Business Commons^™

Reforming The Power Sector In Transition: Do Institutions Matter?, Rabindra Nepal, Tooraj Jamasb

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper aims to investigate the often poorly explored link between power sector reforms and wider institutional reforms in the economy across different groups of transition countries. We use panel-data econometrics based on bias corrected dynamic fixed effect analysis (LSDVC) to assess the impact of reforms on macroeconomic and power sector outcomes. The results indicate that power sector reform is highly inter-dependent with wider reforms in other sectors of the economy. The findings indicate that failure to harmonize inter-sector reforms leads to power sector reform measures being ineffective. We conclude that the success of power sector reforms in developing countries …

Roles And Potentials Of Renewable Energy In Less-Developed Economies: The Case Of Nepal, Rabindra Nepal

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Increasing the share of renewable energy in the national energy mix remains one of the major energy policy goals across many economies. This paper assesses the roles and potentials of renewable energy sources in less-developed economies while citing Nepal as an example. Renewable energy has a significant role to play in the electrification of rural areas in developing economies and contribute towards sustainable development. Realizing full potentials of renewable, however, requires addressing both the associated demand-side and supply-side constraints. Innovative subsidies and tax incentives, adequate entrepreneurial support, strengthening institutional arrangement and promoting local community-based organizations such as the cooperatives are …

Eva As Superior Performance Measurement Tool, Abdullah Al Mamun, Shazali Abu Mansor

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Prior to the East Asian financial crisis scholars found the necessity of a true financial performance measure in Malaysia. After more than one decade of the crisis Malaysian firms still stick with the conventional performance measures, which are criticised due to general accepted accounting principles. In this vein, this study aims to study a value based financial performance measure which can be adopted by the Malaysian firms over the conventional measures currently used. Economic Value Added (EVA) was introduced and advocated by Stern Stewart and Co. in 1982. This study intended to identify why EVA should be used as financial …

Are Big-Time Sports A Threat To Student Achievement?, Jason M. Lindo, Isaac D. Swensen, Glen R. Waddell

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We consider the relationship between collegiate football success and non-athlete student performance. We find that the team's success significantly reduces male grades relative to female grades, and only in fall quarters, which coincides with the football season. Using survey data, we find that males are more likely than females to increase alcohol consumption, decrease studying, and increase partying in response to the success of the team. Yet, females also report that their behavior is affected by athletic success, suggesting that their performance is likely impaired but that this effect is masked by the practice of grade curving.

Economic Growth: Technical Progress, Population Dynamics And Sustainability, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Economic growth is probably the most important goal of every policy intervention because of its wide consequences on the welfare of current and future generations. Because of the current crisis faced by several industrialized countries, this is probably much clearer today than in the past. In order to determine whether and which kind of public intervention can be taken to restore the growth process, the first step is understanding the relationship between different factors and economic growth. The goal of this brief paper is to shed some light on the mutual implications of growth and some of these factors: demography, …

Population Dynamics And Utilitarian Criteria In The Lucas - Uzawa Model, Simone Marsiglio, Davide La Torre

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper introduces population growth in the Uzawa-Lucas model, analyzing the implications of the choice of the welfare criterion on the model's outcome. Traditional growth theory assumes population growth to be exponential, but this is not a realistic assumption (see Brida and Accinelli, 2007). We model exogenous population change by a generic function of population size. We show that a unique non-trivial equilibrium exists and the economy converges towards it along a saddle path, independently of population dynamics. What is affected by the type of population dynamics is the dimension of the stable manifold, which can be one or two, …

Why Do Patients Having Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts Have Different Costs Or Length Of Stay? An Analysis Across 10 European Countries, James Gaughan, Conrad Kobel, Caroline Linhart, Anne Mason, Andrew Street, Padraic Ward

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We analyse variations in cost or length of stay (LoS) for 66 587 patients from 10 European countries receiving a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure. In five of these countries, variations in cost are analysed using log-linear models. In the other five countries, negative binomial regression models are used to explore variations in LoS. We compare how well each country's diagnosis-related group (DRG) system and a set of patient-level characteristics explain these variations. The most important explanatory factors are the total number of diagnoses and procedures, although no clear effects are evident for our CABG-specific diagnostic and procedural variables. …

Hr On The Line: Human Resource Managers' Contribution To Organisational Value And Workplace Performance, Paul J. Gollan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article examines the professional identity and role of human resource managers in fostering and implementing strategies that encourage high workplace performance.Workplace performance affects Australian competitiveness and this is the first detailed empirical analysis of Australian HR managers that combines case studies and survey methods. This research seeks to provide more in-depth knowledge and understanding of HR managers and line managers and how the HR function can contribute to high workplace performance. Overall this research suggests that while the HR function is likely to change in the future, its role is not diminishing in organisational decision-making. In particular, the HR …

