UQ Business School grows the world's stock of knowledge

More than 120 people were glued to their seats on Friday as UQ Business School's research students shared their findings with fellow students and staff. Organiser and Director of Research Professor Janet McColl-Kennedy said the event was the latest in a ten-year-old tradition. She said, "Every year we host this event to allow PhD students to develop their presentation skills and benefit from insightful feedback of their peers and academic staff. "It's a time to celebrate achievements in new knowledge." "To earn a PhD, the student creates new knowledge - finds out something new and exciting - something that wasn't known or understood before. "These students are actively seeking to add to the world's stock of knowledge." From a student just three months into the PhD program to students with post-doctoral positions already lined up, the day's presentations covered a wide range of topics. Sarah Kelly (Lota) is examining the impact of ambush advertising on consumer memory for sponsor brands while Honours student Dan Gold (St Lucia) is interested in carbon as a commodity - and the effects this may have on the valuation of ASX100 companies. Final year PhD student Richard Ferrers (Melbourne) was recently invited to attend a workshop on Open and User Innovation hosted jointly by MIT and Harvard Business School - one of only three PhDs in the world to get an invite. Ferrers also put in a submission to the 2020 Summit with one of his ideas listed in The Australian's top 50. Ferrers said he was looking at how and why innovations succeed or fail using the uptake of 3G as his case study. He said, "I'm interested in finding out how consumers understand the value in new technologies, how they assess new products, and what that means for marketers, innovators, and policy makers." PhD student Alvin Tan (Sunnybank) is constructing an internationalisation readiness index to help firms assess their capability at successfully internationalising through exporting. Fellow PhD student Anna Stephens (Milton) is looking at collective learning in biotechnology clusters. McColl-Kennedy said from 2009 postgraduate students at UQ Business School will be eligible for up to $30,000 per year in addition to the Australian Postgraduate Award of $20,000.