Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Opportunities And Challenges Posed By Disruptive And Converging Information Technologies For Australia's Future Defence Capabilities: A Horizon Scan, Pi-Shen Seet, Anton Klarin, Janice Jones, Mike Johnstone, Helen Cripps, Jalleh Sharafizad, Violetta Wilk, David Suter, Tony Marceddo

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Introduction: The research project's objective was to conduct a comprehensive horizon scan of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) technologies—specifically, Cyber, IoT/IoBT, AI, and Autonomous Systems. Recognised as pivotal force multipliers, these technologies are critical to reshaping the mission, design, structure, and operations of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), aligning with the Department of Defence (Defence)’s offset strategies and ensuring technological advantage, especially in the Indo-Pacific's competitive landscape.

Research process: Employing a two-pronged research approach, the study first leveraged scientometric analysis, utilising informetric mapping software (VOSviewer) to evaluate emerging trends and their implications on defence capabilities. This approach facilitated a broader understanding …

The Role Of Behavioural Factors And Opportunity Costs In Farmers' Participation In Voluntary Agri-Environmental Schemes: A Systematic Review, Sergei Schaub, Jaboury Ghazoul, Robert Huber, Wei Zhang, Adelaide Sander, Charles Rees, Simanti Banerjee, Robert Finger

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) are increasingly implemented to promote the adoption of environmentally friendly practices by farmers. We use a systematic review to explore the role of behavioural factors and opportunity costs in farmers' decisions to participate in AESs in Australia, Europe and North America. Behavioural factors influence how farmers value and perceive options, while opportunity costs relate to farmers' forgone utility when choosing to participate in schemes. We synthesise insights from 79 articles and over 700 factors explaining the participation in AESs. We find that a set of behavioural factors seem consistently connected to participation, including agricultural training, advice and …

Hyper-Peripheral Regional Evolution: The ‘Long-Histories' Of The Pilbara And Buryatia, Tom Barratt, Anton Klarin

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In this article, we outline how evolutionary economic geography (EEG) explains peripheral economic development by comparing two peripheries over extended time periods. This comparison involves critically appraising EEG’s capacity to account for peripheral evolution. For geographical, historical, and political reasons, peripheries lack resources that lead to path creation and renewal. The hyper-peripheral regions of the Pilbara in north-west Australia and of Buryatia in south-east Russia provide excellent comparative case studies for understanding how peripheral regional development evolves in ways contingent upon time, state institutions, natural resource endowments, and region/firm dynamics. Our analysis shows that EEG is well equipped to deal …

A Proposed Governance Model For The Adoption Of Geoparks In Australia, Alan Briggs, David Newsome, Ross Dowling

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose: Good governance is crucial in establishing and managing geoparks and is a requirement by UNESCO if global status is to be achieved. Australia has three levels of government, government agencies and not for profit organisations that can assist in the reintroduction of geoparks to Australia. This paper examines a range of governance models used by UNESCO Global Geoparks. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores mechanisms that could be applied in the reintroduction of geoparks into Australia and considers how future geoparks might be managed. The suggested model is based on a review of existing UNESCO Global Geopark governance and their management …

What A Load Of Rubbish! The Efficacy Of Theory Of Planned Behaviour And Norm Activation Model In Predicting Visitors’ Binning Behaviour In National Parks, Kourosh Esfandiar, Ross Dowling, Joanna Pearce, Edmund Goh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2021 The Authors A specific concern for many park managers is the generation of waste by visitors. One way to combat this issue in national parks is to encourage visitors to put their litter in a bin. This study investigates binning behaviour, as a type of pro-environmental behaviour, of visitors to Yanchep National Park, Australia. Using structural equation modelling, this study tested an integrated structural model combining the theory of planned behaviour and the norm-activation model with data from 219 visitors to this park. The study tried to move away from measuring visitors' pro-environmental intention and instead gathered data …

