bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Diversity Management Approach to Equal Employment Opportunity in Australian Organisations
Authors: Burgess John , French Erica , Strachan Glenda 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis article assesses the ‘Managing Diversity’ (MD) approach in Australia, examining its drivers, discussing its relationship to legislation designed to promote equity, and examining it as a set of management practices. It has been plausibly argued, on efficiency grounds, that responsibility for achieving equality objectives must be shifted to organisations as this links contextual conditions to organisational processes. However, even where there is some prescription and guidance such as that provided by Australian Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation targeted specifically to women employees, both practice and outcomes are variable. This is even more the case with MD where there are no guiding principles or legislative support. The article examines the best practice EEO and MD programs of Australian organisations to demonstrate the approaches and programs that are being developed at the workplace and to highlight the limitations of the ‘business case’ approach underlying such programs.
Psychologising the Subject: HRM, Commodification, and the Objectification of Labour
Authors: Shields John , Grant David 
Published: March 2013

AbstractEconomists have rightly observed that labour commodification is one of the defining characteristics of the market capitalist mode. In this contribution, however, we contend that while a traditional macroeconomic perspective goes some way towards explaining the nature of the employment relationship, it fails to acknowledge that commodification is a necessary but not sufficient condition for labour utilisation. Viewed through the lens of organisation theory, the main employer agenda regarding labour utilisation is that of ‘human resource’ objectification, rather than market commodification. We seek to demonstrate this by examining how, under contemporary ‘human resource management’ (HRM), labour management theory and practice have developed into a sophisticated project designed to psychologise the employee subject into a resource object. In line with objectification, it is a project through which management seek to render human capabilities, attitudes and emotions — the basis of the worker's status as a social and organisational subject — classifiable, measurable and, hence, more manipulable.
Managing Diverse Commodities? From Factory Fodder to Business Asset
Authors: Taksa Lucy , Groutsis Dimitria 
Published: March 2013

AbstractFrom its foundation in 1919, the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guiding principle has been that labour is not a commodity. Following an examination of the origins and impact of this principle on ILO and United Nations (UN) conventions relating to migrant workers, the paper examines how Australia has responded to such conventions. In this regard, the paper highlights the counterveiling influence of the neoclassical economic perspective on the way migrant workers in Australia have been treated and represented from the post-war period until recent times as either ‘factory fodder’ and/or ‘business assets'. Both representations, we argue, treat migrants as commodities. To challenge this approach the paper identifies how migrant workers have distinguished themselves from commodities through resistance to poor working conditions and also management strategies that treat them as if they were commodities.
Innovation and Vocational Education
Authors: Toner Phillip 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis article reviews the arguments and evidence on the role and contribution of the vocationally trained workforce and vocational training system in technical innovation. The primary focus in terms of the vocational workforce is on skilled production workers and, in particular, tradespersons and technicians. These occupations and the vocational training system are found to have a unique role and make a significant contribution to innovation in both production and Research and Development (R&D). The primary role of the VET system in innovation is technology diffusion. However, there are a number of impediments to achieving this role. These are sustained budget cuts and exclusion of the VET system from national innovation policy, programmes and advisory structures. The latter is attributed largely to the failure of the innovation studies discipline, which has strongly influenced government policy in this field, to study in detail the role of VET occupations and training system in the innovation process. This conclusion is paradoxical as the discipline’s own analysis of innovation makes a compelling case that these occupations and training system should be central agents in this process.
Modern Awards and Skill Development Through Apprenticeships and Traineeships
Authors: Oliver Damian 
Published: March 2013

