Business Commons^™

New Wine In Old Bottles: A Case Study Of Innovation Territories In 'New World' Wine Production, D. K. Aylward, T. Turpin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article applies the concept of ‘innovation territories’ to explain the recent export success of the Australian Wine Industry. Recent data collected from four ‘New World’ wine producing countries are contrasted in order to investigate ‘innovation territories’ that in the Australian context transcend geographic and policy boundaries. The international comparison shows that these territories can be mapped and their interaction compared. A major finding from the study is that one of the major contributors to Australia’s success in gaining comparative advantage in this industry is the way local and national investments in R&D have transcended geographic and policy boundaries. Coordination …

Corporate Governance, The Environment And The Internet, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Corporate use of the internet for a variety of business purposes is now commonplace. Owning and occupying internet space is almost essential for publicly traded companies, either as a place to do business or as a place to exchange information about business. It has also been documented that the internet provides a global meeting ground for those interested in social and environmental change. The two ideas are now combining, leading to a situation in which corporations are using their web pages to provide environmental information about their activities as part of their corporate governance strategy. This paper performs an initial …

Data-Driven Market Segmentation - A Structure-Based Conceptual Framework For Management Decision Support, Sara Dolnicar, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Market segmentation increasingly uses homogeneous groups of consumers determined on the basis of empirical market data as target segments (a posteriori-, data-driven-, post hoc segmentation) rather than splitting individuals according to single, typically socio-demographic or geographic, criteria (a priori-, commen sense segmentation). A vast amount of contributions has been made to improve methodology of identifying or constructing data-based market segments. However, real world data sets often do not contain clearly separated density clusters. Therefore all techniques used in data-based market segmentation can render multiple solutions of similar quality. So far no attempt has been made to construct a framework enabling …

Organizational Change Stories And Management Research: Facts Or Fiction, Patrick M. Dawson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Company change stories are often constructed around a linear series of ‘successful’ events which serve to show the company in a positive light to any interested external party. These stories of company success sanitise this process and offer data for change experts to formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to best manage change. This position is criticised in this paper which draws on processual case study data to argue that change is a far more complex muddied political process consisting of competing histories and ongoing multiple change narratives which may vie for dominance in seeking to be the change story. …

An Empirical Note On The Random Walk Behaviour And Market Efficiency Of Latin American Stock Markets, A. C. Worthington, H. Higgs

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This note examines the weak-form market efficiency of Latin American equity markets. Daily returns for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela are examined for random walks using serial correlation coefficient and runs tests, Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin (KPSS) unit root tests and multiple variance ratio (MVR) tests. The results, which are in broad agreement across the approaches employed, indicate that none of the markets are characterised by random walks and hence are not weak-form efficient, even under some less stringent random walk criteria.

Who's Looking After The Tobacco Industry, Lee C. Moerman, S. L. Van Der Laan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

On 21st May 2003, after four years of negotiation, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Once ratified this framework convention will ultimately constrain the activities of the tobacco industry globally. In light of increasing litigation and exposure of the industry’s strategies to maintain profitability, will the tobacco industry remain quiescent on this further threat to their legitimacy? A weapon in the tobacco industry’s armoury is to redefine the public policy agenda via a legitimate forum. This can include eliciting debate in any credible forum and in doing so, attempt to …

Taking A Closer Look: The Why And How Of New Accounting Practices In An Australian Religious/Charitable Organisation, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Neo-institutional sociology proposes that organisations in a particular field behave in essentially the same way. In taking for granted the prevalence of institutionalised activities, such as accounting, however, it offers little in the way of penetrating insights into how, and to what extent, those activities are actually introduced and embedded into individual organisations. Changes in the nonprofit environment in Australia in recent years have catapulted organisations in that sector into a new corporate mode of operation, providing a unique opportunity not only to observe the introduction of new accounting practices, but also to critique the usefulness of neo-institutionalism as a …

Mapping Australia's Wine Exporters, D. K. Aylward

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Teaching And Learning In China And Asia: Some Observations, H. W. Collier

