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(2010)ThesisSimultaneous achievement of both sales and service performance goals by retail service teams is of critical importance to retail organisations. The success of retail organisations as a whole is essentially reliant on the combined sales and service efforts of frontline service teams where issues of performance management and goal setting central to achieving high performing teams. Yet, with much of the current literature centred on the processes and outcomes of teamwork and team behaviours, little attention has been paid to the psychological foundations of teams that guide team performance. Thus, this study identifies team-level perceptions of ability (team efficacy) and motivation (team goal orientation) as critical components of retail service team performance and three key questions are addressed: (i) what are the antecedents of team efficacy?; (ii) what is the effect of team goal orientation on sales and service performance?; and (iii) how do the constructs of team efficacy and team goal orientation interact to influence the sales and service performance of retail service teams? This research reviews the retail service team context, social cognitive theory and goal theory to construct a conceptual model of retail service team performance. The model was then tested using data gathered from 13 in-depth interviews and the partial least square analysis of a quantitative survey of 319 retail service teams. Results indicate that integrating performance awareness tasks and promoting team connectedness develops strong efficacy beliefs that positively influence sales and service performance. In addition, the results support the argument for a three-dimensional model of team goal orientation through identifying differing effects of the two performance dimensions on team performance. Theoretically, the most significant contribution of this research is that it offers insight into team-level concepts only previously explored at the individual level of analysis, with the study presenting empirical evidence of team efficacy and team goal orientation as drivers of team performance in the retail services context. Managerial contributions of the research include guidance on how to direct resources towards improving team efficacy and managing team goal orientation to most effectively improve both the sales and service performance of retail service teams.
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(2010)ThesisThis dissertation is primarily concerned with mixture models for high-dimensional financial data. New flexible mixture models are introduced and implemented with fast and effective optimization routines. The stochastic gradient approach uses random gradients to update the parameters of the mixture model improving the chance of the iterates converging to a higher mode. Chapter 2 provides the details of the stochastic gradient optimization routines used. Chapter 3 suggests two new multivariate density estimators, namely the marginal adaptation mixture of normals and the mixture of normals copula. Their performances are compared with a few recent popular models such as the skewed-t model. Chapter 4 discusses covariance estimation for high dimensional data. The aim of the chapter is to improve the estimation of covariance matrices by using mixture shrinkage priors. This chapter also shows how to apply the priors to the simultaneous estimation of several covariance matrices such as in the case of mixture of normals models. Chapters 5 and 6 consider the estimation or fitting of models to time series data, when the models may experience a small number of structural breaks. Chapter 5 looks at univariate data and Chapter 6 considers multivariate data. In particular, Chapter 6 shows how to estimate a Gaussian vector autoregressive model subject to occasional structural breaks using a mixture of experts framework.
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(2011)ThesisThis thesis examines the trading behaviour of investors in the equities market of the Singapore Exchange (SGX). One of the main aims is to better understand how the heterogeneity of market participants with their strategies may be linked to the properties of order book dynamics. The conclusions drawn from the three essays could potentially influence the decisions of regulators, exchange operators, and investors in securities markets. The first essay investigates client order execution strategies in terms of how they place orders across the limit order book. The results suggest that a multi-price trading strategy, where investors place a “network” of buy and sell limit orders simultaneously, is a viable strategy and might even be profitable enough for investors to persist with the strategy. It is also shown that institutional investors tend to place more aggressive orders than retail investors. The second essay examines the effects prior order transactions, limit order book attributes, and market variables have on order submission and cancellation choices. It is found that while order transactions have a positive same order type order-by-order serial correlation, when order flow is aggregated by time intervals, the correlation of the changes in aggregated order flow of the same order type between consecutive time intervals is negative even over short time periods of five seconds. The positive order-by-order serial correlation for orders of the same type is present regardless of whether the incoming transaction is by an institutional investor or a retail investor. The final essay studies how changes in the limit order book and market conditions affect the aggressiveness levels of orders after their submissions and thus influence order cancellations. Traders who place orders near the top of the order book actively monitor those orders and decisions to cancel orders are significantly affected by changes in order book conditions such as order depth, stock volatility, market volatility, price returns, and net trade imbalance. In managing and balancing non-execution risk and option-to-trade risk, the probability that traders cancel their orders also differs depending on whether their orders have moved further away, remain unchanged, or are nearer to the best same-side prices.
