Exclosure plots were monitored to investigate the impact of browsing on seedling recruitment by Trichosurus vulpecula, Oryctolagus cuniculus and Rattus rattus on seedlings under Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides plantings in two Auckland Regional Council Parks (ARC), Shakespear and Wenderholm. The number of woody seedlings that established over a 17-month period was recorded. Gaps within the same Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopy were created to investigate the influence of the canopy on seedling recruitment. Soil samples were taken to investigate the existing seed bank beneath the same Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopies.At Wenderholm, net change in seedling density differed among treatments (P=0.014). Seedling density increased within the plots that excluded Trichosurus vulpecula and Oryctolagus cuniculus and within plots that additionally excluded Rattus rattus, but declined in the control plots. In contrast at Shakespear, although seedling density increased more within both the exclosure plots than in the control plots, this result was not statistically significant (P=0.728). At Wenderholm, the average seedling height increased within both types of exclosure plots, but declined in the control plots. However, these differences among treatments were not statistically significant (P=0.204). At Shakespear, seedlings increased in height within the Trichosurus vulpecula, Oryctolagus cuniculus and Rattus rattus exclosures and declined marginally in the other two treatments. Again, differences in height change among treatments were not statistically significant (P=0.202).At both regional parks, the greatest cause of mortality within the exclosures excluding Trichosurus vulpecula and Oryctolagus cuniculus was desiccation. All of the mortalities within the Trichosurus vulpecula, Oryctolagus cuniculus and Rattus rattus exclosures was unidentifiable. However, within the control plots, at Wenderholm, the greatest identified cause of mortality was browsing and at Shakespear, the only cause of mortality within the control plots was browsing.Seedbanks at Wenderholm and Shakespear under the Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides plantings were dominated by forb species. A total of 1308 seedlings germinated from soil taken from Wenderholm, with exotic species making up 99.4% of germinations, with exotic species making up 97.9% of germinations. Similarly a total of 801 seedlings germinated from soil samples taken from Shakespear.At Wenderholm, the number of native seedling germinations within the gaps created in the Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopy, was more than twice the number that germinated under the closed canopy. However, this difference was marginally non-significant (P=0.065). At Shakespear, the number of native seedling germinations within gaps created in the Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopy was similar to the number that germinated under the closed canopy (P=0.2603).The results suggest that at Wenderholm, despite ongoing predator control, Trichosurus vulpecula and/or Oryctolagus cuniculus have had an adverse effect on the survival and growth of seedlings. The results also suggest that at Shakespear, Rattus rattus have had an adverse effect on the survival and growth of seedlings under the Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopy. The distance from mature forest may also have had an impact on the dispersal of native seeds within the Leptospermum scoparium and Kunzea ericoides canopy. The implication of these results for the future management of restoration plantings in regional parks is discussed.

This thesis evolves around image and its significance while developing customers' loyalty and increasing company's competitiveness in a highly competitive market. The topic is studied in-depth from the organisational perspective and delves into the differing motivations of hotel operators towards shaping favourable image as well as examining how the hotel's image affects customer loyalty and helps the company to increase its competitiveness. Finally, it analyses and compares which public relations tools are the most effective in the process of image creation and developing customer loyalty. From this perspective image becomes a central issue impacting company's future growth, performance and finally success. The research was conducted on the Auckland international hotel chains. Auckland hosts numerous conferences and events that drives demand for accommodation and in a way, creates a conducive environment to hotel operators for future expansion. Thus, hotels compete strongly with one another constantly looking for a competitive advantage by growing their customer base. My thesis outlines the hotels' management efforts and analyses their strategies in the context of changing customers' demands and market trends.With respect to methodological issues, my thesis is based on a qualitative approach and follows an interpretivist paradigm. The research background has been delineated as have been my respondents' profile to provide additional information about the organisation they represent. The research findings described at the end of this thesis document how important image is for a modern hotel and what initiatives should be followed to ensure success. Image and loyalty are closely interrelated as positive image affects customers' loyalty. In order to achieve a balance between sustaining a competitive advantage and increasing loyal customer base a number of managerial implications have been discovered. Detailed analysis of these findings may help the companies to establish a more favourable position in the global market and create mutually beneficial relationships which further help the organisation to grow.Having aimed at exploring the importance of image as a medium that affects company's competitiveness and customers' loyalty towards brand, this study has provided some useful indications for hotel companies as to what should be undertaken to gain loyal customers and improve company's performance on the market.

