Southern Cross Business School

Fostering collaboration between practitioners and academics: managing public infrastructure

Kerry Brown et al. — Wed, 29 May 2013 22:20:58 PDT

Public infrastructure management is an economic sustainability issue that can benefit from greater collaboration between practitioners and academics.

Supervisor-subordinate relationships, accountability and wellbeing

Yvonne Brunetto et al. — Wed, 29 May 2013 21:42:29 PDT

Public policy promoting clustering as a growth strategy for firms: a comparison of the effectiveness of Australian and Italian clustering policies

Rod Farr-Wharton et al. — Wed, 29 May 2013 21:08:08 PDT

Clustering policies specifically attempts to forge links between relevant firms so as to improve the transfer of information and skills across an industry type. This study uses qualitative research methods including interviews and document analysis to compare policies promoting clustering, usually with an aim to drive innovation, as a means of creating a competitive advantage for SMEs as a way of achieving economic growth for a region. Criterion-based sampling was used to identify who to interview and which documents to analyse. In particular, an understanding of policy was achieved by reviewing specific policies related to promoting networking/clustering amongst SMEs. Results indicate, the local governments in SE Queensland, Australia and the Veneto region, Italy identified the importance of building viable networks and industry clusters and this was evident in the economic development policy documents. However, the depth and breadth of substance was greater in the Italian policy documents. The findings suggest that it is difficult to help some businesses. In the case of Italian firms there is a clear mandate to assist only “mature” clusters that have had the time required to develop a joint strategy.

Examining organizational culture within professional engineering asset management firms: the competing values framework

Yvonne Brunetto et al. — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:57:21 PDT

The impact of marital status upon the retention of older workers

Kate Shacklock et al. — Wed, 29 May 2013 00:09:44 PDT

The impact of workplace relationships on engagement, well-being, commitment and turnover for nurses in Australia and the USA

Yvonne Brunetto et al. — Tue, 28 May 2013 23:40:22 PDT

What impacts do different forms of customer involvement have on the development of services? the identification of team- and customer-related factors

Jakob Trischler et al. — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:03:01 PDT

In service design and innovation research active customer involvement has been suggested as a critical factor for developing successful services. Hence, the approach to service design and innovation has been argued to be necessarily open, cross-disciplinary and collaborative rather than closed R&D processes. Drawing upon extensive team research literature, however, it seems that the effective development of a service is affected by a number of factors and cannot be reduced to the composition of teams only. Additional impacting factors have been found to be task design and interdependence, internal team processes including bonding, conflicts and communication, and numerous external players such as length of a project, team leadership, management support and context-related factors. Further, by emphasizing on the examination of different forms of customer involvement, it appears that not only the form of customer involvement but also specific customer characteristics matter. We conclude with recommendations for future research that sets out to study different forms of customer involvement in a controlled environment.

Materiality approach in sustainability reporting: applications, dilemmas, and challenges

Yining Zhou — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:17:16 PDT

Originated from financial reporting context, the concept of materiality has been applied in and contributed to sustainability reporting, by identifying, selecting, and prioritizing sustainability issues with significant impacts. This paper identifies two dilemmas that traditional stakeholder-approach confronts, and then analyzes how materiality-approach delivers advantage by addressing the dilemmas. This paper further observes two challenges for materiality-approach reporting: complexity interrelationship of sustainability issues; and subjectivity in materiality assessment. It argues that the two challenges are inherent and basic concerns for current sustainability accounting. This paper concludes that the road of materiality to sustainability reporting would be advanced with the progress of coping with the challenges. That is, extending our insight on the complex interrelationships of sustainability issues, and on subjectivity in materiality assessment, we would not only embrace a better materiality model to future effective sustainability reporting, but also open a door to view the fundamental theoretical concerns in contemporary sustainability accounting.

