Business: Theses and Dissertations

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  • ItemOpen Access
    The transformative potential of refugee-to-refugee value co-creation during resettlement : a customer journey perspective
    (2023) Subramanian, Ilayaraja
    With the current refugee crisis reaching an all-time high, a more encompassing approach to transforming refugee lives for the better is critical. Successful integration in the host society is crucial for refugees’ wellbeing. Even though host countries provide integration services, refugees may struggle to access such services due to the fact that they are not familiar with these services and how they are run. More established refugees living in these host countries, may be best positioned to help those who have recently arrived. Although a range of other actors such as social workers or formal volunteers aid refugees in their resettlement journey, fellow and more established refugees who have undergone similar journeys and often share the same culture or customs, may be able to offer better advice/help and thus facilitate a smoother integration process. This study examines service-related issues, both from the perspective of newly arrived refugees and the service providers charged with helping them integrate into the host society. More specifically, this study investigates the role that fellow established refugees play in the integration process and in particular, value co-creation efforts during refugee-to-refugee (R2R) interactions. This study begins by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to understand the service-related issues of newly arrived refugees. The SLR findings highlight the complexities associated with a range of resettlement services (e.g., healthcare, housing, employment, and education) and the problems associated with these services, both from refugees and the service providers’ perspectives. Using a qualitative method, the researcher conducted 34 semi-structured interviews with three separate sets of individuals: service providers, newly arrived refugees, and established refugees. Using NVivo software, the study uncovered three major topics using two cycles of initial and focused coding. The first topic, ‘service provider related,’ focuses on the issues and challenges that service providers experience in dealing with newly arrived refugees, many of which relate to a lack of resources and/or cultural knowledge. The second topic, ‘newly arrived refugees related’ concentrates on the issues and challenges that newly arrived refugees experience when accessing services from service providers due to their lack of expertise and understanding of how the host country’s systems work. The third topic, ‘established refugees related’ investigates established refugees’ intentions and motivations for helping newly arrived refugees to access and consume services during their resettlement journey. Drawing on the motivation, opportunity, and ability model (MOA), the R2R value co-creation framework highlights the role of established refugees in the process of value co-creation during all three stages of service encounters (pre, core and post). Ultimately, this study argues that, due to their common background/identity, established refugees are best positioned to help newly arrived refugees. R2R help can be used to facilitate a smoother resettlement process and improve refugees’ wellbeing.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Three essays in international trade, gains from upstream competition and optimal policy.
    (2024) Dong, Xiangyi
    Vertical separation between upstream and downstream activities together with market power at the upstream level and strategic interdependence across firms have been prevalent in various industries. Following these observations, this thesis focuses on the strategic role of trade policies in imperfectly competitive (oligopoly) markets and studies how vertical separation can affect the optimal policies in different contexts. Chapter 1 introduces the empirical motivation of this thesis and critically reviews the related literature. Chapter 2 presents a baseline model in which a local upstream firm serves one local and one foreign downstream producer in the home market. The government can strategically use two policies: i) an upstream price discrimination policy (banned or allowed), and ii) a trade policy. The results show that in the case of sufficiently differentiated products, the downstream competition is not so severe that a subsidy imposed on foreign goods benefits the local upstream firm by more than it harms the local downstream firm. Chapter 3 considers two local upstream firms and the upstream market structure is endogenously determined by strategic downstream choices. The results suggest that a subsidy emerges as the optimal policy, except for the case where the final goods are sufficiently substitutable. Moreover, the government will not need to restrict upstream price discrimination. Chapter 4 introduces upstream cost heterogeneity into the model, and allows for upstream technology transfer. In this case, the trade policy will have an additional effect in affecting local welfare: a strategic licensing-inducing effect. When upstream cost heterogeneity is sufficiently (but not substantially) low, a sufficiently large import subsidy can induce upstream licensing and lead to a duopolistic upstream market structure. In the end, Chapter 5 summarizes the results above in each essay.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Challenges of IFRS adoption : perspectives of accountants from 14 Asian countries.
    (2024) Richards, Rachel F.
