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This project responds to a key principle developed by the World Health Organization: “the idea of prioritising the role of older people in developing research and action plans to improve the age-friendliness of their neighbourhoods” (WHO, 2007). It also addresses a growing challenge for ageing, urbanisation, and shrinking urban public green spaces: how to ensure an increasingly ageing population has access to quality public green spaces to support the physical, mental, and social well-being. 

A primary aim of this study is to explore new forms engagement models with older residents for age-friendly green spaces in their neighbourhoods, by trialling a range of engagement methodologies, to evaluate what works and what does not work, thus making the engagement process more visible, tangible, and applicable in future practice.  

The project is undertaken in South Australia, with older participants initially using citizen science to audit local green spaces (April to July, 2022) and then three co-design ‘teams’ of participants using different approaches (2D plan, VR and AR technology) to consider the (re)design of a selected case study site in the City of Unley (Aug to Oct, 2022).  

Findings of this study will contribute to solutions for better participatory study models with older people for age-friendly cities across the world, develop new thinking and comprehensive understandings of how the current design issues of local green spaces can influence the experience of older people visiting these spaces in their daily lives, how these may change seasonally, and how may these issues be addressed. 

Date: 9 December 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

This paper investigates how the recognition of foreign qualifications impacted the labour market outcomes of immigrants in Australia between 2001 and 2020. It provides the first analysis of how mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) between independent professional bodies can address the consistent sub-optimal labour market performance and underutilised skills experienced by immigrants. The analysis uses a new database providing the universe of Australian MRAs while outcomes are analysed using the highly detailed HILDA dataset. Using a difference-in-differences with individual fixed effects, the impact of recognition is found to be positive and highly significant for all labour market outcome measures. Specifically, estimates find around a 30% increase in total income and 25% increase in hours worked and hourly wage relative to before recognition. The analysis extends to consider work related satisfaction and skills-matching, where results show effects from recognition. A supporting analysis using Australian Census data, to address representability, finds consistent results.

Date: 8 December 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

As society’s awareness of the impacts of business operations grows, organizations are increasingly both choosing, and being compelled, to engage with grand challenges. The accounting profession, key to both collating and analyzing data within organizations and intermediating between firms, has been increasingly involved in addressing grand challenges such as climate change, through its role in social accounting and non-financial disclosure. Modern slavery represents a grand challenge that impacts millions of lives and is the subject of increasing legislation globally, yet the response of the accounting profession to modern slavery is poorly understood. To address this gap, we conduct a qualitative study of representatives of the UK accounting profession to understand the level of engagement of the accounting profession with organizational responses to the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. Drawing on professional competition theory, our findings suggest a broad disassociation of the profession from modern slavery. We characterize the profession’s lack of proactivity, marginalization of the issue, and its denial of jurisdiction over the issue. We discuss the implications of these findings for the accounting profession, for research on modern slavery, and for professional domains. 

Date: 1 December 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

The Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax) is a large bird of prey with an endangered Tasmanian subspecies (Aquila audax fleayi) that is estimated to be in decline. The key threats to these birds are habitat loss, breeding disturbance - particularly from the forestry industry, and rodenticide poisoning. In this paper we estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of Australians in different states for management options aimed at conserving these species in Tasmania. Data for this analysis were obtained from a discrete choice experiment (DCE) designed to elicit preferences for habitat reservation, nest site preservation, and rodenticide management, which directly correspond to key threats for the species using a split-sample approach. The DCE was administered in four Australian states to allow for testing of proximity effects. Additionally, the DCE focused on Wedge-tailed Eagles was split into two treatment groups, each of which received different information about the differences or similarities between Tasmanian and mainland eagles. Preferences between these groups were tested for information effects. Data from the DCE were analysed using a mixed multinomial logit. The results of this research are important for raptors.

