Business Commons^™

Desalinated Versus Recycled Water — Public Perceptions And Profiles Of The Accepters, Sara Dolnicar, A. I. Schäfer

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Many countries’ water resources are limited in both quantity and quality. While engineering solutions can now safely produce recycled and desalinated water from non-potable sources at a relatively low cost, the general public is sceptical about adopting these alternative water sources. Social scientists need to better understand what is causing this lack of acceptance by the general population and how acceptance levels for recycled and desalinated water can be increased. This study is the first to conduct a comparative analysis of knowledge, perceptions, acceptability, and determine segments of residents who are more open-minded than the general population toward the use …

Intellectual Capital Disclosure From Sell-Side Analyst Perspective, S. Abhayawansa, Indra Abeysekera

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – Research on the use/disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) information by sell-side analysts, using content analysis of their reports, is growing. The objectives of this paper are to establish the importance of this perspective in understanding the role of IC in communicating firm value, to introduce possible theoretical frameworks to interpret the findings of such studies, and to propose methodological developments. Methodology/approach – The paper argues for the need to look at IC from the perspective of sell-side analysts, and then advocates the use of several theoretical frameworks to enrich current understanding of the role of IC as it …

The Turmoil In The Markets For Mis And Ais - A Labor Process Study, Fahrettin Okcabol, George M. Mickhail, Aida Sy, Tony Tinker

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

With growing flux in MIS and AIS employment, there is increasing number of questions about the impact and direction of this technology. As far back as 1993, economic surveys consistently showed that the 1993 U.S. economic recovery was the first where white collar employment failed to bounce back (Cooper and Madigan, 1993A; Ehrear, 1993; Farrell et. al., 1993; Mandel and Farrell, 1993.) In the U.S, between March 1991 and April 1993, production jobs rose by 823,000, but white collar payrolls--managerial and administrative positions--fell by 290,000. Even after two years of expansion, non-farm jobs were still below their pre-recession level (Cooper …

Corporate Finance Practice In Kuwait: A Survey To Confront Theory With Practice, Mohammad Al Mutairi, Gary G. Tian, Andrew S. Tan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study reports the results of a survey among 80 CFOs in Kuwaitilisted firms on current corporate finance practices namely, capitalbudgeting, costs of capital, capital structure, and dividend policy.This paper analyses specifically the survey responses according tothe firm s attributes and CFO s characteristics such as firm size,sector, equity, CFO s education, ownership, tenure, age, and targetdebt ratio. The results of this survey-based analysis indicate thatthere is some evidence of the application of basic corporate financetools that are inline with what is taught in classrooms. For example,we find that a surprising number of firms are widely using IRR nowas a …

Performance Implication Of Ownership Structure And Ownership Concentration: Evidence From Sri Lankan Firms, Athula S. Manawaduge, Anura De Zoysa, Kathleen M. Rudkin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - This paper seeks to examine the impact of ownership concentration and ownership structure on firms’ performance of a sample of public listed companies in Sri Lanka in the premise of an agency theory framework.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper first investigates the nature of ownership structure and concentration and then examines whether there is strong evidence to support the observation that the variations of ownership structure across firms result in systematic variations in firm performance. This hypothesis is tested by assessing the impact of ownership structure and concentration on firm performance measured in terms of accounting profitability and market …

Using The Brand Molecule Concept To Guide The Management And Marketing Of A Professional Sports Team, Alan Pomering, Dirk Melton, Gregory Kerr

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The sports industry is an important one; it is estimated to be the 11th largest industry in the United States. Within this industry, individual sports, at both the amateur and professional levels, compete for talented players, supporters, government funding, and sponsorship dollars. It is therefore important for sports to manage their sports brands. We use Lederer and Hill’s (2001) brand molecule concept to explain the brand management implications for a professional, national sports team, the Bulldogs, a Sydney-based team in Australia’s National Rugby League competition. The brand molecule highlights for the brand manager the positive and negative atoms that comprise …

The Current State Of Commercial Location-Based Service Offerings In Australia, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, M. G. Michael, Anas Aloudat

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Location-based services (LBS) provide geographic data for a variety of purposes, and through numerous devices such as mobile phones, GPS navigation systems, palm pilots and increasingly desktop computers. Presently, there is scant information relating to the current state of the LBS market, specifically location-based service applications in Australia. This study makes use of usability context analyses to examine Australiapsilas three leading telecommunications operators- Telstra, Optus and Vodafone- with a view to providing an overview of the types of services and solutions presently offered and targeted at the consumer, business and emergency segments. There are two units of analysis (i) the …

