Yvette Blount
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Formal Name: Yvette Blount Personal Title: Dr Position: Lecturer / Deputy Undergraduate Program Director Organisational Unit: Department of Accounting and Finance Qualifications: BBus (MIS) CSU, MBA (Professional Accounting) UNE, PhD Deakin Telephone: (+61-2) 9850-8514 Fax: (+61-2) 9850-8497 Email: yblount@efs.mq.edu.au Location: E4A 341 |
Profile
Dr Yvette Blount joined Macquarie University in 2005. Prior to her academic career, Yvette worked in senior and consulting roles in the banking and IT industries. Yvette’s research focuses on the employee management implications of B2C electronic commerce in service industries. This combination of research and industry experience provides a strong basis for teaching the real world contexts of information systems.
Teaching
As I have studied for many years as a mature age student, undertaking a Bachelors Degree, an MBA and a PhD while working full time, I have empathy for students that have complex lives and need the support services to facilitate that learning. People learn in different ways and come from all sorts of backgrounds and it is important not to make too many assumptions about what they do and do not know. Adults also learn in many different ways and have different learning styles so this also needs to be taken into consideration when reflecting on teaching.
Some comments from students about my teaching:
- “I have been to both TAFE and university and it is always hard to find someone who is a good presenter and a good teacher. Yvette does both amazingly well. She is possibly the best teacher I have had throughout my tertiary studies. I wish I had her for every subject!”
- “Great teacher. It is good she changed careers to become a lecturer. A real asset for Macquarie University.”
- “One of the best lecturers at Uni.”
I am a member of the Learning and Teaching Research Group in Business and Economics with a particular interest in how technology is perceived by both students and teachers in developing the necessary graduate competencies employers require.
I have also researched the use of iLecture and how accounting students use and perceive this technology.
I believe that there has to be a very strong link between scholarship and research, industry and teaching to provide an effective learning environment for our students to be able to contribute to our global society.
Community Outreach
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – professional member
- Association for Information Systems (AIS) – member
I am a member of the Zonta Club of the Northern Beaches ( Zonta International is a worldwide service organization of executives in business and the professions working together to advance the status of women). Zonta (amongst many other projects) awards a number of study grants each year to women studying at a tertiary level and experiencing financial and other hardship. Awards are made to a broad spectrum of women studying in areas ranging from nursing to accountancy. We often partner with other local support organisations to ensure that women are supported in all areas - not just financial.
Research
My research interests are specifically related to the impact of electronic commerce and what this means for human resource management practices and policies in the services sector, in particular, the retail banking industry. My thesis explored the employee management implications of Business to Consumer (B2C) electronic commerce with particular focus on service organisations. The purpose of the research was to understand how organisations manage customer service employees where customers’ interactions with the organisation are mediated through a range of technologies including the internet. It also sought to understand how their approaches to employee management in this customer service environment are linked to their business strategies and to the broad trends in the Information Economy.I am a member of the Globalisation of Knowledge and Service Industries research group (Business and Economics Strategic Support for Strength 2008). This research is focused on obtaining detailed microdata at the firm and subsidiary level on export sales and performance measures of service firms and on the offshoring and insourcing of production in Australian organisations.
Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
Refereed Journal Articles - Blount, Y., T. Castleman, Coulthard, D. (2005). "E-Commerce, Human Resource Strategies and Competitive Advantage: Two Australian Case Studies." International Journal of Electronic Commerce 9(3): pp73-89.
Refereed Conference Papers
- McElroy, J., Blount, Y (2006). "You, Me and iLecture." Proceedings of the 23rd ASCILITE (Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education) Conference , December 3-6 2006
- Blount, Y., Castleman, T., Coulthard, D., (2005) eCommerce in Service Industries: Extending the Socio-Technical Paradigm, Proceedings of the ACIS Conference, Manly, Sydney. November 30 to December 2. 2005
- Blount, Y., Castleman, T., Swatman, P.M.C (2004). Approaches to Managing Employees in the B2C Banking Environment: Two Australian Case Studies. Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Information Systems, June 14-16. 2004 Turku Finland.
- Blount, Y., T. Castleman, P.M.C Swatman (2003). Linking eCommerce and Human Resource Strategies: a case study in a large Australian Retail Bank. Proceedings of the 16th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference ETransformation, Bled, Slovenia, June 9 - 11, 2003.
- Blount, Y., Castleman, T., Swatman, P.M.C (2002). eCommerce and Human Resource Management: Theoretical Approaches and Issues for the Banking Industry. IFIP Working Group 8.4 Second Conference on E-Business: Multidisciplinary Research and Practice, Copenhagen, June 9-11, 2002.
- Blount, Y., Castleman, T., Swatman, P.M.C (2002). Implementation of electronic commerce and human resource management strategies in an Australian Retail Banking context. Proceedings of the Seventh CollECTeR Conference on Electronic Commerce, Melbourne, VIC, Faculty of Informatics, University of Wollongong. December 2, 2002.