Business Commons^™

Managing Learning In The Workplace: A Study Of The Perceptions And Practice Of Local Government Managers, Jenna Rogers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In 1995 the Australian Government commissioned the report Enterprising Nation ‘: renewing Australia’s managers to meet the challenges of the Asia-Pacific century (Karpin, 1995), which emphasised the change that was necessary in Australian business to remain competitive in the global and growing economy. The development of flexible organisational cultures, where managers increasingly displayed leadership and developed their staff to generate innovative cultures, was a central premise of the Karpin Report Task Force’s vision. Twenty years later, this study explored the extent to which managers have moved from being ‘cops to coaches’ and integrated the facilitation of employee learning within …

An Exploration Of Cava Wineries: A Resource-Based Approach, Alonso Duarte

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose:

The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify the most important resources, and emerging issues among Spain’s Cava wineries, including opportunities and challenges, from predominantly winery operators, and through the lens of the resource-based view of the firm (RBVF).

Design/methodology/approach:

Unstructured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with the representatives of five Cava firms, and with the manager of the local Institute of Cava in Sant Sadurnà d’Anoia, Spain. In addition, owners/managers of seven other Cava wineries provided responses and comments via email. Findings: The attributes pertaining to the RBVF, such as valuable, rare, imperfect imitable resources, and (non)substitutability …

Conjoint Utilization Of Structured And Unstructured Information For Planning Interleaving Deliberation In Supply Chains, Naeem K. Janjua, O. K. Hussain, E. Chang, Syed M. S. Islam

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Effective business planning requires seamless access and intelligent analysis of information in its totality to allow the business planner to gain enhanced critical business insights for decision support. Current business planning tools provide insights from structured business data (i.e. sales forecasts, customers and products data, inventory details) only and fail to take into account unstructured complementary information residing in contracts, reports, user's comments, emails etc. In this article, a planning support system is designed and developed that empower business planners to develop and revise business plans utilizing both structured data and unstructured information conjointly. This planning system activity model comprises …

Opening The Black Box: The Mediating Roles Of Organisational Systems And Ambidexterity In The Hrm-Performance Link In Public Sector Organisations, Geoff Plimmer, Jane Bryson, Stephen T. Teo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how HIWS may shape organisational capabilities, in particular organisational ambidexterity (OA) – the ability to be both adaptable to the wider world, and internally aligned so that existing resources are used well. Given the demands on public agencies to manage conflicting objectives, and to do more with less in increasingly complex environments, this paper improves our understanding of how HIWS can contribute to public sector performance. The paper sheds light inside the black box of the HIWS/organisational performance link.

Design/methodology/approach

This multi-level quantitative study is based on a survey of 2,123 …

Ways Of Depicting: The Presentation Of One's Self As A Brand, Lelia Green, Richard Morrison, Andrew Ewing, Cathy Henkel

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The research question animating this article is: 'How does an individual creative worker re-present themselves as a contemporary - and evolving - brand?' Berger notes that the "principal aim has been to start a process of questioning" (5), and the raw material energising this exploration is the life's work of Richard Morrison, the creative director and artist who is the key moving force behind The Morrison Studio collective of designers, film makers and visual effects artists, working globally but based in London. The challenge of maintaining currency in this visually creative marketplace includes seeing what is unique about your potential …

Risk Perception And Psychological Behavior Of Investors In Emerging Market: Indonesian Stock Exchange, Y. Yuliani, I. Isnurhadi, Ferry Jie

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Capital market functions as a mediator between parties who have excess funds that is, investors and those who need the funds that is, emitents. Decision to sell and buy shares of a financial asset is very strategic decision for investors because it is associated with the chances of return to be earned in the future. The objective of this paper is to investigate the investor's psychology on buying and selling common stock in the stock exchange in emerging market. The specific purpose of this research is to provide the simultaneous empirical evidence about the perception of risk, psychology aspects towards …

Geotourism Destinations - Visitor Impacts And Site Management Considerations, Ross K. Dowling, David Newsome

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Geotourism is becoming a well established form of tourism based on the geological environment. It offers a new form of sustainable tourism which is more holistic than previous niche forms of tourism. However, with more people than ever visiting natural areas worldwide, the cumulative impacts of visitors on geological sites is increasing. This paper surveys visitor impacts and site management at geological sites which are geotourism destinations. We describe geotourism which is the engine driving the core activities of conservation, education and sustainable development in geoparks. We then outline some lessons learned from management in dealing with visitor impacts at …

Revitalizing Ban Kaset Puttana Village Through Community-Based Tourism, Sairoong Dinkoksung, Mehran Nejati

