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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Accounting For Corruption: Abuse Of Rank And Privilege, Kathleen A. Cooper, Ian K. Fargher Dec 2012

Accounting For Corruption: Abuse Of Rank And Privilege, Kathleen A. Cooper, Ian K. Fargher

Ian Fargher

Rank, privilege and responsibility should be inseparable. However, investigations ofcorporate scandals typically reveal rank, privilege and irresponsible behaviour gohand in hand. The publicity and recriminations surrounding corporate scandals tendto focus first on corporate executives implicated in poor management or otherinappropriate behaviour and then on the relevant regulators. Where financialmanipulation is revealed, the external auditor also comes under scrutiny. Thedeficiencies in corporate regulation including accounting and audit standards aresubject to less public inspection but are often the subject of enquiry by governmentappointedbodies. Recommendations for regulatory reform follow and the public isassured the risk of similar scandals is minimised or at least …


The Crisis Of Petro-Market Civilization: The Past As Prologue?, Timothy Dimuzio Dec 2012

The Crisis Of Petro-Market Civilization: The Past As Prologue?, Timothy Dimuzio

Timothy DiMuzio

Summary Current patterns of high-energy intensive development are not sustainable on account of two major challenges that threaten the social reproduction of this civilization: peak oil and global warming. This chapter seeks to probe the dimensions of this looming crisis at the heart of 'petro-market civilization' by foregrounding the links between energy and social reproduction. In doing so, the chapter makes two interrelated arguments. First, I argue not only that the age of fossil fuels is an exceptional one but also that the discovery and use of fossil fuels have been crucial to the deepening and extension of an incipient …


Cloudland: Digital Art From Aotearoa New Zealand, Su Ballard, Stella Brennan, Zita Joyce Dec 2012

Cloudland: Digital Art From Aotearoa New Zealand, Su Ballard, Stella Brennan, Zita Joyce

Su Ballard

The Maori name now used for New Zealand is Aotearoa, ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’, a description of the form of islands glimpsed from the ocean, their mountains obscured by the vapour gathering around their peaks. Cloudland draws on this duality of the solid and insubstantial to address the instability of place and its definitions, the permeability of boundaries and the connections between people and place.


Australian Consumer Attitudes To Health Claim - Food Product Compatibility For Functional Foods, P. G. Williams, L. Ridges, M. Batterham, B. Ripper, M. C. Hung Nov 2012

Australian Consumer Attitudes To Health Claim - Food Product Compatibility For Functional Foods, P. G. Williams, L. Ridges, M. Batterham, B. Ripper, M. C. Hung

Dr Marijka Batterham

This study with Australian consumers investigated how appealing different health claims combined with particular food carriers were to Australian consumers, and compared the results of a similar study with Dutch consumers. 149 shoppers considered up to 30 different food concepts, rating how ‘attractive’, ‘believable’, and ‘new and different’ they found each concept and their ‘intention to try’. Each variable was significantly related to intention to try (p<0.001) and together explained 56% of the intention score. Claims and carriers independently had a significant effect on ratings of attractiveness and intention to try but, unlike the Dutch study, the carrier was a more important predictor of intention to purchase than the claim. Implications for regulation of health claims for food are discussed.


Radical Uncertainty: Judith Butler And A Theory Of Character, Shady E. Cosgrove Nov 2012

Radical Uncertainty: Judith Butler And A Theory Of Character, Shady E. Cosgrove

Shady E Cosgrove

This paper will develop a theory of character based on Judith Butler's ideas of subjectivity and gender construction. It will summarise Butler's position and explore the practicalities of reading realist characters as performative repetitions. Then, it will discuss Butler's notion of agency and the subversive repetition, and how realist characters can demonstrate the radical uncertainty inherent in Butler's notion of agency s specifically when texts are rewritten in such a way that characters `question' their `original' depictions. The example of interest here will be Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea in relation to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, with particular attention paid …


