Digital Commons Network^™

Reshaping Competitive Advantages With Analytics Capabilities In Service Systems, Shahriar Akter, Angappa Gunasekaran, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Mujahid M. Babu, Umme Hani

Sydney Business School - Papers

Big data analytics capability can reshape competitive advantages for a service system. However, little is known about how to develop and operationalize a service system analytics capability (SSAC) model. Drawing on the resource based view (RBV), dynamic capability theory (DCT) and the emerging literature on big data analytics, this study develops and validates an SSAC model and frames its impact on competitive advantages using 251 survey data from service systems analytics managers in the U.S. Partial Least Squares (PLS)-Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used as a data analysis technique to develop and validate the hierarchical SSAC model. The main findings …

Career Capital Development Of Women In The Arab Middle East Context: Addressing The Pipeline Block, Payyazhi Jayashree, Valerie Lindsay, Grace Mccarthy

Sydney Business School - Papers

Taking a career capital approach, this paper addresses the issue of ‘pipeline block’ frequently experienced by women seeking career advancement. Focusing on the Arab Middle East (AME) region, we take a contextually relevant multi-level approach to examine these issues. The study uses a qualitative, interview-based approach, drawing on data obtained from women leaders from the AME region. Drawing on Bourdieu’s capital-field-habitus framework, we explore how women in the AME developed career capital in particular organizational fields. Our findings show the importance of human and social capital, as well as the influence of habitus for women’s career advancement in specific fields. …

Cutting Penalty Rates Was Supposed To Create Jobs. It Hasn’T, And Here’S Why Not, Martin J. O'Brien

Sydney Business School - Papers

After three years of submissions, hearings and deliberations, Australia’s workplace relations umpire, the Fair Work Commission, decided in 2017 to decrease the penalty rates paid to retail and hospitality workers on the safety-net award for working on Sundays and public holidays. For years employer groups had argued that high penalty rates (up to double standard pay) were an unaffordable anachronism in the modern economy, and the commission essentially agreed. In particular, it concluded the evidence was that cutting penalty rates (by between a quarter and a half) would lead to more trading hours and services on offer on Sundays and …

Conceptualizing Vacation Dedication, Amata L. Ring, Venkata K. Yanamandram, Ulrike Gretzel, Sara Dolnicar

Sydney Business School - Papers

To better understand and predict tourism demand, we introduce the concept of vacation dedication to the tourism literature. Vacation dedication is a form of enthusiasm for and devotion to going on vacation. It is an enduring urge to go on a vacation that is so strong that it persists in spite of external constraints. We empirically test its links to the well-established constructs of travel involvement, commitment, and tourist identity. Affective commitment emerges as most strongly associated with vacation dedication, pointing to an important emotional component.

Patterns Of Recruitment Of Academic Leaders To Australian Universities And Implications For The Future Of Higher Education, Susan Loomes, Alison Owens, Grace Mccarthy

Sydney Business School - Papers

This paper reports on research conducted to understand key factors impacting the recruitment and selection of senior academic leaders in Australian universities. A key finding emerging from this research was an increasing reliance on executive search firms when recruiting senior academic leaders. This reliance is driven by a range of factors including an ageing and contracting pool of potential academic leaders, growing competition domestically and internationally and the declining attractiveness of academia as a sustainable career in the context of increased casualisation of the academic workforce. Concurrently, workforce planning and succession planning have not been a high priority for many …

What Happens In Group Supervision? Exploring Current Practice In Australia, Paul Lawrence

Sydney Business School - Papers

This article presents qualitative findings from a study of seven group coaching supervisors and 57 coaches participating in those groups. The purpose of the research was to further explore why people seek group supervision, what benefits they derive, and how group supervision works. Supervisors and coaches recognised the role of the supervisor in bringing together the right mix of coaches, in establishing and maintaining a clear working agreement, managing a clear process, and role modelling appropriate behaviours. A possible discrepancy in perspective between supervisors and coaches was observed, specifically the extent to which all participants adopt a systemic perspective.