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

There has been a boom in health tourism. A growing number of tourists travel to other countries for preventive and rehabilitative care and seek detoxifying, destressing and healthy activities. Based on a community-based tourism project, this study aimed to explore the possibilities of developing health tourism in Ban Kaset Puttana, a village located in the suburban area of Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand. The one-year project based on participatory action research covered the entire process of forming thematic alternative health tourist products by employing the concept of natural-based health care. The project was then followed by 10 semistructured interviews with local …

Down-Side Risk Metrics As Portfolio Diversification Strategies Across The Global Financial Crisis, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer, Robert J. Powell, Abhay Kumar Singh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper features an analysis of the effectiveness of a range of portfolio diversification strategies, with a focus on down-side risk metrics, as a portfolio diversification strategy in a European market context. We apply these measures to a set of daily arithmetically-compounded returns, in U.S. dollar terms, on a set of ten market indices representing the major European markets for a nine-year period from the beginning of 2005 to the end of 2013. The sample period, which incorporates the periods of both the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the subsequent European Debt Crisis (EDC), is a challenging one for the …

Nonlinear Time Series And Neural-Network Models Of Exchange Rates Between The Us Dollar And Major Currencies, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer, Shelton Peiris, Abhay Kumar Singh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper features an analysis of major currency exchange rate movements in relation to the US dollar, as constituted in US dollar terms. Euro, British pound, Chinese yuan, and Japanese yen are modelled using a variety of non-linear models, including smooth transition regression models, logistic smooth transition regressions models, threshold autoregressive models, nonlinear autoregressive models, and additive nonlinear autoregressive models, plus Neural Network models. The models are evaluated on the basis of error metrics for twenty day out-of-sample forecasts using the mean average percentage errors (MAPE). The results suggest that there is no dominating class of time series models, and …

Improving Forensic Software Tool Performance In Detecting Fraud For Financial Statements, Brian Cusack, Tau’Aho Ahokov

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The use of computer forensics is important for forensic accounting practice because most accounting information is in digital forms today. The access to evidence is increasingly more complex and in far greater volumes than in previous decades. The effective and efficient means of detecting fraud are required for the public to maintain their confidence in the reliability of accounting audit and the reputation of accounting firms. The software tools used by forensic accounting can be called into question. Many appear inadequate when faced with the complexity of fraud and there needs to be the development of automated and specialist problem-solving …

Factors Affecting Csr Disclosure In Nepalese Banks: A Global Reporting Initiative Perspective, Gopi Bidari

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the extent of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosures made by Nepalese banks in their annual reports based on GRI G4 guidelines. Also, this thesis accentuates the relationships between the influencing factors (i.e. bank size, bank age, bank profitability and ownership structure) and the CSR disclosure levels (i.e., economic, social, environmental and the overall CSR disclosures).

A sample of 82 banks was selected from the Nepal Stock Exchange for the year 2014. CSR related information was collected from the annual reports of the sample banks. Content analysis and multiple regression analysis tools were used to test the developed …

An Exploratory Investigation Into The Impact Of Downsizing On Occupational Stress And Organisational Commitment, Bridget Girak

Theses : Honours

Downsizing has become an increasingly widespread organisational strategy to reduce costs in order to improve performance and remain globally competitive. However, the negative effects associated with survivor syndrome, a term used to describe a set of attitudes, feelings and perceptions that occur in employees who remain within an organisation following involuntary dismissal, continue to plague many organisations post-downsizing. Despite this prevalence of downsizing, little attention has been paid to explore the interrelationships between downsizing, occupational stress and organisational commitment of those who remain. Thus, the purpose of this research is to understand the effects of downsizing on survivors’ occupational stress …

Prediction Models For Corporate Financial Distress In Southeast Asia, Viet Dung Dinh

ECU Posters

Building prediction models of corporate financial distress plays a critical part of evaluating and managing credit risk. There is a combination of financial statements and volatility in market values of firm assets to measure distance to default as well as discriminate between distressed and non-distressed firms

The Corporate Security Stratum Of Work: Identifying Levels Of Work In The Domain, Codee Roy Ludbey

Theses : Honours

Corporate security is a practicing domain and developing academic discipline that provides for the protection of people, information and assets, as well as the self-protection of organisations. Fayol (1949) articulated such an activity within organisations to be a core business function of significant importance; embedding security operations within all aspects of organisational work. This embedded nature of security within organisations has led to difficulty in the literature delineating roles and responsibilities of security practitioners; consequently leading to a nebulous understanding of security as a whole. Therefore, an investigation of the corporate security stratum of work has been undertaken to address …

The Consumer-Based Brand Equity Development In The Australian Luxury And Upscale Hotel Sector, Sharon Shan