Literary Communities: Writers' Practices And Networks, Catherine Cole, Anitra Nelson Nov 2012

Literary Communities: Writers' Practices And Networks, Catherine Cole, Anitra Nelson

Catherine Cole

This paper discusses a new direction for research on creative writing: exploring the formative contexts within which writers develop, receive recognition and are celebrated, our approach centres on literary networks and activities that characterize well-recognised literary communities. By studying the UNESCO Cities of Literature network, our research aims to identify and analyse key formative experiences for contemporary creative writers, although in this paper we simply refer to one of those cities — Melbourne. We hypothesize that the notion of a ‘community of practice’ has potential to be a constructive way to interrogate writers’ practices within literary communities to inform arts …


Quality-Of-Life And Travel Motivations: Integrating The Two Concepts In The Grevillea Model, Sara Dolnicar, Katie Lazarevski, Venkata Yanamandram Oct 2012

Quality-Of-Life And Travel Motivations: Integrating The Two Concepts In The Grevillea Model, Sara Dolnicar, Katie Lazarevski, Venkata Yanamandram

Venkata Yanamandram

Over the past three decades, two bodies of literature have developed relatively independently: Quality of Life research in Psychology and Travel Motivations research in Tourism. Yet, the constructs underlying these two bodies of research are strongly interrelated. This book chapter: (1) reviews the Quality of Life research area with a specific focus on the role of vacations as a Quality of Life domain; (2) reviews prior work in the area of Travel Motivations with a specific focus on motivational segments which may be associated with differences in the importance people attribute to vacations in general; and (3) proposes a conceptual …


Regional Development And Local Government: Three Generations Of Federal Intervention, Andrew H. Kelly, Brian Dollery, Bligh Grant Oct 2012

Regional Development And Local Government: Three Generations Of Federal Intervention, Andrew H. Kelly, Brian Dollery, Bligh Grant

Bligh Grant

Contemporary Australian local government faces several daunting problems, not least escalating financial un-sustainability and local infrastructure depletion. The main response of the various state and territory governments has taken the form of a series structural reform programs, with a strong emphasis on forced amalgamation. However, widespread dissatisfaction with the consequences of these compulsory consolidation programs has led to a search for alternative policy solutions based largely on shared services and various types of regional co-operation between local councils. This paper seeks to place proposed ‘regional’ solutions to contemporary problems in historical perspective by providing a comparative account of three distinct …


Marketing Measurement Revolution: The C-Oar-Se Method And Why It Must Replace Psychometrics, John R. Rossiter Sep 2012

Marketing Measurement Revolution: The C-Oar-Se Method And Why It Must Replace Psychometrics, John R. Rossiter

John Rossiter

Purpose – New measures in marketing are invariably created by using a psychometric approach based on Churchill’s “scale development” procedure. This paper aims to compare and contrast Churchill’s procedure with Rossiter’s content-validity approach to measurement, called C-OAR-SE. Design/methodology approach – The comparison of the two procedures is by rational argument and forms the theoretical first half of the paper. In the applied second half of the paper, three recent articles from the Journal of Marketing (JM) that introduce new constructs and measures are criticized and corrected from the C-OAR-SE perspective. Findings – The C-OAR-SE method differs from Churchill’s method by …


A New C-Oar-Se-Based Content-Valid And Predictively Valid Measure That Distinguishes Brand Love From Brand Liking, John R. Rossiter Sep 2012

A New C-Oar-Se-Based Content-Valid And Predictively Valid Measure That Distinguishes Brand Love From Brand Liking, John R. Rossiter

John Rossiter

This article provides a new, C-OAR-SE-based, contrastive measure that distinguishes “brand love” from “brand liking.” The new measure is tested in an empirical study conducted among German university students about brands of products that they buy in four diverse product categories. From a consumer perspective, the incidence of consumers who have a loved brand in the category was found to be only 17% for laundry detergent, 18% for coffee, and 26% for computers, peaking at 45% in the fashion clothing category — findings that suggest that over half of young consumers do not acquire the state of brand love. Turning …


