Business Commons^™

Doing Hard Labour: Gendered Emotional Labour In Academic Management, Linda Hort, Mary Barrett, Liz Furlop

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores, from the authors' experiences, emotional labour as gendered experience in the area of university management in Australia. University work (teaching and research) clearly involves high levels of emotional labour. Commitment, passion and curiosity in the self and created in others are keys to developing and transmitting knowledge. But what of the managerial roles within universities? To explore the gendered nature of managerial work in the university context, the authors related to each other three critical incidents associated with their work as senior managers. These narratives were explored to determine themes within our experiences. Some of the new …

Intra Project Learning: Are The Right Questions Being Asked?, Andrew J. Sense

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper will propose and describe, a number of interdependent dimensions that form a 'learning architecture' for intra project learning.

The proposition which underpins this paper, is that members of project teams managing innovation projects within manufacturing operations, do not proactively recognise & 'engage a personal or group 'learning focus" within the management of their project activities. As such, they do not establish systems, processes or mechanisms to actively facilitate and optimise their learning within the project management activity. Consequently, they may also miss the opportunity to incorporate the available learning into the next phase of a project. As a …

Effective Teaching And Learning: A Business Education Focus, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The need to understand the process of student learning in order to improve the quality of that learning has been identified in the education literature (for example, see Biggs, 1978, 1987a, 1987b, Malton and Saljo, 1976, Ramsden, 1992). In addition, the outcomes of this learning have been identified in quantitative, qualitative or attitudinal terms (Biggs, 1990; Marton and Booth, 1997). To this end there have been a number of models of student approaches to learning (Biggs, 1988; Kember and Gow, 1989; Marton and Saljo, 1976; Zhang, 2000). Each model has considered the antecedents, and by way of application, the effectiveness …

Learning Within And Across Projects: A Comparison Of Frames, Marc Antoni, Andrew J. Sense

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In a world of global markets and fast changing competitive environments organizations need to embrace flexibility and adaptability in response to these environmental challenges. One organizational response to these conditions is that the classical functional structures of organizations are now more and more complemented by temporal organizations or projects. Projects are used to accomplish a diverse and often complex set of organizational goals or changes that would otherwise be less obtainable by the organization, or, that would overstrain the ability of the permanent organization to achieve successful outcomes. The diverse raft of projects that organizations do pursue can comprise projects …

Advertising Wearout Of Shock-Value Anti-Speeding Ads, Jennifer Thornton, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

An advertising experiment was conducted to test the advertising wearout of four anti-speeding ads, each with varying underlying "patterns" of fear arousal. The patterns of fear were established beforehand by using a dial designed to track viewers’ reactions in terms of tenseness felt. The advertising experiment involved 284 participants from a first-year University marketing class. Four experimental groups were exposed to the same antispeeding ad each week, for three sequential weeks. Measures were obtained, via a questionnaire, of the participants’ attention paid to the ad, expected effect on speeding behaviour, emotions felt, perceptions of the relevance, believability, realism of the …

You Are The Rats: Action Research, Academic Forums And The Reflective Practice Of Professional Bricoleurs, Andrew J. Sense, Richard Badham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

"I saw the University as helping us to reflect on what we are doing- they are the expert reflectors. This is particularly what I saw as X's role. Sometimes his inteIjections go above their heads, and his nine words or less, statements need to have some explanation, and I should feed this back to him. I also see the University as playing a visionary role, helping to show us new things, about what is possible. I don't see the University as helping to pull the team together - that is when it gets confusing. They are observing us, they are …

Keynote Address: Cognitive, Emotional, And Hard-Core Behaviourism As Theoretical Paradigms For Consumer Behaviour, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

When Paula asked me to be the keynote speaker at this conference, I naturally wanted to pick a big, important topic that was relevant to consumer researchers, you, the audience. I am working on three big topics at the moment, between editions of the Rossiter and Percy textbook. One topic is marketing knowledgewhat it is and how we can test it. I have a large ARC grant for that one. A second topic is a new procedure for the measurement of marketing constructs-a replacement for the narrow Churchill procedure that everyone seems to follow. Some of you have seen working …

