Business Commons^™

Caught Between Two Worlds: Clusters, Microfinance Officers And Accountability Mechanisms In A Sri Lankan Mfi, Nadeera Ranabahu, Lee C. Moerman

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper studies the accountability mechanisms and dynamics that exist within a microfinance context when microfinance officers (MFOs) interact with borrowers at the community level (MFO-community interface). In the Sri Lankan microfinance institution (MFI) used in this study, community units or clusters comprising of several peer or solidarity groups engage with MFOs in the field. Using Ritchie and Richardson's (2000) accountability typologies (codified, contingent, assumed and collateral), this article explores how multiple and complex accountability relationships manifest at the MFO community interface.The data collected from interviews, discussions, observations, document reviews and the primary researcher's reflective notes demonstrate that both codified …

Moderator Impact Of Preferred Hrm Culture On The Relationship Between Work Values On Contextual And Task Performance, Palli Mulla K A Chandrakumara

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the moderator effect of individual preferences for HRM practices on the relationship between work values and contextual and task performance (CTP).The relevant literature suggests that the notion of individual preferences in regard to their effect on CTP, moderator effect in particular, has received scant systematic attention.The data were obtained in a sample of 356 manufacturing sector employees in Sri Lanka. A three-step moderated hierarchical regression procedure was adopted to examine the moderating effect of individual preferences. The results of the study supported the hypotheses. Originally, work values and ethics had a direct effect on CTP. However, this …

Political Promotion, Ceo Incentives, And The Relationship Between Pay And Performance, Xiaping Cao, Michael Lemmon, Xiaofei Pan, Meijun Qian, Gary G. Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that managers' career concerns can serve as an important source of implicit economic incentives. We examine how incentives for political promotion are related to compensation policy and firm performance in Chinese state-owned enterprises. We find that the likelihood that the CEO receives a political promotion is positively related to firm performance. We also find that CEOs with a higher likelihood of political promotion have lower pay levels and lower pay-performance sensitivity. Overall, the evidence suggests that competition in the political job market helps mitigate weak monetary incentives for CEOs in China.

The Interplay Between Accounting Professionals And Political Ideologies: The Emergence Of Chinese Accounting Standards From 1978 To 1992, Lina Xu, Corinne L. Cortese, Eagle Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the role of accounting professionals in the emergence of the first set of accounting standards - Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) - in China between 1978 and 1992. Based on a variety of sources drawn from the archives of Chinese language accounting textbooks and highly ranked academic journals, this article reveals how accounting professionals adapted accounting thoughts and practice to fit the demands of the prevailing political ideologies, which facilitated the social conditions essential for the development of ASBE. Drawing on theoretical perspectives on the interplay between accounting and its social context, as pronounced and advocated …

Breaking The Link Between Legal Access To Alcohol And Motor Vehicle Accidents: Evidence From New South Wales, Jason M. Lindo, Peter M. Siminski, Oleg Yerokhin

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

A large literature has documented significant public health benefits associated with the minimum legal drinking age in the USA, particularly because of the resulting effects on motor vehicle accidents. These benefits form the primary basis for continued efforts to restrict youth access to alcohol. It is important to keep in mind that policymakers have a wide variety of alcohol-control options available to them, and understanding how these policies may complement or substitute for one another can improve policy making moving forward. Towards this end, we propose that investigating the causal effects of the minimum legal drinking age in New South …

Relation Between Trust Theory And Agency Theory, Shyam S. Bhati

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The global fmancial crisis (GFC) of 2008 has I:aised many issues in regard to the operations of business, particularly financial institutions. The most important issue is the loss of trust in the way financial institutions work. Some authors have called the economic crisis a crisis of trust (Eichengreen, 2009). Emst and Young (2011) have conducted a global survey of banking industry in the aftermath of GFC. They found that the banking industry in mature markets such as USA, UK, Germany, France and Italy has experienced a shift in customer confidence and trust whereas banking industry in emerging markets such as …

The Relationship Between Responsible Leadership And Organisational Commitment With The Mediating Effect Of Turnover Intentions: An Empirical Study With Australian Employees, Md Amlan Haque, Mario Fernando, Peter Caputi

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an Australian study testing the relationship between responsible leadership and organizational commitment. We further test and report the mediating effect of turnover intentions of employees.

