JCU Singapore Business School

Cindy Liu

Senior Lecturer (Business)
cindy.liu@jcu.edu.au

Jennifer Chong

Lecturer Business (Accounting)
jennifer.chong@jcu.edu.au

Caroline Wong

Associate Dean Learning & Teaching / Associate Professor
caroline.wong@jcu.edu.au

Huiping Zhang

Associate Professor Business
huiping.zhang@jcu.edu.au

Peter Hofman

Director of Post Graduate Studies Business/Professor Business
peter.hofman@jcu.edu.au

Lance DuBos

Lecturer (Professional)
lance.dubos@jcu.edu.au

Nurhafihz Noor

Senior Lecturer Business
nurhafihz.noor@jcu.edu.au

Emmanuel Adegbite

Professor Governance and Management
emmanuel.adegbite@jcu.edu.au

Seafood Consumption and Production Trends – Singapore Market Study

Sook Rei Tan

01 Aug 2021 - 31 Dec 2021

The research project seeks to provide WWF-Singapore with detailed information around trends in seafood supply and apparent consumption in Singapore, with a focus at the species level. The analysis will also involve the calculations around the volume of certified and non-certified seafood imported into and exported from Singapore, disaggregated by species. The analysis will also seek to both identify the sectors and respective major buyers that are importing seafood, and calculate seafood import volume (down to species level) for each identified sector/buyer. Finally, the analysis will also seek to cover total production volume of local aquaculture farms, disaggregated by species, and the market share of individual farms. The results from this study will be used to inform WWF-Singapore’s seafood strategy

Educating diverse learners for local/global citizenship: Curriculum and pedagogical frameworks that bring global perspectives from the periphery to the core (Old ID 21948)

Caroline Wong

04 Dec 2014 - 30 May 2016

Securing enhanced student outcomes associated with global understandings and perspectives is this project's focus. It seek to ascertain how best to utilise and augment students' current service learning experiences in domestic and international settings to realise these outcomes through a process of identifying, analysing and evaluating existing curriculum and pedagogic practices.

¬¬Mediating effect of capital flow between inter-state sanctions and economic growth: How successful is sanction in achieving its goals?

Sook Rei Tan

23 Jun 2024 - 27 Jun 2024

Asian Finance Annual Conference provides an open platform for finance scholars worldwide to present their recent research and exchange ideas on new developments in finance research. The majority of the sessions will include papers selected through open competition. The papers will be reviewed by a committee of established researchers. I will meet with journal editors of The Pacific Basin Finance Journal, the conference journal, to get an idea of how to increase my chance of getting my paper published in the Journal. I am looking forward to seeking feedback for the paper that I am going to present in the conference.

Understanding employees’ perspectives on the usage of Mandai Animal Care Application

Caroline Wong

01 Jan 2024 - 31 Dec 2024

In today’s work environment which is defined by digital transformation, the convergence of technology and productivity has brought about a paradigm shift in how employees manage their daily work responsibilities (Singh et al., 2020). Once synonymous with personal convenience, mobile applications have emerged as indispensable tools in the professional landscape. As organizations strive to adapt to an ever-evolving business environment, mobile application development for work has become a focal point of innovation and efficiency (Leong et al., 2020). Besides, the growing popularity of mobile technology has ushered in a new era where work knows no bounds. Besides, employees carry their work with them, securely and conveniently, within the confines of their smartphones and tablets (Pillai et al., 2021). This transformation is not about portability but signifies a fundamental shift in how work is organized, executed, and experienced. Within this context, our research examines the usage experience of mobile work applications and the critical factors that encourage mobile application adoption. The purpose of this project is twofold. First, we examine the intricacies of the usage experience of a work mobile application. We would target to answer questions like - What makes these apps effective tools for productivity? How do they influence the work-life balance of employees? Are there specific design features that contribute to a more seamless user experience? Second, our project seeks to discover the factors driving the adoption of work mobile applications. Understanding what motivates individuals and organizations to embrace these tools is pivotal for developers, businesses, and policymakers. These factors could include usability, security, cost-effectiveness, and organizational culture. Our project adopts a two-studies approach to accomplish these objectives, combining interviews and user surveys, as follows: (a) Study 1 identifies the perspectives on employees’ usage experience and factors driving the adoption or non-adoption of the work mobile application. (b) Study 2 involves the deployment of the survey to measure the usage experience and draw relationships with micro-, meso- and macro-outcomes

What Attracts Domestic and International Travelers to Visit Museums in Phuket

Kim Lim Tan

01 Oct 2024 - 30 Sep 2025

This project is to understand the factors in attracting local and international tourists to visit Phuket museums

