Tesi sul tema "Shell New Zealand (Firm)"

The overall aim of this thesis is to uncover the key determinants of innovation in New Zealand firms and consider some of their likely effects. In order to provide a broad perspective on New Zealand’s local innovation processes, a mixed method approach combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis was adopted to allow analysis of both empirical data and case study data. The quantitative part of analysis utilises the unique dataset developed by Statistics New Zealand, namely the prototype Longitudinal Business Database (LBD), and the qualitative analysis includes four in-depth company case studies which complement the regression analyses by uncovering the key patterns of innovation behaviour at the firm level. In summary, a number of conclusions have been drawn from the research. Firstly, firms experience considerably smaller positive size effect because of New Zealand’s unique firm demographics, and the small size has limited individual firm’s innovation opportunities. Secondly, firms’ ability to develop new technologies directly influences their innovative ability, which is highly dependent on the availability of funds and skills. Lastly, innovation in New Zealand has a very strong market focus, while technology suppliers such as universities and Crown Research Institutes only have a limited role in selected industries.

This study primarily investigates the determinants of CEO membership of New Zealand (NZ) boards, and the effect of CEO board membership on firm performance, for publicly-listed NZ firms between 1997 to 2008. The project is conducted using a unique hand-collected panel dataset containing information about CEO participation on the board, firm characteristics, firm performance, ownership, and firm governance. The sample covers the twelve-year period. The sample statistics of CEO board membership reveal that on average, approximately 30% of NZ CEOs do not sit on their company board. In addition, the number (percentage) of incidences of CEOs off their company board has been increasing. Specifically, the percentage of CEOs off the board was approximately 20% in 1997 but 42% in 2008. Models examining the determinants of CEO board participation indicate that the probability of CEO board membership is significantly related to the opacity of firms' information environment and the strength of firms' governance environment. Specifically, the probability of CEO board membership is significantly affected by firm size, firm age, percentage of independent directors, board ownership, and multiple directorships in independent companies. In particular, firm size and percentage of independent directors on the board possess economic significance. The negative association between the probability of CEO board membership and the strength of firms' governance environment is consistent with CEO utility maximization. I also find that although CEO board membership is positively related to ROA, ROE and Jensen's alpha in basic regression models, the positive effect observed in accounting performance models disappears after controlling for self-selection. In other words, firms with better accounting firm performance tend to appoint their CEOs on the board. This may attribute to the possibility that CEO board membership is optimally determined by shareholders. The evidence from a market-based model also reflects shareholder interests after controlling for the negative self-selection behavior. As an additional analysis, I examine the determinants of different degrees of CEO board involvement where CEOs on the board are categorized into CEO-director and CEO duality (the CEO also holds the position of the chairman of the board). This analysis shows that a number of explanatory variables have a non-linear relationship with the degree of CEO board involvement. For example, CEO board involvement is negatively related to firm age and multiple directorships in independent companies but positively related to their squared terms. To the contrary, CEO board involvement is positively related to Tobin's Q ratio and percentage of independent directors but negatively related to their squared terms. Moreover, basic regression results examining the effect of the extent of CEO board involvement on firm performance reveal that dual firms and CEO-off-the-board firms are associated with lower accounting firm performance than CEO-director firms, but dual firms are associated with better Jensen's alpha and CEO-off-the-board firms are associated with lower Jensen's alpha. The robustness analysis finds that the negative effect of CEO duality on operating performance is significantly mitigated by self-selection and the effect of CEOs off the board on operating performance is intensified by self-selection. In other words, after taking into account the self-selection bias, CEO duality status provides strong evidence for CEO utility maximization whereas CEOs off the board are optimally chosen given the underlying characteristics. However, the results from the market-based models show the exact opposite story after controlling for the self-selection bias: CEO duality is optimally chosen whereas the costs of CEOs off the board are greater than their benefits in firms with CEOs off the board, providing evidence for CEO utility maximization.

