As the focus of this research- ie. an examination of the internal and external vulnerabilities of the international tourism industry - is both exploratory and multi-disciplinary, a broad range of generic and industry-specific sources have been consulted. Accordingly, depending on their direct or peripheral relevance to the research topic, some areas have been researched more comprehensively than others. In addition, some issues have richer research bases than others. As examples, the literature on strategic management theory is quite comprehensive, but it is not the central focus of the topic, whereas the structure of the tourism industry is crucial to an analysis of its vulnerability but literature on this issue is sparse and fragmented. Notwithstanding these limitations this literature review attempts to encompass all relevant research areas in a logical manner, proceeding from a cursory examination of the economic and social significance of the tourism industry, its research and definitional issues; through a considerably more comprehensive analysis of its complex inter- and intra- sectoral structures and relationships with its multiple business environments; towards an exploration of the application of vulnerability/sustainability and strategic/crisis management theories. Specifically, the review is divided into the following sections: the nature of the tourism industry; the business environments for tourism; vulnerability and sustainability, strategic and crisis management. The structure parallels the framework used in the accompanying rationale. All sections analyse the major issues of the relevant literature and discuss them in relation to the vulnerability and sustainability of the international tourism industry. The review concludes with an overall summary of the significant themes and dilemmas. / Doctor of Business Administration

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 1999. / Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 312-325).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, Urban Research Centre, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.

The focus of this study is the formation of 'community' in contemporary greenfield master planned estates.The project is cast against the historical backdrop of modern utopian place-making, and the idea that a particular permutation of urban design, infrastructure and social programs can produce an ideal of community: of connectivity, social support and social identity. A further ambition of contemporay urban design is the marketable idea of securing a physical and social space. The thesis comprises four parts. Part I presents the theoretical framework of the thesis, a task which incorporates a review of theoretical concepts and of the relevant literature. Part II discusses methodological issues, the research design and research process, before providing background information needed to support the following empirical chapters. Part III comprises these empirical chapters and sets about detailing and analysing data captured through the comparative case study of Harrington Park and Garden Gates. The final section of the thesis provides an interpretation of the empirical and research data. It draws conclusions as to the character of the Master Planned Community (MPC)and the dynamics which contribute to its contemporary character. It concludes by attempting a tentative theory of the MPC. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The aim of this research is to understand the socio-economic development of a metropolitan region in Sydney through an analysis of regional innovative activity. South West Sydney, a major growth region within Sydney, includes the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Liverpool, Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly. This region has absorbed 25% of Sydney’s population growth in the period from 1991-2001. Although South West Sydney has experienced rapid population growth, this has not been matched by associated employment growth. In some sectors such as business services employment growth has been minimal in the previous decade, this is particularly the case in Liverpool, the regional centre of South West Sydney. Population growth is estimated to continue at the current rate (in excess of 5% per annum) for at least the next fifteen years. In this environment, local government authorities in the region are seeking ways in which to develop the regional economy of South West Sydney and increase the amount of sustainable employment commensurably with current population and labour force increases. The role of innovative activity has a central place in economic development. This thesis uses a ‘systems of innovation’ (SI) approach to examine innovative activity in the South West Sydney region. SI understands innovation as a socially embedded process of transforming ideas and knowledge into novel products, processes and services through the processes of learning and searching. The approach recognises that innovative activity is determined by various actors (firms and institutions) and the interactivity between these actors and the cumulative base of knowledge in which they operate. The Regional Innovations Systems (RIS) framework develops from an acknowledgement that innovation is primarily a geographically bounded phenomenon. The RIS approach sees that specific local resources are important in determining and encouraging the innovative activities carried out by local firms and hence, the competitiveness of these areas. The RIS literature provides two fields of understanding of what constitutes a regional innovation system. The first takes the global examples of highly innovative regions such as Silicon Valley and Route 128 in the United States of America (Saxenian 1994), South West England (Cooke and Morgan 1998), Baden Wurttemberg in Germany (Cooke 2001; Braczyk, Cooke et al. 2004), Northern Italy (Piore and Sabel 1984) and in Australia, the North Ryde corridor (Searle and Pritchard 2005). These regions represent ‘ideal’ or ‘star’ RIS, with highly specialised and networked clusters of firms, many forms of supporting regional infrastructure, and high levels of interactivity. The second and emerging field understands RIS to be in existence in all regions and individual RIS are identified on a scale from weak to strong (Wiig and Wood 1995; Cooke and Morgan 1998; Cooke 2001). This second stream includes the analysis of regions seeking to encourage innovative activity by using the RIS approach to examine their local resources and connectedness. It seeks to determine how not only local resources but also their connectedness could be enhanced to increase firm competitiveness. The innovation systems represented in the ����ideal���� regions are largely a world away from what is available and what is necessary in the encouragement of RIS in most other regions. However, the conceptual framework for examining and interpreting RIS is derived from the analysis of these ‘ideal’ regions. This framework does not provide for measurement and effective interpretation of a range of activities that may be present in less exceptional regions. This research contributes to this endeavour by providing a method that allows for interpretation of a wider range of innovation activities through the analysis of knowledge intensive services activities (KISA). The focus on knowledge gathering, particularly through the KISA analysis, provides an examination of the relationship between innovation, learning and knowledge, much more so than more traditional measures of innovative activity e.g. patents and research and development (RandD) expenditure. KISA analysis is an emerging field of innovation research. KISA are closely linked to firm innovative activity (OECD 2006) and through an analysis of regional KISA usage, an understanding of innovation and knowledge activities within the region can be constructed. This analysis applies equally across various regions and provides an opportunity to guide regional economic development policy intervention at the local government level in South West Sydney. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales, 2002. / Also available online.

Thesis (PhD) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 318-344.

The use of community consultation to address socio-environmental degradation is entwined with contested democratic principles polarising views of its role. I frame this problem by examining three democratic paradigms faced with two contemporary problems. The deliberative argument that preferences require enrichment with debate mediates between the liberal-aggregative view that preferences are individual, private and amenable to aggregation and the view that participation in public life is foundational. Viewing consultation as deliberative reconciles the liberal-aggregative view of consultation as the illegitimate elevation of unrepresentative minority groups with the participationist view that consultation constitutes a step towards participatory democracy. Theorists of social reflexivity, however, point to an elided politics of knowledge challenging technoscience's exemption from politically garnered consent. Also neglected by much democratic theory is how functional differentiation renders self-referential legal, political, technoscientific and administrative domains increasingly unaccountable. I employ Habermas' procedural theory that public spheres allow social irritations into the political domain where they can be encoded into laws capable of systemic interjection in response, along with a dialogic extension accommodating the politics of knowledge. I then use this procedural-dialogic deliberative understanding of democracy to elucidate the context and outcomes of the NSW State's consultative strategy. The NSW state, institutionally compelled to underwrite economic growth, implicating itself in that growth's socio-environmental side effects provoking widespread contestation. The resulting Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (1979) and its adjunctive consultative provisions helped highlight the socio-environmental degradation of the Hawkesbury Nepean River Catchment via Western Sydney's urban sprawl, politicising the region. The convenement of a consultative forum to oversee a contaminated site audit within the region facilitated incisive lay critique of the technoscientific underpinnings of administrative underwriting of socio-environmental degradation. The discomforted NSW State tightened environmental policy, gutted the EP&A Act's consultative provisions and removed regional dialogic forums and institutions. I conclude that the socio-economic accord equating economic growth with social progress is both entrenched and besieged, destabilising the political/administrative/technoscientific regime built upon it. This withdrawal of avenues for critique risks deeper estrangement between reflexive society and the NSW State generative of electoral volatility.