Business Commons^™

How Do Materialists Choose Prominent Brands In Emerging Markets?, Vida Siahtiri, Wai Jin J. Lee

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Materialism is a worldwide phenomenon. However, our knowledge about the effect of materialism on consumer brand choice is limited. This study unlocks the path from materialism to brand prominence focusing on fashion, quality, and price consciousness. Our findings within the Chinese context show that the paths from materialism to fashion, quality, and price consciousness are positive. Further, we found that the paths from fashion and quality conscious to brand prominence are positive, while the path from price conscious to brand prominence is negative but not significant. These findings have significant implications for brand managers in emerging markets.

Robot Induced Technological Unemployment: Towards A Youth-Focused Coping Strategy, Eduardo Pol, James Reveley

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

As an agent of economic and social change, robotization has elicited considerable concern about technological unemployment. Focusing on youth, this paper makes four contributions to the debate over this labour-displacing technological change's effects. First, to clarify the magnitude of the job threat to young people, the paper accentuates the conceptual distinction between technological unemployment and frictional unemployment. Second, the possibility of persistent technological unemployment, which the young are currently facing, is linked to strong uncertainty stemming from the rapidity of invention in robotics and artificial intelligence. Third, the paper advances a plausibility-based argument about the inevitability of technological unemployment. Fourth, …

The Impact Of Integration Quality On Customer Equity In Data Driven Omnichannel Services Marketing, Tasnim M Taufique Hossain, Shahriar Akter, Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong, Samuel Fosso Wamba

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The plethora of digital channels has shifted multichannel services to an omnichannel environment. In the omnichannel context, the borderline of offline, online and digital channels is diminishing as consumers utilize several channels simultaneously to complete any purchases. Additionally, as more channels are introduced, the amount of customer data collected at each touch point is increasing rapidly. However, the urgent need to integrate all information with service attributes within these channels will result in increasing cost and consequently customer dissatisfaction if they are disintegrated. To address this phenomenon, this research focuses towards developing quality dimension for data driven omnichannel services marketing. …

Detecting Contract Cheating In Essay And Report Submissions: Process, Patterns, Clues And Conversations, Ann M. Rogerson

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Detecting contract cheating in written submissions can be difficult beyond direct plagiarism detectable via technology. Successfully identifying potential cases of contract cheating in written work such as essays and reports is largely dependent on the experience of assessors and knowledge of student. It is further dependent on their familiarity with the patterns and clues evident in sections of body text and reference materials to identify irregularities. Consequently, some knowledge of what the patterns and clues look like is required. This paper documents how to identify some of the patterns and clues observed in essay and report submissions. Effective assessment design …

Heutagogy - An Updated Approach To Masters Education, Lauren P. Richardson, Carol Mcgowan, Lee Styger

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose. This paper examines the development of an Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) compliant Master of Business Administration (MBA) subject. The aim was to equip students with the fundamental skills they would need to become lifelong learners. We used an embedded team teaching approach as a way to facilitate heutagogical practice. Methodology. A literature search was conducted to see how the AQF requirements were being met for MBA courses. This is connected to the single case study of an MBA subject's development. Findings. The findings indicate that an embedded team teaching style proved to be beneficial in enabling the heutagogical double …

Board Gender Diversity And Corporate Response To Sustainability Initiatives: Evidence From The Carbon Disclosure Project, Walid Ben-Amar, Millicent M. Chang, Philip Mcilkenny

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders' demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm's carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the period 2008-2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We …

Does Director Trading Change The Information Environment?, Millicent M. Chang, Xiaolin Qian, Jing Yu, Yvonne See

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Investigating ASX300 firms for the period 2002-2010, we find that the information content of director trading has a negative relationship with post-trade information asymmetry, but a positive relationship with information efficiency. These results are mainly driven by director purchases rather than their sales, and are stronger in non-executive director trading. Our results are robust to the adoption of IFRS in 2005 and the global financial crisis in 2008. These findings back the claims of insider trading proponents, by showing that director trading plays a crucial role in reducing information asymmetry and in improving information efficiency for stock market participants.

A Review Of Research On Regulation Changes In The Asia-Pacific Region, Millicent M. Chang, Andrew B. Jackson, Marvin Wee

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In this study, we review the financial research on regulation in the Asia-Pacific region. We do this by analysing six leading regional accounting and finance journals - Abacus, Accounting & Finance, Australian Accounting Review, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. We identify five main themes of regulation research relating to: (i) banking and financial institutions, (ii) markets and trading, (iii) corporate governance, (iv) disclosure and (v) accounting standard setting. Our paper synthesises the regional literature in these areas and provide some suggestions for future directions.

