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.

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Found 106 matching student topics

Displaying 73–84 of 106 results

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
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
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
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
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
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations

Leadership destabilisation in organisations

Research and practice often focus on how leadership is successfully developed or built. Little attention is given to the factors that may undermine leadership. Understanding these factors may help shed light on how effective leadership is sustained through challenges and setbacks.Taking a social identity approach to leadership, this research may investigate:the potential destabilisers of leadership within teams and organisationsthe lifecycle of leadership within groupsthe factors that turn followers away from their leader.

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Management

Leader transgressions in organisations

Broadly, this research theme looks into the effects of leader transgressions (e.g., misconduct, misbehaviour, deviance) on workers within organisations.More specifically, adopting a social identity approach, projects within this theme may examine the following questions:How does the organisational level of the leader influence the effects of their transgression on workers?How do workers'  identity configurations affect whether they respond to leader transgressions?How does the type and target of the leader transgression influence the way workers respond to the transgression?

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Management

Carbon markets

Carbon markets are recent social innovations of our modern economy. These national and international carbon markets are expected to play crucial roles in addressing climate change. There are many shortcomings of existing structures of the carbon markets. Rich literature discusses loopholes in these markets which undermine their ability to assist with global efforts of emission reduction and abatement. This project aims to discuss both theoretical and empirical issues relevant to these loopholes.

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Economics and Finance
Research centre(s)
Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy

Evidence-Based Teaching in Economics and Business

Evidence-based teaching (EBT) refers to “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious integration of best available research on teaching technique and expertise within the context of student, teacher, department, college, university, and community characteristics” (Groccia & Buskist 2011). In practice, EBT involves educational practices derived from empirical data that show a well-established association with improved course grade, student feedback, and course-driven learning goals. Literature on EBT is growing but there is little on the impact of EBTs on students, academics as well …

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Economics and Finance

Gender, leadership and performance in higher education industry

Institutions of higher learning are essential for supplying any economy with high-quality labour and innovations. Also, these institutions are crucial to actively achieving the objectives of inclusive and sustainable development. These organisations have adapted more inclusive and sustainable development practices over time; particularly, the leadership team now has a higher percentage of female members. Rarely is there literature on how adjustments to these strategies and leadership have an impact on institutional performance. This study fills in this knowledge gap to …

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Economics and Finance

The effects of trust on government operations

For a government to operate efficiently, the trust of its constituents, as well as the global community, is considered to be of substantial importance. A lack of trust could impair the government’s ability to effectively manage and fund its operations from collecting taxes and external investment. However, further research is required to understand the underlying trust mechanisms and their influence on governments’ performance. To address this research gap, the project will examine how trust in government is determined, evaluate how …

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Accountancy
Research centre(s)
Centre for Future Enterprise

Identifying corporate tax avoidance

It is not possible to empirically measure, with certainty, a corporation’s level of tax avoidance due to a lack of publicly available information. As such, academic studies that seek to identify determinants, moderators and consequences of corporate tax avoidance, in order to evaluate the equity of the tax system (Callihan, 1994), measure corporate tax avoidance by proxy suggesting a wide variety of calculations.But these calculations have limitations. For example, most proxies measure non conforming (transactions that are accounted for differently …

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Accountancy

Evidence-driven policy innovation for urban heat islands

Extreme heatwaves and other extreme weather events are contributing to the fragility of cities and urban infrastructure, which requires urgent attention. Urban heat islands are an exemplar for metropolitan fragile areas, which exacerbate the impact of climate change and global warming on natural hazards, such as wildfires, storms, floods, and droughts, which pose a critical threat to Australian and international communities (Degirmenci et al., 2021). Decision support systems (DSS) can help city planners and policymakers to optimise their decision-making by …

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Management
Research centre(s)
Centre for Future Enterprise

Place-based giving and philanthropy

Effective models of place-based funding remain conceptually unresolved.  Place-based, collective impact initiatives are increasingly recognised for creating long-term systems change, yet the role of philanthropy in supporting, advocating for and catalysing change is underexplored.I am interested in supervising research into conceptual models of philanthropic funding for place-based initiatives, to explain and clarify the elements and characteristics of successful, long-term relationships between philanthropic funders and place-based, community-led initiatives in regional and urban Australian communities.

Study level
PhD, Master of Philosophy
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Accountancy
Research centre(s)

Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies

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