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Wellington School of Business and Government Ōrauariki

Postgraduate research topics.

If you’re unsure what your research topic could be, find out about the research our academics are working on that you could help with.

You can do postgraduate research at the Wellington School of Business and Government towards an Honours , Master of Commerce , and PhD degree. As part of these degree pathways you are embedded in the research culture at the faculty, bring in your personal experience and interests, and choose to work on something that really matters to you.

If you’re still unsure about what research topic you could work on, get inspired by some of the research Wellington School of Business and Government academics are already working on as listed below. We encourage you to contact the listed academics directly or the academic programme leader to learn more and discuss your individual circumstances.

If you already have your own research topic in mind, we want to hear about it! Contact us so we can make sure you get all the support you need.

If you are interested discussing the research you can pursue as a PhD candidate, please contact the relevant academic area .

During a crisis, organisations need to take decisive action to protect their reputations. What can they do to minimise the damage? A former Master of Commerce student examined this issue and found that when a company donates employee time during an earthquake, its reputation is enhanced more when compared with donations given by a company not adversely impacted by an earthquake. This ‘helping when hurting’ phenomena provides insights to other organisations facing different types of crises as well. There are many interesting areas to explore related to protecting a reputation during a crisis, and effectively managing crises is an area of great interest around the world.

Contact: Associate Professor Dan Laufer

COVID-19 and the related lockdown has shown the importance digital work plays in our daily lives. During the lockdown, many office workers began to make sense of a new range of benefits, but also challenges, of digital work tools. Many questions are still open, such as:

• What rules and policies do we need for remote work?
• How can we support employees in maintaining their wellbeing and productivity?
• How will expectations towards the professionality of work from home change?

Contact: Professor Alex Richter

In Mandarin language, the term crisis (wéi jī) is comprised of two characters: danger (危) and opportunity (机). This topic will explore how national culture, generational values, and personal culture orientations influence our perceptions of crises and our attitudes to uncertainty. This topic combines international business with social psychology and is especially relevant in the current COVID-19 landscape.

Contact: Dr Matt Raškovic

Google and co. are our regular assistants when we search for the best restaurant or when we gather information as part of our job. But do the algorithms inside these systems hide content from us? What do we see that others might not and vice versa? How does that impact our personal and professional development? Investigate these and other questions on the impact of algorithmic biases and filter bubbles.

Contact: Associate Professor Markus Luczak-Roesch

Unlike personal and organisational resilience, the concept of social resilience is less understood and has been most often confined to studies of disaster management. New Zealand is believed to be one of the most socially resilient societies in the world, which has undoubtedly helped it to effectively address the COVID-19 pandemic and receive widespread international recognition for it. This topic will explore the dimensions and factors of social resilience in New Zealand.

The existing international HRM literature assumes a rather narrow perspective on expatriate adjustment which has remained unchanged since the 1990s. This topic applies a holistic concept of well-being to expatriate adjustment and ask which determinants and antecedents of expatriate well-being are most important in a New Zealand context, marked by high levels of high-skilled migrant employee turnover.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has shown in unprecedented ways how scientists try to rapidly understand the characteristics of a new disease in order to support the design and application of effective countermeasures. Phylogenetic analysis is a standard tool for this but only allows us to look at the genomic properties of a pathogen. We work on methods that combine genomic data and case metadata (e.g. severity of illness, travel history of a patient) using complex network approaches. Novel questions that arise in this context range from very applied to more mathematical ones. For example: How do we best visualise large complex networks for decision and policy makers who work in crisis response? Is there a measurement that may help decide whether a disease outbreak is under control in a country?

Change happens everywhere and all the time—in biological systems, in social systems, in the economy, and even in basic everyday situations. Sometimes we can anticipate or predict change because we understand the likelihood of the underlying events happening. But there are events that are rare and have potentially never happened at the same time as other events. These events change the overall system significantly and persistently. This property of most so-called complex systems is also known as emergence. We look at questions like: What are the unifying mathematical properties of emergence? Does emergence happen similarly across different systems we can find in our world? Can we improve resilience and response to changes when we gain a better formal understanding of emergence?

Data, documents, and artefacts in our personal collections tell a story about us, our life and work, our history and identity. Join us to explore how people organise, preserve, present and share information and documents from their personal collections. Research in this area (called information behaviour, personal information management and cultural heritage preservation) can help people develop better information management skills and inform libraries, archives, museums and other information institutions that provide relevant service to the society. So far, we have studied how writers, artists, civil servants, and other significant individuals manage their personal collections. We have also explored how immigrants and their descendants manage personal multicultural heritage.