Powerful Players: How Constituents Captured The Setting Of Ifrs 6, An Accounting Standard For The Extractive Industries, C. L. Cortese, H. J. Irvine, M. Kaidonis

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper illustrates the influence of powerful players in the setting of IFRS 6, a new International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for the extractive industries. A critical investigative inquiry of the international accounting standard setting process, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), reveals some of the key players, analyses the surrounding discourse and its implications, and assesses the outcomes. An analysis of small cross-section of comment letters submitted to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) by one international accounting firm, one global mining corporation and one industry group reveal the hidden coalitions between powerful players. These coalitions indicate that the regulatory …

A Profile Of The Non-Executive Directors Of Australia's Largest Companies, C. L. Cortese

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents a profile of the non-executive directors of Australia's largest public companies. Using descriptive data, it assesses the extent to which these companies adhere to the requirements set down in the Australian Stock Exchange's 'Principles of Good Corporate Governance'. In particular, board structure and composition is evaluated, and levels of remuneration and independence among non-executive directors are assessed. The paper concludes with a discussion of perceived versus actual independence of non-executive directors and the benefits of having non-executive directors present on company boards.

The Utility Of The Assessment Of Spirituality And Religious Sentiments (Aspires) Scale With Christians And Buddhists In Sri Lanka, R. Piedmont, M. B. Werdel, Mario Fernando

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments (ASPIRES) Scale represents spirituality as a universal source of motivation. Psychometric evidence for this argument is demonstrated when scores on the scale remain reliable and structurally valid across cultures and religious contexts. The psychometric qualities of the ASPIRES was examined with in a diverse religious sample from Sri Lanka. The results demonstrated the structural validity and applicability of the measure within this ethnic group. The data provided further support for cross-cultural applicability of the instrument and for the assumption of spirituality as a universal aspect of the human experience.

Exploring The Application Of Positioning Theory To The Analysis Of Organisational Change, G. Zelle

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The present paper proposes the application of Positioning Theory as an analytical tool in organisational change research. Positioning Theory can contribute to an enhanced understanding of organisational change. It is a discursive approach to change. Its dynamic nature can capture a detailed picture of change and provide better understanding due to attention to contexts. It allows consideration of multiple levels of social analysis - people, institutions and society. Positioning Theory in this sense has a dual relevance for research in organisational change, as a theoretical framework and a method of social analysis. Throughout the paper I develop a rationale for …

Methodological Reasons For The Theory/Practice Divide In Market Segmentation, Sara Dolnicar, Katie Lazarevski

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

A theory/practice divide exists in market segmentation. The main reasons are the focus of academic studies on statistical techniques, and managers' lack of understanding of fundamental segmentation basics (Dibb 2005; Greenberg and McDonald 1989). To date, only one study has explored methodological reasons for the theory/practice divide: Dibb and Simkin 1994. We extend their work by: (1) detailing key methodological aspects likely to cause difficulties in translating segmentation findings into managerially useful information, and (2) empirically investigating specific research questions about methodology-induced reasons for the theory/practice divide derived from both theory and the propositions of previous studies. Results indicate a …

Board Composition, Board Activity And Ownership Concentration, The Impact On Firm Performance, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper provides a parallel investigation on the impact of board composition, board activity and ownership concentration on the performance of listed Chinese firms. We find that independent directors enhance firm performance effectively than other board factors. The frequency of shareholder meetings, rather than board meetings, is positively associated with firm value. Tradable share ownership concentration has a positive and linear relationship with firm value, while state and total share ownership concentration represent U(V) shapes. Importantly, companies with the highest levels of both total share and tradable share ownership concentration have a greater firm values than companies with the highest …

Contributions Of Longitudinal Data To Poverty Measurement In Australia, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Chronic poverty is of greater social consequence than transitory poverty but its measurement requires longitudinal data. This article uses six waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to explore the extent to which longitudinal data contribute to what is known about poverty from cross-section data. We find an imperfect correspondence between people's annual poverty status and chronic poverty status. Consequently, policies that aim to reduce chronic poverty using means-tested benefits may be partially misdirected if beneficiaries are identified using annual income. Furthermore, some households experiencing chronic poverty may fall through the safety net.

