Business Commons^™

Carer Factors Associated With Foster-Placement Success And Breakdown, Leonie M. Miller, Melanie J. Randle, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The characteristics of carers in successful foster placements are identified to enable targeting them through customised marketing and recruitment campaigns. A longitudinal study with seventy-five carers was conducted over twenty months. Eleven instances of placement breakdown were compared to placements that did not break down. Several personal and family factors were identified as increasing the likelihood of foster-placement success, including higher cognitive empathy of the carer, a high level of social support from family, a high-quality carer-partner relationship, higher levels of care-giving and role-carer demand satisfaction, and a good match, fewer conflicts and better relationship between the carer and foster …

Changes In Health-Related Quality Of Life: A Compensating Income Variation Approach, Paul Mcnamee, Silvia Mendolia

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the relationship between negative changes in health and life satisfaction, using a sample from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia Survey. We use panel data models and estimate the life satisfaction impact of several different changes in health status to calculate the Compensating Income Variation (CIV) of them. Our work innovates with respect to the existing literature by using a more robust CIV method that takes account of the potential measurement error in income. Further, we produce the first set of monetary values for health losses using SF-6D utility values, one of the main measures …

Earnings Quality And Corporate Social Disclosure: The Moderating Role Of State And Foreign Ownership In Vietnamese Listed Firms, Trang Cam Hoang, Indra Abeysekera, Shiguang Ma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

By investigating the effect of earnings quality (EQ) on corporate social disclosure (CSD) in the context of Vietnam, this study tests whether firms uphold managerial opportunism based on the agency theory or social responsibility based on stakeholder theory. It also tests the moderating effect of state and foreign ownership on the relationship between EQ and CSD. This study finds that the long-term perspective argument dominates in the relationship between EQ and CSD, indicating that EQ is positively and significantly associated with CSD. The study also finds that the increasing proportion of shares held by the government in firms weakens the …

Cultural Capital Of Recruitment Decision‐Makers And Its Influence On Their Perception Of Person‐Organisation Fit Of Skilled Migrants, Shamika Almeida, Marie-France Waxin, Yin Paradies

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article examines how recruitment decision‐makers' cultural capital can influence their concerns about the organizational fit of skilled migrants (SM). We used survey data and interviews with Information Technology organizations in Australia. The study highlights the decision‐makers' relatively poor understanding of non‐western cultures and how it negatively influences their perception of candidates from non‐western backgrounds. Furthermore, this study also notes how organisational cultural values and decision‐makers' exposure to diverse cultures can influence their assumptions about the value of international qualifications and work experiences. Similarly, it can also influence how they assess the perception of fit based on a candidate's appearance …

The Role Of Credibility In The Relation Between Management Forecasts And Analyst Forecasts In Japan, Hiroyuki Aman, Wendy Beekes, Millicent M. Chang, Marvin Wee

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We explore the relation between management forecasts and analyst forecasts to determine whether a moderating role exists for credibility. Two types of credibility are examined: management credibility and analyst credibility. Management credibility is evaluated by management's forecasting ability (based upon prior forecast outcomes) and the firm's underlying Corporate Governance (CG) structure. Analyst credibility is assessed by their forecasting ability only, based upon prior forecast outcomes. Two questions are addressed by this study: (1) does management credibility moderate the relation between management's initial forecasts and initial analyst forecasts? and, (2) is the relation between analyst forecasts and subsequent management forecast revisions …

The Enduring And Evolving Influence Of Ball And Brown (1968), Karen L. Benson, Millicent M. Chang, Philip Gray, Sue Wright

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Background In this virtual special issue (VSI) we acknowledge the contribution of Ball and Brown (1968) [BB68] and select some key papers from the Australian Journal of Management (AJM), published since its inception in 1976, that demonstrate how Ball and Brown influenced, and in many cases inspired, the research agendas of Australian and New Zealand researchers. AJM is particularly proud to acknowledge the connection with Ray Ball and Philip Brown. Not only did these scholars strongly influence the research agenda of AJM authors but Ray and Philip were both instrumental in the establishment and development of the Journal. The Australian …

