Business Commons^™

Validly Measuring Destination Image In Survey Studies, Sara Dolnicar, Bettina Grun

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Destination image is among the most frequently measured constructs in empirical survey research. Academic tourism researchers tend to use multi-category scales, often referring to them as "Likert scales," while industry typically uses "pickany" measures. But which leads to results that are more valid? Findings from a large-scale experimental study show that a "forced-choice full binary" format (where respondents have to tick "yes" and "no" for each destination-attribute combination) performs better than both current preferred formats in academic and applied studies.

Application Of The Task-Technology Fit Model To Structure And Evaluate The Adoption Of E-Books By Academics, John D'Ambra, Concepcion S. Wilson, Shahriar Akter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Increasingly, e-books are becoming alternatives to print books in academic libraries, thus providing opportunities to assess how well the use of e-books meets the requirements of academics. This study uses the task-technology fit (TTF) model to explore the interrelationships of e-books, the affordances offered by smart readers, the information needs of academics, and the "fit" of technology to tasks as well as performance. We propose that the adoption of e-books will be dependent on how academics perceive the fit of this new medium to the tasks they undertake as well as what added-value functionality is delivered by the information technology …

A Template For Integrated Reporting, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – This paper sets out to outline the concept of integrated reporting and to propose a template for integrated reporting in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach to the conceptual model is founded on concepts proposed on integrated reporting by the King Report on Governance for South Africa (King III), and the International Integrated Reporting Council in the U.K.

Findings – The integrated report should explain the story of reaching the organisation’s vision, underpinned by its values, enacted by management, monitored by governance, and using facets of resources relating to financial capital, intellectual capital, social capital, and environmental capital.

Practical …

Metacapitalism Vs Healthcare, Sanja Pupovac, George M. Mickhail

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The aim of this paper is to critically examine the effect of the MetaCapitalism strategy changes on Australian healthcare sector companies during the period 1989-2007, and to establish whether there is any relationship between those changes and any adverse corporate consequences, such as: corporate collapses, acquisitions, mergers, delisting from the ASX 200. The main rationale behind the MetaCapitalism strategy, is that by aggressively reducing physical assets, outsourcing production and downsizing of the workforce, then firms will become at the same time efficient and profitable through participating in this highly competitive technological era. However, this uninhibited pursuit of efficiency by corporations …

Does Health Capital Have Differential Effects On Economic Growth?, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Investigating the impact of health capital disaggregated by gender on economic growth in a sample of 210 countries over the 1990-2008 period, this study suggests that the influence of health capital across countries cannot be generalised. Results for the full sample indicate that health capital does not have a robust and significant effect on economic growth unless through their interactions with health expenditure and education. The results disaggregated by income group reveal that health capital has a positive robust influence on economic growth in high and upper middle income economies. In low and low middle income economies, health capital gains …

Are Low-Skill Public Sector Workers Really Overpaid? A Quasi-Differenced Panel Data Analysis, Peter Siminski

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Public–private sectoral wage differentials have been studied extensively using quantile regression techniques. These typically find large public sector premiums at the bottom of the wage distribution. This may imply that low skill workers are ‘overpaid’, prompting concerns over efficiency. We note several other potential explanations for this result and explicitly test whether the premium varies with skill, using Australian data. We use a quasi-differenced Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data model which has not been previously applied to this topic, internationally. Unlike other available methods, this technique identifies sectoral differences in returns to unobserved skill. It also facilitates a …

Careers And Organisational Objectives: Managing Competing Interests In Cooperative Research Centres, Sam Garrett-Jones, Tim Turpin, Kieren Diment

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Research of potential socio-economic value is often conducted within cross-sector (government, university, business) centres. There has been growing interest among science policy researchers in seeking to understand the organizational dilemmas confronted in cross-sector research collaboration. While there is clearly a coalition of interests among partners engaged with collaborative research their broader organizational objectives and strategies may converge, diverge, or even compete. Yet little empirical evidence exists on (a) how individual researchers perceive the benefits of their participation, (b) how far the structures and functions of particular collaborative R&D centres coalesce around of researchers’ expectations and, (c) what problems arise for …

Innovation And Economic Education: An Integration, Eduardo Pol

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Almost everyone agrees on the importance of educating a broad spectrum of the public about economics and business. It has been suggested by experts in economic education that universities should place greater emphasis on economics as a general education. The present paper develops a proposal to integrate innovation into elementary economic education that business faculties might use to enrich their general economic education offerings. We believe the proposal can be implemented through the design of a new subject - which may be called the 'Creative Economy' - supported by a method of teaching and learning by successive approximations. The study …

Extending The Use Of Market Orientation: Transforming A Charity Into A Business, Paul A. Chad

