possible), measure (if possible), and manage the measurable, as well as the immeasurable, and the unidentifiable risks. We identify four realms of financial uncertainties and point out that each realm possesses a unique set of challenges to risk management. Moreover, we show that the tools needed to grapple each realm of uncertainty are fundamentally different, therefore stressing the importance of the need for awareness of these separate realms of uncertainty. The paper provides a discussion of methods available for assessing and managing each realm of uncertainty, and their limitations, by drawing from risk management techniques used in various fields of science and other industries.

The relationship between environmental social governance factors and U.S. stock performance

The focus by investment practitioners on the impacts of non-traditional environmental and governance issues has intensified in recent times as a result of global events. Most studies examine the relationship between environmental social governance (ESG) factors and portfolio returns. This article extends those studies by analyzing the impacts on stock valuation and operating performance of U.S. listed companies. Using a multifactor framework, the article provides evidence of a significant positive relationship between particular ESG rating criteria and both return on assets and market-to-book-value measures, supporting the theory that Corporate Social Performance is positive for Corporate Financial Performance. Analysis also shows that employment conditions are a more relevant influence than other stakeholder criteria and that a company’s involvement in more general non-stakeholder-related social issues contributes negatively to both operating performance and stock return.

Socialisation, culture and the foundations of expertise in elite level Indigenous Australian sportsmen

ABSTRACT This article reports on an ongoing study that investigates the development of expertise in rugby league and Australian football by Indigenous Australians as a socially and culturally situated process of learning. Focused on the sampling phase of the Development Model of Participation in Sport (6–12 years of age), it combines narrative inquiry and grounded theory methodologies to identify the important role that participation in a range of different sports and in informal games plays in the participants’ development of expertise, as a process of socialisation.

Benchmarking and crosschecking international banking economic and regulatory capital

The purpose of this paper is to provide banking regulators with another tool to crosscheck the appropriateness and consistency of levels of capital adequacy for banks. The process begins by examining banking systems and focuses on market risks and the systemic risks associated with growing global economic integration and associated systemic interdependence. The model provides benchmarks for economic and regulatory capital for international banking systems using country, regional and global stock‐market generated price index returns data. The benchmarks can then be translated to crosschecking capital levels for banks within those systems. For analytical purposes systems are assumed to possess a degree of informational efficiency and credit, liquidity and operational risks are held constant or at least assumed to be covered in loan loss provisions. An empirical study is included that demonstrates how market risk and systemic risk can be accounted for in a benchmark banking system performance model. Full testing of the model is left for future research. The paper merely proposes that such an approach is feasible and useful and it is in no way intended to be a replacement for the current Basel Accord.

A New Insight into the World Economic Forum Global Risks

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recognises in their recent global risk reports the need to better understand the dynamics of the global economic system, and in particular the interconnectedness in the system in order to better appreciate the possibility of both single and multiple risk events occurring. This paper applies a cladistics analysis technique to identify the commonality of identified characteristics across a sample set of the 2014 WEF global risks (WEF 2014) as a basis for a new understanding of the linkages and potential evolution of the WEF risks. This approach shows strong potential to provide deeper insights into the nature and interdependency of global risks and in particular how this allows for more efficient management of these risks.

An analysis of operational risk events in US and European Banks 2008–2014

Abstract This paper explores the characteristics of 2,141 operational risk events amongst European (EU) and US banks over the period 2008–2014. We have analysed the operational risk events using a method originating in biology for the study of interrelatedness of characteristics in a complex adaptive system. The methodology, called cladistics, provides insights into the relationships between characteristics of operational risk events in banks that is not available from the traditional statistical analysis. We have used cladistics to explore if there are consistent patterns of operational risk characteristics across banks in single and different geographic zones. One significant pattern emerged which indicates there are key, stable characteristics across both geographic zones and across banks in each zone. The results identify the characteristics that could then be managed by the banks to reduce operational risk losses. We also have analysed separately the characteristics of operational risk events for “big” banks and extreme events and these results indicate that big banks and small banks have similar key operational risk characteristics, but the characteristics of extreme operational risk events are different to those for the non-extreme events.

Significance of Controllable and Uncontrollable Drivers in Credit Defaults

The world economy has been shown to be a complex adaptive system with the consequence that companies within the global economy are constantly needing to react to influences from the activities of other companies with which they are interconnected and external influences. This paper uses a methodology developed for complex adaptive systems to analyse the characteristics of multiple credit default events in the United States, Europe and Asia over the period 1990–2010 to establish the significance of factors driving credit defaults. The analysis indicates that factors controllable by companies are more significant in the United States and Europe than uncontrollable events, but the reverse occurs in Asia.

Impact of operating and balance sheet performance of Japanese international banks on bank safety levels and risk ratings

Using a simultaneous equation model initially developed by Shrieves and Dahl this article shows that Japanese banks in comparison to European banks, have focused on factors other than those that impact on bank safety levels. This has left Japanese banks in a vulnerable position with respect to levels of non-performing loans and indicates that less attention has been paid to prudent credit risk assessment and management practices. Recent events and actions initiated by the Japanese government suggests that Japanese banks are in crisis in terms of their dangerously large burden of non-performing loans. The broad objective of this study is to demonstrate that the attention of any healthy and safe banking system needs to be focused on operating and balance sheet fundamentals. Focus needs to be on maximization of earnings, determination of the appropriate level of financial risk, careful management of expenses and the optimisation of bank size in a deregulated, competitive environment where prudent lending criteria are applied.

The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes’ into professional sport

ABSTRACT This article reports on a study that inquired into the journeys of sixteen Indigenous Australian athletes from their first touch of the footy to the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) that identified two distinct stages of their journeys. These were: (1) the development of expertize and of a distinctly Aboriginal style of play from their first touch of a footy to around the age of thirteen and, (2) a process of cultural transitioning toward and into the AFL and NRL. This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to focus on the second stage of transitioning into the world of professional sport and sport as business. Identifying this as a process of cultural transitioning from local Aboriginal culture to the culture of professional sport provided insight into this transitioning process while illuminating the profound importance of culture in this process. It also helped identify the ways in which tensions between local approaches to ‘footy’ as play and cultural expression and professional sport as work, within the global culture of sport-as-business, were manifested in the challenges that the participants had to overcome. This article thus contributes to knowledge about Indigenous development of sporting expertize, of the specific challenges they face in transitioning into the global culture of commodified sport and how they succeed from a cultural perspective.