Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Validly Measuring Destination Image In Survey Studies, Sara Dolnicar, Bettina Grun

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Destination image is among the most frequently measured constructs in empirical survey research. Academic tourism researchers tend to use multi-category scales, often referring to them as "Likert scales," while industry typically uses "pickany" measures. But which leads to results that are more valid? Findings from a large-scale experimental study show that a "forced-choice full binary" format (where respondents have to tick "yes" and "no" for each destination-attribute combination) performs better than both current preferred formats in academic and applied studies.

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 …

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 …

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 …

A Taxonomy Of Mobile Applications In Tourism, Heather Kennedy-Eden, Ulrike Gretzel

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The rapid growth in the use of smart phones and respective mobile applications has created new ways for the tourism industry to connect with their visitors while travelling. This paper proposes a taxonomy of mobile apps in tourism from two perspectives: a taxonomy on what services travel-related apps provide to the user and a taxonomy based on the level of customization the user has with the mobile application. The taxonomies provide insights into app development trends as well as gaps in the mobile app landscape. Understanding the opportunities currently provided by apps is also critical from a marketing perspective.

Migrant Remittances, Financial Sector Development And The Government Ownership Of Banks: Evidence From A Group Of Non-Oecd Economies, Arusha Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates the influence of migrant remittances on two dimensions of the financial sector, namely, size and efficiency in a sample of 94 non-OECD economies. Evidence suggests that migrant remittances contribute to increasing the size and efficiency of the financial sector. The study, in addition, examines the impact of remittances on financial sector size and efficiency through their interaction with the government ownership of banks. The results suggest that remittances lead to larger increases in financial sector size in countries in which the government ownership of banks is lower, and increases in efficiency in countries in which the government …

Technical Efficiency Performance Of Thai Manufacturing Small And Medium Sized Enterprises, Teerawat Charoenrat, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper employs a stochastic frontier production function and technical inefficiency effects model to measure and explain the technical efficiency of Thai manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Cross-sectional firm-level data from the industrial census conducted in 2007 is used. A simple average technical efficiency levels in all categories of manufacturing SMEs analysed in 2007 is found to be low, indicating a high degree of technical inefficiency in the production process. Despite reform measures aimed at improving firm performance, Thai manufacturing SMEs have remained predominantly labour intensive. The technical inefficiency effects model reveals that firm size, firm age, skilled …

Towards The Development Of An Evaluation Questionnaire For Academic Conferences, Clifford Lewis, Gregory M. Kerr

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Each year, academic conferences are held at destinations throughout the world. These conferences provide benefits to the host destination's economy as well as to the conference participants. Involving travel and accommodation, academic conferences can be classified as business tourism. Academics often have a range of conferences from which to choose. The conference experience therefore may be important in the decision to reattend or recommend a conference to other potential attendees. While many conference organizers distribute a "conference evaluation sheet" at the end of a conference, there is no evidence of a standardized questionnaire that evaluates the entire conference experience. The …

Heterogeneity Among Potential Foster Carers: An Investigation Of Reasons For Not Foster Caring, Melanie Randle, Leonie Miller, Sara Dolnicar, Joseph Ciarrochi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Although Australia is experiencing a shortage of foster carers, there is currently little understanding of why people do not become carers. This study explores the reasons given for not fostering though a survey of 897 non carers. Results indicate that, at the aggregate level, people do not become carers because they do not know anything about fostering, or because they are busy with their own children, work, or commitments to family and friends. However, if we account for heterogeneity, differences in these barriers are observed for subgroups within the sample. We investigate the structure of the market of potential foster …

'So, What Did You Do?' A Performative, Practice-Based Approach To Examining Informal Learning In Wil, Bonnie Amelia Dean, Chris Sykes, Jan Turbill

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A growing body of research in work-integrated learning (WIL) demonstrates the importance of industry experience for student learning. Much of this research however focuses on individual, formal learning that occurs in WIL programs typically captured through assessment. What is less visible is the informal learning experienced during placement. In this paper, we argue that such omissions are suggestive of the incommensurability of the standard paradigm of learning with informal learning. The standard paradigm limits informal learning by privileging individual, cognitive processes of recall, thereby casting experience as “static and sedimented, separated from knowledge making processes” (Fenwick, 2009, p.235). This paper …