Contact: Dr Maja Krtalic

Innovation is a big buzz word in the public sector, but what does it really mean? What makes some governments more innovative than others? Is innovation always a goal to pursue or are there any unexpected and unintended consequences of it? Is there such a thing as too much innovation? Where should we draw the line?

Contact: Dr Flavia Donadelli

There has been a lot of commentary stating that patent law negatively impacts our access to pharmaceuticals. But to what extent might the regulatory review system that checks the safety of human medicines inhibit such access? Examine the relationship between patent law and the regulatory regime, and their interrelated impact on the access to pharmaceuticals.

Contact: Associate Professor Jessica Lai

The feminist movement has slowly revealed that the law is built upon gendered constructs. How is it that law relating to innovation might be gendered, for example, copyright, trademark and patent law? How is it that they have come to be gendered? Investigate these questions and the deeper issue of what de-gendered laws relating to innovation might look like.

Producers have incentives to use marks and labels to sell their products. This is often through signalling that a product is healthy, environmentally friendly or socially ‘woke’. For example, through the use of an image of a dolphin or the word ‘organic’. Marketers and behaviour scientists are keenly aware of the signal effects of such marks and labels. Investigate whether and how the law reflects these insights. For example, examine the signals from the packaging of real-life product and their legal compliance.

New Zealand protects innovation through various laws, such as patent law and copyright law. But, are these western laws suitable for protecting mātauranga Māori? Examine the diversity of Māori interests and concerns, how existing laws might be used by or against Māori, and some possible legal changes required for the Crown to fulfil its Treaty of Waitangi obligations. For example, undertake a case study of a Māori business.

Today’s visitors are looking for products and services that are individualised, authentic, interactive, and unique. Many are less attracted to cookie cutter travel—they want experiences that represent them and their values, that are unique, and that have an impact. Research on value co-creation (the creation of value through active participation and interaction) can help you understand how visitors engage with not only their experiences but also host communities and other social actors, identifying potential to design services that are personalised and unforgettable while providing benefits to destinations.

Contact: Dr Ina Reichenberger

Nearly 20 years after the release of the first Lord of the Rings movie, film-related tourism offerings in New Zealand are still going strong. For a while, Dubrovnik was at risk of losing its World Heritage status due to Games of Thrones fans invading the city by thousands per day. And the Wizarding World of Harry Potter has even expanded to Japan, not losing its global appeal since the first book was released in 1997. Research on popular culture and tourism will allow you to understand the increasing importance of popular culture for contemporary society, its relevance for and impact on the tourism industry, and contribute to a worldwide phenomenon that spans music, books, movies, tv series, comics, cosplay, and more.

Many of the best-known theories that appear in management textbooks bear little resemblance to what those theorists actually came up with. For example, Maslow did not create that pyramid that represents his hierarchy of needs theory, Kurt Lewin's foundational three-step change management model 'unfreeze–change–refreeze' was developed by others after his death and Irving Janis was not the first to develop the concept of 'groupthink'. How did these myths come about and why do they endure? How might we teach foundational theories of management differently? Join me and let's bust another management theory myth.

Contact: Associate Professor Todd Bridgman

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Research and development in new zealand.

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Research and development (R&D) is considered by our government to be a key driver in our country’s growth. So who funds it, how much do they spend and what are the key areas being funded?

In 2014, New Zealand's thriving bio economy was ranked eighth in the world, and bioscience made up 18% of total R&D expenditure. Find out more about biotech in New Zealand .

Who funds research and development in New Zealand?

Funding for R&D in New Zealand comes from the government, private businesses, universities and overseas sources. In the 2014 financial year, funding for research and development from all of these sources was NZ$2.6 billion.

Show me the money!

This sounds like a lot of money, but how does New Zealand’s spending compare with other countries?

The New Zealand Government funds 27% of research, which is a similar proportion when compared with most of our major trading partners and other small advanced countries. When it comes to business investment in R&D, things are different. New Zealand businesses invested just over 5% of GDP in 2014, compared to 18% by the other countries. The good news is that New Zealand business expenditure rose by $53 million from 2012, and half of all businesses expected to increase their R&D activity in 2015.

Research strengths in New Zealand

New Zealand has a wide variety of research strengths. Currently, the top four areas receiving funding are:

• manufacturing – including food processing and wood and paper products
• primary industries – including the dairy, arable , and horticultural industries
• information and communication services
• health – including medical research, drug design and development, and diagnostics.

Who’s doing all this work?

