Sweeping financial management reforms occurred in New Zealand during the late 1980s and early 1990s which radically changed the face of the New Zealand public sector. These reforms sought to significantly restructure and reorganise local government thereby improving their effectiveness and efficiency and improving their accountability to their stakeholders. The principal vehicle for the discharge of this accountability is the annual report, which must be prepared according to Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP) and commercial principles. Organisations in the private sector are beginning to recognise the value of accounting for intellectual capital (IC) (see for example Quinn, 1992; Brooking, 1996; Sveiby, 1997; Edvinsson Malone, 1997; Bontis, Dragonetti, Jacobsen Roos, 1999; Guthrie, Petty Johanson, 2001; Bounfour, 2003). Studies on the measurement, management and reporting of IC have been undertaken internationally in Asia (Abeysekera Guthrie, 2005; Goh Lim, 2004; Ordenez de Pablos, 2002), Australia (Guthrie Petty, 2000), Europe (Bozzolan, Favotto and Ricceri, 2003; Olsson, 2001; Ordenez de Pablos, 2004), United Kingdom (Collier, 2001; Williams, 2001) and Ireland (Brennan, 2001). Despite the significant research interest in the field of intellectual capital internationally, scant attention has been paid to intellectual capital reporting by commercial organisations in New Zealand. An extensive review of the IC literature yielded only two New Zealand based studies (Miller Whiting, 2005; Wong Gardner, 2005). Further, no studies to date have addressed intellectual capital reporting by local governments in either New Zealand or internationally. This study aims to fill this gap through the development of an intellectual capital disclosure model that could be applied to local authorities. The research describes and explains the development of a disclosure index used to measure the extent and quality of current intellectual capital disclosure by local authorities in New Zealand. The index was developed through a consultative process with a panel of local government stakeholders which was used to establish the weightings for each item. The final index comprised 26 items divided into three categories: internal capital, external capital and human capital. The 2004/2005 annual reports of 82 New Zealand local authorities were scored for extent and quality of disclosure against the index. The results indicate that intellectual capital reporting by local authorities is varied. Manukau City Council scored the achieved the highest overall score (76%) out of the 82 reports analysed while Whakatane District Council scored the lowest with 33%. The most reported items were joint ventures/business collaborations and management processes. The least reported items were intellectual property and licensing agreements. The most reported category of intellectual capital was internal capital, followed by external capital. The least reported category was human capital. The findings indicate a number of areas of reporting that could be improved in order to meet with stakeholder disclosure expectations. In the internal capital category, intellectual property disclosures could be improved. In the external capital category disclosure concerning ratepayer demographics and licensing agreements could be improved. In the human capital category, disclosure of most items could be improved, in particular, entrepreneurial innovativeness and vocational qualifications. The study provided an insight into the current level and quality of intellectual capital disclosure by the NZ local government sector. The results indicated that local authorities are disclosing some aspects of intellectual capital in their annual report, however there is no consistent reporting framework, and many areas of IC disclosures are not meeting stakeholder expectations. More research is needed in the area of intellectual capital reporting in the public sector. This study provides a preliminary framework which can be used by local authorities to enhance intellectual capital disclosures in their annual reports.

This thesis investigates the problems associated with the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). The results of this investigation are used as input for the development of new spatial data policy strategies for individual organisations to enable an improved better facilitation of SDIs. Policy issues that need to be considered by an organisation when developing spatial data policies, were identified as being: SDI requirements; organisational issues; technical issues; Governmental/organisational duties; ownership/custodianship; privacy and confidentiality; legal liability, contracts and licences; Intellectual Property Law; economic analysis; data management; outreach, cooperation and political mandate; and users' choices, rights and obligations. In order to gain an understanding of current spatial data policy practices and to device new policy strategies a spatial data survey was conducted. This survey addressed the identified SDI problem areas. Some 6630 questionnaires were mailed out with more than 400 responses returned. These were reduced to 379 useful responses. Once analysed, the results were compared with the findings of the SDI investigation and used throughout the thesis. The results of the analysis to the spatial data survey are displayed in tables and graphs throughout Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 and in Appendix 2. The tables and graphs show the answers to the questions asked in the questionnaire as a percentage of the total number of respondents. The survey discovered that many organisations had no spatial data policies, nor individual policies on spatial data pricing and/or intellectual property protection. This thesis established that SDI requirements are not being met by many spatial data policies used by individual organisations. Hence, the thesis studied the spatial data policy issues that are involved when an organisation develops new policies with the aim to aid the development of SDIs. It uniquely established current Australian spatial data policy practices in the areas of spatial data quality, access, pricing, and legal issues to form the basis for future strategies. It reviewed the current knowledge of intellectual property law applied to spatial data and devised new approaches to deal with all the identified policy issues. Finally, the thesis defines spatial data policies that facilitate SDI development.