The Impact Of Parental Illness On Children's Schooling And Labour Force Participation: Evidence From Vietnam, Silvia Mendolia, Nga Nguyen, Oleg Yerokhin

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the relationship between parental illness and children's engagement in education and labour market, using a panel data from Vietnam. While there is substantial evidence showing the intergenerational transmission of health, the literature investigating the impact of parental health on children's educational and labour market outcomes is limited, especially in developing countries. We use child fixed effects and control for a detailed set of household and local area characteristics. Our main findings show that maternal illness substantially decreases chances of being enrolled in school for children between 11 and 23 years old and, at the same time, increases …

Ontological Security As An Unconscious Motive Of Social Media Users, Charles S. Areni

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Reactions to nostalgia-evoking content on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube suggest an unconscious motive of ontological security, defined as a 'sense of presence in the world as a real, alive, whole, and in a temporal sense, a continuous person'. In addition to the unprecedented access to the past provided by social media, additional factors such as increasing human longevity, the acceleration of technological and social change, the expanded size and greater interconnectedness of social networks, the proliferation of directly and vicariously experienced places and the secularisation of society have contributed to a growing need for ontological security. Engagement …

Real‐Time Inflation Forecast Combination For Time‐Varying Coefficient Models, Bo Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We use real‐time macroeconomic variables and combination forecasts with both time‐varying weights and equal weights to forecast inflation in the USA. The combination forecasts compare three sets of commonly used time‐varying coefficient autoregressive models: Gaussian distributed errors, errors with stochastic volatility, and errors with moving average stochastic volatility. Both point forecasts and density forecasts suggest that models combined by equal weights do not produce worse forecasts than those with time‐varying weights. We also find that variable selection, the allowance of time‐varying lag length choice, and the stochastic volatility specification significantly improve forecast performance over standard benchmarks. Finally, when compared with …

Loan Financing And Investment In Princeling-Backed Firms, Qing Li, Qigui Liu, Shiguang Ma, Gary G. Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates the role of princelings in Chinese listed firms. Our findings suggest that princelings ensure better access to bank loans for non-SOEs but bring no significant benefits to SOEs. Our empirical results further indicate that bank lending decisions are distorted for princeling-backed firms due to the privileges and protections they can obtain from the higher levels of the government through princelings' family ties. Moreover, we find that, due to excess long-term bank loans, princeling-backed non-SOEs tend to overinvest, which ultimately results in lower investment efficiency. Furthermore, we use the difference-in-difference method to capture the effect of the exogenous …

Do Accruals Earnings Management Constraints And Intellectual Capital Efficiency Trigger Asymmetric Cost Behaviour? Evidence From Australia, Yiru Yang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This study examines whether accruals earnings management constraints and intellectual capital (IC) efficiency affect asymmetric cost behaviour by analysing data for the 1990 to 2016 period on firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The analysis reveals that, on average, anti-sticky cost behaviour occurs when firms have limited ability to engage in accrual earnings management to manipulate earnings in the current year. Further, IC efficiency - particularly human capital efficiency - increases the degree of cost stickiness. This study also finds that the degree of asymmetric cost behaviour is more pronounced in the post-International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) period than …

Financial Contagion And Economic Development: An Epidemiological Approach, Alberto Bucci, Davide La Torre, Danilo Liuzzi, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We develop an epidemiological approach to analyze how financial contagion may affect and be affected by economic activity. We show that, according to specific parameter values, the economy may converge either to a non-speculative or to a speculative equilibrium: in the former situation the level of per capita income is maximal, while in the latter it is reduced by financial contagion. The presence of economic and financial feedback effects may also give rise to macroeconomic fluctuations during the transitional path, clearly showing that such economic and financial links are an important driver of the short run macroeconomic performance. By extending …

