Search results

Australia appears to be encountering a crisis in the protection of certain heritage places, despite its strong reputation in heritage conservation built up since the 1970s. Consequently, this paper examines changes to national cultural heritage management policy over the last few decades to understand more about this crisis.

Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage) was selected as the key focus. This paper applies a cultural heritage management framework tested first in Hong Kong to measure Australian paradigm change over 45 years.

It found the 1990s shift away from the provision of independent technical advice on national heritage policy has had a major impact. This shift is based on a change in ethos away from the earlier Whitlam/National Estate broader vision of heritage responsibilities towards a narrower more conservative one at the national level. Also, it found that studies and policymaking should allow for Indigenous voices. More Indigenous input in heritage policy formulation at all levels of government would further decolonise Indigenous heritage governance to deal justly with Indigenous Australians and their heritage.

Resources did not allow for comparative studies of the non-Indigenous (historic) and natural heritage as part of the current study.

The study also included a consultation paper and an online conference presentation that have raised questions about the efficacy of current national policy on Indigenous places, on which a national conversation is urgently needed. The recent review of the National Heritage Strategy by the Australian Commonwealth Government based some of its proposed options on those listed in the consultation paper to initiate this conversation in a limited way.

One finding is that attention to heritage policy and protection must be ongoing at all levels of government and inclusive of First People's human rights, particularly those concerning their heritage. In regard to Australia, most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents in this study would like to see targeted funding return for more than just iconic Indigenous places and for the creation of a more independent heritage body that allows them more self-determination in the care of their heritage.

The paper's value is that it investigates the Australian Heritage Commission's impact in the development of Australian cultural heritage management and associated national policy. Also, it provides insights for other postcolonial or New World settler societies dealing with the same issues or any decision-makers considering establishing a national independent body to oversee heritage protection and policymaking.

This study aims to examine whether and why subsidiary-unit managers’ prior international work experiences across multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) home and host countries impact their subsidiary-unit performance, considering the mediating effect of their advice networks.

A survey on 222 subsidiary-unit managers (154 parent country nationals [PCNs] and 68 host country nationals [HCNs]) of a Korean MNE operating in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Hungary and Slovakia was conducted. The authors analyzed the data using partial least square structural equation modeling, multigroup analysis and bootstrapping techniques.

PCN subsidiary managers with more prior international work experience manage better-performing units due to the strength of the manager’s advice networks across local parties. However, for HCN subsidiary managers, this study did not find such mediating roles of the size and strength of their advice networks in the MNE home country.

This study provides novel insights and empirical evidence about the effect of the length of prior international work experience of subsidiary managers on their advice-seeking networks and subsidiary-unit performance. In addition, it draws on and add to social capital theory about how international work experience impacts dealing with local businesses and the relationship with corporate headquarters.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.

Cambodian and Laotian students (CLS) are among the largest groups of international students in intra-ASEAN student mobility as well as in Vietnamese higher education institutions (HEIs). However, little has been researched on the factors influencing CLS’s decision to choose Vietnam as destination country. The purpose of this study is to investigate why CLS decide to go overseas and choose Vietnam as their host country among other opportunities as well as their perceptions of the decision.

Using qualitative methods and employing purposive sampling, data were collected by semi-structured interviews from CLS studying in a HEI in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The data were analysed against the push–pull framework to understand factors influencing the participants’ decision.

The findings show that CLS in the study were “pushed” by the perceived higher value of a foreign qualification and family encouragements. In terms of pull factors, they were attracted to choose Vietnam as the host country most observably due to scholarship opportunities. However other pull factors were also significant, especially the lack of certain skills in home countries and its congruence with Vietnam’s competitive strength in offering courses for those skills. In retrospect, the participants expressed a sense of optimism, though there was also certain reservation.

The small sample restrict the generalisability of the findings.

As an exploratory study, the findings can lay the ground for largerscale studies investigating CLS mobility in Vietnam and be employed for inbound student mobility policymaking reference for HEIs in Vietnam as well as in other developing countries.

This study investigates why Cambodian and Laotian international students decide to go to Vietnam, a developing country in the lesser-known part of international student mobility landscape. This is a topic that remains under-researched in the Asia-bound student mobility literature. Insights from the study can not only contribute to the scholarly gap but also offer implications for HEIs in Vietnam and other Asian countries.

The present work aimed to present the perception of Tunisian professionals towards companies engaged in social responsibility practices and describe the tax evasion strategies of socially responsible Tunisian companies following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (COVID-19) shock.

A survey was sent to 119 Tunisian tax administration auditors. Data analysis methods principal component analysis (PCA) and regression analysis were used. The data were collected through a questionnaire after the general containment of Tunisia from September 2020 to February 2021. These quantitative data were analysed using processing software (STATA).

Professionals of the tax authorities, particularly those in charge of the audit mission, aim for corporate profitability from the perspective of stakeholders that seek to integrate ethics and social responsibility into companies and consider employee morale a top priority. The results show that highly ethical and socially responsible professionals are far from practising aggressive strategies. Thus, an auditor from the tax administration is far from engaging in social responsibility to justify fraudulent acts. During the COVID-19 period, the role of these professionals was to prevent and detect fraud in the tax sector to fight corruption and investigate taxes based on sound regulations.