Human Capital Externalities, Departmental Co-Authorship And Research Productivity, Frank Neri, Joan Rodgers Sep 2012

Human Capital Externalities, Departmental Co-Authorship And Research Productivity, Frank Neri, Joan Rodgers

Joan Rodgers

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 go further by investigating the second part of Lucas’ hypothesis. Whilst there are …


Destination Choice By Young Australian Travellers: A Theoretical Explanation To A Practitioner Problem, Clifford Lewis, Greg Kerr, Alan Pomering Sep 2012

Destination Choice By Young Australian Travellers: A Theoretical Explanation To A Practitioner Problem, Clifford Lewis, Greg Kerr, Alan Pomering

Alan Pomering

Domestic tourism in Australia is in decline. This is particularly the case with young Australian travellers (YATs) who seem to prefer to travel overseas rather than consume domestic tourism experiences. This paper first provides an overview of theories of destination choice which concludes that such models may be inadequate in understanding destination choice on the part of YATs. A conceptual model of destination choice which examines the potential importance of and relationships between ritual, ritual inversion, and fashion is presented, following which an agenda for research is proposed.


Sustainable Tourism Marketing: What Should Be In The Mix?, Alan Pomering, Lester W. Johnson, Gary Noble Sep 2012

Sustainable Tourism Marketing: What Should Be In The Mix?, Alan Pomering, Lester W. Johnson, Gary Noble

Gary Noble

When tourism marketers consider how they will manage the marketing activities they wish to direct toward a particular target market, they turn to a framework such as the marketing mix. But what should a contemporary tourism marketing mix include? We consider three popular marketing mix approaches to develop a typology of activities that, we argue, should be in the mix for the tourism marketer, given the specific characteristics of tourism product offers. More importantly, we go one step further to consider how this expanded marketing mix might accommodate the imperative of sustainability by cross-referencing the mix elements with the three …


Meeting The Information Needs Of Carers Of Children With Disabilities: A Case For The Use Of Virtual Communities, Elias Kyriazis, Rodney J. Clarke, Gary I. Noble, Jennifer Ann Algie Sep 2012

Meeting The Information Needs Of Carers Of Children With Disabilities: A Case For The Use Of Virtual Communities, Elias Kyriazis, Rodney J. Clarke, Gary I. Noble, Jennifer Ann Algie

Gary Noble

From the initial diagnosis parents of children with a disability need timely and accurate information to effectively manage their child’s condition. Focussing on the findings of a collaborative research project examining the needs of parents of children with a disability (0- 12 years) the study identifies several information related factors adding to parental stress levels. These include a lack of awareness of support services, application processes, and disability specific information. To overcome the limitations of existing information delivery approaches we propose creating a wiki-based virtual community to serve as a user friendly “one-stop shop” for carers . Such a community …


Investigating Chinese And Australian Student's Awareness And Interpretation Of Csr, And The Influence Of Studying 'Socially Innovative Commerce' Over Time, Zhengfeng Li, Alan A. Pomering, Gary I. Noble Sep 2012

Investigating Chinese And Australian Student's Awareness And Interpretation Of Csr, And The Influence Of Studying 'Socially Innovative Commerce' Over Time, Zhengfeng Li, Alan A. Pomering, Gary I. Noble

Gary Noble

This study compares Chinese students studying in Australia and Australian domestic students on awareness and interpretation of, and attitude and behavioural intention towards the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the influence on both of studying within an environment termed "socially innovative commerce". While previous research has found that age, gender, and study major of students may influence perceptions of CSR, this rsearch found these variables are not as significant as cultural background. These findings are presented and discussed along with future research directions.