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

As the ‘Far East’ enters the WTO and the world economy, change is inevitable. The more developed economies will undoubtedly lead the way, and the change agents are more than likely to come from outside the area at least for a while. Beginning in 1973, many of the Chinese students and scholars who studied in the West did not return to China. Many of my current students who have the opportunity to leave do not intend to return. However, there is an increasing number who will return. As more and more of these student graduates return to China and to …

A Documentary Of Innovation Support Among New World Wine Industries, D. K. Aylward

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

During the past two decades, the international wine industry has undergone a ‘seismic shift’. Old World producers no longer dominate production, export and marketing of wine to the extent that they once did. Instead, New World producers such as California, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have successfully married production, management, marketing and innovation to emerge as a new force on the global wine landscape. It is the innovation supports within these selected New World industries that this paper seeks to document, in order to highlight different approaches and outcomes and how they may or may not contribute to an …

Trust Me! A Personal Account Of Confidentiality Issues In An Organisational Research Project, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Organisations, particularly those that depend on donations from the public, care a great deal about the image they present to society. This makes them especially sensitive about confidentiality when it comes to details of their accounting systems and financial affairs. Organisational, technical and personal factors determine the strategies adopted for encouraging trust and respecting confidentiality while undertaking research in such organisations. This is a personal account of some of the confidentiality issues that arose during a qualitative research project within a large religious/charitable organisation. It illustrates the importance and challenges of maintaining confidentiality in that and other contexts.

The Influence Of Interactions Between Market Segmentation Strategy And Competition On Organizational Performance – A Simulation Study, Sara Dolnicar, R. Freitag

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A computer simulation study is conducted to explore the interaction of alternative segmentation strategies and the competitiveness of the market environment, a goal that can neither be tackled by purely analytic approaches nor is sufficient and undistorted real market data available to deduct findings in an empirical manner.The fundamental idea of the simulation is to increase competition in the artificial marketplace and to study the influence of segmentation strategy and varying market conditions on organizational success. Success/failure is measured using two performance criteria: number of units sold and survival of firms over 36 periods of time. Three central findings emerge: …

The Effectiveness Of True Analogies For Consumer Learning Of Really New Products, A. Ait El Houssi, K. P. Morel, E. J. Hultink

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Recent research has suggested that analogies may be useful to enhance consumer learning of really new products (RNPs). However, these studies have failed to show convincingly that analogies enhance consumers’ comprehension of RNPs as their operationalisation of analogies does not represent a “true” analogy. Besides, they examined the interaction effects of numerous moderators without showing the existence of a main effect first. Hence, it remains unclear what the effectiveness of analogies for consumer learning of RNPs truly is. It is the aim of the present study to fill this void by means of an experiment in which consumers evaluate product …

Development Of A Posteriori Market Segments Over Time - A Tracking Procedure, Friedrich Leisch, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Segmentation has become a standard procedure in strategic marketing. A posteriori approaches are popular among practitioners and researchers and gaining importance over a priori consumer groupings. Despite the wide variety of methodological developments in the field, little attention has been given to tracking changes of a posteriori market segments over time. This article proposes a simple tracking procedure that allows testing of a posteriori segment developments over time on the basis of identical consecutive consumer surveys. It is flexible with regard to techniques chosen at each step and – through validation findings through repetition – allows thorough insight into market …

Tracking Positioning Developments – Perceptual Changes In Hair Colorant Positioning In Eastern Europe, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Typically, changes in the perception of brand images are tracked on an attribute-to attribute basis. In reality, however, it is not a single attribute but a combination of multiple attributes that constitute brand image. Accounting for this multi-facetness of brand perception, a framework for tracking changes thereof is proposed that can be used in addition to simple attribute comparison approaches. It provides insight into changes over time in a more holistic manner, tracking shifts of associations of specific brands with generic perceptual positions. The framework consists of (1) computation of a data-driven generic perceptual positions, (2) characterization of generic perceptual …

