AGSM 2009 - What matters most to Australians

Professor Timothy Devinney from the Australian School of Business™ along with Pat Auger (Melbourne Business School) and Jordan Louviere (UTS) recently devised an innovative survey method for analysing issues that matter most to Australians.

“In February 2007, nearly 1,800 Australians over the age of 16 were studied using a unique method that allowed us to examine the relative importance of issues to ordinary individuals,” said Professor Devinney. “These people represent quite a broad cross section of the society.”

"Our research provides an overview of the general ordering that Australians give issues such as public safety, worker rights, animal welfare and global security," said Professor Timothy Devinney.

Illustration: Gregory Baldwin

“Our research provides an overview of the general ordering that Australians give issues such as public safety, worker rights, animal welfare and global security. The approach we use is unique in being based on how individuals make realistic ‘trade-offs’ rather than vague responses to statements found in traditional surveys and polls. The surveyed population was required to prioritise both groups of issues and individual issues in a way that allows us to estimate the likelihood that a specific issue will be eliminated from consideration when it is placed in competition with other issues.”

“Local crime and public safety ranked first in the list of issues that were deemed important,” said Professor Devinney, “followed closely by the rights to basic services, such as health care. Also ranked highly were environmental sustainability (3rd), food and health issues (4th), and workplace rights (5th).”

People consider certain issues important but don’t have well enough formed preferences to know why.

According to Professor Devinney, “What was most interesting about the importance of environmental sustainability was that although people considered the category to be a priority, people’s preferences amongst the items that make up the category—such as climate change, deforestation or biodegradability—appeared ill-defined. This implies that people consider the issue important but don’t have well enough formed preferences to know why.”

Within the areas of workplace rights—which ranked 5th amongst 16 categories—workplace safety dominated the category with the more emotive issues such as the ‘right to join a union’ and ‘the right to strike’ ranked next to last and last of the category’s nine labour issues.

A surprising finding was the low ranking attributed to local societal issues (14th out of the 16 categories). Although people considered quality schooling a high priority, the issue of public transport ranked below concerns about social isolation and income inequality. This is quite surprising given the debate in NSW around public transportation, where the results were ranked no differently than people from Victoria or Queensland.

Professor Timothy Devinney recently devised an innovative survey method for analysing issues that matter most to Australians.

Photo: Professor Timothy Devinney

The issues that resonated least with the Australian populace were commercial/business rights (16th), minority rights (15th), global and local societal well-being (13th and 14th) and animal welfare (12th).

“What this survey allows us to achieve is a realistic and stable assessment of individual preferences. It does so without relying on large samples to adjust for the inaccuracies of ordinary survey techniques,” he said.

What this survey allows us to achieve is a realistic and stable assessment of individual preferences.

“It also appears that our approach provides for a more accurate assessment of individual differences. For example, this study included not just assessments of an individual’s political orientation, but their religious beliefs, social activities and other behavioural characteristics that provide us with a very illuminating picture of both the population as a whole and groups within that population.”