Nursing Management Challenges in the Northeast of Brazil

Silvia A. Nelson — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:01:51 PDT

This paper uses Social Exchange Theory as the framework to examine the interaction between supervisor-subordinate relationships, training and affective commitment across generational cohorts for Northeast Brazilian public sector professional nurses. Quantitative data was collected from 550 public hospital nurses in North-Eastern Brazil. Path and multivariate analysis were used to test the hypotheses. The data demonstrate a significant impact of LMX and training on affective commitment and revealed significant differences between generational cohorts. Northeastern Brazilian health managers need to manage the training investment better and seek to optimise LMX to enhance the commitment of all cohorts and improve patient care.

Africa- EU partnership on energy

Michael B. Charles et al. — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:45:33 PDT

Emergency service volunteers: affiliation and commitment

Tony Baxter-Tomkins et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:07:36 PDT

This paper presents some qualitative research from a larger sociological study of the lived experiences of emergency services volunteers in New South Wales, Australia. It applies psychological contract theory, usually used in human resource management studies in relation to members of the paid workforce, in a novel way. Using this theory it examines the motivations and reciprocal relationships experienced by emergency services volunteers with each other, their volunteer leadership, the community and the volunteer organisation. The findings offer a picture of a complex set of relationships that may be explained in terms of a number of types of psychological contract. Violation of some of the psychological contracts has the effect of severing the volunteer relationship.

Research ethics in business: a participant observer perspective

Michelle Wallace et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:54:13 PDT

Business research ethics are a somewhat under researched area. This paper analyses research ethics in the business and management contexts in light of the principles of Australian research ethics and in terms of power relationships, methods of access, pressure to complete research expeditiously, conflict of interest and cross-cultural understandings. The exploratory research scrutinises a sample of expedited ethics applications from Australian and international/transnational, business doctorate candidates in the light of perceived low or negligible risk and the issues highlighted above. Findings suggest that research design, personal relationships with participants and nuanced understandings of risk related may be of concern in the proposed research. Suggestions for further research that would widen the parameters of a study such as this are made.

Human resource management practices of medium-sized companies in the textile industry in Java, Indonesia

Asminah Rachmi et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:39:09 PDT

Recently, human resource is considered as the most important resource of the organisations. Mathis and Jackson (2008, p. 4) claim that Human Resource (HR) management deals with 'the designing management systems to ensure that human talent is used effectively and efficiently to accomplish organisational goals'. HRM has been characterised as diverse, strategic, commitment-oriented and based on the belief that people should be treated as human capital (Armstrong, 2006). DeCenzo and Robbins (2007) suggest that HRM must balance two primary responsibilities: assisting the organisation in its strategic direction and representing and advocating for the organisation’s employees. They suggest further that HRM must take the lead in assisting management with the people component of the organisation and also serve the organisation by determining lower-cost strategies in its HRM practices. Therefore, the role of the HR manager is to make sure that all HRM functions are performed in accordance with the organisational objectives. Success of managers in the new century would absolutely depend upon their capabilities in managing human resources (Budhwar & Debrah, 2001).

Smart-TV based integrated e-health monitoring system with agent technology

Golam Sorwar et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:12:26 PDT

An ageing population is now the leading concern for
higher healthcare costs due to more cases of chronic illnesses.
Telemedicine systems based on modern Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) are expected to play a
pivotal role in alleviating the pressure on health care services.
Environmental factors have also profound impact on health
condition of the patients. As a consequence monitoring of
human health along with the environmental (where the patient
is located) health enables the health care providers to
comprehend more accurately about a patient’s situation. In
this paper we describe a novel integrated tele-monitoring
framework (theoretical architecture) proposed to support both
of the above functions simultaneously though a single
framework. The proposed system also innovatively harnesses
the power of emerging Smart-TV technology as a means of
interaction between patient and the health care providers. To
the best of our knowledge, this is the first of its kind.

