Zealand Business Research Articles

Sell, sell, sell or learn, learn, learn? The EdTech market in New Zealand’s education system – privatisation by stealth?

ABSTRACTAn article in The Atlantic ‘Quantifying the Ed-Tech Market’ (2015), which draws on a review by the Education Technology Industry Network, reports that the U.S. Ed-tech market totalled $8.38 billion in the 2012–2013 academic year, which is up from $7.9 billion the year before, and up 11.7 per cent from 2009. K-12 online course revenue including any digital curriculum increased some 320% and the testing and assessment market, the largest single category, generated $2.5 billion. The New Zealand business organisation EDTechNZ, indicates on its website that educational technology is the fastest growing sector of a global smart education market worth US$100 billion, forecast to grow to US$394 by 2019. The same source indicates that Cloud-based educational technology is accelerating at 20% growth per annum and is forecast to reach US$12 billion by 2019. These returns are unequalled by most other economic sectors. Our concern in this article is that the market imperative based on selling has become a driv...

How women and men business owners perceive success

Purpose – Women and men business owners are often thought to have different success criteria for their businesses, but there is little empirical research to support this. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of self-defined success factors, and to compare women and men’s success criteria. Design/methodology/approach – This study surveyed 216 New Zealand business owners’ (78 women, 138 men) self-perceived success criteria for their businesses. Results are based primarily on an open-ended question on their interpretation of what success means to them. In total, 30 main categories of success factors were identified, and the four main factors analyzed in depth. Findings – The four most frequently occurring success factors were financial success, personal satisfaction, work-life/work-family balance, and satisfied stakeholders. Women and men business owners described very similar success criteria, which were balanced across financial success and personal and relationship factors. No statistically significant gender differences were found in the incidence of these success factors, suggesting a movement of male business owners to a more holistic view of business success that incorporates financial success, alongside personal and relationship aspects. Research limitations/implications – Offers implications for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Highlights the need to be careful when designing research studies in multi-faceted areas such as business success, and also in gender comparative studies. Originality/value – Uses self-perceived success criteria to assess gender differences.

Confronting gender inequality in a business school

ABSTRACTThis study, set in a New Zealand Business School, takes an integrative view of the university as an ‘inequality regime’ Acker, J. (2006b). Inequality regimes: Gender, class and race in organizations. Gender and Society, 20(4), 441–464 including all types of women staff: academic women in permanent positions, academics on casual contracts and administrative staff. This approach contrasts with most studies of gender in higher education, which focus on academics, and often on the most senior academic roles. The business school, too, is under-researched in the literature of gender and higher education and we argue that these institutions constitute a particularly ‘chilly climate’ for women. The project discussed here was designed as participatory action research, but we found both participation and action difficult to accomplish. We reflect on how these difficulties resonate with the wider problem of confronting gender inequality in a ‘chilly climate’, and ask why further change is hard. We collected primary data from focus group interviews and a survey, and critically reflected on the process of data collection. Secondary data, including university reports and policies and national legislation, were also collected as part of the context of the School inequality regime. We analysed our data using Acker's categories: the ‘visibility of inequality’, the ‘legitimacy of inequality’ and ‘mechanisms of control and compliance’. We found barriers to change both within and beyond the Business School itself. These included the low organisational priority given to gender equality, which in turn reflected a weak external regulatory environment. At the same time we found a lack of solidarity between women within the School, which we attributed partly to class-based differences. Organisational activism is difficult in this context, where gender inequality is both invisible and legitimated, reflecting a post-feminist mood of ‘gender fatigue’.

Recessions and recoveries in New Zealand's post-Second World War business cycles

ABSTRACTWe present preferred classical business cycle turning points for New Zealand's post-Second World War economy, using the Bry-Broshan dating algorithm on a long term quarterly time series of real GDP. From these, we identify nine recessions and their associated recovery paths for a period approaching 70 years and provide evidence on their key characteristics. Two key specific findings are as follows: (1) on average, real GDP and employment cycles have been associated around 90 per cent of the time and (2) the strength of New Zealand's business cycle recoveries has been independent of the depth, duration, or severity of the preceding recession.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management: Motivators and Barriers

AbstractSustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is increasingly becoming a topical issue for business research and practice. However, there is a dearth internationally of empirical research that has investigated the factors propelling companies to integrate or inhibiting them from integrating sustainability principles in their supply chain management (SCM). Therefore, this study examines the motivators for and barriers to SSCM adoption in the New Zealand business context and aims to contribute to an improved understanding of the motivators of and barriers to SSCM implementation. To this end, an exploratory case study was conducted and senior managers of four large New Zealand based companies were interviewed. The results reveal that sustainability values of top management, a desire to reduce risk and stakeholder management are salient motivators for SSCM adoption. Conversely, a lack of supplier awareness, negative perceptions and inadequate government support are identified as barriers to SSCM implementation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Seeds of hope? Exploring business actors’ diverse understandings of sustainable development

