Optimal surveillance against foot‐and‐mouth disease: the case of bulk milk testing in Australia

Previous foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks and simulation‐based analyses suggest substantial payoffs from detecting an incursion early. However, no economic measures for early detection have been analysed in an optimising framework. We investigate the use of bulk milk testing (BMT) for active surveillance against an FMD incursion in Australia. We find that BMT can be justified, but only when the FMD entry probability is sufficiently high or the cost of BMT is low. However, BMT is well suited for post‐outbreak surveillance, to shorten the length of time and size of an epidemic and to facilitate an earlier return to market.     

Managing political imperatives in war time: strategic responses of Philips in Australia, 1939–1945

The Australian subsidiary of Dutch multi-national enterprise Philips came under secret service surveillance and faced risk of government takeover as enemy property during World War II. It was also excluded from Australian government contracts for war-related communications equipment at a time when it was forced to reduce civilian production. These threats to its assets and operations required the firm to develop an adaptive corporate strategy in order to respond to the political imperatives it faced; not just minimising political risk, but also taking advantage of the opportunities that war-related production offered during the war years and after.     

Why Organizations Struggle to Implement a Market Orientation: Insights Into Beliefs of Top Management

The role of management as an antecedent and barrier to market orientation is well documented. However, the often deeply held beliefs of top management that influence the degree to which their firms are market oriented has been largely overlooked. This study sought to understand these beliefs using a qualitative research method. Case study research employing in-depth semistructured interviews of four Australian vertically integrated horticultural enterprises was undertaken. A total of 28 beliefs of senior management team members were identified. These beliefs, which appeared to have become part of organizational culture, influenced the way market intelligence was gathered and shared and the degree to which the organizations planned, coordinated, and timed their responses to market opportunities and threats. The results suggest that changing management beliefs about marketing and market orientation may be an important component of enhancing the degree to which firms are market oriented.     

World Heritage Listing and the Evolving Issues Related to Tourism and Heritage: Cases from Australia and New Zealand

The relationship between heritage and tourism at Word Heritage Sites is thought to be particularly problematic. Yet, each year more heritage sites gain this status. This paper explores the issues that emerge between tourism and heritage at two heritage sites, one with World Heritage listing and the other embarking on the application process. Interview data were collected in relation to the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens (REB), Australia and Oamaru's Historic Precinct, New Zealand; secondary data were used to contextualise the findings. The findings of the two case studies indicate that the process, and outcomes, of World Heritage (WH) status influence the nature of the relationship between heritage and tourism. The findings of this case study analysis indicated that prospect of WH listing seems to be a catalyst for decision-making and developing networks between the various stakeholders of heritage and tourism, but heritage stakeholders seem to be grappling for power at this time. Once the listing process is successful, heritage then seems to gain the balance of power, and tourism seems to be less successful in controlling the situation. Further research is warranted on this topic to explore whether the findings from two sites can be generalised to other heritage sites.     

Assessing greenhouse gas emissions from electric vehicle operation in Australia using temporal vehicle charging and electricity emission characteristics

ABSTRACT

Significant interest exists in the potential for electric vehicles (EVs) to be a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement. In order to establish the extent to which EVs will deliver abatement, however, a realistic understanding of the electricity and transport sector GHG emissions impacts arising from different approaches to integrating EVs into the power system is required. A key issue in this regard is the extent to which GHG emissions are a function of where and when EV charging will be enabled (or disabled) by the provision of recharging infrastructure and implementation of charging management strategies by the electricity industry. This article presents an investigation of the GHG emissions arising from electricity and gasoline consumption by plug-in hybrid EVs under a range of standard EV-power system integration scenarios. An assessment framework is presented, and GHG emissions from EV use are assessed for the New South Wales (NSW) and South Australian (SA) pools of the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) using retrospective electricity system generation data for 2011. Results highlight that there is a range of possible outcomes depending on the integration scenario and emissions accounting approach used. This range illustrates value of a temporally explicit assessment approach in capturing the temporal alignment of electricity sector emission intensity and EV charging. Results also show the importance of a clean electricity generation mix in order for EVs to provide a GHG abatement benefit beyond what would be achieved by a hybrid (but non-plug-in) vehicle. The extent to which overnight charging in NSW is observed to produce higher emissions relative to unmanaged charging also illustrates a possible trade-off between GHG emissions and benefits for electricity industry from EV charging at times of low demand.     

The impact of seasonality on tourism and hospitality operations in the alpine region of New South Wales,Australia

Despite the recognized importance of seasonality for tourism businesses, there has been a distinct lack of studies undertaken in the past that discuss the impact of seasonality on alpine accommodation resorts, and more specifically that focus on an Australian location. The main purpose of this study was to examine whether or not the Australian alpine accommodation providers and ski operations have been significantly impacted by the issue of seasonality and to determine more specifically, had there been industry pressure placed on them to become all season operations? For this study, a total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of hospitality businesses located in the sub-alpine region of Jindabyne, and nearby alpine areas of Perisher and Thredbo in New South Wales, Australia. Study results indicated that the majority of managers acknowledged the fact that there has been an increase in the number of summer visitors each year which has pressured them to make changes to their operations. They conceded that such activity has served to reinforce a ‘stand alone’ mindset which was still prevalent amongst the majority of the managers in the region.     

Immigration and international inbound tourism: Empirical evidence from Australia

Immigration can potentially influence tourism flows. However, in spite of the vast number of studies on tourism demand modelling, the immigration-tourism linkage has not received much attention in the empirical literature. This paper seeks to address this gap. A dynamic demand model is developed and estimated using data from 1980 to 2008 for the 15 main markets of Australia. The explanatory variables included are income, own price, price of a substitute destination, airfare and immigration. The estimation results empirically establish the connection between immigration and inbound tourism. The short run and long-run immigration elasticities generated are 0.028 and 0.09 respectively. Additionally this paper demonstrates that omission of prices of substitutes affects the value of the own price elasticity of demand. The results have implications for future research and for stakeholders who can improve the efficiency of their planning exercises by taking into account additional information on immigration trends.     

Any complaints? A review of the framework of self-regulation in the Australian advertising industry

Prior to 1996, the Australian system of advertising self-regulation was regarded as a world model and many Asia-Pacific systems included components adapted from the Australian system. The recent changes to this system, encouraged by the abolition of the media accreditation system, consumer association pressure, criticism from the national advertisers association and the lack of a strong advertising agency presence, present an interesting framework in which to review the foundation concepts of self-regulation in advertising. This paper compares the new code of ethics with its predecessor and an international standard. It examines the performance of the code in terms of the number of complaints upheld and complaint by medium and product type and the voluntary response of advertisers. The findings suggest a weakening in the standard of advertising self-regulation in Australia, with fewer provisions in the Code of Ethics, a significantly fewer number of complaints upheld and no real power of enforcement. Although the case is Australian, it raises universal questions such as the vested interest of advertisers in controlling the process and roles of the consumer association, the media and the advertising agencies in guaranteeing the privilege of self-regulation.     

A LONG‐RUN VIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY GENDER GAP IN AUSTRALIA*

Australian universities were first established in the 1850s, well before the introduction of compulsory schooling. From the middle of the twentieth century, the introduction of mass secondary school education and the expansion of the number of universities widened student access to universities. Subjects offered in higher education increased in scope and labour market discrimination diminished. These factors, together with supply‐side changes, meant that women were more easily able to shift into investing in skills. By 1987, Australian women were more likely than men to be enrolled at a university. These aggregate figures, however, disguise considerable heterogeneity across fields of study.