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Charities play a crucial role within society but are facing growing competition. Adopting a market orientation assists for-profit organisations to improve performance and can potentially also assist charities. This paper examines the under-researched topic of how market orientation can be appropriately introduced into a charity, and the resultant effect upon performance. A charity that introduced market orientation is examined using a discourse transformation framework. Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews of employees identifies how management changed the organisation through use of a three-phase process of new managerialism, professionalism and embedding. Few if any papers have previously examined how management of a …

Does The Interest Rate For Business Loans Respond Asymmetrically To Changes In The Cash Rate?, Abbas Valadkhani, Amir Arjomandi, Martin J. O'Brien

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article examines the dynamic relationship between the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA's) cash rate and the variable interest rate for lending to small businesses. The relationship is evaluated via an asymmetric GARCH model using monthly data spanning from August 1990 to October 2012. Our results show that a 1 percentage point increase in the cash rate results in an instantaneous 1.086 percentage point rise in the variable rate for small businesses, whereas an equivalent 1 percentage point cut only leads to a 0.862 percentage point fall with a delay of up to 2 months. This outcome has obvious implications …

Layoffs And Urban Poverty In The State-Owned Enterprise Communities In Shaanxi Province, China, Zhiming Cheng

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper applies a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods to examine urban poverty in China’s state-owned enterprise communities where laid-off workers concentrate. A sequential explanatory model using interviews, Participatory Poverty Assessments and community household survey on textile and military industries in Shaanxi Province of northwestern China shows that low-income households suffered multidimensional disadvantages. Qualitative techniques have helped to reveal the hidden aspects of poverty while statistical tools have captured holistic information on the communities. These approaches together (Q-squared) consider both the outsiders’ and insiders’ views on the laid-off poor and benefit the making of effective anti-poverty …

Heterogeneity Among Potential Foster Carers: An Investigation Of Reasons For Not Foster Caring, Melanie Randle, Leonie Miller, Sara Dolnicar, Joseph Ciarrochi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Although Australia is experiencing a shortage of foster carers, there is currently little understanding of why people do not become carers. This study explores the reasons given for not fostering though a survey of 897 non carers. Results indicate that, at the aggregate level, people do not become carers because they do not know anything about fostering, or because they are busy with their own children, work, or commitments to family and friends. However, if we account for heterogeneity, differences in these barriers are observed for subgroups within the sample. We investigate the structure of the market of potential foster …

Occupational Health And Safety Management In Organizations: A Review, Michael Zanko, Patrick Dawson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In examining the research literature on occupational health and safety (OHS), this paper argues that the growth in the number of specialists in OHS has resulted in an emphasis on policy and practice away from more scholastic concerns previously addressed by academics in the disciplines of psychology and sociology. A hiatus has occurred, and this is evidenced by the general absence of studies in management, even though OHS is increasingly seen as a key operational and strategic concern of business organizations. The authors call for OHS to be placed firmly on the research agenda of management scholars, and advocate the …

A Dissemination Methodology For Learning And Teaching Developments Through Engaging And Embedding, Lesley Treleaven, Chris Sykes, Jarrod Ormiston

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Dissemination of learning and teaching innovation in higher education requires approaches to change that are socially contextualised, dynamic and self-reflexive. This article, therefore, presents a methodology for dissemination employing an embedding heuristic and engaging in participatory action research. The embedding approach emphasises three organisational domains of action: first, the capacity of communities of practice and distributed leaders to generate organisational commitment and seed activities; second, formal and informal organisational policies and procedures that provide reciprocal processes for initiating and systematically sustaining curricular change; and, third, accessible resources, tools and databases that support implementation of innovation. The methodology is applicable for …

How To Use Qualitative Research To Design A Managerially Useful E-Service Questionnaire, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

E-service questionnaires must be content-aligned with the company or organization’s customer relationship management system (CRM). Four phases of qualitative research will ensure this alignment. The first phase is a qualitatively evaluative search of the practitioner literature on e-retailing, both B2B and B2C, and on CRM so as to capture evolving knowledge in both fields. The second phase is individual depth interviews (IDIs) with potential, current, and lapsed customers to map their e-interactive behavior and experiences. The third phase is dyadic depth interviews (DDIs) with the marketing manager and the website designer to fully understand the company’s current and potential e-service …

Tribes In Personal Finance? The Dave Ramsey Phenomenon, Ciorstan Smark

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: This paper explores the Dave Ramsey financial planning phenomenon (comprising his syndicated Radio Programs; Books on the New York Times Bestseller List; Twitter and Facebook presence; Program of Live events and seminars) and considers whether this financial planning phenomena meets the criteria set out by Godin (2008, 13) for a "tribe" and by Foucault (1977) for a "disciplinary Institution".

Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs a form of the Socratic or dialogue approach to explore and comment on various aspects of the tribe mentality that is evident in Davey Ramsey phenomenon. The discourse seeks to deconstruct the alignment of the phenomenon …

Informing Destination Recommender Systems Design And Evaluation Through Quantitative Research, Ulrike Gretzel, Yeong-Hyeon Hwang, Daniel Fesenmaier

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - Destination recommender systems need to become truly human-centric in their design and functionality. This requires a profound understanding of human interactions with technology as well as human behavior related to information search and decision-making in the context of travel and tourism. This paper seeks to review relevant theories that can support the development and evaluation of destination recommender systems and to discuss how quantitative research can inform such theory building and testing. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a review of information search and decision-making literatures, a framework for the development of destination recommender systems is proposed and the implications …

Public Sector Commercial Orientation And The Social Contract: A Study Of Performance Management In A Non-Competitive Environment, Ali Rkein, Brian H. Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to study the workings of commercial orientation, with a focus on performance management, in an environment that is characterised by limited competition between the public and the private sectors and a high level of government social responsibility. Design/methodology/approach - An interpretive case study approach is adopted for this study. It draws on primary data from interviews with key personnel in public sector organisations, and on secondary data from government publications such as annual reports and budget papers. Findings - This study shows that the market-based performance management system has failed to achieve …

The Contribution Of Vacations To Quality Of Life, Sara Dolnicar, Venkata Yanamandram, Katie Cliff

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The contribution of vacations to people’s life satisfaction and Quality of Life (QOL) has recently attracted substantial attention among tourism researchers. Yet, most QOL scales do not include vacations: 7% explicitly measure vacations whereas 42% only include items relating to vacations within the broader Leisure domain. Leisure and vacations, however, differ substantially in nature with leisure referring to regular home-based activities and vacations being infrequent leisure activities away from home. As a consequence of the common amalgamation of vacations with leisure, there is limited knowledge about the specific contribution of vacations to people’s QOL. The present study (1) presents empirical …

Water Conservation Behavior In Australia, Sara Dolnicar, Anna Hurlimann, Bettina Grun

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Ensuring a nation’s long term water supply requires the use of both supply-sided approaches such as water augmentation through water recycling, and demand-sided approaches such as water conservation. Conservation behavior can only be increased if the key drivers of such behavior are understood. The aim of this study is to reveal the main drivers from a comprehensive pool of hypothesized factors. An empirical study was conducted with 3094 Australians. Data was analyzed using multivariate linear regression analysis and decision trees to determine which factors best predict self-reported water conservation behavior. Two key factors emerge: high level of pro-environmental behavior; and …

Hope For The Future: Identifying The Individual Difference Characteristics Of People Who Are Interested In And Intend To Foster-Care, Joseph V. Ciarrochi, Melanie J. Randle, Leonie M. Miller, Sara Dolnicar

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

High-quality foster placements can help a foster-child to thrive and can counter some of the risk factors normally associated with being a foster-child. Unfortunately, demand for foster-carers has been outstripping supply. The present study sought to identify the characteristics of people who have high potential to become a foster-carer. A large, representative sample from the general population (544 male; 544 female; Mage = 40.8; SD = 13) completed an anonymous survey that included comprehensive measurement of demographics, personal resources (e.g. social support), personal characteristics (e.g. hope) and foster-care interest, intentions and information seeking. Analyses revealed that people who sought information …

Factors Affecting The Export Participation And Performance Of Thai Manufacturing Small And Medium Sized Enterprises (Smes), Yot Amornkitvikai, Charles Harvie, Teerawat Charoenrat

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper employed the 2007 Thai Industrial Census to empirically examine the effects of firm-specific and industry factors on a firm’s decision to export and the export performance of 65,111 Thai manufacturing SMEs which are classified into eight submanufacturing groups. Six econometric models are indentified to capture linear and nonlinear effects of firm-specific factors as well as to analyze each industry effect for Thai manufacturing SMEs. Four limited dependent variable models (i.e., the probit model, the logit model, the linear probability model, and the Tobit model) are used to study the factors affecting a firm’s export decision and its export …

Bragging Rights And Destination Marketing: A Tourism Bragging Rights Model, Gregory M. Kerr, Clifford Lewis, Lois Burgess

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In a study seeking to understand destination choice, focus group participants consisting of travellers, mentioned the importance of ‘bragging rights’. Additionally, tourism marketers when interviewed about destination choice also referred to bragging rights. An online search of ‘travel’, ‘tourism’ and ‘bragging rights’ revealed thousands of links. Despite this, bragging rights has received limited attention in tourism research. This paper defines bragging rights, discusses its relevance to tourism and proposes a conceptual model suggesting how bragging rights can be managed by destination marketers to enhance destination image and consequently increase visitation.