Duration Of Equity Overvaluation And Managers' Choice To Use Aggressive Underlying Earnings Disclosure And Accrual-Based Earnings Management: Australian Evidence, Yiru Yang, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines whether equity overvaluation duration influences managers' choice of different earnings management mechanisms and how corporate governance and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission's underlying earnings disclosure guidelines influence managers' choices. The study samples Australian Securities Exchange 200 firms from 2009 to 2016. Findings show that on average, firms more likely engage in accrual-based earnings management in the early overvaluation stage. In later stages, firms more likely disclose underlying earnings aggressively to sustain overvaluation. Additionally, firms with a high proportion of independent directors on the board prefer to disclose underlying earnings aggressively to sustain the equity overvaluation; firms …

Modelling Trade-Offs In Students' Choice Set When Determining Universities, Andriani Kusumawati, Nelson Perera, Venkata K. Yanamandram

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing Indonesian students' choice of university by estimating the trade-off students make in selecting a university.

Design/methodology/approach - Conjoint analysis was used to examine the relative importance and the part-worth scores of the attributes that influence students' public university preferences in Indonesia.

Findings - High-school leavers in Indonesia trade off university preferences and view advice from family, friends, and/or teachers, reputation, and job prospects as important factors for selecting a public university. Two different preference-based segments of prospective students were identified from cluster analysis, and classified as either …

Financial Loss Of Life: The Homo Sacer In The Third Reich, Erin J. Twyford

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Aryanisation program of Nazi Germany created a financial loss of life for Jewish victims. This program led to further losses including political and actual life within the concentration camps and gas chambers.

Design/methodology/approach This paper utilises Agamben's (1995, 2002, 2005) concepts of biopolitics, the homo sacer and the state of exception. I examine business histories of the firm The Interessen Gemeinshaft der Deutschen Teerfarbenindustrie (the 'Community of Interest of the German Dyestuff Industry' known hereafter as 'I.G. Farben'), German legislation and other historical documents to construct a close reading …

The Changing Importance Of Vacations: Proposing A Theoretical Explanation For The Changing Contribution Of Vacations To People's Quality Of Life, Melanie J. Randle, Ye Zhang, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Vacations are assumed to be important to everyone because they improve quality of life through personal growth, self-fulfilment (McCabe & Johnson, 2013), improved mental health (Gilbert & Abdullah, 2004) and physical health (Chen & Petrick, 2013), leading to higher work performance (De Bloom, Geurts, & Kompier, 2013) and greater leisure life satisfaction (Neal, Sirgy, & Uysal, 1999). Vacations also benefit vulnerable groups, such as people with health issues and disabilities, and low-income families (Gump and Matthews, 2000, McCabe and Johnson, 2013, Pritchard et al., 2011). Contradicting the assumption that vacations are important to everyone, some empirical evidence suggests people differ …

Mixed Views In The Academy: Academic And Student Perspectives About The Utility Of Developing Work-Ready Skills Through Wil, Lisa Mcmanus, Laura L. Rook

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Work-integrated Learning (WIL) can be a vehicle for the development of students' work-ready skills. This paper presents the views of undergraduate business students and academics about the role and perceived importance of work-ready skills in the business curriculum and the perceived role of WIL activities in enabling the development of work-ready skills. A total of 50 business students and 24 academics from a number of faculties across the university participated. While students and academics both agree that a combination of on and off campus WIL activities are most effective for developing work-ready skills, students and academics hold different views to …

Engineering-Based Design Methodology For Embedding Ethics In Autonomous Robots, Lindsay Robertson, Roba Abbas, Gursel Alici, Albert Munoz, Katina Michael

