The degree of Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the College of Business, RMIT University. It includes five scientific papers which have been submitted and are currently under review or accepted for publication in targeted journals. These papers comprise one conceptual paper and four empirical papers.

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This thesis investigates the choice behaviour of first year undergraduate students through proposing and testing a conceptual model. The psychological constructs of personal values, motivation, selection criteria, demographic and socioeconomic factors introduced as underlying drivers provide invaluable insight into the pathways of influence and relationships between student types and their preference towards a particular degree program at a particular university.

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In this study, two models were proposed: a five-stage SISP maturity model for defining SISP maturity and another one for assessing the degree of SISP maturity. The five SISP maturity levels were defined as: Rudimentary Planning, Ineffectual Planning, Attainable Planning, Sustainable Planning, and Adaptable Planning. The assessment model was structured as a third-order system, where eight first-order dimensions were termed as Form and Content, Collaboration, Policies, Stakeholders' Designation, Knowledge Bank, Technology, Time Dimension, and Viability.

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This practice-led research project considers human agency in relation to matter and materialism. Seeking to unlearn human assertions of agency as dominant, this project fosters relational and collaborative exchanges with matter that manifest as installations and sculptural interventions. Informed by new materialist and posthuman frameworks, it recognises that material hierarchies are held in place by what we choose to prioritise in human worlds.

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The aim of this research is to deepen insight into the social-psychological factors that influence the formation of a desire to attend classical music concerts and to better predict people’s positive behavioural responses towards live classical music performances.

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This thesis highlights several conflicting and intriguingly perplexing attributes about India that make it a unique country amongst other emerging markets, thus necessitating research focussed on India. This thesis develops a comprehensive framework which projects India as a common-law country with business structures and corporate governance models resembling civil-law countries, yet is distant from either of the two with respect to its sociocultural anthropological attributes.

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This research seeks to understand the interplay of structure and agency in shaping the jobseeking experiences of NESB skilled migrants in Australia. The mixed-method research is underpinned by the meta-theoretical approach of critical realism and uses the Continuous Survey of Australia’s Migrants (CSAM) quantitative secondary data and qualitative semi-structured interviews with NESB skilled migrants in Australia.

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The objective of this research is to explore the domestic transfer pricing practices of service organisations in Australia with the emphasis placed on examining whether, in internal transactions, the domestic transfer price had any influence on the value perceived by the internal buyer. Because the extant transfer pricing theories cannot explain the value perceived by the internal customer in internal exchange of goods and services, an exploratory research methodology is adopted and no assumptions are made about the relationship.

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This research presents findings from an Australian government-funded research project looking at the implications of digitisation for the book publishing industry in Australia. Although digitisation is to some extent synonymous with digital technologies and in fact, the impact of current and emerging digital technologies is clearly central to any such study, the major focus was on business and organisational dimensions, with particular emphasis on current and emerging stakeholders, competition, value propositions and business models, both current and potential.

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The research "The development of a work-life fit model: A demands and resources approach" sought to (i) identify the demands and resources relevant to workers of the Australian construction industry; (ii) identify the demand-resource profiles on different worker groups within a diverse construction workforce; (iii) investigate whether individual attributes influence demand-resource profiles; and (iv) evaluate whether Q Methodology was a suitable methodology with which to explore the work-life experience of workers of the construction industry.

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The research extends the understanding of these factors through the incorporation of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP). Accordingly, a model is developed that integrates ACAP, MVC and MV with market-driving innovation performance, comprising before-launch stage performance, post-launch stage performance and financial performance. External and internal structural factors relevant to the firm such as size and the nature of its competitive environment are also considered as moderators in the model.

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This study provides comparative findings on the impact of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) on the value relevance of reported accounting and non-accounting information in a set of six countries with a British accounting heritage but divergent harmonization paths leading up to IFRS adoption. The countries included in the sample are the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa.

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This research demonstrates how housing demand can be modelled by using a System Dynamics approach. This modelling concept has been set up, using the root causes which generate housing demand. Causal factors which influence housing demand are collated, and mapped. A model simulating housing demand was developed. Keys to this are demographic, social and economic factors. This model is presented with a view to pursuing new approaches for housing demand modelling.

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This research is based on the hypothesis that applying building industry’s best practice initiatives can deliver sustainability within the built environment. This hypothesis assumes links between the applied practices, the outcome achieved and sustainability. This research tests this hypothesis with a single ‘critical’ case project; the recently constructed Lithgow Government Office Building (GOB) Development, and against a theoretical framework that defines sustainability.

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With a view of providing investors with a better understanding of the risk and return relationship in the A-share market over the past decade, this thesis adapts several empirical models to the circumstances in China and conducts four empirical analyses. The analysis is undertaken employing the returns on the Chinese A-share market, the Chinese B-share market and the Hong Kong H-share market together with a series of developed stock markets.

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Modelling the diffusion of mobile commerce in a country is a difficult task due to the non-linear, complex and uncertain nature of its operating environment. Conventional analytical techniques are of limited use in this context, and a System Dynamics approach is more appropriate to model such a complex system.

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This thesis studies logistics capability, supply chain uncertainty and risk management, and logistics performance in the Australian courier industry, from the perspective of resources-based theory. A quantitative research is designed to investigate the relationships among the three latent variables: logistics capability, supply chain uncertainty and risk, and logistics performance. No similar previous study has been found.

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This thesis contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between residential energy efficiency and health. The thesis argues that residential energy efficiency improvements are complex interventions in complex socio‐technical systems.

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The main aim of "Doctoral thesis of Philosophy: Prejudicial related-party transactions of listed companies in China: evidence of motivating and enabling influences" is to test theory-driven models of motivating and enabling influences on the extent of prejudicial RPTs. A supplementary aim is to update the descriptive evidence on the incidence and categorisation of RPTs in China.

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This thesis provides empirical investigations into the behaviour of implied volatility quotes for currency options on the British pound/U.S. dollar (GBP/USD), the euro/U.S. dollar (EUR/USD), the Australian dollar/U.S. dollar (AUD/USD) and the U.S. dollar/Japanese yen (USD/JPY). The analyses are performed using dealer-quoted implied volatility and spot exchange rate datasets collected from the over-the-counter currency option market.

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