The Links Among Characteristics, Controls And Performance Of Inter-Firm Innovation Projects, Maria Cadiz Dyball, Andy Wang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study aims to explore the effects of: (1) the project characteristics of asset specificity, uncertainty and complexity on the performance of, and, the use of formal and social controls in inter-firm innovation projects, and, (2) the use of formal and social controls on the performance of inter-firm innovation projects. In addition, the mediating role of the use of formal and social controls in the relationships between the characteristics and performance of inter-firm innovation projects is also examined. Survey data from 75 organisations in innovation-active industries in Australia were analysed using the structural equation modelling with the Partial Least Square …

Director Training And Financial Disclosure: Asian Insights, Qaiser Rafique Yasser, Abdullah Al Mamun, Marcus Rodrigs

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We provide evidence regarding the relationship between director training programs and improved financial reporting. Director Training Programs (DTP) help directors better understand the specific context in which a firm operates, including its operations and environment; awareness of business norms and values; standards of probity and accountability; and their fiduciary duties as an agent of investors. This study explores a recent requirement for director training and its effect on the quality of financial reporting for publicly listed companies in three eastern countries. This study examines the relationship between DTP and the quality of financial reporting of Australian, Malaysian and Pakistani publicly …

Taking Bitcoin To The Stockmarket Won’T Do Much For Its Risky Image, Adrian Lee, Andrew B. Ainsworth, Kihoon Hong

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Since its inception in 2008 digital currency Bitcoin has attracted critics who argue it’s inherently risky. The latest push to create an exchange traded fund (ETF) in order to make trading it easier, suggests attitudes to it haven’t changed. But some risks associated with a Bitcoin ETF is just like any other asset that becomes tied to investors and the stockmarket. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has already rejected an application to create an ETF for Bitcoin. But there are two other proposals - (SolidX & Grayscale) still before the commission. Bitcoin is intended to act like currency …

Is Emergence Sufficient To Explain The Origins Of Double Entry?, Jing Wang, L Zhao, Keith Hooper

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Double entry accounting emerged in Italy around 1300 and a popular argument as to its emergence is that it was the product of the crusades, which accelerated the wealth and trading advantages of Italian cities (Littleton, 1927). Furthermore, the claim for the invention of double entry in Italy is supported by Littleton (1927). The essence of Littleton’s case is that the Italian cities met seven preconditions necessary for emergence: the art of writing, arithmetic, private property, money, credit, commerce and capital (pp. 140-141).

The Silk Road And The Origins Of Double Entry, Jing Wang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The paper considers the previous role of the Silk Road in developing the world economy during a period when China according to Marc Polo, China was the greatest trading nation in the world (Latham, 1958). The paper argues that double entry evolved through time rather than through purposeful search. That is the invention was not by chance or even design but developed gradually from necessity. Yamey (1947) argues that change likely takes the form of variations on existing practice and newly evolved techniques resemble the ones previously used. That is a gradual evolutionary process of development. The paper adopts an …

Do Petrol Prices Increase Faster Than They Fall In Market Disequilibria?, Chew Lian Chua, Chamaka De Silva, Sandy Suardi

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper tests the idea that petrol prices respond more quickly to price increases than to decreases. We show that the results previously documented in the literature for Australia are spurious due to failure to establish the stationarity property of the price series, and the co-integration relationship between retail and wholesale prices when neglecting to account for a regime shift in the data. Using a robust approach involving a threshold error correction model, we find little evidence to support the contention that retail petrol price reverts asymmetrically to long-run equilibrium. Asymmetric adjustments in retail prices are found only in four …

Big Data Analytics And Firm Performance: Effects Of Dynamic Capabilities, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Angappa Gunasekaran, Shahriar Akter, Steven Ji-Fan Ren, Rameshwar Dubey, Stephen J. Childe

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Drawing on the resource-based view and the literature on big data analytics (BDA), information system (IS) success and the business value of information technology (IT), this study proposes a big data analytics capability (BDAC) model. The study extends the above research streams by examining the direct effects of BDAC on firm performance (FPER), as well as the mediating effects of process-oriented dynamic capabilities (PODC) on the relationship between BDAC and FPER. To test our proposed research model, we used an online survey to collect data from 297 Chinese IT managers and business analysts with big data and business analytic experience. …

