Factors influencing health professionals' response to victims of domestic violence

This thesis examined factors influencing health professional's response to victims of domestic violence in Vietnam. As this is the first time that this type of research has been conducted in Vietnam, it was expected that the results would contribute significantly to local knowledge and should add to global perspectives. Since it is the first questionnaire about this topic to be developed in Vietnam, the psychometric property of the questionnaire was primarily established, resulting in the questionnaire being recommended to use for further study. By explaining the factors that affect the intentions to respond of health workers, this project provides key data for authorities to design intervention strategies to improve the responses of health professionals to victims of domestic violence in Vietnam.

A theory of process modelling impact

Process modelling – the design and use of graphical documentations of an organisation’s business processes – is a key method to document and use information about business processes. Still, despite current interest in process modelling, this research area faces essential challenges. Key unanswered questions concern the impact of process modelling in organisational practice, and the mechanisms through which impacts are developed. To answer these questions and to provide a better understanding of process modelling impact, I turn to the concept of affordances. Affordances describe the possibilities for goal-oriented action that technical objects offer to specified users. This notion has received growing attention from IS researchers. I report on my efforts to further develop the IS discipline’s understanding of affordances and impacts from informational objects, such as process models used by analysts for purposes of information systems analysis and design. Specifically, I seek to extend existing theory on the emergence and actualisation of affordances. I develop a research model that describes the process by which affordances are perceived and actualised and explain their dependence on available information and actualisation effort. I present my plans for operationalising and testing this research model empirically, and provide details about my design of a full-cycle, mixed methods study currently in progress.

Testing an extended theory of planned behavior to predict young people's intentions to join a bone marrow donor registry

An extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to understand the factors, particularly control perceptions and affective reactions, given conflicting findings in previous research, informing younger people's intentions to join a bone marrow registry. Participants (N  = 174) completed attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (PBC), moral norm, anticipated regret, self-identity, and intention items for registering. The extended TPB (except PBC) explained 67.2% of variance in intention. Further testing is needed as to the volitional nature of registering. Moral norm, anticipated regret, and self-identity are likely intervention targets for increasing younger people's bone marrow registry participation.

Donating blood and organs : using an extended theory of planned behavior perspective to identify similarities and differences in individual motivations to donate

Due to the critical shortage and continued need of blood and organ donations (ODs), research exploring similarities and differences in the motivational determinants of these behaviors is needed. In a sample of 258 university students, we used a cross-sectional design to test the utility of an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) including moral norm, self-identity and in-group altruism (family/close friends and ethnic group), to predict people’s blood and OD intentions. Overall, the extended TPB explained 77.0% and 74.6% of variance in blood and OD intentions, respectively. In regression analyses, common contributors to intentions across donation contexts were attitude, self-efficacy and self-identity. Normative influences varied with subjective norm as a significant predictor related to OD intentions but not blood donation intentions at the final step of regression analyses. Moral norm did not contribute significantly to blood or OD intentions. In-group altruism (family/close friends) was significantly related to OD intentions only in regressions. Future donation strategies should increase confidence to donate, foster a perception of self as the type of person who donates blood and/or organs, and address preferences to donate organs to in-group members only.

Informed democracy : information experiences during the 2012 Queensland election

This chapter presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative study exploring people’s information experiences during the 2012 Queensland State election in Australia. Six residents of South East Queensland who were eligible to vote in the state election participated in a semi-structured interview. The interviews revealed five themes that depict participants’ information experience during the election: information sources, information flow, personal politics, party politics and sense making. Together these themes represent what is experienced as information, how information is experienced, as well as contextual aspects that were unique to voting in an election. The study outlined here is one in an emerging area of enquiry that has explored information experience as a research object. This study has revealed that people’s information experiences are rich, complex and dynamic, and that information experience as a construct of scholarly inquiry provides deep insights into the ways in which people relate to their information worlds. More studies exploring information experience within different contexts are needed to help develop our theoretical understanding of this important and emerging construct.