Twitter Content Analysis Of The Australian Bushfires Disaster 2019-2020: Futures Implications, Gregory Willson, Violetta Wilk, Ruth Sibson, Ashlee Morgan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the themes and nature of sentiment of Twitter content that discussed the Australian bushfire disaster 2019–2020 and its associated wildlife devastation, with considerations for the future of Australia’s tourism industry. Design/methodology/approach: A large, qualitative data set consisting of all publicly available Twitter posts during the period of the Australian bushfires from December 2019 to March 2020 that mentioned the bushfires and wildlife are explored. Findings: The devastation of wildlife through the Australian bushfire disaster elicited emotionally charged Twitter content from both Australian and overseas users. Positive sentiment focused on offering support to areas impacted …

Covid-19 Governance, Legitimacy, And Sustainability: Lessons From The Australian Experience, Michael Lester, Marie Dela Rama, Julie Crews

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

During 2020, Australia managed the global and systemic COVID-19 crisis successfully as measured by health and economic indicators. It marshalled the government’s delivery capacity to control the health crisis and put in place measures to offset the induced economic and social costs. At the same time, the crisis revealed long-standing structural weaknesses in a small, democratic, wealthy, and economically successful country that raised questions about post COVID resilience and sustainability. This paper examines that experience by applying a “co-production” governance model that sees success in “crisis management” as the striking of a balance between government capacity and its legitimacy in …

Covid-19 And Management Education: Reflections On Challenges, Opportunities, And Potential Futures, Steve Brammer, Timothy Clark

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

COVID-19 is having profound impacts on tertiary education globally. Border closures, cuts to aviation capacity, mandatory quarantine on entering a country, restrictions on mass gatherings, and social distancing all pose challenges to higher education (HE) institutions. Business Schools (BSs) have larger and more internationally diverse cohorts of students and staff, generating particular challenges, but also often have more mature digital and remote education capabilities that enable responses to COVID-19. Therefore, exploring emergent evidence on how BSs are likely to be affected by COVID-19 over the short, medium, and long term is of significant importance to our community. In this commentary, …

Resisting Marginalisation And Reconstituting Space Through Lgbtqi+ Events, Oscar Vorobjovas-Pinta, Anne Hardy

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The field of event studies has attracted a breadth of research on the triple-bottom line of economic efficiency, environmental integrity and social equity. The focus of many studies related to event tourism, however, has fallen upon the economic and environmental dimensions of events with far less attention on “social equity.” The potential of events tourism to facilitate justice and equity for marginalised and minority groups has been especially overlooked. LGBTQI+ communities utilise gay events, such as pride parades, as mediums to communicate their identities and seek support from broader society. This paper examines a unique festival space where LGBTQI+ communities …

The Good Bloke In Contemporary Australian Workplaces: Origins, Qualities And Impacts Of A National Cultural Archetype In Small For-Profit Businesses, Christopher George Taylor

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the nature and significance of a common but widely misunderstood phrase encountered in Australia: The Good Bloke. Underlying this enquiry was awareness, based on the researcher’s personal and professional experience, that the idea of a Good Bloke powerfully influences individual perceptions of leaders in Australian small-to-mid sized for-profit firms. The study commenced with an exploration of the origins and history of the phrase, tracing it to the 1788 arrival of a disproportionately male Anglo-Celtic population was composed significantly of transported convicts. The language and mores of this unique settler population evolved for two centuries based on relationships, …

Passion Made Practical, Declan Ee

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence

Declan Ee of Castlery breaks down the importance of localising brand expansion and the difficulties of scaling customer service.

Corporate Governance And Social Welfare In The Common Law World, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The newest addition to the spate of recent theories of comparative corporate governance is Corporate Governance in the Common-Law World: The Political Foundations of Shareholder Power, an important new book by Christopher Bruner. Focusing on the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia, Bruner argues that the robustness of the country’s social welfare system is the key determinant of the extent to which its corporate governance is shareholder-centered. This explains why corporate governance is so shareholder-oriented in the United Kingdom, which has universal healthcare and generous unemployment benefits, while shareholders’ powers are more attenuated in the United States, with its …

Refining Thoughts On Culture: Insights Derived From Australia And New Zealand, Kevin D. Lo, Amanda Budde-Sung

Organization, Leadership, and Communication

Culture and cross-cultural differences are increasingly important in international business and management. However, the existing models of national culture may not accurately reflect intra-cultural and intra-regional variation. We examine Australia and New Zealand as examples of the national model of culture falling short with respect to both cultural clustering and intracultural variation. Given that both of these countries are attaining greater prominence in international business, we highlight the need to consider their uniqueness and what we can learn for both management research and practice. As we call attention to the important distinctions that