This thesis examines the ways in which the process of exhibition development and the politics this involves affects the practice of history in the museum. It does this by establishing the broad parameters of history practice in the museum and places this in relation to academic practice, focusing on the New Zealand context and specifically upon Auckland War Memorial Museum. From this basis the thesis examines the development of City exhibition at Auckland Museum as a large-scale museum history exposition. The development process for this exhibition was created with the aim of changing the traditional Museum approach so as to create a more engaging and scholarly history exhibition than is traditional. At the same time however, there was also an aim of retaining the appearance of the traditional Museum within this programme of change. These aims were to be met by the innovation of the collaboration between an academic historian and the Museum's practitioners in the development process.The research is based upon a detailed investigation of the roles played by the exhibition team members and the decisions, negotiations and compromises that they made through the development process. Beginning with their original intentions and concepts for the exhibition its metamorphosis into the exhibition as it was installed in the Museum gallery is traced. Emphasis is placed on the resonance that the various decisions and changes carried into the finished exhibition. The findings indicate that the Museum's traditions of developing and displaying knowledge exerted a strong conservative effect over the exhibition development in conflict with the programme of change. This conservatism vied with the authorial intentions of the exhibition development team. As a result of this influence the exhibition developed leant towards the conventional. The unexpectedly orthodox outcome resulted from the absence of critical museological practice. The thesis argues that although Auckland Museum had undergone extensive restructuring, including the introduction of new exhibition development processes and a new outlook as an organisation, the conception of history in the Museum had not changed. Ultimately this precluded that the practice of history in the institution would advance through the revised exhibition development process. However, the development of City did help achieve the updating of social history in the Museum and remains a platform upon which a more critical approach to the past can be built.

This dissertation is an account of an internship in paper conservation undertaken at the Auckland City Art Gallery during the period July 1982 to March 1983. It opens with a description of the organisation and functions of the gallery, with particular reference to its management, staffing, financing, displays and acquisition procedures. This is followed, in Part 2, by a general account of the conservation department, its history, staffing, laboratory and tasks. Part 3 details all the conservation work undertaken during the period of internship. It describes the various techniques and procedures employed and the results achieved or observed. It contains a list of 119 objects treated followed by 26 case studies to illustrate the problems encountered and the action taken. It also includes a list of the equipment and materials used. Set out in Part 4 are details of conservation laboratories visited in Wellington. Part 5, after a brief description of conservation services in Christchurch and Dunedin, details the activities of the Interim Committee for the Conservation of Cultural Property and the principal recommendations contained in a report submitted by Dr Nathan Stolow, a conservation consultant engaged by the Interim Committee. This is followed by a report on the New Zealand Conservators' Meeting which took place in Wellington in March 1983.

The study incorporates work carried out by the Auckland Regional Child and Youth Engagement Project (ARCYE). The ARCYE project is part of the Auckland Sustainable Cities, 'Investing in Child and Youth Development' (ICYD) work strand which began in 2003 and was completed in June 2006. The researcher interviewed officers of the seven cities and district councils in the Auckland region and the Auckland Regional Council, all of whom had a child and youth focus within their organisation. The interviews examined the drivers for youth participation from a local government perspective. They shared their experiences in engaging youth to participate in Council sponsored or supported initiatives. The objective was to find out what the benefits of youth participation were for Councils and also for the participating youth. The research supports the proposition that for the Auckland region's economic growth to be sustainable, the next generation of leaders, skilled workers, entrepreneurs, educators and parents must be critically involved in today's discourse concerning the region's development. Therein is the rationale for local government to engage young people. The research posits that the 'whole of government' (central government and local government with community) focus on investing in child and youth development is not random. Rather it is a strategic effort to prepare young people to become responsive to their region's growth and development. The downstream benefits may see engaged youth as a captive audience being open to influence from adults. The value or benefit of including young people in decision-making opportunities therefore needs to be carefully considered within a context of young people's apparent diminished status within society. Youth participation with local councils needs to be real: Young people participating and contributing to the improvement of their communities. As a corollary youth rights within an adult-controlled and managed society requires careful monitoring to minimise the exploitation of young people by adults.

