Business Commons^™

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'Community of Interest of the German Dyestuff Industry' known hereafter as 'I.G. Farben'), German legislation and other historical documents to construct a close reading …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 …

Accounting And Pastoral Power In Australian Disability Welfare Reform, Mona Nikidehaghani, Corinne L. Cortese, Freda C. Hui

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper draws on Foucault's concept of pastoral power to explore the role of accounting in the Australian disability welfare reform. We provide an example of the use of individualising and totalising power against a backdrop of neoliberal reform. Our analysis reveals the centrality of accounting practices in transforming the identity of people with disabilities into one consistent with the intentions of neoliberalism ideology. Our findings demonstrate that accounting practices associated with disability welfare reform have been integral in exercising pastoral power. We further demonstrate that accounting, as a technology of the self, facilitates individualising and totalising control and, through …

Assessing The Link Between Cultural Influences And Persuasibility In Online Daily Deals, Morakot Ditta-Apichai, Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Individual's susceptibility to persuasion and cultural values are important factors that influencing consumer buying behaviour. This paper assesses the linkage between an individual's persuasibility to cultural values in online Daily Deals (DD) in their tourism and hospitality deal choices. DD websites are the online platforms that offer a variety of deals and display different types of persuasive information to influence buying decisions. Using correlation analysis of 423 online DD buyers, this paper shows that individual differences in persuasibility significantly link to specific cultural values and thus extends the persuasion literature. It also provides relevant practical implications on the role of …

A Critique Of Prospect Theory And Framing With Particular Reference To Consumer Decisions, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Prospect theory is criticized in this article for being borrowed from psychology without appropriate acknowledgement, for requiring mathematical calculations that are beyond the average person, for not investigating information processing during prospect theory choices, and for lacking application to real-world decisions-such as important product and service choices made by consumers. Further criticism is leveled at the prospect theory-derived technique known as "framing," which is based on one-sided presentation of information and would be unethical in most consumer behavior situations.

Conformance Or Evasion: Employment Legislation And Employment Practices In Self-Contained Tourist Resorts, Ali Najeeb, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how resort managers respond to employment legislation (Law No.02/2008).

Design/methodology/approach: The qualitative case study data from seven self-contained tourist resorts in the Maldives were used to investigate the managerial responses to employment legislation.

Findings: Resort managers' responses ranged from passive compliance to active resistance, with decoupling through opportunism as the dominant strategy used to circumvent the legislation. Some human resource management (HRM) practices emerged from resort managers' interactions with external stakeholders and employees. Strategic responses and HRM practices were driven by a search for legitimacy or efficiency and …

Engaging Postgraduate International Students Online: An Autoethnographic Reflection Revealing Lessons Learned As An Early Career Academic, Laura L. Rook

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This article presents an autoethnographic account of a project implemented to increase online student engagement in a postgraduate organisational behaviour subject comprised predominantly of international students. Autoethnography provided a lens to critically explore my andragogical practice as an early career academic (ECR) engaged in teaching across multiple campuses and online in a regional university. Following Brookfield's (2017) process of critical reflection whereby the illumination of power is considered, my reflections are presented and the valuable lessons I learned are highlighted. This account aims to extend our sociological understanding of online student engagement and the challenges experienced as an ECR, while …

In Search Of The "Right Price" For Air Travel: First Steps Towards Estimating Granular Price-Demand Elasticity, Suranga Perera, David Tan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Identifying price-demand elasticity for air travel using empirical data is fraught with issues. The largest of which is the problem of endogeneity. In this paper, we introduce instrumental variables derived from flow traffic passenger numbers to overcome endogeneity. When analyzing the price-demand relationship using flight date-point of sale and booking date-days to departure level data, flow traffic has the ideal property of influencing ticket prices via an airline's inventory control function yet is uncorrelated with demand shocks in the origin and destination market of interest. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression models report that the demand of the given market is …

Emissions Pricing Policies And Business Cycles: Fixed Vs. Variable Tax Regimes, Fariba Ramezani, Charles Harvie, Amir Arjomandi

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

As by-products, emissions follow economic fluctuations. Ignoring this fact in environmental policies can lead to unexpected emissions fluctuations and an increase in intervention costs. Using a real business cycle model, we compare two policies: a fixed tax policy where the price is constant over time and a variable tax regime where the tax rate is set at the beginning of each period. We find that while both programs result in lower emissions, a variable tax regime is preferable since first, it can ensure that the maximum welfare is always achieved, and second, it is more effective in stabilising emissions.