Understanding Supply Chain Analytics Capabilities And Agility For Data-Rich Environments, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Shahriar Akter

Sydney Business School - Papers

Purpose: Big data-driven supply chain analytics capability (SCAC) is now emerging as the next frontier of supply chain transformation. Yet, very few studies have been directed to identify its dimensions, subdimensions and model their holistic impact on supply chain agility (SCAG) and firm performance (FPER). Therefore, to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a dynamic SCAC model and assess both its direct and indirect impact on FPER using analytics-driven SCAG as a mediator.

Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on the emerging literature on big data, the resource-based view and the dynamic capability …

The Rise Of The Social Business In Emerging Economies: A New Paradigm Of Development, Shahriar Akter, Nabila Jamal, Md Mahfuz Ashraf, Grace Mccarthy, P Varsha

Sydney Business School - Papers

Social business has emerged as a sustainable and innovative means to solve emerging social problems. Although it is gaining momentum, there is a paucity of studies on the drivers of social business models and its key success factors. Drawing on a systematic literature review and an in-depth analysis of 31 social businesses in Bangladesh, the study presents eight key drivers and four success factors for a sustainable social business model. The findings show eight key drivers for social business models including customer centricity, quality, social needs, latent demands, incidental gains, innovation through partnerships, inspirations from initiatives and collaborative eco-systems. The …

Ability, Motivation And Opportunity: Managerial Coaching In Practice, Grace Mccarthy, Julia Ahrens

Sydney Business School - Papers

The practice of managerial coaching is increasing globally, although there is still comparatively little research into it. Using an online survey, we examined the practice of managerial coaching in Australian organisations through Appelbaum et al.'s Ability Motivation Opportunity framework. A thematic analysis of 580 responses revealed that managers regularly coached their own employees and were motivated by the outcomes they achieved through coaching. Emerging strongly from this research was the delight managers took in seeing their employees transform, as well as improved relationships and the (re‐)building of trust. Furthermore, coaching resulted in employees becoming more innovative and ready for change. …

Voices Unheard: Employee Voice In The New Century, Adrian Wilkinson, Paul J. Gollan, Senia Kalfa, Ying Xu

Sydney Business School - Papers

The concept of employee voice has attracted considerable attention in research since the 1980s primarily in the fields of Employment Relations/Human Resource Management (ER/HRM) and Organisational Behaviour (OB). Each of these disciplines focuses on different aspects of employee voice, the former examining the mechanisms for employees to have 'a say' in organisational decision-making (Freeman, Boxall, & Haynes, 2007; Gollan, Kaufman, Taras, & Wilkinson, 2015; Wilkinson & Fay, 2011) and the latter considering voice as an 'extra-role upward communication behaviour' (Morrison, 2014, p. 174) with the intent to improve organizational functioning. The purpose of voice is seen by each of these …

A Narrative Approach To Coaching Multiple Selves, Paul Lawrence

Sydney Business School - Papers

According to many philosophers and psychologists, we are each not one, but many. The origins of multiplicity theories are briefly outlined before several contemporary theories are described in more detail. In this conceptual paper, it is argued that a multiplicity perspective of self, challenges us to think differently about coaching. Six specific implications are considered, and a pragmatic link between multiplicity theory and post-modernist principles explored. It is argued that a narrative approach to coaching may be particularly useful for the coach interested in experimenting with multiplicity theory, and some initial approaches to applying multiplicity theory in practice are suggested.

Active Teaching Strategies And Student Engagement: A Comparison Of Traditional And Non-Traditional Business Students, Amir Arjomandi, Juergen Heinz Seufert, Martin J. O'Brien, Sajid Anwar

Sydney Business School - Papers

Using survey data, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of student engagement for different groups of students, many of which may be classified as "non-traditional". The analysis presented in this paper is based on Kahu's framework for student engagement. Both the antecedents as well as consequences of engagement are incorporated in the framework used in this paper. The research highlights the role that active teaching strategies may play in this engagement framework. An important contribution of this research is to show that non-traditional students generally display greater engagement than traditional students. However, while there is a strong connection between active …

The Impact Of Corporate Social Responsibility Indicators On Consumer Behavior: A Case Study: Electronic And Quasi-Electronic Customers Of Persian Carpet Co., Mohammad Mashhadi, Arezoosadat Hashemiamin

Sydney Business School - Papers

In recent years with the increasing competition in the market, corporate social responsibility has been much considered. There are many researches in this field at the world. In this article we study the effect of corporate social responsibility indicators on consumer behavior of electronic and semi electronic customers of Iranian carpet companies. At the end of the article, depending on the results obtained, we will find this effect.