This thesis examines aspects of emergent transnational mobility within the experience of students advancing their education at tertiary institutions, private training establishments and language schools. In particular it focuses on the everyday practices and experiences of one group of international students from South Korea during their time in Auckland, New Zealand. The context for the research is that over the last decade the growth of international students and the institutions associated with their movement and education have begun to have significant economic, social and cultural implications in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland. Here, the rapid increase in the number and proportion of students from three East-Asian nations (China, South Korea and Japan) has contributed to profound changes in the socio-cultural geographies of Auckland’s central city. The aim of this study is to interrogate the everyday urban encounters of South Korean international students as a means to more deeply understand the phenomenon of crossing borders to learn. I employ a multi-method and multi-sited research approach that draws on both orthodox and emergent techniques within human geography and related social sciences. Through these methods I focus on the individual and collective practices and experiences of these students as key actors in the developments associated with international education. At all times the focus is on ‘the everyday’ and the ways in which students negotiate their encounters between South Korea and Auckland. In theoretical terms the thesis is situated at the border between the study of transnationalism and the study of cities. It identifies the ways that the transnational mobility and activity of students alongside others is involved in the changing spaces of Auckland’s urban landscape. These changed spaces include physical, economic, sensory and perceptual landscapes of the city. In addition the thesis also illustrates the concurrent production, maintenance and resistance of pre-existing and new identities; the often difficult, highly structured and uneven landscape that emerges as a result of the interaction between individuals and groups who consider each-other ‘foreign’; and the way that these types of interactions in contemporary cities are facilitated by but also maintain and produce increasing transnationalism. The thesis concludes by illustrating the fundamental role that cities play in the practice of international education and the resulting importance of international education to the everyday realities of contemporary cities like Auckland. / University of Auckland; ASIA:NZ Foundation and NZ Asian Studies Society; Building Research Capability in the Social Sciences Network (BRCSS); Royal Society of New Zealand

This thesis examines aspects of emergent transnational mobility within the experience of students advancing their education at tertiary institutions, private training establishments and language schools. In particular it focuses on the everyday practices and experiences of one group of international students from South Korea during their time in Auckland, New Zealand. The context for the research is that over the last decade the growth of international students and the institutions associated with their movement and education have begun to have significant economic, social and cultural implications in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland. Here, the rapid increase in the number and proportion of students from three East-Asian nations (China, South Korea and Japan) has contributed to profound changes in the socio-cultural geographies of Auckland’s central city. The aim of this study is to interrogate the everyday urban encounters of South Korean international students as a means to more deeply understand the phenomenon of crossing borders to learn. I employ a multi-method and multi-sited research approach that draws on both orthodox and emergent techniques within human geography and related social sciences. Through these methods I focus on the individual and collective practices and experiences of these students as key actors in the developments associated with international education. At all times the focus is on ‘the everyday’ and the ways in which students negotiate their encounters between South Korea and Auckland. In theoretical terms the thesis is situated at the border between the study of transnationalism and the study of cities. It identifies the ways that the transnational mobility and activity of students alongside others is involved in the changing spaces of Auckland’s urban landscape. These changed spaces include physical, economic, sensory and perceptual landscapes of the city. In addition the thesis also illustrates the concurrent production, maintenance and resistance of pre-existing and new identities; the often difficult, highly structured and uneven landscape that emerges as a result of the interaction between individuals and groups who consider each-other ‘foreign’; and the way that these types of interactions in contemporary cities are facilitated by but also maintain and produce increasing transnationalism. The thesis concludes by illustrating the fundamental role that cities play in the practice of international education and the resulting importance of international education to the everyday realities of contemporary cities like Auckland. / University of Auckland; ASIA:NZ Foundation and NZ Asian Studies Society; Building Research Capability in the Social Sciences Network (BRCSS); Royal Society of New Zealand