    Many governments across the world have moved to mandating International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as their national accounting standards. Other governments are either in the planning stage of doing so or are actively considering adopting IFRS. Typically, this is either as a blanket adoption of IFRS standards, or as a piecemeal and progressive alignment between local and international standards. Advocates of these reporting standards claim that using IFRS will make financial reports more consistent and comparable, both nationally and across borders, due to the use of what has been described as ‘the same financial language.’ This is expected to lead to more valuable information for stakeholders and lower costs of capital. However, such results are contingent on the standards being implemented in the same way, in all jurisdictions where they are adopted, which is not necessarily the case. This thesis seeks to identify why this might be the case from accountants in the 14 Asian countries included in this research; such information from accountants in these countries has never been sought before. IFRS are said to be based on principles rather than rules, meaning that the focus when deciding on transactions and reporting should be on the substance, not the form, of the transaction. This focus is said to provide the necessary flexibility needed to cover a multitude of business practices, circumstances, and contingencies. This flexibility requires determining the substance of a transaction, which may not be straightforward, and then making decisions about how to report on it. Most research on IFRS implementation is based in Western countries. Far less has been conducted in Asian countries, with even less dealing directly with Asian accountants. While some research has identified positive outcomes associated with the improved quality of reporting using IFRS, other research has found the opposite. The extant research predominantly uses quantitative data derived from financial reports, and studies a specific area; for example, using reported revenue to describe earnings management practices. While some research uses interview questionnaires, surveys, and Likert scales, almost no research seeks data direct from accountants in an unstructured way in order to more fully understand their perspective. What is missing from the extant literature is research which focuses specifically on understanding the perspectives of accountants tasked with actually using IFRS when making accounting and reporting choices, and in particular, what they see as barriers to high-quality financial reporting. My research begins the processing of addressing this omission. The notion of culture and its impact on people’s behaviour is not new. Accountants are, of course, ‘people’ and are also impacted by their local culture. It is reasonable to consider that culture will have an impact upon the choices accountants make when using IFRS. It is even more likely that culture will influence accounting and reporting choices when more judgements and interpretation are required, such as with the assessment of ‘fair value.’ While literature on culture and its impact on accounting exists, the volume of this research is significantly less than that directly on IFRS. National culture has been reported to impact upon accounting choices and not necessarily in a way that is consistent with IFRS expectations. Some literature has discussed cultural issues, such as guanxi, a cultural trait present in Confucianist societies that is said to undermine the idea of an arms-length transaction, and therefore of a fair value assessment. In this research, I interviewed 43 accountants in 14 Asian countries: China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. I used a semi-structured interview schedule and interviewees could deviate from this if they wished, enabling what they saw as the most pressing issues to come to the fore. I used thematic analysis to analyse the interviews, identifying 16 overarching themes. While a country may not be represented in a theme, this does not mean that this theme is not an issue for accountants there. Instead, it may be that interviewees found other issues even more challenging and worthy of discussions. The identified themes are outlined below: 1. Cultural elements, including hierarchy and age, are a major factor affecting accounting and reporting choices. Interviewees described the impact of cultural expectations on their personal and professional lives. Cultural drivers typically override the expectations that may be present in IFRS. Hierarchy is strong in almost all of these countries meaning that accountants find it difficult to make independent and autonomous accounting choices (absent from this theme: Singapore). 2. Accountants find that the flexibility in IFRS means that reporting is inconsistent and unreliable. A lack of clarity inherent in the principles-based system means that there are too many options and too many methods, and a lack of true understanding of the expected outcome (absent from this theme: Hong Kong and Pakistan). 3. Corruption practices perceived by the interviewees as inherent within their country, their government, and organisation mean that accounting and reporting with IFRS is deprioritised. The inherent flexibility in IFRS is even seen to enable poor practice. If corruption is rife, then the notion of high-quality accounting seems irrelevant. In some cases, what is viewed as corruption though a Western lens is seen as acceptable business practice (absent from this theme: Hong Kong and Singapore). 4. Lack of management support for accounting with IFRS means accountants do not feel empowered to advocate for high-quality accounting. Management may have other objectives and use IFRS to further those objectives, rather than use it for good reporting. Accountants are required to obey, especially in those countries where there are few labour protections (absent from this theme: Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan). 5. Accounting education and professional development is seen as low quality and difficult to access. Providers of education are seen to use it as a profit-making tool and employers are reluctant to invest in accounting education. Accountants use peers to acquire new information and/or clarify information (absent from this theme: Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, and Taiwan). 6. Fair value is complex and, therefore, inconsistent and unreliable. Accountants believe that the lack of market prices in some instances means that there is no true consistency when it comes to fair value assessment, meaning the resulting values are unreliable. Some interviewees also believe that fair value assessment will be abused by management to present false figures (absent from this theme: Hong Kong and Singapore). 7. Revenue recognition requirements within the IFRS are too different from local GAAP and hard to implement well. In particular, interviewees mentioned the difficulty with complex construction contracts, and the timing of revenue reporting (absent from this theme: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam). 8. Auditing and the audit sector in general are not seen to be supportive of accountants. Rather, they are seen to use education for profit-making purposes, kow-towing to clients, and even participate in corrupt practices (absent from this theme: Hong Kong, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, and Taiwan). 9. The workload and cost involved in implementing and reporting using the IFRS is not worth the resulting benefits, if any (absent from this theme: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Singapore). 10. The Government is not seen to be interested in supporting, regulating, or enforcing the IFRS. For accountants, this means that high-quality IFRS reporting is either even harder to do well or that it does not need to be prioritised at all (included in this theme: Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Vietnam). 11. As English is not the native language of the countries examined in this research, IFRS becomes even more difficult to understand. Direct translations are not always useful, and the language can be too technical (included in this theme: Japan, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand). 12. Relationships are more important than, and will be prioritised over, high-quality accounting, as they can affect employment, promotions, pay rises, and other issues impacting an accountant’s quality of life (included in this theme: India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam). 13. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) does not understand local business requirements when setting standards and, therefore, has not taken those requirements into account (included in this theme: China, India, and Vietnam). 14. The plethora of bureaucratic bodies across multiple provinces, including tax authorities, education bodies, and regulatory authorities, make things too complex (included in this theme: China and India). 15. The government is interested in supporting high-quality IFRS reporting through good education, regulation, and enforcement practices (included in this theme: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). 16. Overall, IFRS and fair value are a good set of reporting standards for the country, providing better information on organisational value (included in this theme: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). In summary, within the 14 countries in this research, most interviewees identified multiple challenges associated with the process of implementing, or using, IFRS when undertaking accounting and reporting activities. While these challenges are not easily addressed, they cannot be ignored. In particular, the impact and influence of local culture on accountants is unlikely to change, and other issues such as corruption and a lack of education will require significant political will and expenditure. The findings of this research offer a truer understanding of what these accountants individually believe about how their choices and decision making are impacted and influenced. As a result of these issues, it is unclear whether any mandated standards, standard settings, and other accounting and reporting policies will be properly implemented, and what mitigating factors may need to be in place. Indeed, when set against the Stakeholder Perceptions model, the value of the new IFRS system is perceived to be low, meaning that the likelihood of this project’s success in these countries is also low. This research contributes to the extant literature by bringing to the fore, for the first time, what accountants in these 14 countries, who are tasked with using IFRS, face in their decision-making processes, and what factors are likely to influence that process. It also highlights the various issues that accountants find the most difficult in using IFRS and exposes disparities or where the expectations of IFRS reporting are unlikely to meet the practice of IFRS reporting. This new knowledge can be used to inform standard setters, policy makers, accounting bodies, and critics when considering the formulation and implementation of new accounting and reporting standards and the issues that must be considered if implementation of the standards is to be successful.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Modelling New Zealand stock market volatility.
