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This paper has two purposes. First, it aims to explore how Australian universities used calculative rhetoric and practices through accounting numbers to persuade employees and legitimize their financial recovery plans to alleviate the financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, it aims to analyze how the accounting-based solutions were legitimized through a well-blended pathos, logos and ethos rhetoric.

Building on a rhetorical theory of diffusion, we employed a qualitative research design within all 37 Australian public universities involving Internet-based documentary analysis.

This study finds that in an urgent crisis like the fiscal crisis caused by COVID-19, universities again found rescue in accounting tools, in particular budgets, as a rhetorical device to justify their operational and strategic choices such as job-cuts, programs closures and staff pay-cuts. However, in this crisis, the same old accounting-based solutions were even more quickly to be accepted by being delivered in management’s colorful blending of pathos–logos–ethos rhetoric.

While this study is constrained to Australian public universities’ financial responses, its findings have implications for university decision-makers and higher education policymakers across the globe when it comes to university management using calculative devices in persuading employees to work their way through financial hardship caused by an extreme health crisis-like COVID-19 pandemic.

This study adds more evidence that the use of budgets as a calculative tool continues to play a key role in organizations in the construction, mobilization and preservation of certain strategic and operational choices during volatilities. Especially, the same way of creating calculative-based solutions can be communicated via the colorful blending of different rhetoric to make it acceptable.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the bursting strength, bursting distension, air permeability and wale wise wicking rate properties of recycled polyester (r-PET) and virgin polyester (v-PET) raw materials from which single jersey knitted fabric samples are manufactured. Meanwhile, numerical optimization method was used in predetermined parameters to determine the optimum r-PET and v-PET blend ratio and yarn manufacturing technology. In the optimization analysis, the average values of the important yarn and fabric properties inspected were taken as a target according to the 50 percent proportion of r-PET and v-PET fiber for both compact and ring yarn manufacturing technology.

To encourage the use of value-added textile products produced from recycling PET bottle with the focus of social responsibility is a condition that should be evaluated within the scope of waste management. The recycling of PET bottles and finding new opportunities for the uses in different field are crucial for both contributing environmental economy and conserving natural energy resources. The most important alternative ways is to use the r-PET fiber from recycling PET bottle in textile industry. In this study, 19.7 tex r-PET/cotton and v-PET/cotton-blended compact and ring spun yarns were produced at different blending ratios at the same production parameters.

Results showed that blend type, blend ratio and yarn manufacturing technology have statistical significance effect on bursting strength and air permeability. Besides, it was found that blend type has no significance on wale wise wicking rate unlike other parameters. Optimization analysis indicated that single jersey knitted fabric with v-PET/CO 58.62/41.38 percent compact yarn had higher desirability with the value of 0.72.

At the present time, r-PET fiber is blended in small amount (approximately 5–15 percent blend ratio) with both cotton and polyester together. In addition, it is possible using different fiber blend types instead of cotton and polyester according to the usage area. The most important question is to determine the amount of r-PET proportion. In other words, both optimum yarn/fabric quality parameters should be ensured and at the same time life cycle of the apparels should not be short when the optimum r-PET proportion is taken into consideration.