Southern Cross Business School

Effects of strategic airline alliances on air transport market competition: an empirical analysis

Michael D. Evans et al. — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:42:59 PDT

While alliances continue to be an important tool for airlines as they seek to expand their networks to compete more effectively with other larger networks, the effects of alliances and market liberalization on air transport market competition and airline performance have received relatively little attention. This research empirically investigates the effects of liberalization, and airline alliances, on airline competition. The analysis is based on 5,021 data sets focusing on 197 routes between the gateway cities of the major airlines’ home countries. Findings show that airline passenger market share and route network share are significantly increased with increasing alliance activity. Also, airlines have a greater number of flights, passengers and passenger seats on routes for which they are involved in higher levels of cooperation and operate in more liberal markets. This suggests that multiple cooperation structures contribute more than bilateral airline service agreements to the overcoming of restrictive regulatory frameworks, enabling more effective competition.

The leader in you: developing your leadership potential

Peter Miller et al. — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:10:18 PST

Leadership research demonstrates that there are serious shortcomings in the quality and competence of leaders in our organizations. The recent global financial crisis has also reminded us that, if our society and economies are to move forward sustainability, we must have the right kind of leaders and the right kind of leadership throughout our organizations. The Leader in You: Developing Your Leadership Potential has been framed to be useful to all individuals who are currently in leadership roles, from chief executives to frontline managers, and for those who wish to step up to a leadership role. Organizations can also utilize this book to assist their leaders to increase their leadership potential or to complement leadership development programs.If you want to search for and develop leadership qualities in yourself, then this book is for you. If you want to set a higher standard in your organization and you think leadership is a serious matter in the lives of other people, then this book is for you. In the process of self-reflection, The Leader in You: Developing Your Leadership Potential will enable you to develop an individual leadership profile and an individual skills profile, culminating in the development of a plan for leadership improvement. This book aims to couple these outcomes with exposure to some practical skills that leaders need to lead in every day environments.The first four chapters allow the reader to develop an understanding of the concepts that underpin leadership performance, and to undertake exercises to develop a comprehensive understanding of their values, behaviors and personality. That is, to understand who they are and why they behave the way they do.An individual leadership profile is developed at the end of these chapters. Then, the remaining chapters look at issues that leaders will face in contemporary society, and at the skills required to address them in everyday environments. An individual skills profile is developed at the end of these chapters culminating in the development of a plan for leadership improvement.

Doctoral research in management and business in Malaysia

Peter Miller et al. — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:59:00 PST

Collaborative education in Malaysia: a case study

Peter Miller — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:50:31 PST

Professional development opportunities for Malaysian based doctoral supervisors

Peter Miller et al. — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:43:03 PST

Determinants of customer satisfaction in the Malaysian banking sector

Peter Miller et al. — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:35:24 PST

Collaborative education in Singapore: a case study

Peter Miller — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:29:49 PST

Singaporean research supervisor professional development

Peter Miller — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:23:43 PST

Global discipline confusion in management and business related doctorate programmes

Peter Miller — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:14:41 PST

Professional doctorate programmes have recently emerged around the globe as an alternative to the more traditional research based doctoral programmes and have expanded rapidly to the point where professional doctorates are now the dominant form of doctorate education. This paper aims to shed some light on the growth of professional doctorates and to make some comparisons of professional doctorate programmes with traditional research based doctorate programmes by reporting on research undertaken in Australia. The research demonstrates confusion in the discipline of doctorates globally.

The research includes a case study on a globally significant Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programme to demonstrate how professional doctorates are impacting on what might be regarded as more traditional doctorate programmes and causing confusion in the market place. Issues and observations arising from the research are discussed. A conclusion reached is that it may be time for Australian universities to consider establishing a new advanced higher research degree that clearly differentiates university research of a very high standard from other research.

Introducing mixed methods in applied business research training

Roslyn Cameron et al. — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:08:04 PST

Recruitment and retention of volunteers: an emergency services perspective

Anthony Baxter-Tomkins et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:13:54 PDT

Moderation of assessment in transnational higher eduction

Michelle Wallace et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:00:21 PDT

Retention of software employees in the IT industry in Taiwan

Chin-Yao Tseng et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:42:15 PDT

Taiwan’s IT industry has been suffering from a shortage of IT knowledge workers. Despite the economic downturn highly skilled workers such as software programmers are still in big demand. This research, undertaken in late 2008, presents the results of a retention survey undertaken with 362 software development employees, namely software engineers, project leaders, and assistant managers in Taiwan. The retention factors this study tested for were: financial compensation, training and development, promotion, recognition, challenging work, innovation and creativity, leadership style, autonomy, work-life balance, and job satisfaction. Ten factors were significant for software engineers. However, challenging work was not significant for the project leaders, and both financial compensation and challenging work were not significant for the assistant managers.

Executive development: learning from effective practices in the Papua New Guinea public service

Nama Polum et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:35:58 PDT

Human resource development is vital to the capacity building of developing nations, and the development of an effective Public Service (PS) is one of the key building blocks for nationhood. The Papua New Guinea Public Service (PNGPS) has undertaken a number of activities that focus on ED. This paper reports on research undertaken into the nature and effectiveness of such Executive Development (ED) interventions. In-depth interviews were conducted with the most senior executives in the PNGPS to gauge their views of ED in their respective organizations. This study is the first of its kind. The paper focuses on the effective practices that are used to contribute to ED and makes suggestions for further improvements.

