The Otago Business School celebrates excellence at every level. The School takes great pleasure in announcing the following PhD candidates have presented a thesis of exceptional quality.
A thesis is of exceptional quality when all three examiners of a candidate's thesis agree that the thesis is among the top 10% of theses examined, and is of an exceptional standard in the following areas:
- Research content
- Originality
- Quality of expression
- Accuracy of presentation
2023 Exceptional Theses
Khoa Anh Trịnh (Economics)
“Essays on credit utilization, time preferences, entrepreneurial orientation and poverty among farmers in Mekong Delta, Vietnam”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Nathan Berg).
For more information on Khoa's work, please contact the Department of Economics.
Wei Lin (Accountancy and Finance)
“Essays in quantitative finance”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Jin Zhang).
For more information on Wei's work, please contact the Accountancy and Finance Department.
2022 Exceptional Theses
Pakorn Aschakulporn (Accountancy and Finance)
"Bakshi, Kapadia, and Madan (2003) risk-neutral moment estimators"
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Jin Zhang)
For more information on Pakorn's work, please contact the Accountancy and Finance Department.
Jithin Cheriyan (Information Science)
“Detecting and reducing politeness norm violations in online software engineering communities”
(Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Tony Savarimuthu)
For more information on Jithin's work, please contact the Information Science Department.
Siqiao Luan (Marketing)
"Knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises via international assignees: A multi-level microfoundational empirical investigation in the food and beverage industry between China and New Zealand"
(Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Sergio Biggemann)
For more information on Siqiao's work, please contact the Marketing Department.
Jonathan Caleb Sutton (Information Science)
"Computational glasses: Repurposing augmented reality glasses for vision assistance"
(Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Tobias Langlotz)
For more information on Jonathan's work, please contact the Information Science Department.
Trung Van Vu (Department of Economics)
“Essays on the fundamental determinants of climate change responses and health inequality”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Dorian Owen)
For more information on Trung's work, please contact the Economics Department.
2021 Exceptional Theses
Abbas Alizadeh (Tourism)
“Exploring the relationship between sustainable tourism behaviour and psychological well-being in tourism experiences”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor James Higham)
For more information on Abbas' work, please contact the Tourism Department.
Caitlin Owen (Department of Information Science)
“Error decomposition of evolutionary machine learning”
(Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Grant Dick)
For more information on Caitlin's work, please contact the Information Science Department.
Aneesha Varghese (Accountancy and Finance)
“The future of red meat farming in New Zealand: An independent sector analysis focussing on the future prospects of the industry given low profitability and high capital input costs”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Rob Hamlin)
For more information on Aneesha's work, please contact the Accountancy and Finance Department.
2020 Exceptional Theses
Nuradhi Jayasiri, Department of Accountancy and Finance
“Integrated reporting in Sri Lanka: An exploratory study”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Sriyalatha Kumarasinghe)
For more information on Nuradhi's work, please contact the Accountancy and Finance Department.
Chiara Massacesi, Department of Tourism
“Food heritagisation and tourism: Following the cheese in the Italian Dolomites”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Brent Lovelock)
For more information on Chiara's work, please contact the Department of Tourism.
Jacob Young, Department of Information Science
“Removing spatial boundaries in immersive mobile communications”
(Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Tobias Langlotz)
For more information on Jacob's work, please contact the Department of Information Science.
2019 Exceptional Theses
Gebeyaw Degarege, Department of Tourism
“Tourism, livelihood diversification and food security in Ethiopia”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Brent Lovelock)
For more information on Gebeyaw's work, please contact the Department of Tourism.
Katy Zafari, Department of Marketing
"Building resilience in turbulent environments: The role of relationship marketing”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Sergio Biggemann)
For more information on Katy's work, please contact the Marketing Department.
2018 Exceptional Theses
Wiebke Finkler, Department of Tourism
“The science communication of whale watching: A people-focused science communication approach”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor James Higham).
For more information on Wiebke's work, please contact the Department of Tourism.
Shijiao Chen, Department of Marketing
“An institutional perspective of consumer behaviour in industry-wide crises”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Damien Mather)
For more information on Shijiao's work, please contact the Department of Marketing.
2017 Exceptional Theses
Xinfeng Ruan, Department of Accountancy and Finance
“Equilibrium asset prices and variance risk premia”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Jin Zhang)
For more information on Xinfeng's work, please contact the Department of Accountancy & Finance
Haileslasie Tadele Gebremariam, Department of Accountancy & Finance
“Microfinance institutions' transparency, governance and risk in sub-Saharan Africa”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Helen Roberts)
For more information on Haileslasie's work, please contact the Department of Accountancy & Finance
Mohammed Alghamdi, Department of Information Science
“Enabling parental stress resilience training with virtual reality”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Holger Regenbrecht)
For more information on Mohammed's work, please contact the Department of Information Science
Kevin Bingham, Department of Tourism
"Unpacking heterotopic social space: An ethnography of urban exploration"
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Neil Carr)
For more information on Kevin's work, please contact the Department of Tourism
2015 Exceptional Theses
Christopher Frantz, Department of Information Science
“Agent-based institutional modelling: Novel techniques for deriving structure from behaviour”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Martin Purvis)
For more information on Christopher's work, please contact the Department of Information Science.
2014 Exceptional Theses
Kelvin Seah, Department of Economics
“Three essays on the non-labour market impacts of immigration”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Steven Stillman)
For more information on Kelvin's work, please contact the Department of Economics.
2012 Exceptional Theses
Francisco Tigre Moura, Department of Marketing
“Extending the understanding of the effects of cultural localisation of websites: The case of tourism destination sites”
(Primary Supervisor: Professor Juergen Gnoth)
For more information on Francisco's work, please contact the Department of Marketing.
2011 Exceptional Theses
Carleigh Randall, Department of Tourism
“The wine islands: An exploration of wine tourism network relationships"
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Richard Mitchell)
For more information on Carleigh's work, please contact the Department of Tourism.
Bastin Savarimuthu, Department of Information Science
“Mechanisms for norm emergence and norm identification in multi-agent societies”
(Primary Supervisor: Dr Maryam Purvis)
For more information on Bastin's work, please contact the Department of Information Science.
2007 Exceptional Theses
Daniela Rosenstreich, Department of Marketing
“A consumer-oriented view of quality: an exploratory study of quality in the context of marketing's scholarly articles”
(Supervisors: Professor Rob Lawson & Dr Ben Wooliscroft)
For more information on Daniela's work, please contact the Department of Marketing.
Helen Tregidga, Department of Accountancy and Finance
“Power and politics of organisational sustainable development: An analysis of organisational reporting discourse"
(Supervisors: Professor Markus Milne, Professor Richard Morgan & Professor Kate Kearins)
For more information on Helen's work, please contact the Department of Accountancy & Finance.