Causes And Implications Of Declining Economics Major: A Focus On Australia, M. Alauddin, A. Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper analyses the causes and implications of declining economics major in Australia. Based on a brief review of the relevant literature and an analysis of the Australian time series data, it is found that economics continues to be less attractive to students in relative terms. Three major factors contribute to this phenomenon: less than appropriate product for an increasingly diverse clientele, the introduction of more attractive and business, commerce and industry-oriented programs such as finance, accounting and commerce, and business majors geared to the needs of the real world, and the use of less experienced teaching staff in lower …

An Empirical Analysis Of Australian Labour Productivity, Abbas Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study presents a model capturing sources of Australian aggregate labour productivity using annual time series data from 1970 to 2001. Labour productivity, or real output per hour worked, in this model is determined by real net capital stock in information technology and telecommunications (ITT), real net capital stock in the non-ITT sector, trade openness, human capital, the wage rate, international competitiveness, and the union membership rate. Given the lack of long and consistent time series data, multivariate cointegration techniques are inappropriate as the cointegration results will be sensitive to the lag length, the inclusion or exclusion of the intercept …

Using Input-Output Analysis To Identify Australia’S High Employment Generating Industries, Abbas Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Using the 1996-97 input-output table, the objective of this paper is to identify Australia’s high employment generating industries. First, the “real” (direct and indirect) contribution of the tradeable industries to employment are quantified by adopting the “loss of the industry” or “shut-down of industry” approach. Second, the sectoral employment elasticities are calculated to determine the leading employment generating sectors. The empirical analysis and rankings undertaken in this study shed some light on sectoral potentials in relation to the creation of jobs in the economy. It is found that, inter alia, the following industries will play a crucial role in generating …

The Causes Of Unemployment In Iran: An Empirical Investigation, Abbas Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the major causes of Iran’s unemployment conundrum using a simultaneous-equation model and annual time series data from 1968 to 2000. It is found that the rate of unemployment responds positively to output gap and increasing economic uncertainty and negatively to the higher growth rates of real investment and inflation, supporting the view that there exists a degree of trade-off between inflation and unemployment. However, since persistent and soaring inflation rates eventually lead to the chronic depreciation of the domestic currency and rising economic instability, it will be irrational to exploit this trade-off to fight against unemployment, particularly …

The Effect Of Government On Economic Growth In Fiji, D. P. Doessel, A. Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between the size of government and the process of economic growth in Fiji. The results reported here present a mixed picture, in that the model estimated specifies two different effects of the government sector on economic growth. Using annual time series data for the period 1964-1999, it is found that government expenditure exerts a strong beneficial impact on economic growth. However, marginal factor productivity in the government sector is found to be lower than that of the private sector. The reasons for this low productivity are twofold: the result of the lack of market …

Theory And Econometric Evidence Explaining Public Expenditure: The Case Of Iran, D. P. Doessel, A. Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse government expenditure in Iran using annual time series data for the period 1963-2000. Various theories of the size of government are reviewed and a distinction is made between economic/structural determinants and institutional determinants. Categorising the theories of government expenditure in this way suggests the application of non-nested tests as a mechanism whereby the relative importance of the two broad theoretical categories can be determined. The empirical results, indicating "double rejection", reveal that neither the economic/structural determinants nor the institutional determinants alone are sufficient to explain government expenditure in Iran. A comprehensive, incorporating …

An Activity-Based Model Of Collective Knowledge, Helen M. Hasan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In the challenges faced by organisations in the area of knowledge management, there is clearly a role for information and communications technologies in supporting the exploitation of business knowledge. This paper proposes a model of knowledge processes, based on the concept of "activity", i.e. what people do, as determined by the cultural-historical activity theory. The evolutionary development of an implementation of the model in currently available technology is described, together with the results of an evaluation of its suitability and effectiveness. This work is substantiating both the practicability of the implementation and the usefulness of the structure for the extraction …

Known 'Bugs' In Cultural Historical Activity Theory, John G. Findlay

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

When Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was first propounded by the Vygotskian school of Russian psychologists in the 1920s it offered a robust explanation of how human development is mediated by cultural as well as biological influences. Along the way, CHAT has acquired some "bugs" or usability difficulties by remaining isolated from other theories that have a common heritage. This paper explores how the theory may have evolved if Vygotsky was alive today. Revisions to CHAT are proposed that borrow from complexity theory, innovation theory, group dynamics and Flow theory to explain the evolution of minds, tools and cultures as a …

