Melbourne Business School - Theses

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    Exploring the utilisation of business-to-business corporate hospitality in Australia
    Choquette, Diana Kay. (University of Melbourne, 2006)
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    Workforce gender diversity : is it a source of competitive advantage?
    ?Al?, Mu?ammad. (University of Melbourne, 2009)
    Research on workforce diversity at the organizational level gained momentum in the 1990s. Alternative forms of the diversity-performance relationship, derived from different theoretical perspectives, have been studied over the past 18 years. However, the results of these studies have been inconsistent. Based on contrasting theories, this research tests competing predictions of the gender diversity-performance relationship at the organizational level. These competing predictions are: a positive linear relationship derived from the resource-based view of the firm, a negative linear relationship derived from self-categorization and social identity theories, and a U-shaped curvilinear relationship derived from the integration of the resource-based view of the firm with self-categorization and social identity theories. Moreover, this research tests the moderating effects of two contextual factors: gender identity-conscious HR structures (few vs. many) and industry type (services vs. manufacturing). The main objectives of testing competing and contingent (moderating effects) gender diversity-performance predictions were to provide insights into the form of the gender diversity-performance relationship and to explain inconsistent results of past diversity research. The predictions were tested in two quantitative studies that adopted a combination of prospective and retrospective longitudinal research designs. Both studies were based on the sample frame of 1855 organizations listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Study 1 collected data through a survey and from archival data sources, and the study was based on time lags of zero, one and two years between diversity and performance. Study 2 used multiple sources of archival data and was based on time lags of one, two, four and five years between diversity and performance. Both studies also tested reverse causality to provide strong evidence for the gender diversity?performance relationship. The results show partial support for the predicted positive linear relationship and for the proposed moderating effects of HR structures and industry type. The results also demonstrate an unpredicted inverted U-shaped gender diversity-performance relationship. The curvilinear relationship indicates that different proportions of organizational gender diversity have different effects on organizational performance, which may be attributed to different dynamics suggested by the resource-based view and self-categorization and social identity theories. The findings also show that organizations with many gender identity-conscious HR structures and organizations from the services industry benefit most from organizational gender diversity. The research contributes to the field of workforce diversity in several ways. First, it provides a clearer understanding of the form of the gender diversity-performance relationship by testing three competing gender diversity-performance predictions. The results also help explain the inconsistent findings of past research that focused on the linear gender diversity-performance relationship. Second, because of its longitudinal design, this research provides stronger evidence for a causal relationship between gender diversity and performance than past research. Third, the test of the moderating effect of gender-identity conscious HR structures helps practitioners to understand the type of HR structures that best aligns with gender diversity. Similarly, the test of the moderating effect of industry type helps practitioners to better manage diversity in the services and manufacturing industries.
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    The constrained coalitional price setting game: theory and applications
    Byford, Martin Charles ( 2007)
    In a number of simple settings there do not exist Nash equilibria, to the Bertrand price setting game, in pure strategies. Two prominent examples where pure strategy solutions do not exist are price competition with convex costs and spatial competition with finite buyers. This thesis develops an alternative model of price formation. The model examines as a non-transferable utility coalitional game the set of outcomes that are feasible in the Bertrand price setting game. In spatial models with finite buyers the core of this NTU coalitional game is equivalent to the set of outcomes that can be produced by undercut-proof prices. While in a market for a homogeneous good, where sellers face convex costs, the market clearing price is always in the core. Moreover, where at least two sellers compete on the supply side, as buyers become numerous the core collapses to only admit market clearing outcomes. In some settings the price setting game developed in this thesis produces results that contradict the predictions of Bertrand. Where this occurs the core outcomes tend to be more efficient than the corresponding Bertrand-Nash equilibrium. For example, double-marginalisation is never a core outcome in vertically related markets. The existence of solutions in pure strategies allows previously intractable problems in spatial markets to be tackled with relative ease. Two such problems are addressed in this thesis: The first investigates the consequence of replacing the continuum of buyers, with a large but finite set of buyers, in common spatial models. It is shown that the maximum stable mark-ups on both the Hotelling line and circle are halved where the continuum is replaced by an arbitrarily large number of discrete buyers. The difference arises because competition at the margin is more intense where sellers are competing for an atom. The second is to develop a theory of price competition in a market for a homogeneous good, where the option to trade is defined by a buyer-seller network. The necessary and sufficient conditions for a network to behave competitively are characterised, and it is shown that local price distortions can propagate across the network; resulting in supra-competitive pricing.
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    Knowledge sharing through inpatriate assignments in multinational corporations: a social capital perspective
    Reiche, Bjoern Sebastian ( 2007-05)
    This study conceptualizes inpatriates – foreign nationals who are temporarily assigned to the corporate headquarters (HQ) of a multinational corporation (MNC) – as knowledge agents that link the HQ to its subsidiaries. Along these lines, the thesis examines the determinants of knowledge sharing between inpatriates and HQ staff as well as the resulting implications for inpatriates’ careers. Integrating research on international assignments and MNC knowledge flows with social capital theory, the main argument is that inpatriates can only share their local subsidiary knowledge with and learn from HQ employees if they establish social capital with them. The empirical investigation of inpatriates as the study’s principal unit of analysis follows a multi-method approach. First, a qualitative and inductive case study based on 13 interviews with inpatriates at three German MNCs is conducted, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of the inpatriate phenomenon. The interview findings highlight inpatriates’ role as knowledge conduits and derive various factors that may impact on inpatriates’ knowledge sharing, such as inpatriates’ acculturation attitudes, their host language fluency, host ethnocentrism and available organizational support.
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    Social structures of contracts - a case study of the Vietnamese market
    Nguyen, Quan Hien ( 2006-03)
    What makes real life contractual arrangements? How does the law influence real life contractual arrangements? These are everyday questions for businesspeople and commercial lawyers. The traditional ‘imperative’ view of law assumes that business people contract ‘in the shadow of the law’ and contractual arrangements conform to what the law says. But empirical studies on contract practice suggest that contract law may, in fact, play a very insignificant role in real life contractual arrangements. This thesis provides a sociological view of the role of contract law in real life contractual arrangements in the context of the Vietnamese market. Specifically, this thesis applies an institutional law & economics approach to investigate how social structures of the market influence contractual arrangements to marginalize contract law in the Vietnamese market. Drawing on two surveys of contract behaviour in the Vietnamese market, this thesis finds that real life contractual arrangements respond to the institutional structure of the market as a whole, rather than only ‘the shadow of the law’. Institutional changes in the Vietnamese market suggest that there exists a merchant law system, constituted of traditional moral norms and social structures in the market. This merchant law system continues to order contractual arrangements in the market, despite the introduction of a transplanted contract law system. Disagreeing with the imperative approach, this thesis claims that contract law reform should conform to the institutional structure of the market to reduce transaction costs of contracting and to provide an effective framework for real life contractual arrangements.