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores the design process of robotics and autonomous systems using a co-design approach, applied ethics, and values-driven methods. Specifically, the approach seeks to move beyond traditional risk assessment toward a greater consideration of end-user exposure. The goal of the ethics-based co-design approach is to identify end-user and stakeholder values that guide the minimization of end-user vulnerability associated with the employment of autonomous systems. This design process is also used to identify positive consequences that probably increase human wellbeing as opposed to simply avoiding harm. We argue that biomedical autonomous systems design, during the preclinical phase, should bring together …

Making Cause-Related Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr)Count In Holiday Accommodation Choice, Melanie J. Randle, Astrid Kemperman, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We test how different presentations of cause-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives affect the choice of holiday accommodation bookings. Results of a stated choice experiment indicate that - for the tourist population as a whole - information about CSR initiatives affects choice only minimally. One market segment emerges, however, that is highly responsive to all types of CSR message presentations: positive and negative framing, and local and international causes. This tourist segment is characterized by a distinct socio-demographic profile, thus representing a promising target market for tourism managers engaging in cause-related CSR strategies. Other tourist segments are sensitive to the …

Children And "Junk Food" Advertising: Critique Of A Recent Australian Study, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

A field experiment by Australian public health researchers Norman, Kelly, McMahon, and others allegedly demonstrated that primary school children's physical health is threatened by exposure to "junk food" advertising. Their study was published in the international health journal Appetite and was clearly intended to influence government regulatory policy. The methodology of the study was taken, without acknowledgement, from an earlier American study in the Journal of Consumer Research and much other research on children's consumer behavior, including pioneering studies conducted by the present author‚ was ignored. Also, quite unforgivably, the researchers neglected to cite Australia's already strict regulatory controls on …

Retaining Health Carers: The Role Of Personal And Organisation Job Resources, Shamika Almeida, Mario Fernando, Albert Munoz, Susan Cartwright

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify key personal and organisational resources that influence the engagement, well-being and job satisfaction of healthcare professionals working in Australia.

Design/methodology/approach: Using the job demands-resources model, this study investigates how employee resources and organisation resources influence engagement, well-being and job satisfaction of health professionals in Australian hospitals. The authors collected survey data from a sample of healthcare professionals (n=217) working in three hospitals in New South Wales, Australia.

Findings: The results confirm the importance of the emotional health of employees on their well-being. The results concur with existing research …

Incorporating The Concepts Of Sharing-In And Sharing-Out In Csr: Australian Consumers' Perspective, Anjum Amin-Chaudhry, Alan A. Pomering, Lester W. Johnson

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is based on attending to concerns beyond a corporation's shareholders. This concern embraces the concepts of sharing and caring for others. Logically then, the literature on sharing might inform theory and practice around CSR initiatives. To date, however, theory around the theme of sharing is absent from extant CSR literature, and, presumably, it is omitted as a perspective on CSR practice. This paper addresses this gap by empirically investigating consumers' responses to different types of sharing involved in a range of CSR initiatives. We test the sharing theory to provide generalizable conclusions. Data was collected via …

Intrinsic Religiosity, Personality Traits, And Adolescent Risky Behaviors, Silvia Mendolia, Alfredo R. Paloyo, Ian Walker

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We investigate the relationship between self-reported importance of religion and risky behaviors in adolescence using data from a large and detailed longitudinal study of English teenagers. We use school and individual fixed effects, and treatment effects with inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment, controlling for a rich set of characteristics, including individual personality traits. Our results show that individuals with low religiosity are more likely to engage in risky health behaviors.