ECU Posters

A main strategy for a luxury or upscale hotel to succeed in a competitive market is to develop a strong brand which is recognised, trusted and preferred by the consumers. This strength of a brand is defined as the consumer-based brand equity. There is limited research identifying factors that drive consumer-based brand equity in the specific sectors of luxury and upscale hotels. This limits managers in this sector in being able to efficiently manage their brands. Therefore, the current research investigated antecedents and measurements of consumer-based brand equity, based on the specific hotel consumers’ expectations and perceptions of a strong …

Ghanaian Nurses’ Emigration Intentions: The Role Of Workplace Violence, Isaac Mensah Boafo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Ghana to examine the impact of workplace violence on nurses’ emigration intentions from 2013 to 14. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was used to select 12 public hospitals and 592 professional nurses. The results showed that 48.9% of the participants had emigration intentions. Junior nurses were 2.8 times more likely to have emigration intentions compared to senior nurses, and those who experienced violence were also more likely than their counterparts who were not involved in such incidents (physical 2.1 times; verbally abused 1.8 times and sexually harassed 2.4 times) to have …

“... They Think We Are Conversing, So We Don ’ T Care About Them ...” Examining The Causes Of Workplace Violence Against Nurses In Ghana, Isaac Mensah Boafo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

This study is part of a larger project aimed at exploring the workplace experiences of nurses working in public general hospitals in Ghana. The current paper explores the causes of workplace violence against nurses in Ghana.

Methods:

Twenty-four semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with professional nurses working in five regions of Ghana. They were selected through purposive and participant-to-participant snowball sampling techniques. Data was analysed through thematic analyses.

Results:

The findings of the study suggest that nurses are not (always) passive recipients of violence. Workplace violence can be instigated by either of the parties to the nurse-patient/relative interaction. Nurses’ …

Supplier Selection With Shannon Entropy And Fuzzy Topsis In The Context Of Supply Chain Risk Management, Reza Kiani Mavi, Mark Goh, Neda Kiani Mavi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Supplier selection is the process of finding the right suppliers, at the right price, at the right time, in the right quantities, and with the right quality. The aim of this paper, is supplier selection in the context of supply chain risk management. Thus nine criteria of quality, on time delivery and performance history and six risks in the supply chain including supply risk, demand risk, manufacturing risk, logistics risk, information risk and environmental risk considered for evaluating suppliers. Shannon entropy is used for weighing criteria and fuzzy TOPSIS is applied for ranking suppliers. Findings show that, in the spare …

Perceptions And Competence Of Turkish Pre-Service Science Teachers With Regard To Entrepreneurship, Isa Deveci

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The aim of this study is both to determine the perceptions of pre-service science teachers towards the concepts of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial characteristics and to investigate the perceptions of pre-service science teachers regarding transferring the entrepreneurial characteristics to students. This study is designed as a qualitative study and a phenomenological research approach is used. A total of 12 pre-service science teachers from grades 5 to 8 participated in the study. Data were gathered through the use of semi-structured interviews. The data were evaluated through both descriptive and content analysis. The results show that the perceptions of the 12 …

Creativity, Design And Management In Australian Fashion Enterprises, Bruno Santarelli

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In this study a number of Australian fashion enterprises are investigated in an effort to understand how product development is managed and creativity facilitated. Of particular interest was the interaction between the various actors in the creative process and the manner in which they influenced creative output. The study was underpinned by a wideranging review of the literature that reflects the multidisciplinary nature of creativity and innovation in business.

The study is timely because Australian fashion enterprises are operating in an increasingly challenging market with a perfect storm of competitive drivers at play. Technology enables instant dissemination of fashion trends …

Understanding Influences On The Critical-To-Success Factors In Online Brand Communities, Stephanie A. Meek

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In an internationally competitive market a company’s brand is its most valuable asset, and increasing and retaining loyal customers is key to long-term success. Forging binding relationships between consumers and their brand is therefore of critical importance to most organisations (Lhotáková, 2012). Previous studies indicate that online brand communities (OBCs) effectively facilitate such relationships (Backhaus, Steiner & Lugger, 2011; Madupu & Cooley, 2010) and provide companies with reliable marketing intelligence to potentially gain a competitive advantage.

OBCs are online forums dedicated to a specific brand, where consumers gather and exchange information and socialise. Today they are more prevalent than ever …

The Effect Of Hypothesis Framing, Prior Expectation And Professional Trait Scepticism On Experts’ And Novices’ Evidence Selected In A Complex Task, Abhijit Das

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study examines evidence selection strategy among external auditors (i.e. professionals) and accounting students (i.e. novices) in a going concern assessment task considering three factors; hypothesis framing, prior expectation and professional “trait” scepticism as measured by Hurtt (2010) scale. Within this context, the study sets out to accomplish three goals: (1) to re-examine evidence selection strategy based on hypothesis framing and prior expectation, (2) to validate the Hurtt (2010) scale using expert reviews and confirmatory factor analysis and (3) to investigate whether professional trait scepticism influences selection strategy.