Measuring global economic interdependence : a hierarchical network approach

This paper investigates the business cycle co-movement across countries and regions since 1950 as a measure for quantifying the economic interdependence in the ongoing globalisation process. Our methodological approach is based on analysis of a correlation matrix and the networks it contains. Such an approach summarises the interaction and interdependence of all elements, and it represents a more accurate measure of the global interdependence involved in an economic system. Our results show (1) the dynamics of interdependence has been driven more by synchronisation in regional growth patterns than by the synchronisation of the world economy, and (2) world crisis periods dramatically increase the global co-movement in the world economy.

The potential of combining phenomenography, variation theory and threshold concepts to inform curriculum design in higher education

This chapter describes an innovative method of curriculum design that is based on combining phenomenographic research, and the associated variation theory of learning, with the notion of disciplinary threshold concepts to focus specialised design attention on the most significant and difficult parts of the curriculum. The method involves three primary stages: (i) identification of disciplinary concepts worthy of intensive curriculum design attention, using the criteria for threshold concepts; (ii) action research into variation in students’ understandings/misunderstandings of those concepts, using phenomenography as the research approach; (iii) design of learning activities to address the poorer understandings identified in the second stage, using variation theory as a guiding framework. The curriculum design method is inherently theory and evidence based. It was developed and trialed during a two-year project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, using physics and law disciplines as case studies. Disciplinary teachers’ perceptions of the impact of the method on their teaching and understanding of student learning were profound. Attempts to measure the impact on student learning were less conclusive; teachers often unintentionally deviated from the design when putting it into practice for the first time. Suggestions for improved implementation of the method are discussed.

Children and information communication technologies in the media : a study using moral panic theory

This thesis is an investigation of the media's representation of children and ICT. The study draws on moral panic theory and Queensland newspaper media, to identify the impact of newspaper reporting on the public's perceptions of young people and ICT.

How does innovation happen in the upstream oil & gas industry? Insights from a global survey

Few would argue that the upstream oil & gas industry has become more technology-intensive over the years. But how does innovation happen in the industry? Specifically, what ideas and inputs flow from which parts of the sector’s value network, and where do these inputs go? And how do firms and organizations from different countries contribute differently to this process? This paper puts forward the results of a survey designed to shed light on these issues. A joint research initiative between the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Queensland University of Technology, the survey was sent to 469 executives and senior managers who played a significant role with regards to R&D and/or technology deployment in their respective business units. A total of 199 responses were received from a broad range of organizations and countries around the world. Several interesting themes and trends emerge from the results, including: (1) service companies tend to file considerably more patents per innovation than other types of organization; (2) over 63% of the deployed innovations reported in the survey originated in service companies; (3) neither universities nor government-led research organizations are considered to be valuable sources of new information and knowledge in the industry’s R&D initiatives; and (4) despite the increasing degree of globalization in the marketplace, the USA still plays an extremely dominant role in the industry’s overall R&D and technology deployment activities. By providing a detailed snapshot of how innovation happens in the upstream oil & gas sector, this paper provides a valuable foundation for future investigations and discussions aimed at improving how R&D and technology deployment are managed within the industry.

Global indigenous studies in the first world: some reflections and epistemological matters

Indigenous studies in First World nation states such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States of America and Hawaii, appear to have acquired the status of a discipline, although the accounts of its formation vary. Indigenous studies is formally recognised as part of university curricula in these countries and is included in inter‐disciplinary contexts and degree programs or is offered as a program and a degree in its own right. Indigenous scholarship is being published in unprecedented numbers with publishing houses competing for manuscripts. Indigenous studies journals have proliferated having emerged in the 1970s though most were, and continue to be, edited by non‐Indigenous people. In addition, Indigenous studies professional associations have been established organising research related activities as well as convening conferences to enable intellectual engagement and the formation of national and international networks. The nature and extent of this institutionalisation and the conditions of existence, though often marginalised and under resourced, may allude to the coherence of Indigenous Studies as a discipline with global reach but what remains unclear are its epistemological boundaries and the degree to which it perpetuates cultural entrapment . This paper will reflect on some of these epistemological matters.