Predicting Online Consumer Information Needs Using Heuristics, Robert G. Grant, Rodney J. Clarke, Elias Kyriazis Sep 2012

Predicting Online Consumer Information Needs Using Heuristics, Robert G. Grant, Rodney J. Clarke, Elias Kyriazis

Elias Kyriazis

This paper proposes a new approach to online behaviour modelling based on heuristic patterns of behaviour. Such patterns of behaviour reflect the consumer’s needs and limited information processing capabilities enabling more effective serving of information relevant to the consumer’s needs in real time. Using website interactivity or data exchange with consumers through a purchase process offers previously untapped opportunities for value cocreation. The paper concludes with an outline of the requisite research to implement a realtime, needs-based information serving system and the theoretical advances that are likely to be gained from such research.


Civil War, Stock Return, And Intellectual Capital Disclosure In Sri Lanka, Indra Abeysekera Sep 2012

Civil War, Stock Return, And Intellectual Capital Disclosure In Sri Lanka, Indra Abeysekera

Indra Abeysekera

This study examines the effect of current-period intellectual capital disclosure on earnings and current annual stock return during a civil-war period. Using the top 30 firms by market capitalization listed on Colombo Stock Exchange over six years (from 1998 to 2003), this study finds that firms do not include the current-period intellectual capital disclosure in the current stock return, and the increase in the current-period intellectual capital disclosure activity has no influence on earnings included in the current stock return. Future accounting-based earnings, if stated in the current period, by contrast are included in the current stock return. The findings …


Conventions Held By Associations: A Case Study Of Buyers And Suppliers In An Emerging Conference Destination, Monica Millar, Gregory M. Kerr Aug 2012

Conventions Held By Associations: A Case Study Of Buyers And Suppliers In An Emerging Conference Destination, Monica Millar, Gregory M. Kerr

Gregory Kerr

Conventions constitute one of the fastest growing segments of business tourism, with association conventions being an important sub-segment. Associations are membership-based organisations centred on a business specialisation or common interest. Many destinations have been pursing this segment to host some of the hundreds of conventions held annually by associations. Greater knowledge of associations on the part of location marketers and managers of the relevant businesses contained within the location will improve decision making and most likely lead to more opportunities. This study examines the case of the City of Wollongong, which is attempting to obtain a greater market share of …


The Effect Of Corporate Governance, Corporate Financing Decision And Ownership Structure On Firm Performance: A Panel Data Approach From Kuwait Stock Exchange, Helen M. Hasan, Mohammad Al Mutairi Aug 2012

The Effect Of Corporate Governance, Corporate Financing Decision And Ownership Structure On Firm Performance: A Panel Data Approach From Kuwait Stock Exchange, Helen M. Hasan, Mohammad Al Mutairi

Helen Hasan

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of corporate governance, corporate financing decision, and ownership structure on firm performance. The study uses panel based regression approach; the analysis is based on a sample of 80 listed Kuwait Stock Exchange Market firms, over a period of 9 years, from 2000 to 2008. Findings suggest that there is no association between ownership structure (identity, types or mix) and firm performance, using both measures of firm performance, ROA and Tobin’s Q. This study also finds that government ownership is insignificantly positively related to ROA using pool data; the result for …


The Impact Of Corporate Financing Decision On Corporate Performance In The Absence Of Taxes: Panel Data From Kuwait Stock Market, Helen M. Hasan, Mohammad Al Mutairi, Elizabeth A. Risik Aug 2012

The Impact Of Corporate Financing Decision On Corporate Performance In The Absence Of Taxes: Panel Data From Kuwait Stock Market, Helen M. Hasan, Mohammad Al Mutairi, Elizabeth A. Risik

Helen Hasan

This study examines the relationship between financing decisions such as capital structure, capital budgeting techniques and dividend policy along with the firm’s attributes. We examined the impact of industrial sectors and financial performance using the panel data of 80 listed companies in Kuwait. The results of this study suggest that, contrary to the Trade-off Theory of capital structure, there is a negative association between the level of debt and financial performance. This can be attributed to the high cost of borrowing and the underdeveloped nature of the debt market in Kuwait. Given the unique tax environment in Kuwait, using debt …