The regulatory framework of many countries allows the upward revaluation of assets. Previous studies on the association of asset revaluation and future performance in Australia (Barth and Clinch, 1998), U.K. (Aboody, Barth and Kasznik, 1999) and Hong Kong (Jaggi and Tsui, 2001) have shown that upward asset revaluations are positively associated with the firm’s operating performance, suggesting that asset revaluations are value relevant. This study extends the previous research by focusing on the New Zealand environment with recent data to examine the association of upward asset revaluation and future operating performance. There is no obvious evidence indicating that upward revaluations are associated with operating performance in New Zealand. Our market assessments show that current year asset revaluations are related to share prices and returns, but are not statistically significant.

Thesis (M.S. in zoology)--Washington State University, May 2009.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 09, 2009). "School of Biological Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-82).

This thesis is concerned with the introduction and development of western psychology in New Zealand during the period 1869 – 1929. The foundations of psychology coincided with the early foundations of the country and the building of the first university colleges. The evolving colonial university system provided opportunity but also institutional limitations on the development of the subject. Sir Thomas Hunter introduced experimental psychology and established the first psychology laboratory in 1907 at Victoria College. Hunter was supported in this by his American based mentor, Edward B. Titchener. Hunter played an important role in campaigning for university reform and worked tirelessly to promote both the study and application of psychology. This thesis argues that historic global and local events were crucial to the development and advancement of psychology in New Zealand. World War 1 ended in 1918 and was followed by a deadly flu epidemic. These events led to new theories and developments in psychology, many of which were imported to New Zealand and adapted to suit local needs. Local changes in approaches to health care and social management opened opportunities for a professional role in psychology. Throughout the 1920’s psychologists expanded their field of influence and began to develop applications for psychological knowledge. By 1929, psychology had become firmly established as a discipline worthy of individual attention. New Zealand had not yet begun to produce significant psychological research but provided a unique host society in which, in the space of sixty years, the study of psychology was introduced and developed and largely kept pace with international advances.

This cultural history of paua shell jewellery redresses the lack of visibility of such objects as a significant part of 20th century New Zealand material culture and provides a basis for a more balanced interpretation beyond its stereotyping as tourist kitsch. It questions why quality paua shell jewellery made before the late 1960s failed to gain recognition with most New Zealanders until fairly recently as anything other than tourist souvenirs. Over 1,500 items of paua shell jewellery, mainly in private collections, formed the basis for this multidisciplinary research project that incorporates historical, anthropological and material culture studies approaches to write a cultural history of such jewellery. The objects were photographed and where available, their provenance recorded. A visual analysis of the items - paying attention to details of design and construction - established various, often overlapping categories that facilitated the dating and identification process. Gradually, a picture of the production of paua shell jewellery over the decades emerged. The wider socio-cultural context was then built using archival sources, various publications, conversations with one-time industry representatives, and discussions with original owners of paua shell jewellery. Interpretation of the material established multiple roles for paua shell jewellery over the decades for various groups of people. Changes over time provided insights into aspects of identity creation by New Zealanders. Until the 1920s, the shell�s main role had been as a European applied arts material and as inlay for Maori woodcarvings. Paua shell as a commercial souvenir material developed during the Depression and was shaped by the interaction between an emerging nationalism and a democratising of travel in New Zealand. Paua shell native bird brooches functioned as affordable alternatives to greenstone souvenirs for the working-class tourists that began exploring their own country. In addition to its role as emblems of nationhood in the interwar years, paua shell jewellery had meaning as souvenirs for American servicemen stationed in New Zealand during the War, and as patriotic tokens for its own population due to its association with disabled servicemen. Paua shell jewellery functioned as acknowledgement of settlement for European immigrants in the post war era, and as travel memento for trans-Tasman tourists from the mid 1950s. New Zealand girls received paua shell items as first jewellery, and women wore it as dress or costume jewellery. Until the increase of tourism in the 1960s, paua shell jewellery had existed on a number of planes. The exploitation of paua shell by the tourist industry, however, upset the balance and its dominance as souvenir forced a retreat of alternative uses. Other than as tourist souvenir, paua shell jewellery became invisible to the local population. Their withdrawal from an association with paua shell as a cultural marker of national identity explains why so many New Zealanders were uncertain about liking or disliking paua shell jewellery until recently.