Identifying Barriers To Internal Supply Chain Integration Using Systems Thinking, Franciscus Bakker, Tillmann Boehme, Dirk Pieter Van Donk

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This exploratory site-centred research investigates barriers to internal supply chain integration in practice, using systems thinking. A multi-method procedure termed the Quick Scan Audit Methodology is applied to four engineering to order case companies from two different country settings to identify and categorize the actual barriers to internal supply chain integration. The study establishes that the case-significant barriers to internal supply chain integration chiefly relate to behavioral / cultural factors and the organizational arrangement / structures imposed on employees. A cross-case comparison reveals two major clusters of supply chain integration barriers termed “fire-fighting” and “functional-silo mentalities”. The fundamental structures of …

An Empirical Analysis Of Iran's Banking Performance, Amir Arjomandi, Charles Harvie, Abbas Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency and productivity growth of the Iranian banking industry between 2003 and 2008, encompassing pre- and post-2005-reform years.

Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a new decomposition of the Hicks-Moorsteen total factor productivity index developed by O’Donnell to analyse efficiency and productivity changes in a banking context. The advantage of this approach over the popular constant-returns-to-scale Malmquist productivity index is that it is free from any assumptions concerning firms’ optimising behaviour, the structure of markets, or returns to scale. The paper assumes that the production technology exhibits variable returns to …

Is The Rising Cost Of Education Uniform Across All Of Australia's Capital Cities?, Abbas Valadkhani, Shima Hassan Zadeh Forughi, Amir Arjomandi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper compares and contrasts the aggregate cost of education in Australia with the cost of education in each of its eight capital cities surveyed in the Consumer Price Index. It appears that education is becoming a relatively more expensive item among Australian households with rising substantial differences across various geographical areas. Over the last three decades on average the Australian economy witnessed an overall annual inflation rate of 4.2 per cent, whereas the growth of education cost was 7.3 per cent per annum. It is interesting to note that the rising cost of education was not the same across …

Occupational Health And Safety Management In Organizations: A Review, Michael Zanko, Patrick Dawson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In examining the research literature on occupational health and safety (OHS), this paper argues that the growth in the number of specialists in OHS has resulted in an emphasis on policy and practice away from more scholastic concerns previously addressed by academics in the disciplines of psychology and sociology. A hiatus has occurred, and this is evidenced by the general absence of studies in management, even though OHS is increasingly seen as a key operational and strategic concern of business organizations. The authors call for OHS to be placed firmly on the research agenda of management scholars, and advocate the …

Reply To "Response: Board Composition And Firm Performance: Evidence From Bangladesh - A Sceptical View", Afzalur Rashid, Anura De Zoysa, Sudhir Lodh, Kathleen Rudkin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper replies to Chowdhury’s (2010) response to the paper "Board Composition and Firm Performance: Evidence from Bangladesh" (2010). It challenges the strength of the criticisms, arguing that the factors discussed in Chowdhury (2010) do not necessarily impair the outcome of the research. The authors elucidate issues raised, and in so doing, reproduce the results incorporating the commentator’s suggestions

Emergency Service Volunteers: A Comparison Of Age, Motives And Values, Julie E. Francis, Michael Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Understanding why volunteers join an emergency service and why they stay is critical to developing more effective recruitment and retention strategies. Subsequently, this study examines the roles of age, motivations and values in satisfaction among New Generation (aged below 35 years) and Traditional Generation (aged 35 years and above) volunteers. The research conducted an online survey of 252 State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers. The results indicate a mix of similarities and differences across the generations. First and foremost though, the primary reasons for joining and staying with the service are the same for both age groups - and those reasons …

Continuance Of Mhealth Services At The Bottom Of The Pyramid: The Roles Of Service Quality And Trust, Shahriar Akter, Pradeep Ray, John D'Ambra

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Continued usage of information systems (or, IS continuance) has proven to be a critical success parameter for ICT implementation at the top of the global economic pyramid. However, there are few studies which have explored continued IS usage at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP) though it represents the majority of the world's population. To fill this knowledge gap, this study develops an mHealth continuance model at the BOP framing the impact of two post adoption expectation beliefs (i.e., perceived service quality and perceived trust). This study extends ECM (expectation confirmation model) perspective synthesizing the extant literature on continued …