Environmental Accounting And Accountability: Can The Opaque Be Transparent?, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Accounting and the environment can no longer be considered mutually exclusive. Accountability forms part of the philosophical justifications for current accounting practice, and as such, it is a concept that may provide a pivotal grounding upon which environmental issues may be recognised within its practice. This paper examines the radical possibilities of environmental accountability, the contribution that this could make to a new practice of accounting and ultimately, a pathway out of the environmental crisis that could be forged by such changes. Central to the development of the ideas within this work is a critique of the relationship between accountability …

A Panel-Data Study Of The Effect Of Student Attendance On University Performance, Joan R. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The literature indicates that absenteeism from university classes is a common phenomenon in Australia and North America. Whether this constitutes a problem from society’s point of view depends upon whether absenteeism has a detrimental effect on student learning. Several authors in the economics discipline have argued the affirmative although none has established a causal linkage using experimental data and appropriate statistical analysis. The study reported here used panel data on business and economics students in an introductory statistics class at an Australian university to estimate the effect of attendance on performance. The methodology takes account of unobserved heterogeneity among students …

The Kyoto Protocol: Will Cheaters Prosper?, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Environmental accounting researchers need to be involved in the formulation of national and international greenhouse gas policy in order to help ensure that there is an acceptable level of international accountability for actions that have climatic affects. This paper discusses the role of accounting within these debates.

A Model Of Quality Determinants In Internet Retailing, Julie Francis, Lesley White

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

While there is a substantial body of literature relating to the activities of Internet marketers and the technology which drives E-Commerce, less attention has been given to consumer oriented research. To partially address this gap in marketing knowledge, a preliminary model of quality determinants in Internet retailing has been developed in this paper. In-depth interviews with 14 experienced Internet shoppers provided the data that was used to develop the model. Respondents discussed what they expected from Internet retailers and the quality of service that they have received. The analysis of results indicated that inherent differences between traditional and Internet environments …

Student Responses To The Integration Of Webct Into An Accounting Subject, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

How can WebCT be integrated into classroom teaching? How can it be used to enhance the learning experience of students? Students are often hesitant about using new technology, especially if they are asked to communicate publicly in some way. The use of WebCTprovides students with valuable learning experiences as well as flexibility by offering a virtual classroom, wherever and whenever (within reason) that it suits the students. In addition, WebCT can enhance communication by encouraging online participation and overcoming students'fear ofdealing with new technology. This paper presents the result of research based on student evaluations of the integration ofthe use …

Accountability, Democracy And The World Economic Forum, Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Concerns about the state of the global environment has provided the catalyst for significant participation in 'anti-globalisation' protests. These concerns have led many to protest the general lack of social and environmental accountability displayed by multinational companies and elected government officials. This paper considers these issues within the context of a growing protest movement.

The Corporate Connection: Financial Reporting In A Large Religious/Charitable Organization In Australia, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Nonprofit organizations operate in an increasingly corporatised, competitive environment. More and more, as institutions with charitable agenda, they need to promote an image that will enhance their ability to attract the funding they require in order to continue their operations. Competition for donations is becoming more intense and society is increasing its expectations about the level of accountability desirable from such organizations. One means by which nonprofit organizations can address this issue of accountability, and present themselves to the public as financially sound and worthy of receiving donations, is through their annual financial statements. As accounting practices have changed over …

The Politics Of Sociotechnical Intervention: An Interactionist View, Karin Garrety, R Badham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism - a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology - to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping …

A View On The Process Of Accounting Standard Setting In The People’S Republic Of China, Y. Zhang, J. Andrew, H. W. Collier