Is For Government Climate Change Adaptation Activities: An Exploratory Case Study, Stephen Smith, Donald Winchester, Helen M. Hasan, Patrick Finnegan Aug 2012

Is For Government Climate Change Adaptation Activities: An Exploratory Case Study, Stephen Smith, Donald Winchester, Helen M. Hasan, Patrick Finnegan

Helen Hasan

This paper reports a case study of climate change adaptation activities of the New South Wales Government’s Climate Change Working Group where ten agencies have responsibility for thirty-five long-term activities. A concurrent Data-Centre Consolidation project has highlighted the mammoth amount of data held by different agencies that must be integrated into information to adequately support these adaptation activities. Our analysis of data collected from interviews and documents reveals the potential of a retrospective ontology capability, and a unique citizen record in enabling this integration. Adaptation activities require resolution of differences in the perspectives of government agencies and citizens and changes …


Strategic Ambiguity And Leaders' Responsibility Beyond Maximising Profits, Mario Fernando, Ah Ba Sim Aug 2012

Strategic Ambiguity And Leaders' Responsibility Beyond Maximising Profits, Mario Fernando, Ah Ba Sim

Mario Fernando

Australia has the world‟s highest number of documented cases of mesothemilia, a lung cancer caused by asbestos, and the building products manufacturer, James Hardie (Australia) has been accused for causing over half of these cases (Hills, 2005). The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) sued several executives of James Hardie for misleading stakeholders on asbestos victim compensation, and failing to act with care and diligence (ASIC, 2009). In a landmark decision in Australian corporate governance, the New South Wales Supreme Court held in April 2009 that James Hardie‟s chairwoman, nine directors and executives violated the law by approving and issuing …


Reflections On Interpretive Supply Chain Research, Tillmann Boehme, Paul Childerhouse, Eric Deakins, Denis Towill Aug 2012

Reflections On Interpretive Supply Chain Research, Tillmann Boehme, Paul Childerhouse, Eric Deakins, Denis Towill

Tillmann Boehme

A key purpose of this paper is to stimulate researchers into utilising a more balanced portfolio of research methods when generating supply chain theory. The supply chain/logistics literature overwhelmingly exhibits objectivist/positivist philosophical assumptions, indicating that this is what researchers believe constitutes valid discipline knowledge. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that an interpretive perspective is capable of yielding a comprehensive picture of the relationship between the supply chain and the ‘messy’ environment within which it is embedded (contingency theory). By reflecting on lessons learned through many years of practical researcher experience with such a methodology, this paper serves to motivate the …


The Impact Of Job Loss On Family Dissolution, Denise Doiron, Silvia Mendolia Jun 2012

The Impact Of Job Loss On Family Dissolution, Denise Doiron, Silvia Mendolia

Silvia Mendolia

The impact of involuntary job displacements on the probability of divorce is analysed using discrete duration models. The analysis uses the sample of couples from the British Household Panel Survey and distinguishes between types of displacements. Results show that couples in which the husband experiences a job loss are more likely to divorce. Redundancies have small, positive, often insignificant and short-lived effects while dismissals and temporary job endings have larger positive impacts. This is consistent with the interpretation of redundancies as capturing negative income shocks while other types of job loss also convey new information about potential future earnings and …


Foundational Myths: Country And Conservation In Australia, Michael Adams Jun 2012

Foundational Myths: Country And Conservation In Australia, Michael Adams

Michael Adams

In Australia, while each state has responsibility for the creation and management of their own national park systems, overall coordination is achieved through the Commonwealth National Reserve System. The Australian systems, like many others, are essentially based on the ‘Yellowstone model’ of protected areas: government owned and managed, precise boundaries, and with people present only as visitors or rangers (Stevens 1997). The Yellowstone model had its origins in wilderness protection, and despite many changes, wilderness persists as a foundational concept for Australian national parks.


