Business Commons^™

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 …

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 …

An Activity-Theory Analysis Of Corporate Wikis, Helen M. Hasan, Charmaine C. Pfaff

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: Wiki technologies, which are popular in social settings, are beginning to contribute to more flexible and participatory approaches to the exploitation of knowledge in corporate settings. Through the lens of activity theory, this paper aims to investigate contentious challenges to organizational activities that may be associated with the introduction of corporate wikis, in particular the potential democratization of knowledge work. Design/methodology/approach: From a study of several cases of corporate wiki adoption, this paper presents and interprets two representative cases sampled to provide more generalized results. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observation. The analysis followed a systematic …

Trends In Emissions Across The States Of Australia 1998-99 To 2007-08: A Shift-Share Analysis, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Ying Liu

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reviews structural changes in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) in eight Australian states and territories over the period 1998 to 1999 to 2007 to 2008. A shift-share analysis decomposes the changes of an emission between these two periods into parts ( a national-share component, an industry-mix component and a state-shift component) in order to account for the ecological competitiveness of the states and territories. The results suggest that the changes in state emissions have been substantial, and tend to reflect national, industry and regional policy changes.

Identification Of Serpina1 As Single Marker For Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Through Microarray Meta Analysis And Quantification Of Its Discriminatory Power In Independent Validation, Klemens Vierlinger, Markus H. Mansfeld, Oskar Koperek, Christa Nöhammer, Klaus Kaserer, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Background Several DNA microarray based expression signatures for the different clinically relevant thyroid tumor entities have been described over the past few years. However, reproducibility of these signatures is generally low, mainly due to study biases, small sample sizes and the highly multivariate nature of microarrays. While there are new technologies available for a more accurate high throughput expression analysis, we show that there is still a lot of information to be gained from data deposited in public microarray databases. In this study we were aiming (1) to identify potential markers for papillary thyroid carcinomas through meta analysis of public …

Resource Price Turbulence And Macroeconomic Adjustment For A Resource Exporter: A Conceptual Framework For Policy Analysis, Grant M. Cox, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Increased global demand for energy and other resources, particularly from the rapidly developing economies of China and India and the opening up of global resource markets to global investors and speculative activity, has resulted in considerable recent turbulence in resource prices. The recent magnitude of change in resource prices, both positive and negative, and their macroeconomic implications is of considerable contemporary importance to both resource importing and exporting economies. For a resource exporting economy, such as that of Australia, the recent resource price boom has resulted in: increased government taxation revenue, increased employment and wages in the resource and resource …

The Unit Of Analysis In Is Theory: The Case For Activity, Helen Hasan, Sumayya Banna

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In the field of IS, researchers use and adapt existing theories to make sense of their data. They also build new theory from their research findings. The way theory is used, adapted or created usually assumes a certain unit of analysis, which could be the artefact, the system, the organisation, the user, the developer, the team or something else. In this paper we propose that ‘activity’ should also be considered as a suitable unit of analysis for theory in IS since the purpose of any information systems is to facilitate activities of use. To support this proposition, we describe tenets …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Retention Of Dissatisfied Business Services Customers Using Structural Equation Modelling, Venkata K. Yanamandram, Lesley White

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study extends the body of literature concerning service switching, complaint handling, dependence and commitment by investigating why dissatisfied B2B customers do not switch service providers. Specifically, it develops and tests a social exchange-based model examining how dissatisfied, but behaviourally loyal, customers act in terms of their repurchase intentions. A conceptual model, specifying a set of hypothesised relationships between dimensions of switching costs, interpersonal relationships, dimensions of complaint handling, satisfaction with complaint handling, attractiveness of alternatives, dependence, calculative commitment and repurchase intentions, was examined using AMOS 17.0 on a sample of 376 business directors/managers from responding organisations. The results show …

Are External Shocks Permanent Or Transitory? An Analysis Of Visitor Arrivals To Thailand, Ali S. Saleh, Reetu Verma, Ranjith Ihalanayake