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a discussion of how the People’s Republic of China is attempting to revise accounting standards. Historically, China’s accounting standards were dominated by ‘management’ accounting and compliance and achievement of goals and objectives established by central planning authority. As China seeks Foreign Direct Investment in formerly State Owned Enterprises, competitive pressures demand a change of emphasis in financial reporting. Much of the Western world is adapting IFRS for financial reporting. IFRS seems to privilege western dialogue in the adoption and acceptance of standards if PRC wishes to access the world wide capital markets. Consistency and comparability of financial …

Desperately Seeking Synergy: Interdisciplinary Research In Accounting And Business History, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In responding to the recent call for interdisciplinary research where synergies can be gained and institutional knowledge broadened, it is argued that a particularly strong case exists for aligning work on business and accounting history. The greater breadth and context about the structure of firms and their operating environment provided by business history facilitates an enhanced understanding of the forces that have driven the changing provision of management accounting services. In turn, it might be argued that historians analyzing the success or failure of firms can learn much by studying more closely the appropriateness of the accounting systems that they …

The Nature And Structure Of Trade-Financial Networks: Evidence From The New Zealand Pastoral Sector, 1860-1939, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This study applies modern network theory to trade and finance networks in the New Zealand pastoral sector before World War Two It particularly examines the manner in which networks can include trading and financial business transactions simultaneously. In addition, it provides evidence of the role of leadership in such networks, in this case played by the stock and station agents as intermediaries bringing farmers into contact with a wide range of service providers.

Powerful Friends: The Institutionalisation Of Corporate Accounting Practices In An Australian Religious/Charitable Organisation, H. J. Irvine

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The profile of accounting in the nonprofit sector has been raised substantially in recent years, due to profound changes in the institutional environment in which organizations in that sector operate. One of the factors that has resulted in the adoption of corporate-style financial management techniques, including accounting, in the nonprofit sector, has been the need for such organizations to achieve financial legitimacy. This can be achieved by means of their accounting practices, as they demonstrate a level of financial accountability that proves them to be legitimate recipients of funds from the public, from governments, and increasingly from the corporate sector. …

Denying Accountability? Australia’S International Mining Shame , Jane Andrew

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Australian mining companies are under considerable international scrutiny due to a number of high profile environmental disasters. This paper is concerned with analysising our ability to hold these companies accountable for their actions.

Poverty Intensity In Australia, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Even though poverty indices with axiomatically sound properties have been advocated for several decades, most empirical studies of poverty in Australia and elsewhere continue to use the crude, but easily understood, head-count ratio. The difficulty of interpreting the axiomatically more desirable indices is a major reason why their use has been resisted in applied poverty measurement. This paper demonstrates how the more sophisticated poverty indices can be converted into a form that is readily interpreted as a measure of poverty intensity of a group, relative to the population to which the group belongs. The resulting poverty-intensity index is easy to …

The Effect Of Geographic Mobility On Male Labour-Force Particpants In The United States, Joan R. Rodgers, John L. Rodgers

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

We use both fixed-effects and random-effects regression models to measure the effect of geographic mobility on earnings of labor-force participants in the United States. The results support the human-capital hypothesis: six years after moving, real earnings of male labor-force participants are about 20 percent higher than they would have been had the move not occurred. Men younger than 40, and men with family-unit incomes no more than five times the poverty line, experience even larger benefits from moving. The geographic mobility that is characteristic of the United States’ flexible labor market, in general, is beneficial to the movers.

Behavioral Market Segmentation Of Binary Guest Survey Data With Bagged Clustering, Sara Dolnicar, Friedrich Leisch

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Binary survey data from the Austrian National Guest Survey conducted in the summer season of 1997 were used to identify behavioural market segments on the basis of vacation activity information. Bagged clustering overcomes a number of diffculties typically encountered when partitioning large binary data sets: The partitions have greater structural stability over repetitions of the algorithm and the question of the "correct" number of clusters is less important because of the hierarchical step of the cluster analysis. Finally, the bootstrap part of the algorithm provides means for assessing and visualizing segment stability for each input variable.

