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Publication Open Access New Zealand agricultural employment relations, migration, and 'pledge washing': The new recipe for the 21st century(Lincoln University. Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, 2017-06) Tipples, Rupert S.This Working Paper continues a series of articles published in Sociologia Ruralis in 1987, 1995, and 2007 reviewing the evolution of rural employment relations in New Zealand. It analyses research driven changes to public policy on the use of migrants to combat the ongoing labour shortages in New Zealand’s rural sector. There is a comparison contrasting the effects of these changes in the horticulture/viticulture sector and in the dairy farming sector. For the former a publicly acclaimed migration scheme resulted. For the latter an employer driven charter, which has been described as a ‘pledge wash’, was the outcome. Attention is drawn to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 which it is argued may have far more significant effects on dairy farming than employers have appreciated. It concludes by revisiting four key questions posed back in 1995 looking at them again after a further twenty years.Publication Open Access Results from a 2015 survey of NZ farm managers/owners covering debt and related issues designed to explore the impact of debt(Lincoln University. Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, 2017-06) Greig, Bruce J.; Nuthall, Peter L.; Old, KevinWith increasing debt levels across primary production businesses it is important to have contemporary knowledge of the levels of debt on NZ farms, including both past and present levels, but more importantly, have information on the difficulties debt levels might be creating and the human factors associated with these debt levels. This report provides information and data from a random stratified survey across all farm types in all regions of New Zealand designed to answer the questions highlighted. In general the data is presented rather than deeply analysed as this will occur in a series of research articles to follow. The information contained in the report is available for everyone with an interest in debt matters to allow them to further analyse situations deemed to be important. The information was obtained through an eight page questionnaire sent out to the sample which was stratified by farm type, farm area, and region. The strata percentages of the total sample of nearly 2300 farmers were based on the population percentages. The response rate was 19% with the responses not being significantly different from the sampled percentages. The data is contained in 133 tables which divide the information according to farm type, total farm capital groupings, debt levels, and equity groups in most cases, but also by farmer age, education level and exam grades in other cases. Manager gender divisions are also presented where appropriate as well as labour unit level groupings. It is clear debt levels vary widely with some farms having zero debt, but also some have small equity. Most farms are held in trusts and partnerships of some kind, though sole proprietorship is also important. Most debt is through fixed mortgages with interest only payments occurring. In real terms capital gains are virtually non-existent, and the return on capital hovers round 3% making debt reduction difficult, though it is occurring as shown by the changing equity levels. Anxiety over debt issues, and many other issues, is also prevalent. Information on the farmers’ objectives is also presented showing farmers seek many outcomes from their farms other than financial. If the latter was the main objective many farmers would sell up. Also presented is data on farmers’ management style as this could well impact on debt levels and repayments. The full list of questions asked and information obtained is listed in the appendix copy of the questionnaire.Publication Open Access Small dairy farms, North Island - Prospects, challenges and change: A survey and analysis(Lincoln University. Faculty of Agribusiness & Commerce, 2015-12) Westbrooke, Victoria; Nuthall, Peter L.This study looks at the small dairy farm problem in response to industry pressure and associated research funding (from DairyNZ through a small dairy farmer organization … Smaller Milk and Supply Herds Association…SMASH). The objective was to explore the problems, or challenges, resulting from being ‘small’ as seen by the dairy farmers themselves. The objective was also to relate these farmer defined ‘challenges’ to the farmers’ personal situation and attributes. It was believed this farmer data may well inform the final phase of the study in which data was collected to discover the information the farmers’ believed would be helpful to them in meeting the challenges. Conclusions should guide the actions which SMASH, and other extension groups, can take.Publication Open Access Consumer attitudes towards the purchase of organic products in China(Lincoln University. Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, 2014-12) Gan, C.; Zhiyou, C.; Tran, M. C.; Cohen, David A.; Xiangxiang, W.The food industry in China has been the subject of media attention in recent years. The number of recent high-profile scandals involving tainted food products has shaken China’s public confidence in the safety of domestic supplies. These incidents have included milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, meat containing the banned steroid clenbuterol, rice contaminated with cadmium, and cooking oil recycled from street gutters. This study examines the underlying factors influencing organic product purchase decisions. Situated in Kunming, China, we investigate consumers’ levels of awareness, and attitudes towards organically produced food products. In particular, we focus on the characteristics of safety, health value, environmental degradation, and taste and price, in order to better understand consumers’ attitudes towards organic products and their place in the food marketplace. Our study will test the level of influence that each of these co-variants contributes to purchase decisions for organic foods.Publication Open Access The RSE, a tool for dairying? Understanding the Recognised Seasonal Employer policy and its potential application to the dairy industry(Lincoln University. Faculty of Agribusiness & Commerce., 2014-05) Tipples, Rupert S.; Rawlinson, PhilppaThe RSE was introduced in 2007, as policy allowing the introduction of seasonal labour for horticulture and viticulture from the Pacific Islands. The success of RSE has led to calls from “the dairy and meat processing industry [who] have requested that the Department of Labour extend RSE policy to include their sectors” (R. Bedford & Hugo, 2012, p. vii; C. Bedford, 2013, p. 263). Based on this comment, and in recognition of recruitment and retention problems and use of migrant labour by the dairy industry, Associate Professor Rupert Tipples commissioned this research to investigate whether RSE could be used by the dairy industry as a solution to its current problems with labour supply. This research investigates the development of RSE and reviews the drivers for the development of the policy and changes to policy, and how growers have interpreted the policy and adapted to it. It then addresses the current methods of recruiting workers in the dairy industry and whether the RSE could in fact be applied to dairying.Publication Open Access Homeownership in urban China: An empirical study of the Housing Provident Fund(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce., 2014-08) Wang, Weizhuo; Gan, C.; Li, Z.; Tran, My Minh ChauThe relentless effort of the government to control rising house prices in urban China have differential impacts on the various segments of the population due to their differential demand for homeownership. Hence, it is important for the government to have a better understanding of the underlying demand for homeownership, especially with respect to the different demographic variables and accessibility to loans and housing providence funds (HPF), in order to provide a more comprehensive strategy and to address some of the equity issues that may arise from these countermeasures. To this effect, this paper develop and estimate a binary logit model of homeownership and accessibility to HPF loans using a variety of demographic variables. Our findings document that high school graduates are less likely to own a house while people with longer duration of employment and households who are married and with children are more likely to own a house. The results also show that gender, marital status, education level, high annual income and duration of employment are significantly related to HPF loan use for homeownership.Publication Open Access An empirical investigation of credit card users in China(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce., 2014-08) Gan, C.; Dong, W.; Hu, B.; Tran, M. C.Since the first credit card issued by the Bank of China in 1985, the domestic banks has issued 140 million credit cards in 2008, and by the end of 2011, the total number of credit cards issued reached 285 million, an increase of 24.3% from 2010. Further, 79.41% of the consumers have more than 3 credit cards, 35.12% have only one credit card while 1.35% have more than 10 credit cards. The total transaction reached 756 million RMB, which was 47.95% higher than the transaction volume in 2010. The number of the domestic credit card merchants has increased at the end of 2011 and the number of domestic acceptance merchants reached 3.18 million, a 45.68% increase compared to 2010 (Peng, 2012). This paper seeks to investigate the factors that influence consumers’ decision to use credit cards and level of credit card limit. In particular, this research seeks to determine which consumers’ characteristics have the greatest influence on the respondents’ decision to have a credit card. For example, as the age increases, does the probability of consumer to holding a credit card decrease? The results show convenience, interest rate, application process, size of household, reward program, marital status, credit limit and age impact the respondent’s likelihood of owning a credit card. Further, the results show the number of credit card, credit card use duration, monthly spending, and bachelor degree are statistically significant and positively related to different levels of credit limit.Publication Open Access Credit accessibility and small and medium sized enterprises growth in Vietnam(Lincoln University, 2014-07) Nguyen, N.; Gan, C.; Hu, BaidingSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have been highly conducive to economic development in Vietnam. SMEs are a mean of income generation, job creation, poverty reduction, and government revenue contribution, etc. However, SMEs have lagged far behind other business sectors in terms of performance. It is claimed that one of the major reasons is their inability to access credits. This study empirically tests the impact of access to different sources of financing on SMEs’ growth. Primary data was obtained from a survey of 487 SMEs in Hanoi in June 2013. The empirical models include Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimation and Heckman Two Stage Procedure model to account for endogeneity issue. The models reject the claim that the inability to access credit adversely affects SMEs growth. The result is consistent in both OLS model and the Heckman Two Stage Procedure model. Furthermore, the results from the Heckman Two Stage Procedure model indicated that there is a remarkable difference in the growing pattern of externally and internally financed group. The fastest growing SMEs are those who did not borrow externally and their growth strategy relies on the owner’s human capital (i.e. young and well‐educated), direct export and network developed with customers. On the other hand, the SMEs group that obtained external finance grows faster as their enterprise size increases and they keep financial records.Publication Open Access Efficiency and productivity change in the banking industry: Empirical evidence from New Zealand banks(Lincoln University, 2014-06) Adjei-Frimpong, Kofi; Gan, C.; Ying, L.; Cohen, David A.This paper examines the New Zealand banking industry’s efficiency and productivity changes during the period 2007‐2011, a period dominated by the US subprime mortgage crisis. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to identify the technical efficiency frontier (static in nature). The DEA‐based Malmquist productivity index is used to further analyse the Malmquist components to account for dynamic shifts in the efficiency frontier. Findings indicate that New Zealand retail banks generally have high levels of efficiency. This suggests that the banks wasted relatively less of their input resources over the period under study. In addition, the results suggest that a large part of overall technical inefficiency of retail banks could be attributed to scale inefficiency rather than pure technical inefficiency. Furthermore, the results indicate that New Zealand banks experienced a modest productivity growth rate over the 2007 to 2011 period. This increase is mainly attributed to technological progress, since the average efficiency change declined, thus generating a negative impact on the total productivity growth. This decline appeared to be a result of the decreasing rate in both scale efficiency change and pure technical efficiency change.Publication Open Access Credit constraints and impact on farm household welfare: Evidence from Vietnam's North Central Coast region(Lincoln University, 2014-03) Tran, My Minh Chau; Gan, C.; Hu, BaidingThis study aims at identifying factors affecting formal credit constraint status of rural farm households in Vietnam’s North Central Coast region (NCC). Using the Direct Elicitation method (DEM), we consider both internal and external credit rationing. Empirical evidences confirm the importance of household head’s age, gender and education to household’s likelihood of being credit constrained. In addition, households who have advantages of farm land size, labour resources and non‐farm income are less likely to be credit constrained. Poor households are observed to remain restricted by formal credit institutions. Results from the endogenous switching regression model suggest that credit constraints have negative impact on household’s consumption per capita and informal credit can act as a substitute to mitigate the influence of formal credit constraints.Publication Open Access Battle of the nations: Consumer perceptions of wine origins(2014-06-01) Forbes, Sharon L.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether purchasers identify a wine’s country of origin and what their perceptions are of products originating from various wine producing nations. Design/methodology/approach: An interviewer‐administered questionnaire was used to examine the views of 399 consumers as they made actual purchase decisions inside stores in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Findings: The results indicate that the majority of consumers can identify the origin of the wine they purchase (83%). In addition, the perceptions of wine that consumers hold do vary based upon a wine’s country of origin. Practical implications: These results suggest that country of origin perceptions differ across wine producing nations and that these differences are likely to be associated with a financial cost or benefit to wine producers. Originality/value: Few previous country of origin studies have asked consumers, at the time of purchase, if they can identify the origin of the product they have chosen. This study adds to current knowledge by providing evidence that wine purchasers are likely to know the origin of the wine they purchase and that their perceptions of these origins will indeed vary.Publication Open Access Wine purchasing: Planned or unplanned behaviour(Lincoln University, 2014-06) Forbes, Sharon L.This exploratory research examines the planned and unplanned wine purchasing behaviour of consumers across four nations and identifies the factors that influence whether wine is a planned or unplanned purchase. A structured questionnaire and intercept interview technique were used to obtain information from 399 respondents inside supermarkets, liquor stores and specialty wine stores in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The findings reveal that a majority of consumers do plan to purchase wine before they enter a store. Discounted prices and bottle or label designs were more important to those consumers who made unplanned wine purchases. Factors such as wine knowledge, wine involvement and various demographic characteristics were found to have no significant influence on the proportion of planned to unplanned wine purchasing behaviour. This research suggests to marketers that discount pricing is a strategy that can lead consumers to making unplanned wine purchase decisions.Publication Open Access Impact of microcredit on rural households: an evaluation using panel data(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce, 2013-09) Khoi, P. D.; Cohen, David A.; Gan, C.; Nartea, GilbertThis paper investigates the impact of microcredit on rural households. The impact of a microcredit program on target households is subject to two main sources of bias, observed and unobserved bias. To evaluate the microcredit program’s impact, we used the 2006 and 2008 Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys and applied the Propensity Score Matching approach and Fixed Effects models. The results show a greater consumption and income impact for the ‘true poor’ when only the poor group is included in the comparison. This implies that the ‘true poor’ benefit more from involvement with a microcredit program than do low-income households. In addition, greater impacts were identified in the Mekong River Delta, assuming that endogeneity is significantly controlled for in the models.Publication Open Access Exploratory analysis of marketing innovations in the New Zealand wine industry(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce. Department of Business Management, Law and Marketing, 2013-09) King, L.; Forbes, Sharon L.There is strong evidence that innovation is of key importance to ongoing business performance and success, but little previous research has examined innovation in terms of the wine industry. This exploratory study examined the innovative product, promotion, pricing and distribution strategies that have been adopted by New Zealand wine companies over the past decade. The innovation literature is firstly explored in this paper and then an examination of the innovative marketing strategies that have been implemented by New Zealand wine companies are identified through the use of secondary data. This research provides evidence that some New Zealand wine companies are implementing various marketing innovations and postulates the possible reasons for their behaviour based upon the innovation literature.Publication Open