QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 12 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 12 results
Examining approaches to mitigating customer aggression and abuse
The pace of change associated with modern businesses (Grewal et al., 2017; Grewal et al., 2020), and the introduction of new technologies has created heightened level of stress (technostress) and aggression (Chen et al., 2019). Adding to these stressors, COVID-19, which has forced businesses to adapt their processes and customer service interface (Ahmed et al., 2021; Jiang and Stylos, 2021; Roggeveen and Sethuraman, 2020). Research now finding that continued lockdowns, social distancing, and political rancour, all adding increased levels of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Examining the impact of biophilic design elements within shopping centres (malls)
The shopping centre (mall) is the central hub of modern retailing and holds a significant role in developing a first overall impression. As a result, shopping centres (malls) have focussed on creating positive customer experiences in shared public spaces. Bringing natural elements such as green plants, flowerbeds, water features, aquariums, animals, birds, and butterfly gardens into the hotel service setting, is an innovative approach known as biophilic design.The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of biophilic elements …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Understanding the drivers of customer aggression
Recent work has identified outcomes of sustained customer aggression, however an opportunity lies in identifying the drivers of the specific dimensions of customer aggression. (See Mortimer, G., Wang, S., & Andrade, M. L. O. (2023). Measuring customer aggression: Scale development and validation. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 73, 103348.)Future research may also assess the extent to which each customer aggression type individually affects the different attitudinal and behavioural outcomes tested herein. Both expressive aggression forms may be stronger drivers …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Can 'humanisation' reduce customer aggression?
As a direct response to increasing customer aggression, employee associations (unions) are implementing measures to keep frontline team members safe. One such tactic was an ‘under-name-badge’ message (“I’m someone’s daughter”, “I’m someone’s dad”). Concerningly, there is a dearth of research into the effect of such messaging.Does alerting an aggressive customer to the fact the frontline team member is ‘someone’s daughter/son’ mitigate aggression? Alternatively, does alerting an aggressive customer to the fact the frontline team member is ‘a local/attends a local …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Examining customer responses to body worn cameras
As a direct response to increasing customer aggression, retailers are implementing measures to keep frontline team members safe – assets such as body worn cameras (BWC) and duress watches. Concerningly, there is a dearth of research into these technologies in a retail setting, with much of the earlier research being undertaken in corrective services, policing and train guards.Current research identifies, in some cases, the presence of such technologies can lead to a ‘back-firing’ effect (the aggressive individual becomes more aggressive), …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Small business resilience in times of economic uncertainty: Examining retailers and regional businesses
Regional Australia is undergoing significant structural, economic, social, and environmental change which is impacting the viability of small businesses (Regional Australia Institute, 2018). Regional small retail businesses, estimated to contribute $21.9bn to local economies (Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, 2019) are particularly susceptible to economic shocks, have lower survival rates, more volatile revenues and are generally less resilient than larger business (Barraket, Eversole, Luke & Barth, 2019).Disruptive external events such as the acceleration of e-retailing, COVID-19 travel restrictions, …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
- Research centre(s)
-
Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research
The Daigou phenomenon: exploring the heterodox behaviours of entrepreneurial Chinese shoppers
As demand for Australian-made products increases, a new type of entrepreneur has emerged. Daigous, or purchasing agents, serve as important ‘middlemen’ – connecting Chinese customers with Western brands. Daigou have become a paradox. They have been associated with ‘unorthodox’ behaviours such as stockpiling highly sought after products, for example, they have previously created market-wide shortages of infant formula. On the other hand, Daigou are increasingly enacting opportunistic behaviours, boosting demand for premium Australian products such as, cosmetics, skincare and vitamins.Recently, …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
The impacts of retailers' collectable free-gifts on children
Have you collected any? From the McDonalds' 1998 Vintage to the Coles 2018 Little Shop and the Woolworth 2019 Lion King Ooshies, retailers have been trying many collectable premium/gift promotions, and most of them are free to get with a certain amount of consumption in the retailer's store.Generally speaking, premium promotion is an important marketing promotion strategy which increases the retailers' revenue and brand reputation (Foubert et al. 2008; Septianto et al. 2020). For example, Wang, Japutra and Molinillo (2020) …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Curtailing corporate tax aggression through uncertain tax benefits
Over the last five years Australia has adopted numerous measures to address aggressive corporate tax practices. A recent addition to these measures (on the 1st of January 2019) is AASB Interpretation 23 - Uncertainty over Income Tax Treatments, which was developed to clarify the treatment of uncertain tax positions. This interpretation requires entities who produce general purpose financial reports (GPFRs) to disclose uncertain tax benefits (UTB) in the notes to their financial statements. Extant literature suggests that UTB disclosures are …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Accountancy
Not included: Taxes, Fees and Surcharges - Consumer reactions to partitioned prices in online retail
Not included: Taxes, Fees and Surcharges - Consumer reactions to partitioned prices in online retailPartitioned pricing, which refers to the practice of diving prices into a base price and surcharges such as taxes, shipping or handling fees is increasingly popular (Greenleaf et al., 2016; Choi et al., 2019). Yet at the same time it is a practice that divides practitioners, where some online retailers partition their prices while others opt not to. Scientific insights on this issue are in its …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
Characterisation of a novel protein co-amplified with the n-MYC oncogene
The MYCN oncogene is amplified in a number of tumour types, including Neuroblastoma (NB) and Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer (NEPC), where it is associated with worse patient prognosis, as compared to non-amplified tumours. However, the high expression of MYCN (encoding the n-MYC protein) alone in non-amplified tumours is associated with better patient prognosis and less aggressive disease. This suggests that other genes co-expressed in MYCN amplified tumours may be responsible for mediating the aggressive traits of n-MYC. Our team has identified …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health
A mathematical model of disrupting cell-to-cell communication by bacteria
The emergence of resistance of bacteria to antibiotics presents a global healthcare challenge that intensifies the search for strategies to increase the effcacy of therapy. Several mechanisms are involved in resistance of bacteria against antibiotics such as mutations in genes, horizontal gene transfer, and biofilm formation. Bacteria can communicate with each other through production and response to local concentration of small molecules called autoinducers.This mechanism is called quorum sensing (QS).It has been suggested that QS can influence the resistance of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
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