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(2011)ThesisIncidents of customer rage and their destructive consequences, such as physical or verbal attacks on employees and damage to company property, have in recent times been a concern for many service organizations across the globe. The present study employs the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) to understand, across two national groups (the US and Thailand), the causes and consequences of customer rage incident. This theory identifies two key psychological processes: cognitive appraisal and coping. It is the cognitive appraisal of a stressful incident (i.e., a service failure) that can trigger coping responses as well as severe negative emotions such as rage. The study has four specific objectives: 1) Empirically examine over two time periods, the association between types of service failures and customers’ cognitive appraisal; 2) explore the dynamic processes of cognitive appraisal that lead to escalating negative emotions over three time periods; 3) examine the association between cognitive appraisal and coping as well as the influence of coping strategies on satisfaction with service recovery; and 4) examine the extent to which the relationships studied in objectives (1) to (3) are moderated by the national culture. An empirical study involving 435 respondents and multiple methods are employed to gain insights into customer rage incidents. Service failure situations, customers’ cognitive appraisal (perceived threats to fundamental human needs— self-esteem, justice, etc), negative emotions, and coping strategies involved in rage incidents across two national groups (the US and Thailand) are explored. Their interrelationships are also examined. Results suggest that different types of service failure tend to be linked to different cognitive appraisals (threats). For example, core service failure is positively associated with threat to economic resource. Our results also indicated that a perceived threat (appraisal) to fundamental human needs (such as a threat to one's self-esteem) could trigger customer rage, but not immediately. The results further showed that each threat is positively associated with an array of coping strategies (e.g., planful problem-solving, distancing, etc). Finally, national culture was found to have a significant influence on customers’ cognitive appraisal and coping processes following a dissatisfactory service encounter.
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(2011)ThesisTraditionally, research has focused on the consequences of human values and the determinants of values have been neglected. The central aim of this thesis was to investigate the mechanisms and motivational basis for values. To achieve this aim, I determined how biologically based approach and avoidance personality traits predicted values via the mediating roles of emotional management and executive function. I also used experimental conditions to further understand the determinants of values in predicting risk-taking behavior. This thesis contains five self-contained papers (chapters 2-6). Each chapter explores the literature and focuses on indirect and direct predictors of values. Together, the six studies revealed the potential mechanisms and a motivational basis for values. Chapter 1, supported the proposed model that Emotional Intelligence mediated the relationship between Cloninger et al.‟s (1993) approach and avoidance personality traits and the Values. In chapter 2, the proposed association between Emotional Intelligence, personality and Machiavellian moral reasoning was supported. Chapter 4 (Studies 2 and 3), provided general support for the proposed model; indirect pathways (via Emotional Intelligence) from approach and avoidance personality traits predicted Machiavellianism. In chapter 5, a laboratory based study suggested that approach personality traits (Carver and White, 1994; Goldberg, 1999; Jackson, 2005) predicted the values of Universalism, Benevolence, Hedonism, and Stimulation via Executive Functioning. Finally, in chapter 6, a laboratory study suggested that Approach personality traits and values directly influence risk-taking behavior. Overall, the findings suggest that personality traits predict values via managing emotions, and Executive Functioning. Personality traits, emotional management and Executive Functioning provided mechanisms and a motivational basis for human values. Further evidence points to personality traits providing mechanisms for values under laboratory conditions. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed at the end of each chapter.
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(2011)ThesisIn the Information Systems (IS) discipline there has been a continued interest in understanding how IT or IS development, implementation and use draw from and impact on social and power relations and the distribution of power in various contexts. This thesis aims to understand the role that the implementation and use of an enterprise system such as ERP can play in the (re)configuration, (re)construction and exercise of power in organisational contexts. To achieve the aim, the thesis i) draws from extensive literature related to IS (and specifically ERP) and power, ii) develops a Foucauldian theoretical foundation to study ERP and power in organisational contexts and iii) examines a case of an ERP implementation and use in a State Owned Enterprise (SOE) in China as part of an ongoing modernization program. The thesis answers the following empirical research questions: 1. How are various forms of exercise of power and control enacted through the ERP system implementation and use in business processes and practices? 2. How do these enactments reconfigure power relations and reconstitute the regime of truth? 3. What is the role of the ERP system in such a process of power (re)construction? The case study demonstrates how the ERP implementation aimed at rationalizing business processes led to largely covert attempts at increasing surveillance, standardization, disciplining, and subjugation. These attempts are met with counteraction in various forms through a ‘care of the self’, including overt resistance, e.g. openly challenging and arguing, non-participation, and covert resistance, e.g. distancing, persistence, creating workarounds. The analysis reveals the outcomes of the ERP implementation do not only result from the perception of technological (mis)fit or the interpretation by powerful groups but more importantly spring from mutual constitution of the ERP system and the human actors leading to reconfiguration of power relations. This is explained by proposing a concept of power-technology nexus as an instance of the broader notion of power/knowledge discussed by Foucault. The emergence of power-technology nexus indicates that the more ERP enabled processes get enacted, the more ERP becomes integral to the circulation and exercise of power, and the more the ERP system becomes a material embodiment of the power/knowledge nexus, thus a transformative agent. These empirical and theoretical results contribute not only to better understanding of the mutual reconstruction of power and technology, but also provide a theoretical foundation for a more critical view of the wider societal and political consequences of technology that can help inform both research and practice.