Enabling A Transformative Service System By Modeling Quality Dynamics, Shahriar Akter, Samuel Fosso Wamba, John D'Ambra

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The increasing importance of service systems in the global economy prompts researchers to focus on quality to measure the critical interaction between human behavior, IT and society. Building on service-dominant logic and sociomaterialism, this study develops and validates a quality model and measures its overall impact on individual (value, satisfaction), organizational (i.e., continuance intentions) and social (e.g., quality of life) outcomes in the context of a transformative health service system in Bangladesh. The conceptual model is rooted in the traditional cognition (service quality) - affective (value, satisfaction)- conation (continuance, quality of life) chain but explicitly identifies three primary dimensions and …

Foreign Institutional Investment, Ownership And Liquidity: Real And Information Frictions, Mingfa Ding, Birger Nilsson, Sandy Suardi

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The literature widely documents the negative liquidity impact of foreign participation in firms that permit high foreign institutional ownership. This paper employs a unique setting for the limited participation of qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) in China’s A-share market and examines how this impacts on stock liquidity in emerging markets. Contrary to the findings in the literature, foreign investor participation helps enhance the liquidity of affected stocks by promoting trade activities and price discovery. The improvement in liquidity does not occur through the information friction channel, but rather the real friction channel. Our results are robust to endogeneity issue and …

Banks' Efficiency And Credit Risk Analysis Using By-Production Approach: The Case Of Iranian Banks, Ruhul Salim, Amir Arjomandi, K Dakpo

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article uses a by-production approach that integrates credit risk to monitor bank efficiency. The method overcomes the possible misspecification issues of the commonly assumed weak disposability (WDA) of undesirable outputs. In addition, our measure extends the classic by-production approach by including statistical aspects through subsampling techniques. We have also provided an algorithm to correct related infeasibilities. Using this approach, we investigate the performance of Iranian banks and credit risk management in the sector for the period 1998¿2012. Non-performing loans (NPLs) have been used as an undesirable output and proxy for credit risk in our models. Based on our empirical …

Unpacking Brand Management Superiority: Examining The Interplay Of Brand Management Capability, Brand Orientation And Formalisation, Wai Jin J. Lee, Aron O'Cass, Phyra Sok

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: A strong brand is one that consumers know and perceive as differentiated from competing brands. Building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness is critical to ensuring brand strength and sustained competitiveness. To this end, the roles of brand management capability and brand orientation are highlighted. However, given the significance of consistency in branding, firms' brand management capability and brand orientation alone may not be sufficient, and a mechanism that facilitates branding consistency is required. In the integrating marketing control theory with the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) theory, this study aims to examine how a …

Methodological Guidelines For Advertising Research, John R. Rossiter, Larry Percy

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In this article, highly experienced advertising academics and advertising research consultants John R. Rossiter and Larry Percy present and discuss what they believe to be the seven most important methodological guidelines that need to be implemented to improve the practice of advertising research. Their focus is on methodology, defined as first choosing a suitable theoretical framework to guide the research study and then identifying the advertising responses that need to be studied. Measurement of those responses is covered elsewhere in this special issue in the article by Bergkvist and Langner. Most of the frameworks are derived from the authors' own …

Five Tips To Get The Most Out Of Your Workday, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup. It’s about taking care of your body and mind, and this starts even outside of the workplace. We all need strategies for increasing productivity; here are five to get you started.

An Investigation Of Death Care And The Funeral Industry In Australia, Sandra Van Der Laan, Lee C. Moerman

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This research provides information to enable a comprehensive understanding of the funeral industry in Australia and the drivers of costs and prices for funerals in the current regulatory environment. Given recent criticisms of increasing concentration in the industry and predatory pricing and marketing in an environment where consumers are vulnerable, this research project highlights the historical, regulatory, cultural and social context of death-care to allow an exploration of the opportunities and challenges for consumers of death-care services and the funeral industry in Australia.

