Business Commons^™

Social Implications Of Wearable Computing And Augmediated Reality In Every Day Life (Ieee Symposium On Technology And Society, Istas13), Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

It was in July 2012 that Steve Mann and I corresponded on the possibility of hosting a conference on wearable computing in Toronto, Canada. Steve had just returned home from a family holiday to France and publicly blogged about an unfortunate incident that had happened to him while away. On 17th July 2012 he posted: “Physical assault by McDonald’s for wearing Digital Eye Glass”. We both knew the timing was right for such an event that was not just a technical engineering or applied orientation on the theme of smart worlds, but an event that would grapple with the dichotomies …

Mental Models: A Robust Definition, Laura L. Rook

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: The concept of a mental model has been described by theorists from diverse disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to offer a robust definition of an individual mental model for use in organisational management. Design/methodology/approach: The approach adopted involves an interdisciplinary literature review of disciplines, including system dynamics, psychology, cognitive science and organisational learning. Findings: Critical reflection on the published individual mental model definitions revealed similarities and shortcomings. It is argued that here the literature presents some consensus in the concept being internally held and having the capacity to affect how a person acts. The proposed definition of …

Security Of European Electricity Systems: Conceptualizing The Assessment Criteria And Core Indicators, Rabindra Nepal, Tooraj Jamasb

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Electricity systems have a central role to play in the transition towards a low carbon economy and the integration of renewable energy sources in the European Union (EU). However, European electricity networks face a diverse set of existing and new risks that can hamper the energy security of the member countries. This paper qualitatively and quantitatively assesses these risks given the changing operating framework characterized by market liberalization and network interconnectedness. Within this context, the paper primarily focuses on the risks from exceptional events and threats to European electricity systems. A simple ex ante risk assessment matrix is proposed to …

A Discussion Of The Suitability Of Only One Vs More Than One Theory For Depicting Corporate Governance, Abdullah Al Mamun, Qaiser Rafique Yasser, Md. Ashikur Rahman

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Agency theory predicts that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the chairman positions should be held by different individuals in order to protect shareholder's interest. Though there are mixed evidences on CEO duality and firm performance, most research have found that there is negative relationship between CEO duality and firm performance. Although, in the last decades of the twentieth century, agency theory became the dominant force in the theoretical understanding of corporate governance, it does not however cover all aspects of corporate governance. This paper aims to explore whether it is better to combine various theories in order to describe …

Does Health Capital Have Differential Effects On Economic Growth?, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Investigating the impact of health capital disaggregated by gender on economic growth in a sample of 210 countries over the 1990-2008 period, this study suggests that the influence of health capital across countries cannot be generalised. Results for the full sample indicate that health capital does not have a robust and significant effect on economic growth unless through their interactions with health expenditure and education. The results disaggregated by income group reveal that health capital has a positive robust influence on economic growth in high and upper middle income economies. In low and low middle income economies, health capital gains …

Are Low-Skill Public Sector Workers Really Overpaid? A Quasi-Differenced Panel Data Analysis, Peter Siminski

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Public–private sectoral wage differentials have been studied extensively using quantile regression techniques. These typically find large public sector premiums at the bottom of the wage distribution. This may imply that low skill workers are ‘overpaid’, prompting concerns over efficiency. We note several other potential explanations for this result and explicitly test whether the premium varies with skill, using Australian data. We use a quasi-differenced Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data model which has not been previously applied to this topic, internationally. Unlike other available methods, this technique identifies sectoral differences in returns to unobserved skill. It also facilitates a …

Careers And Organisational Objectives: Managing Competing Interests In Cooperative Research Centres, Sam Garrett-Jones, Tim Turpin, Kieren Diment

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Research of potential socio-economic value is often conducted within cross-sector (government, university, business) centres. There has been growing interest among science policy researchers in seeking to understand the organizational dilemmas confronted in cross-sector research collaboration. While there is clearly a coalition of interests among partners engaged with collaborative research their broader organizational objectives and strategies may converge, diverge, or even compete. Yet little empirical evidence exists on (a) how individual researchers perceive the benefits of their participation, (b) how far the structures and functions of particular collaborative R&D centres coalesce around of researchers’ expectations and, (c) what problems arise for …

A Template For Integrated Reporting, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – This paper sets out to outline the concept of integrated reporting and to propose a template for integrated reporting in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach to the conceptual model is founded on concepts proposed on integrated reporting by the King Report on Governance for South Africa (King III), and the International Integrated Reporting Council in the U.K.