    (2024) Graham, Stuart
    Volatility indices are a crucial metric in financial markets, often serving as a barometer for investor sentiment and overall market risk. Although there are established implied volatility indices for major markets around the world, a volatility index for the New Zealand stock market (NZX 50) has yet to be introduced. This research helps fill that void by investigating alternative methodologies for modelling NZX 50 volatility that do not rely on option pricing data. We replicate an existing risk neutral realised exponential GARCH model (REGARCH) and compare its performance against physical volatility measures such as GARCH, EGARCH, and RGARCH. This paper finds that the REGARCH modelled conditional volatility significantly outperforms the other models in terms of fitting in and out of sample as well as forecasting daily realised volatility. It is the only model to produce conditional volatility which captures the desirable negative correlation with returns or leverage effect, and its modelled implied volatility and volatility risk premia provide additional information for predicting returns and volatility. However, consistent with expectations the model produces a negative mean volatility risk premium when optimised with return data alone.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The impact of supply chain network structure on economic and environmental outcomes.
    (2025) Watkins, Jonathan
    This research was inspired by a small local company that aims to prevent its products from ending in a landfill after customer use by repurposing the waste from their used products. The idea to repurpose waste from their end products was inspired by the ongoing global pressures facing supply chains. Three supply chain pressures are explored, namely, increased government regulation on recycling rates, an increase in demand and increased shipping taxes. To repurpose the waste the company aims to implement a distributed 3D manufacturing circular system that sends wasted material to a recycling facility. To recapture the used products, the recycled material is used as an alternative supply source effectively creating a closed loop process. To evaluate the desired benefits, this research addresses the question “how does a supply chain’s network structure impact the interplay between its economic and environmental outcomes?”. There is a current lack of research addressing the economic and environmental trade-offs of combined circular economy solutions. There is also crucial need for practical knowledge on how to introduce circular supply chains into real world scenarios. Addressing the research question began with the use of a systems thinking approach to depict the economic and environmental relationships between a centralised linear, decentralised linear and decentralised circular supply chains. To complement the use of a systems approach as a theoretical lens, dynamic simulation modelling software – Stella Architect – is used to portray the relationships between the elements of each system. This method is employed to break down the complexity inherent in combining multiple circular economy solutions as well as to compare each supply chain system behavior to one another. The results from this research indicated that in all three supply chain cases there is a very strong interdependency between demand and the economic and environmental outcomes of the supply chain. Relationships between the actors of a supply chain become stronger the closer in distance they are. If a supply chain strives to get as close to 100% reliance on recycled material as possible then the further it reduces its reliance on virgin materials. This significantly influences the strength of relationship between raw materials and their associated economic and environmental outputs. The circular nature of the decentralised circular supply chain decreases the strength of the relationship between demand and supply of raw materials over time. These results are transferable to managers in understanding the economic and environmental outcomes between traditional and proposed supply chain models. The research will also help to contribute to the growing circular economy literature whilst measuring the impacts of combining decentralisation with a 3D manufactured enabled closed loop supply chain.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Economic impacts of climate change on the New Zealand wine industry and adaptation strategies for the industry
    (2023) Prakasha Kumar, Amogh
    This research comes with three broad research objectives (1. relationship between the weather variables and the wine quality (Chapter 2), 2. economics of self-coping adaptation strategy to climatic risk, that is, switching/ changing the varieties (Chapter 3), and 3. economics of insurance as an adaptation strategy (Chapter 4)). The study location is New Zealand. The Chapter 2 results indicate that the relationship between the weather variables and the wine quality is non-linear, mainly growing season temperature. The North Island of New Zealand is too warm to produce any cool climate wine variety. However, the South Island can continue to produce cool-climate wine varieties until an optimum growing season temperature is reached. Chapter 3 discusses the economics of one adaptation strategy, switching/ changing the varieties. In this chapter, when the existing climate becomes unsuitable to produce any given variety, the models show when and how much of a unit vineyard must be changed to a more suitable variety. Model 1 of Chapter 3 shows that with no risk, the entire vineyard should be switched to a new variety at the same point in time. Whereas Model 2 of Chapter 3 shows that with risk, only a fraction of the vineyard should be changed to a new variety that is more suitable to the growing conditions than the existing one. Chapter 4 discusses the economics of index insurance for the frost risk faced by winegrowers. The results of Chapter 4 show that it is possible to have a mutually beneficial insurance contract between the insurer and the winery for the spring frost. This can be achieved with the help of index insurance, which is impossible with indemnity-based insurance due to inflated premiums. I show that a mutually beneficial insurance contract will feature the index being included as a choice variable in the contract.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Understanding organisational information systems resilience : using the critical realism lens.