A firm�s relationships with its customers contribute to its organizational capital and represent an important part of its shareholder value, so the nature of the value in these relationships needs to be understood well and managed carefully. Marketing managers therefore require techniques that will assess relationship value comprehensively in order to manage their portfolio of customer relationships effectively and in order to argue for a sufficient share of the firm�s resources to develop these market based assets for competitive advantage. At present, there is a well-established technique for assessing customer profitability analysis which assigns revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities to customers and algebraically sums their value to reach a profitability figure for each customer. However, even in its more sophisticated forms, the primary focus of customer profitability analysis as it is currently used tends to be the management of profitability by way of the management of existing situations, and particularly of cost, rather than the management of the value that is potentially available in the future from the intangible aspects of a relationship. Without knowledge of the dimensions of intangible value in the relationship, the technique is restricted to assessing those relationship aspects that can be easily quantified in dollar terms by the modification of existing accounting information. This leaves a gap in the available toolbox for managers in assessing relationship value, because much of the value of a relationship may be in its intangible aspects, which at present can not be readily assessed other than by a manager�s experience and intuition. In order to develop techniques specifically for intangible value assessment, it is necessary to understand the dimensions of this intangible value. Development of scales to measure the dimensions of this intangible relationship value and development of an understanding of its structure is thus a useful research goal, which is supported by calls in the literature for the quantification of market-based assets and their value Elucidation of the dimensions and structure of intangible relationship value is therefore the goal of this thesis. Although there are recent reports in the literature of studies that include the intangible aspects of relationship value, most of those that have been conducted in a business-to-business context appear to be primarily concerned with investigating the drivers of value rather than its dimensions, and those that deal with the business-to-consumer context describe techniques to assess the aggregated value of many consumers, rather than an individual buyer as is required for business-to-business applications. The thesis therefore proposes a conceptual framework, synthesised from the intellectual capital literature, which provides a set of six dimensions and a structure of intangible business-to-business buyer-seller value. The six proposed dimensions are unique in that they cover the human aspects of the relationship extensively. The thesis describes the testing of the proposed conceptual framework. This was achieved primarily by the use of the structural equation modelling technique on survey data that was collected from managers in the New Zealand manufacturing industry, following qualitatively analysed interviews with managers. The tests support the framework and its value dimensions. The thesis therefore concludes that this research provides a contribution to the literature on value assessment and that future research should be conducted to validate its findings.

This thesis reports the results of a comparison of the experiences of community participation between two groups of people - people with intellectual disability and non-disabled people. An interview schedule was developed, based on the social integration literature, government policy and a small empirical study. The common factors from these three bases were represented in the interview schedule which covered the areas of degree of social contact with family, friends and neighbours; involvement in the local community; and degree of satisfaction with the local community. Thirty people with intellectual disability and sixty non-disabled people were interviewed using the schedule. The non-disabled people lived in the same street (if possible) or within very close vicinity of the people with intellectual disability. The findings of community participation for people with intellectual disability reflected other research, indicating that this group had limited social contact, and reported few friendships in the community, but participated to a large extent in community activities and made use of community facilities. This group were also inclined to report satisfaction with living in, and feeling like part of the community. For non disabled people, the findings reflect a group that does not particularly feel like part of the community and makes limited use of community facilities. However, this group reported regular contact with family, friends and neighbours. The above findings are discussed with relevance to policy, theory, research and practice.

For the past two decades, intellectual property law has been the fastest growing and most dynamic field in Indonesia. But, despite impressive and extensive legal reform conducted by the Indonesian government in the area, intellectual property laws remain very difficult to enforce. Ignorance of intellectual property law is widespread within the country and protection of intellectual property rights is both practically and legally weak.