International Trends In Evaluating University Research Outcomes: What Lessons For Australia, Samuel Garrett-Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

An international study compared methods used to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of university research in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and elsewhere. It aimed to provide a foundation for improving the evaluation of research and research training in Australian universities. Evaluation methods were considered in terms of their audience, the type of outputs, outcomes or impacts being measured, and the types of research funding support schemes to which they were applied. The study found that Australian research agencies are generally in line with ‘common practice’ in the countries studied, and in some cases in advance of it. The …

Some Recent Developments In The Evaluation Of University Research Outcomes In The United Kingdom, Samuel Garrett-Jones, David K. Aylward

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Three specific recent developments in the evaluation of UK university research—the Research Assessment Exercise, the common performance indicators for the research councils, and the ‘evaluation portfolio’ of the Economic and Social Research Council — are described, and how they work in practice is examined. As in other countries, we find some tension between the criteria of excellence and socioeconomic benefit in valuing research outcomes. Driven by government policy, the primacy of peer evaluation based on publications is being strongly augmented by methods and performance measures that attempt to capture the broader benefits and impacts of academic research within the context …

Celebrating The Past: Financial Management In The Third Sectore, Anne Abraham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The centrality of the mission, as opposed to the importance of fmancial outcomes, created many problems in the early financial management of third sector organisations. Thus, it is important to celebrate the contribution made by these early managers as they struggled to guide their organisation in a fiscally responsible manner. This paper has two parts. First, it considers the need for accountability from an internal organisational perspective and also as a response to the external demand for accountability. Secondly, it provides a case study of an eighty year old organisation whose early leaders were responsible for putting in place procedures …

Management Consultant - Client Relationships: Their Impact On Consultancy Outcomes In Smes, Gary I. Noble

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper reports on the findings of an empirical study that examined aspects of the consultant - client relationship (CCR) that affect the adoption of a consultant's recommendations in the context of a small or medium enterprise (SME). In addition, this study found that a SNlE client's judgement of the success of a consultancy project was based on three key factors - the financial change in the business, the gaining of new knowledge on operating an SME learnt through the consultancy and any new perspective on the business gained as a result of the consultancy. These findings are drawn from …

The Importance Of Critical Thinking In Distance Education, Joseph A. Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the particular importance of critical thinking in distance education. It poses that the unique challenge of distance education lies in giving responsibility to the students for their own education. This is particularly important in distance education, as giving direction with face to face contact is not possible.

Project Report On The Impact Of Planning And Control Sophistication On Financial Performance Of Small And Medium Manufacturing Enterprises In Australia, Hema Wijewardena, Anura De Zoysa

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Although there has been a limited amount of prior research on the relationship between planning sophistication and small enterprise perfonnance, no attention has been given to the control aspect of planning and its possible impact on financial performance. This points to a major limitation of prior research on planning and perfonnance. It is common knowledge that effective control is often necessary for achieving the maximum results from a predetermined plan of action in any organisation. Even an excellent plan may not produce the results as expected due to numerous unforseen circumstances which are internal or external to the fInn. Therefore, …

Cultural Tourism In Austria - Empirical Warning Signs Against Implicitly Setting Cultural Tourism And City Tourism Equal, Sara Dolnicar, Walter Ender

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Kulturlourismus beschaftigt tourism research and tourism development since many decades. Many concepts and classifications, surveys and studies have emerged, and yet it seems more stable einige'sehr prejudices ilber to give KultUltourismus. One of these, though hardly explicit. is pronounced, but usually implicitly but resonates is the fact and that Kulturlourismus Stadtetourismus are equated, or at least a broad vetfilgen ilber Oberschneidungsbereich. this impHzite Hypothesis is examined below, using an empirical data set. In the course of this debate kulturlouristische a priori Segments of the terms of their socio-demographic Qsterreichischen Sommerlourismus and behavioral variables characterized.

(Article written in German)