Hian Chye Koh

An empirical study of software piracy among tertiary institutions in Singapore

We used a survey technique at Singapores three universities to examine perceptions of software piracy and to attempt to discover its underlying factors. About 500 responses were gathered from students and staff. By means of cluster and factor analysis, we were able to identify three groups that had been influenced by attitudes towards software publishers, general acceptance, convenience, and ethics. A decision tree method linked each pirate profile to demographic and computer-related variables. It showed that, while age was negatively related to software piracy, computer experience or computer usage demonstrated an ambiguous relationship to software piracy. Moreover, older respondents who used university software mainly at their workplace tended to pirate less frequently, while students tended to be pirates more often than university employees. Also Malays were the least frequent pirates in all the Singapore ethnic groups.

An international study of career drivers of accounting students in Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong

This is a comparative study of the career drivers of accounting students in Singapore, Australia and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The study examines the motivational factors that steer accounting students into choosing accounting as a programme of study in their respective countries. Comparative analyses are performed to examine the importance of each career driver, taking into consideration gender and country/institutional variables. The results indicate significant differences between male and female students with respect to the importance of the following career drivers: search for meaning, security, material rewards and creativity. Significant differences are also found among countries/institutions and the importance of career drivers such as expertise, status, security, affiliation and creativity. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for both the profession and academic educators as well as suggestions for future research. †Recently retired from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

THE INTERACTION EFFECTS OF LEAN PRODUCTION MANUFACTURING PRACTICES, COMPENSATION, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS ON PRODUCTION COSTS: A RECURSIVE PARTITIONING MODEL

The study re-examines if lean production manufacturing practices (i.e. TQM and JIT) interact with the compensation system (incentive vs. fixed compensation plans) and information system (i.e. attention directing goals and performance feedback) to reduce production costs (in terms of manufacturing and warranty costs) using a recursive partitioning model. Decision trees (i.e. recursive partitioning algorithm using Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection or CHAID) are constructed on data from 77 U.S. manufacturing firms in the electronics industry. Overall, the “decision tree” results show significant interaction effects. In particular, the study found that better manufacturing performance (i.e. lower production costs) can be achieved when lean production manufacturing practices such as TQM and JIT are used along with incentive compensation plans. Also, synergies do result from combining TQM/JIT with more frequent performance feedback along with attention directing goals. These findings suggest that if organisational infrastructure and management control systems are not aligned with manufacturing practices, then the potential benefits of lean manufacturing (i.e. TQM and JIT) may not be fully realised.