Awards for Excellence

Citation

(2004), "Awards for Excellence", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 32 No. 12. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2004.08932laa.003

Awards for Excellence

Jason SitBill MerrileesGriffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Queensland, AustraliaandDawn BirchUniversity of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia

are the recipients of the journal's Outstanding Paper Award for Excellence for their paper

"Entertainment-seeking shopping centre patrons: the missing segments"

which appeared in International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 31 No. 2, 2003

Jason Sit is a PhD candidate in the Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Queensland, Australia. His current PhD topic is on shopper satisfaction with entertainment consumption at the shopping centre, which is an extension of the award-winning paper. His PhD topic is highly inspired by his passion for shopping centre marketing.

Before joining the tertiary education industry, he was employed as a marketing assistant by an international property management company in Australia. His roles included causal leasing and special event management at the shopping centre.

Currently, he is working as an associate lecturer in the Department of Marketing and Tourism at University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. His teaching subjects include Introduction to Marketing, Consumer Behaviour, Promotion Management and Services Marketing.

He hopes eventually to work for senior management with one of the shopping centre giants such as Westfield.

Bill Merrilees is currently a Professor in Marketing at Griffith University, Gold Coast, and has been there since July 2001. He now calls the Gold Coast home.

He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Newcastle, with First-Class Honours in Economics. He would especially like to thank his mentor, Professor Warren Hogan. He then won a prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship to take a PhD at the University of Toronto, Canada, which he successfully completed, as well as learning a great deal about a quite different culture, including the delights of sumptuous Thanksgiving dinners and the need to plug cars in at night to keep the engine from freezing.

The Toronto experience has begun a lifelong association with Canada. Three research leaves have been spent in Canada, one at Queens and two at McMaster, both universities in Ontario, and he is keen for the next one to be there. Additionally, he has attended two other international conferences in Canada, one at Lake Louise and one at Vancouver. Two of his PhD students are external, located in Canada. He has published in the Canadian Journal of Economics. Two of his four children were born there at different periods.

Dawn Birch is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing & Tourism at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. She has been teaching marketing since 1990, and has been employed as a lecturer at USQ since 1992. She has taught in both the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In 2003, she won the Pearson Education ANZMAC Marketing Educators Award. Her current research interests include technological advanced learning, online education, marketing education, services marketing, international advertising, domestic barter systems and shopping centre management. Prior to commencing at USQ, she was employed as the Manager for Business Development for an international engineering consultancy. Her work experiences include employment in services marketing, retail, teaching, clerical work and nursing.