This thesis takes the position that firm performance is derived from the value embodied by combinations of distinct socio-cultural resources and capabilities. In particular, this thesis explores practice in the context of Maori business to understand the mutual influences between economic exchange and social-cultural structures in terms of achieving improved firm performance. I begin by suggesting that much of the knowledge development and community practice in organisational analysis is subsumed within a Kuhnian conventionalism, which is not useful to gaining a deeper understanding of firm performance. I argue that what is required is an approach that emphasises the contextual development of society and organisation (embodied by social and cultural relations). This brings to the fore the pragmatist epistemology of practical knowledge, an approach to research and analysis of organisations that is at the heart of this research. Practical knowledge connects to the pragmatic orientation of Indigenous logics in this instance kaupapa Maori, which draws us to a perspective of knowledge that is experiential, contextual, diverse and inclusive. The effectiveness of a practical knowledge perspective by means of its pragmatic epistemology allows us to understand Maori businesses operating within a distinctive frame of socio-economic rationality providing a broader utility leading to culturally constituted forms of practice. It was through this lens that I engaged with the proposition regarding firm performance prompting us to look at the field of leadership (habitus), exchange (inter-capital exchange) and relationships (field) in particular. A major emphasis was a search for an appropriate method that would provide an avenue of authentic engagement with the cultural context embodied by kaupapa Maori. In terms of empirical investigation this thesis advances the utility of narrative as an expository technique and interpretive device that accords full recognition of Maori socio-cultural systems of relationships, historic circumstances and current practices. Conducted over three years (December 2004 and June 2006), the fieldwork component involved multiple strands of narrative in the form of dialogue, stories,metaphors, documentation and experiences of myself, other individuals and Maori economic development hui, or gathering. A key finding of this thesis is that kaupapa Maori as expressed through business practice offers a practical utility in relation to the capability of and potential outcomes for improved firm performance. I argue that there are unique characteristics of Maori business practice, which are grounded in the epistemological stance of kaupapa Maori in combination with Western philosophies and techniques of organisation that contribute to the performance of Maori businesses. In addition, I argue that it offers a view of the organisation as something beyond a disembodied system of market exchange and recognises the embeddedness of social processes in each culture will bring specific cultural nuances to the formulation of what constitutes organisational success. Finally, I suggest that kaupapa Maori research, grounded by the epistemological and ontological assumptions of an Indigenous paradigm provides opportunities for gaining greater insight into the dynamics of organisation and management research.

In recent years, maintaining the stock level of marine species and the sustainability of fisheries development have become critical issues in current scientific research due to over-harvest. The traditional method used to manage fisheries is the single species approach where policy is aimed at maximum sustainable yield. However, with the development of harvesting technology and increased competition to access stocks, the single species approach has been found incapable of dealing with problems of severe depletion of fish stocks. Studies show that when regulations are species specific and species are part of a multi-species fisheries, the catch levels of species are correlated which, in return, results in correlation of net returns across species. The single species approach ignores species correlation and should be modified to a multispecies approach which incorporates species correlation. This research applies portfolio analysis to multi-species fisheries, treats fish stocks as assets, and models the fishing firm faced with multiple targeting options, to determine the optimal targeting strategy. This method is applied to a New Zealand fishing firm operating within the Quota Management System (QMS). Species considered in this research are selected on the basis of two criteria: empirically these species have complete data; and, theoretically these species guarantee the covariance matrix is positive semi-definite so that the portfolio model has solution. The portfolio model is applied under two scenarios: first, the firm’s optimal harvesting levels are strictly within its quota holdings; second, beyond its quota holdings by acquiring additional quota rights and/or paying deemed values on over-harvest. Efficient risk-return frontiers are generated that provide a combination of optimal strategies. Comparisons between the results and actual data are presented that allow us to draw conclusions about the benefit of implementing the portfolio approach into multi-species fisheries and the potential improvements the fishing firm can make to enhance fishing profit. It is found that the fishing firm should diversify its fishing portfolio by using external harvest rights, adjusting the holdings of some species and not harvesting other species.