Most of New Zealand’s R&D is done by 30,000 full-time researchers, postgraduate students, technicians and support staff. That’s 1 out of every 150 people you meet. Find out more in our Working in STEM topic.

Useful links

Find out more about the biotech sector in New Zealand by going to the BIOTECHNZ website.

See the biotechnology information on the Careers.govt.nz website.

Read Statistics New Zealand's 2021 Research and Development Survey .

See our newsletters here .

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• Algorithms at MBIE: Transparency and accountability for our algorithm use
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• Te whakatau i te āhua o tā mātou kōpaki tūāhanga rangahau | Characterising our research infrastructure portfolio
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New Zealand Research Information System

The New Zealand Research Information System will be a national, online hub of information about the research, science and innovation sector.

In this section

The New Zealand Research Information System (NZRIS) will hold information about research funding and activity in New Zealand, such as what projects are under way, how they are being funded, what resources are being used, who the experts are in particular fields and more.

This page is for organisations that fund and undertake research and want to join NZRIS as a data provider once it is up and running.

The development, implementation and operation of NZRIS is underpinned by a commitment to collaboration, co-governance and co-design with the research, science and innovation sector.

Here you’ll find links to a range of resources including technical documents, reference documents and early material that we have produced about NZRIS. We’ve put them together on one page to help make them easier to find.

Subscribe to the New Zealand Research Information System (NZRIS) newsletter for updates about the programme.

NZRIS is being developed by a programme team based at MBIE. Find out more about the background to NZRIS and how we’ve got to where we are today.

A database of extreme weather research is coming soon. This will help you identify what research is happening and who is doing it to support greater connection and cooperation.

In response to COVID-19, New Zealand’s research, science and innovation sector is undertaking research activity.

• Aotearoa New Zealand’s COVID-19 Research Response Report – August 2022
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New Zealand Journal of Health and Safety Practice

About the Journal

The New Zealand Journal of Health and Safety Practice (NZJHSP) is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal for the publication of research into, and the practice of, workplace and occupational health and safety in New Zealand and other countries.

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The new zealand journal of health and safety practice.

The New Zealand Journal of Health and Safety Practice is delighted to announce its first edition will be published on 2 April 2024. We are making a call for submissions.

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Articles on New Zealand stories

Displaying 1 - 20 of 1724 articles.

Marine protected areas safeguard more than ecology – they bring economic benefits to fisheries and tourism

Mark John Costello , Nord University

Critics of NZ joining AUKUS need to answer a crucial question: what exactly is an independent foreign policy?

Nicholas Khoo , University of Otago

Art depicts Jesus in a loincloth on the cross – the brutal truth is he would have been naked

David Tombs , University of Otago

After seven decades of fighting, disabled people are still vulnerable when it comes to support

Hilary Stace , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Accessibility remains an afterthought – how NZ’s digital health tools risk excluding people with disabilities

Sally Britnell , Auckland University of Technology

How climate change could affect the microbes that ferment grapes and give wine its specific flavours

Stephen On , Lincoln University, New Zealand and Manpreet K Dhami , Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research

From Die Nibelungen to Dune: epic fantasy cinema has been thrilling audiences for 100 years

Alfio Leotta , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Alternative proteins are here – the next 30 years could be crucial for NZ’s meat and dairy sectors

Christopher Rosin , Lincoln University, New Zealand and Hugh Campbell , University of Otago

Theatrical, camp and truly original: glam-rock pioneer Steve Harley’s influence lives on

Alison Blair , University of Otago

NZ is in recession – so far there are few signs the government has a plan to stimulate and grow the economy

Grant Duncan , City, University of London

Treatments tailored to you: how AI will change NZ healthcare, and what we have to get right first

Arindam Basu , University of Canterbury

The demise of TVNZ’s Sunday spells the end of long-form current affairs – just when we need it most

Sarah Baker , Auckland University of Technology

We need faster, better ways to monitor NZ’s declining river health – using environmental DNA can help

Michael Bunce , University of Otago and Simon Jarman , Curtin University

NZ’s summer insects are packing up for autumn – here’s how our gardens can help them through the cold months

Janice Lord , University of Otago and Connal McLean , Te Papa Tongarewa

The government wants to fast-track approvals of large infrastructure projects – that’s bad news for NZ’s biodiversity

Tim Curran , Lincoln University, New Zealand and Jo Monks , University of Otago

Victims need to be protected – regardless of whether they are testifying in family court or criminal court

Carrie Leonetti , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Something felt ‘off’ – how AI messed with our human research, and what we learned

Alexandra Gibson , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Alex Beattie , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