The Impact Of Pre-School On Adolescents’ Outcomes: Evidence From A Recent English Cohort, Patricia Apps, Silvia Mendolia, Ian Walker

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the relationship between attendance at nursery school and children’s outcomes in adolescence. In particular, we are interested in child cognitive development at ages 11, 14 and 16, intentions towards tertiary education, economic activity in early adulthood, and in a group of non-cognitive outcomes, such as risky health behaviours (smoking, early pregnancy, use of cannabis) and personality traits (feelings and commitments about school; psychological well-being). Using matching methods to control for a very rich set of child’s and family’s characteristics, we find that pre-school childcare largely improves results in cognitive tests at age 11 and 14 and 16, …

Flexible Rasch Mixture Models With Package Psychomix, Hannah Frick, Carolin Strobl, Friedrich Leisch, Achim Zeileis

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Measurement invariance is an important assumption in the Rasch model and mixture models constitute a flexible way of checking for a violation of this assumption by detecting unobserved heterogeneity in item response data. Here, a general class of Rasch mixture models is established and implemented in R, using conditional maximum likelihood estimation of the item parameters (given the raw scores) along with flexible specification of two model building blocks: (1) Mixture weights for the unobserved classes can be treated as model parameters or based on covariates in a concomitant variable model. (2) The distribution of raw score probabilities can be …

The Consequences And Correction Of Inflation In Personal Savings Estimates In Specific Future Time Frames, Leona Tam, Uptal M. Dholakia

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

We examined the consequences of personal savings estimate inflation that occurs when decision makers provide savings estimates for specific future months when compared with the next month or the next year time frames, along with a method to attenuate this bias. The results of three experiments showed that the savings estimate inflation leads to significantly larger estimates of desired nest egg size (Experiment 1) and preference for riskier choices in other financial domains such as investment and employment decisions (Experiment 2). An attempt to attenuate this bias revealed that it is corrected when individuals provide a budgeting estimate prior to …

I Was Only Nineteen, 45 Years Ago: What Can We Learn From Australia's Conscription Lotteries?, Peter Siminski, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Australian conscription lotteries of 1965-1972 are a unique and underutilised resource for studying the effects of army service and veterans’ programs. Drawing on many data sources and 25 years of related US literature, we present a comprehensive analysis of this natural experiment, examining indicators of health, personal economic outcomes, family outcomes and educational attainment. We discuss the numerous potential mechanisms involved and the limitations of available data.

Newspaper Coverage Of Water Issues In Australia, Anna Hurlimann, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The media has been found to have an impact on public debate, public opinion, and public policy agendas. Public debate, and public opinion about water conservation and water supply management projects matter because they can influence specific outcomes. For example, public opinion can potentially lead to positive behaviour, like increased water conservation, or potentially negative behaviours such as public opposition to developments such as dams or water recycling plants, which may be necessary under changing climatic conditions. It is therefore critical to understand how the media reports on water-related topics. Results from a content analysis of 1253 newspaper articles published …

Championing Sme Ecollaboration, Lois Burgess, Michael L. Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Collaboration and eCollaboration are arguable necessities for firms in today's economic age. Gone are the times when a firm could stand alone in the market warding off the competitive pressures of rival firms. Today, just the competitive forces of globalization alone are significant drivers to enable collaboration amongst rivals. The advantages of collaboration and eCollaboration for SMEs are profuse, providing small firms a measure of economic security in a world in which many industries face hyper-competition, particularly from countries with very low costs of labor. In discussing the nature and advantages of eCollaboration, the need for an eCollaboration champion becomes …

Community Acceptance Of Recycled Water - Can We Inoculate The Public Against Scare Campaigns?, Byron Kemp, Melanie J. Randle, Anna Hurlimann, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Without improved water resource management, it is predicted that water shortages will affect two-thirds of humanity by 2025. One solution that has traditionally faced fierce public resistance is recycled waste water. This study investigates the extent to which public communication strategies can influence community acceptance of recycled water, using the framework of Inoculation Theory. A four-phase experimental design was conducted. Participants completed an initial questionnaire and were then randomly assigned to a control group, a manipulation check group or a treatment group. A final follow-up survey measured changes in the dependent variable: stated likelihood of using recycled water for different …