    (2024) Sarkar, Amitrajit
    This thesis adopts Agency Theory and Weill’s IT Governance framework to investigate the decision priorities of Board of Directors, senior executives and operation managers in the context of IS resilience planning. IS resilience planning falls under the broader umbrella of IT governance and on an aspect of organisational resilience, that is, on Information Systems (IS) resilience. A search of the research literature indicates that there is no study focusing on understanding the decision-making process of strategic management and implementation of those strategies by operations managers in relation to IS resilience. Although research has been undertaken on the topics of organisational resilience, and IT governance, there is a gap in the literature with respect to IS resilience. Concourse theory and Q-methodology were used to develop a Q-sort questionnaire, which was refined through interviews with researchers, decision makers from large and small organisations and IS professionals. For the purpose of this research 37 statements will be sorted by key decision makers and operation mangers who are responsible for implementation of those strategies at the Jade Software Corporation, a large private organisation in New Zealand. An in-depth case analysis of Jade Corporation serves to illustrate how Q-methodology was used to develop a typology of decision priorities for IS resilience planning. Q-methodology is preferred in research where subjective opinion is to be explored with the goal of developing a typology, since it brings together the individual viewpoints of people rather than correlating variables selected in advance by the researchers. After the interviewees at Jade sorted the Q-statements, in-depth qualitative interviews will be conducted to better understand their decision priorities. Detailed analysis will be carried to reveal types of decision makers and implementers, each representing a unique perspective of IS resilience. These types will then be discussed, along with implications of findings, a theoretical framework and antecedents for IS resilience, and suggestions for future research. This thesis will also present a longitudinal study of Jade adapting in the aftermath of multiple crises, lessons learnt from them and also proposes a model for IS resilience planning based on an IT governance framework. Consequently, this thesis will show how Q-Methodology can deepen our understanding of top management decision priorities in context to IS resilience planning, especially in crisis situations, addressing the key question: How do board of directors and senior executives in organisations make decisions under crisis situations? And how do they prioritise their decisions to ensure IS resilience within their organisation? Given the potentially devastating implications of disruptions to organisations, understanding the dynamics of the successful adaption of IS within organisations indicates an important avenue for future research. The intended contribution of this thesis is to provide insights to our understanding of Information Systems resilience in organisations.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Social Sustainability Reporting in a Certified B Corporation
    (2024) Dauravu, Clare
    Purpose: This study examines how a large New Zealand company, Kathmandu, aligns its social sustainability initiatives with its core business objectives, particularly in relation to community, employees and supplier engagement. This study examines Kathmandu’s strategies for promoting ethical practices across employees, suppliers and community engagement, based on an analysis of publicly-available reports. It examines how recent acquisitions have affected the company’s sustainability strategy and identifies best practices that improve accountability and transparency. This study adds to the existing literature on social sustainability and provides insight regarding Kathmandu’s commitment to responsible business practices. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study uses document analysis to investigate Kathmandu’s sustainability practices, examining publicly-available documents, including the FY2012, FY2018, FY2020 sustainability reports and the FY2022 and FY2023 integrated reports. Applying George et al.’s (2023) Purpose in For-Profit Firms Framework (hereafter referred to as the ‘purpose framework’), the study identifies themes related to community, employee and supplier engagement, exploring how these initiatives align with the company’s core business objectives. This approach offers new insights into Kathmandu’s strategies for integrating sustainability into its operations and improving stakeholder relationships. Findings: The study finds that in a for-profit company, the implementation of social sustainability is likely to be effective when it aligns with the company’s core purpose; that is, embedding sustainability within a company’s foundational purpose allows it to pursue social sustainability as an integral component of its operations, supporting both the effective implementation of sustainable practices and providing a strategic model for other companies with similar aims. However, the findings reveal that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can substantially impact the sustainability strategies of a parent company by incorporating the sustainability practices and strategic frameworks of the acquired entities, potentially resulting in a shift in the company’s broader objectives. Originality: The study contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating how Kathmandu integrates social sustainability within its core purpose. The aim is to provide empirical evidence of a for-profit firm embedding sustainability into its operations. By highlighting the unique alignment of corporate purpose with sustainability initiatives, the study presents a practical example of how a company can incorporate sustainability into their core business practices. Limitations: This study’s dependence on secondary data from publicly-accessible materials is one of its limitations; it may present a biased view by emphasising positive aspects of Kathmandu’s sustainability efforts while downplaying challenges. Additionally, the analysis is constrained by the selection of a limited number of reports due to time limitations, potentially overlooking broader trends in the company’s social sustainability performance. Future research could enhance our understanding of this area by incorporating primary data through interviews or surveys with key stakeholders, allowing for a more comprehensive and nuanced evaluation of Kathmandu’s sustainability practices and their impacts.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Could New Zealand have a net wealth tax?