Organizational learning and innovation: the empirical link in export ventures

Craig C. Julian — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:55:29 PDT

Social pressure and underlying profit disclosure quality

Elisabeth Sinnewe et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:40:14 PDT

This study investigates compliance with voluntary underlying profit-reporting guidelines in Australia. Underlying profits are a modification of the statutory profit figure, arguably to reflect the result for ongoing business activities. Such profit figures are known by many names, including ‘pro-forma earnings’, ‘alternative earnings’ and ‘adjusted earnings’. It is argued that adoption of voluntary underlying profit-reporting guidelines promotes higher disclosure quality by increasing transparency and consistency. In accordance with Legitimacy and Institutional Theories, disclosure quality is expected to have a positive association with the extent of social pressure to which a firm is subjected. Extent of social pressure is proxied by three attributes: general public exposure due to firm size, firm political exposure in the media and legitimacy of the firm’s industry. In the analysis, quality is measured according to degree of compliance with the seven AICD/FINSIA underlying profit principles. We examine how social pressures, which companies face due to their size, industry, and media exposure, determine the level of disclosure quality.

To test the hypotheses developed in this study, we use a proportional stratified random sample of 50 ASX listed companies that reported a non-statutory profit figure within their annual earnings announcements for the financial year ended 2010. We find that high quality disclosure is primarily associated with political pressure in the media. However, no support has been found for the hypothesis that firms subject to a greater visibility due to their size increase reporting quality. Further, it appears that industry legitimacy does not play a significant role in determining firm legitimacy. Divergent from evidence on emerging industries, the absence of this association may be interpreted as reflecting that the importance of industry legitimacy to company legitimacy is a unique phenomenon applying to companies in new industries and not mature industries. Finally, results reveal that signaling superior performance and strong corporate governance may yield alternative explanations for underlying profit quality.

Service design as collaborative activity: what is the role of the customer?

Jakob Trischler et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:20:59 PDT

Drawing upon developments in design, marketing theory and the service literature, service design reordered its perspective towards a human-centered and collaborative approach rather than explicit R&D activities. It is suggested that this change of approach not only attributes the developments in design theory towards a human-centered standpoint but particularly from relationship marketing, and the related service literature which declared the customer as an interactive and mutual value-creator within the service system. Building on the assumption that the customer becomes an active participant during the value co-creation process, we propose service design as a co-design platform with customers rather than a firm-internal design activity.

The suicides of Otho and Nero in Suetonius

Michael B. Charles et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:57:37 PDT

Both Otho and Nero are usually regarded as 'bad' emperors in the historical record, and their conduct is often assimilated. Yet Suetonius' treatment of their suicides, while cleverly approximating the two events, nevertheless shows clear differences. While Nero appears weak and without resolve, Otho bravely shrugs off his supposed effeminacy and dies a true Roman emperor, more so since his death was intended to preserve the lives of his fellow citizens. Suetonius deliberately composed Otho's exitus scene in such a way as to leave the reader with a positive impression of the emperor, simultaneously to the detriment of Nero.

Performance scalable motion estimation for video coding: an overview of current status and a promising approach

Golam Sorwar et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:02:19 PDT

Motion estimation is one of the major bottlenecks in real-time performance scalable video coding applications due to high computational complexity of exhaustive search. To address this, researchers so far focused on low-complexity motion estimation and rate-distortion optimization in isolation. Proliferation of power-constrained handheld devices with image capturing capability has created demand for much smarter approach where motion estimation is integrated with rate control such that rate-distortion-complexity optimization can be effectively achieved. It is indeed crucial to provide such performance scalability in motion estimation to facilitate complexity management in such devices. This chapter presents an overview of motion estimation. Beginning with an introduction to the importance of motion estimation, it systematically examines various motion estimation techniques and their strengths and weaknesses, focussing primarily on block-based motion search. It then examines the limitation of the existing techniques in accommodating performance scalability, introduces a promising approach, Distance-dependent Thresholding Search (DTS) motion search, to fill in this gap, and concludes with future research directions in the field. The authors suggest that the content of the chapter will make a significant contribution and serve as a reference for multimedia signal processing research at postgraduate level.

Galba in the bedroom: sexual allusions in Suetonius' Galba

Michael B. Charles et al. — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:39:13 PDT