Faculty of Economics and Commerce

Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge Transfer recognises the two-way flow and uptake of ideas between the University of Melbourne and the broader community. Every time the University’s staff and students work with government, business or the community to mutually share the benefits of research, teaching and learning, they are engaging in knowledge transfer. The Faculty is actively engaged through it's partnerships with business, government and community in addressing issues of local, national and global significance.

Below you will find our recent editions or our bi-annual Knowlege Transfer journal Insights and our quarterly KT flyer as well as recent examples of our Knowlege transfer activities. Contact us for more information

"We aim to develop close and mutually beneficial relationships with business, government, the not-for-profit sector and the professions, both nationally and internationally. These relationships underpin our position as a leading Economics and Commerce Faculty in the region and one of the best in the world."
Professor Margaret Abernethy, Dean, Faculty of Economics and Commerce

Publications

Recent examples of Knowledge Transfer in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce.

top of page

Developing the Risk Professional: A Collaboration with NAB

At the Vice-Chancellor’s Knowledge Transfer Awards ceremony, held on 23rd September at the University of Melbourne, the Faculty of Economics and Commerce demonstrated it’s growing engagement with industry. Michael Davern, Associate Professor in Accounting & Business Information Systems and Program Director at the Melbourne Graduate School of Management, received a University of Melbourne Knowledge Transfer Excellence Award for the project Developing the Risk Professional: A Collaboration with NAB

“How do we deliver a world class learning experience in a professional discipline?” “How do we provide a true education (vs. training), yet ensure relevance to the professional needs of industry and our students?” Associate Professor Davern says that these questions in part motivated this awardwinning collaboration with National Australia Bank (NAB) to develop and deliver a new postgraduate subject in Business Risk Management. The offering has proved timely with the Global Financial Crisis occurring during the development of the project. More< broadly, for NAB it was an opportunity to develop capabilities for its current

staff, and promote its position as an industry leader in the critical area of risk management. Associate Professor Davern collaborates with a team of senior executives from
NAB in the design and delivery of an interactive and challenging curriculum to develop a risk-aware culture in business decision making. Students from a range of programs within the Melbourne Graduate School of Management work closely in the class with up-and-coming NAB staff sponsored to participate for professional development. The success of this genuine two-way collaboration has been enabled by

high levels of commitment from both organisations and a clear identification of the mutual benefits. University alumni also played a key role in that NAB’s Mr Scott North, Head of Risk - Direct Banking, championed the project within NAB. Mr North is a Faculty of Economics and Commerce graduate (B.Com. 1995, MBIT 2006).

The success of this collaborative project is self-evident notes Associate Professor Davern: “enrolments by NAB staff are increasing; student evaluations and NAB focus group feedback has been positive;
and further collaborations are underway in both teaching and research”.

top of page

The Centre for Accounting and Industry Partnerships – 2009 Forum

The Centre for Accounting and Industry Partnerships (Centre) part of the Department of Accounting and Business Information Systems (ABIS) at the University of Melbourne, hosted the 2009 Forum on 13 October, Fair Value: Another opportunity for reform lost?

The invitation-only Forum, was held in the Boardroom at The Spot, University> of Melbourne, and explored issues related to the fair value accounting standard – one of the most controversial accounting standards ever issued. The Forum was opened by Professor Margaret Abernethy, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce, and Director of the Melbourne Graduate School of Management, and who holds the Chair in Managerial Accounting at the University of Melbourne.

Keynote addresses were presented by Professor Mary Barth, Stanford Graduate School of Business and International Accounting Standards Board Member (IASB) between 2001 and 2009 and who is currently the IASB Academic Advisor; and Kevin Stevenson, Chairman and CEO Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB), Member of the Financial reporting Council and Member of the NZ Financial Reporting Standards Board (all from July 2009).

Mr Stevenson spoke about the history of the debates over accounting measurement, drawing out parallels between the circumstances and technical issues in the early 1980’s and now. He expressed concern that in both eras poor understanding of the underlying concepts made it difficult to gain acceptance for current values and promoted un-ending confused debates about methods – methods which were not faithful to any one meaningful measurement attribute. Mr Stevenson urged people to support the case for reform so that we avoid a prolonged period in which measurement becomes too painful to talk about – something which characterised the 1980’s after the price level debates of the 1970’s.