Political Connections And Corporate Investments: Evidence From The Recent Anti-Corruption Campaign In China, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Taking advantage of corruption scandals in China, we construct a natural experiment and identify the ousting of corrupt politicians, and firms connected with them through bribery and personal relationships (event firms). We find that the investment expenditure of event firms declines significantly after the ousting of the politicians compared with that of non-event firms, especially for non-SOEs. We also find that, after the ousting of the politicians, investment efficiency improves for event SOEs, but declines for event non-SOEs, compared with their non-event counterparts. We also document that the ousting of the politicians influences firm investment decisions more after the recent …

Social Media Adoption And Use For Improved Emergency Services Operations: The Case Of The Nsw Ses, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Andrew Edwards, Shahriar Akter

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Despite the exponential growth of social media in emergency services design and delivery, academic research and managerial practice have paid little attention to how to adopt and use it to transform operations and enhance organizational performance. This paper aims to provide some insights of a longitudinal case study of the adoption and use of social media technologies by the New South Wales (NSW) state emergency service (SES) in Australia. The study identifies a set of internal and external factors explaining the adoption and use of social media by the NSW SES including: the social media bandwagon effect, the effectiveness of …

An Empirical Analysis Of Algorithmic Trading Around Earnings Announcements, Alex Frino, Tina Prodromou, George Wang, P Westerholm, Hui Zheng

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the impact of corporate earnings announcements on trading activity and speed of price adjustment, analyzing algorithmic and non-algorithmic trades during the immediate period pre- and post-corporate earnings announcements. We confirm that algorithms react faster and more correctly to announcements than non-algorithmic traders. During the initial surge in trading activity in the first 90. s after the announcement, algorithms time their trades better than non-algorithmic traders, hence algorithms tend to be profitable, while non-algorithmic traders make losing trades over the same time period. During the pre-announcement period, non-algorithmic volume imbalance leads algorithmic volume imbalance, however, in the post …

Accounting Conservatism, Bank Lending And Firm Investment: Evidence From A Quasi-Experiment Of China's Stimulus Package, Xiaofei Pan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Using a sample of China's listed firms between 2003 and 2014, this study finds that firms receive more bank loans after the stimulus package which is less significant for firms with conservative accounting. In addition, firms with conservative accounting exhibit higher investment efficiency, which becomes weaker after the stimulus package which represents an exogenous shock to credit supply. Further analysis shows that the abovementioned findings are more significant for non-SOEs, firms from less government-favoured industries and regions, and firms with severe interest conflicts between debtholders and shareholders. These results are robust for alternative specification and alternative measurements. Overall, these findings …

The Value-Added Role Of Industry Specialist Advisors In M&As, Michael Graham, Terry S. Walter, Alfred Yawson, Huizhong Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the value-added role of industry specialist advisors in M&As. We find that compared to non-industry specialists, advisors specializing in the target industry help acquirers garner higher announcement returns. However, there is no significant difference in acquirer returns between advisors specializing in the acquirer industry and non-industry specialists. The choice of a specialist advisor in the target industry benefits acquirers most when there is significant information asymmetry surrounding the targets. Moreover, the bulk of value creation comes from small- to medium-sized financial advisors, rather than large, top-tier investment banks. Finally, our results suggest that advisors specializing in the …

The Psychological Contract Of International Volunteers: An Exploratory Study, Mary Barrett, Anne N. Cox, Blake Woodward

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychological contracts (PCs) of international volunteers (IVs) in international aid and development organizations (IADS). Specifically, it explores four questions: how IVs form PCs; what the content of these PCs is; how IVs' PCs are maintained; and how they are fulfilled or breached.

Design/methodology/approach - The study used an inductive analysis of qualitative data: interviews with 27 IVs from a range of IADS.

Findings - The findings take the form of research propositions: RP1: IVs' PCs, like those of domestic volunteers, include relational, transactional and, especially, values-based elements, but the …

Foreign Exchange Intervention In Asian Countries: What Determine The Odds Of Success During The Credit Crisis?, Mei-Ching Chang, Sandy Suardi, Yuanchen Chang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the factors that increase the odds of intervention success by Asian central banks in the foreign exchange market from January 2005 to November 2013. The results show that leaning-against-the-wind intervention strategies are effective in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, particularly to counter the pressure of appreciating domestic currency by purchasing US dollar. We find that coordinated and first day interventions are associated with higher odds of effective intervention. There is also evidence that central banks intervene to calm disorderly market.

Affordance Theory And E-Books: Evaluating The E-Reading Experience Using Netnography, John D'Ambra, Concepcion S. Wilson, Shahriar Akter

Sydney Business School - Papers

E-books have changed the business of book publishing and the reading experience of the general public. Dedicated e-readers and other smart devices are integral to e-books offering affordances to overcome the physical limitations of print book and to provide the functionality of information technology. Using netnography, comments by online readers to articles in The New York Times and Scientific American were analysed and coded by themes identified in the literature of e-books versus print books. An Affordance Theory approach was used to provide insights into the readers' perceptions of real and actual affordances and the value delivered by these affordances. …