Workplace Wellbeing Programs: If You Build It They May Not Come...Because It's Not What They Really Need!, Gordon B. Spence

Sydney Business School - Papers

Public and private sector interest in employee wellbeing has grown steadily in the past 20 years. Arguably the most visible manifestation of this interest is workplace health promotion and wellbeing (WorkWell) programs, which can be found in various guises within many contemporary organisations. Despite their recent proliferation, research in this area has focused mainly on how participation in these programs impacts upon a narrow range of factors related to finance (e.g. health care costs) and productivity (e.g. absenteeism). Whilst the focus of these programs is invariably positive (insofar as they aim to improve physical, psychological and social functioning), it cannot …

The Australian Retirement Lottery: A System Failure, Amandha Ganegoda, John Evans

Sydney Business School - Papers

The purpose of this paper is to assess the adequacy of the Australian retirement system to fund the needs of retirees by taking into account both the Knightian risk arising from market volatility under normal market conditions as well as the Knightian uncertainty arising from rare but severe market shocks. We have also taken into account changes in employment during the pre-retirement phase. Given the low frequency, high impact of market shocks, the result is that cohorts of Australian retirees will enjoy very different levels of retirement income and there will be consequent shocks to the demand for the Age …

Preliminary Development And Validation Of A New End-Of-Life Patient-Reported Outcome Measure Assessing The Ability Of Patients To Finalise Their Affairs At The End Of Life, N Mccaffrey, Pawel Skuza, Katrina Breaden, Simon Eckermann, Janet Hardy, Sheila Oaten, Michael Briffa, David Currow

Sydney Business School - Papers

Introduction: The ability of patients to finalise their affairs at the end of life is an often neglected aspect of quality of life (QOL) measurement in palliative care effectiveness research despite compelling evidence of the high value patients place on this domain.

Objective: This paper describes the preliminary development and evaluation of a new, single-item, end-of-life patient-reported outcome measure (EOLPRO) designed to capture changes in the ability of patients to finalise their affairs at the end of life.

Methods: Cognitive interviews with purposively sampled Australian palliative care patients (N=9) were analysed thematically to explore content validity. Simultaneously, secondary analysis of …

Managing Sub-Branding Affect Transfer: The Role Of Consideration Set Size And Brand Loyalty, Yi He, Qimei Chen, Wing Yin Leona Tam, Ruby Lee

Sydney Business School - Papers

Although the essential role of affect transfer has been evidenced in the brand extension literature, scant research has focused on affect transfer when a firm attempts to add sub-brands into its brand portfolio. We conducted a series of four experiments to demonstrate that affect associated with a family brand does in fact transfer to its sub-brand, and the effect is more pronounced for a sub-brand that is closer to (vs distant from) its family brand. Further, the transfer of affect is contingent upon consideration set size and brand loyalty. While affect transfer is observed when consideration set is small, this …

Mixed Methods To The Rescue: Addressing The Problem Of Employee Turnover Using Marital Research, Irit Alony, Helen M. Hasan, Andrew J. Sense

Sydney Business School - Papers

Decades of turnover research have identified sets of factors that lead to voluntary employee separation. However, the predictive power of existing turnover models is extremely limited, and does not go far beyond 30%. In contrast, marital research has developed a MMR tool for predicting dissolution which has an accuracy of over 90%, based on a couple's reflections on their past. This paper presents this complex prediction method in current MMR terms, and details the process of adjusting it into employment setting. The paper presents the main issues to consider when adjusting this tool, and provides a detailed description of the …

