Digital Commons Network^™

An Insight Into Advance Fee Fraud On The Internet, Joshua Chang

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Advance fee fraud on the Internet currently rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars golbally per year. Aslo known as the "419" fraud, this scheme originated from Nigeria in the 1970s and was marketed via traditional means such as mail and facsimile transmissions.

An Assessment Of The Trade Relationship Between Australia And South Africa, Mokhtar Metwally, Ann Hodgkinson, Andre Jordaan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the trade relationship between Australia and South Africa to assess if it is justifiable to establish a FTA between these two countries. The paper uses the cointegration analysis to examine the long-term trade relationship between these two countries. The results suggest that Australian-South African trade has unique features which indicate that its growth is not just a reflection of overall world trade. The paper also uses a simultaneous equations model to test if there are significant feedback effects in Australian trade with South Africa. The results suggest that intensification of the trade relationship would be beneficial to …

Corporate Social Responsibility In The Wake Of The Asian Tsunami: An Empirical Study, Mario Fernando

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper provides input on how the leaders of two leading Sri Lankan private sector organisations engaged in CSR initiatives during the first 11-months after the Asian tsunami. Amidst stakeholders’ overwhelming outpouring of spontaneity to engage in CSR activities, the paper reports on the decision-making and leadership challenges of business leaders after a high magnitude human tragedy. The paper specifically examines as to what extent the CSR initiatives following the tsunami disaster were a reflection of leaders’ authentic moral conduct. Due to the magnitude of the devastation from the tsunami, one would assume that the CSR initiatives that follow such …

Gender And Communication At Work: An Introduction, Mary Barrett, Marilyn J. Davidson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The last three to four decades have seen a rapid increase in numbers of womenin the workplace worldwide, with more women also entering managerial ranks.However, despite legislation in many countries aimed at furthering women’scapacities to move to the top of their organizations, the phenomenon of the ‘glassceiling’ persists (Davidson and Burke, 2004; Ryan and Haslam, 2005). Publicpolicy documents, academic research and popular books advocating government,industry and organization-level policy initiatives to facilitate women’s advancementcontinue to be published. So-called ‘business case’ arguments, that is, argumentsto the effect that organizations that fail to acknowledge and use the skills of allmembers of their workforce …

Diffusion Of Internet Banking Amongst Educated Consumers In A High Income Non-Oecd Country, Cedwyn Fernandes, Raed Awamleh

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study analyses the internet banking channels and service preferences of educated banking consumers in the UAE and examines the factors influencing the intention to adopt or to continue the use of internet banking among both users and non users of internet banking.

It is shown that although the banking sector in the UAE is a regional leader, internet banking in the UAE is yet to be properly utilized as a real added value tool to improve customer relationship and to attain cost advantages. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to identify factors influencing the intention to adopt and …

An Interactive Learning Environment For Teaching Statistics, Trevor Spedding, Xuesong Chi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper outlines the development and use of a web based virtual factory simulator for teaching industrial statistics and process improvement techniques. Students can manage the factory for either a period of one month, or the length specified by lecturers, with the factory running in real time. The main objective is to reduce quality problems and continuously improve the quality over a substantial period of time. Techniques such as control charts, process capability, experimental design and response surface methodology and their underlying statistics are explored. This immersive simulation creates a problem-based learning approach with relevant academic underpinning. It provides the …

Towards An Organizational Model Of Occupational Health And Safety Management: A Review Of The Literature, Michael Zanko, Scott Burrows

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The enormous, tragic and largely unnoticed problem of workplace injuries and deaths continues to beset countries around the globe. Tripartite regulatory approaches to address the issues involved often place primary responsibility on employers’ management of health and safety (OHS) at the workplace. This paper seeks to ascertain how OHS management at the organizational level has been treated in the research literature.

A review of thirteen leading management journals from 1994 to 2005 was conspicuous by the absence of interest in OHS management as the subject or field of study. An examination of six leading HRM journals over the same timeframe …

Case Studies Of E-Commerce Adoption In Indonesian Smes: The Evaluation Of Strategic Use, Mira Kartiwi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The use of e-commerce in small medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has become an important topic in information systems research. At present, there is a large number of well-documented benefits derived from e-commerce for small-medium enterprises (SMEs) both in theoretical and practical literature. Despite the enormous attention given to encourage SMEs to adopt e-commerce both by academics as well as governments, little research has been carried out in identifying strategies of e-commerce adoption for SMEs in developing countries, especially Indonesia. It is, therefore, the aim of this paper to understand the factors and combinations of factors that SMEs need to be considered …

The Airlines Efficiency Myth, G. Mickhail, Brian Murphy, E. Farrell

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

One of the emerging issues with the internationalisation of accounting in enabling the globalisation of markets is its implicit role in privileging the destabilising social effect of globalisation, which risks alienating emerging economies and contributing to global instability. Accountants’ preoccupation with measuring the efficient allocation of resources when reporting the financial position, only privileges the inherent ideal of market efficiency as the principal imperative to a firm’s survival in a global market. This focus on free-market efficiency, with its disregard for social and public policy implications, is an unmistakable endorsement of a fundamentalist brand of value free, reckless capitalism that …

Issues Relating To Designing A Work-Integrated Learning (Wil) Program In An Undergraduate Accounting Degree Program And Its Implications For The Curriculum, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Work-integrated learning (WIL) programs are becoming popular with students, government, employers, and universities. A major benefit of a WIL program is the increased employability of students, and this matches well with the present trend whereby students expect a pay-off from their investment in education. Although WIL programs are more common in some profession-based undergraduate courses than others, they have not been frequently discussed in relation to accounting in the Australian context. This paper discusses issues related to designing a WIL program for an undergraduate accounting program in an Australian context. The importance of WIL programs in general is followed by …

Managing Human Capital In A Privately Owned Public Hotel Chain, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study analyses human capital (HC) management practices in a small privately owned public hotel group, in the context of intellectual capital (IC). Previous studies have highlighted how firms measure and report HC, however few studies have examined the HC management practices of firms. This study analyses these practices using multiple data methods – namely, observation, interaction with staff, examination of internal financial and management reports, and semi-structured case study interviews - on a continuous basis over a one-year period. The results of this study indicate that, through HC management practices, this group of hotels engaged in value extraction rather …

A Time Series For Business Profitability In Twentieth-Century Australia, David Merrett, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australia has historical time series for a wide range of economic data covering most of the twentieth century. These include statistical information relating to national income, demography, prices, external trade, financial markets, and the government sector. However, we lack a long time series for business profits. We have calculations for some industries, especially banking, and national figures from 1985 using the IBIS database.