Business experts

Dr Chris Vas

Organisational productivity, human capital, business and government

Dr Vas’ expertise lies in innovation and productivity policy, human capital development, industry trade policy through global value chains and public management issues.

Through the course of his professional experiences, he has designed and delivered leadership, strategy and management programs for public and private sector clients including Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Areva Energy, Maersk Ltd (Denmark), Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, Coca Cola and Vodafone.

Dr Vas can comment on business productivity, industry trade and global value chains. He is also an expert in organisational behaviour, human capital, public policy making and strategic future planning.

He is the Academic Director of Murdoch’s Executive Education Centre.

Dr Deanna de Zilwa

Leadership, managing organisational change, strategic management

Dr de Zilwa’s current research explores how leaders in large complex organisations (firms and non profit companies) can become catalysts for successful organisational change, creating, sustaining and enhancing organisational performance and effectiveness.

She advises executive managers in large organisations on how to develop and implement strategies for successful organisational transformation in complex environments.

Her latest book Academic Units in a Complex, Changing World: Adaptation and Resistance uses case studies of departments, schools and faculties from Australian public universities to explore the reasons why they respond in different ways to similar contemporary challenges.

Dr Megan Paull

Volunteering and workplace bullying

Dr Megan Paull is Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching and a Senior Lecturer in Management at the Murdoch Business School.

Dr Paull has been researching volunteering in the nonprofit sector since the early 1990s and has particular expertise relating to the management of volunteers. She is the Chair of the research committee for Volunteering WA.

Her secondary area of research is workplace bullying. In particular she is interested in the roles of bystanders in workplace bullying.

Dr Paull is also working on a project on cross cultural perspectives of bullying with Associate Professor Maryam Omari from Edith Cowan University and Dr Burcu Guneri from the Izmir University of Economics in Turkey.

Professor David Butler

Experimental economics, decision theory and behavioural game theory

Dr Loong Wong

China business, e-commerce, diversity management, Chinese in Australia, Malaysia, politics and social change in East and Southeast Asia

Natalie van der Waarden

Employment, labour relations and work health and safety law

Associate Professor John Gountas

Marketing strategy, marketing research, neuromarketing and consumer decision-making

Associate Professor John Gountas is an expert in marketing strategy and consumer behaviour, particularly focusing on how consumers make decisions. He conducts neuromarketing research which looks at how the brain responds to marketing stimuli.

He has worked in the UK, Australia, Spain and Sweden in the tourism, airline and education industries, and has conducted commercial marketing research projects for private and public organisations in Victoria and the UK.

He is the author of leading textbook, Marketing Strategy (2nd edition), and Marketing Services, as well as more than 30 research papers in leading journals, book chapters and refereed conference papers.

Dr Ken Shao

China contemporary reforms, law, culture, global IP, sustainable technology

Dr Shao is an expert of Chinese contemporary reforms, law and classic culture with a focus on global intellectual property (IP) issues and sustainable technology. He is the Director of the unique, prestigious Postgraduate Certificate in Chinese Law, which is partnered between Murdoch University and City University of Hong Kong.

Dr Shao is an Education Committee Member (WA) of Australia China Business Council (ACBC), the premier business organisation in Australia dedicated to promoting business and trade with China. A native Chinese from Mainland, he is experienced in China-related outbound/inbound projects.

Dr Shao has a high quality publication record and he is also an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Studies of IP Rights, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the most authoritative IP institute in China.

Dr Kumar Sathiendrakumar

Microeconomics, economics of natural resources, agriculture and fisheries

Dr Kumar Sathiendrakumar is a Senior Lecturer in Economics and program leader in Economics with the Centre for Organic Waste Management at Murdoch University.

His research interests are in microeconomics, and the economics of the environment and natural resources, agriculture and fisheries, waste management and development. He also has a keen interest in industrial economics, and managerial economics.

Dr Sathiendrakumar has published widely in refereed national and international journals and contributed chapters to some of the books written in his areas of research interest. He was invited by Macmillan Reference USA to write a chapter on the Maldives in their Countries and Culture Encyclopaedia.

Dr Anne Garnett

Labour economics, regional economics, rural economics

Anne Garnett’s areas of research expertise include regional economics, labour economics agricultural economics, and population movements. She has published numerous chapters in books and articles in international journals in these areas.

Dr Garnett has also been an invited speaker in the area of regional economics and population movements on a number of occasions, and her research in this area has been featured in numerous radio interviews and newspaper articles.

Dr Garnett is co-author of four very widely used economics textbooks, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Essentials of Economics, and The Australia Economy: Your Guide, published by Pearson Australia.

She is a member of the Centre for Labour Market Research (Canberra branch) and also serves as a committee member of the Economic Society of Australia (WA branch).

Professor Manzurul Alam

Performance management, management control systems and public sector accounting

Murdoch’s Associate Dean (Research) of the Murdoch Business School, Professor Manzurul Alam, is an expert in performance management, management control systems and public sector accounting.

His research interests are currently management accounting change, strategic performance measurement and governance, public sector management accounting, and accounting issues in developing countries.

Professor Alam is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Accounting and Organisational Change and has authored several publications in major international accounting journals.

Professor Malcolm Tull

Economic theory, history and policy; Asian economic development; maritime economics

An expert in applied maritime economics, maritime economic history and Asian economic development, Professor Malcolm Tull is the Dean of the Murdoch Business School and a fellow of Murdoch University’s Centre for Asian Studies.

He was principal investigator for the Asian History of Marine Animal Populations Project in 2006 and initiated his own investigation into Indonesian shark fishing as part of this multi-national project.

He teaches economic history, theory and policy and has authored several publications on maritime economics and economic history.

Professor Tull is Vice-President of the International Maritime Economic History Association and President of the Economic Society of Australia Inc, Western Australian Branch.

Steve Klomp

Strategic media planning, portfolio management, services marketing