This thesis describes a systemic approach to the study of shell remains, using material from the site of Shag Point (J43/11), in North Otago. This approach analyses the relationship between sampling, identification, quantification, and site formation processes. An historical and methodological framework is used to assess the analysis of shell-bearing deposits in New Zealand, and provide innovative solutions to bias. Historical research outlines the common research methods in New Zealand, which are relevant to Shag Point. Methodological research outlines the range of potential research methods used in the study of shell-bearing deposits. Reviewing the data from Shag Point, sampling, identification, quantification, and site formation processes are used to assess the quality of data from the site. Data from coastal sites are commonly used to generate regional level syntheses. These syntheses do not deal with all of the possible sources of bias in shell-bearing deposits. Cumulative sampling is used to assess representativeness. The data from Shag Point are indicative of a representative sample. The site is compared to three other coastal southern South Island assemblages: the nearby Shag River Mouth, Pleasant River, and Pounawea. The data from Shag River Mouth may be representative; the same cannot be said for the Pleasant River and Pounawea archaeological assemblages, thus hampering regional-level syntheses.

Public memory of psychological casualties from the Great War and the Second World War has recalled men who were shunned and scorned by society and their peers. Using letters and diaries written contemporaneously within the two World Wars, and newspapers and official documents from the inter-war period, this paper examines the attitudes of Second World War New Zealand soldiers to those in their midst who were mentally injured by their experiences and unable to continue their duties. This research indicates that there was more compassion and sympathy from government agencies, the public and comrades of shell shock and anxiety neurosis victims, than has been indicated in existing historiography. The onset of shell shock during the Great War of 1914 to 1918, and how it entered the public sphere, influenced the attitudes of the men who, a generation later, were again going into battle. Social changes in New Zealand, both before and during the Second World War, are investigated to determine how they influenced the attitudes of the men of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force during World War Two in comparison to those of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force of the Great War.

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online auctions represent an important new marketplace from which consumers can access the goods they require, an alternative marketplace to bricks-and-mortar and online retail stores. Sellers are often ordinary consumers and the items on sale are often second-hand household items, although, modern C2C auction sites also accommodate small businesses selling unused products. Consumer behaviour in online C2C auctions is unlike consumer behaviour in bricks-and-mortar or online retail stores. While considerable research has been conducted into the dynamics of bidding in online C2C auctions little research has addressed the motives for consumers’ ongoing participation in this marketplace. The concept of consumer involvement may explain the amount of time and money consumers are spending in online C2C auctions and the frequency of their visits to auction sites. In the context of this thesis, involvement is defined as the long-term and enduring relevance, connection and relatedness of online auctions to a consumer’s life. The aim of this research is to explore the ways in which the consumer involvement construct offers an explanation for variation in buyers’ ongoing use of online auctions. The thesis also seeks to discover which consumer motives contribute to buyers’ enduring involvement with online auctions. TradeMe is New Zealand’s most popular online C2C auction site. In a country of just four million people, the TradeMe auction site has more than 2 million members and accounts for more than 50 per cent of Internet traffic originating from New Zealand websites. This study of buyers who use the TradeMe auction site, offers the opportunity to study online auction consumers in this unique context. Based on an extensive literature review, eighteen propositions were developed regarding buyer motives for enduring involvement with online C2C auctions. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty TradeMe users, to test these propositions and to identify any further motives for enduring involvement with auctions that had not been revealed in the literature review. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in full. NVivo8 qualitative data analysis software was used to code the interview transcripts. Thematic analysis reveals six themes representing buyer motives for enduring involvement with online auctions. The significant contribution of this thesis is to identify involvement as a useful construct for explaining consumer behaviour in online auctions. In addition to utilitarian and hedonic motives for involvement with online auctions, the interviews reveal that the buyers have a number of social and personal motives for involvement with online auctions. Analysis of the qualitative dataset also reveals a set of marketer activities which encourage ongoing use of the auction site, and a number of factors (anti-motives) which discourage use of the auction site. The research reveals the existence of an off-line community of auction users who value the social contact they experience with one another outside the auction site. Ongoing buyer-seller relationships are also shown to develop outside the auction site, prompted by an initial auction transaction. TradeMe users often express loyalty to the TradeMe website because they are proud of its New Zealand origins, feel secure in using a local auction website, believe they are supporting small New Zealand businesses by buying from TradeMe, and believe they are practicing sustainable consumption behaviour by purchasing second-hand goods. Future research should develop a multi-item, quantitative measure of buyers’ enduring involvement with online auctions and test the validity of this measure with further empirical data.