Improving National Hospice/Palliative Care Service Symptom Outcomes Systematically Through Point-Of-Care Data Collection, Structured Feedback And Benchmarking, David Currow, Samuel Allingham, Patsy Yates, Claire Johnson, Katherine Clark, Kathy Eagar

Sydney Business School - Papers

Purpose Every health care sector including hospice/palliative care needs to systematically improve services using patient-defined outcomes. Data from the national Australian Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration aims to define whether hospice/palliative care patients' outcomes and the consistency of these outcomes have improved in the last 3 years.

Methods Data were analysed by clinical phase (stable, unstable, deteriorating, terminal). Patient-level data included the Symptom Assessment Scale and the Palliative Care Problem Severity Score. Nationally collected point-of-care data were anchored for the period July-December 2008 and subsequently compared to this baseline in six 6-month reporting cycles for all services that submitted data in …

The Australian Corporate Closet, Why It's Still So Full: A Review Of Incidence Rates For Sexual Orientation Discrimination Gender Identity Discrimination In The Workplace, Ian Smith, Lindsay G. Oades, Grace Mccarthy

Sydney Business School - Papers

The paper reviews the extant Australian literature on sexual orientation (SO) discrimination within the Australian workplace. In the research, there is variation in organisational workplace and a bias towards health and educational sectors as a research setting, which raises some methodological considerations such as poor generalisability to other organisational contexts. The small body of Australian research into SO discrimination encompasses; (i) varied methodological and theoretical approaches, (ii) disparate authors selecting a varied range of aspects of discrimination thus absenting a unifying framework to guide research and lacking as yet seminal authorship providing focus, iii) limited sampling of participants making comparisons …

Insights Into Mature Consumers Of Financial Services, Trenton Milner, Daniela Rosenstreich

Sydney Business School - Papers

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate psychographic, demographic and situational characteristics of Baby Boomer generation consumers, specifically in relation to their consumption of financial services.

Design/methodology/approach: A survey was pre-tested and 776 responses (77.6 per cent response rate) were subjected to correlation and ANOVA analysis. The survey covered a wide range of variables for decision making for financial services, including situational, demographic, and psychographic.

Findings: Consumers who scored higher on scales for competitiveness and need for material resources tended to have higher incomes. Mature consumers were likely to face major life events involving their children and parents, …

Managerial Coaching: Challenges, Opportunities And Training, Grace Mccarthy, Julia Milner

Sydney Business School - Papers

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the growing practice of managerial coaching. Much of the coaching literature is set in the context of an external coach coming into an organisation. However managers are increasingly being expected to coach their employees, a change in role which can create tensions. Design/methodology/approach - This paper examines the literature on coaching managers. The paper also discusses practical implications for coach training. Findings - This paper identifies key differences in the issues faced by coaching managers and by internal/external coaches and recognises the importance of adequate training of managers …

Critical Incidents In Cross-Cultural Coaching: The View From German Coaches, Julia Milner, Esther Ostmeier, Ronald Franke

Sydney Business School - Papers

The importance of a cultural perspective in coaching is increasingly significant for coaching practitioners and academics living in a globalised world. The question remains as to how the coaching methods rooted in the Western approach can be applied in the context of other (national) cultures. Using semi-structured interviews and based on the critical incidents technique, fifteen German coaching experts were interviewed to determine those critical incidents they experienced in cross-cultural coaching settings. The results show incidents in four main areas: communication, coach-client relationship, coaching setting and role understanding. These are aimed at improving outcomes but not at the expense of …

Innovation In Small And Medium-Sized Wood-Furniture Firms In Central Java, Indonesia, Amie Kusumawardhani, Grace Mccarthy

