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Youth Online Participation and Consultative Processes: Report on a pilot project in "Better Futures”(2009)ReportThis report describes a pilot project commissioned by the New South Wales (NSW) Minister for Youth (The Hon Graham West MP) and the NSW Department of Community services (DoCS) to explore and test the use of online social networking technologies for the purpose of engaging young people in civic affairs. The project team consisted of members from DoCs, The Office of the Minister, The national Transport and Logistics Centre (TALC), the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the NSW Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP), the NSW Youth Advisory Council and Small World: Social Media Experts (a social networking and new media company). Stakeholders’ consist of the commissioning bodies, the project team and the young people in the regions identified. The aims of the pilot project were to: Explore how online social networking technologies can be used to engage young people aged 9-18 to better inform NSW government decision making Use the NSW Better Futures programme framework in the Central Coast and North Coast NSW regions of DoCS as the focus for the pilot project to see if and how young people would engage in making decisions about expenditure in their local areas under the framework Propose a list of projects selected by young people in Central Cost and North Coast NSW for funding by the program. The pilot involved a field study in the two regions which took place from mid January to the end of April 2009. It was conducted in both electronic and physical spaces in six phases, beginning with face-to-face interviews with young people to gain insight into potential areas in which the proposal money could be used and to learn about their online behaviour patterns. From this information a short list of proposals was developed. The short list comprised of five areas young people viewed as important: 1) environmental issues such as awareness-raising and activities such as planting more trees, 2) provision of spaces for young people to hang out, 3) provision of skate, surf and BMX competitions and workshops, 4) access to sporting equipment and 5) under 18 music events with local bands and artists. An interactive online game was designed to encourage young people to express their preferences on the proposals in the short list. A “viral” campaign was then developed and implemented to attract young people in the regions to the game and to encourage them to vote. By experimenting with different engagement strategies – that integrated the use of a website, digital media, social media sites such as MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube, blog and forums, local radio, TV and school newsletters announcements – the pilot project attracted and motivated young people to express their preferences about youth projects to be funded by DoCS in the “Better Futures” program (for 9-18 years old) in the two targeted regions. In two months (mid February until mid April 2009) 8,200 “friends” were created; there were approximately 70 visitors per day to the website and 2,026 young people voted for the nominated projects. Learning from the project included: - That young people will engage with NSW government decision making through social networking sites - That overall all young people in both regions voted for music events as their first preference. - That only the MySpace poll was able to identify the regional affiliation of voters. IP addresses and other geographic screening mechanisms were not as effective as anticipated. The MySpace poll indicated that there were regional differences with the second and third choices in the North Coast being places for young people to hang out and expenditure on environmental issues and the second and third preferences from the Central Coast were sporting competitions and equipment. - As participation and voting occurred largely in response to activity generated in the targeted areas by the campaign it is likely that voting or any other participation from young people outside the areas targeted is extremely low. - That further development of voting instruments and other participatory tools is required to enable deeper analysis of the ranking of votes and the geographic location of participants. The pilot project was deemed to be very successful by the majority of project team as much was learned which will inform the development of future youth online participation projects. Young people were attracted participate through their social networking sites and engaged in decision making via interviews, online comments and various voting tools. The trial was able to indicate that music events were the most popular of the projects proposed and the MySpace tool was able to identify regional differences for second and third preferences. Young people responded positively by voting and in comments.