Date: 18 November 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

This article presents an evaluation of the impact of supplementary irrigation on rice productivity for a national sample of Bangladeshi Aman (monsoon) season rice growers. Station-controlled experiments suggest high potential for supplementary irrigation to increase rice yield. However, farmers rarely fully realize experiment station results. While the limited evidence from actual farm data evaluation is less supportive of the hypothesis that supplemental irrigation for monsoon rice provides significant yield benefit, potential for self-selection bias isn’t carefully controlled for in existing studies. Given that government policy and investments have and continue to support supplementary irrigation in Bangladesh and elsewhere, more reliable evidence from actual farm outcome evaluations is needed. A nationwide panel survey for 2012 and 2015 allows an opportunity to evaluate impacts with actual farm field data in a way that controls for how farmers self-select into groups adopting and not adopting supplemental irrigation who also tend to differ systematically in other attributes that influence yield. We applied the matched difference-in-differences method to robustly identify marginal impact of supplemental irrigation on yield, in a way that controls for self-selection. We found small and statistically insignificant productivity benefits for newly adopted supplementary irrigation in monsoon season rice in actual farmers’ fields.

Date: 28 October 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

The emergence of big data and associated technology has improved the efficiency and performance of modern companies, especially online platform companies. Big data has been found useful in addressing societal issues such as tracking criminal behaviour and addressing inequality and poverty. The rapid growth of online platforms presents increasing challenges to stakeholder accountability. Questions have been asked as to whether big data should be under the control of for-profit organisations. There is a call for urgent call for studies on the ethical management of big data use. The lack of an adequate international mechanism to encourage businesses in various countries to comply with social as well as legal standards of regulation has meant that global trade is, in many ways, a "moral-free space". Global online platform companies are immensely affected by the advent of digital technologies and big data availability. Everyday reliance on online platform companies is projected to rise rapidly in the coming years. Big data use by online platforms significantly impacts stakeholders. Therefore, ensuring stakeholder accountability in this new era of big data usage is of pivotal importance to these companies.

The research methodology is empirical and consists of two phases. The study's first phase consisted of gathering content analysis of corporate reports to examine the nature, extent and challenges of big data related ethical issues reported by online platform companies to represent how they discharge accountability to stakeholders. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were used to gain in-depth insights from relevant stakeholders about important issues that affect stakeholder accountability in big data disclosures.

The study contributes to the underdeveloped literature on big data disclosure by adding a new disclosure dimension to the existing accountability literature. It provides an analysis of ethical and social issues surrounding big data accountability, an emerging but increasingly important area that needs more research. More specifically, this study develops a comprehensive big data disclosure index to evaluate the extent to which the global platforms are discharging big data accountability through reporting. The findings of this study are expected to improve our understanding of the current state of online companies’ reporting practices on big data use, particularly the issues and gaps in the reporting process. It also provides practical suggestions to balance interaction between online platform companies and their stakeholders to promote the responsible use of big data. In addition, the findings will be relevant for policymakers and possibly standard setters for developing future data disclosure policies.

Date: 23 September 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

The lack of sufficient studies exploring the practices of integrating the sustainability agenda into the business process of regional owned enterprises (ROEs) raises the need to conduct a case study on how these organisations embed their SDG concerns into the practices at the planning, accounting, and reporting stages. This is the first stage of the research, analysing the SDG disclosures in 48 annual/sustainability reports of 24 Indonesian ROEs in 2019-2020 and conducting interviews with two relevant Indonesian government authorities to get a better understanding of the practices in the Indonesian ROEs at both macro and micro levels. This stage of the research aims to review how the Indonesian ROEs embed SDGs into their business processes based on their disclosure practices, including the challenges and pressures encountered. The analysis will also be utilized to select a sample of ROEs that have the leading practices to conduct an in-depth case study in the second phase. 

The content analysis on SDG disclosures reveals that less than 3% of 847 Indonesian ROEs, or 17 ROEs, consistently disclosed their SDG practices in their reports. These 17 ROEs identified the establishment of practice elements in transforming SDGs at the planning, implementing and reporting stages. However, they provided more disclosures in the implementing and reporting stages than at the planning stage. They encountered internal and external challenges during the integration process, such as insufficient human resource capacity and management systems and inadequate technical guidelines. Although, they disclosed that government regulations had driven them to integrate SDGs into business operations, most of these ROEs have shown positive efforts to move beyond a mere compliance level in developing their SDG practices. Additionally, the interviews with the authority bodies give insights concerning the accountability process of transforming SDGs into the business process of enterprises. Nevertheless, one interview highlighted that the Indonesian ROEs have been integrating SDGs into their business operation in a holistic approach and moving beyond developing the reports only for regulatory compliance.  