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 …

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 …

Water Conservation Behavior In Australia, Sara Dolnicar, Anna Hurlimann, Bettina Grun

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Ensuring a nation’s long term water supply requires the use of both supply-sided approaches such as water augmentation through water recycling, and demand-sided approaches such as water conservation. Conservation behavior can only be increased if the key drivers of such behavior are understood. The aim of this study is to reveal the main drivers from a comprehensive pool of hypothesized factors. An empirical study was conducted with 3094 Australians. Data was analyzed using multivariate linear regression analysis and decision trees to determine which factors best predict self-reported water conservation behavior. Two key factors emerge: high level of pro-environmental behavior; and …

Slides: Adapting To Climate Change: Lessons Learnt From The Australian Water Experience, Will Fargher

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Will Fargher, National Water Commission, Australian Government

18 slides [4 have titles only and are missing images]

Slides: Environmental Water In Australia, Chris Arnott

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Chris Arnott, Managing Director, Alluvium Consulting

30 slides

Cross-Sector Research Collaboration In Australia: The Cooperative Research Centres Program At The Crossroads, Tim Turpin, Samuel Garrett-Jones, Richard Woolley

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In this article we trace changes in the institutional and social dynamics that have steered cross-sector R&D collaboration in Australia. Public policy provided the initial push toward cross-sector collaboration. The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program is Australia's most longstanding national arrangement for industry-university-government research collaboration. Over the past two decades the program has grown to become the dominant model for cross-sector R&D cooperation in the country. Because of the size of the program in the Australian innovation system it has also become a major focus for debate about science policy. Universities have now institutionalised this imperative in all sorts of …

Red Queen Takes White Knight: The Commercialisation Of Accounting Education In Australia, Edmund W. Watts, Carol J. Mcnair, Graham D. Bowrey

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - This paper investigates the consequences of the commercialisation of Australian universities. It also provides a theoretical framework which focuses this action. Design / methodology - The Red Queen scenario posits that organisations that are more active than their rivals (they run faster) improve their competitive positions and increase their performance. However, organisations that are more sluggish (they run slower) experience negative performance consequences. This paper examines this process using the new institutional theory against the backdrop of the quest for increased international student numbers, higher international ranking and international accreditation. Findings - Using data from the 2011 Excellence …

Trends In Emissions Across The States Of Australia 1998-99 To 2007-08: A Shift-Share Analysis, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Ying Liu

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reviews structural changes in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) in eight Australian states and territories over the period 1998 to 1999 to 2007 to 2008. A shift-share analysis decomposes the changes of an emission between these two periods into parts ( a national-share component, an industry-mix component and a state-shift component) in order to account for the ecological competitiveness of the states and territories. The results suggest that the changes in state emissions have been substantial, and tend to reflect national, industry and regional policy changes.

Australia: The Challenge Of Father-Daughter Succession In Family Business: A Case Study From The Land Down Under, Mary Barrett, Ken Moores

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This chapter examines the case of an Australian woman, Roz, who succeeded her father as the CEO of a large fourth-generation family business, Hawkins Family Group, in the traditionally male-dominated transport industry. The case is described in three phases. First, we outline Australian culture how it influences business life, including the position of women in the Australian workforce especially as managers and entrepreneurs. We then describe the history of the Hawkins Family Group and how Roz eventually came to lead it. Finally, we return to aspects of Australian values and culture and other literature to draw conclusions about the case. …

Long-Run Mortality Effects Of Vietnam-Era Army Service: Evidence From Australia's Conscription Lotteries, Peter Siminski, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

We estimate the effect of Vietnam-era Army service on mortality, exploiting Australia's conscription lotteries for identification. We utilize population data on deaths during 1994-2007 and military personnel records. The estimates are identified by over 51,000 compliers induced to enlist in the Army. We find no statistically significant effects on mortality overall, nor for any cause of death. The estimated relative risk (RR) of death associated with Army service is 1.03 (95% CI: 0.92, 1.19). On the assumption that Army service affected mortality only for those who served in Vietnam, the estimated RR is 1.06 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.51).