Professionalism And Social Networking: Can Patients, Physicians, Nurses, And Supervisors All Be "Friends?", Joy Peluchette, Katherine Karl, Alberto Coustasse, Dennis Emmett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of social networking (Facebook) among nurse anesthetists. We examined whether they would have concerns about their supervisor, patients, or physicians seeing their Facebook profile. We also examined their attitudes related to maintaining professional boundaries with regard to the initiation or receipt of Facebook "friend" requests from their supervisor, patients, or physicians they work with. Our respondents consisted of 103 nurses currently enrolled in a graduate-level nurse anesthetist program. All respondents had a minimum of 2 years of work experience in critical care nursing. Most respondents were found to be neutral …

Dispossession, Human Security, And Undocumented Migration: Narrative Accounts Of Afghani And Sri Lankan Tamil Asylum Seekers, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase, Lynnaire Sheridan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In the globalised world of the twenty-first century, material and symbolic goods travel relatively freely across national borders. At the same time, movements of people, or at least particular categories of people, are becoming increasingly understood as a problem in need of control (Briskman and Cemlyn 2005; de Haas 2007; Turner 2010). Migration has become 'one of the most controversial areas of policy and practice facing virtually all countries' (Crawley 2006: 25). Perceptions of porous boundaries and unlimited opportunities coexist in the public imaginary with hardened attitudes towards desperate humans who seek to cross-national borders without authorisation by receiving states. …

Building A Matrix In The Students' Mind Through Embedding Cross-Disciplinarity In Innovative Capstone Courses, Michael Zanko, Jan Turbill, Christopher Sykes, Belinda Gibbons, Lee Moerman, Trevor Spedding

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Universities are increasingly looking to round off undergraduate business degrees with a capstone course that provides students with learning experiences that synthesise prior knowledge, skills and abilities acquired throughout their degree and that leads them to look forward to the transition to the world of employment and professional careers. Capstone courses are also widely employed by universities as an efficient and effective basis for the justified assurance of overall degree learning goals/outcomes often for external professional, international or governmental accreditation purposes. In this paper, we take a closer look at these increasingly important capstone courses as part of a multi-university …

An Analysis Of Mature Aged Female Participation In New South Wales Regional Labour Markets, Natalie Akmacic, Martin O'Brien

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The analysis of regional markets has surfaced as an important emerging area of economic research in recent years. In particular, economists have attempted to explain the factors behind divergent trends in different regions' growth, migration, structural change and employment. With this in mind, the focus of this paper is to explore the trends in regional labour force participation for mature females over the period 1992 to present. The labour force participation of this group is particularly relevant in the context of Australia's ageing population. To analyse mature age participation we utilise ANOVA to determine the differences between various Australian regions …

Survive Or Die? An Empirical Study On Chinese St Firms, Yanran-Annie Zhou, Maria H. Kim, Shiguang Ma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

A number of listed firms that are experiencing financial distress have had a Special Treatment (ST) 'cap' imposed on them by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The ST 'cap' can be removed if the firms survive financial distress by becoming profitable. Alternatively, a ST firm which goes bankrupt is delisted from the market. Using a sample of 441 ST firms tracked from 1998 to 2011, this paper employs Cox's proportional hazards model to predict turnaround probability for a distressed firm to remove the ST 'cap'. The predictor variables incorporate: (1) accounting-driven ratios, (2) market-driven variables, and (3) information on ownership …

Unordered Business Processes, Sustainability And Green Is, Helen Hasan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Green Information Systems (Green IS) provides a socio-technical perspective on the diverse complex phenomena of organisational sustainability. The Cynefin sense-making framework is eminently suitable for making sense of dynamic, complex phenomena and for guiding sensible decisions on how to meet the challenges they present. The Cynefin framework is described here and illustrated in terms of both ordered and unordered business processes. It is the unordered that are the least understood; but they are the most critical when it comes to sustainability. While order may be appropriate in the short term, sustainability issues also demand a more challenging long-term perspective. Just …