    (2024) Chen, Charlotte
    This research analyses wealth taxes and their implementation in various countries around the world, with a particular focus on New Zealand. More specifically, this research considers what a net wealth tax could look like, if introduced in New Zealand, and whether it would be practical and/or financially feasible. This topic is important because there is limited research on wealth taxes in New Zealand. Previous research has focused on wealth taxes and issues associated with them in other jurisdictions, especially European countries (OECD, 2018). However, there has been little research on the issue in New Zealand, with previous research focusing on estate duty (Littlewood, 2014; Shivas, 2023), which, over time, proved vulnerable to political challenges and suffered from a lack of ideological consistency and practical effectiveness and was ultimately repealed. This qualitative research uses an international comparative method based on the extant literature and news. The literature reviewed here includes the past practices and lessons learned in relation to wealth taxes in European countries, the United States (US), Australia, and New Zealand. The research considers how a net wealth tax has been applied in other countries and why it may or may not suit the New Zealand context. In doing so, it develops a deep understanding of the social phenomena and a broad perspective on wealth taxes across different cultures to uncover how international experience can help current policymaking in the New Zealand context. The research ultimately finds that it is valuable to discuss net wealth tax policies to contribute to the debate in New Zealand, even though the country may not introduce such a tax in this electoral term.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Understanding the lived experiences of impostor phenomenon among leaders in mathematics and statistics : exploring self-perception and competence.
    (2024) Preston, Sam Oliver
    Despite clear indicators of success, many leaders experience persistent feelings of inadequacy, question themselves, and fear exposure as being frauds because of something deemed the Impostor Phenomenon. This experience could impact the well-being of leaders and organisations. Thus, the present study explores academic leaders’ lived experiences of the impostor phenomenon in mathematics and statistics contexts to understand them better, contributing to the normalisation and alleviation of adverse encounters. Existing research has relied mainly on quantitative approaches to decipher the prevalence of impostor phenomenon in large samples, often overlooking subtle contextual factors that may shape leaders’ experiences. Similarly, individuals have received much scholarly attention, meaning that inherent traits have received more light than contextual factors. Leaders frequently experience the impostor phenomenon, but little work has occurred to understand why. Increased popularity in the subject has also decreased the term’s conceptual clarity. Therefore, this study adopts an inductive, qualitative research design to explore the lived experiences of the impostor phenomenon among participants in tertiary contexts across New Zealand to address these gaps in the literature. I conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with professionals who hold or previously held academic leadership positions in mathematics and statistics. Qualitative coding and thematic analysis revealed three themes associated with the impostor phenomenon experience. These themes effectively represented the impostor phenomenon as having 1) an essence, 2) some critical contextual considerations, and 3) some alleviating factors. This study meaningfully contributes to the literature on IP by thoroughly exploring lived experiences, providing a more nuanced understanding of the ‘impostor phenomenon’ construct. Further, the study provides valuable insights into how academic leaders can mitigate the impostor phenomenon in practice.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Comprehensive anti-tax haven legislation for Australia and New Zealand : international comparative studies and reform.
    (2024) Chak, Chun Wang Clement
    It is firmly established in legal precedent that taxpayers retain the right to structure their financial affairs in a manner that exempts specific sources of income from the provisions of income tax legislation.1 As long as taxpayers accurately report all taxable income, strictly adhere to tax laws, including accepted tax practices, avoid anti-avoidance provisions, and abstain from engaging in fraudulent transactions, they are entitled to utilise lawful mechanisms to reduce their tax liabilities. The use of suitable tax havens has become a prominent feature of contemporary international tax planning and frequently forms an integral part of the corporate structure of international entities. The escalating risk of a global sovereign debt crisis resulting from governmental interventions such as bailouts and stimulus measures in response to the global financial crisis has led to an increasing trend among taxing authorities in developed nations to clamp down on tax havens. Following the resolution of the UBS case on 19 August 2009, Swiss financial institution Credit Suisse publicly acknowledged on 15 July 2011 that it was the subject of a criminal inquiry by the United States Department of Justice regarding the potential facilitation of tax evasion for offshore clients. This investigation is part of a growing initiative targeting tax evasion involving multiple banks, including HSBC India. It is crucial to emphasise that tax evasion constitutes an unlawful act. In contrast, Google Inc. reduced its tax liabilities by USD 75.4 billion from its 2019 income tax assessment. This reduction is attributed to a strategic approach whereby a significant portion of profits derived from its international advertising revenues is allocated to Bermuda. This approach incorporates methodologies commonly recognised among tax planners as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich.”2 This offshore tax avoidance scheme is implemented by exploiting gaps or ambiguities in tax legislation within the confines of legal frameworks.3 Numerous jurisdictions have integrated anti-tax haven provisions into their legislative frameworks. At the international level, efforts by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to counteract tax havens have been significantly strengthened since 2000. In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project was initially introduced to the OECD/G20 coalition to address tax avoidance strategies employed by multinational enterprises exploiting discrepancies and inconsistencies in tax regulations to evade taxation. Subsequently, in 2014, the OECD developed the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) in response to a request from the G20, urging jurisdictions to collect information from their financial institutions and exchange it automatically with other jurisdictions annually. However, evidence from the United States indicates that despite the implementation of rigorous national anti-tax haven measures and the influence of international bodies such as the OECD, complete eradication of tax haven transactions remains elusive. Continuous research and concerted action are imperative at both domestic and international levels to effectively address this ongoing challenge. This doctoral research seeks to comprehensively examine the effectiveness and consequences of anti-tax haven legislation in Australia and New Zealand, focusing on offshore tax avoidance. A comparative analysis of laws in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union aims to suggest reforms for Australian and New Zealand tax statutes. The study also investigates common schemes residents use for offshore investments to avoid or defer taxes. Interviews with chief financial officers and wealthy individuals explore their use of tax havens. Discussions with tax authorities in both countries shed light on responses to tax haven activities. The study evaluates the effectiveness of international organisations in addressing tax haven abuse, aiming to propose robust anti-tax haven laws for Australia and New Zealand. It advocates for departure from the “One law for all”4 doctrine in tax laws and proposes introducing “Earnings Hardship Taxation” into domestic frameworks to combat tax evasion.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A market study of the New Zealand dental industry.