Findings – The integrated report should explain the story of reaching the organisation’s vision, underpinned by its values, enacted by management, monitored by governance, and using facets of resources relating to financial capital, intellectual capital, social capital, and environmental capital.

Practical …

Innovation And Economic Education: An Integration, Eduardo Pol

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Almost everyone agrees on the importance of educating a broad spectrum of the public about economics and business. It has been suggested by experts in economic education that universities should place greater emphasis on economics as a general education. The present paper develops a proposal to integrate innovation into elementary economic education that business faculties might use to enrich their general economic education offerings. We believe the proposal can be implemented through the design of a new subject - which may be called the 'Creative Economy' - supported by a method of teaching and learning by successive approximations. The study …

Metacapitalism Vs Healthcare, Sanja Pupovac, George M. Mickhail

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The aim of this paper is to critically examine the effect of the MetaCapitalism strategy changes on Australian healthcare sector companies during the period 1989-2007, and to establish whether there is any relationship between those changes and any adverse corporate consequences, such as: corporate collapses, acquisitions, mergers, delisting from the ASX 200. The main rationale behind the MetaCapitalism strategy, is that by aggressively reducing physical assets, outsourcing production and downsizing of the workforce, then firms will become at the same time efficient and profitable through participating in this highly competitive technological era. However, this uninhibited pursuit of efficiency by corporations …

Does The Interest Rate For Business Loans Respond Asymmetrically To Changes In The Cash Rate?, Abbas Valadkhani, Amir Arjomandi, Martin J. O'Brien

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article examines the dynamic relationship between the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA's) cash rate and the variable interest rate for lending to small businesses. The relationship is evaluated via an asymmetric GARCH model using monthly data spanning from August 1990 to October 2012. Our results show that a 1 percentage point increase in the cash rate results in an instantaneous 1.086 percentage point rise in the variable rate for small businesses, whereas an equivalent 1 percentage point cut only leads to a 0.862 percentage point fall with a delay of up to 2 months. This outcome has obvious implications …

Extending The Use Of Market Orientation: Transforming A Charity Into A Business, Paul A. Chad

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Charities play a crucial role within society but are facing growing competition. Adopting a market orientation assists for-profit organisations to improve performance and can potentially also assist charities. This paper examines the under-researched topic of how market orientation can be appropriately introduced into a charity, and the resultant effect upon performance. A charity that introduced market orientation is examined using a discourse transformation framework. Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews of employees identifies how management changed the organisation through use of a three-phase process of new managerialism, professionalism and embedding. Few if any papers have previously examined how management of a …

Application Of The Task-Technology Fit Model To Structure And Evaluate The Adoption Of E-Books By Academics, John D'Ambra, Concepcion S. Wilson, Shahriar Akter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Increasingly, e-books are becoming alternatives to print books in academic libraries, thus providing opportunities to assess how well the use of e-books meets the requirements of academics. This study uses the task-technology fit (TTF) model to explore the interrelationships of e-books, the affordances offered by smart readers, the information needs of academics, and the "fit" of technology to tasks as well as performance. We propose that the adoption of e-books will be dependent on how academics perceive the fit of this new medium to the tasks they undertake as well as what added-value functionality is delivered by the information technology …

Scientific Progress In Measurement Theory?, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article is a response to the March, 2013, special issue of the AMS Review, which was purportedly about "scientific progress in marketing" but in fact was about measurement in marketing. Even narrower than that, the special issue was about "formative measurement" in marketing. The present article contends that the problems raised by the special issue's authors were solved earlier by Rossiter's C-OAR-SE measurement theory. Four key references on C-OAR-SE theory (Rossiter in Int J Res Mark 19(4):305-335, 2002; Bergkvist and Rossiter in J Mark Res 44(2):175-184, 2007; Rossiter's 2011a book; Rossiter in Eur J Market 45(11/12):1589-1600, 2011b) are revisited …

Political Connections, Founder-Managers, And Their Impact On Tunneling In China's Listed Firms, Liangbo Ma, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We investigate the impact of manager political connection and founder status on tunneling in China's listed firms from 2004 to 2010. By classifying the political connections into three dimensions with two categories of controlling ownerships, we find that overall manager political connection is negatively related to tunneling in private firms but positively related to tunneling in SOEs. The CPC/CPPCC-type connection is likely to protect firms from tunneling, while the official-type connection facilitates tunneling from firms. The impact of these two types of political connection on tunneling is stronger at the central level than the local level. A chairman's political connection …

The Puzzle Of Negative Association Of Earnings Quality With Corporate Performance: A Finding From Chinese Publicly Listed Firms, Shiguang Ma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Introduction

- Earnings management - Accounting data management. - Real earnings management.

