The present study tested the mortality salience (MS) hypothesis of Terror Management Theory (TMT) on attitudes towards allowance of headscarf in the universities. Sample of the current study consisted of 208 university students. Religious, secular and liberal views were evaluated by participants. The results of 2 (Attitude: Supporters, Opponents) X 2 (Condition: Mortality salience, Control) ANOVAs showed that despite the lack of significant main effect of condition and interaction effect, MS tended to lead supporters of headscarf to evaluate both religious and secular essay more favorably but the liberal essay less favorably. On the contrary, opponents of headscarf tended to become supportive of the secular essay but critical of the religious and liberal essay following MS. Findings were discussed considering past literature and alternative theoretical perspectives.

Despite a growing amount of research on social media, little research has been conducted to investigate why consumers connect with brands on Facebook. As companies continue to expand their presence to the social networking website, a gap in research on social media has formed. This study focuses on consumer's connection with a brand on Facebook. To do this, this research focuses on the connection of consumers with Oreo on the website to identify the environment created that engages those who connect with the brand online. Oreo was selected as the focus of the research due to its popularity on Facebook as well as the steady engagement that occurs on its page. Utilizing a phenomenological method, this qualitative study features 12 interviews in which current Oreo fans on Facebook discussed their experience and motivations for connecting with the brand. The interview questions were designed to investigate whether the tenets of relationship management theory and Ledingham's (2003) five dimensions of organization-public relationships (trust, openness, investment, involvement, and commitment) aligned with interaction on Facebook. Overall, the responses of the participants identified a connection between organization-public relationships and engagement on social media.

This dissertation examines rhetorics of heroism and immortality as they are negotiated through a variety of (new) media contexts. The dissertation demonstrates that media technologies in general, and videogames in particular, serve an existential or “death denying” function, which insulates individuals from the terror of mortality. The dissertation also discusses the hero as a rhetorical trope, and suggests that its relationship with immortality makes it a particularly powerful persuasive device. Chapter one provides a historical overview of the hero figure and its relationship with immortality, particularly within the context of ancient Greece. Chapter two examines the material means by which media technologies serve a death denying function, via “symbolic immortality” (inscription), and the McLuhanian concept of extension. Chapter three examines the prevalence of the hero and villain figures in propaganda, with particular attention paid to the use of visual propaganda in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter four situates the videogame as an inherently heroic, death denying medium; videogames can extend the player’s sense of self, provide quantifiable victory criteria, and allow players to participate in “heroic” events. Chapter five examines the soldier-as-hero motif as it appears in two popular genres, the First Person Shooter, and Role-Playing Game. Particular attention is paid to the Call of Duty series and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Chapter six outlines an “epistemological exercise,” which attempts to empirically test the claims made in the previous chapters via Terror Management Theory, an experimental paradigm which examines the relationship between mortality, self-esteem, and ideology. The conclusion discusses how videogames can contest prevailing views of the heroic, and calls for a departure from contemporary game design practices.

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Business organizations rely on exploitation and efficiency to provide short-term results and on exploration and innovation for their future viability. The ability to simultaneously exploit and explore has been termed organizational ambidexterity. Front-line managers who are able to encourage both exploitation and exploration from their employees should therefore be quite successful, but this is not an easy task. Managerial interventions seek to align the employees’ interests with the manager’s interests and therefore can be perceived as more controlling than enabling, thereby negatively impacting ambidexterity. This case study uses agency theory as a theoretical lens to understand managerial interventions that could focus attention on individual employees’ actions that are both exploitative and explorative in an enabling fashion to allow for success. The study advances managerial practice, addresses gaps in the literature on ambidexterity, and advocates development of a new management theory by recommending that managers focus their interactions into three sets of tasks, 1) those that connect the employee to the organization, 2) those that connect the manager to the employee, and 3) those that enable the employee to go forward and own their decisions, within these connections. We argue, this combination of interventions work together to encourage an environment of both exploitation and exploration, or contextual ambidexterity, with the opportunity to be successful in both the short-term and into the future.

Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) is one of the most influential social psychological theories of group behavior and intergroup relations. Early social identity research focused on many different group processes; however, the motivation behind group identification was not fully explored. Researchers have proposed a variety of accounts for why people join and identify with groups. This dissertation unravels the relationship between, on the one hand, mortality salience, self-related uncertainty and self-esteem, and on the other group identification and ingroup defense. The general hypothesis derived from uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2010) is that uncertainty and not fear of death or pursuit of self-esteem motivate people to identify with and defend their groups, and that identification mediates the relationship between uncertainty and defense of the group. Experiment 1 (N = 112) tested the relationship between uncertainty and self-esteem on defense of the ingroup, with the additional test of the mediating effects of identification with the group between uncertainty and ingroup defense. Results showed that uncertainty and not self-esteem motivate people to identify with a group, to defend their group, and that group defense is mediated by identification. Experiment 2 (N = 112) provided a replication of the typical TMT study, which suggests that self-esteem will buffer the effects of mortality salience on ingroup defense, with the additional test of the mediating effects of identification between mortality salience and defense of one's group. As predicted, mortality salience only increased identification and defense of the group when self-esteem was not enhanced, as well, the interactive effects of mortality salience and self-esteem on defense was mediated by identification. Experiment 3 (N = 294) was a combination of both Experiments 1 and 2 and tested the hypothesis that uncertainty would moderate the relationship between self-esteem and mortality salience on group identification and ingroup defense. Exactly as predicted, only under high uncertainty the typical TMT results are demonstrated. Results across these three experiments demonstrate that self-uncertainty plays a significant role in reactions to mortality salience, and support uncertainty-identity theory's analysis of the role of self-uncertainty in ideological conviction and group behavior.

Literature on the divorce of ownership from control has emphasised the declining proportion of shares owned by salaried managers who control large companies. Because these salaried managers have negligible proprietarial interest in the companies they manage, some writers have suggested that they will have different motives to owner-managers. In particular, managers' direct pecuniary interests may cause them to pursue company growth at the expense of profit, for managers' salaries tend to be related to the size of the companies which they manage rather than the profitability of those companies. These alternate motivations were incorporated in various managerial theories of the firm developed in the late 1960's which emphasised company growth as a key objective. An investigation of the shareholdings and salaries of the directors of major British companies confirms that the proportion of total shares held by company directors has fallen over the years, though it is argued that shareholdings are still large enough to allow directors to exercise effective control over their companies. In addition, while the proportion of total shares held by directors is small, these shareholdings are often large in absolute terms and constitute a significant source of directors' income, though the size of directors' shareholdings varies considerably between industries. Combined dividend income and capital appreciation of shareholdings match the remuneration which directors receive as salary income. It is argued that these profit-related income elements are sufficiently large to cause directors to attach priority to profitability goals. This proposition is explored through statistical analysis of the relationship between directors' remuneration and company performance. Regression results show that as the definition of directors' remuneration is broadened to include dividends and capital appreciation as well as salary, company size variables diminish in importance as determinants of remuneration and profitability variables predominate. Managers do have an incentive to pursue profitability.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The thesis critically analyses the gaps among management literatures as discourses of ambition and evaluates them against the realities that constitute praxis. The work provides a different insight into organisational and management theory that encourages critical thinking about the normalising effects of discourse, and points to the possibilities that can emerge from engaging with alternative perspectives, such as those emanating from practitioners. The analytic framework that is used to identify and explicate this hiatus is drawn from Foucault’s genealogy, which is used as a method for conceptualising and explaining relationships between and among discourses. Genealogy is also used to show that there is not merely one way of perceiving an object of discourse and thus creating meaning, but many. The topic of the thesis is knowledge work. The assumption that there is a clear and abiding descriptor of knowledge work supports an erroneous perception that there is consensus in interpretation and that its meanings are fixed and uncontested. Rather, the concept of knowledge work is ambiguous and highly contested. It is inconsistently conceptualised in the literature and scholars frequently omit any definition or clarification of what knowledge work is, perhaps assuming that their readers will have an inherent and automatic understanding of it. The thesis navigates the many discourses of knowledge work. It shows that in practical terms, inferences of neutrality and normality are instead prescriptions, through which different interpretations pit those who prescribe against those who do. Knowledge work has emerged as a significant domain of practice and discourse that resonates within the fields of organisational and management theory, and within the circuits of business, consulting, education, and policy formation. Knowledge has become the business of business, such that the discourse of knowledge work has become significant within the discursive knowledge fields of organisation studies, management studies, economics, technology, intellectual property, globalisation, and finance. The importance of knowledge work is such, that in contemporary discourses it is seen as facilitating a new golden age of a knowledge society. The dissertation tackles this hypothesis through two historical illustrations. The first shows that the modern concept of knowledge work emerged as a response to particular historical conditions to refract social, economic and political circumstances. The second illuminates an antecedent of the contemporary ‘knowledge society’ to show that it is neither new nor unique.

