Research Excellence Award winners 2020

Dr William Cheung

Department of Property

Dr Cheung is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Property at the Business School. He completed his PhD at the University of Hong Kong and joined the University of Auckland in 2017. His research focuses on property markets, including understanding the role that governments can play in shaping sustainable housing markets. He explores how public resources can be efficiently and equitably allocated to sustain the development of property markets.

William has published over a dozen papers in top-quality journals, including seven in 2019. A Fulbright Scholarship and an Australian Endeavour Research Fellowship are amongst the international accolades that he has already received in recognition of his outstanding scholarship. William has also garnered significant research funding, both nationally and internationally.

He has also engaged actively with industry and has recently been appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Property Investment and Finance. In 2019, he served on both the Faculty Research Committee and the Early Career Researchers Committee at the Business School; he continues to be a member of the latter.

Professor Brigid Carroll

Department of Management and International Business

Professor Carroll’s research is in the area of leadership. Over the last five years, she has published three co-edited books, 11 articles (the majority of which appear in A* and A ranked journals) and 10 book chapters. Her research has been recognised both in New Zealand and overseas through her appointment as co-convener at the European Group of Organization Studies (multiple times), guest presenter at PhD courses at Copenhagen Business School, and invitations to contribute articles to prestigious Oxford Handbook selections.

Brigid has also been highly successful in securing grant money as part of a cross-faculty team as well as through Uniservices. She had a major research leadership role at the New Zealand Leadership Institute until 2017 and has mentored, co-authored with, and supported four of her PhD students and one post doc toward submissions to A* and A journals. She is also a mentor to two projects in the A* Accelerator programme piloted in the Department of MIB.

Professor Roderick Brodie

Department of Marketing

Professor Brodie is a pioneer in addressing emerging trends in consumer behaviour, including how social media affect this behaviour; how and at what points do emotions affect consumer decisions; and what triggers these changes. His work on ‘Customer Engagement’, building on the concept of “theorising with managers” to co-create customer experience and value, has received considerable attention from business practitioners and academics alike.

Rod is globally recognised as a leader within the marketing discipline, evident from an outstanding record of publications and citations, international awards, fellowships and visiting professorships, and invitations to serve as keynote speaker at conferences. He has also contributed to the international research programme on Market Shaping and Innovation that integrates his previous work on engagement, service relationships, and mid-range theorising.

Professor David Robb

Graduate School of Management

Professor Robb is an influential leader in promoting research and engagement with local and global industry in the area of productivity and sustainable business, one of the key strategic themes in the University of Auckland Business School. David’s vision and commitment are that business schools in general, and the University of Auckland Business School in particular, can and should be a contributing and impactful partner of industry and policy making.

One of his latest initiatives was to bring together some of New Zealand’s major companies, academics and postgraduate students to explore and address some of the most pressing challenges of supply chain, sustainability, and logistics facing these companies. David’s current work includes modelling and empirical supply chain management in China, the effects of lead time and uncertainty in supply chains, inventories in China, the management of retail queues, and on-line shopping for perishable items.

Professor Jilnaught Wong and Professor Norman Wong

Department of Accounting and Finance

Professors Jilnaught Wong and Norman Wong conduct empirical tax research that is highly relevant for and has an impact on New Zealand tax policy. This research reflects their accounting background and long-standing interest in the interaction between income taxes and financial reporting. In particular, their joint research provides a better understanding of tax avoidance in large New Zealand companies, the pros and cons of a Capital Gains Tax, and the ethics and governance issues concerning paying a fair share of tax.

By far most of the articles Jilnaught and Norman have co-authored together have appeared in highly ranked journals and have direct relevance for accounting standard-setting, accounting practice, and the education of accounting students. In today’s research environment where accounting academics tend to rely on US, European, or global data, it is fantastic to see this type of research having direct and practical implications for the New Zealand economy.

Professor Dimitris Margaritis

Department of Accounting and Finance

Professor Margaritis’ work spans the fields of finance and operations research, with particular emphasis on understanding performance measurement at the firm, industry, and national level. Over the course of his career, Dimitris has consistently published research of excellent quality in leading international peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored two books. He has forged formidable international research collaborations that have pushed out the frontier of production economics and performance measurement, thereby allowing Dimitiris to integrate these insights into mainstream finance.

In recent years, three out of every four of Dimitris’ research publications have appeared in an A* journal – a testament to both the quality and consistency of his scholarly output. Dimitris has also been one of the outstanding research leaders in our Business School. He has supervised a dozen PhD students and mentored junior colleagues, including post-doctoral scholars and early career researchers. He has over the years engaged seriously with a number of research initiatives and activities and has contributed substantially over a long period of time to the Faculty Research Committee at the Business School.