Owing to the incidence of high-profile accounting and auditing scandals worldwide, the …

Measuring The Quality And Identifying Influencing Factors Of Sustainability Reporting: Evidence From The Resources Industry In Australia, Siew Hoon Ong

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The lack of a standardised reporting framework in sustainability reporting has resulted in companies producing unaudited generic sustainability information that are not reflective of companies’ actual sustainability performance. The disclosures also differ in quality and hinder comparison. This study addresses these problems with the development of a new scoring index that integrates the hard and soft principles in Clarkson, Li, Richardson and Vasvari’s (2008) environmental index with performance indicators of the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) framework. The newly developed index comprises all three aspects of sustainability (economic, environmental and social) and adopts a standardised scoring scale that is reflective of …

Human Resource Planning Practices In The Omani Public Sector: An Exploratory Study In The Ministry Of Education In The Sultanate Of Oman, Adnan S. Al Wahshi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Human resource planning (HRP) is the management process that helps organisations prepare for the number of employees and the types of skills needed to achieve organisational goals and objectives. In short, the aim of HRP is to have the right people in the right place at the right time. However, unlike the private sector, HRP practices are not widespread in the public sector. Literature on the ways in which HRP is conducted in public sector organisations has been limited to date. While the process of moving from traditional models of public management to New Public Management (NPM), and the Resource-Based …

The Experience Of Role Balance Among Australian Working Women With Multigenerational Caring Responsibilities, Kiah Lee Evans

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Approximately 10% of women in developed countries are working sandwich generation women, who combine paid employment with ongoing multigenerational caring responsibilities for at least one child under 18 years and one parent or parent-in-law. This role combination is expected to become more common due to the increased workforce participation of women, childbirth at an older age, reduced fertility rates, an ageing population and a trend towards community based care. Although there are numerous benefits related to membership in the working sandwich generation, there are also a range of costs related to role participation and quality of life. In particular, these …

Corporate Governance And Environmental Disclosure In The Indonesian Mining Industry, Terri Trireksani, Hadrian Geri Djajadikerta

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Sustainability and corporate governance issues are now considered to be important and integral aspects of company performance. Both have established themselves as well-studied topics in the organisational and accountability areas. While there has been a growing interest to study the relationship between these two areas, research publication in this topic is still mainly focused on the Western societies. This study focuses on the corporate governance and sustainability disclosure practices in one of the emerging economies, Indonesia, and assesses the relationships between corporate governance variables and the extent of environmental disclosures made by the mining companies listed in the Indonesia Stock …

Skill Mastery And The Formation Of Graduate Identity In Bachelor Graduates: Evidence From Australia, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Mastery of certain generic skills and the successful formation of pre-professional identity are widely considered to influence graduate work-readiness and job attainment. Given their links with enhanced productivity, performance and innovation, skill development and graduate identity appear critical amidst ongoing global stagnation in advanced economies. This paper focuses on the success of higher education in developing generic skills and graduate identity using national data (n = 80,891) for 51 providers. It investigates the influence of certain demographics, study and degree characteristics on these important areas of undergraduate curricula. Furthermore, it gauges recent graduate perceptions on the importance of skill development …

Women Business Owners’ Start-Up Motivations And Network Content, Jalleh Sharafizad, Alan Coetzer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how women small business owners’ (SBOs) business start-up motivations influence their network content.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 women SBOs who were recruited through purposeful sampling methods. Interview data on their start-up motivations were used to categorise them into three types: classic, forced and work-family. The interviews explored the network contents of the three categories of participants.

Findings

There were many similarities between network contents of classic and forced SBOs, as both groups had started their business for financial reasons rather than family reasons. All the participants’ networks contained …

Giving Over Taking/Receiving In Volunteer Tourism The Impact Of Motivation, Attitude, And Subjective Norm On Stage Of Readiness And Its Implication On Social Marketing, Usep Suhud, Greg Willson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of motivation, attitude, and subjective norm on stage of readiness to be involved in volunteer tourism and its implication on social marketing. Volunteer tourism is a tourism product that combines volunteerism and tourism activities in a destination and commonly offered by an international volunteer organisation. In this study the author examine the influence of motivation, subjective norm, and attitude towards volunteer tourism concept on stage of readiness to be involved in volunteer tourism. Motivation is treated as two different variables - taking/receiving and giving motivations. Taking/receiving represents self-interest whereas …