Abstract This thesis addresses the issue of the effects of (repeated) exposure to death-related news content systematically and programmatically through a four-phase research project using a Terror Management Theory (TMT) framework. The central research questions that are posed include, ‘What are the effects for individuals of exposure to death in TV news?’; ‘When will individuals personalise death-related TV news as opposed to feel desensitised to it?’; and, ‘How do individuals cope with repeated exposure to death in TV news?’ The first three chapters provide an extensive literature review that integrates current research from the media effects and mass communication literature with that of experimental findings based on TMT. This leads to an overview of the research program. Then, a series of empirical chapters present findings from six experiments, using a mixed methods approach that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data and analyses. Finally, in Chapter 9 trends within the quantitative and qualitative data across the studies are discussed along with the theoretical and broader implications of the findings. Overall, there are three primary aims of the research. (1.) To examine a) whether death in news media can prime personal mortality salience, thus eliciting death thought accessibility and cultural worldview fluid compensation defensive outcomes as theorised by TMT (increased nationalism, endorsement of affiliation needs and self-esteem bolstering), and b) whether it is only particular portrayals of death in news media that work this way (i.e., whether there are critical factors such as viewer-victim similarity or level of exposure, as identified in the media effects literature) that play a significant moderating role. (2.) To explore whether it is necessary for the outcomes of exposure to death in news media to be defensive or whether there are alternative and more pro-social outcomes related to the extent that the viewer elaborates cognitively on the content or views more rationally (as implicated in Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Sambceti, 2004). This could be as a function of individual differences (e.g., in cognitive thinking style) or as a function of the situational or contextual factors that prompt one to consider death-related news content more personally (emotionally) versus rationally. (3.) To ask about the “repeated” nature of death primes in news media, given that news media is unique in its daily emphasis on death-related content. Towards this aim we seek to answer the following: Does repeated exposure lead to accentuation of the defensive fluid compensation effects or does it lead to diminished effects because of desensitisation and depersonalisation? This third aim is potentially the most complex and is an under-researched area with important real-world implications. Specifically, Study 1 addresses reactions to death in TV news using a written stimulus task for a range of dependent variables– namely, death thought accessibility, cultural worldview endorsement, and cultural worldview defence. Examining the same dependent variables, Studies 2 and 3 explore the effects of actual TV news footage of a bus crash with multiple fatalities and the role of viewer-victim similarity. Study 4 examines what happens when explicit instructions to imagine your own death are given while watching the same TV news footage. Next, Study 5 examines whether more pro-social effects rather than the typical TMT defensive reactions are possible when a method by Cozzolino et al. (2004) that involves deeper death reflection and the role of cognitive elaboration are explored. Finally, Study 6 addresses the question of repeated exposure to death in TV news, with a focus on whether prior death exposure leads to attenuation or heightening of typical TMT defensive outcomes. Together, results from the six studies indicate that exposure to death-related TV news does not lead inevitably to defensive reactions. While there is strong evidence that death in TV news increases death thought accessibility (especially compared to a non-death TV news control), critically, whether personal mortality salience (as evidenced by self and other death thoughts) is resultant is more variable. Qualitative data shows that people have a range of defensive strategies and resources available to them and that we are honed at detecting personal relevance. Rather than viewing desensitisation as a negative by-product of TV news consumption it seems that the self-protective features of desensitisation are note-worthy. Detachment or neutrality seems to help individuals