Access Economics. Business Outlook : five year forecasts for business planners, December 2008 [online resource]

"The Federal Budget is buggered. The collapse in commodity prices will, with a lag, mean a collapse in company taxes. But it is not the short term implications of deficits which worry us. It is the longer term risk of chicken-hearted policymaking now that Canberra’s ‘rivers of gold’ are drying up. This nation has legitimate policy goals in education, infrastructure, Federal/State relations, climate change and water management. What it doesn’t have any more is the money to help achieve reforms in those areas." - executive summary.

Australia: economy teetering on the brink of recession (article)
Source: Datamonitor Business Digest
"Fresh on the heels of discouraging unemployment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, several large Australian companies have announced job cuts. These cuts could prove costly for the general economy, as a high rate of employment and a relatively stable financial system were widely perceived to have shielded Australia from the worst ravages of the global economic crisis."

Improving Partnership Governance: Using a Network Approach to Evaluate Partnerships in Victoria (journal article)
by Jeanette Pope and Jenny M. Lewis
from Australian Journal of Public Administration, Volume 67, Issue 4 (p 443-456)
"Partnerships of various kinds are now widespread, but evaluating them is complicated. This
article examines the usefulness of a network approach for analysing partnership effectiveness,
where the central concern is governance. The approach is based on interviews, and for this
evaluation they were conducted with 120 people from 10 different partnerships in Victoria.
A detailed examination of network structures uncovers important features of partnerships,
yielding crucial information about them as governing entities, and providing feedback to
partners on where effort needs to be spent on relationship building. This article adds to the
existing knowledge about what makes partnerships effective, and to the toolkit available for
evaluating them."

Secret Econometric Business: Watching FuelWatch and the ACCC (journal article)
by Sinclair Davidson
From Agenda, Volume 15 No 4
"This paper appraises the econometric study of Western Australia's FuelWatch scheme that the ACCC has used to advocate to the Federal Government the petrol price regulation scheme known as 'Fuel Watch'. It is argued that the ACCC's econometric analysis is fundamentally flawed."

Coaching in organizations : best coaching practices from the Ken Blanchard Companies [book]

Authors: Madeleine Homan and Linda Miller
"Equips human resource and organizational development professionals, as well as beginning to expert coaches, with the tools and methodologies they need to help clients become more effective leaders within their organizations." - cover.

Billion dollar lessons : what you can learn from the most inexcusable business failures of the last twenty-five years [book]

Authors: Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui

"Analyzes the costly mistakes of companies throughout the past quarter century to counsel business professionals on what not to do, in a guide that profiles key strategy failures and challenges popular beliefs about leadership, luck, and effective execution." - from publisher.

Leading with kindness : how good people consistently get superior results [book]

Authors: William F. Baker & Michael O'Malley

"Identifies six ingredients of kindness - compassion, integrity, gratitude, authenticity, humility, and humor - none of which might readily spring to mind when envisioning the archetypal business leader. But they are absolutely essential to powerful leadership. The book also points out obstacles to each of the six qualities, and (crucially) offers real-world, everyday management and leadership approaches that build and demonstrate each one." - cover.

Commodity prices and the Australian economy : trends vs cycles [journal article]
By: Stephen Kirchner
From: Policy, Summer 2008/2009, Vol. 24 Issue 4
"Rising commodity export prices have been a positive factor for the Australian economy since 2002. With growth in export prices exceeding growth in import prices, our terms of trade have reached their highest level since the Korean War boom. There is debate over whether these gains are merely cyclical or represent a structural shift to a permanently higher level of national income. The pronounced cyclical behaviour of commodity prices, highlighted by their dramatic fall in the wake of the global financial crisis, makes it difficult to isolate underlying trends, but there is a case that productivity gains make real commodity prices decline over the long run."

Seize Advantage in a Downturn [journal article]
By: David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter / Boston Consulting Group
From: Harvard Business Review, February 2009
"Inaction is the riskiest response to the uncertainties of an economic crisis. But rash or scattershot action can be nearly as damaging. Risking anxiety (how much worse are things likely to get? how long is this going to last?) and the growing pressure to do something often produces a variety of uncoordinated moves that target the wrong problem or overshoot the right one. A disorganized response can also generate a sense of panic in an organization. And that will distract people from seeing something crucially important: the hidden but significant opportunities nestled among the bad economic news." - page 1.

The Subprime solution : how today's global financial crisis happened, and what to do about it [book]

Author: Robert J. Shiller

"Economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of this crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it. He calls for an aggressive response - a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that will not only allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence, but will create the conditions for greater prosperity in America and throughout the deeply interconnected world economy." - cover.