Story telling strategy of e-commerce live-streamers

Kim Lim Tan

21 Oct 2024 - 30 Jun 2025

Live-streaming e-commerce is an interactive form of online shopping that integrates video live-streaming with e-commerce, creating a communication channel for live streamers to broadcast product demonstrations and promotions and address consumers' questions in real time (Chen, Dou and Xiao, 2023). The Chinese retailers have pioneered such a powerful new approach, with the market size of live streaming e-commerce industry having reached 1201.2 billion RMB in 2021 and expected to reach 2132.3 billion RMB by 2025 (iiMedia.cn, 2022). With the interactivity nature, live-streaming e-commerce is reported to have a conversion rate of 53%, much higher than that in traditional -commerce shoppers (2.8%) (https://www.videeo.live/report-live-video-commerce-success-retail-2022/). However, the competition in the live-streaming industry is intense. As of December 2023, more than 10 million people worked in live streaming industry in China, and more than 150 million streamer accounts have been opened. With so many live-streamers (https://www.stcn.com/article/detail/1073584.html); yet among streamers whose main source of income is live broadcast, only 0.4% have a monthly income of more than 100,000 yuan, and 95.2% have a monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan (http://paper.ce.cn/pc/content/202401/04/content_287273.html). With live-streaming e-commerce’s popularity and the intense competition in the eco-system, an increasing number of studies are dedicated in understanding the success factors in therecent years. One of the important factors is the selling strategies adopted by the streamer. Key strategies identified include physical evidence strategy (visual setup and background music) (Ho, Liu, and Chen, 2022) and show scheduling strategy (Chen, Dou, and Xiao, 2023). An important selling strategy that works well in the traditional personal selling is storytelling, since it facilitates sales relationships through personal and business stories revealing similarities of worldview, ideals, and status, among other characteristics (Gaur, Herjanto, and Bathula 2012; McGregor and Holmes, 1999). In the e-commerce context, a few famous live-streamers have demonstrated the impact of telling good stories. For example, Dong Yuhui, an e-commerce live-streamer from Oriental Selection, is well known for his way of sharing personal story, when selling products. His four-hour sales session taking place on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app in Jan 2024 earned 163 million RMB (22.73 million USD) in gross merchandise value (GMV) from selling agricultural produce and other foods like canned goods and sweets (https://daoinsights.com/news/oriental-selections-dong-yuhui-rakes-in-163m-at-own-channel-debut/). However, very little scholarly effort has been made to understand the storytelling strategy among live-streamers. Luo et al. (2021) use conversation logs from live-streaming shopping and find that the linguistic style of appealing to personality has the greatest positive impact on sales, but the linguistic style of appealing to logic has a negative impact. However, the linguistic pattern alone is still far from enough to characterize how live streamers have reshaped e-commerce using storytelling. For example, whether and how do live streamers integrate brands into their stories, what types of topics should be addressed in the stories, and how do live streamers plan their shows, given the fast-paced selling episodes and lack of physical interaction with the real customers? These are novel topics that do not appear in traditional e-commerce settings, yet are important in e-commerce setting. As a result, this study focuses on live-streamers’ story-telling strategy, and examines the following research questions: what is the optimal content, style, frequency and duration of the storytelling by e-commerce live-streamers? Theoretically, this project will enrich the literature on e-commerce by revealing how live-streamers’ story-telling skills and strategies help engage customers. Practically, the findings will inform the live-streamers and the businesses about the best ways of developing the relevant training, constructing and communicating the stories to engage customers. Finally, this project has received ethics approval with the JCU Ethics Identifier H9502.

Development of an Online Tour planner with AI Chat for the Indigenous Tourism Industry in Sarawak

Kim Lim Tan

03 Feb 2025 - 31 Jan 2026

The project team is seeking funding to facilitate the commercialization and translation of the research into a practical tool, aiming to create an impact on industry practitioners. Specifically, the team aims to develop a prototype of an online tour planner powered by AI Chat based on the research findings. The online tour planner is designed to support and promote the Indigenous tourism industry in Sarawak through enabling potential tourists to personalize their travel itineraries based on their preferences, interests, and available time. By tailoring experiences to individual needs, the platform aims to enhance accessibility to Sarawak’s rich Indigenous culture, traditions, and destinations, fostering meaningful connections between travelers and the region’s unique heritage. This initiative will contribute to the growth of the local tourism industry while celebrating and preserving Sarawak’s Indigenous culture. The prototype will be co-developed by JCU team and Krux Asia (AI developer), and tested by Scubaquest (a travel agency). The prototype could be further commercialized and replicated to other industries in Sarawak or other tourism destinations.

Innovative Solutions and AI Integration for Women Entrepreneurship in Small and Medium Enterprises

Kim Lim Tan

01 May 2025 - 30 Apr 2026

Women entrepreneurs in micro small-medium enterprises (mSME) are key drivers of economic growth, yet they often face barriers such as limited funding, restricted market access and systemic biases. While Artificial intelligence (AI) presents transformative opportunities, offering automation, data-driven insights, and efficiency gains, many mSME women entrepreneurs struggle to integrate AI into their businesses due to a lack of awareness, resources, and support systems. This research explores the challenges, opportunities, best practices and toolkits in AI adoption among mSME women entrepreneurs. The outcome will be a playbook providing practical strategies to help women overcome obstacles and successfully adopt AI for business growth and sustainability.

International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism (ICSIMAT) conference - Greece

Zilmiyah Kamble

26 Sep 2025 - 30 Sep 2025

This is a popular yearly conference hosted by the ICSIMAT community ( a group of academics in tourism and marketing who network and meet annually for possible research collaboration and present our research). I am also a member of the ICSIMAT community and would be chairing a session at the conference, besides presenting a Paper titled 'Community Based Tourism and Social Sustainability: A Scoping Review of Planning Approaches for Equity, Inclusion, and Empowerment'. Τhe ICSIMAT community includes worldwide well known scholars, faculty members, doctorate students, researchers and business practitioners who network and exchange research work and inter-institutional co-operations. The conference provides opportunities to be selected to be published in journals such as Tourism Review (Q1) as well as proceedings book chapter published by Springer (open access). Open access springer proceedings book allows early citations. This conference is hosted by our MOU partner university in Greece i.e. the University of West Attica, Greece. Our MOU with the University of West Attica had resulted in ERASMUS grants benefiting three JCUS academics in the past. The conference is a great way keeping this relations active and may bring more such opportunities, provides a timely and interactive international platform for academics, government and industry practitioners in order to discuss and develop new perspectives in the field of communication, marketing, innovative technologies and tourism. Details of the conference , academic highlights such as 'meet the editors session', 'academics and industry networking' and social highlights can be found at their website https://icsimat.com/ . Please find attached the acceptance letter, abstract and budget details.