The Relationship Between Human Capital, Value Creation And Employee Reward, Peter R. Massingham, Wing Yin Leona Tam

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose

This paper examines the relationship between human capital (HC) and value creation and employee reward. HC is an important component of intellectual capital (IC). There is growing interest in how IC can be used to create organizational value. This paper addresses the need for critical analysis of IC practices in action. Based on data gathered from three annual surveys at Australia's second largest public sector organization, the paper introduces psychological contract as new HC factors, and develops a method to measure HC in terms of value creation (work activity) and employee reward (pay). The findings have practical implications for …

Attribution Theory: Untangling The Relationship Between Management And Workers, Irit Alony

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Attribution theory deals with how and why people form an opinion about the reasons for an event or observation (Winkler 2010). This theory is based on the idea that perception is the foundation of human understanding, sensemaking, and behaviour. This theory claims that people develop explanations for the behaviours of others, similarly to how scientists try to understand the world. The theory asserts that people's opinions are formed based on how they perceive the behaviour and the reality surrounding it. This explanation, the attribution, is based on how the observing person perceives a cause for the actor's behaviour.

The Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure And Financial Performance: Evidence From Thailand, Wisuttorn Jitaree, Sudhir C. Lodh, Shyam S. Bhati

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and financial performance in Thailand during the period 2009-2011. Four measures of financial performance were used based on data extracted from the annual reports of 232 firms listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. A CSR disclosure index was constructed to measure the extent and dimensions of CSR disclosure. Overall, the results from the empirical analysis provide some evidence of positive relationship between financial performance and CSR disclosure. This study adds further evidence to the literature on the relationship between the CSR and financial performance in an emerging country. …

Modes Of Knowledge Sharing Between Groups, Joseph Meloche, Helen Hasan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The inspiration for this work comes from a research consultancy project aimed at assessing the use of the web to enhance communication between two groups, namely, teams of clinicians and the families of patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU). As this project unfolded, the challenge of enabling knowledge sharing between these two disparate groups was encountered. In the ICU situation the patient usually does not have the capacity to contribute to their healthcare choices so that decisions have to be made on their behalf using the combined knowledge of the clinicians and the patient's family. The situation is made more …

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 …

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 …

"Translating" Between Survey Answer Formats, Sara Dolnicar, Bettina Grun

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Survey research remains the most popular source of market knowledge, yet researchers have not yet established one consistent technique for measuring responses. Some market research companies offer respondents two answer options; others five or seven. Some answer formats use middle points on the answer scales, others do not. Some formats verbalize all answer options, some only the endpoints. The wide variety of answer formats that market research companies and academic researchers use makes comparing results across studies virtually impossible. This study offers guidance for market researchers by presenting empirical translations for the answer formats they most commonly use, thus enabling …

The Role Of The Design Coach - A Novel Approach To Achieving 360 Collaboration Between Industry And Higher Education, Lee E. J Styger, Ian Ellis

Sydney Business School - Papers

There is significant latent design talent within the broader business community, however, much of the design potential is isolated, and, lacks the necessary focus to manifest positive commercial outcomes. Research has indicated that this situation is due to a myopic design development process that is typically caused by the lack of larger team dynamics, reporting structures, and more formal review and feedback processes. The role of the coach is well established in business environments, where, a specialist practitioner enables an environment that supports personal and operational development. Unfortunately the concept of the design coach is not as well established because, …

Money Buys Financial Security And Psychological Need Satisfaction: Testing Need Theory In Affluence, Ryan T. Howell, Mark Kurai, Wing Yin Leona Tam