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(2009)Conference PaperAt any given time the two rival organizational values cooperation and competition coexist in any team and/or organization in different intensities and mix, depending on both internal factors (e.g., culture, task dimensions of accuracy and speed) and external factors (e.g., market and competitive forces). However, determining that desirable intensity and mix of these two values seems to be a challenging task in the current literature and no explicit method currently exists for measuring factors that may lead to determination of such desirable mix. Considering the crucial impacts of these values on organizational behaviours, this in turn may result in loss of efficiency and productivity in organizations. In this study a systematic review of current literatures in the areas of knowledge management, social psychology, organizational studies and Computer-Supported Cooperative Systems (CSCW) studies, is used to uncover a research theme for analysing the impacts of the two rival organizational values competition and cooperation on knowledge sharing behaviours through promotive interaction between individuals. Supporting the IT-culture conflict theory, this study is considered as a research theme which investigates the impact of culture on IT application and use. More specifically, by combining the goal interdependency theory of conflict, social learning theory, the internal organizational forces of competition and cooperation and the awareness net analysis, the present study deeply investigate the term tension between cooperative and competitive values and their impact on organizational behaviours. It then introduces factors that can assist in finding an optimal mix of the cooperative and competitive values in organizations at any given time. The present study also relates the above optimal mix/tension with the organization’s reward structure, the task dimensions of ‘speed’ and ‘accuracy’, group characteristics and organizational climate in order to draw inferences for attaining an optimal level of process awareness for individuals while performing their tasks within an organization.
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(2009)Conference PaperDeclining youth participation in civic affairs has raised the issue of youth disengagement. This paper explores the use of web-based and social networking technologies for the purpose of engaging young people in civic affairs to better inform government decision making. It is based on a field study in two regions of NSW where young people (aged 9-18) participated in an experimental online consultation about youth projects to be funded by the Department of Community Services (DoCS). Several strategies for youth engagement and consultation were implemented and tested including an online interactive game, social networking technologies, local radio and TV, and school newsletters announcements. The findings question the youth disengagement thesis and demonstrate that purposefully-designed and carefully targeted engagement strategies – in both electronic and physical spaces – do attract and engage young people in Government decision making. The paper discusses the challenges of youth online participation and concludes with suggestions for future research.
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(2009)Journal ArticleWe investigate the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) Yen interventions for the period 13 May 1991 to 16 March 2004. The previous literature has been hampered by the coarse daily data and has been unable to identify intervention determinants beyond some embodiment of the first moment of Yen returns. We consider both lagged overnight off-shore (London and New York) and intradaily on-shore (Tokyo) market developments for their heterogeneous influences on the BOJ's intervention decisions. Using a friction model to estimate the reaction function, we find that the interventions were leaning against the wind during the Tokyo hours, in general. Prior to June 1995, there were significant responses to previous day's intradaily Yen returns and volatility. Post 1995, we report a broadening in the BOJ's monitoring to include overnight off-shore Yen returns until Dec 2002 and a broader measure of market disorderliness measured as a transactions cost band in one-month covered interest rate parity condition since Jan 2003. Moreover, there is some evidence that the BOJ secretly leaned into the wind in response to Yen depreciations during the recent period of 2003-2004.
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(2009)Journal ArticleBibliometric measures for evaluating research units in the book-oriented humanities and social sciences are underdeveloped relative to those available for journal-oriented science and technology. We therefore present a new measure designed for book-oriented fields: the “libcitation count.” This is a count of the libraries holding a given book, as reported in a national or international union catalog. As librarians decide what to acquire for the audiences they serve, they jointly constitute an instrument for gauging the cultural impact of books. Their decisions are informed by knowledge not only of audiences but also of the book world, e.g., the reputations of authors and the prestige of publishers. From libcitation counts, measures can be derived for comparing research units. Here, we imagine a matchup between the departments of history, philosophy, and political science at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney in Australia. We chose the 12 books from each department that had the highest libcitation counts in the Libraries Australia union catalog during 2000–2006. We present each book’s raw libcitation count, its rank within its LC class, and its LC-class normalized libcitation score. The latter is patterned on the item-oriented field normalized citation score used in evaluative bibliometrics. Summary statistics based on these measures allow the departments to be compared for cultural impact. Our work has implications for programs such as Excellence in Research for Australia and the Research Assessment Exercise in the United Kingdom. It also has implications for data mining in OCLC’s WorldCat.
