Campbell Fraser

Store patronage prediction for foreign‐owned supermarkets

Attitudes of Australian and Greek‐Australian consumers towards hypothetical foreign‐owned and domestic‐owned supermarkets in Australia were studied. Although attitudes towards the domestic‐owned supermarket were found to be identical between the Australians and the Greek‐Australians, the latter were significantly more supportive of the foreign supermarket. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to be correlated with a negative attitude towards a foreign‐owned supermarket. Finally, the more the migrants identified with their cultural origin, the more support they showed towards the foreign supermarket. The findings of this paper provide an insight to the complex nature of the relationship between ethnic identity and consumer behaviour.

Investigating the effectiveness of managers through an analysis of stakeholder perceptions

Contemporary management thinking is paying a great deal of attention to stakeholder theory which posits that sustainable success rests, to a great extent, with a systematic consideration of the needs and goals of all key stakeholders. This paper examines managerial effectiveness under the light of stakeholder theory. Using multivariate analysis, it investigates perceptions of importance of the dimensions of their effectiveness held by the site managers running 61 high‐rise residential construction projects and 268 key project stakeholders. The views were collected through a non‐results‐based performance measurement tool. The findings of the research show that perceptions of the importance of each one of the performance elements vary significantly across professional groups. Opinions of high performing managers also differ form those of low‐performing ones. The application of the method presented in this paper can provide a framework for improvement of both managerial performance and stakeholder relationships.

Moral decision making in international sales negotiations

International sales negotiations are fast becoming a major part of the marketeer’s mandate in an increasingly globalised economy. To be successful in that role, managers need to be aware of the limits of acceptability of their behaviours, able to anticipate their counterparts’ actions and understand the motivations behind them. Presents a cross‐national study of 332 experienced sales negotiators’ perceptions in Australia, the USA, the UK, Japan, Russia and Greece. It explores the degree to which different tactics are considered morally acceptable in each country and how the decision‐making frameworks the managers employ affect their evaluation. The results demonstrate that, although moral acceptability of specific practices, the overall level of tolerance and the effect of each one of a set of decision‐making variables vary among different nationalities, the mechanism of the evaluation can be analysed by a single explanatory model.

An exploratory investigation into cultural awareness and approach to negotiation of Greek, Russian and British managers

Presents a comparison of approaches to negotiation and level of cultural awareness of international business managers in Russia, Greece and the UK. Demonstrates that although managers in the three countries are distinctly different in their demographic and cultural characteristics they generally exhibit high impression accuracy and adopt a similar approach to the negotiation process. Discusses implications for European business.

Measuring the performance of retail managers in Australia and Singapore

A method for the development, validation and refinement of a performance measurement tool for retail store managers in Australia and Singapore is presented. This tool is based on a set of performance elements – measurable task‐related activities and behaviours – that, when combined, define the performing manager. While organisations in both countries were found to concur on the 50 performance elements which should constitute the overall measurement tool, the importance attached to several of the elements differed significantly between the two countries. This difference is a significant determinant of the transferability of retail management skills between the two cultures and has wider implications for the internationalisation of the retail environment where management from different cultures are required to co‐exist within a single retail organisation.

Stakeholder perception of construction site managers' effectiveness

Contemporary management thinking pays a great deal of attention to ‘stakeholder theory’, positing that sustainable success rests, to a great extent, with the systematic consideration of the needs and goals of all key stakeholders. This paper examines managerial effectiveness under the light of stakeholder theory. Using multivariate analysis, it investigates perceptions of importance of the dimensions of effectiveness held by a sample of 61 managers and 268 key project stakeholders in all major cities in Australia through a performance measurement tool comprising 52 performance elements. The findings of the research show that perceptions vary significantly across professional groups as well as high and low performing managers. The application the method presented in this paper can provide a framework for improvement of both managerial performance and stakeholder relationships.

The philosophy, structure and objectives of research and development in Japan

This paper presents an overview of the philosophy, structure and key objectives of R&D activity in the Japanese construction industry. It argues that this unique model of a close partnership between industry, government and society is based on shared values, and delivers significant benefits not only for firms but for society at large. Additionally, the Japanese system acts as an efficient market entry barrier that protects the Japanese domestic market from foreign competition while concurrently providing the basis of Japans competitive advantage in international markets. To illustrate how significantly different the Japanese model is from those of other advanced economies, an empirical comparison of the belief structures concerning responsibility for R&D of key players in the construction industries in Japan and Australia is presented. The results illustrate the point that, unlike Australia, Japanese contractors play a much more extensive role in society than do their Australian counterparts. This role incongruence may be the true barrier to penetration of the Japanese construction market.

Perceptual polarization of managerial performance from a human resource management perspective

Following a review of the background literature, this paper details, from an HRM perspective, the development and implementation of a 360° task-based performance measurement system developed and validated on ninety-three Australian and Singaporean managers evaluated by 489 self, peer, superior and subordinate raters. The managers, from the construction and retail industries, were scored on a series of performance elements summated to establish an overall performance score. The application of the method resulted in a strong polarization of results with an élite group of highly performing managers being distinguished from all others. The findings of this research provide an important insight into the perceived polarity of managerial performance and its fundamental implications for human resource professionals considering the adoption of 360° measures within their organizations.

Knowledge activities in distance education online group work

What kind of knowledge activities are required in order for students to conduct online group work activities successfully in distance education? This paper reports on the knowledge activities involved within online group work in distance education. It explains the types of knowledge used in these activities. The research is a qualitative case study set within an activity theory framework. Participatory observation and documentation are the data collection techniques used. It investigated student knowledge activities in a postgraduate subject called “Information Management in Organizations”. A learning management system (LMS) called Interact (powered by Sakai) was explored. Students were grouped together to work online with team members geographically distributed over Australia and around the world. Students progressively developed their assignment in Wiki and use other group work tools for their communication and storage of documents. Data collected from participatory observation and documentation were used to investigate the group work knowledge activities. The research will report the various knowledge activity improvements explored. It proposes a model of an activity system that explains how knowledge activities are represented through activity theory notions for distance education online group assessments.

Integrating Social And Economic Orientated Marketing: a Study of Retail Management

This paper argues that social marketing initiatives in retailing need to be part of the institutional orientation of the firm, focused on a product familiar to both employees and consumers and integrated with human resource management practices of the firm in order to provide a distinct competitive advantage.