Tariffs, Subsidies, And Profits: A Re-Assessment Of Structural Change In Australia 1901–39, David Merrett, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

We re-interpret the drivers of structural change in Australia from Federation to World War II. Manufacturing increased its relative share of output and employment, the farm sector and mining contracted. Conventional wisdom contends these shifts largely resulted from government policy, particularly increases in trade barriers. We contend that the connection between tariffs and increased profitability is conceptually weak and not supported by extant evidence. We argue that exogenous shifts in consumer preferences, the adoption of new technologies, changing factor proportions, and greater specialisation in manufacturing and services were responsible for manufacturing increasing its share of the economy's resources and output.

Two Field Studies Examining The Association Between Positive Psychological Capital And Employee Performance, James B. Avey, James L. Nimnicht, Nancy Graber Pigeon

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between psychological capital (comprised of hope, optimism, efficacy and resilience) and employee performance through multiple studies and methods of data.

Design/methodology/approach – The study included two samples in a large financial firm headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. The employees' level of psychological capital were measured with the psychological capital questionnaire. Via regression, this was related to individual level financial performance data from the firm and manager rated performance.

Findings – As hypothesized, psychological capital was found to be related to employees' level of financial performance, referrals within the firm …

Wireless Regulations And Dynamic Spectrum Access In Australia, Benoit P. Freyens, Mark Loney, Michael Poole

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australia assigns and allocates spectrum using three broad types of regulatory approaches; command and control, property rights and open access. Each approach entails numerous pros and cons, buttressed by uncertainties over future consumer demand, interference management, barriers to entry, and technological evolution. The development and commercialisation of dynamic spectrum access technologies (DSA) requires new regulatory approaches. This article discusses an array of intermediary, dynamically efficient spectrum management approaches, which may make better use of DSA opportunities. The article then discusses the practical hurdles and legal challenges posed by their adoption and regulation in an Australian context.

Financial Crises And Stock Market Volatility Transmission: Evidence From Australia, Singapore, The Uk, And The Us, Indika Karunanayake, Abbas Valadkhani, Martin J. O'Brien

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

With the globalization of international trade and finance, the interaction between international financial markets has increased markedly. Therefore, this paper examines the nature of interaction between stock market returns and their volatility, with a particular focus on the global financial crises in 1998 and 2008 for Australia, Singapore, the UK, and the US. This study applies multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model with dummy variables for weekly data spanning from January 1992 to June 2009. Based on the results obtained from the mean return equations, we could not find any significant impact on returns arising from 1998 and 2008 …

A Longitudinal Study Of The Use Of The Web By Regional Tourism Organisations (Rtos) In Australia, Lois Burgess, Belinda Parrish, Joan Cooper, Carole Alcock

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The information-intensive nature of the tourism and travel industry suggests an important role for Web technology in the promotion and marketing of tourist destinations. The rapid development of the Internet is also having profound impacts on the industry. In fact, travel and tourism has become the single largest category of products sold over the Internet (Tourism White Paper, 2007). With reports of travel purchases and reservations being one of the fastest growing segments of the Internet community it is no surprise that the number of tourism operators on the Web has increased considerably over the past few years. This paper …

Contributions Of Longitudinal Data To Poverty Measurement In Australia, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Chronic poverty is of greater social consequence than transitory poverty but its measurement requires longitudinal data. This article uses six waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to explore the extent to which longitudinal data contribute to what is known about poverty from cross-section data. We find an imperfect correspondence between people's annual poverty status and chronic poverty status. Consequently, policies that aim to reduce chronic poverty using means-tested benefits may be partially misdirected if beneficiaries are identified using annual income. Furthermore, some households experiencing chronic poverty may fall through the safety net.

Financial Planning In Australia: Industry Or Profession?, Brian Murphy, Ted Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - This paper tests whether financial planning in Australia remains an industry or can be considered a profession Design/Method/Approach - A set of attributes of professionalism were derived from the literature-public/societal responsibility, a systematic body of theory, professional authority and ethical responsibility - sample of 78 financial planners were asked to provide attitude statements relating to professionalism as well as demographic information of their business. Findings - Evidence from the attitude statements provide by the respondents to the attributes of professionalism failed to achieve a satisfactory level of professionalism for any attribute. Research limitations - The financial services operators …