Professor Barth presented a review on the research literature and commented on whether fair-value accounting is worthwhile pursuing. She also reflected on how the fair-value accounting debate evolved over her time on the IASB.

Aligned with the Forum, Professor Barth also gave the 70th Annual CPA/University of Melbourne Research Lecture — hosted by the Faculty of Economics and Commerce as part of the CPA Congress on 12 October. This lecture is endowed by CPA Australia to stimulate research and encourage original contributions to accounting. Professor Barth spoke on “Accounting Research and Global Financial Reporting”. Her lecture considered the financial reporting issues that IASB recently evaluated with a focus on fair value and the effect of globalisation.

Jan McCahey, Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia, also attended the Centre’s 2009 Forum on Fair Value and congratulated the Centre on taking the initiative to connect colleagues from the AASB, IASB, the University and the wider business community, on the challenges facing the IASB as it attempts to improve the financial instruments literature and the usefulness of the information included in financial reports.

The Centre’s directors, Professor Colin Ferguson and Professor Stewart Leech hosted the Forum. Also attending from ABIS were Associate Professor Paul Coram, Professor John Lyon, Head of ABIS, Associate Professor Matt Pinnuck, Associate Professor Brad Potter, and Professor Nasser Spear, Associate Dean International. Professor Ferguson commented that the Centre Forum provided an excellent opportunity to exchange views on the fair value accounting standard and to explore
differences of opinion across attendees representing the industry.

“The Centre, established in January this year, is committed to building partnerships and enhancing collaboration
between the University and the business sector, leveraging the skills, knowledge and resources to promote accounting based studies and research in the international community” said Professor Ferguson.

“It will act as a facilitator to encourage practitioners and researchers to work together to advance the accounting
discipline, and to explore contemporary issues and promote the exchange of ideas. Through strong links with industry, the Centre aims to foster long-lasting business relationships and ensure learning and teaching is aligned with
contemporary and commercial needs”.

The next key event being planned by the Centre in February 2010 is its official launch and the introduction of its Executives-in-Residence program. Details about the launch and the Executive-in Residence program will be posted on
the Centre webpage.

Further information about the Centre is available at:
www.abis.unimelb.edu.au/caip
Enquiries can be directed to Julee McMahon, the Centre’s project officer, phone: 83445350;
email: juleem@unimelb.edu.au.
Media enquiries can be directed to Cliff Howard, Media Liaison Coordinator, Advancement Unit,
Faculty of Economics.
Email:howardc@unimelb.edu.au

top of page

Industry guest speakers inspire students

Three guest presenters from very different industry sectors have recently contributed to the Master of Human Resource Management subject Developing Employee Competencies.

Coordinator/Lecturer, Nick Stone, invited the specialists in to help the students see how essential and transferable human resource development skills are across a broad range of professions. Students appreciated the variety: ‘The choice of three presenters from consulting, not-for-profit and corporate rounded out the subject and extended it to the wider HR functions, giving us something to aspire to.’

Investors in People (IIP) Australia specialist Peter Maguire presented on this international standard which was launched in Britain in 1991 and has since been practised in over 40,000 organisations and 23 countries, including Australia.

IIP is a world’s best practice standard for improving organisational performance through effective alignment and development of people. The assessment process includes interviewing employees about their experiences in the organisation and mapping responses back to a set of evidence requirements. As one student commented: ‘[It’s an] interesting and novel concept I was not previously aware of.’

Peter is the founder of RidgelineHR and can be contacted at peter@ridgelinehr.com.au

Dean Cunningham, Learning and Development Manager for Red Cross Australia, explained how he is facilitating organisational culture transformation by developing the custom designed Red Cross Behavioural Capability Framework.

This will be used as a unifying tool for all Australian Red Cross people who include not only ‘traditional’ staff, but also volunteers and international aid workers.

Student comments include: ‘[It was] Really helpful to see a capability framework in action, from developing
it from the grassroots to the roll out.’

‘It was really informative to see that the non-profit sector too pays attention to tying rewards to competencies.’