The regulatory framework of many countries allows the upward revaluation of assets. Previous studies on the association of asset revaluation and future performance in Australia (Barth and Clinch, 1998), U.K. (Aboody, Barth and Kasznik, 1999) and Hong Kong (Jaggi and Tsui, 2001) have shown that upward asset revaluations are positively associated with the firm’s operating performance, suggesting that asset revaluations are value relevant. This study extends the previous research by focusing on the New Zealand environment with recent data to examine the association of upward asset revaluation and future operating performance. There is no obvious evidence indicating that upward revaluations are associated with operating performance in New Zealand. Our market assessments show that current year asset revaluations are related to share prices and returns, but are not statistically significant.

Due to various corporate scandals and failures, there has been a renewed interest on the role of boards in the performance of firms. This thesis examines the relationship between the key board characteristics and firm performance. Unlike most studies on boards which predominantly use only financial variables affecting governance, I take a different approach by combining them with non-financial variables. This combined set of variables is used for theoretical and empirical modelling. Based on the extant literature, I develop a conceptual framework and a set of hypotheses to examine the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance. Board characteristics considered in this research include board size, director ownership, CEO duality, gender diversity, educational qualification of board members and number of board meetings. Additionally, I use board size as a moderating variable to examine how the effect of other board characteristics is contingent on board size. Firm performance is measured by return on assets. I test my hypotheses on a longitudinal sample of 156 firms over a four year period from 2004 to 2007. My sample includes all firms listed on New Zealand stock exchange as on November 2007. Empirical analysis is undertaken using Generalised Least Squares analyses. The findings of the study show that board characteristics such as board size, CEO duality and gender diversity were positively related with firm performance, where as director ownership, board meetings and the number of board members with PhD level education was found to be negatively related. Board size was found to be moderating some of these relationships, indicating the critical role being played by board size in the design and role of corporate boards. The findings also provide partial evidence to different governance theories, further indicating the need for theoretical pluralism to gain insights into boards’ functioning. The study contributes to the understanding of board-performance link by examining both the traditional variables such as board size, CEO duality, and number of board meetings as well as other organisational attributes such as gender diversity and competence variables represented by women and PhD holders, respectively. The theoretical framework and the findings of my thesis are expected to stimulate scholars for further research to identify the contingency conditions upon which the board characteristics and firm performance may be dependent.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The objective of this thesis is to investigate the effect of managerial quality and business environment on the ownership–performance, technical efficiency and productivity nexus of firms in New Zealand (NZ). Despite the growing number of theoretical and empirical studies examining the determinants of firm performance and productivity, managerial quality has traditionally been ignored. Since the global financial crisis, there has been renewed interest in investigating the factors influencing firm performance and productivity growth to enable managers to position their firms to be competitive in the growing and unpredictable global marketplace. Leibenstein’s x-efficiency theory provides a sound theoretical basis for incorporating the role of managerial quality into modelling technical efficiency, productivity and firm performance. This thesis is the first attempt to extend the traditional model of efficiency, productivity and firm performance by incorporating managerial quality using Leibenstein’s x-efficiency framework to explain NZ’s underperformance, despite its policies and institutional quality being close to or at best practice under Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines. To achieve the objectives and provide sound policy recommendations, three empirical studies were conducted to present new empirical evidence in the NZ context. The first study used a meta-analytical framework to examine the effects of managerial quality on the ownership structure–firm performance nexus in OECD countries. A meta-analysis of data from 46 studies on OECD countries found that heterogeneity in the effects of ownership structure on firm performance may be explained by variations in managerial quality in different ownership and country contexts. The results indicate that 91% of the 99% between-study variation in effect sizes of the ownership–performance relationship was attributable to differences in the quality of manager-related efforts. Methodological heterogeneity—related to differences in estimation techniques and measurements—explained only 1.29%, of which no more than 0.8% was caused by sampling error. This finding highlights the importance of accounting for the influence of managerial quality on firm performance in specific ownership and country contexts. The second study investigated the effects of managerial quality on technical efficiency and firm productivity in NZ from the perspective of x-efficiency theory using stochastic frontier modelling and a longitudinal microdata set (2001–2012) from NZ. The results suggest that, on average, management is operating at a point well below the estimated x-efficient frontier in NZ. The rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth for firms may have been double had managerial quality been more x-efficient and conformed to better-practice frontier growth. Improvements in managerial quality may also enhance the rate of change in efficiency and technology, leading to greater TFP growth. These results stress the need to incorporate managerial quality as a determinant of TFP growth in productivity estimates to better explain NZ’s productivity underperformance. The third study utilised NZ longitudinal microdata to explore the moderating role of exogenous business environment determinants of technical efficiency on the managerial quality–TFP nexus in NZ. The empirical results indicate that improved external factors (industry competition, internationalisation and tariff trade liberalisation) did not enhance productivity growth as much as they should have because of managerial inefficiency. Closing this inefficiency gap by improving management quality may correct the underuse of resources by NZ firms by 40% and reduce NZ’s 35 percentage point productivity gap relative to the simple average of the highest 17 OECD countries by up to 28 percentage points. Further, if managerial quality had been more x-efficient under conditions of improved external business factors, the rate of TFP growth could have been approximately 20% above the OECD average as predicted by the OECD framework. This thesis makes three major contributions. First, the empirical findings provide new evidence to show that systematic variations in managerial quality under different ownership structures are key drivers of firm performance by affecting x-efficiency. This result helps to clarify the determinants of measured differences in firm performance across studies and countries. Second, using a frontier–counterfactual x-efficiency approach and comprehensive micro-level data from NZ, this thesis shows that managerial quality contributes to x-inefficiency, thus influencing technical efficiency change and productivity performance in NZ. Third, by accounting for the external business environment, this thesis provides insights into how managerial quality may explain NZ’s x-inefficiency and productivity underperformance. The overall policy implication is the need for government intervention in the marketplace to create a vibrant business environment and establish frameworks for monitoring and developing managerial quality to enhance firms’ technical efficiency, productivity and performance in NZ.

