Recent international regulatory reforms have put more responsibility on auditors for detecting financial statement fraud. The recent changes to international auditing standards make it compulsory for members of the audit team to discuss the susceptibility of an entity to fraudulent misstatements at the audit planning stage. These standards do not stipulate the format of these group discussions, nor provide any explicit guidelines on how to carry out effective discussions. This dissertation reports on two studies that examine different discussion techniques which could lead to a better identification of audit fraud risks at the audit planning stage, and may in turn help in fraud detection. Study One tests whether two enhanced forms of interacting group processes (brainstorming guidelines and premortem instructions) have advantages over an interacting group (without brainstorming guidelines). The brainstorming group is provided with Osborn???s (1957) original brainstorming guidelines. Premortem is a variation of the mental simulation idea developed by Klein (1999) invoking a scenario where participants actively search for a flaw in their plans. The auditors in both the brainstorming group treatment and the premortem group treatment generated a larger number of potential frauds than the interacting group treatment. These results were robust across a range of dependent variables used to measure quantity and quality of fraud items. The results also show that more premortem groups listed rare frauds compared to the other two group structures. There was a negative relationship between the number of items listed and the assessed likelihood of fraud. Participants who estimated a higher likelihood of fraud provided a more complete mental simulation of how a fraud could be perpetrated. Study Two focuses on the individual brainstorming phase which may occur before the group brainstorming session. It examines whether giving additional brainstorming guidelines and task decomposing (in addition to the original brainstorming guidelines), improve performance compared to having only the original brainstorming guidelines. Both the additional brainstorming guidelines and the task decomposition treatments generated a larger number of potential frauds than the brainstorming guidelines treatment. Task decomposition helps participants focus equally on all task subcategories leading to a more diverse set of ideas.

"January 2002" Includes bibliographical references: (p. 26-28).

This research study is focused on the buying behaviour of modern consumers. The literature indicates that modern consumers are sophisticated, discerning and are less loyal to a particular brand than they used to be. Consumers today are more concerned with buying a product that not only meets their needs but also provides them with pleasurable experiences. There are many ways to explain buyer behaviour; however for this thesis storytelling, dream theory, and "Lovemarks" have been used to examine the usefulness of the selected theories to the visual communication design industry. The research has focussed on an homogeneous product (bottled water) as a vehicle to establish whether all the plans and strategies in recently published literature can be trusted and be used for design strategies for planning a marketing campaign. The reason for doing this is to establish some new knowledge that could contribute to the design industry in terms of criteria for branding, marketing and design strategy in visual communication design. An extensive secondary research of the literature has been made to inform this study. Primary information has also been gathered by using carefully designed and comprehensive materials involving professional interviews, and a major case study of bottled water has been conducted, which includes a field study, focus groups and surveys. Information and raw data generated by the research have been analysed either quantitatively or qualitatively. The result generated by this study is not conclusive, however, pointing to the fact that the buying behaviour of consumers is complex and variable. There was also little agreement among the professional interviewees in terms of the role of human behaviour and its application in the design campaign.

The Theory of Disruptive Technologies put forward by Clayton Christensen in 1997 has attracted significant attention. This case study tests the hypothesis that the theory is generalisable to new situations. It uses datasource triangulation by using document, statistical and interview analyses (including investigator triangulation) to apply the Theory to Australian Digital Theses Program (ADT) and finds that the Program may indeed be a disruptive technology in relation to academic libraries, universities and to the publishing industry. However, it has greater potential to be disruptive in the latter, and to be a sustaining technology, as defined by the Theory, in relation to libraries and universities.

This research explores the transition from student to registered nurse from the perspective of the new graduate. This interpretive study uses narrative analysis as the methodology. Individual stories were collected and processed using the method of core story creation and emplotment (Emden 1998). Four newly registered nurses were invited to share stories related to how they were experiencing their role. Participants were encouraged to tell their stories in response to the open question 'what is it like to be a registered nurse?' In the final step of the analysis one honest and critical story has been crafted (Barone 1992) using a process termed emplotment thus disclosing the themes that allow the stories to be grasped together as a single story (Polkinghorne 1988, Emden 1998). The final story of 'Fable' gives insight into the ways in which newly registered nurses experience their role. Becoming a registered nurse is not easy however, Fable finds that nursing is more than just a job and describes many rewarding experiences. It is hoped that the outcomes of this research will be valuable to students, graduates, nurse academics and the profession of nursing generally by enhancing understandings of the relationship between the graduate and the actual employment experience.