Sydney Business School - Papers

The aim of this paper is to explore the perception of innovation within Indonesian SMEs in the wood-furniture industry in Central Java, Indonesia. Qualitative research was employed by interviewing SMEs managers/owners. The study showed that SMEs' perception of innovation was not necessarily related to 'newness' or 'novelty' as suggested by some scholars. The innovation carried out by the majority of SMEs in this study is likely to be considered as incremental innovation. The characteristics of the wood-furniture industry and SMEs are believed to contribute to the different perspectives concerning innovation than those reported in the literature. Even so, they are …

Why Do Women Vote For Women: An Exploration Of Decision Criteria In The Australian 2010 Federal Election, Diann Rodgers-Healey

Sydney Business School - Papers

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore if women who are in positions of leadership are influenced by gender when voting for a party led by a female candidate and if perceptions of the media's portrayal of a woman candidate influences the voting preferences of women leaders.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper reports the results of an online survey of women leaders to provide a pre-election analysis about how they would vote and what was influencing their vote for Gillard, if they chose to vote for her. Data were analysed using Content Analysis and Descriptive Statistical Analysis.

Findings …

Public Interest Litigation: Making The Case In Australia, Andrea Durbach, Luke Mcnamara, Simon Rice, Mark Rix

Sydney Business School - Papers

Litigation is widely and appropriately recognised as an important component of the public interest advocacy 'toolkit'. Yet, little attention has been paid in Australian research and scholarship to an important question: under what circumstances is public interest litigation (PIL) an effective way to bring about progressive social change? Informed by a review of the international literature on PIL, the authors of this article argue for the importance of drawing on Australia's rich history with PIL to develop a solid empirical evidence base which can inform future decision about the strategic employment of PIL in campaigns to address the concerns and …

Reasserting Freedom? Response To The Prevent Agenda By The Uk Coalition Government, Mark Rix, Nick Johns, Alison Green

Sydney Business School - Papers

In the UK the New Labour government under Tony Blair bought into the 'War on Terror' declared by George Bush Junior in 2001 the consequences for the general public was a significant loss of civil liberties that was supposedly justified by the enhanced degree of risk. In opposition the Conservatives argued that this loss was unacceptable and that on a sliding scale of freedom and security, freedom should always take priority as the fundamental political principle. In power from 2010 alongside their Liberal Democrat partners, they sought to return what had been lost, and to rebalance the scales. One of …

Human Resources Management Practices In Small And Medium Enterprises In Two Emerging Economies In Asia: Indonesia And South Korea, Palli Mulla K A Chandrakumara

Sydney Business School - Papers

This paper explores human resource management practices in small and medium enterprises Indonesia and South Korea. Despite the fact that these countries have been identified as strong emerging economies and the pivotal role that SMEs play in these countries, a relatively less attention has been paid to investigate HRM practices of SEMs. This study uses existing empirical research and published data to explore HRM practices of SMEs in the two countries. The analysis of HRM practices is made with respect to both cultural values orientations of the two nations and different theories and models of HRM practices. The findings reflect …

You Never Know What Question You Are Going To Answer: Creating Effective Tension For Effective Learning Using Business Case Studies, Palli Mulla K A Chandrakumara, Ananda Wickramasinghe

Sydney Business School - Papers

Case studies in business management have been used as an effective approach and tool for enhancing students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills by providing opportunities for student to apply appropriate theories, concepts and models for real world issues faced by organisations. Despite the popularity of the case study approach in business and management education, it is self evident that the effective use of case studies to achieve above mentioned benefits is challenging and problematic mainly because case studies are misused and abused in different ways, including just adopting a popular method, just asking students to read and answer the questions, …

Homophobia To Heterosexism: Constructs In Need Of Re-Visitation, Ian Smith, Lindsay G. Oades, Grace Mccarthy

Sydney Business School - Papers

Although the concept of homophobia has been used extensively in the literature since the early 1960s, researchers have shown growing concern for its relevance in present day research. Additionally, there has been variance in its definition leading to an array of ambiguities resulting in methodological limitations in empirical studies with a disregard for ensuring that definitions used match the focus of study. There have been numerous attempts to locate the construct within a theoretical framework and this has also resulted in weak empirical design. These weaknesses in research on homophobia have resulted in the coining of the construct heterosexism as …