    (2024) Bates, Sarah
    Despite consisting of many small dental practices, dentistry can be characterised as an imperfectly competitive market due to issues of imperfect and asymmetric information. Although ‘perfect competition’ is just a theoretical ideal, it provides a benchmark against which the state of competition can be assessed. Some deviations from perfect competition likely benefit consumers, such as heterogeneous goods; however, the imperfect and asymmetric information highly prevalent in dentistry is unlikely to provide the most conducive environment for effective competition. A potential ‘disruptor’ entered the market in 2005, Lumino The Dentists. Although Lumino has increased concentration in the industry by expanding through the acquisition of existing practices, which would normally lessen competition, the aforementioned information issues may have created an environment for an overall pro-competitive effect. The inaccessibility of dental services for many individuals has become more topical in recent years, making an investigation into the state of competition highly relevant. Yet, to my knowledge, no competition assessment of a market study type currently exists for dentistry. This paper carries out a theoretical discussion on the competitiveness of dentistry and implores a range of analyses to understand market share, price and quality in the market and how it has changed over time. It is highly likely that information issues in dentistry have constrained competition in the market; however, while some descriptive evidence exists in support, it cannot be definitively concluded that Lumino The Dentists has improved competition in the market.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Estimating the effect of immigration on rental costs in New Zealand.
    (2024) van Keulen, Lilly
    Immigration into New Zealand is currently at an all-time high (Statistics New Zealand, 2024) and the New Zealand housing market is considered one of the least affordable in the OECD (Fitchett & Jacob, 2022). Motivated by these factors, this thesis estimates the impact of immigration on rental costs in New Zealand. Using a customised extension of the New Zealand public release census data from 1991 to 2018, I perform a fixed effects analysis to estimate the impact of immigration relative to domestic migration or overall population growth on local average rental costs in New Zealand at either a Ward or finer Area Unit level. I also use a two stage least squares regression with an instrumental variable for immigration to control for potential endogeneity. My analysis suggests that immigration has a positive and significant impact on average rental costs in New Zealand relative to other forms of local population increase. These results are robust to several different measures of immigration and hold when robustness checks are carried out. From heterogeneity analysis, the effect is stronger in urban areas or when the largest New Zealand regions are examined.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Integrating tax education into the tertiary education curriculum: a case study of Indonesia
    (2024) Wicaksono, Panggah Tri
    In the past few years, tax education has become one of the strategic business lines of many tax authorities globally, especially in developing countries with low levels of tax compliance. Various tax education programmes have been developed to engage not only existing taxpayers but also future taxpayers. Tax authorities provide tax education for future taxpayers (students) as a long-term investment in shifting attitudes and behaviour towards taxation. One of the programmes is to incorporate taxation into the education curriculum, ranging from primary school through to tertiary education, making the programme to be more systematic. Despite the importance of tax education, limited research has focused specifically on the implementation of tax education programmes, especially in teaching taxation to students as future taxpayers. This qualitative study draws on a case study of a tax education programme in Indonesia, where taxation has been taught to students at the tertiary education level as a part of citizenship education in the curriculum. This study aims to investigate the implementation of the programme and explore the factors that could influence the implementation. By using Neo-institutional Theory in Organisation Studies, this study, first, explores how Indonesia’s tax authority operationalises tax education in the form of the integration of tax education into the tertiary education curriculum. Subsequently, this study examines how institutional structures (that is, regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive structures) shape the implementation of teaching taxation to students in Indonesian tertiary education institutions. This study employs analysis of documents (that is, educational acts and regulations, curriculum documents, and course syllabuses), and semi-structured interviews with policymakers (that is, Indonesia’s tax authority and education ministry) and academics from eight tertiary education institutions in Indonesia which have implemented the incorporation of tax awareness education into curriculum and teaching practices. This study contributes to the literature of tax education, by describing the detailed practice of tax education in a particular tax jurisdiction, and identifying key factors that influence the practice. This study also shows the potential role of non-governmental actors (particularly, tertiary education institutions) in the tax education programme. Moreover, the findings of this study indicate the complex interplay between regulative, normative, and cultural- cognitive structures that enable and/or constrain tertiary education institutions (and academics) in incorporating taxation into curriculum and teaching practices. Furthermore, this study also provides practical implications by providing recommendations to policymakers (especially tax authorities) and tertiary education institutions in Indonesia on the tax awareness education programme. However, this study could also be useful for other countries which are implementing tax education programmes or are considering creating such programmes.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Effects of sustainability narratives and influencer popularity on consumers perceptions of fashion items featured on Instagram.