Drinking Water From Alternative Water Sources: Differences In Beliefs, Social Norms And Factors Of Perceived Behavioural Control Across Eight Australian Locations, Sara Dolnicar, Anna Hurlimann

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australia is facing serious challenges in the management of water in various urban and regional locations. Two popular responses to these challenges are increasing supply through alternative water sources such as recycled and desalinated water. However, significant gaps exist in our knowledge of community attitudes to these alternative sources of water, particularly for potable use. This paper reports results from an Australian study of community attitudes to alternative water sources. Sixty six qualitative interviews were held at eight locations with distinctly different water situations. This paper explores all three antecedents to the behaviour of drinking recycled water and desalinated water …

The Power Of History: Accounting Standard Setting And The Extractive Industries In Australia, C. L. Cortese

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The application of accounting standards assists in the production of financial information that is used as the basis for decision making by a wide variety of stakeholders. Viewed in this way, the process of setting accounting standards is critical because it will ultimately generate information that will shape people’s behaviour. Accounting standard setting processes have been analysed, applauded, and critiqued by many scholars in recent decades. Lobbying efforts of constituents have been scrutinised, the standard setting processes in different geographic regions have been analysed and compared, and the economic consequences of proposed accounting alternatives have been identified and debated.

From Spider-Man To Hero - Archetypal Analysis In R, Manuel Eugster, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Archetypal analysis has the aim to represent observations in a multivariate data set as convex combinations of extremal points. This approach was introduced by Cutler and Breiman (1994); they defined the concrete problem, laid out the theoretical foundations and presented an algorithm written in Fortran. In this paper we present the R package archetypes which is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network. The package provides an implementation of the archetypal analysis algorithm within R and different exploratory tools to analyze the algorithm during its execution and its final result. The application of the package is demonstrated on two examples.

Dynamic Pricing Support Systems For Diy Retailers - A Case Study From Austria, Martin Natter, Thomas K. Reutterer, Andreas Mild

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Merchandise managers have long dreamt of automated dynamic systems to help them make well-informed pricing decisions. However, such systems have proved as elusive as the Holy Grail - until now, that is. The story of an Austrian DIY retailer shows often undetected opportunities to use valuable information, hidden in retailers' data warehouses, on consumer reactions to previous price changes in order to make automatic pricing and promotion decisions.

The Integration Of Balanced Scorecard Models, Carol J. Mcnair-Connolly, Ted Watts

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The entire focus of any balanced scorecard model (BSM) is to ensure that a wide range of events and outcomes are captured in ways useful to decision makers. An important question arises - which decision maker? And, equally important, must this decision maker be intimately familiar with a supposed organizational strategy in order to succeed? The answer to the first question helps us sort the BSMs into subgroups; the answer to the second question suggests that strategy may be as simple as the will of an organization and its members to survive to fight one more day. Building on the …

Financing Growth: New Issues By Australian Firms, 1920-1939, David Merrett, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

An expanding economy, new technologies, and changing consumer preferences provided growth opportunities for firms in interwar Australia. This period saw an increase in the number of large-scale firms in mining, manufacturing, and a wide range of service industries. Firms unable to rely solely on retained earnings to fund expansion turned to the domestic stock exchanges. A new data set of capital raisings constructed from reports of prospectuses published in the financial press forms the basis for the conclusion that many firms used substantial injections of equity finance to augment internally generated sources of funds. That they were able to do …

A Jack Of All Trades? - Aligning Policy, Mission And Structure In Cooperative Research Centres, Samuel E. Garrett-Jones, Tim Turpin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program has become the dominant model for "triple helix" cross-sector R&D cooperation in Australia. By comparison with more specialised programs in other countries the CRC program covers a very broad range of fields and objectives and might be described as a "jack of all trades". We argue that this "one size fits all" approach has become a limiting factor in the further development of cross-sector collaboration. Based on a range of prior empirical studies of CRCs we explore the environmental factors which shape the organizational structure of CRCs and identify the points of flexibility required …

Understanding Behaviour To Inform Water Supply Management In Developed Nations - A Review Of Literature, Conceptual Model And Research Agenda, Anna Hurlimann, Sara Dolnicar, Petra Meyer