Multiskilling in the hotel industry in Taiwan

Li-Cheng Chen et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:35:56 PDT

This study presents the results of research into the prevalence and type of multi-skilling in five star hotels in Taiwan. The literature suggests that multi-skilling is an effective strategy to resolve issues such as insufficiently qualified workers and the high turnover rates that confront the Taiwanese hotel industry. However, there is little evidence that this issue has been researched in the Taiwanese context. Responses from front-line managers indicate that training for multi-skilling has been adopted by the majority of the participating hotels and finds that six organizational and individual factors are positively correlated with multi-skilling with service quality as the most important. One factor, remuneration, is found to not correlate with multi-skilling. The authors discuss these results and make recommendations for a set of guidelines regarding multi-skilling for the Taiwanese hotel industry.

Interpretations of comparability and equivalence around assessment: views of academic staff in transnational education

Gavin Sanderson et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:18:05 PDT

Volunteering and remuneration: can they co-exist?

Anthony Baxter-Tomkins et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:44:46 PDT

Purpose of the research paper: This research focuses on recruitment and retention of volunteers within the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) and the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) and their views about whether they believe they should be paid for the work they do. Volunteering has an undisputable tenet: it is unpaid. However, is this concept dated given what is required of today's emergency service volunteers? This paper argues from empirical evidence that the issue is far from clear cut. Admittedly, there are two poles in the debate about volunteers and remuneration but there is also a continuum between these positions that may justify a re-definition of remuneration in certain circumstances. Methodology: Conversational interview technique. This is consistent with an unstructured interview process and was controlled to ensure the interviewer's research interests were achieved. Findings: Many volunteers believed the real costs incurred by their action should be recompensed. Value of the paper: Our findings add to contemporary knowledge about emergency services volunteers.

Developing female middle managers in Australian universities

Michelle Wallace et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:36:55 PDT

Universities should be developing female middle-managers for reasons of gender balance (Aitkin in The Last Boilerhouse Address, Canberra University ), the skills shortage, pending mass retirements (Chesterman in Not doable jobs?’ Exploring senior women’s attitudes to leadership roles in universities. Women’s Higher Education Network Conference, Bolton, ) and sustainable, post-bureaucratic organizations (Kira and Forslin in J Organ Change Manage 21(1): 76–91, ). Investigating the learning and development of women managers is timely. Research assumes that women in academe have the qualifications, experience and skills for management. Is this the case? The paper provides the first national demographic and development profile of women middle-managers in academic and the research-neglected administrative streams in Australian universities, with a sample of 342 women (46% response rate). Age is a particularly notable demographic with the majority of academics within 5–10 years of retirement. Nearly 60% of academics experienced few current development opportunities and their discipline-based qualifications did not prepare them for management. However, a greater number of administrative managers received relevant preparatory training. Once in their current management roles women experienced markedly fewer development opportunities. If higher education institutions are learning organizations, continuous learning should be evident (Watkins in Adv Dev Hum Res 7(3): 414, ). Our research shows this is far from the case.

Retaining key staff in SOEs in the construction industry in China

Ying Zhang et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:20:30 PDT

China suffers from skills shortages especially in key staff and the construction industry is no exception. The research presents the results of a retention survey undertaken with 400 managers and technical staff in construction state owned enterprises (SOEs) in relation to eleven factors that have been identified in the, mainly western, literature to influence retention. Ten of these factors were seen to support retention at different levels of intensity with fair treatment, opportunities for learning and development, and challenging and interesting work the most significantly valued. One factor, job security, was found to not correlate with retention. The authors suggest some reasons relating to Chinese workplace culture for this seeming anomaly and make recommendations regarding implementing retention strategies adapted from the western context, for Chinese SOEs.

The relationship between motivation factors and retention of key management and professional technical staff in government-run construction enterprises in China

Ying Zhang et al. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:10:30 PDT

As the issue of skills shortage becomes more prevalent, finding ways to engage existing talent and retain key staff has become the top priority for many organisations around the world. However, there is scant information on this topic in China especially for government owned organizations. The purpose of my research was thus to test a retention model developed within a western context and determines whether the model can be adapted to government-run construction enterprises in China. The research presents the results of a retention survey undertaken with 400 key management and professional technical staff from 200 government-run enterprises in China. Nine of 11 motivation factors were found to be positively correlated to retention. One factor, responsibility, was only partially correlated to retention and one factor, job security, presented no relationship at all with retention. The results also indicated that two of the nine positively correlated factors, fair treatment and the opportunity of learning and development, were imperative to retain both groups of key staff. Two factors, cash payment and challenging and interesting work, were considered important to employees with lower-level positions or more years of work experience. In contrast, benefit rewards and responsibility were more powerful to retain higher-level employees or less years of work experience. The thesis explores reasons for this apparent anomaly and makes recommendations with regard to carrying out suitable retention strategies in government-run construction enterprises in China.