Web-Mediated Communication (Wmc) And Social Interaction: A Social Psychological Approach, Koo Won Suh, Helen Hasan, Paul K. Couchman

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

It can be argued that social interaction is a critical factor in understanding Web-mediated communication. While the concept and domain of social interaction has been studied in several disciplines they are underdeveloped in the current Web-enabled environment. This paper adopts a social psychological point of view of conceptual and operational issues in relation to social interaction. Through a review of the literature, two domains of social interaction are identified: task and socio-emotional interaction. The literature review also addresses some problems in defmition related to socio-emotional interaction. In an attempt to fill the gap between conceptual and operational defmitions of social …

Development And Validation Of An Australian Video Speed Test (Avst), Jennifer Ann Algie, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Anti-speeding educational campaigns (in television commercials, print ads, and outdoor ads, mostly) are constantly being tried but it is difficult to determine which ads are effective in reducing speed. A promising solution to this problem is to use a behavioural simulation such as the Video Speed Test, the VST (Horswill and McKenna, 1999). The driving simulation test involves getting drivers to view video excerpts of a person driving a vehicle in real driving situations. The drivers then are asked to estimate the speed that they would use in the same situations, that is, how many kilometres/hour slower or faster they …

An Investigation Into The Academic Effectiveness Of Class Attendance In An Intermediate Microeconomic Theory Class, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Increasing rates of absenteeism from university classrooms raises concern about the consequent effect on student learning. This paper adds to a small but growing body of knowledge from Australia and other countries, about the extent of absenteeism and its effect on academic performance. Panel data on class attendance and academic performance in an intermediate microeconomics class at an Australian University are used to estimate several fixed-effects and random-effects models that explicitly account for unobserved heterogeneity among students. We find strong support for the proposition that class attendance has a significant effect on academic performance.

Ausfta: Linking War, Free Trade And The Environment, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Trade agreements should always be treated with caution, especially when they are negotiated behind closed doors. If there is anything positive to be gained in dollar terms from a FTA, this should not be the result of environmental degradation, erosion of environmental standards, and limitations to a sovereign nations ability to build towards a sustainable future. This paper considers the possible impact of the new AUSFTA on the Australian environment.

What Do Australian Practitioners’ Expect From Marketing Graduates?, Sara Dolnicar, D. Stern

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

There have been many empirical investigations into industry requirements regarding the education of marketing graduates. These studies have been conducted in many countries, in many different industries and from many perspectives. While the emphasis of the present study still lies on understanding what the industry wants from marketing graduates, an additional aspect is explored: the existence and nature of sub-groups of recruiters who prioritize different aspects of the candidate’s qualifications. An empirical study is conducted in the larger Sydney and Illawarra region. Groups of recruiters with different views on what graduates should deliver were constructed and described.

Intellectual Accounting Scorecard - Measuring And Reporting Intellectual Capital, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Several indicators are constructed to measure intellectual capital at inter-organisational and inter-organisational level. The majority of models constructed so far have not established the link between individual intellectual items and organisational intellectual capital performance. The few models that establish such a link demand significant management time to monitor them, or have established indices outside the traditional accounting system. The Intellectual Accounting Scorecard integrates intellectual capital measuring and reporting into mainstream traditional accounting reporting. Firstly it identifies each intellectual capital item as an intellectual revenue and intellectual expenses having an impact on the statement of income, or as an intellectual assets …

Financial Sustainability And Accountability: A Model For Nonprofit Organisations, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Financial sustainability and accountability are ever-present issues for nonprofit organisations (NPOs) as they seek to balance their mission with financial responsibility. Both issues arise as a result external demands and internal needs.

The mission of an NPO is usually expressed as the role it plays in the segment of society within which it serves. Once its mission is defined, an NPO often finds that it is unable to withdraw. This may be due to external exit barriers placed on the organisation by local community groups, ethnic or religious groups, or by other organisations which are convinced that the maintenance of …