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(2011)ThesisWithout consistency in auditors' reporting behaviour, it is very difficult for a user of audit reports to determine where differences come from; economic differences, differences in auditing methods, interpretation of standards or even due to the auditors' independence. This thesis examines the consistency in auditors’ reporting behaviour with two empirical studies. The first study investigates the cross-country consistency in the application of auditing standards over time and across different auditing firms in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. With a sample of 19,157 financially distressed firms from 2001 to 2006, the study finds that there is a lack of consistency in audit reporting behaviour between these countries when it comes to the going concern modification. The lack of consistency is however moderated by international audit firm networks, and the trend is that the country differences have reduced over time. The second study looks at the auditors' consistency by comparing their substantial doubt threshold when first issuing a going concern modification, with their substantial doubt threshold when they withdraw the going concern modification. With panel data from 386 US firms in the years 2000-2008, auditors are found to be inconsistent in their assessment of the substantial doubt criterion. The ceteris paribus probability of observing a going concern modification is 6.9% lower when the going concern modification was first issued, compared to when it was withdrawn. The study finds that this difference is primarily caused by the firms that change auditors between the issuance and the withdrawal of the going concern modification. This implies that given the same auditing standard, different audit firms arrive at inconsistent audit outcomes. Understanding the role and relationship between the various impediments and facilitators to consistency both at a national and international level is of importance to consumers and providers of audit services, as well as those who regulate the audit market. By providing a systematic investigation into the consistency of the audit outcome, the findings of this thesis provides valuable input to the evaluation of the current auditing standards and may serve as a guide to future developments of these standards. The thesis also examines the audit firms’ network structure and its ability to facilitate consistency across borders.
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(2011)ThesisIn this thesis, I present three studies that test a widely held—yet rarely tested—assumption; that emotional labour strategies are related to organisationally relevant outcomes. Specifically, in the first study I test whether surface acting and deep acting are related to employees’ overall performance and turnover in a call centre environment. In the second and third studies, I conduct an experiment and a survey to test in more detail how the perceived authenticity of employees’ emotional expressions is related to two service outcomes: employee service performance and customer satisfaction. Results suggest that surface acting is directly related to employee turnover, and that the inauthentic positive emotional displays typically produced by engaging in surface acting negatively relate to service outcomes. Further, I introduce the concept of display rule salience—the extent to which an organisation’s display rules are explicitly prescribed, enforced, and made known to those internal and external to the organisation—and investigate its moderating effect on the relationship between perceived emotional authenticity and service outcomes. Results support the presence of relationships between both surface acting and turnover, as well as between perceived emotional authenticity and service outcomes. Display rule salience appears to moderate the latter relationship, however the results are inconsistent. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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(2011)ThesisThe field of software engineering for computer supported cooperative work aims at designing and developing software engineering models, methods and tools that assist individuals and groups to cooperate. However, the cooperation is significantly influenced by participants’ awareness of relevant information. The objective of this thesis is to propose a software engineering methodology to design and develop applications that assist individuals to identify their awareness. The present study is based on three main observations from the literature. First, studies on the utilisation of information technology for cooperation emphasise the role of awareness for identifying the relevance of information in the midst of an abundance of inputs. Second, there are bodies of work that indicate the significant contributions of agents to design and develop software applications to assist individuals to maintain their awareness. Third, the literature lacks formalised software engineering methods on how to identify and implement awareness. The objective is to provide a mechanism that can be applied with intelligent agents in order to design and develop software applications to identify awareness. This study introduces Policy-based Awareness Management (PAM), a software engineering methodology that proposes the use of existing policy rules as a source to identify awareness. This methodology presents a formalised framework for policy-based awareness and a step-by-step process for awareness identification. The formalism has been built on the logic of general awareness, and its implementation is based on the platform of policy rules in Directory Enabled Networks (DEN). The research also proposes a systematic software engineering methodology for designing and developing architecture of software applications. The present thesis develops a design methodology for software agents to implement the proposed formalism. In this study, PAM using software agents has been evaluated in terms of its efficacy and cost-efficiency by a triangulation of two simulation studies on hypothetical examples and wireless communication procedures in a hospital environment. The original contributions of this study are illustrated through three applications; two in disaster management and one in healthcare. The results of these evaluations show that PAM is effective and cost-efficient subject to the limitations of the study.
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(2011)ThesisSince the beginning of the economic reforms launched in 1978, China has been in the transition from a centrally planned system to a market-oriented economy. This transition, accompanied with the rapid economic growth, has exerted profound effects on China's labour market. This PhD dissertation, consisting of three empirical essays, investigates the heterogeneous returns to schooling among Chinese urban residents, the distributional gender wage differential issue among rural-urban migrants and the wage effects of the mismatch between college major and occupation among recent college graduates in China. The three microeconometric labour studies provide new insights into the understanding of the wage determination, wage differentials and wage structure in urban China for different population groups during China's economic transition.