Effects of susceptibility to normative influence and type of testimonial on attitudes toward print advertising

In two experiments, we show how a consumer’s susceptibility to normative influence (SNI) offers useful insights into the effectiveness of two types of testimonials: a typical person endorsement (Study 1) and a celebrity endorsement (Study 2). Specifically, we suggest that two variables moderate testimonial effects—SNI and product attribute information. Results show that in forming their evaluations, high-SNI consumers place a greater emphasis on the testimonial than on the attribute information. In contrast, low-SNI consumers are more influenced by attribute information. A mediation analysis shows that advertising attitudes for high-SNI consumers are mediated by testimonial thoughts, whereas the attitudes for low-SNI consumers are mediated by their attribute thoughts. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented.

The influence of ad model ethnicity and self-referencing on attitudes evidence from New Zealand

This paper examines consumers self-referencing as a mechanism for explaining ethnicity effects in advertising. Data was collected from a 2 (model ethnicity: Asian, white) x 2 (product stereotypicality: stereotypical, non-stereotypical) experiment. Measured independent variables included participant ethnicity and self-referencing. Results shows that (1) Asian exhibit greater self-referencing of Asian models than whites do; (2) self-referencing mediates ethnicity effects on attitude ( ie, attitude towards the model, attitude toward the add, brand attitude, and purchase intentions); (3) high self-referencing Asian have more favourable attitude towards the add and purchase intentions than low self referencing Asians; and (4) Asian models advertising atypical products generate more self-referencing and more favourable attitudes toward the model, A, and purchase intentions for both Asians and whites.

The role of land use and psycho-social factors in high density residents' work travel mode choices : implications for sustainable transport policy

Imperatives to improve the sustainability of cities often hinge upon plans to increase urban residential density to facilitate greater reliance on sustainable forms of transport and minimise car use. However there is ongoing debate about whether high residential density land use in isolation results in sustainable transport outcomes. Findings from surveys with residents of inner-urban high density dwellings in Brisbane, Australia, suggest that solo car travel accounts for the greatest modal share of typical work journeys and attitudes toward dwelling and neighbourhood transport-related features, residential sorting factors and socio-demographics, alongside land use such as public transport availability, are significantly associated with work travel mode choice. We discuss the implications of our findings for transport policy and management including encouraging relatively sustainable intermodal forms of transport for work journeys.

A reflective model for colour studies learning

In a university context how should colour be taught in order to engage students? Entwistle states, ‘What we learn depends on how we learn, and why we have to learn it.’ Therefore, there is a need to address the accumulating evidence that highlights the effects of learning environments on the quality of student learning when considering colour education. It is necessary to embrace the contextual demands while ensuring that the student knowledge of colour and the joy of discovering its characteristics in practice are enhanced. Institutional policy is forcing educators to re-evaluate traditional studio’s effectiveness and the intensive 'hands-on' interactive approach that is embedded in such an approach. As curriculum development involves not only theory and project work, the classroom culture and physical environment also need to be addressed. The increase in student numbers impacting the number of academic staff/student ratio, availability of teaching support as well as increasing variety of student age, work commitments, learning styles and attitudes have called for positive changes to how we teach. The Queensland University of Technology’s restructure in 2005 was a great opportunity to re-evaluate and redesign the approach to teaching within the design units of Interior Design undergraduate program –including colour. The resultant approach “encapsulates a mode of delivery, studio structure, as well as the learning context in which students and staff interact to facilitate learning”1 with a potential “to be integrated into a range of Interior Design units as it provides an adaptive educational framework rather than a prescriptive set of rules”.

Enforcing P3P policies using a digital rights management system

The protection of privacy has gained considerable attention recently. In response to this, new privacy protection systems are being introduced. SITDRM is one such system that protects private data through the enforcement of licenses provided by consumers. Prior to supplying data, data owners are expected to construct a detailed license for the potential data users. A license specifies whom, under what conditions, may have what type of access to the protected data. The specification of a license by a data owner binds the enterprise data handling to the consumer’s privacy preferences. However, licenses are very detailed, may reveal the internal structure of the enterprise and need to be kept synchronous with the enterprise privacy policy. To deal with this, we employ the Platform for Privacy Preferences Language (P3P) to communicate enterprise privacy policies to consumers and enable them to easily construct data licenses. A P3P policy is more abstract than a license, allows data owners to specify the purposes for which data are being collected and directly reflects the privacy policy of an enterprise.