‘He showed a clear structure about how a non-profit organisation developed a competency framework for [a hugely< diverse] population’

Finally, Sue Smith from the Foster’s Group, gave an informal but extremely engaging presentation about her career and current role as Chief Human Resources Officer, the first female appointment at the senior executive level. The students’ feedback speaks for itself:

‘Sue’s presentation was great! Absolutely fantastic and it was great to see a woman in such a senior HR position. Sue made the presentation extremely engaging and informal but yet so informative.’

‘She was very elegant in answering all the questions...she incorporated her real life situation into her career... [balancing] long work hours with being a mother.’

‘I found the importance of talent management very interesting and the ways in which organisations can prepare for the shortage of talent. It was really interesting to hear about an organisation going through significant changes in HR and how this affects the roles of practitioners.’

All three presenters donated their time and efforts which was much appreciated by all.

top of page

The SEEK story

The history and background of SEEK, views on the current economic climate and how SEEK is responding to the downturn

On Tuesday 21 April, the Melbourne GSM was thrilled to welcome the CEO of SEEK Mr Paul Bassat who visited the Faculty as part of the Creating Future Leaders Series.

Mr Bassat presented an exciting and interesting seminar to students and Faculty staff on the SEEK Story including SEEK’s background and their response to the current economic climate.

Mr Bassat touched on some very interesting points including how he values
the importance of human resources in his organisation and the policies and processes SEEK has in place to support employees’ values and productivity

Additionally, Mr Bassat candidly spoke about the challenges of starting SEEK from scratch in 1997 and the competition at the time of its conception from print media, which was the primary source of communication between job seekers and advertisers.

Following the seminar, Mr Bassat attended lunch with student representatives from various student groups including the Melbourne GSM Student Association, FMAA, AIESEC and the Entrepreneurs Club. Here, students had the chance to engage further and tap into his experiences and recommendations for the up-and-coming, budding entrepreneur.

top of page

Ambient technologies open new doors for small to medium manufacturers

The University of Melbourne and the University of Western Sydney (UWS) have collaborated with a leading European research centre in Germany to help manufacturing SMEs develop an understanding of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. AmI technologies include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), wireless communication and speech recognition systems. These technologies have the potential to increase manufacturing flexibility, accuracy and speed by improving human-technology interaction at various stages of the supply chain.

Based on case studies developed on the Australian partners and interviews conducted with two technology providers, Sun Microsystems and Infosys, results show that SMEs in the Australian manufacturing sector share common problems with their European counterparts such as communication delays, scheduling and tracking inefficiencies, costly machine failures, and time intensive paper-based processes.

While the participating Australian companies have performed only the analysis and concept stages to date, the European companies have implemented AmI systems, and received tangible business benefits. Savings per year total tens of thousands of Euros for individual processes and some organisations also enjoyed improvements in customer satisfaction and reduced employee stress levels. Although the SMEs faced initial investment costs, all expect to recoup their investment within between 0.8 and 1.9 years. Knowledge Transfer results of the AmI project show that Ambient Intelligence technologies can help SMEs to improve their competitiveness.

The project was funded by the Department of Innovation Industry Science and Research (DIISR) under the International Science Linkages program and in Europe under the European< Union 6th Framework program. The Australian project was led by Associate Professor Milé Terziovski from the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne. Richard Ferrers was appointed as Research Fellow who worked closely with the Victorian industry partners. Professor Ross Chapman from the UWS was responsible for the project in NSW, while Dr Kathryn Hayes was the Research Fellow who worked with the NSW industry partners.

top of page

“Back to School” CIMA presentation: Costing, controlling and strategising: a chronology of conceptual developments for practitioners

Dr VG Sridharan, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accounting and Business Information Systems was invited to provide a guest lecture to the professional members of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountant Victoria Branch in their monthly meeting in Melbourne, 19 May 2009

The lecture titled ‘Costing, controlling and strategising: A chronology of conceptual developments for practitioners’ covered an overview of how several new concepts emerged and settled by either displacing some old or adjusting with some time-tested concepts in managerial accounting in the past two decades. To make the guest lecture interesting, Dr VG Sridharan traced the conceptual developments alongside his academic experience that shaped his own teaching and training in managerial accounting for both students and executives in different institutions in India, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Australia over the past two decades.