Microbial infection of eggs was originally investigated in terms of human health only. Recently, however, it was found that it can also cause early embryo mortality in birds, mainly through trans-shell infection prior to incubation. Trans-shell infection is highly dependent upon environmental conditions, egg temperature and egg properties such as shell quality and antimicrobial defences. Microbial infection of eggs is more likely to occur in synchronously incubating species as first laid eggs can be exposed for up to several days prior to full incubation. One example of a population that seems at particular risk of egg microbial infection is New Zealand’s little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor) from Tiritiri Matangi Island. This bird lays two eggs on average three days apart, and is believed to begin full incubation only after the second egg has been laid. Both eggs are laid in particularly humid and soiled nests and contain only low levels of lysozyme, an important antimicrobial protein. The aims of this study were therefore to 1) obtain a first examination of the rates of shell and trans-shell microbial infection of chicken eggs in New Zealand and assess the effects of cleaning on those rates, 2) investigate the role of microbes in hatching failure of little blue penguin eggs and 3) investigate other factors affecting little blue penguin egg viability. This study revealed that shell infection in chicken eggs significantly increased with exposure and significantly decreased with cleaning; however, trans-shell infection was only marginally affected by exposure and cleaning. On Tiritiri Matangi Island, Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, nest type, egg order and shell cleaning did not affect hatching success, suggesting that nest conditions and microbial infection prior to incubation were not a major cause of egg mortality in this population. Temporary abandonment during incubation, however, was very frequent in the second half of the breeding season and fatal to most eggs. These temporary abandonments seemed to be caused by resource limitations, an aspect that should be investigated in future studies.