The results are consistent with optimal taxation theory, which postulates that a tax system should be chosen to maximise a social welfare function subject to a set of constraints. Professionals seek to make taxation much simpler for taxpayers by providing advice and consultation to manage tax obligations. The minimisation of tax or the play of tax values requires expertise in the field to respect legal constraints. Therefore, these professionals play a crucial role in tax collection, as the professionals' advice and suggestions can influence taxpayers' decision-making.

In recent years, academic researchers, policy makers and the public have become increasingly interested in corporate tax evasion behaviour. At the same time, companies are under increasing pressure to integrate CSR into the companies' decision-making processes, which has led to increased academic interest in CSR. Opportunistic tax minimisation reduces state resources and funds needed for government programmes to improve the social welfare of the entire community. This study represents an overriding concern not only for legal and tax authorities and companies, but also for shareholders and stakeholders.

The authors' study contributes to the existing literature by determining the state of play on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices amongst Tunisian tax authorities' professionals. In Tunisia, an executive of the tax authorities in charge of the verification mission is required to verify the proper application of the accounting and tax legislation in force, follow up on tax control operations on declared taxes and validate the sincerity of the accounts. This study focussed on the tax evasion of companies engaged in social responsibility practices according to the judgements of Tunisian tax authorities' auditors during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to use a qualitative approach to explore and clarify the mechanism by which heuristic-driven biases influence the decisions and performance of individual investors actively trading on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). It also aims to identify how to overcome the negative effect of heuristic-driven biases, so that finance practitioners can avoid the expensive errors which they cause.

This study adopts an interpretative approach. Qualitative data was collected in semistructured interviews, in which the target population was asked open-ended questions. The sample consists of five brokers and/or investment strategists/advisors who maintain investors’ accounts or provide investment advice to investors on the PSX, who were selected on a convenient basis. The researchers analyzed the interview data thematically.

The results confirm that investors often use heuristics, causing several heuristic-driven biases when trading on the stock market, specifically, reliance on recognition-based heuristics, namely, alphabetical ordering of firm names, name memorability and name fluency, as well as cognitive heuristics, such as herding behavior, disposition effect, anchoring and adjustment, repetitiveness, overconfidence and availability biases. These lead investors to make suboptimal decisions relating to their investment management activities. Due to these heuristic-driven biases, investors trade excessively in the stock market, and their investment performance is adversely affected.

This study provides a practical framework to explore and clarify the mechanism by which heuristic-driven biases influence investment management activities. To the best of authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to focus on links between heuristic-driven biases, investment decisions and performance using a qualitative approach. Furthermore, with the help of a qualitative approach, the investigators also highlight some factors causing an increased use of heuristic variables by investors and discuss practical approaches to overcoming the negative effects of heuristics factors, so that finance practitioners can avoid repeating the expensive errors which they cause, which also differentiates this study from others.

This study aims to empirically analyse the influence mechanism of perceived interactivity in real estate APP which affects consumers' psychological well-being. With the growing application of human–machine interaction in real estate APP, it is crucial to utilize human–machine interaction to stimulate perceived interactivity between humans and machines to positively impact consumers' psychological well-being and sustainable development of real estate APP. However, it is unclear whether perceived interactivity improves consumers' psychological well-being.

This study proposes and examines a theoretical model grounded in the perceived interactivity theory, considers the relationship between perceived interactivity and consumers' psychological well-being and explores the mediating effect of perceived value and the moderating role of privacy concerns. It takes real estate APP as the research object, analyses the data of 568 consumer samples collected through questionnaires and then employs structural equation modelling to explore and examine the proposed theoretical model of this study.

The findings are that perceived interactivity (i.e. human–human interaction and human–information interaction) positively influences perceived value, which in turn affects psychological well-being, and that perceived value partially mediates the effect of perceived interaction on psychological well-being. More important findings are that privacy concerns not only negatively moderate human–information interaction on perceived value, but also negatively moderate the indirect effects of human–information interaction on users' psychological well-being through perceived value.

This study expands the context on perceived interaction and psychological well-being in the field of real estate APP, validating the mediating role and boundary conditions of perceived interactivity created by human–machine interaction on consumers' psychological well-being, and suggesting positive implications for practitioners exploring human–machine interaction technologies to improve the perceived interaction between humans and machines and thus enhance consumer psychological well-being and span sustainable development of real estate APP.

In this paper, the authors examine the causes of 2021–2023 inflation and evaluate whether raising interest rates is the right solution.

The authors evaluate both the macroeconomic (too much demand) and microeconomic (monopoly pricing and supply chains) explanations for the causes of inflation.

The authors argue that the spike in inflation is due to disrupted supply chains and corporations taking advantage of the situation to raise their prices. The aggregate demand stimulus from fiscal policy had all but played out by the time inflation arose, making it an unlikely cause of said inflation.