The current president of the CIMA Victoria Branch, Mr Harmohit Braich congratulated Dr VG Sridharan and commented on the very positive feedback from participants. The past president and the council member of CIMA Victoria Branch Mr Adrian Fernando indicated that they would actively consider having Dr VG Sridharan to come over for a series of such ‘Back to School’ lectures to shed more light on several new concepts.

top of page

Department Researchers Launch Report on Aged Care in Victoria

Associate Professor Leisa Sargent, Professor Bill Harley and Ms Belinda Allen of the Department of Management and Marketing launched a report on findings from their recent research on aged care in Victoria at the Australian Nursing Federation’s Aged Care Nurses Conference in Melbourne on 28 November 2008.

The research report outlines the findings of a systematic, empirical study of 1038 unionised employees in Victorian aged care. The research results suggest that significant work and organisational pressures (including aggression) in the aged care sector are having detrimental effects on nurses’ and aged care workers’ well-being. Importantly, the research findings also shed light on why workers are likely to leave the sector. Additionally, the research provides evidence of the importance of good human resource practices and adequate staffing levels in promoting positive resident care outcomes and minimising medication errors.

For more information, read the report Working in Aged Care: Medication Practices, Workplace Aggression and Employee and Resident Outcomes available at www.management. unimelb.edu.au/news/news.html#146 or contact Associate Professor Leisa Sargent.

top of page

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research

The Melbourne Institute is home of Australia’s major household longitudinal survey of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). The HILDA survey is led by the Deputy Director of the Melbourne Institute, Professor Mark Wooden, under a contract with the Commonwealth Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

HILDA provides a rich source of information that has been used by government partners for policy development in the areas of childcare, workforce participation, retirement and family functioning. HILDA data also benefits policy development in other government agencies such as the Department of Employment andWorkplace Relations, the Treasury, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Productivity Commission.

The HILDA survey is a good example of a partnership that generates intellectual capital, impacts on the society as awhole and has relevance to a wide international and Australian audience.

top of page

Insights

Insights, a new public interest journal produced by the Faculty of Economics and Commerce, publishes condensed and edited versions of public lectures held at conferences and seminars connected with the Faculty. These are valuable and accessible contributions to current debates and issues and they offer the latest thinking on business and economics.

Insights provides business and community leaders, alumni, students and researchers with easy access to contemporary material, keeping professionals up to date with new findings and key ideas relevant to their profession.

Insights is available online at http://insights.unimelb.edu.au. The first edition features articles on China’s fast growing economy, the IR debate and low paid workers and the value of accounting measures in predicting future profits.

top of page

Career Mentor Program

The Faculty’s Career Mentoring Program matches postgraduates with high profile industry mentors. Participating students are linked with mentors based on theirs hared interests and area of specialty.

The objective of career mentoring is to support student’s transition out of university into the workforce and to involve members of industry in a mutually beneficial partnership.

Successful mentor-mentee relationships enable students to gain insights into specific industries and begin to develop personal and professional networks.

Industry participants in the mentoring programs report that they in turn also benefit from the experience. Jacqueline Novak, a mentor from IBM Business Consulting Services said “It forces you to think about what you do from a different angle, sometimes we get so involved in what we do that it’s great to have someone see it from a different angle and ask you some challenging questions.”

Mentors came to the ten-month program from large, medium and small organisations including Business Council of Australia, Office of the Premier of Victoria, Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development, Department of Treasury and Finance, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, JP MorganChase Bank Berhad, St George Bank, NAB, AAMI, Cadbury Schweppes, Protiviti, The Nous Group, Ernst and Young, IBM, Synergy Plus, Siemens, Pitcher Partners, and Cubit Media Research.

Further information is available from the Graduate Careers Centre Career Mentoring page.

top of page

Contact us

If you would like further information about the Faculty of Economics and Commerce Knowledge Transfer activities or how to get involved, please do not hesitate to contact:

Brooke Young
Executive Director, Melbourne Graduate School of Management
Telephone: 8344 2166
Email: gsdir-ecom@ unimelb.edu.au

top of page