Exploring The Role Of Marketing Strategy And New Product Development In Long-Term Success Of Market Acceptance: A Case Study Of A Local Product In Thailand, Pensri Jaroenwanit, Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper aims to present the exploratory study of the role of marketing strategy and new product development in achieving long-term success of market acceptance in the context of a local product in Thailand. It is part of a large project, only qualitative study is included in this paper. The research methodology comprised documentary research, focus group discussion, and in-depth interview. Participants included local business representatives and customers who live in the regional area and have purchased and consumed the regional products in the last twelve months. The exploratory findings showed the importance of understanding the role of marketing strategy …

Tourism In Technology Dead Zones: Documenting Experiential Dimensions, Philip Pearce, Ulrike Gretzel

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In the last decade, the way tourists use communication technology has become a strong focus of tourism research. Nevertheless there are some locations where there is limited or no internet technology access. These locations can be labeled dead zones. The aims of the present research focus on how tourists think about and react to situations where their normal connectivity with their larger social and information world is disrupted. This study uses the results from five focus groups as well as considerable supporting literature to map the kinds of experiential outcomes tourists report when they are in dead zones. The work …

At The Coalface: Storying Resistance To The Managerial Imposition Of A New Performance Appraisal System, Patrick Dawson, Peter Mclean

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study explores contested change at Glenrothes Colliery and the way that stories emerge are challenged, developed, redefined and shared as part of a continuing dialogue and storying process as miners sought to reassert their sense of collective identity. We argue for a broader conceptualisation of story that moves beyond the confines of folklorist tradition with a focus on retrospective narrative analysis to one which is able to accommodate the temporal, contextual, and political nature of stories as employees make sense and give sense to the changes imposed by management that threatened their collective sense of identity.

Strategic It Alignment: An Evaluation And Process-Level Reconceptualization Of The Construct, Magno Queiroz, Tim Coltman, Rajeev Sharma, Paul Tallon, Peter Reynolds

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Strategic IT alignment is an important construct that has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention. However, a close examination of how the construct has been defined and operationalized in the literature reveals a number of limitations and inconsistencies. In particular, the construct has been defined too broadly and used loosely to account for diverse phenomena. This situation is problematic because it undermines the relevance of IT alignment research for IS scholars and practitioners. This paper reviews enduring challenges to strategic alignment research and proposes a process level conceptualization for the construct. In particular, the proposed re conceptualization meets two …

Australian Online Public Information Systems: A User-Centred Study Of An Evolving Public Health Website, Helen Hasan, Joseph Meloche, Sumayya Banna

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The strategic, transformational nature of many information systems projects is now widely understood. Large-scale implementations of systems are known to require significant management of organisational change in order to be successful. Moreover, projects are rarely executed in isolation - most organisations have a large programme of projects being implemented at any one time. However, project and value management methodologies provide ad hoc definitions of the relationship between a project and its environment. This limits the ability of an organisation to manage the larger dynamics between projects and organisations, over time, and between projects. The contribution of this paper, therefore, is …

Website Intangibles Disclosure And Corporate Growth Reputation Of Small Businesses, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the European Accounting Association 35th Annual Congress, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 9-11 May 2012.

A Note On Demographic Shocks In A Multi-Sector Growth Model, Simone Marsiglio, Davide La Torre

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We introduce demographic shocks in a multi-sector endogenous growth model, a-la Uzawa-Lucas. We show that an analytical solution of the stochastic problem can be found, under the restriction that the capital share equals both the inverse of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the degree of altruism. We show that uncertainty lowers the optimal levels of consumption and the physical capital stock, while they do not affect the share of human capital employed in production.

The Effect Of Cross-Listing On Insider Trading Returns, Millicent M. Chang, Ross Corbitt

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Holding privileged positions within firms, insiders can acquire excessive private benefits based on their informational advantage. The bonding hypothesis suggests that this can be prevented when a firm is cross-listed on an exchange with higher regulatory and legal costs compared with its home exchange. When cross-listed insiders buy and sell shares, the returns earned are lower than in domestic firms. This difference is attributable to the increased shareholder protection in cross-listed firms that constrains the extraction of private benefits, such that when cross-listed insiders trade, they trade for non-informational reasons. 2011 The Authors. Accounting and Finance 2011 AFAANZ.