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(2009)ThesisRapid advancement in technology and increased trade across national borders led to an international trend towards valuing technology and knowledge-based assets. Consequently, there is a growing recognition that adequate intellectual property protection of all forms - patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets – are necessary in order to sustain a firm’s competitive advantage created by these assets. The importance of protecting intellectual property rights is particularly crucial in cultural industries such as music industry. By examining the link between the operation of multinational recording companies and the institutional environment of copyright in Korea, this thesis attempts to demonstrate the role of MNEs in shaping the institutional environment of the host country. \r\n\r\nThe institutional perspective provides the theoretical foundation for this thesis. The focus of the institutional theorists in International Business so far has been limited to the unidirectional flow of influence in the host country institution and MNE link – MNE as an organisation shaped by host country institution. By examining three aspects of copyright institution of Korea –regulative, industrial and cognitive aspects- we contend that institutional environment is not static, but evolves dynamically over time and the evolution reflects the dual institutional pressure. That is, institutions both affect and are affected by MNEs.
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(2009)ThesisThe focus of this dissertation is the European Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) market. CDSs are the most popular credit derivative products. Three issues are discussed, the first, which is covered in chapter 2, is the investigation of non-diversifiable jump risk in iTraxx sector indices based on a multivariate model that explicitly admits discrete common jumps for an index and its components. Our empirical research shows that both the iTraxx Non-Financials and their components experience jumps during the sample period, which means that the jump risks in the iTraxx sector index are not diversifiable. The second issue, which is covered in chapter 3 is the component structure of credit default swap spreads and their determinants. We firstly extract a transitory component and a persistent component from two different maturities of the Markit iTraxx index and then regress these components against proxies for several commonly used explanatory variables. Our results show that these explanatory variables have significant but differing impacts on the extracted components, which indicates that a two-factor formulation may be needed to model CDS options. The last issue, which is covered in chapters 4, 5 and 6 is the investigation of the linkage between the credit default swap market and the equity market within the European area. We innovatively calibrate the CDS option with the Heston Model to get the implied volatility in the CDS market, which allows us to investigate both the characteristic of implied volatility in the CDS market and the relationship of the two markets not only on the level of daily changes but also with regard to its second moment. Our analysis shows that the stock market weakly leads the CDS market on daily changes but for implied volatility, the stock market leads the CDS market. A VECM analysis shows that only the stock market contributes to price discovery. For sub-investment grade entities, the interactivities between the implied volatility of the CDS market and the implied volatility of the stock market are stronger, especially during the recent credit crunch period. All these results have important implications for the construction of portfolios with credit-sensitive instruments.
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(2009)ThesisThis thesis studies the influence of horizontal competition on supply chain performance. Unlike most of the existing literature which focuses on horizontal competition between echelon levels, we look at both the supply chain and the individual company’s performance with the presence of supply chain to supply chain competition. Specifically, this thesis is composed of three individual research papers. The first paper deals with chain-to-chain horizontal competition and considers price competition among an arbitrary number of supply chains by comparing two cases. In the first case each supply chain is vertically integrated, while in the second, decentralised, case the manufacturers and retailers act independently. We explore the effect of varying the level of price competition on the profitts of the industry participants and demonstrate the important role played by the spread of underlying market shares. The coefficient of variation of these market shares determines whether decentralised supply chains can outperform integrated supply chains with an appropriate level of competition. The second and third papers focus on in-chain horizontal competition with capacity constraints. In the second paper, we look at a supply chain with one manufacturer and two downstream retailers. Based on total capacity available, the manufacturer needs to find ways to best use the capacity by determining whether or not to release the capacity information to retailers. The third paper looks at competition in a more complicated supply chain structure. A retailer buys three brands of products from two manufacturers. One manufacturer produces both branded and private label products, and the other one manufactures a branded product only. With our model, we are able to determine the profits of each supply chain agent. At the end of the paper, we use data from the Australian milk industry and discuss a problem in which a manufacturer needs to decide how to allocate capacity between the national brand and the private label when there is a capacity shortage.