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate empirically the plurality of understanding surrounding sustainability held by those working in the business sector, and second, to consider the likelihood of a dialogic accounting that would account for the plurality of perspectives identified. Design/methodology/approach – The subjects of this study are those people actively working to incorporate sustainability within New Zealand business, both business people and their sustainability advisors. Participant’s subjective understanding is investigated using Q methodology, a method used widely by social science researchers to investigate typical views on a particular topic, from an analysis of the order in which participants individually sort a sample of stimuli. In this study, the stimuli were opinion statements. Findings – Five typical understandings of sustainable development were identified, including understandings more usually attributed to business antagonists than business. Conflicts betwe...

Entrepreneurial cognition and behavior in the discovery and creation of international opportunities

Opportunities have become central to the field of international entrepreneurship (IE), but empirical exploration of the concept and its processes is still in its infancy. Based on case studies of 12 internationalizing New Zealand businesses, this paper unpacks the opportunity construct and distinguishes between discovery, which in essence refers to cognitive dimensions of potential opportunities, and their actualization or creation through cognitive refinement and entrepreneurial action. Hence, it provides a distinctive way of navigating the discovery/creation debate, with its competing ontological positions. It also identifies the role of entrepreneurial imagination as a significant cognitive source of opportunity discovery alongside knowledge.

Wireless Technologies in New Zealand Businesses: A Longitudinal Assessment

The impact of mobile and wireless technologies on global consumers, businesses and society over the last decade has been very substantial. New Zealand businesses have developed an innovative reputation for implementing mobility applications. In this paper we examine the development of mobile business applications in industries in New Zealand from 2004 to 2012, based on two cross-sectional studies of organizations. The paper analyses the extent of the transformation created by the implementation of mobile business applications in this period, proposes a number of conclusions and forecasts the direction for the future of such applications in this developed market.

The Effects of Fiscal Policy in New Zealand: Evidence from a VAR Model with Debt Constraints

This article investigates the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in New Zealand using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. The model is the five‐variableSVARframework proposed by Perotti (2005), further augmented to allow for the possibility that taxes, spending and interest rates might respond to the level of the debt over time. We examine the dynamic responses of output, inflation and the interest rate to changes in government spending and revenues and analyse the contribution of shocks to New Zealand's business cycle for the period 1983:1–2010:2. We find that the effects of government expenditure shocks in New Zealand appear to be positive but small in the short run at the cost of higher interest rates and lower output in the medium to long run. The sign of the effects of tax policy changes are less clear‐cut, but again the effects onGDPappear similarly modest. Past fiscal policy is analysed through a historical decomposition of the shocks in the model. This suggests that discretionary fiscal policy has had a generally pro‐cyclical impact onGDPover the past 15 years, and a material impact on the real long‐term interest rate. A fiscal expansion has a positive but limited impact on inflation.

An empirical cross-cultural study of humour in business meetings in New Zealand and Japan

Transactional or work-related discourse is highly valued in the workplace because of its obvious relevance to workplace objectives. However, relational or social talk plays an equally valuable role by contributing to good workplace relations (e.g., Fletcher, 1999; Holmes and Stubbe, 2003; Schnurr, 2005). The research literature indicates that humour makes a particularly important contribution in this area. Most research, however, has been conducted in English-speaking societies and/or Western countries.This article fills a gap in empirical cross-cultural studies, drawing on authentic Japanese workplace discourse. It reports a qualitative analysis of humour in Japanese and New Zealand business meetings, describing its manifestations and functions. The first section reviews the relevant literature and outlines the conceptual frameworks used for the analysis and the methodology adopted in the analysis. The results of the analysis are then discussed. The analysis indicates that (1) though humour serves as Relational Practice, its manifestations are distinctive in each CofP, and (2) meeting members enact Relational Practice through humour in ways that meet the underlying expectations of each CofP.