Criminalisation and normative theory

Criminal law scholarship is enjoying a renaissance in normative theory, evident in a growing list of publications from leading scholars that attempt to elucidate a set of principles on which criminalisation and criminal law might — indeed should — be based. This development has been less marked in Australia, where a stream of criminologically influenced criminal law scholarship, teaching and practice has emerged over nearly three decades. There are certain tensions between this predominantly contextual, process-oriented and criminological tradition that has emerged in Australia, characterised by a critical approach to the search for ‘general principles’ of the criminal law, and the more recent revival of interest in developing a set of principles on which a ‘normative theory of criminal law’ might be founded. Aspects of this tension will be detailed through examination of recent examples of criminalisation in New South Wales that are broadly representative of trends across all Australian urisdictions. The article will then reflect on the links between these particular features of criminalisation and attempts to develop a ‘normative theory’ of criminalisation.

Editorial : Global 21st century professionals : developing capability to work with Indigenous and other traditionally-oriented peoples

International agreement on the framework for protecting the rights of Indigenous populations within nation states has occurred alongside unprecedented levels of globalisation of other previously nation-based activities such as economic and social provision and planning. As the idea of the postcolonial democratic state emerges, this collection undertakes an international and comparative examination of the role of higher education in educating globally aware professionals who are able to work effectively and in cultural safety with Indigenous Peoples...

Learning processes in creative service teams : towards a dynamic systems theory

The fastest-growing segment of jobs in the creative sector are in those firms that provide creative services to other sectors (Hearn, Goldsmith, Bridgstock, Rodgers 2014, this volume; Cunningham 2014, this volume). There are also a large number of Creative Services (Architecture and Design, Advertising and Marketing, Software and Digital Content occupations) workers embedded in organizations in other industry sectors (Cunningham and Higgs 2009). Ben Goldsmith (2014, this volume) shows, for example, that the Financial Services sector is the largest employer of digital creative talent in Australia. But why should this be? We argue it is because ‘knowledge-based intangibles are increasingly the source of value creation and hence of sustainable competitive advantage (Mudambi 2008, 186). This value creation occurs primarily at the research and development (R and D) and the marketing ends of the supply chain. Both of these areas require strong creative capabilities in order to design for, and to persuade, consumers. It is no surprise that Jess Rodgers (2014, this volume), in a study of Australia’s Manufacturing sector, found designers and advertising and marketing occupations to be the most numerous creative occupations. Greg Hearn and Ruth Bridgstock (2013, forthcoming) suggest ‘the creative heart of the creative economy […] is the social and organisational routines that manage the generation of cultural novelty, both tacit and codified, internal and external, and [cultural novelty’s] combination with other knowledges […] produce and capture value’. 2 Moreover, the main “social and organisational routine” is usually a team (for example, Grabher 2002; 2004).

Chinese fashion designers in Shanghai : identifying a fresh perspective about their role in the world order of fashion

Shanghai possesses an apt legacy, once referred to as “Paris of the East”. Municipal aspirations for Shanghai to assume a position among the great fashion cities of the world have been integrated in the recent re-shaping of this modern city into a role model for Chinese creative enterprise yet China is still known primarily as centre of clothing production. Increasingly however, “Made in China” is being replaced by “Created in China” drawing attention to two distinct consumer markets for Chinese designers. Fashion designers who have entered the global fashion system for education or by showing their collections have generally adopted a design aesthetic that aligns with Western markets, allowing little competitive advantage. In contrast, Chinese designers who rest their attention on the domestic Chinese market find a disparate, highly competitive marketplace. The pillars of authenticity that for foreign fashion brands extend far into their cultural and creative histories, often for many decades in the case of Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Christian Dior do not yet exist in China in this era of rapid globalisation. Here, the cultural bedrock allows these same pillars to extend only thirty years or so into the past reaching the moments when Deng Xiaoping granted China’s creative entrepreneurs passage. To this end, interviews with fashion designers in Shanghai have been undertaken during the last twelve months for a PhD dissertation. Production of culture theory has been used to identify working methods, practices of production and the social and cultural milieu necessary for designers to achieve viability.