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The most prominent theory to explain the curvilinear relationship between income and subjective well-being (SWB) is need theory, which proposes that increased income and wealth can lead to increased well-being in poverty because money is used to satisfy basic physiological needs. The present study tests the tenets of need theory by proposing that money can buy happiness beyond poverty if the money satisfies higher-order needs. Findings indicate that in older adults (n = 1,284), as economic standing rises, so do individual perceptions of financial security (a safety need), which in turn increases overall life satisfaction. Further, a path model tested …

Interest Rate Pass Through And The Asymmetric Relationship Between The Cash Rate And The Mortgage Rate, Abbas Valadkhani, Sajid Anwar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

There is an ongoing controversy over whether banks’ mortgage rates rise more rapidly than they fall due to their asymmetric responses to changes in the cash rate. This paper examines the dynamic interplay between the cash rate and the standardvariable mortgage rate using monthly data in the post-1989 era. Unlike previous Australian studies, our proposed threshold and asymmetric error-correction models account for both the amount and adjustment asymmetries. We found that the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rate rises have a much larger and more instantaneous impact on the mortgage rate than rate cuts.

Comovement Between Emerging And Developed Stock Markets: An Investigation Through Cointegration Analysis, Searat Ali, Babar Zaheer Butt, Kashif Ur Rehman

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Globalization has amplified interest of academics and investors to the subject of co movement among the stock markets of the world. This study investigates the co movement of Pakistan's Equity Market with the markets of India, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, USA and UK by using co integration test on monthly stock prices from the period of July 1998 to June 2008. The results reveal that there is no co movement of Pakistan's equity market with the markets of UK, USA, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Therefore, investors can reduce risk through investment in these countries. Whereas the stock prices …

On The Relationship Between Population Change And Sustainable Development, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the relationship between population growth and economic growth, through the study of fertility choices and their effects on natural resources. It aims at analyzing the interactions between endogenous fertility choices and the environment and their link to the sustainable matter. We analyze a growth model driven by natural resources and without production, where agents have jointly to determine consumption and fertility, taking into account the effects of their decisions on the dynamics of natural resources. We adopt the most optimistic view on natural capital (it generates endogenous growth) and the weakest notion of sustainable paths (all variables …

The Caqda Paradox: A Divergence Between Research Method And Analytical Tool, Michael Jones, Kieren Diment

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A wide range of software tools are available to assist researchers with the process of qualitative data analysis. These include tools that emphasise manual handling of data, (e.g. NVivo, Atlas.ti) and tools that provide some automated analysis based on statistical properties of texts (e.g. Leximancer). These tools are enhancing research, making research activities less complex and tedious, and rendering the process more transparent and portable (Dohan et al. 1998; Welsh 2002; Andrew et al. 2007; Jones 2007). The use of these tools in published works over the last five to ten years has become increasingly more evident. However, in many …

Interconnection Between Motives And Performances Of Internationalisation Processes, Ty T. Choi

Sydney Business School - Papers

Over the last thirty years, scholars vigorously attempted to theorise internationalisation of the firm based on analysis of firms’ internationalisation processes. Many studies attempt to explain the motives of firms’ decisions to commence internationalisation processes. This is because motives are triggered by both internal and external forces or factors that a firm’s decision-makers take into account when considering whether to initiate the internationalisation process. Scholars in this field argue that although the vast majority of studies around internationalisation processes capture firms’ activities upon actual commencement of the internationalisation process, they overlook the actual factors that lead firms to initiate such …

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 …

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 …

Rational Exercising: A Lifetime Choice With A Link Between Health And Happiness, Amnon Levy

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper deals with a widespread type of investment in personal health that is not adequately explained by the economic literature. The analysis of people’s choice of intensity of engagement in health enhancing activities is made within an integrative, stochastic, micro-dynamic optimisation framework in which people’s utility is accumulated along a health-dependent random lifespan with direct and indirect mutual effects among exercise, health, consumption, utility, happiness, productivity and survival. Distinction is made between exercise’s length and exercise’s vigour in analysing the effect of exercising on health and rest. A link between health and utility is introduced: health improves (declines) as …