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(2009)ThesisWhilst extensive research has been done on the association between corporate governance and firm performance, the empirical evidence is inconclusive. This thesis argues that the failure of past studies to establish a positive association between corporate governance and performance might be caused by the use of conservative accounting in firms. If firms with stronger corporate governance adopt more conservative accounting procedures, then tests of the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and performance will be biased downwards. If market participants fail to recognise a link between conservative accounting and corporate governance, then firms with stronger corporate governance might also be systematically undervalued. Therefore, studying the relationship between selected corporate governance attributes and the extent of conservative accounting does more than just extend our understanding of the link between governance characteristics and accounting quality. It also provides useful insights for interpreting the existing literature on the association between corporate governance and performance. In this thesis, detailed investigation is undertaken of the link between several governance characteristics (as well as an aggregate index) and the extent of conservatism evident in Australian firms’ financial reporting. Overall, the results provide only weak evidence that firms with certain governance characteristics report more conservatively. Evidence of any such link is restricted to measures of board composition and leadership, and even then the results are sensitive to the method used to measure the extent of conservatism in financial reporting. There is no systematic evidence of an association for measures of audit committee composition, nor board size. Finally, there is only weak evidence that use of a Big 5 auditor affects the extent of conservatism and the results are sensitive to the period investigated. These results are all robust to explicitly recognizing possible endogeneity between the extent of conservative accounting and the governance attributes examined. Overall, the results raise important questions about the extent to which widely advocated corporate governance attributes result in accounting outcomes which accelerate the revelation of relatively poor economic news, at least for Australian firms in the years examined (1998 and 2002). However, beyond the immediate relationship examined, the results also suggest that caution is appropriate before dismissing the absence of a link between governance attributes and firm performance as being attributable to accounting conservatism.
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(2009)ThesisThis dissertation consists of four studies on the role of institutions, education and institutional reform in economic development. Three of the studies examine empirical aspects of the issue and the fourth provides an analysis of policy implications. A key theme of the dissertation is the recognition that institutions, both formal and informal, are important for development. The observation that some developing economies have been unable to substantively improve institutional structures, creates a vital agenda for studying institutional change. The first study empirically investigates the impact of education, both quantitatively and qualitatively, on the informal institution of social capital measured as social trust. Differences in levels of education are considered to find the separate effects of primary, secondary and tertiary education. The relationship between education and social trust levels in countries is found to be positive. The sample is further split into developed and developing countries which also substantiates the main hypothesis. The results can be interpreted as schooling playing a transformative role in the society. The second study develops a framework for studying education inequality and institutional development. A range of economic, political and social measures of institutional quality are used in a cross-country analysis. The study confirms that the cross-country differences in institutional variables are influenced negatively by the education inequality. Several competing hypotheses of institutional improvement are used to test the sensitivity of the results. The sample is further split into OECD and non-OECD countries, with no new results arising from this split. The third study investigates the relationship of education inequality and institutional quality using panel data techniques and an alternative data set of institutional measures, than the one used in the second study. This study initially estimates the relationship using the pooled OLS and fixed effects models. The issue of persistency in institutional variables is then investigated by using a system GMM estimator. The evidence suggests that the impact of reducing education inequality is associated with improvements in institutional quality. The fourth study analyses the implications from the first three studies with reference to the institutional reform agenda. Insight is given for improving the reform process. Areas of context specificity and sequencing of reforms are dealt with, using country examples. The intuition from this essay is that educational equality is a deliberate initiative which needs to be carried out through policy initiatives, although the process adopted would depend on the specific economy. It is suggested that there is a need to change the fundamental focus from emphasis on altering formal rules, to considering the current underlying structures in societies as a constraint, in developing a way forward to improving the reform agenda.