Firms adopting an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) can be described as firms that take risks, are proactive in pursuing opportunities, compete aggressively with their industry rivals, launch products that change market boundaries and market behaviour, and grant employees autonomy to facilitate the generation of such radical innovation. Although an EO has been widely investigated in entrepreneurship research, only a few attempts have been undertaken to refine and broaden the EO construct since its development in the early 1980s. The two characteristics competitive aggressiveness and autonomy have only recently been added to an EO. This thesis argues that more components should be incorporated to achieve a more comprehensive EO construct: opportunity recognition, growth commitment and organisational learning. The current thesis suggests that an EO, as it is currently acknowledged in the literature, is in need of further refinement. More specifically, a detailed examination of the construct reveals several inconsistencies such as equivocal EO definitions (actual entrepreneurial behaviours and practices vs. propensities to act entrepreneurially), ambiguous EO components and poorly operationalised scales. Furthermore, the psychometric properties of an EO have not been clearly specified (unidimensional vs. multidimensional, formative vs. reflexive). Due to these discrepancies, this thesis calls for a clearer and more comprehensive discussion of an EO along with a more valid EO scale. One of the consequences of an EO as presented in this thesis is that of driving markets. A firm�s ability to drive markets is considered a vital means with which to achieve firm success and long-term survival. Firms that drive markets engage in radical innovation, shape the needs of current and future customers, and change the market structure they are operating in. Unfortunately, however, firms often focus too closely on current customers and their needs, competitors and market conditions - that is, are market-driven. Instead of altering the composition of a market and/or the behaviours of market players, market-driven firms work within the confines of their markets, promoting incremental innovation rather than radical innovation. Despite the importance of driving markets behaviours for firm success, there is little theoretical and empirical evidence to support how driving markets behaviours can be achieved. In order to address this gap, this thesis calls upon an EO as one possible antecedent of driving markets behaviours. Thus, following the development of an improved EO construct, this thesis then moves to establish a theoretical framework that describes an EO and its impact on driving markets/market-driven behaviours. To help establish an EO�s predictive validity, the framework is further enriched by adding a market orientation (MO), thereby comparing and contrasting both an EO and a MO in relation to driving markets and market-driven behaviours The data used for this research is based upon a study of 836 New Zealand firms. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to test for unidimensionality and to set up stable measurement models for all constructs in question. Structural equation modeling is then applied to examine an EO�s psychometric properties and the relationship between an EO, a MO and driving markets/market-driven behaviours. The findings indicate that an EO is a multidimensional and formative construct, yet with only four contributing dimensions (R&D, proactiveness, autonomy, and growth commitment). It is further shown that an EO has a very strong direct impact on driving markets behaviours and also influences such behaviours considerably more than a MO. The same can be said about an EO�s effect on market-driven behaviours. A MO�s direct impact on driving markets/market-driven behaviours is somewhat diminished by the suppressive negative effects of the responsiveness dimension of the MO construct, particularly on driving markets behaviours. Subsequent analysis shows that unlike an EO, a MO does not lead to driving markets behaviours, but rather to market-driven behaviours. In contrast, an EO is found to represent a more balanced approach, since it triggers both driving markets and market-driven behaviours.

Since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, a number of common problems have emerged. Primarily they involve the difficulties both experienced and created by public schools attempting to fulfill the federal mandate to provide students with disabilities an appropriate public education. The purpose of this study is to examine the process of inclusion as implemented by teachers of students with learning disabilities. This study is a qualitative research project. A grounded theory approach, used to derive constructs and laws directly from the immediate data collected, rather than from prior research and theory was utilized. Three regular classroom teachers were selected for detailed investigation. The investigation focused on the usability of the Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and how well the regular education teacher implemented the interventions and accommodations specified in the IEP for students with learning disabilities in their class. To enhance the validity and generalizability of the findings, several methods of data collection were used: researching student files, interviews and observations. Upon analysis of the data, various themes emerged. The themes were grouped into three areas of focus: general classroom teachers, the IEP, and administrative focus. The data obtained in this study are characteristic of previous research findings; teachers typically provide whole-class, undifferentiated instruction and offer minimal adaptations for students with learning disabilities, the IEPs consistently lack usability and the language used in the IEP is confusing. This study indicates that focusing on the IEP itself can make a significant impact. By specifically defining terms used in the IEP and by soliciting the input from previous teachers to document specific teaching strategies for a student with a learning disability the IEP will evolve into a tool to be used by subsequent teachers. It is not a sufficient strategy simply to return students with disabilities to unchanged mainstream programs. Teacher education programs need to focus on the increasing diversity of the student population and emphasize techniques in modifying and differentiating curriculum. The regular school programs need to be re-created so that they can meet more effectively the diverse and individual needs of all students. / Graduation date: 2002

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interactional practices of Foreign language learners in an online Distance Education course. Additionally, this study sought to investigate whether a relationship exists between participant interaction and course completion and linguistic learning outcomes. The dissertation tracked the practices of 43 participants. The data of the study included log reports from the course website that gave detailed information as to what tasks each participant completed on the course website. These log reports were then coded and analyzed to provide insight to the overall number of tasks students completed, the partner with which they were interacting, the purpose of their tasks, the collaborative nature of their tasks and the media types participants preferred. The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first goal is descriptive: to gain an indepth understanding of how learners spend their time in an online course to better understand how they use online materials and opportunities for communication to learn a language. There is little known about actual student practices in DE as the majority of research conducted relies on self-assessment measures or assumptions. Many researchers believe that communication is vital for both FL learning and DE learning. However, some of the most recent studies on interaction have questioned whether more communication and interaction in DE is necessarily better, revealing that certain interactions are possibly more effective than others. To test this assumption, this study employed an inferential design to investigate the relationship of tasks in the online learning environment to course completion and learner outcomes. The results of this research found three variables were significant predictors of both course completion and linguistic outcomes: total tasks completed, total assignments completed and language tasks. Additionally, foreign language, collaborative and asynchronous tasks also correlated to course completion and individual tasks to linguistic outcomes. Further discussion of the research findings, along with a host of recommendations for further research in this field is presented for consideration. / text

The purpose of the present study was to explore the forgiveness process that evolves between romantic partners over time by conducting a descriptive analysis to unveil injured partners' perceptions of how and why forgiveness developed within their relationship. Individuals who had previously forgiven their current romantic partner for a hurtful transgression were asked to recount the forgiveness process that transpired between themselves and their partner starting with the occurrence of a negative event. Studying these retrospective accounts allowed the researcher to reveal the conversations and critical events that laypeople attributed to the forgiveness process. In addition to verbally recalling why the levels of forgiveness changed over time between themselves and their loved one, injured partners were asked to visually depict how the forgiveness process transpired within their relationship by graphing the forgiveness trajectory that they recalled experiencing with their partner over time. As a result, specific types of forgiveness trajectories that demonstrated injured partners perceptions of how forgiveness changed over time within their relationship were revealed. / text