Digital Commons Network^™

Drinking Water From Alternative Water Sources: Differences In Beliefs, Social Norms And Factors Of Perceived Behavioural Control Across Eight Australian Locations, Sara Dolnicar, Anna Hurlimann

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australia is facing serious challenges in the management of water in various urban and regional locations. Two popular responses to these challenges are increasing supply through alternative water sources such as recycled and desalinated water. However, significant gaps exist in our knowledge of community attitudes to these alternative sources of water, particularly for potable use. This paper reports results from an Australian study of community attitudes to alternative water sources. Sixty six qualitative interviews were held at eight locations with distinctly different water situations. This paper explores all three antecedents to the behaviour of drinking recycled water and desalinated water …

The Power Of History: Accounting Standard Setting And The Extractive Industries In Australia, C. L. Cortese

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The application of accounting standards assists in the production of financial information that is used as the basis for decision making by a wide variety of stakeholders. Viewed in this way, the process of setting accounting standards is critical because it will ultimately generate information that will shape people’s behaviour. Accounting standard setting processes have been analysed, applauded, and critiqued by many scholars in recent decades. Lobbying efforts of constituents have been scrutinised, the standard setting processes in different geographic regions have been analysed and compared, and the economic consequences of proposed accounting alternatives have been identified and debated.

Visualizing Cluster Results Using Package Flexclust And Friends, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Centroid-based partitioning cluster analysis is a popular method for segmenting data into more homo- geneous subgroups. Visualization can help tremendously to understand the positions of these subgroups relative to each other in higher dimensional spaces and to assess the quality of partitions. In this talk we present several improvements on existing cluster displays using neighborhood graphs with edge weights based on cluster separation and convex hulls of inner and outer cluster regions. Using symbols or complete high-level plots in the nodes of the graph help to understand the association of background variables and clusters. A new display called shadow-stars can …

A Generalized Motif Bicluster Algorithm, Sebastian Kaiser, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In many application domains different clusters in data may be defined by different sets of variables. E.g., in maketing one group of consumers could mainly be concerned about price and technical features of a product, while others care most about design and how \cool" the product is (almost regardless of the price). Standard clustering algorithms use all variables for all clusters and hence may fail to detect such structures in the data. Biclustering is the simultaneous clustering of columns and rows in a data set: each cluster is defined by a different subset of variables, these subsets can of course …

From Spider-Man To Hero - Archetypal Analysis In R, Manuel Eugster, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Archetypal analysis has the aim to represent observations in a multivariate data set as convex combinations of extremal points. This approach was introduced by Cutler and Breiman (1994); they defined the concrete problem, laid out the theoretical foundations and presented an algorithm written in Fortran. In this paper we present the R package archetypes which is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network. The package provides an implementation of the archetypal analysis algorithm within R and different exploratory tools to analyze the algorithm during its execution and its final result. The application of the package is demonstrated on two examples.

Dynamic Pricing Support Systems For Diy Retailers - A Case Study From Austria, Martin Natter, Thomas K. Reutterer, Andreas Mild

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Merchandise managers have long dreamt of automated dynamic systems to help them make well-informed pricing decisions. However, such systems have proved as elusive as the Holy Grail - until now, that is. The story of an Austrian DIY retailer shows often undetected opportunities to use valuable information, hidden in retailers' data warehouses, on consumer reactions to previous price changes in order to make automatic pricing and promotion decisions.

Financial Planning In Australia: Industry Or Profession?, Brian Murphy, Ted Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - This paper tests whether financial planning in Australia remains an industry or can be considered a profession Design/Method/Approach - A set of attributes of professionalism were derived from the literature-public/societal responsibility, a systematic body of theory, professional authority and ethical responsibility - sample of 78 financial planners were asked to provide attitude statements relating to professionalism as well as demographic information of their business. Findings - Evidence from the attitude statements provide by the respondents to the attributes of professionalism failed to achieve a satisfactory level of professionalism for any attribute. Research limitations - The financial services operators …

A Decision-Support Tool For Recommending Promising Categories For Targeted Promotions, Els Breugelmans, Yasemin Boztug, Thomas K. Reutterer

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

When making marketing mix decisions, marketing managers of companies that offer a broad range of product categories, such as traditional offline and online retailers, mail-order companies, or financial service providers, often need to select one or a few focal categories out of all the possible ones offered. This interest is further fuelled by opportunities offered by the Internet or modern customer loyalty programs using smart card technologies, making it easier as well as cheaper for companies to implement micromarketing strategies.