Reading For Peace? Literature As Activism – An Investigation Into New Literary Ethics And The Novel, Shady E. Cosgrove Jun 2012

Reading For Peace? Literature As Activism – An Investigation Into New Literary Ethics And The Novel, Shady E. Cosgrove

Shady E Cosgrove

Literary ethicists like Dorothy J Hale and narratologists like James Phelan have argued that the reading process makes literary novels worthy of ethical investigation. That is, it’s not just a book’s content – which may debate norms and values – but the process of reading that inspires the reader to consider Other points of view. This alterity, new ethicists argue, can lead to increased empathy and thus more thoughtful decision-making within the ‘actual’ world. In fact, Hale (2007: 189) says empathetic literary training is a ‘pre-condition for positive social change’. This may work well theoretically, but what practical issues does …


Working At The Coalface: Being A Miner In Times Of Change, Peter D. Mclean, Patrick M. Dawson Apr 2012

Working At The Coalface: Being A Miner In Times Of Change, Peter D. Mclean, Patrick M. Dawson

Peter McLean

A case study analysis of the introduction of a new system for appraising worker performance in an Australian coal mine is used to explore the related concepts of identity and culture that are central to explaining individual and group behaviour in organizational context (Irrmann, 2002: 164). The change initiative was initiated by management following a search and evaluation of the general business environment to see what other organizations were doing to improve their operations. There was no prior consultation with employees, nor were any attempts made to involve mine workers before implementing what management described as a more ‘scientific’ and …


The Relationship Between Spiritual Well-Being And Ethical Orientations In Decision Making: An Empirical Study With Business Executives In Australia, Mario Fernando, Rafi Chowdhury Apr 2012

The Relationship Between Spiritual Well-Being And Ethical Orientations In Decision Making: An Empirical Study With Business Executives In Australia, Mario Fernando, Rafi Chowdhury

Mario Fernando

The relationship between spiritual well-being and ethical orientations in decision making is examined through a survey of executives in organizations listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The four domains of spiritual well-being, personal, communal, environmental and transcendental (Fisher, Spiritual health: its nature and place in the school curriculum, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 1998; Gomez and Fisher, Pers Individ Differ 35:1975–1991, 2003) are examined in relation to idealism and relativism (Forsyth, J Pers Soc Psychol 39(1):175–184, 1980). Results reveal that spiritual well-being, in particular the communal domain of spiritual well-being, is correlated with and predictive of idealism. However, the relationship …


Working At The Coalface: Being A Miner In Times Of Change, Peter D. Mclean, Patrick M. Dawson Apr 2012

Working At The Coalface: Being A Miner In Times Of Change, Peter D. Mclean, Patrick M. Dawson

Patrick Dawson

A case study analysis of the introduction of a new system for appraising worker performance in an Australian coal mine is used to explore the related concepts of identity and culture that are central to explaining individual and group behaviour in organizational context (Irrmann, 2002: 164). The change initiative was initiated by management following a search and evaluation of the general business environment to see what other organizations were doing to improve their operations. There was no prior consultation with employees, nor were any attempts made to involve mine workers before implementing what management described as a more ‘scientific’ and …


Have They Learnt To Interrupt?: Comparing How Women Management Students And Senior Women Managers In Australia Perceive Workplace Communication Dilemmas, Mary Barrett Apr 2012

Have They Learnt To Interrupt?: Comparing How Women Management Students And Senior Women Managers In Australia Perceive Workplace Communication Dilemmas, Mary Barrett

Mary Barrett

Purpose - Changing language ideology and the decreased popularity of overt feminism suggest that aspiring female managers may be less influenced than senior women managers by the gender of the speaker in evaluating whether specific communication strategies are effective and probable. The study investigates this issue. Design/methodology/approach - 255 second-year female management students evaluated strategies for the same workplace dilemmas as senior women managers (Barrett 2004). Findings - For short and medium term dilemmas students, like senior women managers, regarded masculine communication strategies with a feminine element as effective. They were less influenced by the speaker's gender than senior women …