    (2024) Schleuss, Emily Johanna
    This research investigates the impact the perceived popularity of an Instagram influencer and the presence of a sustainability narrative have on consumers perceptions of a fashion item featured on Instagram. Previous research has not explored this combination of variables. This study looks at the effect of the variables independently, and in combination. Participants completed an online questionnaire after being exposed to one of four conditions, each representing a different mock Instagram post. These conditions varied influencer popularity (high, low) and the presence of a sustainability narrative (present, not present). Participants then answered questions regarding their perception of the dress featured in the Instagram post, alongside several covariates, including environmentalism, influencer influence, fashion consciousness, and social media usage. Demographic data was also collected. Results indicated that the presence of a sustainability narrative had significant effects on the perceptions of aesthetics, quality, cost, and intention to purchase the dress. Influencer popularity however only affected the perceived cost of the dress. No significant interaction effects were found, but when the independent variables were tested simultaneously, some differences in effects were found. This demonstrates that the presence of a sustainability narrative tended to have a more substantial impact on perceptions than the popularity of the influencer. Significant covariate relationships were also identified. Specifically, environmentalism affects all measures of perception, influencer influence affects perceptions of aesthetics and purchase intention, and fashion consciousness affects perceptions of aesthetics. Social media usage did not have any affects, but time spent on social media affected how much participants thought the item retailed for. These findings, their implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The global reach of US monetary policy: suggestive evidence from the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
    (2024) Greig, Jacob
    The focus of this thesis is examining the global reach of US monetary policy in the recent past for a sample of 78 different countries and currency unions. I investigate for which countries spillovers of US policy are most pervasive and how this has changed from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to the more recent COVID-19 pandemic. In the first part of my analysis, I examine the prevalence of the zero lower bound (ZLB) problem across these countries in the periods before and after the two crises. I find that the problem was generally restricted to advanced economies or those with currencies tied to the US dollar during the GFC and was more widespread following the outbreak of COVID-19. I then explore to what extent central banks around the world matched the expansion of the US Federal Reserve (Fed)’s balance sheet in both nominal and real (CPI-adjusted) terms during both periods. I find that rapid expansion of the balance sheet on the same scale as the US was not common in either crisis period, with three central banks exceeding the Fed’s balance sheet expansion following the GFC and six during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, I find that during the COVID-19 pandemic, several central banks encountering the ZLB problem expanded their balance sheet by venturing into large-scale asset purchase (LSAP) programmes for the first time. In the second part of my analysis, I examine the relationship between US long-term interest rates and those in other countries. I find that the influence of US long-term interest rates is pervasive globally following the US monetary policy response to both the GFC and COVID-19. I also find that Euro Area long-term interest rates, and to a lesser extent those of Japan, had an influence on long-term yields in countries in their periphery.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Raising cardiovascular disease knowledge and awareness through an information systems approach : an exploratory study in designing cardiovascular health applications for young adults.
    (2024) Yu, Joanna
    Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, representing a multifaceted challenge due to its complex nature and the interplay of various risk factors. While commonly prevalent in the elderly, there is a concerning trend of increasing incidence among younger age groups who may not prioritise their health adequately, attributed to the prevalence of unhealthy lifestyles. Increasing knowledge and awareness of CVD is essential to reducing CVD mortality and preventing CVD. Various interventions, including marketing campaigns and community events, aim to educate the general public and induce behavioural changes. Among these, information systems interventions, especially mobile phone applications, are the most applicable to young adults. However, there is limited research on utilising mobile applications to increase CVD knowledge and awareness among young adults. Therefore, this study aims to explore on how to design a fit-for-purpose cardiovascular-related health application for young adults to improve their knowledge and awareness, offering potential suggestions tailored to the needs of this population. Given that the research objectives involve multiple variables, such as knowledge and awareness levels, application usage experience, and design feature preferences, a qualitative research methodology has been adopted. This study employs two major processes: a systematic literature review and a survey questionnaire. The systematic literature review was conducted to guide the research. An online survey that includes a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions was applied to evaluate respondents’ existing knowledge and awareness levels, as well as their preferences regarding applications. A total of 118 responses were collected, comprising a gender distribution of 50.85% female and 50.00% within the 18 – 30 age range. Results from statistical analysis indicate a positive correlation between higher CVD knowledge levels and increased awareness of CVD risk factors among respondents. Over half of the participants reported the use of health-related applications, with more than 80% of those who had used a health application still utilising functions related to cardiovascular health. Detect Heart Rate or Blood Pressure, Calculate Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Support Wearable Devices, Track Lifestyle, and Suggestions to Change Unhealthy Habits were identified to be the top five preferred functionalities. Thematic analysis of open-ended questions identified five themes: Interface Aesthetics, Presentation Design, Information Management, Usability, and Operation. It was found that Interface Aesthetics was the most significant design feature influencing the usage of a cardiovascular related health application. This study provides an assessment of young adults’ cardiovascular health knowledge and awareness level, as well as their health application usage. It contributes to the literature on information systems interventions for CVD, facilitating the design of cardiovascular health applications tailored to this demographic’s needs. Future research should consider developing appropriate application prototypes and evaluating their effectiveness in raising CVD knowledge and awareness among young adults.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Do robots decrease humans' wages?