It is well understood that substantial health inequality exists for adults with an intellectual disability (AWID). In comparison to the general population AWID experience higher rates of morbidity and mortality associated with sedentary lifestyles, yet little is known about the role physical activity plays in preventing or mediating this outcome for this segment of society. Without appropriate instrumentation, it is not possible to address the inadequacies that currently exist in the area of physical activity and AWID. The primary aim of the series of studies in this thesis was to develop a psychometrically sound proxy-respondent measurement tool that could be used by researchers, epidemiologists and public health personnel to gather information on the physical activity behaviours of AWID. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) is an internationally published tool with good psychometric properties when used as a self-report tool with adults without a disability (AWOID), but no evidence exists as to the validity or reliability of this tool when used by proxy respondents to report on the physical activity behaviour of AWID. Given little is known about the energy expenditure characteristics of AWID, nor the accuracy of tools developed for AWOID when applied to AWID, two secondary aims of this thesis were to measure the energy expended by AWID and AWOID during seven common activities of daily living (ADL) and to assess the accuracy of an objective physical activity measurement tool (Caltrac® accelerometer) for use with AWID. Evidence gathered through the studies in this thesis found that as the energy demand of ADL increased there was an increase in the difference between energy expended by AWID and AWOID. Results indicated that AWID achieved moderate-intensity physical activity when walking at a pace of 3.0 km/hr or more. The proxy-respondent telephone questionnaire (IPAQ-ID) described in this thesis allows for universal assessment of the physical activity behaviours of AWID. The IPAQ-ID was found to have measurement properties equivalent to measurement tools used among AWOID. The IPAQ-ID was found to be suitable for use as a surveillance tool by researchers to collect comparable data on health-enhancing physical activity behaviours of AWID.

Little research has been conducted focusing on parent training strategies aimed at teaching parents with an intellectual disability to implement strategies to decrease their child's problem behaviour and increase appropriate behaviours. This study aimed to do two things. First, to examine the effectiveness of an enhanced assessment-based BPT intervention that was implemented by parents with an intellectual disability with children with problem behaviour. Second, the current study also aimed to test the effectiveness of the parent training package used to teach parents to implement the intervention strategies. Importantly, in an attempt to identify the training condition, or combination of conditions, most needed to achieve behaviour change, individual conditions of a multi-condition parent training package were additively introduced during parent training based on the degree of intrusiveness in the target routine combined with the amount of structure required by the teaching strategy. Five parents were taught to implement a functional assessment driven intervention plan aimed at increasing their child's appropriate behaviour and decreasing their problem behaviour during a valued family routine. In order to establish the combination of parent training strategies that were sufficient to teach parents to effectively implement the intervention plan, a series of parent training strategies were introduced in a planned way. The strategies included role-play, verbal instruction, verbal instruction plus feedback, coaching and video-feedback. Results showed that for all parents skill acquisition did not occur until the final phase, video-feedback. Successful implementation of the intervention resulted in a corresponding increase in child appropriate behaviour and decrease in child problem behaviour. In addition to that, parents rated the social validity and contextual fit of the intervention highly.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 14, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Levnadsvillkoren för individer med utvecklingsstörning har under de senaste decennierna förändrats till det bättre. Att känna sig delaktig i sitt liv och ha möjligheten att själv påverka livssituationen är viktigt för dessa människor. Uppsatsförfattaren ville med den här studien undersöka om skillnad finns i hur aspekter av delaktighet uppfattas av två grupper; individer med utvecklingsstörning och personer i deras omgivning. En enkätstudie genomfördes med en omarbetad version av ”The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale” (Wehmeyer, 1995).En rangkorrelation visade på samband mellan vissa frågeområden. Resultatet diskuteras i relation till tidigare forskning och till svårigheter att undersöka upplevelser hos personer med utvecklingsstörning.</p>

<p>This essay is about personal assistance for persons with considerable intellectual disabilities.</p><p>The purpose with the study is: to examine personal assistance for individuals, who can`t speak</p><p>for themselves, to examine how the individuals can determine and get influence into their</p><p>assistance and how they can get help with it, to examine the role of an representative in</p><p>relation to the serviceuser´s assistance and examine if there are factors of gender in the</p><p>interviews.</p><p>The chosen method is qualitative interviews.</p><p>The interviews has been analysed through earlier research about personal assistance and</p><p>theoretical perspectives like: influence, integration and citizenship and discussed through</p><p>perspectives of social psychology.</p><p>The main conclusions are: the influence the serviceusers can have is through persons who</p><p>know them very well, the role of the representatives are indistinct, the serviceusers can´t</p><p>determine their assistance themselves and need help with it from relatives, representatives,</p><p>personal assistants and managers, the persons who know the serviceuser intimately are best to</p><p>transform the needs to assistance. The factors of gender, are that there are more men as</p><p>personal assistants than in the care of elderly, and the representatives are mostly men. The</p><p>personal assistants appreciates the time they have for the serviceuser, the work can be lonely</p><p>and demanding.</p>