Access Consumer perceptions of wine brand names(Lincoln University, 2013-09) Forbes, Sharon L.; Dean, David L.Successful companies are often associated with strong brand names that convey meaning and imagery to consumers. There is a considerable body of evidence that brand names are associated to consumer perceptions of quality and their purchase intentions, and the brand name attribute is has been found to be important to wine consumers during the purchase decision making process. This paper seeks to examine the influence of actual wine brand names on consumer perceptions of quality and price, in the absence of any other product information or prior brand experience. This study firstly categorised New Zealand wine brand names and then provided examples from these seven categories to respondents via an online questionnaire. This study provides evidence that a brand name, in the absence of other product information, influences consumer perceptions of quality and price, and their purchase intentions, and that some categories of brand names perform better than others.Publication Open Access Consumers’ willingness to pay for organic products in Thailand(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce. Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance., 2013-08) Sriwaranun, Y.; Gan, C.; Lee, Minsoo; Cohen, David A.Organically grown products have received increasing attention worldwide. This appears to be due to growing awareness of environmental problems and increased concerns about the health and safety of modern agricultural food production practices. Despite the apparent rise of both supply and demand for organic products in Thailand, the industry is still in its infancy and consumers’ purchasing behaviour towards organic products is not well researched. This paper investigates the factors affecting consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for organic products. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data at five retail stores in the metropolitan area of Bangkok. Data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and the double-bound contingent valuation method. Results show that respondents are willing to pay a premium price of 88%, 51% and 51% for organic Chinese kale, organic jasmine rice and organic pork, respectively. Analysis indicates that respondents are willing to pay a premium price for organic products if they have experience in purchasing organic products, have good health, strong ethical and environmental concerns, perceive that organic products provide greater quality and health benefits, and if reside in the city. Respondents with children in the household, however, are less likely to pay a premium price for organic products. Analysis also indicates that the price premium organic products require hinders consumers’ purchase of organic products. Therefore, efforts should be made by policymakers, together with marketers and producers, to lower the price of organic products to attract more consumers.Publication Open Access The impacts of the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement and Thailand-New Zealand Closer Economic Partnership on Thailand dairy import prices(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce. Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance., 2013-08) Suriya, Patcharee; Gan, C.; Hu, Baiding; Cohen, David A.This study investigates the impacts of the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) and Thailand-New Zealand Closer Economic Partnership (THNZCEP) on Thailand dairy import prices. The study employs an import price model to examine the effects of the Thailand tariff reduction for New Zealand and Australian dairy products on the prices of New Zealand and Australian dairy products.Publication Open Access An empirical study of mutual funds performance in China(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce. Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, 2013-07) Chen, Dawei; Gan, C.; Hu, BaidingThis study evaluates equity mutual fund performance in the Chinese mutual funds industry by employing Goetzmann and Ibbotson’s (1994) method. The data set consists of all open-end equity mutual funds in China and is free of survivorship bias. The research period covers January 2002 to December 2010. Equity open-end funds selected for this study are not terminated or merged into other funds before the end of 2010. The results from this study reveal that the equity mutual fund managers in China have selective ability to earn excess returns, but do not have market timing ability.Publication Open Access The rise and fall of the shrimp supply chain in Vietnam's Tam Giang Lagoon: is privatisation to blame?(Lincoln University. Faculty of Commerce. Department of Agricultural Management and Property Studies., 2013-07) Truong, Chi H.; Lyne, M.; Woodford, Keith B.The area of shrimps farmed in Tam Giang Lagoon expanded at an average rate of 400% each year from 1995 to 2004. After peaking at 4,000ha in 2004, the area fell steadily to 2,700ha in 2008. An exploratory investigation of the shrimp supply chain conducted in 2009 revealed that the local industry had succumbed to environmental risk following persistent and widespread outbreaks of disease in the Lagoon. These outbreaks have been attributed to water pollution, which - in turn - has been linked to the rapid growth of shrimp production. This growth was triggered by increased earnings in shrimp farming, and then facilitated by unregulated privatisation of lagoon resources. At first glance, this Coasian view of institutional change appears to explain the deterioration in water quality and subsequent destabilisation of the local shrimp industry. Privatisation encouraged shrimp farmers to adopt more intensive production methods that generated more waste. In the absence of zoning, the earthen walls and fine nets used by farmers to privatise the Lagoon blocked natural waterways causing the waste to accumulate and overload the absorptive capacity of the local ecosystem. This argument has prompted retrospective zoning and proposals to remove all net enclosures. While there is certainly merit in zoning to keep the Lagoon’s natural waterways clear, this paper contends that pollution abatement policy should focus not on shrimp farmers’ exclusive (private) rights to the lagoon bed but rather on their inclusive (open) rights to the lagoon water.