- Earnings quality - Financial statement accurately and unbiased reports corporate operating status and financial position. - Earnings quality as the degree to which earnings persists or sustains into next period.

- Corporate performance - Low earnings quality leads to low corporate performance. - Theoretically approved, but empirical evidences are not consistent.

- The Puzzle of Negative Association of Earnings Quality with Corporate Performance in China - Probably, it is rational in an emerging market.

Eagles And Turkeys: Human Capital Externalities, Departmental Co-Authorship And Research Productivity, Frank Neri, Joan R. Rodgers

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Lucas (1988) hypothesised that human capital externalities explain persistent productivity growth and become manifest via interactions between workplace colleagues. Consistent with the first part of this hypothesis, Fox and Milbourne (2006) concluded that an increase in the average level of human capital in Australian economics departments raised the research productivity of departmental members. This paper tests the robustness of this finding by using a direct, rather than a proxy, measure of human capital and confirms the existence of human capital externalities within Australian economics departments. But we extend the analysis in two important dimensions. Firstly, we investigate the second part …

Politicisation Of The International Accounting Standard Setting Process: Evidence From The Extractive Industries, Corinne L. Cortese

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed example of the way in which extractive industries constituents participated in the setting of the international accounting standard for the extractive industries, IFRS 6 - Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-section of extractive industries constituents is selected and their participation in the accounting standard setting process is examined via analysis of their comment letters and other interactions with the process. Findings - The paper contributes to our understanding of the politicised nature of accounting standard setting for the extractive industries. In doing so, …

Local Council Governance And Audit Committees - The Missing Link?, Greg Jones, Graham Bowrey

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: To examine the level of compliance of NSW Local Government councils with the Internal Audit Guidelines developed and published by the NSW State Government to address the identified weaknesses in the governance structures of the councils. The specific focus in this paper is on a key component of good governance, an audit committee, and whether the NSW Local Government councils have followed the guidelines and established an audit committee. Design / methodology: This paper is based on archival research of the 2009/2010 Annual Reports and websites of NSW Local Government councils to collect data on the existence and structure …

Should The Dodd-Frank Act Force Miners To Publish What They Pay?, Corinne L. Cortese

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

[extract] This week, the powerful American Petroleum Institute (API), along with a coalition of trade organisations, won a significant battle against increased corporate transparency.

Superannuation Policy Processes: The Case Of Mysuper And Superstream, Fariba Ahmadi Pirshahid, Mary Kaidonis, Kathy Rudkin

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The Australian superannuation system has been praised as one of the best in the world. Yet a major review by the Cooper Committee in 2010 found numerous problems that have been undermining the performance of the system, proposing a number of recommendations for improvement. The subsequent adoption and implementation of two such recommendations saw the introduction of 'MySuper' and 'SuperStream' by the government resulting in the most significant reform in the superannuation industry since the introduction of the Superannuation Guarantee (SG) in 1992. This paper critically analyses: the relevant Deloitte; and Financial Services Council and Ernst and Young's report used …

Does Bank Ownership Imply Efficient Monitoring? Evidence From Bank Lending And Firm Investment Efficiencies In China, Gary G. Tian, Xiaofei Pan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates the effect of bank ownership on lending and firm investment efficiencies to give reasons for the mixed evidence that exists on the impact of bank ownership on firm performance. Using China's listed firms as an example, we find that bank ownership reduces the efficiency of bank lending and harms investment efficiency for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), while simultaneously relating to optimal lending decisions and enhanced investment efficiency for non-SOEs. Our findings suggest that banks monitor non-SOEs effectively, but are less effective at monitoring SOEs. We document that banks' ex post monitoring on non-SOEs' investment policy results from their …

The Impact Of Information Opacity On The Relation Between Founding-Family Control And Cost Of Debt, Liangbo Ma, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The literature finds mixed empirical evidence for systematic relations between founding - family ownership and cost of debt. Using a sample of 3380 privately (non-state) controlled but publicly listed firms in China between 2004 and 2010, we find that, on average, founding-family controlled firms pay significantly lower cost of debt, relative to non-founding-family controlled firms. Further investigation reveals that the negative relation between founding-family control and cost of debt exists mainly in firms that are relatively less opaque. Our results are robust to different measures of cost of debt and information opacity. We further generate evidence that in regions with …