General Public Perceptions And Motivations To Adopt Children From Out-Of-Home Care In New South Wales, Australia, Betty Luu, Amy Conley Wright, Melanie J. Randle

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Recent reforms in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, prioritise adoption over long-term foster care. While previous research has examined motivation to foster, less is known about the interest by the general public in adoption from out-of-home care. A general sample of the NSW public (N = 1030) completed an online survey about adoption practices and their willingness to consider adopting from out-of-home care, with background questions on perceived social support and life satisfaction. Barriers to pursuing adoption were identified, including concerns about the characteristics of the child related to their experiences of care and personal impacts including financial costs. Availability …

A Public Health Advocacy Approach For Preventing And Reducing Gambling Related Harm, Jennifer David, Samantha L. Thomas, Melanie J. Randle, Mike Daube

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Objective: To develop a framework to guide the application of public health advocacy strategies aimed at preventing and reducing gambling-related harm.

Methods: A narrative review of theories of change and public health advocacy literature.

Results: An eight-step public health advocacy framework was created, which outlines the critical steps and considerations when developing and implementing successful change efforts.

Implications for public health: To date, a clear public health advocacy approach to gambling harm prevention and reduction has not been well established. This study proposes a gambling specific framework to guide future public health advocacy efforts to prevent …

An Investigation In The Sustainable Economic Practices Of Ecovillages, Oriana Price, Mary Johnsson, Emma Heffernan, Belinda Gibbons

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Ecovillages represent an alternative yet innovative form of residential living that prioritises community and sustainability. However, prior worldwide research suggests that 90% of ecovillages fail to sustain as living communities. This 2019 report represents Phase 2 of a small project investigating practices within one Australian ecovillage. The original focus was on what kinds of economic practices can help to sustain ecovillage viability. The findings that emerged suggest that an integrated learning approach that considers sociocultural, ecological and economic factors might develop a more durable approach to practising and ‘living’ sustainability.

Factors Affecting The Liquidity Of Commercial Banks In India: A Longitudinal Analysis, Shyam S. Bhati, Anura De Zoysa, Wisuttorn Jitaree

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the long-term effect of various regulatory, bank-specific and macroeconomic factors on the determination of liquidity in Indian banks. For this purpose, the study uses a random effect panel data regression model and tests it with data on Indian banks for 21 years, covering the period from 1996 to 2016. The model considers the effect of regulatory factors, cash reserve ratio, and statutory liquidity, and incorporates four different liquidity ratios specific to the Indian banking scenario. The results of the analysis show contrasting relationships between the independent variables and the dependent variables measured by four liquidity ratios. It …

Institutional Investors, Controlling Shareholders And Ceo Pay‐Performance Relationship: Evidence From China, Dan Zhang, Shiguang Ma, Xiaofei Pan

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Using a large sample of China's listed firms between 2005 and 2015, we find that domestic mutual funds have a positive effect on the CEO pay‐performance relationship, and this effect becomes stronger when their ownership is higher and closer to the controlling shareholder's ownership. This effect is stronger in non‐state‐owned enterprises (non‐SOEs), firms facing weaker industry competition incentives, and firms located in more developed regions. However, Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs) do not have such an influence. Overall, our study contends that the effectiveness of institutional investors' monitoring role is subject to their identity, controlling shareholders and institutional environments.

Gastronomic Trails As Service Ecosystems, Namita Roy, Ulrike Gretzel, Gordon R. Waitt, Venkata K. Yanamandram

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Gastronomic trails are a growing phenomenon in the context of gastronomic tourism. Gastronomic trails provide guidance for exploring foodscapes (Hall and Gössling 2016) or culinary terroirs (Croce and Perri 2010), and are therefore considered effective means for enhancing tourist experiences. With the growth in understandings of gastronomic tourism, trails have also been used as an important tourism development tool (Plummer et al. 2005; Bruwer 2003; Boyne et al. 2002). These trails are typically themed around different types of food or beverages. Examples of such trails include 'Craft Beer Trails', 'Wine Trails', 'Chocolate Routes', or 'Cheese Trails'.