The authors' paper demonstrates that raising interest rates is the wrong solution to tackling the problem of inflation, especially since it's coming from the supply side.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe challenges to ethnic minorities in the UK. While the experiences of migrants are both complex and varied depending on individuals' social class, race, cultural proximity to the host country and acculturation levels, more in-depth studies are necessary to fully understand how COVID-19 affects specific migrant groups and their health. Taiwanese migrants were selected because they are an understudied group. Also, there were widespread differences in pandemic management between the UK and Taiwan, making this group an ideal case for understanding how their acculturation journey can be disrupted by a crisis.

Qualitative data were collected at two different time points, at the start of the UK pandemic (March/April 2020) and six months on (October/November 2020), to explore migrant coping experiences over time. Theoretically, the authors apply acculturation theory through the lens of coping, while discussing health-consumption practices, as empirical evidence.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, participants worked hard to achieve high levels of integration in the UK. The pandemic changed this; participants faced unexpected changes in the UK’s sociocultural structures. They were forced to exercise the layered and complex “coping with coping” in a hostile host environment that signalled their new marginalised status. They faced impossible choices, from catching a life-threatening disease to being seen as overly cautious. Such experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society.

It is important to note that the Taiwanese sample recruited through Facebook community groups is biased and has a high level of homogeneity. These participants were well-integrated, middle-class migrants who were highly educated, relatively resourceful and active on social media. More studies are needed to fully understand the impact on well-being and acculturation of migrants from different cultural, contextual and social backgrounds. This being the case, the authors can speculate that migrants with less resource are likely to have found the pandemic experience even more challenging. More studies are needed to fully understand migrant experience from different backgrounds.

Public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. In particular, this paper has shown how separation, especially if embraced temporarily, is not necessarily a negative outcome to be corrected with specific policies. It can be strategically adopted by migrants as a way of defending their health and well-being from an increasingly hostile environment. Migrants' home country experience provides vicarious learning opportunities to acquire good practices. Their voices should be encouraged rather than in favour of a surprising orthodox and rather singular approach in the discussion of public health management.

The paper has clear public health policy implications. Firstly, public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. Acknowledging migrants' voice is a critical first step to contribute to the development of a fair and inclusive society. Secondly, to retain skilful migrants and avoid a future brain-drain, policymakers are advised to advance existing infrastructure to provide more incentives to support and retain migrant talents in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

This paper reveals how a group of previously well-integrated migrants had to exercise “coping with coping” during the COVID crisis. This experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society. It contributes to the understanding of acculturation by showing how a such crisis can significantly disrupt migrants' acculturation journey, challenging them to re-acculturate and reconsider their identity stance. It shows how separation was indeed a good option for migrants for protecting their well-being from a newly hostile host environment.

This study is aimed at making an inspection of the effects of collaborative innovation network characteristics on firm innovation performance, and the intermediary roles of knowledge transfer efficiency is taken into account.

This study used a convenient sampling method to obtain population and samples. Using data obtained by publishing online and paper questionnaires, and using on-site interviews in Anhui Province in the Yangtze River Delta region of China, descriptive analysis, regression analysis and correlation analysis are utilized to study the direct influence of collaborative innovation network characteristics on knowledge transfer efficiency as well as firm innovation performance, and the intermediary roles of knowledge transfer efficiency on firm innovation performance, respectively. In this study, 3,000 questionnaires were distributed to the employees of enterprises engaged in research and development (R&D) activities, of which 2,560 were valid. With the help of SPSS24.0 software, the reliability and validity of the questionnaire was analyzed.

The results are indicative of that network centrality and relationship strength positively affect knowledge transfer efficiency and firm innovation performance. Nevertheless, network scale has no significant correlation with knowledge transfer efficiency and enterprise innovation performance. In addition, knowledge transfer efficiency is an intermediary between collaborative innovation network characteristics and enterprise innovation performance, and positively affects enterprise innovation performance, which demonstrated that managers should take advantage of collaborative innovation network characteristics to elevate knowledge transfer efficiency because well-realized transferals of knowledge can help accelerate the coordination of resources in knowledge, and finally bring about the advancement of firm's innovation abilities and performance.

There are few previous studies that fully examined the relationships among collaborative innovation network characteristics, knowledge transfer efficiency and firm innovation performance. This paper developed previous researches on the relationships between collaborative innovation network characteristics, knowledge transfer efficiency and firm innovation performance. The mediation of knowledge transfer efficiency on the relationship between collaborative innovation network characteristics and firm innovation performance is analyzed. Further, studies on collaborative innovation network characteristics using data obtained from employees engaged in R&D activities are very limited in the literature. On account of that, the findings in this study may make sense to the innovation ability of innovative enterprise and expand the literature in the field of enterprise strategic management and knowledge management.

This analysis shows that collaborative innovation network characteristics have both positive and negative effects on firm innovation performance. Therefore, business managers should pay attention to their position in the collaborative innovation network and maintain the relationship strength with other innovation subjects. Special consideration should be given to the knowledge transfer of innovative enterprises, so as to improve firm innovation performance practically.

The study may provide additional understandings for researchers, government managers, universities and enterprises with regard to strategic management from the visual angle of innovation ecosystems. It is instrumental in the exploration of the mechanisms enabling firm innovation performance.