These recent developments have lead to a shift in the managerial requirements of direct marketers: they want to find out …

Understanding The Australian Environmental Volunteering Market: A Basis For Behavioural Change And A Sustainable Future, Melanie J. Randle, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The world is facing an environmental crisis. Long-term environmental sustainability requires social change: individuals need to take personal responsibility for the environment and change their behaviour. Environmental volunteering organisations play a key role in this process: they create opportunities for individuals to improve their natural environment, they facilitate behavioural change. Successful facilitation of behavioural change requires in-depth understanding of the environmental volunteering market to identify those individuals most likely to volunteer, compete successfully and create targeted, motivating marketing campaigns. The present study (1) assesses the usefulness of a novel method (PBMS) to explore volunteering markets, and (2) provides insight into …

Do Organisational Characteristics Explain The Differences Between Drivers Of Ict Adoption In Rural And Urban General Practices In Australia, Robert C. Macgregor, Peter N. Hyland, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational …

"Making Connections": Insights Into Relationship Marketing From The Australasian Stock And Station Agent Industry, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Relationship marketing has received little attention from business historians who have favored the study of branding, associational advertising, market research, and the role of marketing agencies, particularly in relation to modern consumer manufacturing. Although the term relationship marketing is of recent origin, we analyze its practice under a different guise, "connections", over several centuries: we draw on the extensive archival evidence of a rural business services industry in Australia and New Zealand. Relationship marketing's emphasis upon close and enduring individual customer relationships mitigated uncertainty of performance and behaviour, on both sides of the transaction, created by a long and geographically …

A Jack Of All Trades? - Aligning Policy, Mission And Structure In Cooperative Research Centres, Samuel E. Garrett-Jones, Tim Turpin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program has become the dominant model for "triple helix" cross-sector R&D cooperation in Australia. By comparison with more specialised programs in other countries the CRC program covers a very broad range of fields and objectives and might be described as a "jack of all trades". We argue that this "one size fits all" approach has become a limiting factor in the further development of cross-sector collaboration. Based on a range of prior empirical studies of CRCs we explore the environmental factors which shape the organizational structure of CRCs and identify the points of flexibility required …

Understanding Behaviour To Inform Water Supply Management In Developed Nations - A Review Of Literature, Conceptual Model And Research Agenda, Anna Hurlimann, Sara Dolnicar, Petra Meyer

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Water is a scarce resource in many parts of the developed world. Two solutions are possible to address water scarcity: conservation of existing resources, or the further production of water from new sources e.g. through recycling of wastewater or desalination of seawater. However, the main hurdle to implementation of many of these solutions is often viewed as a lack of public willingness to adopt these alternative water behaviours. Research in this area is therefore crucial. Yet, and possibly due to the interdisciplinary nature of such research, there is currently no comprehensive overview of what has been done before. This study …

Co-Creating Corporate Knowledge With A Wiki, Joseph A. Meloche, Helen M. Hasan, David Willis, Charmaine Pfaff, Yan Qi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Wikis have a growing reputation on the open Internet for producing evolving stores of shared knowledge. However, such democratic systems are often treated with suspicion within corporations for management, legal, social, and other reasons. This article describes a field study of a corporate Wiki that has been developed to capture, and make available, organisational knowledge in a large manufacturing company as an initiative of their Knowledge Management (KM) program. As this approach to KM is a controversial and rapidly changing phenomenon, a Q Methodology research approach was selected to uncover employees- subjective attitudes to the Wiki. Activity Theory was used …

A Gaming System Experience For Work In Heterogeneous, Self-Directed Teams, Kate Crawford, Helen M. Hasan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In the face of increased complexity in the social, commercial and operational contexts of their operations, many organisations are endeavouring to change from the bureaucratic model of the Industrial Age to a community of self-organising teams more suitable for the Knowledge Age. In defence operations, this involves a change from a command and control model to a more network centric and distributed model of decision making for teams in the field. However, managers are often confused as to how best to prepare workers to operate in loosely coupled networks of self-directed teams. There is also a need for more knowledge …

Digital Ecosystems: Ict’S Contribution To Addressing Climate Change, Helen M. Hasan, Alanah Kazlauskas

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

One of the most pressing challenges facing humankind is climate change, but it is a wicked problem. While the complexity of this problem can be overwhelming there are means through which the problem can be understood and advances made towards a solution. This paper applies a holistic theoretical sense-making framework and an ecosystem approach to research and practice on ICT issues in the climate change problem. It demonstrates how end-user tools and Web 2.0 technologies, which are embedded in digital ecosystems that include the social context, can play a positive role in the global challenges of climate change.