Mutual Fund Ownership, Firm Specific Information, And Firm Performance: Evidence From China, Wenhua Sharpe, Gary Tian, Hong Feng Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper shows empirically that the positive association between mutual fund ownership and firm value in China is mainly driven by the informed trading of mutual funds. Utilizing the unique short term feature of mutual fund holdings for the period from 2001 to 2010, we provide an informational link between a decomposed component of market-to-book ratio (firm specific valuation component) and mutual fund holdings. Specifically, we find that firms with a higher level of mutual fund ownership are associated with a higher specific value. Moreover, the positive association between the specific value of a firm and mutual fund ownership is …

Bank Connection, Corruption And Collateral In China, Xiaofei Pan, Gary Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Using a sample of China's listed entrepreneurial firms, we investigate the relationship between bank connection, corruption and collateral requirements. We find that when a firm is connected with banks, collateral requirements are significantly lower. We also find that bank connection is the channel through which corruption is exercised to benefit those firms with favoured loan terms. Our analysis further reveals that bank connection and corruption have jointly improved bank lending efficiency. However, these positive effects become weaker with government intervention in the form of an economic stimulus package. We argue that in an emerging market, bank connection facilitates rent seeking …

Evaluation Of Regional Economy Through An Embedded Econometric-Interindustry Model, Ashkan Masouman, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Since incorporating interindustry analysis into econometric framework was pioneered some 40 years ago (Glickman, 1977), there has been a growing number of studies in the literature on application of the integrated framework at the subnational level. The integrated models in the literature have appeared in different forms with respect to the strategy and the structure, through which input-output (IO) and econometric are merged. The objective of the integrated framework is to capitalize on the merits of both component models, namely, an exhaustive interindustry analysis and a dynamic reflection of economic variables. This paper presents an attempt to extend and apply …

Do Satisfied Tourists Really Intend To Come Back? Three Concerns With Empirical Studies Of The Link Between Satisfaction And Behavioral Intention, Sara Dolnicar, Tim Coltman, Rajeev Sharma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Explaining human behavior is a primary concern for tourism research and a substantial body of research concludes that highly satisfied tourists are more likely to return to a particular destination. In this article, we provide an analysis of this body of work, arriving at three concerns relating to the strength of association between satisfaction and behavioral intention: (1) the link between constructs is complex, resulting in the frequent omission of causal factors; (2) inconsistency with construct operationalization impedes cumulative knowledge development; and (3) explainable variance is impeded by between-study heterogeneity. We illustrate these problems by analyzing empirical guest survey data …

Editorial: Family Enterprise: Significant And Different, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This special issue of Small Enterprise Research (SER) is dedicated to family business, a topic which, although sometimes mentioned in passing in the journal, has not previously been the subject of a special issue. A comparative lack of attention to the special nature of family firms is typical of business scholarship generally where the non-family (or widely-held) corporate form dominates both the business research literature and business education. Family business has also been slow to attract public policy attention, perhaps because family businesses are stereotyped as small, despite the international prominence of huge family-based enterprises such as Newscorp.

Succession At Buchanan Transport, Mary Barrett, Ken Moores

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Family firms have all the challenges of any business and, because they are run by families, they have to contend with the blurring of boundaries between family, management and ownership systems. Textbooks such as Poza Family Business point out how conflicts are likely to arise around ownership succession in family firms, and the need to manage succession so as to enhance the interests of family and business. This case provides an opportunity to consider the intertwined nature of family and business problems in the succession process of a family firm which, despite steady growth earlier in its history, is now …

Energy Informatics: Designing A Discipline (And Possible Lessons For The Is Community), Jan Vom Brocke, G Fridgen, Helen Hasan, W Ketter, Richard Watson

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

If we were to design a new scientific field with a clean slate perspective, what might be the outcome? The panelists have been working in various ways for the last few years on establishing a new domain of inquiry, Energy Informatics. The panel will address key questions that they think should be considered by those designing a new discipline. Specifically, they will address the following critical questions: (1) How do you enhance research community effectiveness? (2) How do you enhance research community efficiency? (3) What are the central activities and key resources? (4) How do you assess an effective contribution? …