Dr Lisa Tam
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Advertising, Marketing & PR
Biography
I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor in the US system) in Advertising and Public Relations at the QUT Business School.Research
My research explores the dynamics of power and influence between organizations and publics, and the roles of communication practitioners in facilitating interactions between the two.
I am a mixed-methods researcher. I have used both qualitative and quantitative methods, including:
- Content analysis to examine how organizations and issues are presented in the news media
- Interviews with practitioners to explore how they design and manage communication activities
- Surveys to examine publics' cognitions, attitudes and behavioral intentions
- Experiments to examine messaging effects
- Scale development methods to develop constructs to measure relational dynamics in communicative interactions
- Statistical methods to analyze industry datasets.
Research Contexts: My research has been applied to multiple research contexts including corporate social responsibility, employee communication, health communication, government relations, hospitality and tourism, international relations, issues and crisis communication and public diplomacy.
Industry Collaboration: I have published on a variety of industry practices including the use of social media for environmental scanning and the use of paid, earned, shared and owned (PESO) media for media planning.
International Collaboration: I have co-authored with over 30 colleagues from different disciplines and institutions around the world, including students and industry collaborators.
Research Funding: I have also been involved in research teams which have generated industry and consultancy research funding, including five externally funded projects and 11 internally funded projects.
Recognitions: My work has received numerous recognitions, the most recent of which are Top Cited Article Award from Wiley, Top Faculty Paper Award from the ICA Public Relations Division and Page Legacy Scholar grants.
Preprints of my publications are available on ResearchGate.
Teaching
Since 2010, I have taught 17 units at four universities in Hong Kong, USA and Australia.
I apply the "relationship management" paradigm to my teaching practice. I engage with a variety of stakeholders (i.e., academic colleagues, learning designers, industry experts and students) in the development of my teaching content and assessments.
To ensure that my teaching content and assessments are up-to-date, I have completed a number of industry certifications and frequently involve industry experts as guest speakers and industry advisors.
Engagement
I currently serve in the following service roles:
- Chair, Engagement Committee, QUT School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
- Academic Integrity Officer, QUT Faculty of Business and Law
- Secretary, International Communication Association (ICA) Public Relations Division
- Associate Editor, Journal of Public Diplomacy
- Editorial Board Member, Journal of Marketing Communications (Scimago-Q1)
I welcome proposals from prospective students for the Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programs. As an academic advisor, I relate to higher-degree-by-research (HDR) students as "colleagues." I encourage them to not see HDR completion as the ultimate goal but to plan their teaching, research and engagement activities based on their lifelong career goals (e.g., securing an academic position, developing a specialty for an industry position, etc.). I believe that HDR training is like collecting tools for a toolbox (i.e., learning and applying different theories and methodologies to different contexts contexts) for a student to be competitive enough to pursue his/her career goals.
Personal details
Positions
- Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Advertising, Marketing & PR
Keywords
integrated marketing communication, public relations, construct development and measurement
Research field
Marketing
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (Purdue University)
- MPhil (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
- MStratPR (University of Sydney)
- BA (University of Sydney)
Teaching
Since 2010, I have taught and/or coordinated the following units:
QUT Business School, Australia
(2017-present)
- AMB163 Introduction to Public Relations
- AMB330 Digital Optimisation
- AMB374 Global Public Relations Cases
- AMN465 Public Relations Management (postgraduate)
La Trobe University, Australia (2015-17)
- STC1WSC Writing for Strategic Communication
- STC1CAM Campaigns: Strategy, Analysis, and Design
- STC2CTA Communication Theory and Analysis
- STC5SOC Strategic Communication in Society (postgraduate)
- STC5RES Strategic Communication Research (postgraduate)
- STC5THP Strategic Communication Thesis (postgraduate)
Purdue University, USA (2012-15)
- COM114 Fundamentals of Speech Communication
- COM114e Fundamentals of Speech Communication (for engineering students)
- COM314 Advanced Presentational Speaking
- COM325 Interviewing: Principles and Practices
- COM325 Interviewing: Principles and Practices ("Summer in Siena" study abroad program)
Chinese University of Hong Kong (2010-12)
- COMM2910 News Analysis
- COMM4140 International Communication
Publications
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Lisa, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Supervision
Looking for a postgraduate research supervisor?
I am currently accepting research students for Honours, Masters and PhD study.
You can browse existing student topics offered by QUT or propose your own topic.