Asia-born New Zealand-educated business graduates' transition to work

In 2008 the Asia New Zealand Foundation commissioned a three-year project examining Asia-born New Zealand-educated business graduates' study to work transitions. Data were collected through annual online surveys and in-depth interviews. Graduates were asked to discuss their post-study experiences, reflections on studying in New Zealand, and perceptions of their New Zealand business education. Participants included 171 (phase one), 76 (phase two) and 41 (phase three) students and recent graduates. All except one were based in New Zealand or the Asia region. In this paper we draw on “engaged pedagogy” and “functional capabilities” perspectives to consider phase two and three participants' accounts of their study to work transition pathways. Specifically, we examine two “functional capabilities” that participants discussed in relation to their post-study experiences: having economic opportunities and developing a sense of affiliation. We highlight some barriers to each “capability” that emerged in participants' accounts and consider how participants envisaged their role in fostering ongoing Asia-New Zealand connections. We conclude with some suggested implications for policy and practice in New Zealand and in internationalized HE more generally.

Harnessing science for business

The New Zealand government has announced the creation of a new Advanced Technology Institute – since renamed Callaghan Innovation after the late Sir Paul Callaghan – to be launched in 2013. Callaghan Innovation’s purpose will be ‘to help get New Zealand’s most innovative ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace more quickly and provide a high-tech HQ for innovative New Zealand business’.1 This development is the latest in a long line of attempts to use research, science and technology to boost the country’s economy (Palmer and Miller, 1984; Ministerial Working Party, 1986; Science and Technology Advisory Committee, 1988; Ministerial Task Group, 1991; Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, 2006, 2007).

The measurement of internal supply chain integration

PurposeInternal supply chain refers to the chain of activities within a company that concludes with providing a product to the customer. This process involves multiple functions within companies such as sales, production, and distribution. It is obvious that a company's performance would be enhanced by the integration of these functions. However, there is no consensus yet on how integration is to be defined and measured. The purpose of this paper is to present research that was conducted with the goal of developing an instrument for the measurement of internal supply chain integration.Design/methodology/approachScale items were identified from current literature and the resulting survey instrument was sent out to a sample of New Zealand manufacturers. Statistical analysis was conducted to purify and validate the instrument.FindingsIn total, three dimensions of integration were identified, labelled coordination, communication, and affective relationship. This paper makes a contribution towards developing a consensus in the understanding and measurement of the integration construct.Research limitations/implicationsThe selection and exclusion of measurement items for the survey have followed established principles of survey research, but may have been affected by the personal bias of the author. While every attempt has been made to comprehensively capture the state of the research up to the time of the study, there may be some omissions. The sample for the survey was drawn from a database of New Zealand businesses, thus the results are generalizable only to the extent that these businesses represent the population of all businesses. Another limitation is that no prior survey/case studies were carried out to collect practitioner's definitions/measures for integration.Practical implicationsThe authors hope to have made a contribution here towards building a consensus among practitioners and researchers in defining and measuring internal supply chain integration. For practitioners, the measurement instrument offers a self‐assessment tool for internal supply chain integration. This should help them in identifying areas for improvement.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper consists of: development of an instrument for the measurement of integration, validating the instrument against a criterion, and the identification of three dimensions of integration – communication, coordination, and affective relationship. The unique contributions of this paper are the validation of the instrument against a criterion and the identification of “affective relationship” as a dimension of internal supply chain integration.

The Effects of Fiscal Policy in New Zealand: Evidence from a VAR Model with Debt Constraints

This article investigates the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in New Zealand using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. The model is the five‐variable SVAR framework proposed by Perotti (2005), further augmented to allow for the possibility that taxes, spending and interest rates might respond to the level of the debt over time. We examine the dynamic responses of output, inflation and the interest rate to changes in government spending and revenues and analyse the contribution of shocks to New Zealand's business cycle for the period 1983:1–2010:2. We find that the effects of government expenditure shocks in New Zealand appear to be positive but small in the short run at the cost of higher interest rates and lower output in the medium to long run. The sign of the effects of tax policy changes are less clear‐cut, but again the effects on GDP appear similarly modest. Past fiscal policy is analysed through a historical decomposition of the shocks in the model. This suggests that discretionary fiscal policy has had a generally pro‐cyclical impact on GDP over the past 15 years, and a material impact on the real long‐term interest rate. A fiscal expansion has a positive but limited impact on inflation.

An Assessment of the New Zealand Taxpayer Rights Bill in Light of Colorado's Experience

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (known as “TABOR”) was a 1992 amendment to the Constitution of the US state of Colorado. Adopted by referendum, TABOR restricts growth in Colorado state government spending and revenues to the sum of population growth plus inflation. TABOR’s key benefit was said to be that it would increase economic growth. Perhaps for this reason, the OECD, 2025 Taskforce, and New Zealand Business Roundtable have suggested that New Zealand consider importing a version of TABOR, and the current Government has agreed to consider this idea at select committee. This article analyses whether New Zealand should adopt the NZTRB by evaluating TABOR’s impact on Colorado, taking into account both differences between TABOR and the NZTRB as drafted, and differences between New Zealand and Colorado’s legal and fiscal frameworks. The NZTRB would likely have significant impacts on New Zealand’s constitution, government size and composition, and fiscal framework. There is no prior academic work analyzing the NZTRB.

