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This thesis establishes new insights into providing and financing of Australia’s social and affordable housing infrastructure within a public-private partnership (PPP) model. Social housing is considered an important piece of a broader housing continuum and is recognized as a type of social infrastructure (Infrastructure Australia, 2019). Social housing contributes to the effective functioning of society. Troy (2012) conceptualizes social housing as an essential infrastructure that enables economic productivity. From the perspective of affordable housing as an infrastructure asset, this research presents the outcomes to develop a new investment pathway via a PPP model highly used in procuring and financing infrastructure assets. In Australia, changing attitudes toward the role of government and housing policy have meant that funding and other support for the housing system have steadily decreased over the past decade. The shift of responsibility from federal to state governments has increased the importance of cross-sectoral partnerships and networks as vital institutional mechanisms. This responsibility shift points to the need to understand partnership arrangements to design and deliver housing and urban policy. Further, Australia’s social housing reform promoting a multi-providers system has been characterised by contracts with community housing providers (CHPs). The multi-providers system guides the need for designing an investment incentive for CHPs to operate efficiently and leverage private finance. Lastly, an increasing housing policy imperative is identifying effective new ways of financing and delivering additional social and affordable housing infrastructure. Additionally, the establishment of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation aims to provide long-term and low-cost finance to registered CHPs. Registered CHPs can also access two sources of funding: state government subsidies and Commonwealth Rent Assistance. The shift in funding and f, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dept Account,Finance & Econ, Griffith Business School, Full Text

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dept Tourism, Sport & Hot Mgmt, Griffith Business School, Globally, cities are rapidly becoming denser, increasingly accommodating the majority of the world’s population. Australian cities have followed these global trends, with cities becoming denser to house urban population growth. These increasing urban densities have raised social and environmental concerns, heightening the need for residential dwellings to become more sustainable. In response, several rating systems have been developed to assess and encourage the adoption of sustainability principles in building design. However, to date, the majority of the growing body of green building literature has focused on the commercial market from an engineering and property economics standpoint. Limited research into the residential sector, and specifically, the end user perspective, has been undertaken. This thesis seeks to address this gap by providing an understanding of the lived experience of sustainable high-rise apartments. Three important issues are addressed in this thesis: 1) identifying consumers’ levels of knowledge and motives when purchasing into a sustainably designed residential high-rise building; 2) comparing stakeholder perspectives about which aspects of a green residential high-rise building occupants value; and 3) exploring how occupants identify with and construct meaning in relation to the sustainable design elements of a green building. In order to explore these issues, a theoretical underpinning of green building literature, consumer behaviour, and stakeholder and change theories was used in this thesis. Data were collected from 22 in-depth interviews with property industry experts and residents of two case study buildings located in Brisbane and Melbourne. A visual ethnography method utilising 10 to 12 images per building was also used in order to prompt personal narratives and allow for multiple interpretations of the participants’ social and/or cultural experiences. The study’s findings revealed a staged loss of knowledge regarding the sustainab

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dept Tourism, Sport & Hot Mgmt, Griffith Business School, Organisations are required to develop a unique brand as well as meaningful and emotional relationships with their consumers to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace. An increasing number of organisations sponsor charity sport events to assist in achieving these objectives. Charity sport event (CSE) managers and representatives of the sponsor would benefit from the development of an authentic sponsorship program as consumers may form negative attitudes towards corporate partners who partner with an event for overly commercial reasons. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, this research examined how CSE managers and sponsors can create sponsorship programs that promote the sponsor’s brand in an authentic manner. Secondly, this research investigated how CSE sponsorship programs facilitate the development of meaningful and emotional relationships between CSE participants and sponsors. Three research questions were advanced. The research questions were addressed through an explanatory sequential mixed method research design consisting of three studies. The MS Moonlight Walk is an annual CSE that supports people living with MS and represents the research context of this thesis. The research adopted organisational identification theory and service-dominant logic (S-D logic) as theoretical frameworks. According to organisational identification theory, consumers identify and form emotional relationships with brands, which they perceive as meaningful and distinct. Consequently, Study 1 and Study 2 were guided by organisational identification theory. Study 1 examined how sponsoring a CSE can assist the sponsor to develop meaningful and emotional relationships with event participants. Data were collected from MS Moonlight Walk 2018 participants through pre- and post-event questionnaires. The ii results indicated that event participants were unable to answer the questions included in the questionnaire prior to and after the event

The future ability of urban centres in Australia and around the globe to adapt and respond to big challenges of climate change, economic development and social inclusion, will depend on how well we embed structural and social resilience within these built environments. Such a complex urban resilience agenda presents a major collective challenge for designers, planners and engineers to work out with politicians, developers, financiers and community leaders. Central to achieving integrated design responses for thriving centres is the challenge of mobility, ensuring transit corridors that enable cool, comfortable and reliable transitions between home and workspaces, education, health facilities, entertainment and recreation. Refocusing design efforts on interstitial spaces between destinations will require collaborative processes and co-creation in a design space currently dominated by siloed approaches to traffic management, transport planning, precinct design and engineering, architecture and landscaping. With the aim of bridging these silos, this study – by an interdisciplinary team spanning engineering, science, business and planning – evaluates key literature to create a Place Making Framework that comprises seven principles and associated practices to address critical components of structural and social resilience within the built environment. The paper applies the framework to four urban fabric types, highlighting opportunities and considerations for regeneration development projects, towards urban environments where people can thrive in ways that are good for people and planet.