Location constraints in digital rights management

Digital rights management allows information owners to control the use and dissemination of electronic documents via a machine-readable licence. This paper describes the design and implementation of a system for creating and enforcing licences containing location constraints that can be used to restrict access to sensitive documents to a defined area. Documents can be loaded onto a portable device and used in the approved areas, but cannot be used if the device moves to another area. Our contribution includes a taxonomy for access control in the presence of requests to perform non-instantaneous controlled actions.

A learning community approach to doctoral education in the social sciences

The paper reports on the findings of a community learning approach to doctoral education involving scholarly writing groups (SWGs) which was developed and implemented in the context of a higher degree research programme within the social sciences in an Australian university. The research evaluated the impact of the teaching intervention on students' perceptions of the community learning experience, their knowledge of scholarly writing and their attitudes towards writing. The findings are suggestive of the advantages of community approaches to learning in higher degree research education as a supplement to independent supervision. The SWGs were associated with improvements in both participants' knowledge of scholarly writing and their attitudes towards writing. However, a variety of characteristics of doctoral education are potential impediments to the creation of ongoing and regular interactions in learning communities such as SWGs. The paper concludes that a flexible approach to the recognition and enhancement of community approaches to learning is required to acknowledge the complex and diverse context of contemporary doctoral education.

Building information modelling : an issue of adoption and change management

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an IT enabled technology that allows storage, management, sharing, access, update and use of all the data relevant to a project through out the project life-cycle in the form of a data repository. BIM enables improved inter-disciplinary collaboration across distributed teams, intelligent documentation and information retrieval, greater consistency in building data, better conflict detection and enhanced facilities management. While the technology itself may not be new, and similar approaches have been in use in some other sectors like Aircraft and Automobile industry for well over a decade now, the AEC/FM (Architecture, Engineering and Construction/ Facilities Management) industry is still to catch up with them in its ability to exploit the benefits of the IT revolution. Though the potential benefits of the technology in terms of knowledge sharing, project management, project co-ordination and collaboration are near to obvious, the adoption rate has been rather lethargic, inspite of some well directed efforts and availability of supporting commercial tools. Since the technology itself has been well tested over the years in some other domains the plausible causes must be rooted well beyond the explanation of the ‘Bell Curve of innovation adoption’. This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation (CRC-CI) which aims to identify these gaps and come up with specifications and guidelines to enable greater adoption of the BIM approach in practice. A detailed literature review is conducted that looks at some of the similar research reported in the recent years. A desktop audit of some of the existing commercial tools that support BIM application has been conducted to identify the technological issues and concerns, and a workshop was organized with industry partners and various players in the AEC industry for needs analysis, expectations and feedback on the possible deterrents and inhibitions surrounding the BIM adoption.

Ageing, learning, technology, and health management

The world’s population is ageing rapidly. Ageing has an impact on all aspects of human life, including social, economic, cultural, and political. Understanding ageing is therefore an important issue for the 21st century. This chapter will consider the active ageing model. This model is based on optimising opportunities for health, participation, and security in order to enhance quality of life. There is a range of exciting options developing for personal health management, for and by the ageing population, that make use of computer technology, and these should support active ageing. Their use depends however on older people learning to use computer technology effectively. The ability to use such technology will allow them to access relevant health information, advice, and support independently from wherever they live. Such support should increase rapidly in the future. This chapter is a consideration of ageing and learning, ageing and use of computer technology, and personal health management using computers.

A comparative study : regulatory requirements on subdivisions for increasing passive cooling

A major project in the Sustainable Built Assets core area is the Sustainable Sub-divisions – Ventilation Project that is the second stage of a planned series of research projects focusing on sustainable sub-divisions. The initial project, Sustainable Sub-divisions: Energy focused on energy efficiency and examined the link between dwelling energy efficiency and sub-divisional layout. In addition, the potential for on site electricity generation, especially in medium and high-density developments, was also examined. That project recommended that an existing lot-rating methodology be adapted for use in SEQ through the inclusion of sub divisional appropriate ventilation data. Acquiring that data is the object of this project. The Sustainable Sub-divisions; Ventilation Project will produce a series of reports. The first report (Report 2002-077-B-01) summarised the results from an industry workshop and interviews that were conducted to ascertain the current attitudes and methodologies used in contemporary sub-division design in South East Queensland. The second report (Report 2002-077-B-02) described how the project is being delivered as outlined in the Project Agreement. It included the selection of the case study dwellings and monitoring equipment and data management process. This third report (Report 2002-077-B-03) provides an analysis and review of the approaches recommended by leading experts, government bodies and professional organizations throughout Australia that aim to increase the potential for passive cooling and heating at the subdivision stage. This data will inform issues discussed on the development of the enhanced lot-rating methodology in other reports of this series. The final report, due in June 2007, will detail the analysis of data for winter 2006 and summer 2007, leading to the development and delivery of the enhanced lot-rating methodology.