‘An exceptionally queasy atmosphere’: the unsettling new Aussie horror You’ll Never Find Me

Erin Harrington , University of Canterbury

Lost in translation: the geopolitical risks of declining foreign language learning in Australia and NZ

Geoffrey Miller , University of Otago and Miriam Neigert , University of New England

NZ’s new disclosure scheme for pharma payments to doctors falls short of best practice

David Menkes , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

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Health and safety in the workplace

Health and safety in the workplace has attracted public attention to an extent never before seen in New Zealand. In the wake of the Pike River disaster of 2010 a new agency to deal with occupational health and safety has been introduced. New legislation has also been drafted to replace the Health and Safety in Employment (HSE) Act 1992. These changes will alter the environment considerably.

Trends in fatalities and injuries

Current reforms

Pike River precipitated a range of reforms. The government accepted the basic thrust of the royal commission and the taskforce and has introduced new legislation. A high hazards unit, covering the mining (and extractives) and the petroleum industries, was established in 2011. The Government announced increased funding of $37 million over four years in the 2012 Budget. In response to the taskforce, in 2013 the Government announced a ‘Working Safer’ package with the goal to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by 25% by 2020 and with a focus on high-risk areas. Meanwhile, public attention has focused on forestry, with a spate of fatalities in the last year or so. An Independent Forestry Safety Review Panel is to recommend ways of improving safety in the industry.

The Health and Safety Reform Bill is currently before a select committee, due to report back in September 2014. The legislation will replace the HSE Act, in response to the recommendations of the royal commission and taskforce. It is intended –to be divided, with parts one to five becoming the Health and Safety at Work Bill. The purpose of the legislation is to reduce the fatality and serious injury rates in line with the target of 25% through a strengthened regulatory environment with regulations, codes of practice, enforcement, and worker participation.

The bill is based on the Australian Model Work Health and Safety Act. It shifts the emphasis from the management of hazards through taking “all practicable steps” towards eliminating and managing risk. Under a broadened definition of responsibility, “persons conducting a business or undertaking” (PCBUs) must ensure the health and safety of workers employed, together with others in related activities. PCBUs will have a “performance-based” duty to eliminate risk “so far as is reasonably practicable” or—if this is not possible—to minimise risk “so far as is reasonably practicable”. The bill also strengthens enforcement provisions and provides for enhanced worker participation in health and safety. Although some people sought the inclusion of an offence of “corporate manslaughter”, this is not currently included in the bill.

Strengthened legislation, increased funding, more inspectors and greater worker participation will certainly mean that there will be increased vigilance over workplace safety.

Dr John E Martin, Research Services Analyst

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New Research Reveals Full Diversity of Killer Whales as Two Species Come into View on Pacific Coast

March 27, 2024

Long viewed as one worldwide species, killer whale diversity now merits more. Southern Resident Connections - Post 35

Scientists have resolved one of the outstanding questions about one of the world’s most recognizable creatures, identifying two well-known killer whales in the North Pacific Ocean as separate species.

Killer whales are one of the most widespread animals on Earth. They have long been considered one worldwide species known scientifically as Orcinus orca , with different forms in various regions known as “ecotypes.”

However, biologists have increasingly recognized the differences between resident and Bigg’s killer whales. Resident killer whales maintain tight-knit family pods and prey on salmon and other marine fish. Bigg’s killer whales roam in smaller groups, preying on other marine mammals such as seals and whales. (Killer whales actually belong to the dolphin family.) Bigg’s killer whales, sometimes called transients, are named for Canadian scientist Michael Bigg, the first to describe telltale differences between the two types.

He noted in the 1970s that the two animals did not mix with each other even when they occupied many of the same coastal waters. This is often a sign of different species.

The finding recognizes the accuracy of the listing of Southern Resident killer whales as a Distinct Population Segment warranting protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2005. At the time, NOAA described the distinct population segment as part of an unnamed subspecies of resident killer whales in the North Pacific.

Now a team of scientists from NOAA Fisheries and universities have assembled genetic, physical, and behavioral evidence. The data distinguish two of the killer whale ecotypes of the North Pacific Coast—residents and Bigg’s—as separate species.

“We started to ask this question 20 years ago, but we didn’t have much data, and we did not have the tools that we do now,” said Phil Morin, an evolutionary geneticist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new paper . “Now we have more of both, and the weight of the evidence says these are different species.”

Genetic data from previous studies revealed that the two species likely diverged more than 300,000 years ago and come from opposite ends of the killer whale family tree. That makes them about as genetically different as any killer whale ecotypes around the globe. Subsequent studies of genomic data confirm that they have evolved as genetically and culturally distinct groups, which occupy different niches in the same Northwest marine ecosystem.