Date: 9 September 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

Abstract: China’s December 2012 commencement of a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign and targeted political corruption and the improvement of efficiency. This politically motivated central government initiative aims to reduce government officials’ acceptance of perks and gifts, promote greater thrift, and has spread to the local government level. A consequence has been targeting of the level of business entertainment expenses (BEEs) associated with political connectedness. However, BEEs, specifically external marketing expenditures on accommodation, entertainment, and banquet fees, are socially embedded in business transactions, and closely linked to the development of the guanxi, or social (trust) capital, required in relationships and traditionally important to business conduct in China, including the acquisition of business resources. Thus, the association of BEEs with development and maintenance of private sector business networks, and the growth in importance of these networks with increases in the marketization of the Chinese economy, suggest that BEEs will likely to continue to be used to invest in the creation and maintenance of social trust capital between enterprises. This study is motivated by the “puzzles” of the continued presence and extent of BEEs in China post the implementation of the anti-corruption campaign, and on the firm characteristics and ownership patterns associated with pre- and post- anti-corruption campaign spending on BEEs, something that has received limited (and often indirect) attention in the literature. Nothing provided to date – send email

Date: 9 September 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

Climate change is accelerating, bringing considerable negative impacts on biodiversity, human health, social stability, and development. Evidence shows that business activities significantly contribute to current environmental problems, especially climate change. Many countries around the world have introduced various carbon regulations (such as mandatory carbon reporting requirements, the carbon tax, and Emissions Trading Scheme) to encourage companies to reduce their carbon emissions. The Australian government also experienced several carbon-related regulation changes in the past decade, such as the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (NGER) 2007, the Clean Energy Bill 2011 (Known as the carbon tax), the abolishment of the carbon tax in 2014 and the failure of the National Energy Guarantee in 2018. These policy changes are expected to significantly influence Australian companies’ carbon management and reporting behaviours. However, this is still a lack of longitudinal study to investigate the changes in companies’ carbon performance and voluntary carbon reporting levels since the implementation of the NGER Act 2007. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how companies’ corporate carbon performance and voluntary carbon reporting levels changed over the 11-year period (2009-2019) after implementing the NGER Act and how these changes reflect companies’ different thinking of environmental legitimacy. 

Legitimacy theory emphasise that companies need to ensure they are perceived to be consistent with social expectations to gain social support. Due to the more prominent natural disasters and poor carbon emissions data reported by the companies, Australian heavy emitters faced a significant legitimacy pressure after the NGER Act 2007. This legitimacy pressure motivates companies manage their carbon issues more actively. Companies can maintain their legitimacy by improving social performance and/or voluntary non-financial reporting. In practice, companies may view legitimacy from two different perspectives: strategic and institutional, and companies’ different thinking of legitimacy will influence their legitimacy management strategies. From the strategic perspective of legitimacy, the motivation that forces companies to manage their legitimacy is to continue accessing social resources (such as natural, financial, and human resources). Companies are likely to improve their reporting levels in order to retain the social license but do not perform unless there is a proper regulatory mechanism. This is because increasing voluntary reporting has been proven to be a more powerful, effective, and cost-saving strategy in manipulating public perception. In contrast, the institutional perspective treats legitimacy as a set of constitutive beliefs to fulfill their social responsibility. If companies take an institutional view of legitimacy, they are likely to improve both performance and reporting levels, regardless of regulatory enforcement. They will consistently act as a good corporate citizen.  

