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Friday, 29 October 2010

The University of Western Australia Business School has won three Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grants and one ARC Linkage grant in the 2011 round of funding.

The projects will investigate such diverse subjects as the role of electronic communication in remote workplaces, the methods by which personal values can be measured across cultures, the implications of India's economic growth, and the most effective ways of encouraging households to save energy. The total value of funding won over the lifespan of the four projects is $908,000.

Dean of the Business School, Professor Tracey Horton, extended her congratulations to the research teams who secured the prestigious ARC grants. ‘The attainment of four Australian Research Council grants reinforces our position as a leading business school, and recognises the important intellectual contributions the Business School makes to Australian and international business and communities it serves,' she said.

Professor Cristina Gibson expects her project examining virtual teams to be especially pertinent to Western Australia's mining sector.  ‘It is helpful to use the concept of degrees of virtuality, and place teams on a continuum based on how electronically dependant and geographically dispersed they are,' she explained.

‘In the last five to six years, teams that are at the really low end of the continuum, where team members are always in the same room and communicating face-to-face, have become almost extinct. Pretty much every situation in which a team would be used at all - mining, healthcare, retail, pharmaceutical, automotive - is now to some degree virtual.' Professor Gibson's project is titled ‘Identity and intimacy in a virtual world: Designing meaningful, responsible and effective virtual work,' and will run over three years.

Professors Julie Lee and Geoff Soutar will extend their work on personal values. Working with world-renowned professors Jordan Louviere and Shalom Schwartz, their three-year project will look at the cross-cultural measurement of such values as universalism, traditionalism, and self-direction.

‘Personal values indicate what is important to us, guide our behaviour and reflect real differences between cultures, social classes, occupations, and religions,' said Professor Lee. ‘This project seeks to refine the theory and measurement of personal values across cultures to better understand the motivations that lie behind attitudes and behaviours.' The project is titled ‘Extending the theory and measurement of personal values and testing relations of values to attitudes and behaviour.'

Meanwhile, Professor Peter Robertson, along with the ANU's Professor Prema-chandra Athukorala, will spend three years looking at the implications of India's economic growth. ‘India's emergence from economic stagnation is beginning to have a profound impact on the world economy, including Australia,' said Professor Robertson. ‘This project aims to investigate the sources of India's growth and the reforms needed to ensure that growth generates reductions in poverty and ensures equity and political stability.' The project is titled ‘Sustaining India's economic transformation: Challenges, prospects and implications for Australia and the Pacific region.'

The final project to receive funding was a two-year study titled, ‘Enhancing sustainable energy saving behaviour through communication: A longitudinal study.' The ARC Linkage grant was awarded to a large research team led by professors Tim Mazzarol, Geoff Soutar, and Jillian Sweeney, and Associate Professor Dave Webb. ‘This study will identify factors likely to have the most impact on household energy saving behaviour and will also identify the relative strength of different media when undertaking public education campaigns,' said Professor Mazzarol. ‘The research will help alleviate overall energy use and make better use of public marketing communications budgets.'

In the 2011 round of funding, The University of Western Australia received funding for 13 ARC Linkage projects and 37 ARC Discovery projects worth a total of $5,969,571 and $18,860,676 respectively.

Media Reference

Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
E: [email protected]

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