Grants and achievements

Our success in acquiring national competitive grants is a mark of the quality of our academic staff and the rigor of our research. Through the Australian Research Council's (ARC) National Competitive Grants Program alone, we have secured funding of more than $2 million in the last three years to support our research.

QUT Business School's success rate in ARC Discovery grants over the past two years is 40%, almost double the national average. Our strong industry links enable us to achieve consistently above the national average for ARC Linkage success. Our funding partners include professional bodies, non-profit organisations, government departments within Australia and overseas, state agencies, cooperative research centres and industry.

ARC Discovery

Capturing value on the margins of the global knowledge economy

Investigators

Professor Rachel Parker (CI), Professor Paul Thompson (PI)

Funding

$200,000

Project summary

This project draws on a range of theoretical resources to develop an understanding of how workers, firms and industries develop 'isolating mechanisms', which are unique resources that enable them to capture value and compete in global markets. It will refer to global production network (GPN) theory, which will provide an account of power and conflict among a range of actors including government, business and workers in different geographical locations in the struggle to capture value. This unique theoretical framework will be used to develop a multi-level analysis of value capture in knowledge intensive industries.

Capturing value on the margins of the global knowledge economy

What facilitates or hinders the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities? A systematic comparison of the independent and corporate contexts

Investigators

Dr Henri Burgers (CI), Professor Per Davidsson (CI), Associate Professor Paul Steffens (CI), Dr Vareska Van de Vrande (PI)

Funding

$122,500

Project summary

This project received an ARC Discovery grant in 2009 with empirical work starting in 2010. It addresses under-studied research questions in the core of the field, namely what type of entrepreneurial opportunities tend to be successfully initiated and exploited in independent and corporate business contexts respectively.

What facilitates or hinders the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities?

Sexual harassment in Australia: Contexts, outcomes and prevention

Investigators

Associate Professor Paula McDonald (CI), Dr Sara Charlesworth (CI)

Funding

$396,000

Project summary

Despite legal prohibition, sexual harassment is a persistent workplace issue with significant costs for individuals and organisations. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative methods, the research investigates the various manifestations of sexual harassment across a range of workplaces contexts. The project also addresses organisational and institutional understandings and responses to sexual harassment and other forms of gender inequality and the longer term impacts for individual 'targets'. The project outcomes will contribute to more effective policy development and implementation in workplaces and by human rights and other bodies.

Sexual harassment in Australia

Leveraging mobile phone technology to influence responsible drinking behaviours

Investigators

Professor Judy Drennan (CI), Dr Jason Connor (CI), Dr Marie-Louise Fry (CI), Professor David Kavanagh (CI), Dr Josephine Previte (CI), Dr Angela White (CI), Dr Dian Tjondronegoro (CI)

Funding

$160,000

Project summary

Alcohol remains a key social and health issue for Australia, particularly for young women. The project will assess the impact of a mobile phone software application tool for supporting young adult women's responsible drinking behaviour. Expected outcomes are to reduce problem drinking behaviour in Australia.

Honesty and efficiency in the provision of expert services: Doctors and other experts as participants in economic experiments

Investigators

Professor Uwe Dulleck (CI), Professor Dr Matthias Sutter (PI), Dr Rudolf Kerschbamer (PI)

Funding

$271,969

Project summary

Experts serve us when we see the doctor, the financial planner or the car mechanic. In all these case the expert can take advantage of his superior knowledge and sell us something we do not need. This research will inform policy makers about the underlying motives of real world experts and allow them to design better institutions.

Honesty and efficiency in the provision of expert services

Novel econometric techniques for dealing with point processes in high frequency financial data with applications to financial risk management

Investigators

Professor Adam Clements, Professor Stan Hurn, Professor Kenneth Lindsay

Funding

$100,000

Project summary

The recent global financial crisis highlighted the inherent risk involved in investing in financial assets. This project aims to develop novel statistical methods for forecasting the onset of instability in asset prices. The outcomes of this research will lead to improvements in the management of financial risk.

Novel econometric techniques for dealing with point processes in high frequency financial data with applications to financial risk management

Customising work through manager-employee exchange

Investigators

Associate Professor Paula McDonald, Dr Keith Townsend

Funding

$200,000

Project summary

This project will explore how managers and employees customise the terms and conditions of standardised employment arrangements. The results will inform legislation such as right to request provisions and organisational strategies such as manager training which support effective, mutually beneficial manager-employee exchanges.