This thesis examines aspects of emergent transnational mobility within the experience of students advancing their education at tertiary institutions, private training establishments and language schools. In particular it focuses on the everyday practices and experiences of one group of international students from South Korea during their time in Auckland, New Zealand. The context for the research is that over the last decade the growth of international students and the institutions associated with their movement and education have begun to have significant economic, social and cultural implications in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland. Here, the rapid increase in the number and proportion of students from three East-Asian nations (China, South Korea and Japan) has contributed to profound changes in the socio-cultural geographies of Auckland’s central city. The aim of this study is to interrogate the everyday urban encounters of South Korean international students as a means to more deeply understand the phenomenon of crossing borders to learn. I employ a multi-method and multi-sited research approach that draws on both orthodox and emergent techniques within human geography and related social sciences. Through these methods I focus on the individual and collective practices and experiences of these students as key actors in the developments associated with international education. At all times the focus is on ‘the everyday’ and the ways in which students negotiate their encounters between South Korea and Auckland. In theoretical terms the thesis is situated at the border between the study of transnationalism and the study of cities. It identifies the ways that the transnational mobility and activity of students alongside others is involved in the changing spaces of Auckland’s urban landscape. These changed spaces include physical, economic, sensory and perceptual landscapes of the city. In addition the thesis also illustrates the concurrent production, maintenance and resistance of pre-existing and new identities; the often difficult, highly structured and uneven landscape that emerges as a result of the interaction between individuals and groups who consider each-other ‘foreign’; and the way that these types of interactions in contemporary cities are facilitated by but also maintain and produce increasing transnationalism. The thesis concludes by illustrating the fundamental role that cities play in the practice of international education and the resulting importance of international education to the everyday realities of contemporary cities like Auckland. / University of Auckland; ASIA:NZ Foundation and NZ Asian Studies Society; Building Research Capability in the Social Sciences Network (BRCSS); Royal Society of New Zealand

This thesis evolves around image and its significance while developing customers' loyalty and increasing company's competitiveness in a highly competitive market. The topic is studied in-depth from the organisational perspective and delves into the differing motivations of hotel operators towards shaping favourable image as well as examining how the hotel's image affects customer loyalty and helps the company to increase its competitiveness. Finally, it analyses and compares which public relations tools are the most effective in the process of image creation and developing customer loyalty. From this perspective image becomes a central issue impacting company's future growth, performance and finally success. The research was conducted on the Auckland international hotel chains. Auckland hosts numerous conferences and events that drives demand for accommodation and in a way, creates a conducive environment to hotel operators for future expansion. Thus, hotels compete strongly with one another constantly looking for a competitive advantage by growing their customer base. My thesis outlines the hotels' management efforts and analyses their strategies in the context of changing customers' demands and market trends.With respect to methodological issues, my thesis is based on a qualitative approach and follows an interpretivist paradigm. The research background has been delineated as have been my respondents' profile to provide additional information about the organisation they represent. The research findings described at the end of this thesis document how important image is for a modern hotel and what initiatives should be followed to ensure success. Image and loyalty are closely interrelated as positive image affects customers' loyalty. In order to achieve a balance between sustaining a competitive advantage and increasing loyal customer base a number of managerial implications have been discovered. Detailed analysis of these findings may help the companies to establish a more favourable position in the global market and create mutually beneficial relationships which further help the organisation to grow.Having aimed at exploring the importance of image as a medium that affects company's competitiveness and customers' loyalty towards brand, this study has provided some useful indications for hotel companies as to what should be undertaken to gain loyal customers and improve company's performance on the market.

The study incorporates work carried out by the Auckland Regional Child and Youth Engagement Project (ARCYE). The ARCYE project is part of the Auckland Sustainable Cities, 'Investing in Child and Youth Development' (ICYD) work strand which began in 2003 and was completed in June 2006. The researcher interviewed officers of the seven cities and district councils in the Auckland region and the Auckland Regional Council, all of whom had a child and youth focus within their organisation. The interviews examined the drivers for youth participation from a local government perspective. They shared their experiences in engaging youth to participate in Council sponsored or supported initiatives. The objective was to find out what the benefits of youth participation were for Councils and also for the participating youth. The research supports the proposition that for the Auckland region's economic growth to be sustainable, the next generation of leaders, skilled workers, entrepreneurs, educators and parents must be critically involved in today's discourse concerning the region's development. Therein is the rationale for local government to engage young people. The research posits that the 'whole of government' (central government and local government with community) focus on investing in child and youth development is not random. Rather it is a strategic effort to prepare young people to become responsive to their region's growth and development. The downstream benefits may see engaged youth as a captive audience being open to influence from adults. The value or benefit of including young people in decision-making opportunities therefore needs to be carefully considered within a context of young people's apparent diminished status within society. Youth participation with local councils needs to be real: Young people participating and contributing to the improvement of their communities. As a corollary youth rights within an adult-controlled and managed society requires careful monitoring to minimise the exploitation of young people by adults.