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Tourism industry in Thailand has recently experienced several external shocks such as September 11 attacks, SARS outbreak, Bird Flu, Political unrest and the recent global financial crisis which may have a temporary or permanent impact on the number of visitor arrivals to the country. This paper conducts univariate and panel Lagrange Multiplier tests with a break proposed by Lee and Strazicich (2004) and Im, Lee, and Tieslau (2005) to identify the time of the structural break and to determine whether shocks to visitor arrivals to Thailand have a temporary or permanent impact. We use annual data for Thailand’s top ten …

Measuring Technical Inefficiency Factors For Thai Listed Manufacturing Enterprises: A Stochastic Frontier (Sfa) And Data Envelopment Analysis (Dea), Yot Amornkitvikai, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study employs stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and two-stage DEA approaches to predict firm technical efficiency and analyse an inefficiency effects model for overall Thai listed manufacturing sector enterprises including sub-listed manufacturing sector enterprises using an unbalanced panel data for 178 Thai listed manufacturing enterprises over the period 2000 to 2008. Both estimation approaches are found to produce consistent results for overall Thai listed manufacturing sector enterprises. For sub-listed manufacturing sector enterprises both approaches empirically find quite consistent results in coefficient signs, but significance results from both estimation approaches may be different. Focusing on overall Thai listed enterprises both approaches …

A Welfare Analysis Of The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, Peter M. Siminski

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC) is a key element of a suite of benefits for Australia's 'self-funded retirees'. Its main component is a pharmaceutical concession, which is analysed as a form of public health insurance. The utility gain through risk-pooling is found to be negligible under conservative assumptions. The deadweight loss through moral hazard may be considerable. Finally, the CSHC may be seen as an inequitable transfer, because CSHC holders are a particularly wealthy population.

Interactive Visualization Of Clusters In Microarray Data: An Efficient Tool For Improved Metabolic Analysis Of E. Coli, Theresa Scharl, Gerald Striedner, Florentina Potschacher, Friedrich Leisch, Karl Bayer

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Background Interpretation of comprehensive DNA microarray data sets is a challenging task for biologists and process engineers where scientific assistance of statistics and bioinformatics is essential. Interdisciplinary cooperation and concerted development of software-tools for simplified and accelerated data analysis and interpretation is the key to overcome the bottleneck in data-analysis workflows. This approach is exemplified by gcExplorer an interactive visualization toolbox based on cluster analysis. Clustering is an important tool in gene expression data analysis to find groups of co-expressed genes which can finally suggest functional pathways and interactions between genes. The visualization of gene clusters gives practitioners an understanding …

Exploratory And Inferential Analysis Of Gene Cluster Neighborhood Graphs, Theresa Scharl, Ingo Voglhuber, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Background Many different cluster methods are frequently used in gene expression data analysis to find groups of co-expressed genes. However, cluster algorithms with the ability to visualize the resulting clusters are usually preferred. The visualization of gene clusters gives practitioners an understanding of the cluster structure of their data and makes it easier to interpret the cluster results. Results In this paper recent extensions of R package gcExplorer are presented. gcExplorer is an interactive visualization toolbox for the investigation of both the overall cluster structure and single clusters. The different visualization options including arbitrary node and panel functions are described …

The Use Of Computer Supported Analysis For Interview Data: A Cross-Cultural Example From The Electronic Gaming Industry, June Buchanan, Michael L. Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Computer assisted analysis has long been a major factor of quantitative analysis. This paper illustrates the use of computer assisted analysis for qualitative research, looking specifically at research in the Electronic Gaming Industry, across two country sectors – New South Wales, Australia and Nevada, USA, where empirical data are collected and analysed. The paper highlights the important place that computer assisted analysis holds in social and societal marketing. A detailed discussion explains how analysis was undertaken in the Electronic Gaming Industry, and how concepts and theory emerged. This paper discusses the qualitative approach used in this research. In particular, it …