Ontology Mapping Between Hl7 Versions 2 And 3 And Openehr For Observations Messages, Amanda Ryan, Peter W. Eklund

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Interoperability between health informatics standards enables new best-ofbreed solutions to evolve from legacy health information systems, and enables a healthcare data model to evolve and be enriched. In this paper we show that a lightweight XSLT framework can be used to achieve interoperability between HL7 versions 2 and 3 and HL7 version 3 and OpenEHR. We present the necessary transformations between terminology and structure in these standards as an exercise in ontology mapping. We discuss our experience with respect to clinical observation messaging.

The Relationship Between Social Capital And Tacit Knowledge, Karen Yuan Wang, Ferry Jie, Kai-Ping Huang

Sydney Business School - Papers

Social capital has evolved from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Recently, interests over it have been instigated by entrepreneur literatures because of the arising need to understand its contribution to quality of resource-based management, specifically knowledge-based resources, which provides a great possibility for a successful firm performance. Nevertheless, knowledge and information, just like social capital, are multidimensional in sources and consequences. Scholars have differentiated between tacit and explicit knowledge to clearly present their argument that these two types of knowledge fit various networks of social relations for optimal performance. Therefore, an in-depth investigation of the correlation between social capital and tacit knowledge …

Association Between Corporate Disclosure And Information Needs Of Company Annual Report Users In Sri Lanka, Anura De Zoysa

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the extent of disclosures in company annual reports of Sri Lankan listedcompanies and the user perceptions on the importance of information disclosed in company annualreports. For this purpose, annul reports of 65 Sri Lankan listed companies were analysed using adisclosure index. Furthermore, a questionnaire survey was conducted covering seven user groups toexamine the importance they attached to various information items disclosed in company annualreports. The results of the study revealed a fairly high level of overall disclosure (69.8%) in Sri Lankancompany annual reports with 90 per cent of the sample companies disclosing 43 per cent ofinformation items …

The Distinction Between Tax Avoidance And Tax Evasion Has Become Blurred In Australia: Why Has It Happened?, John Mclaren

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The distinction between tax avoidance and tax evasion has been well established in the Australian taxation system. However, for some time the Australian Government has ignored the difference between the two concepts when it comes to Australians using tax havens and being investigated as part of 'Project Wickenby'.1The Australian Government is deliberately labelling all attempts to minimise income tax through the use of tax havens and offshore financial centres (OFCs) as tax evasion and therefore a criminal act. There have been examples quoted in the press where the Australian Crime Commission, conducting investigations as part of 'Project Wickenby', have gained …

Non-Tradable Share Reform And Convergence Between Chinese Cross-Listed A And H Shares, Yuan Fang Zhao, Andrew S. Tan, Gary G. Tian

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores the impact of China's two recent stock market reforms, i.e.non-tradable share reform and QFII procedures, on the price linkages of A- and H- sharesby using the technique of cointegration. We found that although A-share index andH-share index is still segmented, the price linkages between individual A-shares and theircross-listed H-shares have been straightened since the two policies implemented. Weargued that ownership restrictions contributed to the market segmentation of Chinese andHong Kong's stock markets and the integration process of China and Hong Kong seemsto be a gradual progress.

The Value Of Prerequisites: A Link Between Understanding And Progression, Vicki Baard, Edmund W. Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper contributes to the debate about the value of discipline-specific prerequisites. The study compared the results of students from 2003 to 2006 completing the subject Principles of Finance and who had completed the subject Business Statistics, to students who had not. This comparison indicated that the students who completed Business Statistics performed significantly better overall than those students who had not. The findings imply that discipline-specific prerequisites provide students with a minimum level of understanding required to undertake advanced subjects, and can improve their chance of success.