What's New In Online News?, Helen M. Hasan, Nor Hazlina Hashim, Joseph Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines aspects of the field of Information Systems (IS) concerned with its diversity and with the rapid changes within the discipline that have been incurred by the continued evolution of the IS artefact. This examination is done in order to establish the suitability of the Cynefin framework, developed for knowledge management, as a suitable tool for sense-making in IS. A description and assessment of the Cynefin framework is provided with its varied applications in both organisational practice and research. The paper then applies the framework to make sense of some historical trends and contemporary issues of IS emphasising …

A Taxonomy Of Modes Of Knowledge Sharing Between Disparate Groups, Helen M. Hasan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

While there is an abundance of literature on knowledge sharing within teams, there is a scarcity of literature on the transfer of knowledge between disparate groups where communication and coordination are difficult due to the diversity of attributes such as culture, language and priorities. The inspiration for this work comes from a project on the use of the web to enhance communication between clinicians and the families of patients in intensive care units. The paper also draws from relevant research on topics such as cross-functional teams, shared situational awareness, jointness, interagency cooperation and inter-organisational boundary- spanning. This investigation is grounded …

Distinguished Fellow Of The Economic Society Of Australia, 2008: Alan Woodland, Edgar J. Wilson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This citation acknowledges Professor Alan Woodland as an eminent Australian economist and surveys his exceptional international record of scholarship and research with a selection of his insightful contributions to the understanding of the complex issues of international trade, taxation and welfare. These issues are at the forefront of our nation's economic priorities and it is appropriate that we formally recognise his outstanding contributions to the discipline study of economics with the award of Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia.

Serious Games: The Importance Of Play In Network-Centric Organisations, Helen M. Hasan, Irina Verenikina

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The psychology of play recognises that there are benefits of incorporating play and games at work. In this paper we report the results of an investigation into the use of gaming to develop the cooperative human aspects of team behaviour in organisations that want to increase their social network-centric capability. We show how online team gaming sessions can enhance people's awareness and mastery of collective processes underlying teamwork and cooperation in the context of the workplace. The conduct of such a session is described and the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data is presented. Lessons were learnt from use …

Untying The Gordian Knot: Small Business And The Strategy Balance Scorecard, Ted Watts, Vicki Baard, Carol J. Mcnair

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Research confirms that small business (SB) is important for the dynamics and stability of the economy; the size, composition, and quality of employment; and the socio-political structure worldwide. Given this significance it is surprising that SBs have not taken advantage of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Research suggests it is because the BSC was designed for use in medium to large organizations and does not provide the correct “fit” for SBs. This paper 1) identifies performance dimensions applicable to SB, 2) develops a model, the Comprehensive Performance Management System (CPMS), which overcomes some of the major problems of previous measurement models, …

The Financial Sector And Economic Growth, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Mankiw-Romer-Weil (1992) augmented Solow-Swan (Solow 1956; Swan 1956) model is extended to incorporate the financial sector in this study. Distinguishing between financial capital, physical capital and human capital, the research attempts to identify, in particular, the effects of financial capital on economic growth. The effects of financial sector efficiency on economic growth are also examined. The financial sector augmented model is tested on a cross-section of 35 economies. Strong support is found for the model.

Government Expenditure, Governance And Economic Growth, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates the role of the government in economic growth by extending the neoclassical production function to incorporate two dimensions of the government - the size and the quality dimensions. The government size- and quality-augmented model, where size is measured by government expenditure and quality by governance, is tested on a cross section of 71 economies. Estimation is also carried out on the sample by income distribution. The empirical results indicate that both the size and quality of the government are important for economic growth. It is argued that investing in the capacity for enhanced governance is a priority …

The Role Of Education In Economic Growth, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the effect of the quantity and quality of education on economic growth. Using a number of proxy variables for the quantity and quality of education in a cross section of low and medium income countries, this study finds that education quantity when measured by enrolment ratios, unambiguously influences economic growth. The effect of government expenditure on economic growth is largely indirect through its impact on improved education quality.

Beyond Ecotourism: The Environmentally Responsible Tourist In The General Travel Experience, Sara Dolnicar, Patrick Long

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A shift of attention from the dominant product-orientation in environmentally sustainable tourism to a demand-orientation has been suggested as a way of minimising the effects of the inherent trade-offs the tourism industry faces between maximization of profits and investment in environmental sustainability. The success of such an approach depends on the existence of a class of tourists who are not only motivated to take care of the natural surroundings of the host destination, whether they are travelling in an ecotourism or general tourism context, but also represent an economically attractive market segment.

The Current State Of Commercial Location-Based Service Offerings In Australia, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, M. G. Michael, Anas Aloudat

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Location-based services (LBS) provide geographic data for a variety of purposes, and through numerous devices such as mobile phones, GPS navigation systems, palm pilots and increasingly desktop computers. Presently, there is scant information relating to the current state of the LBS market, specifically location-based service applications in Australia. This study makes use of usability context analyses to examine Australiapsilas three leading telecommunications operators- Telstra, Optus and Vodafone- with a view to providing an overview of the types of services and solutions presently offered and targeted at the consumer, business and emergency segments. There are two units of analysis (i) the …