Choosing not to choose : making superannuation work by default [book]

Authors: Josh Fear / Australia Institute & Geraldine Pace / Industry Super Network

Finds that the Coalition's "Choice of Fund policy" has not been effective in promoting consumer-centred competition, nor has it reduced fees or the administrative burden for employers.

Traders feeling pinch as protectionism rises [journal article]
From: Asia Today International Online Magazine, January 2009
"AN internal WTO Task Force is reviewing ways of dealing with a growing wave of protectionism . . . INTERNATIONAL TRADE – the lifeline of East Asia – is declining rapidly as
countries step up protectionist measures to shield domestic producers from foreign competition.
Indonesia has become the first in the region to slap restrictions on imports of some 500 items, including electronics, children's toys, footwear, apparel, and food and beverage products."

Contact the library for a copy of this article.

What Can Coaches Do for You? [journal article]
By: Diane Coutu & others
From: Harvard Business Review; Jan 2009, Vol. 87 Issue 1
"Today's business leaders increasingly rely on coaches for help in understanding how to act in a demanding and volatile world. These confidants and advisers can earn up to $3,500 per hour. To understand what they do to merit that money, HBR conducted a survey of 140 leading coaches and invited five experts to comment on the findings. Commentators and coaches agreed that the reasons for engaging coaches have evolved over the past decade. Ten years ago, most companies hired a coach to help fix toxic behavior at the top. Today, most coaching is about developing the capabilities of high-potential performers or acting as a sounding board."

Business stripped bare : adventures of a global entrepreneur [book]

Author: Richard Branson

"Sir Richard Branson shares the inside track on his life in business and reveals the incredible truth about his most risky, brilliant and audacious deals ... What does Richard look for in the people he hires? How does he manage a crisis? Who are the entrepreneurs he most admires?" - cover.

Picking the Right Transition Strategy [journal article]
By: Michael D. Watkins
From: Harvard Business Review, January 2009, Vol. 87 Issue 1
"Leaders in transition reflexively rely on the skills and strategies that worked for them in the past. That's a mistake, say Watkins, whose research shows that executives moving into new roles must gain a deep understanding of the situation at hand to adapt to it. To help them accurately assess their organizations and tailor their strategies and styles accordingly, he developed the STARS framework. "STARS" is an acronym for five common situations leaders move into: start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success. Thus, the model outlines the challenges of launching a venture or project; saving a business or initiative that's in serious trouble; dealing with rapid expansion; reenergizing a once-leading company that's now facing problems; and following in the footsteps of a highly regarded leader with a strong legacy of success. "

An artful learning framework for organisations [journal article]
By: Glenys Drew
From: Journal of Management & Organization, Vol 14 Issue 5 (November 2008)
"This paper proposes an Artful Learning Framework as an organisational development initiative. The framework is designed to assist people in organisations seeking higher levels of engagement in their strategic and operational endeavours, such as navigating change. The Artful Learning Framework offers three strategies as potential artful learning events designed to help people in organisations engage with each other creatively to achieve their organisational and professional goals. The Artful Learning Wave Trajectory model (Kerr 2006) forms a conceptual antecedent for the Artful Learning Framework. The Framework's strategies align with the relevant literature on organisational learning and, in particular, a proposition of Kerr (2006) who identifies a suite of skills, capacities and capabilities that are important in organisations. The notion of the wave, with the effect of 'pausing and gathering' to consider amidst the inevitable ambiguity and turbulence of forward movement, is invoked as a metaphor for the elements of the Framework which support its strategies. The paper will be of interest to individuals and groups that are committed to profound learning and capability building for the benefit of themselves, their teams and the organisations in which they work."
Contact the library for a copy of this article.

Performance benchmarking of Australian business regulation : quantity and quality [book]

Author: Australia. Productivity Commission

"Provides a snapshot of the current regulatory environment across jurisdictions and yields insights into the application of best practice principles of regulation in each jurisdiction." - overview.

Management5 [book]

Author: Stephen P. Robbins

Comprehensive textbook covering management theory and practice, including managing for sustainability. Major concepts are illustrated using current Australian examples and case studies.

Industry trends in recessions: a snapshot [journal article]
From: McKinsey Quarterly, December 2008
"Many companies can anticipate the performance of their sectors in a recession. McKinsey research shows that during the 1990–91 and 2001–02 downturns, for example, US consumers reprioritized their spending rather than cutting it across the board. Consumer spending dropped in discretionary categories like dining out, personal care products, and charitable donations. But expenditures for groceries, reading materials, and other options that substitute for more expensive ones actually rose. So did outlays on insurance, health care, and, above all, education. "
Contact the library for a copy of this article.

The Book of the board : effective governance for non-profit organisations [book]

Author: David Fishel

"Explains the purpose of a board in a non-profit organisation, the board's formal and legal responsibilities, the main areas where a board can add to the organisation's effectiveness."--Provided by publisher.