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dept Tourism, Sport & Hot Mgmt, Griffith Business School, The upsurge of online shopping usage in Australia is putting pressure on the shopping centres to remain competitive. Shopping centres need to differentiate themselves from online shopping by facilitating instant gratification, social interaction and shopping convenience. To do so, shopping centres may need to extend trading hours. However, retail trading hours in Australia are regulated. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the need for full deregulation of trading hours by investigating the frequency of consumers’ leisure shopping activity during extended trading hours and its influence on the performance of the independent speciality stores within a shopping centre. This research investigated the impact of online shopping on consumer in-store browsing behaviour and the performance of the independent speciality stores in different sized shopping centres. The main anchor tenants (e.g., Kmart, Myer) mostly draw consumers into the shopping centre, therefore independent specialty stores usually rely on consumers’ in-store browsing behaviour in order to promote their products and services. In addition, browsing is an important facet of leisure shopping activity. The literature on consumers’ browsing behaviour in relation to the performance of independent speciality stores within a shopping centre is highly limited. Thus, there is a pressing need to undertake a comprehensive investigation of consumer in-store browsing behaviour to increase our understanding of the phenomenon. Furthermore, online shopping has the potential to have a negative impact on consumer browsing behaviour within a shopping centre especially during weekday late evening trading hours, largely because of consumers’ employment status. Therefore, this research also focused on weekday late evening trading hours. To facilitate the investigation of the impact of e-commerce on speciality stores in categorised shopping centres, this research was underpinned by four distinct fields of literature: 1) c

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith Business School, Griffith Business School, Set within the context of increasing global commitment to eradicate extreme poverty, this research critically analyses and evaluates the extent to which microfinance tourism (MFT) is an effective vehicle for poverty alleviation in developing countries. For decades, both microfinance and tourism have been promoted as key strategies for global poverty alleviation. Microfinance can offer people living in poverty, especially those considered ‘unbankable’, the necessary financial and educational support to engage in entrepreneurial activities, while tourism has the capacity to reduce poverty via economic development and global citizenship education. MFT emerged in 2008 as an innovative approach that pioneers the integration of microfinance and tourism for poverty alleviation purposes. Despite promising great hope for many by addressing multiple facets of the poverty issue, the extent to which MFT rhetoric translates into reality is unclear, given that the positive impacts of both microfinance and tourism on poverty alleviation remain debatable. More importantly, MFT as an antipoverty intervention built around impoverished communities also has the potential to inflict a range of negative impacts on vulnerable populations. Yet the literature on MFT is almost completely absent; thus there is a pressing need to undertake a comprehensive investigation of MFT to increase our understanding of the phenomenon.

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith Business School, Griffith Business School, Sport events are frequently used as a marketing tool by sponsoring organisations. However, the effectiveness of this strategy towards future purchase intentions and behaviour has received limited theoretical/empirical research attention. Using an established sport event as a case study (2012 Quiksilver Pro), this thesis seeks to address this gap by investigating spectator’s attitudes towards brands of key public and private event sponsors based on: 1) motivations to attend events; 2) identification with brands; 3) satisfaction with event; and the consequent impact this has on purchasing decisions. This is significant as previous studies on attitudes, identification and intentions to purchase have mainly been focused on sport teams and not on sponsors’ brands. Research has also been abundant on destination-event fit and even sponsor-event fit; however a case triangulating the destination-event-sponsor fit has not been examined. The Gold Coast Surfing Industry is one such case where there is a clear destination-event-sponsor fit between Gold Coast as a destination, Quiksilver Pro as an event and Gold Coast City Council (public) and Quiksilver (private) as sponsors. Surprisingly, little academic research attention, especially within an event context, has focussed on the surfing industry despite major market players investing significant marketing budgets in costly surfing events. There also appears within the surfing industry limited understanding of the impact of surfing events on future revenue generation.

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith Business School, Griffith Business School, The multi-owned development (MOD) is a unique property type consisting of at least two individually owned lots tied to communally owned common property with a separate registered entity (the body corporate) created to govern and manage the property. While the body corporate is the ultimate governing entity and the orchestra of operations for much of a MOD’s life, there is a period of time when a MOD’s developer makes governing decisions. It is during this phase, the transition phase, that the developer can bind the body corporate to a myriad of arrangements and relationships. Although state based Australian legislation provides a framework for body corporate governance, concerns have been raised over the extent of power and control exerted by developers when tasked with governing. There is a paucity of academic research concerned with the MOD transition phase. This study is therefore exploratory in nature, as it seeks to uncover the nature of governance decisions made by developers during the transition phase. This study is guided by the principles of the grounded theory method, which focuses on creating conceptual frameworks or theories through building inductive analysis from the data collected. Method triangulation was used in order to promote rigour in the research. A combination of semi-structured interviews, document (legislative) analysis and structured interviews was undertaken.