The Use Of Team-Based Learning As An Approach To Increased Engagement And Learning For Marketing Students: A Case Study, Paul Chad

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Marketing educators are often faced with poor preclass preparation by students, declining student interest in attending classes as the semester progresses, and student complaints regarding previous bad experiences with team assessment activities. Teambased learning (TBL) is an innovative teaching strategy using semiformalized guidelines aimed to enhance student engagement and improve teamwork and, hence, overcome the typical problems faced by educators. This case study examines the firsttime use of TBL in a postgraduate marketing subject at an Australian university. The results indicate that the TBL innovation has a positive influence on student engagement and offers opportunities to assist learning. The study …

'So, What Did You Do?' A Performative, Practice-Based Approach To Examining Informal Learning In Wil, Bonnie Amelia Dean, Chris Sykes, Jan Turbill

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A growing body of research in work-integrated learning (WIL) demonstrates the importance of industry experience for student learning. Much of this research however focuses on individual, formal learning that occurs in WIL programs typically captured through assessment. What is less visible is the informal learning experienced during placement. In this paper, we argue that such omissions are suggestive of the incommensurability of the standard paradigm of learning with informal learning. The standard paradigm limits informal learning by privileging individual, cognitive processes of recall, thereby casting experience as “static and sedimented, separated from knowledge making processes” (Fenwick, 2009, p.235). This paper …

An Empirical Analysis Of Iran's Banking Performance, Amir Arjomandi, Charles Harvie, Abbas Valadkhani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency and productivity growth of the Iranian banking industry between 2003 and 2008, encompassing pre- and post-2005-reform years.

Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a new decomposition of the Hicks-Moorsteen total factor productivity index developed by O’Donnell to analyse efficiency and productivity changes in a banking context. The advantage of this approach over the popular constant-returns-to-scale Malmquist productivity index is that it is free from any assumptions concerning firms’ optimising behaviour, the structure of markets, or returns to scale. The paper assumes that the production technology exhibits variable returns to …

Comparative Critique Of The Performance Evaluation Methods In The Australian Energy Industry, Feng Li, George M. Mickhail

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficiency of business evaluation methods in the Australian energy industry during the periods from 1989 to 2007. The six commonly used business evaluation methods (CAPM, WACC, EVA, P/E ratio, DCF and MetaCapitalism) were selected and compared with the share price in the whole market, listed market and delisted market, to explore which valuation methods were better for evaluating business performance in the Australian energy sector over the long-term. An empirical analysis using linear regression, we find evidence that CAPM is a much better method for listed companies to measure the rate …

Continuance Of Mhealth Services At The Bottom Of The Pyramid: The Roles Of Service Quality And Trust, Shahriar Akter, Pradeep Ray, John D'Ambra

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Continued usage of information systems (or, IS continuance) has proven to be a critical success parameter for ICT implementation at the top of the global economic pyramid. However, there are few studies which have explored continued IS usage at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP) though it represents the majority of the world's population. To fill this knowledge gap, this study develops an mHealth continuance model at the BOP framing the impact of two post adoption expectation beliefs (i.e., perceived service quality and perceived trust). This study extends ECM (expectation confirmation model) perspective synthesizing the extant literature on continued …

Biclustering: Overcoming Data Dimensionality Problems In Market Segmentation, Sara Dolnicar, Sebastian Kaiser, Katie Lazarevski, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Data-driven market segmentation is a popular and widely used segmentation method in tourism. It aims to identify market segments among tourists who are similar to each other, thus allowing a targeted marketing mix to be developed. Typically data used to segment tourists are characterized by small numbers of respondents and large numbers of survey questions. Small samples and numerous questions cause serious methodological problems that have typically been addressed by using factorcluster analysis to reduce the dimensionality of data. Recently, factor-cluster analysis has been shown as an unacceptable solution to the problem of high data dimensionality in segmentation. In this …

A Taxonomy Of Mobile Applications In Tourism, Heather Kennedy-Eden, Ulrike Gretzel

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The rapid growth in the use of smart phones and respective mobile applications has created new ways for the tourism industry to connect with their visitors while travelling. This paper proposes a taxonomy of mobile apps in tourism from two perspectives: a taxonomy on what services travel-related apps provide to the user and a taxonomy based on the level of customization the user has with the mobile application. The taxonomies provide insights into app development trends as well as gaps in the mobile app landscape. Understanding the opportunities currently provided by apps is also critical from a marketing perspective.