cope with the barrage of death-related images and sound bytes broadcast via TV news. Conversely, a sensitivity to detect personal relevance helps serve an important surveillance function also geared towards self-protection and meaning making. When there is maximal similarity with the victims of TV news stories portraying death, we can expect viewers to perceive high personal relevance, to personalise news content and to process the content more emotionally, as opposed to feeling desensitised. Although the buffering role of high rational thinking was weak overall, contrary to TMT-based predictions higher rational thinkers were found to be more prone to cultural worldview defence in a number of instances. The theoretical implications for TMT, social identity-based theories, Cozzolino et al.s (2004) work, and relevant media effects literature are discussed. The primary implication for TMT is evidence that death-related TV news footage has the capacity to make personal mortality salient and that higher death thought accessibility often can be evoked by death-related TV news. However, when subsequent measurement of cultural worldview defence is undertaken after a three-minute delay, higher death thought accessibility does not necessarily lead to consistent evidence of defensive fluid compensation effects. These two dependent variables have not been measured together in the literature to date, so these findings provide a significant theoretical distinction for TMT. While death in TV news more likely promotes procreation or family-related defensiveness than national bias, a range of factors (such as detecting self-relevance, viewer-victim similarity, and one’s ability to adopt a rational thinking style) moderate effects in various situations. In particular, factors such as contextual news features, rational thinking, shock value or spontaneous realisation of relevance, and reminders of one’s own family or of one’s own or others’ death are important.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The thesis critically analyses the gaps among management literatures as discourses of ambition and evaluates them against the realities that constitute praxis. The work provides a different insight into organisational and management theory that encourages critical thinking about the normalising effects of discourse, and points to the possibilities that can emerge from engaging with alternative perspectives, such as those emanating from practitioners. The analytic framework that is used to identify and explicate this hiatus is drawn from Foucault’s genealogy, which is used as a method for conceptualising and explaining relationships between and among discourses. Genealogy is also used to show that there is not merely one way of perceiving an object of discourse and thus creating meaning, but many. The topic of the thesis is knowledge work. The assumption that there is a clear and abiding descriptor of knowledge work supports an erroneous perception that there is consensus in interpretation and that its meanings are fixed and uncontested. Rather, the concept of knowledge work is ambiguous and highly contested. It is inconsistently conceptualised in the literature and scholars frequently omit any definition or clarification of what knowledge work is, perhaps assuming that their readers will have an inherent and automatic understanding of it. The thesis navigates the many discourses of knowledge work. It shows that in practical terms, inferences of neutrality and normality are instead prescriptions, through which different interpretations pit those who prescribe against those who do. Knowledge work has emerged as a significant domain of practice and discourse that resonates within the fields of organisational and management theory, and within the circuits of business, consulting, education, and policy formation. Knowledge has become the business of business, such that the discourse of knowledge work has become significant within the discursive knowledge fields of organisation studies, management studies, economics, technology, intellectual property, globalisation, and finance. The importance of knowledge work is such, that in contemporary discourses it is seen as facilitating a new golden age of a knowledge society. The dissertation tackles this hypothesis through two historical illustrations. The first shows that the modern concept of knowledge work emerged as a response to particular historical conditions to refract social, economic and political circumstances. The second illuminates an antecedent of the contemporary ‘knowledge society’ to show that it is neither new nor unique.