Management and Marketing - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 81
-
ItemThe Effects of Age and Drug Dependency on the Emotional Exhaustion and Job Satisfaction of Adult Streetworkers in Australia(SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS, 2013-07)This multi-method study investigated a sample of adult streetworkers (n = 107) in Melbourne, Australia in 2008. We contacted outdoor prostitutes through four "drop-in" centers run by not-for-profit organizations. Drug use was the over-riding common characteristic of most of these streetworkers. Using emotional labor theory as a theoretical framework, we hypothesized that individuals who worked on the streets solely to earn money to buy drugs would experience the highest levels of emotional exhaustion and the lowest levels of job satisfaction. We predicted these effects would be most evident for older drug dependent streetworkers. Content analysis of open-ended interview responses identified acting, age, and drug dependency as key themes. Moderator hierarchical regression analysis of responses to closed-ended questions with tests for mediation supported the hypotheses. It also demonstrated that older drug dependent streetworkers felt most trapped in their occupation and this sense of being locked-in was associated with emotional exhaustion but not with job satisfaction. The evidence that age and drug dependency affects the psychological outcomes associated with streetwork suggests that the efforts of police and the courts will be ineffective in dealing with people whose addiction traps them in an occupation that offers few intrinsic rewards. Decriminalization would encourage police to protect streetworkers from violence. Agencies could seek financial support to provide welfare and exit strategies.
-
ItemWhen One Size Does Not Fit All: A Problem of Fit Rather than Failure for Voluntary Management Standards(SPRINGER, 2012-09)Voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms’ related capabilities. These standards, however, have largely failed to improve such performance as intended. Over-emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms’ existing capabilities. External pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them. This can lead to problems of “fit” between institutional requirements and a firm’s existing capabilities. We describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm’s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure. We suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success. We contribute to theory by describing the role of firms’ internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self-regulation generally.
-
ItemIgnored Faces Produce Figural Face Aftereffects(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2012-09-21)Following adaptation to faces with contracted (or expanded) internal features, faces previously perceived as normal appear distorted in the opposite direction. This figural face aftereffect suggests face-coding mechanisms adapt to changes in the spatial relations of features and/or the global structure of faces. Here, we investigated whether the figural aftereffect requires spatial attention. Participants ignored a distorted adapting face and performed a highly demanding letter-count task. Before and after adaptation, participants rated the normality of morphed distorted faces ranging from 50% contracted through undistorted to 50% expanded. A robust aftereffect was observed. These results suggest that the figural face aftereffect can occur in the absence of spatial attention, even when the attentional demands of the relevant task are high.
-
ItemShort-term and long-term stability in electronic communication networks(Academy of Management, 2013-01-01)Network researchers typically focus on patterns of stable relationships, where stability represents the unfolding of social processes over long time frames. By contrast, we argue and empirically demonstrate that social interactions exhibit regularities across different time frames (short and long-term), reflecting distinct social processes.
-
ItemThe development of post-project buyer-seller interaction in service-intensive projects(Elsevier BV, 2013-11-01)The purpose of this research is to enhance the understanding of post-project buyer-seller interaction, a topic previously studied mainly from the perspective of social exchange or sleeping relationships. With the advent of service-intensive projects, however, the dynamics of post-project interaction has changed, demanding a broader theorization. This research extends the scope of project marketing, by proposing a research framework illustrating interaction development in a longitudinal setting. We utilize the framework to analyze three projects, two of which continued for more than a decade, through a qualitative case study. The research provides empirical insight into the interaction orientations and development patterns arising in the post-project stage. It suggests that post-project interaction develops through three main orientations (cooperative development, buyer-led development, and seller-led maintenance) that vary over time, thus creating unique development patterns. The study concludes with five practical recommendations for managers to deal with evolving post-project interaction.