ARC Linkage

Heart rate variability biofeedback coaching in reducing workplace stress: Laboratory and field investigations

Investigators

Associate Professor Cameron Newton (CI), Professor Uwe Dulleck (CI), Dr Nerina Jimmieson (CI)

Funding

$250,000

Partners

Autonom Talent Consulting GmgH, Lochnivar Personnel Pty Ltd, MCE Consulting, NiederOsterreichischen Landserregierung

Project summary

Targeted and informed intervention in workplace stress is a vital concept in stress management, yet it is often misinformed. Using mobile heart rate monitors we are able to measure the causes and consequences of stress in a controlled and natural environment and design specific biofeedback interventions to attack primary sources of employee strain.

Heart rate variability biofeedback coaching in reducing workplace stress

The limits of disclosure: Private rights, public duties and the search for accountable governance

Investigators

Professor Justin O'Brien (CI), Professor Natalie Gallery (CI), Professor Gerry Gallery (CI), Dr Martin Fahy , Dr Melvin Dubnick (PI), Mr David Squire (CI)

Funding

$61,790

Partner

Financial Services Institute of Australasia

Project summary

A reliance on technical considerations such as enhanced disclosure, literacy programs and attempts to bifurcate between sophisticated and unsophisticated investors has proved sub-optimal in the search for greater, or more accurately, effective accountability both here in Australia and internationally. The acceptance by the corporate sector to process risk allocation, develop a mutually endorsed formal and informal regulatory framework, and agree on clear and transparent roles and responsibilities marks a significant step forward. It is both significant and innovative that the design and implementation of the proposed strategic plan will derive from an extended exercise in deliberative democracy.

The limits of disclosure

The value of financial planning advice: Process and outcome effects on consumer well-being

Investigators

Professor Natalie Gallery (CI), Professor Stephen Corones (CI), Professor Gerry Gallery (CI), Associate Professor Cameron Newton (CI)

Funding

$338,444

Partner

Financial Services Council

Project summary

The impact of the global financial crisis on personal wealth focused attention on financial advice and effects of poor advice (e.g. Storm Financial). However, little is known about how and the extent to which financial planning advice contributes to broader client well-being. The research will address this knowledge gap by providing empirical evidence using a multidimensional approach that takes into account the affect and life satisfaction components of well-being, together with broader notions of capabilities, opportunities and freedoms. Findings will inform industry practices and policy debates, and recommendations will be made regarding evidence-based financial advice regulation, to improve quality of advice and consumer-well-being.

The value of financial planning advice

Leveraging research and development (R and D) for the Australian built environment

Investigators

Professor Rachel Parker (CI), Professor Paul Thompson (PI)

Funding

$235,000

Project summary

This project will evaluate impacts, diffusion mechanisms and uptake of research and development (R and D) in the Australian building and construction industry.  Building on a retrospective analysis and industry consultation, a future-focussed industry roadmap will be developed to establish R and D policies to inform and improve R and D investment effectiveness.

Leveraging research and development (R and D) for the Australian built environment

A comparative study of knowledge transfer systems and their contribution to knowledge transfer and diffusion, innovation and socioeconomic transformation

Investigators

Professor Rachel Parker (CI), Dr Chrys Gunasekara (CI), Dr Damian Hine (CI), Dr Andrew Griffiths

Funding

$325,000

Project summary

This research involves an international comparison of the Queensland knowledge transfer system (KTS) and the role of intermediaries in facilitating knowledge transfer and diffusion, innovation and socioeconomic transformation, including in regional and rural firms and communities.  the project's significance arises from its novel system level approach that spans sectors and regions, and involves international comparison.  The international dimension will highlight effective models of knowledge transfer in the UK and Denmark and will generate models of high performing KTSs which can inform public policy.

A comparative study of knowledge transfer systems and their contribution to knowledge transfer and diffusion, innovation and socioeconomic transformation

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA)

The inaugural DECRA scheme was awarded to 277 applicants. 203 successful applicants were from the Group of Eight universities. Of the remaining 74 awardees, QUT received 10. This is a great achievement in highly competitive circumstances.

Recipient

Dr Lionel Page, School of Economics and Finance

Project

The behavioural birth date effect: the impact of relative position within cohorts on risk aversion, self confidence and aspiration levels

ARC Future Fellowships

Recipient

Professor Benno Torgler, School of Economics and Finance

Project

The role of moral sentiments and emotions in human nature: an interdisciplinary empirical approach

Recipient

Professor Paula McDonald, School of Management

Project

Young people and work: pathways to industrial citizenship

ARC committee membership

Professor Stan Hurn, from the School of Economics and Finance, has been selected as the Social and Behavioural Sciences representative on the Australian Research Council's Selection Committee for Laureate Fellows.