From the carbon performance and reporting changes of 179 Australian heavy emitters registered in the NGER database during 2009 and 2019, this study reveals that companies’ overall voluntary carbon reporting levels have continuously increased since 2009. However, companies did not consistently improve their carbon performance at the same time, instead, they only significantly improved their carbon performance when the carbon tax came into effect. This finding supports the strategic view in general. Moreover, this study analyses how companies’ carbon performance and voluntary carbon reporting levels changed in each industry sector. The results show companies in the most of industry sectors (such as industrials, Utilities, Energy, Consumer discretionary, Financials, Health Care, Telecommunication service) view legitimacy from the strategic perspective. Companies in other industry sectors (such as Materials, Consumer staples) take an institutional view of legitimacy. 

This study provides several contributions. First, this study contributes to the legitimacy theory by linking two perspectives of legitimacy with different legitimacy strategies. It can help scholars, regulators and the public understand how diverse thinking of legitimacy influence companies’ legitimacy management strategies. Second, this study provides a comprehensive picture of how companies’ carbon performance and voluntary carbon reporting levels have changed since the introduction of the NGER Act. This longitudinal study can help regulators and scholars understand which legitimacy view prevails in practice: strategic or institutional, in the context of increasing climate change risks and various regulatory development and changes in Australia. This study also provides valuable insight for future regulation formulation. 

Date: 26 August 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

Purpose: This study examines how organisations’ responses strategies to multiple interacting logics in carbon management shapes CA toolmaking (where CA tools adopted, adjusted, and reconfigured vis-à-vis traditional management control systems) to effectuate and materialize respective response strategy.  

Design/methodology/approach: This study utilises the accounting toolmaking concept that refers to practices of adopting, adjusting, and reconfiguring accounting tools to unfold how CA tools are used as means to materialize organisation’s responses to multiple interacting carbon management logics. Furthermore, it embraces a field study approach whereby 38 sustainability managers and staff were interviewed from 30 different organisations in New Zealand.  

Findings: This study finds that organisations vary in their CA toolmaking in light of their pursued response strategy to multiple interacting carbon management logics. Four response strategies are identified: separation, selective coupling, combination and hybridisation. Adopting activity involves considering the additionality, detailing, localising, and cascading of carbon measures and targets and their linkage to the broader carbon management programme. In adjusting CA tools, firms adapt the frequency and orientation of carbon reporting, intensity of carbon monitoring, and breadth of carbon information sharing. Through either focusing on procedural sequencing, assimilating, equating, or integrating, toolmaking reconfigures the relationship between CA tools and traditional management control systems. Together, these three toolmaking activities enable firms to construct CA tools (and a carbon management-based control package) that is fit for purpose for each response strategy undertaken.  

Practical implications: Our study demonstrates the various CA toolmaking practices that allow organisations to handle the multiple interacting logics in carbon management. The findings provide suggestions for organisations on how to adopt, adjust, and reconfigure CA tools to better embed the ecological logic in organisational strategies and operations.  

Originality: We identify how organisational response to multiple interacting logics in carbon management drives CA toolmaking. 

Date: 12 August 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

I am a PhD candidate within UniSA Business and the Centre for Markets, Values and Inclusion. I also have a part-time research assistant role with a project entitled ‘Transforming irrigation in southern Africa’, which is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. In this role, I have assisted with publications on youth in agriculture, gender and household decision-making, learning processes and leverage points for change, and smart water management. My qualitative PhD research links with the project’s interest in equity and focusses on understanding youth livelihoods on a small-scale irrigation scheme in Zimbabwe. In my research, schemes are conceived as complex systems and I use the Social-Ecological Systems Framework to explore: young people’s engagement with resource systems and the scheme’s local economy; influences on youth livelihood pathways and engagement with irrigation; and institutional influences on young people’s land access, crop production, and markets and other value chain activities.

Date: 8 July 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

Value chain development remains a key tool to achieve socio-economic objectives in rural areas of all countries. Yet value chain development at scale is difficult. Bulk commodity supply chain programs remain low value on average, undermining potential improvements in revenue for smallholder farmers and economic benefit for source countries. Overall quality, even of the growing array of ‘specialty’ commodity programs in, for example coffee and cocoa, remains low despite the promise of ‘relationship trade’ models and the growing range of certification standards supposed to increase value to smallholder farmers whilst securing ethical and quality outcomes for western consumers. Even when we achieve sustained value increases, research is increasingly raising the prospect that income improvements translate to wealth and ‘health’ at surprisingly low rates, particularly for lower income cohorts.