Do You See What I See? The Role Of Technology In Talent Identification, Sharna L. Wiblen, Kristine Dery, David Grant

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper applies a social constructivist lens to understand more about the ways in which technology shapes our understanding of talent management, in particular the processes of talent identification. Specifically, it examines similarities and differences in the identification of talent across a range of business units at a large professional services firm. The findings show that while objective evaluations of talent based on data and information were possible using talent-related technology, managers had subjective and widely different understandings of what constituted talent at the organisation and how to go about identifying it. These different understandings, based on organisational context, personal …

Idiosyncratic Volatility, Australian Stock Returns And Economy Conditions: Role Of Idiosyncratic Volatility In Asset Pricing For Australian Stock Markets, Bin Liu, Amalia Di Iorio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the importance of idiosyncratic volatility in asset pricing for Australian stock returns from 1993 to 2010. We form an idiosyncratic volatility mimicking factor. In the presence of the Fama-French three-factor we find that the idiosyncratic volatility mimicking factor is priced in Australian stock returns over the sample period, implying that this type of volatility is significant in the pricing of Australian stocks. Further, we find that idiosyncratic volatility is priced during both economy expansions and contractions and our model captures greater variations in Australian stock returns during expansions than contractions.

Moral Hazard With Random Participation, Guillaume Roger

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper studies a principal-agent problem of moral hazard, in which the outside option is stochastic. This renders the agent's participation decision random from the perspective of the principal. The participation cost is no longer defined in terms of the agent's outside option but in terms of the principal's marginal benefit of participation. The optimal contract (i) entails information rents; (ii) features a trade-off between participation probability and rents and (iii) induces a lower effort than the standard model. Random participation results in weaker incentives and in twofold (ex ante) welfare losses. Menus of contracts (screening mechanisms) are not helpful …

Images As Mediating Texts In Annual Reports: The Case Of China Mobile, Xun Gong, Sudhir C. Lodh, Kathleen M. Rudkin

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: This study explores the dual ideological influences that the socialist political regime and the globalised market economy have on the visual images in accounting annual reports in the Chinese context. It also investigates how the visual discourse, in turn, constitutes and sustains competing ideological messages.

Design/Methodology/approach: Based on the 2010 annual report of China Mobile Limited, A critical discourse analysis is conducted at three levels. At the public discourse level, three areas of interest are drawn in interpreting the connotations of the visual discourse, including (1) Davison's (2010) rhetorical codes (physical, dress, spatial, and interpersonal); (2) two Chinese cultural …

Exploring Hegemonic Change In China: A Case Of Accounting Evolution, Lina Xu, Corinne L. Cortese, Ying Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper uses Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to investigate periods of leadership and accounting change throughout Chinese history. In particular, this paper provides an understanding of how accounting systems have changed across four distinct periods of hegemonic leadership in China: the Confucian tradition, the rise of the socialist system followed by the Cultural Revolution under the Maoist era, and the move towards the socialist-market system in the Dengist era. This paper shows how political leaders in these different time periods effectively achieved leadership by destroying an existing hegemony, creating a new ideology, and implanting this into people’s daily lives in …

Managing Collaboration Across Boundaries In Health Information Technology Projects, Karin H. Garrety, Andrew Dalley, Ian Mcloughlin, Rob Wilson, Ping Yu

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

One reason that it is so difficult to build electronic systems for collecting and sharing health information is that their design and implementation requires clear goals and a great deal of collaboration among people from diverse social and occupational worlds. This paper uses empirical examples from two Australian health informatics projects to illustrate the importance of boundary objects and boundary spanning activities in facilitating the high degree of collaboration required for the design and implementation of workable systems.

The Organizational Virtuousness Of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study Of The Sri Lankan Family-Owned Enterprise Mas Holdings, Mario Fernando, Shamika Almeida

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Relatively little is known about strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Asian companies. In the post-tsunami period, the authors interviewed 23 senior executives at ten prominent companies in Sri Lanka. Nine of the companies responded to the tsunami with philanthropy based CSR initiatives. Interviews with three senior executives at the family-owned enterprise MAS Holdings revealed an explicitly strategic CSR approach. MAS Holdings, an apparel manufacturer owned by three brothers, is Victoria Secret's lead strategic partner and an ethical buying source for other well-known apparel retailers. This paper examines the organizational virtuousness of MAS Holdings' strategic CSR initiatives. The analysis uses …

Political Connection, Founder-Manager And Their Impact On Tunneling In China's Listed Firms, Liangbo Ma, Shiguang Ma, Gary G. Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Reciprocal relationship, often regarded as mutually beneficial and secure, can actually be destructive and result in inefficiency. We provide evidence of such double-blade by studying the impact of political connection on corporate governance. Private firms in countries where the government controls the allocation of resources have incentives to seek political connections by hiring politicians or ex-politicians as top executives. Such political capital, however, may turn into political constraint when the CEOs fail to perform but use connections to entrench themselves. We take advantage of the unique setting in China to illustrate this argument. We show that politically connected CEOs have …