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University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business. The current dissertation project set out to investigate social influences on consumer decision making and attitudes in order to better understand factors that could increase and decrease the effectiveness of three different types of endorsers. To achieve this, three essays have investigated the effects of endorsement source on word-of-mouth effectiveness, consumer purchasing intentions and product attractiveness, and the effect of disclosed contract duration on influencer endorsement effectiveness and influencer evaluations. The first essay aimed to explore the true impact of strong social tie word-of-mouth effectiveness and discover the conditions under which weak tie word-of-mouth may be more effective. A meta-analysis of 176 effect sizes established that, overall, strong tie word-of-mouth is more effective; however, the study revealed that there are numerous circumstances in which weak social tie word-of-mouth is more effective than strong tie word-of-mouth. When products are utilitarian or when the perceived risk during the communication is higher, weak tie word-of-mouth is more effective. Strong tie word-of-mouth also loses effectiveness when there are marketing motives involved in the communication. The second essay investigated the source of social media endorsements, examining whether such endorsements received from a friend or those received from a celebrity were more effective at changing consumers’ purchasing intentions and product attitudes. Our findings suggested that endorsements received over social media from friends were more effective than those from celebrities. The study also found that endorsements from friends were more effective for hedonic products as well as experiences. Celebrities were also found to trigger higher recognition of manipulative intent compared to friends. This lowered the overall effectiveness of their endorsements to the point that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements was less than that of endorsements from distant acquaintances. Lastly, the third study explored the relationship between influencer sponsorship disclosure duration and consumers’ opinions of the influencers and the brand being endorsed. Our findings suggested that at a higher order level consumers prefer the idea of long-term influencer sponsorships, but that this changed when consumers encountered sponsorship disclosure in influencers’ posts, with short-term influencer sponsorships assessed as more authentic, trustworthy, honest, and believable. In comparison, long-term influencer sponsorships were viewed more professional, although consumers also believed that the influencer would be more biased towards the products being endorsed. However, affiliated links had a negative impact on short-term influencer sponsorship endorsements, while they had a positive effect on long-term influencer sponsorship endorsements.

Each year Australia is prone to potential negative and devastating impacts of bushfires and other natural hazards, highlighting the importance of community engagement in disaster risk reduction. Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is an emerging technology that allows members of the public to voluntarily contribute geographic information, predominantly through sources such as social media, photo and video sharing platforms, and online map-making software. The potential role of VGI in disaster response has been documented in recent years, but VGI for community preparation has received less attention. This research explores the potential role for VGI to foster community engagement in bushfire preparation and to empower and build disaster resilience for Tasmanians. Through collaboration with the Tasmania Fire Service, a survey of 154 participants across 12 communities at bushfire risk in Tasmania has quantified trends in individual and community preparedness and VGI and social media use. This paper provides an evidence base for both the use of VGI technologies in bushfire preparation initiatives and directions for further research.

The immediacy of locational information requirements and importance of data currency for natural disaster events highlights the value of volunteered geographic information (VGI) in all stages of disaster management, including prevention, preparation, response, and recovery. The practice of private citizens generating online geospatial data presents new opportunities for the creation and dissemination of disaster-related geographic data from a dense network of intelligent observers. VGI technologies enable rapid sharing of diverse geographic information for disaster management at a fraction of the resource costs associated with traditional data collection and dissemination, but they also present new challenges. These include a lack of data quality assurance and issues surrounding data management, liability, security, and the digital divide. There is a growing need for researchers to explore and understand the implications of these data and data practices for disaster management. In this article, we review the current state of knowledge in this emerging field and present recommendations for future research. Significantly, we note further research is warranted in the pre-event phases of disaster management, where VGI may present an opportunity to connect and engage individuals in disaster preparation and strengthen community resilience to potential disaster events. Our investigation of VGI for disaster management provides broader insight into key challenges and impacts of VGI on geospatial data practices and the wider field of geographical science.

This document addresses the need for explicit inclusion of livelihoods within the environment nexus (water-energy-food security), not only responding to literature gaps but also addressing emerging dialogue from existing nexus consortia. We present the first conceptualization of ‘environmental livelihood security’, which combines the nexus perspective with sustainable livelihoods. The geographical focus of this paper is Southeast Asia and Oceania, a region currently wrought by the impacts of a changing climate. Climate change is the primary external forcing mechanism on the environmental livelihood security of communities in Southeast Asia and Oceania which, therefore, forms the applied crux of this paper. Finally, we provide a primer for using geospatial information to develop a spatial framework to enable geographical assessment of environmental livelihood security across the region. We conclude by linking the value of this research to ongoing sustainable development discussions, and for influencing policy agendas