Tiered Information Disclosure: An Empirical Analysis Of The Advance Peek Into The Michigan Index Of Consumer Sentiment, Weishao Wu, Wenchien Liu, Sandy Suardi, Yuanchen Chang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper studies market microstructure implications of informed high-frequency traders (HFTs) from two seconds of advance peek into the Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS), provided by Thomson Reuters to its elite customers. Using individual stocks in the NASDAQ data set, we show how HFTs trade around ICS events. We find that liquidity demanders during two seconds of advance peek earn substantive profits, which are consistent with the notion that HFTs' informational advantages may increase adverse selection costs for other market participants. This evidence elucidates the debate on regulatory oversight and its role in circumventing the potentially adverse effects from …

Interdependencies Of Internal Migration, Urbanization, Poverty, And Inequality: The Case Of Urban India, Edgar J. Wilson, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Reetu Verma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In India, the number of metropolitan cities with a population of around 1 million people and above has increased from 35 in 2001 to 53 in 2011. Around 43% of the urban population resides in metropolitan cities.2 By 2030, the urban population of India is predicted to increase by a total of 163 million, relative to an increase in the rural population by 30.9 million (UN DESA 2014). Unplanned growth in the urban population tends to put pressure on regional/urban disparities and the rapidly increasing slum-dwelling population. In 2011-2012, the headcount ratio (HCR) based on US$ 1.90 per person per …

The New Australian System Of Corporate Governance: Board Governance And Company Performance In A Changing Corporate Governance Environment, Mark Rix

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the changing duties and responsibilities of boards and directors of Australian public companies. The corporate governance environment in Australia is currently going through a period of significant transformation raising the question of whether in this fluid and shifting environment company and board performance can still be assessed largely on the basis of profit, share price and dividends generated over the short term. These almost certainly will continue for some time to be the key metrics of company and board performance and it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. Nevertheless, a growing chorus of influential …

Asean Income Gap And The Optimal Exchange Rate Regime, Ngoc Hong Nguyen, Charles Harvie, Sandy Suardi

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article investigates the optimal exchange rate regime in a group of ASEAN countries, which minimizes the adverse effects of foreign demand shocks on real output, the real exchange rate, price level and between country income gap. Using a panel structural vector autoregressive model for small open economies, we show that the extent by which foreign demand shocks influences the between-country income gap depends on the exchange rate regime and the transmission channels through output, the price level and the real exchange rate. Our results show that a fixed exchange rate is better in insulating output and real exchange rates …

Do Tourists Notice Social Responsibility Information?, Nazila Babakhani, Melanie J. Randle, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This empirical study explores the amount of attention tourists pay to social responsibility (environment and community) information when booking accommodation online. Visual attention is a necessary requirement for tourists to consider the social responsibility of different accommodation options when making bookings. Eye tracking methodology was used to measure the visual attention paid to social responsibility initiatives in a simulated accommodation booking webpage. Results reveal that information about social responsibility initiatives does not attract significant visual attention from tourists, especially when they are confronted with a typically large amount of information about accommodation options. Such information is therefore unlikely to affect …

Trade Credit Use And Bank Loan Access: An Agency Theory Perspective, Liangbo Ma, Shiguang Ma

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In this study we find that firms' use of trade credit significantly facilitates their access to bank loans in the future, suggesting a complementary relationship. Such a relationship is more profound for firms with higher perceived agency costs, i.e., firms with opaque corporate information, firms located in regions with less developed external institutions, and firms at an early stage of existence. Firms switch from trade credit to bank loans as the main source of debt financing as they age. However, the process is slower for firms with a greater level of corporate information opacity and firms located in regions with …

Financial Liberalisation, Bank Ownership Type And Performance In A Transition Economy: The Case Of Vietnam, Phuong Le, Charles Harvie, Amir Arjomandi, James Borthwick

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Employing a sample of Vietnamese banks covering the period 2005 to 2015, this study investigates the influence of partial, and selective, financial liberalisation on bank efficiency by ownership type in a transition economy. The key findings are: (1) state-owned banks outperformed all other ownership types; (2) selective privatisation of state-owned banks exerted a positive influence on bank efficiency; (3) rural-to-urban private bank transformation decreased banking system efficiency; (4) minority foreign ownership exerted an insignificant impact on bank efficiency; (5) business group ownership improved the provision of intermediation services but deteriorated overall bank operating efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that the …