A Theoretical Analysis Of Bank Relationship, Shyam S. Bhati, Michael Mccrae, Anura De Zoysa

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper analyses the banking relationship between branch manager and loan officer of a bank branch using two theoretical approaches - Agency Theory and Trust Theory. The analysis is performed across five dimensions of the business relationship between branch manager and loan officer – supervisor subordinate relationship, delegation of authority, assumption of risk in lending, goal congruence and mutual dependence. It is concluded that Trust theory is better descriptor of the banking relationship between branch manager and loan officer as compared to Agency theory because Trust theory can explain situations involving multifaceted relationship such as one between branch manager and …

Opportunities For Interactivity In Public Health Websites: A Content Analysis Approach, Sumayya Banna, Helen M. Hasan, Joseph A. Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The Internet has many advantages over other media in the provision of information services in the area of public health. However many designers are not yet taking full advantage of its potential for interactivity. This paper examines the development of interactivity in public health websites in the increasingly important area of Palliative Care. Content analysis is used here to map the interactivity in a sample of 30 existing websites along with Heeter’s six dimensions (content and availability of choice, effort users must exert, responsiveness to the users, and the ease of adding information, monitoring the information and the system use, …

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.

Profitability Analysis Of Listed Manufacturing Companies In Sri Lanka And Malaysia: An Empirical Investigation, Anura De Zoysa, Athula S. Manawaduge, Palli Mulla K A Chandrakumara

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper uses empirical data on 161 listed manufacturing companies in Sri Lankaand Malaysia over the period of 2006 to 2008, and compares the performance of thesecompanies against two commonly used financial performance indicators: Return onAssets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). The results indicate that during this periodSri Lankan manufacturing companies were considerably more profitable than theircounterparts in Malaysia in terms of ROA but less profitable in terms of ROE. It alsoidentifies a relatively weaker position of equity investments in the manufacturing sectorof Sri Lankan companies and attributes this to a number of factors, including: arelatively poor equity market, …

An Analysis Of The Financial Services Regulations Of Australia, Shyam S. Bhati

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse various aspects of Australian Financial Services Regulation in terms of Llewellyn’s Theory of Financial Services Regulation and offer suggestions for the improvement of FSR based on the analysis. A discussion based approach is used to conduct this analysis. It is observed that the FSR Act, 2001 of Australia does not cover credit products thereby leaving an important segment of the market outside the purview of the Act. The policies developed by Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) on FSR Act relies on Industry self regulation as mechanism of creating trust and …

Empirical Analysis Of The Uae Stock Market Volatility, Sami Khedhiri, Naeem Muhammad

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Financial market volatility of developed economies have been studied extensively since the 1987 stock market crash as well as the volatility of the East Asian stock markets after the East Asian financial crisis. However the volatility characteristics of the financial markets in the Middle East are far from being thoroughly analysed despite their tremendous growth in recent years. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate the volatility characteristics of the UAE stock markets measured by fat tail, volatility clustering, and leverage effects, in order to explore a parsimonious model for the UAE stock market and predict its …

Cross-Cultural Differences In The Development Of Trust In Relational Service Exchange - An Empirical Analysis Of The Moderating Role Of Uncertainly Avoidance, Jan H. Schumann, Florian Wangenheim, Zhilin Yang, Sandra Praxmarer, Fernando Jinenez, Marcin Komor, G Shainesh

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Customer trust is of high importance for customer relationship management in services.

While service providers increasingly provide their services globally, little is known about cross-cultural differences in the way customers develop trust in their service providers. The present paper fills this void by providing a research model that builds on the idea that cross-cultural differences in the development of trust can be explained by moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance. This view is supported by results of an empirical analysis conducted in the banking context in six countries. Managerial implications are derived and directions for further research are proposed.