Willingness to trial functional foods and vitamin supplements: the role of attitudes, subjective norms, and dread of risks

Australian non-users of vitamin supplements (N = 162) and functional foods (N = 226) responded to a questionnaire examining their attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), risk dread and risk familiarity, and willingness to engage in free product trials. The impact of participants’ gender and age was also examined. Attitude and subjective norms were significant determinants of non-users willingness to trial each of the health products. Participants’ dread of the risk associated with the product was also a determinant of willingness to use functional foods. The overall models predicted between 25% and 30% of the variance in people’s willingness to trial the products. The findings provided some support for the TPB in predicting people’s willingness to trial functional foods and vitamin supplements and suggested, for willingness to trial functional foods, that non-users are also influenced by their dread of the risk associated with product use.

Supply chain sustainability: a relationship management approach

Purpose: In this research we examined, by means of case studies, the mechanisms by which relationships can be managed and by which communication and cooperation can be enhanced in sustainable supply chains. The research was predicated on the contention that the development of a sustainable supply chain depends, in part, on the transfer of knowledge and capabilities from the larger players in the supply chain. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research adopted a triangulated approach in which quantitative data were collected by questionnaire, interviews were conducted to explore and enrich the quantitative data and case studies were undertaken in order to illustrate and validate the findings. Handy‟s (1985) view of organisational culture, Allen & Meyer‟s (1990) concepts of organisational commitment and Van de Ven & Ferry‟s (1980) measures of organisational structuring have been combined into a model to test and explain how collaborative mechanisms can affect supply chain sustainability. Findings: It has been shown that the degree of match and mismatch between organisational culture and structure has an impact on staff‟s commitment level. A sustainable supply chain depends on convergence – that is the match between organisational structuring, organisation culture and organisation commitment. Research Limitations/implications: The study is a proof of concept and three case studies have been used to illustrate the nature of the model developed. Further testing and refinement of the model in practice should be the next step in this research. Practical implications: The concept of relationship management needs to filter down to all levels in the supply chain if participants are to retain commitment and buy-in to the relationship. A sustainable supply chain requires proactive relationship management and the development of an appropriate organisational culture, and trust. By legitimising individuals‟ expectations of the type of culture which is appropriate to their company and empowering employees to address mismatches that may occur a situation can be created whereby the collaborating organisations develop their competences symbiotically and so facilitate a sustainable supply chain. Originality/value: The culture/commitment/structure model developed from three separate strands of management thought has proved to be a powerful tool for analysing collaboration in supply chains and explaining how and why some supply chains are sustainable, and others are not.

An exploratory study of innovation effectiveness measurement between Australian and Thai SMEs

The advantages of using a balanced approach to measurement of overall organisational performance are well-known. We examined the effects of a balanced approach in the more specific domain of measuring innovation effectiveness in 144 small to medium sized companies in Australia and Thailand. We found that there were no differences in the metrics used by Australian and Thai companies. In line with our hypotheses, we found that those SMEs that took a balanced approach were more likely to perceive benefits of implemented innovations than those that used only a financial approach to measurement. The perception of benefits then had a subsequent effect on overall attitudes towards innovation. The study shows the importance of measuring both financial and non-financial indicators of innovation effectiveness within SMEs and discusses ways in which these can be conducted with limited resources.

Current rural valuation practice : a survey of valuers and agribusiness managers on farm management and sustainable rural land use

Over the past 20 years the nature of rural valuation practice has required most rural valuers to undertake studies in both agriculture (farm management) and valuation, especially if carrying out valuation work for financial institutions. The additional farm financial and management information obtained by rural valuers exceeds that level of information required to value commercial, retail and industrial by the capitalisation of net rent/profit valuation method and is very similar to the level of information required for the valuation of commercial and retail property by the Discounted Cash Flow valuation method. On this basis the valuers specialising in rural valuation practice have the necessary skills and information to value rural properties by an income valuation method, which can focus on the long term environmental and economic sustainability of the property being valued. This paper will review the results of an extensive survey carried out by rural property valuers in Australia, in relation to the impact of farm management on rural property values and sustainable rural land use. A particular focus of the research relates to the increased awareness of the problems of rural land degradation in Australia and the subsequent impact such problems have on the productivity of rural land. These problems of sustainable land use have resulted in the need to develop an approach to rural valuation practice that allows the valuer to factor the past management practices on the subject rural property into the actual valuation figure. An analysis of the past farm management and the inclusion of this data into the valuation methodology provides a much more reliable indication of farm sustainable economic value than the existing direct comparison valuation methodology.