    (2024) Logchies, Thomas
    Robots and how they influence labour market outcomes like wages are a current point of contention within the economic literature. Empirical studies show mixed results, and therefore, using 2,586 estimates from fifty-two studies, I undertake a meta-analysis to study the effects of robots on wages. Overall, while one can find individual studies that show a positive or negative impact of robots on wages, my analysis suggests that when we look at the literature as a whole, there is no clear evidence for a sizeable impact, as most estimates are not statistically significant, and those that are, fail to reach the minimum threshold for a small effect size. I do find evidence that differences in study characteristics lead to differences in estimated effect sizes: how wage is defined and to what extent the data are (dis)aggregated has an influence on the estimates. Finally, I find inconsistent results about whether publication bias exists in this literature.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Essays on the effectiveness of carbon pricing policies.
    (2024) Yu, Yanxia
    This thesis aims at assessing the effectiveness of carbon pricing policies in reducing carbon emissions using replication analysis, regression analyses and metaanalyses. Three carbon pricing regimes are chosen as the focuses of the analyses, including the carbon taxes in Sweden and Norway and the pilot emission trading schemes (ETS) in China. The replication in Chapter 2 reproduces and confirms Andersson (2019a)’s findings that the Swedish carbon taxes significantly reduced per capita carbon emissions (by 6.3%) in the transport sector since its introduction in 1991. As I further extended Andersson’s approach to Norway’s transport sector, I found little effect (2.6%). In Chapter 3, I assessed the carbon mitigating effect of China’s pilot ETS program using advanced econometric techniques to control for the impact of confounding factors. The estimated effects vary from a statistically insignificant reduction of 12.5% in per capita CO2 emissions and to a significant 18.0% reduction. The results in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 indicates the heterogeneity between estimated effect sizes across different countries, sectors and estimators. Thus, this thesis further conducts meta-analyses in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 to synthesize the literature estimating the effect of China’s pilot ETS program. Chapter 4 uses a “multiverse” approach to generate effect sizes from 8192 regressions, basing on the same emission data set but varying the dependent variables, the time of treatment, the estimators and the control variables included in the model. Based on these estimates, a single-paper meta-analysis is conducted. The resulted estimate of the overall mean effect is 18.0% reduction in carbon emissions for the ETS pilots. In addition, a standard meta-analysis is conducted in Chapter 5, with 752 estimates from 80 studies drawn from the literature. To address inflation in estimated effects caused by publication bias, Chapter 5 employs procedures to adjust estimates for publication bias. The associated estimates of overall mean effect range between - 0.101 and -0.057 (using Fisher’s z scale). Several factors are identified as influential to the estimated effect sizes, including empirical methods such as “matching between the treated and control units before regression” and whether or not to control some covariates such as population. Overall, I found strong evidence that the carbon pricing policies reduced carbon emissions in countries and regions with such policies. But the effect of carbon pricing policies also seems to be country/region/sector specific. Thus, researchers and policymakers should be careful when drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of carbon pricing policies.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Essays on the relationship between income inequality and mortality.
    (2024) Wu, Weilun
    This thesis systematically investigates the relationship between income inequality and mortality with a meta-science approach. Chapter 1 introduces the contested association between income inequality and mortality, respectively, through theoretical background and a critical review of the current literature. Chapter 2 replicates the study of Leigh and Jencks (2007). L&J find that the relationship between inequality and mortality is insignificant economically and statistically. In this chapter, I retrieve L&J’s missing data with the multiple imputation approach and re-analyze the authors’ specifications. I also extend L&J’s analysis with updated data to 2019. All my attempts indicate the replicability of L&J, providing robust evidence to support the insignificant inequality-mortality relationship. Chapter 3 reviews 1,000 published meta-studies from 10 different academic disciplines to understand the meta-analysis (MA) methodology and evaluate the established MA procedures. In this chapter, I highlight the challenges of multilevel meta-data and dependent standard errors associated with commonly used effect types in MA. For the following MAs, I advocate for using robust clustered standard error, a Three-Level meta-analytic model, and appropriate effect types to improve MA accuracy. I also advocate for standard MA procedures such as reporting I-squared values for effect heterogeneity, using meta-regression for identifying heterogeneity sources and addressing publication bias. Chapter 4 applies the above methodologies to an MA examining the income inequality-mortality relationship. This MA includes 84 studies and 1,008 Partial Correlation Coefficients (PCCs). Utilizing the Three-Level model with clustered robust standard error, my initial unadjusted results suggest a moderate, significant impact of inequality on mortality. However, after adjusting for publication bias, the impact appears small and statistically insignificant. Furthermore, Chapter 4 replaces PCCs with Fisher’s z, addressing the bias introduced by the dependency of PCC standard errors on effect sizes. This re-analysis confirms the previous findings with PCC, reinforcing the conclusion of an insignificant relationship between income inequality and mortality. Chapter 5 synthesizes the findings from each chapter and draws a conclusion. With consistent evidence, this thesis does not find that income inequality has a significant influence on mortality.