-
ItemLed into Temptation? Rewarding Brand Logos Bias the Neural Encoding of Incidental Economic Decisions(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2012-03-30)Human decision-making is driven by subjective values assigned to alternative choice options. These valuations are based on reward cues. It is unknown, however, whether complex reward cues, such as brand logos, may bias the neural encoding of subjective value in unrelated decisions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we subliminally presented brand logos preceding intertemporal choices. We demonstrated that priming biased participants' preferences towards more immediate rewards in the subsequent temporal discounting task. This was associated with modulations of the neural encoding of subjective values of choice options in a network of brain regions, including but not restricted to medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate the general susceptibility of the human decision making system to apparently incidental contextual information. We conclude that the brain incorporates seemingly unrelated value information that modifies decision making outside the decision-maker's awareness.
-
ItemOrganizational and Epistemic Change: The Growth of the Art Investment Industry(Academy of Management, 2013-01)This case shows how an emergent knowledge community is necessary to support and legitimate the efforts of entrepreneurs in new areas of financial investment, due to strong, institutionalized expectations about the rational evaluation and monitoring of financial assets. Using the concept of epistemic cultures to complement an organizational field narrative, this paper examines the development of artwork as a recognizable financial investment category. Despite a long history of attention to art investment, the legitimacy of art as an asset is still emerging. Legitimacy questions have decreased since the 1960s due to the growth of an epistemic culture around art investing, facilitated by new market actors who met the need of professional investors for transparency and accountability. Technical knowledge about art investments came from economists, art price service providers, art market analysts, and others. We also see the development of a more practical knowledge about how best to structure the investment and to profit from art investment. The growth of knowledge – through a series of experiments and failures – around the properties and optimal structure of art investments was just as important for the emergence of the industry as having investors who were willing to enter the new area.
-
ItemNominal wage rigidity prior to compulsory arbitration: Evidence from the Victorian Railways, 1902-1921(Springer, 2011)Studies across a wide range of countries have shown that relatively few workers have received year-to-year wage cuts since the Second World War. However, there is very little micro-level evidence from earlier years, when lower inflation rates and a less regulated labour market may have led to stronger downwards pressure on wages. This paper examines wage adjustment at the Victorian Railways, Australia, between 1902 and 1921. It is shown that, despite strong downwards pressure on wages, nominal wages were rigid downwards and a high proportion of triennial wage changes were exactly zero. Even for workers with very long tenure and in years when the national price level declined, wage cuts were rare. We also show that the characteristics of workers whose wages were unchanged were very similar to those receiving wage cuts. Finally, we show that unlike the wages of incumbent staff, entry wages for new junior staff frequently declined from year to year.
-
ItemFlexible Footprints: Reconfiguring MNCs for New Value Opportunities(Sage, 2012)Powerful technological, regulatory, and economic forces compel the senior executives of multinational corporations (MNCs) to repeatedly re-evaluate and reconfigure value chains in the search for ongoing competitive advantage. However, releasing assets from existing activities and redeploying them to new opportunities is a challenging and poorly understood task. In particular, the standard strategic management concepts of use- and firm-flexibility overlook the crucial international dimension of location. Utilizing examples from GM, Qantas, and a mining MNC, this article argues that strategic flexibility should be consciously measured along all three dimensions. By using the decision tool set out in this article, MNC executives can map their worldwide footprint of strategic roadblocks and opportunities to expand into new markets, divest redundant businesses, and build flexibility to adapt to future challenges.
-
ItemWork and Wages at a Melbourne Factory, the Guest Biscuit Works 1870-1921(Wiley, 2013)The story of wages in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia has largely been told through official published statistics and the experiences of skilled artisans and construction labourers. Utilising wage book data from an early successful manufacturing plant - a biscuit factory - we reveal the earning histories of several neglected groups of Australian workers. We specifically investigate the effects of the 1890s depression, the introduction of a wages board, and shifting demographics on the wages of unskilled factory hands, women, juvenile workers, and commercial clerks. We demonstrate that typical Australian wage series studies have misinterpreted the impact of these phenomena.