Engagement and Impact
In 2023, the Faculty of Business and Law supported the following projects with a view to fostering engagement and impact in areas of strategic priority.
Green Supply Chain Management for Carbon Accountability
Team members: June Cao, Elizabeth Jackson and Millie Liew.
The emerging adoption of mandatory Scope 3 carbon reporting on the global stage underscores the need to inquire into supply chain carbon accountability determinants. We explore how the quality of firms’ green supply chain management affects their carbon accountability. Higher quality of green supply chain management is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of Scope 3 carbon disclosure and a reduction in Scope 3 carbon footprint. Green supply chain management quality also motivates carbon assurance, an enabler of carbon disclosure quality. Our research reveals that environmental inter-organizational supply chain interactions are important for achieving emerging comprehensive carbon accounting mandates and international carbon objectives under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Overall, higher green supply chain management quality improves a firm’s information environment to achieve compliance with emerging stakeholder environmental demands. This informational advantage simultaneously benefits corporate environmental and financial outcomes.
Reducing Meat Consumption Among Hotel and Restaurant Patrons
Team members: Michael Volgger, Ross Taplin, Bora Kim, Viachaslau Filimonau and Claudia Cozzio.
This study investigated effective ways of influencing the food choices of hospitality patrons. More specifically, the study compared nudging and normative approaches in persuading restaurant patrons to reduce selection of dishes with high animal-food intensity. The study makes an original contribution as no existing study has compared different approaches of behaviour change around reducing meat consumption in hospitality. This study is also original in its investigation of compensatory dynamics. Dietary choices contribute significantly to climate change (SDG 13) and to a more sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12). Diminishing the consumption of animal-based food reduces food-system related GHG emissions by 70%, and has positive implications on land and water use, food waste and health. Transitioning to a decarbonised economy is a priority area for the Australian Government, and the reduction of emissions through changing diets and food consumption patterns are crucial strategies to achieve the legislated emission targets.
Enterprises Strategies in Response to Carbon Emission Trading Scheme
Team members: June Cao, Lei Pan, Mark Harris and Zijie Huang.
We investigate important but underexplored question: Do unconstrained firms respond to environmental regulation-constrained firms’ green strategies? Previous studies have explored stringent environmental regulations can facilitate constrained firms’ green innovations. However, whether and how environmental regulation-constrained firms have a peer effect on unconstrained firms’ green innovations remains a black box. We focus on the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), which is a global environmental regulation, covering 34 jurisdictions worldwide and 17.55% of global greenhouse gas as of 2022. Using the advanced method of econometrics (Difference-in-Differences model), we find that the green innovations of peer firms subject to ETS significantly enhance unconstrained firms’ green innovations. We document the highly competitive environments served as the underlying mechanism. We further find that these peer effects significantly increase non-ETS firms’ economic and environmental performance. Our research provides ex-ante evidence for policymakers and practitioners to further develop decarbonization regulations.
Designing Better Work To Facilitate Employees’ Motivation, Learning and Performance in Future Work
Team members: Fangfang Zhang, Sharon K. Parker, Marylène Gagné, Anja H. Olafsen, Giverny De Boeck, Prich Preedeesanith and Nehar Neminathan.
The collaboration of human and autonomous machines and artificial intelligence is expected to be a dominant trend in future work. This project investigated how work design affected both younger and older workers’ attitudes towards autonomous technology, their self-efficacy, motivation, and learning performance during autonomous technological changes. Research findings from several simulation experiments highlight that high-quality jobs that provide job complexity and job autonomy enable employees to learn and better adapt to technological changes. This research connects different research fields such as work design, human-machine interaction, and technology, which can contribute to the development of new theories and frameworks. Research findings can help organizations optimize work processes and make more informed decisions on designing and managing autonomous technology, creating better experiences for employees working with new technologies. The successful human-machine collaboration can increase organizational productivity and improve organizational efficiency and profitability.
The Influence of Formal and Informal Institutional Environments on Intended and Unintended Consequences of Sustainability Disclosure in Indonesia
Team members: June Cao, Effiezal Abdul Wahab and Ari Kristanto.
This project portrays the sustainability reporting practices in Indonesia based on a new institutional accounting perspective. Despite its large population and economic importance, Indonesia suffers from threatening environmental issues. Thus, addressing sustainability reporting in Indonesia is vital to mitigate the wide-spreading economic and environmental impact risk. This project reveals distinctive characteristics that influence accounting practices in Indonesia, namely political connection, two-tier board system, weak accounting profession, information opacity, and culture. Accordingly, this knowledge helps structure a basic understanding of unravelling problematic sustainability reporting practices. We establish the potential pathway for the strategies to address severe environmental issues in Indonesia, broader Pacific regions, and beyond. Our robust theoretical foundation provides logical reasoning regarding institutional factors and the distinctive setting of future research to resolve environmental reporting issues. In addition, this project holds the potential to help structure the national-level strategies to mitigate climate change by leveraging the governance of environmental disclosure.
Profiling Well-Being Services Available to CaLD Students in Western Australia (WA)
Team members: Russel Kingshott, Jaya Dantas, Piyush Sharma, S Zaung Nau and Claire Loh.
This project aims to understand the availability, suitability, and accessibility of mental health services available to culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) students in Western Australia. This is important because (1) the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that 1 in 5 persons aged between 16-85 years has experienced a mental disorder during the last 12 months; and (2) existing studies suggest that the Mental Health services that are readily available within the broader community may not even be suitable for the needs of persons from CaLD backgrounds. Whilst an initial desktop study indicates the potential inadequacy of such services available to CaLD students in WA, our planned interviews with CaLD students will be used to empirically ascertain the extent of the problem. We anticipate that our findings will help to provide direction for future studies, ultimately aimed at improving the wellbeing of our CaLD students.
Investigating Overeating Behaviour Among Multicultural Young Individuals in Western Australia
Team members: Anwar Sadat Shimul, Isaac Cheah, Mingming Cheng, Ana Rita Sequeira and Andrew Walton.
This project investigates factors that contribute to overeating behaviours among young multicultural individuals in Western Australia. By exploring the experiences and perspectives of affected individuals, it aims to identify key drivers for the behaviours and the barriers to accessing appropriate support through mixed-method research. The outcomes of the project will improve our understanding of overeating behaviour in young multicultural individuals, inform efforts to address this important public health issue beyond stereotypical assumptions, and promote effective behavioural change interventions and management strategies.