In this presentation we introduce conceptual, and pragmatic, solutions to these issues. The core problem facing achievement of high-value and financially sustainable smallholder inclusive value chains (SIVCs) is conceptualised as needing simultaneous achievement of three outcomes that tend to crowd each other out in traditional supply chain models – we term these three concerns the ‘crowdy three’. The presentation includes conceptual foundations, evidence and operational aspects for supply chain interventions, planned research in the near future to improve welfare impacts from value chain interventions, and future extensions.

In the first case we introduce a new approach to achieving financially sustainable SIVCs by overcoming the ‘crowdy three’ problem involving joint solution of value, inclusivity, and scalability concerns.

Secondly, we present early results on this program from the case of a Ugandan smallholder coffee supply chain program. This program, based on economic conceptualisation of contracting issues in smallholder dominated and high value supply chains and from field experiments providing for calibration of financial incentives to underpin required behavioural changes provides evidence that our SIVCs program solves the ‘crowdy three’.

Thirdly, A research program to assess the potential for digital payments and behavioural interventions to increase the efficiency with which income translates to wealth and health is outlined with a focus on improving welfare outcomes for disadvantaged participants in the SIVCs program and an ongoing program to assess and improve supply chain inclusivity.

Finally, we outline a pathway forward, and the remaining steps to achieving an enduring SIVC in coffee, and objectives around geographical expansion (e.g. Indonesia) and scope (commodity) expansion (e.g. cocoa). We also outline identified research gaps and potential areas of collaboration for economists, social scientists, and interventional psychologists in academia.

Date: Monday 25 October, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

by Hui Situ, Lina Xu, Dong Yani and Carol Tilt

The motivation of disclosing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) information has been widely studied. In more developed economies, there are two main motivations for CSR reporting - increasing pressure from stakeholders and company's motivation to bring financial benefits. These motivations might be limited to explain the CSR reporting in nations with a strong tradition of autocracy, such as China. In China, the political leaders and their political ideologies are highly relevant to an understanding of the development of socio-economic system, as they are deemed to influence every aspect of society, including accounting.

However, the influence of political ideology on CSR reporting has been under examined. To contribute to this field of literature, this paper investigates how CSR reporting responds to the changing political ideologies in China.

This study examines the CSR Reports from top 200 listed Chinese companies between 2009 and 2018. The results show when different state ideologies proposed by political leaders, i.e. Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, listed companies proactively responded to the changing ideologies, which have been revealed through their altered CSR reporting.

Applying Foucault's governmentality, we argue that CSR reporting is used by the political leaders (pastorals) to monitor the companies' (folks) thought. Despite there is no official law to reinforce company's CSR disclosure, companies are voluntarily following the spiritual direction of political leaders to seek for salvation. The CSR reporting is a mechanism used by companies to examine themselves in terms of social responsibility to build a close relationship with the political leaders/state. The paper provides an alternative view to understand the motivation of disclosing CSR reports in China in contrast to its Western democratic counterparts.

Date: 27 May 2022​
Location: WL2-47, City West

Recent studies show that genealogically distant populations tend to differ more in a variety
of characteristics transmitted intergenerationally, such as language, appearance, norms,
values, customs, beliefs, and habits. Differences in these traits between countries and the
world technology frontier, the US, can deter the exchange of ideas and reduce opportunities
for learning, adoption of technologies, and innovations.

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Date: 13 May 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West

Migration and settlement patterns in Australia are driven by a combination of factors relating to population size, location, economy, amenities and the environment. In general, roughly three-quarters of those surveyed by the study are willing to move to a mid-sized city under the right circumstances. On average, respondents perceive mid-sized cities to offer significantly better quality of life, and large cities to offer better access to employment and education opportunities, and urban amenities.

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Date: 8 July 2022
Location: WL2-47, City West