Empirical analysis of the Baldrige Criteria as both an organisational performance measure and a theoretical model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test empirically two key measurement perspectives – measurements in the context of a theoretical model that predicts/explains results, and measurements in the context of generating an overall score on performance excellence – of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (BCPE) using data from Australasian Business Excellence Award applicants.Design/methodology/approach – Two theoretical models corresponding to each measurement perspective were tested using data (n=118) from the applicants for the New Zealand Businesses Excellence Award (based on the BCPE). The partial least squares method was used to test the validity of the measurement items of the BCPE. Qualitative data were also collected from applicants for the Australian Business Excellence Award.Findings – Most of the measurement items showed low levels of measurement validity under both measurement perspectives; the main reason for this was considered to be due to the design of the BCPE as it is a hi...

Sustainability practices: trends in New Zealand businesses

AbstractThis paper reports on the sustainability practices of New Zealand businesses based on two national surveys and a series of focus groups and interviews. There was an average increase of 10% in the number of companies adopting environmental practices from 2003 to 2006. There was less of an increase for social practices, although still more commonly adopted by companies than environmental practices. Values and beliefs of management were the overwhelming driver for the adoption of sustainability practices with reputation and brand also significant drivers. Costs, management time, and knowledge/skills were the three most commonly reported barriers to adoption of sustainability initiatives. The implications of the study are that for New Zealand business, there is a strong link with the business case for sustainability. For policymakers interested in achieving sustainability goals, the results suggest that a ‘soft’ approach to business practices may be in order in New Zealand. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

New directions in New Zealand local government

The purpose of this paper is to provide a ‘work in progress’ report on some initiatives emerging from local government practice in New Zealand which should help us consider how we think about the role of local government in a world which is undergoing dramatic change. The starting point is work which the writer undertook with the support of Local Government New Zealand (the national association) and a number of New Zealand councils considering the ‘proper role’ of local government. The context is an ongoing public debate driven substantially by the New Zealand business community from a perspective that this ‘proper role’ should be restricted to the delivery of local public goods, narrowly defined. This has included argument that local governments themselves should be structured substantially to promote the efficient delivery of services generally within the now well understood prescriptions of the ‘new public management’. One implication which the business sector in particular drew in looking at the workings of local government was that there should be economies of scale through further amalgamation of councils (the local government sector having been through a major amalgamation process in 1989 which eliminated a large number of special purpose authorities and reduced the number of territorial local authorities from more than 200 to 73). Debate continues, with the latest manifestation being the National Party led government's proposals for the restructuring of local government within the Auckland region, New Zealand's major metropolitan area. The initiatives discussed in this paper are partly a response, but more significantly a result of selected local authorities reflecting on the nature of their role, and the opportunities for being proactive in using their statutory privileges in ways that could produce benefits for their communities without any associated increase in the cost of local government itself.

Research culture and New Zealand’s performance-based research fund: some insights from bibliographic compilations of research outputs

Year-on-year trends in research outputs show increases in research activity as the date of the research assessment exercise—in New Zealand the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF)—looms. Moreover, changes with time in the number and types of conference presentation indicate that the vehicle of publication is also being influenced by the PBRF. Within New Zealand business schools, relating the published journal articles to the Australian Business Deans Council rankings list shows a trend towards more publications of lower rank, raising doubts about whether the rhetoric about the PBRF raising the quality of research is really justified. This ‘drive’ towards increasing numbers of research outputs is also fostered by an increasing trend towards co-authorship in publishing across all disciplines.

Evaluation of a New Zealand business support programme using firm performance micro-data

This paper presents an evaluation of the impact of a New Zealand government support programme on participating firms using a new firm-level panel dataset from 2000–2006. We provide quantitative estimates of the direct benefits to firms receiving this support compared to similar firms that did not receive assistance. We have found the programme had a significant positive impact on the sales of firms, although the impact on value-added and productivity was less conclusive. There is evidence that the impact was strongest for firms receiving assistance prior to 2004. The results are sensitive to methodology, showing the importance of considering the impact of technique on measured impact in evaluations. This is the first time we have been able to quantify the net economic benefit of business assistance in New Zealand.