“They’re the most different killer whales in the world, and they live right next to each other and see each other all the time,” said Barbara Taylor, a former NOAA Fisheries marine mammal biologist who was part of the science panel that assessed the status of Southern Residents. “They just do not mix.”

Recognizing New Species

The Taxonomy Committee of the Society of Marine Mammalogy will determine whether to recognize the new species in its official list of marine mammal species . The committee will likely determine whether to accept the new designations at its next annual review this summer.

The scientists proposed scientific names for the new species based on their earliest published descriptions in the 1800s. Neither will keep the ubiquitous worldwide moniker, orca . The team proposed to call resident killer whales Orcinus ater , a Latin reference to their dominant black coloring. Bigg’s killer whales would be called Orcinus rectipinnus , a combination of Latin words for erect wing, probably referring to their tall, sharp dorsal fin.

Both species names were originally published in 1869 by Edward Drinker Cope, a Pennsylvania scientist known more for unearthing dinosaurs than studying marine mammals. He was working from a manuscript that California whaling captain Charles Melville Scammon had sent to the Smithsonian Institution describing West Coast marine mammals, including the two killer whales. While Cope credited Scammon for the descriptions, Scammon took issue with Cope for editing and publishing Scammon’s work without telling him. (See accompanying story .)

The Smithsonian Institution had shared Scammon’s work with Cope, and a Smithsonian official later apologized to Scammon for what he called “Cope’s absurd blunder.”

Species Reflect Ecosystem

The contested question of whether Southern Residents were distinct enough to merit endangered species protections initially drove much of the research that helped differentiate the two species, said Eric Archer, who leads the Marine Mammal Genetics Program at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and is a coauthor of the new research paper. The increasing processing power of computers has made it possible to examine killer whale DNA in ever finer detail. He said the findings not only validate protection for the animals themselves, but also help reveal different components of the marine ecosystems the whales depend on.

“As we better understand what makes these species special, we learn more about how they use the ecosystems they inhabit and what makes those environments special, too,” he said.

The new research synthesizes the earliest accounts of killer whales on the Pacific Coast with modern data on physical characteristics. The team also use aerial imaging (called photogrammetry ), and measurement and genetic testing of museum specimens at the Smithsonian and elsewhere. While the two species look similar to the untrained eye, the evidence demonstrates they are very different species. The two species use different ecological niches, such as specializing in different prey, said Kim Parsons, a geneticist at the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and coauthor of the new research.

Recent research with drones that collect precise aerial photos has helped differentiate Bigg’s killer whales as longer and larger. This might better equip them to go after large marine mammal prey. The smaller size of residents is likely better suited to deep dives after their salmon prey, said John Durban, an associate professor at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. His killer whale drone research is done collaboratively with Holly Fearnbach, a researcher at SR³.

The different prey of the two species may also help explain their different trajectories. Southern Residents are listed as endangered in part because of the scarcity of their salmon prey. Bigg’s killer whales, by contrast, have multiplied while feeding on plentiful marine mammals, including California sea lions.

While killer whales represent some of the most efficient predators the world has ever seen, Durban said science is still unraveling the diversity among them. The identification of additional killer whale species is likely to follow. One leading candidate may be “Type D” killer whales identified in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Other killer whales in Antarctic waters also look very different from the best-known black and white killer whales. This reflects a wider diversity within the species, said Durban, who has used drones to study killer whales around the world. “The more we learn,” he said, “the clearer it becomes to me that at least some of these types will be recognized as different species in due course.”

Southern Resident Connections

Southern Resident killer whales are icons of a vibrant but struggling marine ecosystem that is important to us all. Join us in exploring the ecological connections that tie this system together, and the ways we are protecting and working to recover the whales we all care so much about.

Read more entries

More Information

• New Research Reveals Two Species of Killer Whale
• How Scientists Chose Names for Newly Identified Killer Whale Species
• Two Species of Killer Whale Infographic
• Marine Mammal Genetics Research
• 2004 Status Review of Southern Resident Killer Whales
• Saving the Southern Resident Killer Whales
• Listing of Southern Resident Killer Whale Under the ESA
• Killer Whale Ecotypes Poster

Recent News

Lost skulls and latin: how scientists chose names for newly identified killer whale species.

Pioneering Project to Restore Bull Kelp Forests in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California

Closure of 2019–2023 Eastern North Pacific Gray Whale Unusual Mortality Event

Last updated by Southwest Fisheries Science Center on March 28, 2024

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