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Water is a scarce resource in many parts of the developed world. Two solutions are possible to address water scarcity: conservation of existing resources, or the further production of water from new sources e.g. through recycling of wastewater or desalination of seawater. However, the main hurdle to implementation of many of these solutions is often viewed as a lack of public willingness to adopt these alternative water behaviours. Research in this area is therefore crucial. Yet, and possibly due to the interdisciplinary nature of such research, there is currently no comprehensive overview of what has been done before. This study …

Co-Creating Corporate Knowledge With A Wiki, Joseph A. Meloche, Helen M. Hasan, David Willis, Charmaine Pfaff, Yan Qi

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Wikis have a growing reputation on the open Internet for producing evolving stores of shared knowledge. However, such democratic systems are often treated with suspicion within corporations for management, legal, social, and other reasons. This article describes a field study of a corporate Wiki that has been developed to capture, and make available, organisational knowledge in a large manufacturing company as an initiative of their Knowledge Management (KM) program. As this approach to KM is a controversial and rapidly changing phenomenon, a Q Methodology research approach was selected to uncover employees- subjective attitudes to the Wiki. Activity Theory was used …

What's New In Online News?, Helen M. Hasan, Nor Hazlina Hashim, Joseph Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines aspects of the field of Information Systems (IS) concerned with its diversity and with the rapid changes within the discipline that have been incurred by the continued evolution of the IS artefact. This examination is done in order to establish the suitability of the Cynefin framework, developed for knowledge management, as a suitable tool for sense-making in IS. A description and assessment of the Cynefin framework is provided with its varied applications in both organisational practice and research. The paper then applies the framework to make sense of some historical trends and contemporary issues of IS emphasising …

A Taxonomy Of Modes Of Knowledge Sharing Between Disparate Groups, Helen M. Hasan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

While there is an abundance of literature on knowledge sharing within teams, there is a scarcity of literature on the transfer of knowledge between disparate groups where communication and coordination are difficult due to the diversity of attributes such as culture, language and priorities. The inspiration for this work comes from a project on the use of the web to enhance communication between clinicians and the families of patients in intensive care units. The paper also draws from relevant research on topics such as cross-functional teams, shared situational awareness, jointness, interagency cooperation and inter-organisational boundary- spanning. This investigation is grounded …

Serious Games: The Importance Of Play In Network-Centric Organisations, Helen M. Hasan, Irina Verenikina

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The psychology of play recognises that there are benefits of incorporating play and games at work. In this paper we report the results of an investigation into the use of gaming to develop the cooperative human aspects of team behaviour in organisations that want to increase their social network-centric capability. We show how online team gaming sessions can enhance people's awareness and mastery of collective processes underlying teamwork and cooperation in the context of the workplace. The conduct of such a session is described and the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data is presented. Lessons were learnt from use …

Is The Adjustment To Real Interest Rate Parity Asymmetric? , Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Threshold cointegration is employed in this study to test the real interest parity condition between the UK and the US. Evidence supports the asymmetric adjustment of real interest rates. The threshold error correction models indicate that negative deviations from long run real interest parity are eliminated faster than positive deviations.

Managerial Ownership, Capital Structure And Firm Value, Wenjuan Ruan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper extends prior research to examine the managerial ownership influences on firm performance through the choices of capital structures by using a new sample of S&P 500 firm in 2005. The empirical results of OLS regressions replicate the nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and firm value. However, we found that the turning points had moved up in our sample compared with previous papers, which implies that the managerial control for pursuing self-interest, and the alignment of interests between managers and other shareholders can only be achieved now by management holding more ownership in a firm than that found in …

The Role Of Education In Economic Growth, Arusha V. Cooray

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study examines the effect of the quantity and quality of education on economic growth. Using a number of proxy variables for the quantity and quality of education in a cross section of low and medium income countries, this study finds that education quantity when measured by enrolment ratios, unambiguously influences economic growth. The effect of government expenditure on economic growth is largely indirect through its impact on improved education quality.

Innovative Workplace Change: Social Well-Being And Health, Patrick M. Dawson, Michael Zanko

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Since the industrial revolution a chief concern of business organizations has been how best to organise work to maximise productivity and minimise costs. Securing and maintaining competitive advantage through new methods of work organization and systems of operation have largely centred around commercial and financial concerns rather than on the well-being of employees. Issues of occupational health and safety (OHS) have arisen in a range of working environments and legislative change has sought to ensure that safe and secure working conditions are a mandatory requirement of modern business. However, implementation of these mandates generally rests with management and whilst procedural …