Lean And The Analysis Of Continuous Process Industry Supply Chains, Matthew P.J Pepper, Trevor A. Spedding

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The lean approach is a well established philosophy in the manufacturing industry. Due to increasingly competitive global markets, the scope of application for this way of thinking is widening, and continually evolving to become suitable for application into new areas - the continous process industry being a key example.

Tacit Assumptions In The Analysis Of A Creative Economy, Dr. Eduardo Pol

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The formal models of a creative economy revolve around these tacit assumptions: (1) all innovations are equally important for economic growth (equipollent innovation); (2) all innovations occur in one sector only (confined innovation); and (3) there are no innovatory discontinuities ( unruffled innovation).

The Design And Analysis Of Benchmark Experiments, Torsten Hothorn, Friedrich Leisch, Achim Zeileis, Kurt Hornik

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The assessment of the performance of learners by means of benchmark experiments is an established exercise. In practice, benchmark studies are a tool to compare the performance of several competing algorithms for a certain learning problem. Cross-validation or resampling techniques are commonly used to derive point estimates of the performances which are compared to identify algorithms with good properties. For several benchmarking problems, test procedures taking the variability of those point estimates into account have been suggested. Most of the recently proposed inference procedures are based on special variance estimators for the cross-validated performance. We introduce a theoretical framework for …

Hoglex Demand Systems And Welfare Policy In Major Asean Developing Countries: A Bayesian Analysis Using Expenditure Unit Records, Hikaru Hasegawa, Rebecca Valenzuela, Tran Van Hoa

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

the explicit and estimable HOGLEX demand system ( Tran Van Hoa, 1983, 1985 and Jerison and Jersion 1984) links for the first time an important aspect of economic theory and the statisticals of Box-Cox transformation analysis.

Dynamic Schema Navigation Using Formal Concept Analysis, Jon R. Ducrou, Bastian Wormuth, Peter W. Eklund

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper introduces a framework for relational schema navigation via a Web-based browser application that uses Formal Concept Analysis as the metaphor for analysis and interaction. Formal Concept Analysis is a rich framework for data analysis based on applied lattice and order theory. The application we develop, D-SIFT, is intended to provide users untrained in Formal Concept Analysis with practical and intuitive access to the core functionality of Formal Concept Analysis for the purpose of exploring relational database schema. D-SIFT is a Web-based information systems architecture that supports natural search processes over a preexisting database schema and its content.

Sources Of Economic Growth In Iran: A Cointegration Analysis In The Presence Of Structural Breaks, Mosayeb Pahlavani

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the major determinants of GDP growth in Iran using annual time series data spanning form 1960 to 2003.

Location Quotients And Shift-Share Analysis: A Low Cost Approach To Regional Development Planning, Ann Hodgkinson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Location quotient and shift-share analysis are traditional and somewhat old fashioned methods for regional development analysis.

A Mission-Centric Approach To Financial Ratio Analysis In The Nonprofit Sector, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Nonprofit organisations (NPOs) are melting pots combining mission, members and money. Given that the mission of a nonprofit organisation is the reason for its existence, it is appropriate to focus on financial resources in their association with mission and with the individuals who are served by that mission [1] [2] [3]. Measurement of financial performance by ratio analysis helps identify organisational strengths and weaknesses by detecting financial anomalies and focusing attention on issues of organisational importance [4].

Questions have been raised that relate the performance of NPOs to their fmancial resources, their mission and their membership. Addressing these questions is …

Managing Mission, Members And Money: A Financial Analysis Model For The Nonprofit Sector, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Nonprofit organisations (NPOs) are melting pots combining mission, members and money. Given that the mission of a nonprofit organisation is the reason for its existence, it is appropriate to focus on financial resources in their association with mission and with the individuals who are served by that mission (Parker 2003; Wooten et al 2003; Colby and Rubin 2005). Measurement of financial perfonnance by ratio analysis helps identify organisational strengths and weaknesses by detecting financial anomalies and focusing attention on issues of organisational importance (Glynn et al 2003).

Questions have been raised that relate the perfonnance of NPOs to their financial …