AbstractVocational education and training (VET) and industrial relations systems are inherently linked. The Federal Government aims to increase the number of workers with VET qualifications but it is unclear how this policy is being supported through the industrial relations framework, in particular by the new system of modern awards. Research into training outcomes has shown that job-related factors are linked to completion rates among apprentices and trainees. An analysis of a cross-section of relevant modern awards reveals that award modernisation has had a small negative impact on the wage arrangements for apprenticeships. Modern awards continue to provide no recognition for some categories of workers who have undertaken VET qualifications through traineeships.
Mainstream Macroeconomics: A ‘Keynesian’ Revival?
Authors: Hart Neil 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis paper examines the nature of the ‘convergence of vision’ that is said to have existed within mainstream macroeconomics prior to the ‘global economic recession’, and which has been the subject of strong criticism in recent times from Nobel Laureates such as Krugman, Akerlof and Solow. The nature of a proposed ‘Keynesian revival’ is also examined, and it is concluded that while the required changes in theoretical content and methodological perspective are substantial, the most significant obstacle to be overcome is to be found in what Keynes had referred to as the ‘metaphysical principles’ upon which laissez faire has been founded.
Supply Chain Security: Agency Theory and Port Drayage Drivers
Authors: Belzer Michael H. , Swan Peter F. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractSupply chain security presents numerous challenges to governments interested in defending against terrorist threats. While most approaches stress technological solutions, scholars and policy-makers tend to overlook economics, labour market issues, and industrial relations. Applying agency theory from behavioural economics, this article analyses threats to the US supply chain and opportunities for efficient solutions. Using data from a sophisticated web-based survey of owner-operator cost-of-operations, it shows that drayage drivers are among the lowest paid truck drivers and workers in the US. We provide evidence that low pay is associated with both safety and security risk. Low-wage labour and subcontracting present challenges to US and foreign supply-chain security because the market attracts workers who have few other employment options. In this environment, principals and agents currently make inefficient and inequitable contracts because markets do not reflect the complete costs associated with low-probability/high-impact events like cargo theft and transport security.
Enforcing Labour Standards in Fissured Workplaces: The US Experience
Authors: Weil David 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe employment relationship in a growing number of industries with large concentrations of low wage workers has become ‘fissured’, where the lead firms that collectively determine the product market conditions in which wages and conditions are set have become separated from the actual employment of the workers who provide goods or services. Instead, the direct employers of low wage workers operate in far more competitive markets that create conditions for non-compliance. We examine this evolution in employment and its implications for public policy in the US, discuss the factors driving fissured employment and sketch its main features and outcomes. We then look at the traditional methods used for labour standards enforcement in the US and discuss why they are poorly suited to address fissured workplaces. Finally, we survey how public policies might better address the realities of the modern workplace, including efforts in this regard by the Obama administration.
Is it Possible to Decouple Foreign Workers’ Wages from the Minimum Wage in Taiwan?
Authors: Hwang Jen-Te , Wang Chieh-Hsuan , Chung Chien-Ping 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe impact of minimum wage legislation has been widely discussed and is a major concern among labour economists. This article investigates, from economic, legal, international political, trade, and social perspectives, the possibility of decoupling foreign workers’ wages from the minimum wage in Taiwan. The results show that foreign workers’ wages cannot possibly be decoupled from the minimum wage, and foreign workers should not be treated as a separate group of workers in Taiwan’s minimum wage policy.
Rationales for Additional Climate Policy Instruments under a Carbon Price
Authors: Twomey Paul 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe plan to introduce a carbon pricing scheme in Australia has focused attention on the future relevance and necessity of using other policy instruments to reduce carbon emissions. Significant reports, including the Wilkins Review and reports by the Productivity Commission, have argued using the standard neoclassical economics framework that once a carbon price is established, it should be (almost) the only instrument needed to tackle climate change mitigation in Australia. With a small number of exceptions for complementary instruments to address some market failures, the use of other climate policy instruments, it is argued, will result only in unnecessary duplication and potential distortions. The aim of this article is to show that there are, in fact, a significant number of rationales for implementing several climate policy instruments in combination with a carbon price, and we should not be too quick to dismiss certain climate policy instrument combinations.
Valuing Pollution: Problems of Price in the Commodification of Nature
Authors: Paton Joy , Bryant Gareth 
Published: March 2013

AbstractIn recent years, ‘environmental economics’ has provided the dominant logic underpinning policies for ‘sustainable development’ in the form of government managed price-based and rights-based mechanisms. The advocacy of property rights in environmental management is taken further in the libertarian ‘free market’ approach and this ‘privatisation’ perspective is reflected in the growing use of property rights instruments in climate change policy. This article examines the efficacy of using economic instruments in the environmental context where ‘market ecology’ promotes the commodification of environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ and their management by market forces. It argues that the pricing of ‘nature’ or its useful properties is a crude abstraction that implies ecological values can be alienated, but this is incompatible with the material and relational qualities of such values. The limits of this conceptualisation are further demonstrated through an examination of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a price and property rights instrument which enables private project developers in developing countries to produce carbon credits in order to offset greenhouse gas pollution in developed countries. The evident negative social and environmental effects flowing from implementation of the CDM reinforce the limitations of economic logic in the environmental context.
Organisational Support and Employee Commitment in Sri Lanka
Authors: O’Donnell Michael , Jayawardana Ananda K. L. , Jayakody J. A. S. K. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis study explores employees’ perceptions of organisational support, commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions in Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT). Organisational support involves the provision of valued financial benefits along with employees’ perceptions of support from supervisors and co-workers, and procedural fairness in decision-making. We found strong evidence that high levels of organisational support lead to employee reciprocity via increased affective commitment and job satisfaction and reduced turnover intentions. We also found evidence, albeit weaker, of a positive relationship between economic exchange and continuance commitment, where employees may be dissatisfied but stay because they have too much invested in firm specific knowledge and skills. The firm provided above average compensation and benefits and with limited alternative job opportunities in the formal economy in Sri Lanka the costs of leaving the organisation are likely to have outweighed the costs of staying.
Player Salaries and Revenues in the Australian Football League 2001–2009: Theory and Evidence
Authors: Booth Ross , Brooks Robert , Diamond Neil 
Published: March 2013

AbstractIn this article we consider the Australian Football League Players’ Association (AFLPA) initial fixed percentage of revenue pay request for the 2012–2016 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Australian Football League (AFL) in the context of theoretical predictions of models of player salaries in both settings of profit-maximising and win-maximising clubs. We then explore the AFL data from 2001–2009 and show that the declining share of player salaries as a proportion of revenue is consistent with the predictions from these theoretical models. This poses the question of what the league and the clubs do with the additional revenue if they are not paying it to the players. We explore alternative talent investments (better coaching, improved facilities) as a club strategy and the changing spending on game development as a league strategy.
Uncertainty of Outcome and Attendance in College Football: Evidence from Four Conferences
Authors: Paul Rodney , Humphreys Brad R. , Weinbach Andrew 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe relationship between the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), where fans prefer games that are expected to be closely contested, and attendance is investigated in four non-AQ football conferences. The teams in these smaller conferences play games against each other and against bigger, more prominent schools in the elite AQ conferences. Using the betting market point spread as a proxy for uncertainty of outcome, two key points concerning the UOH emerge: college football fans in these conferences prefer less uncertainty of outcome both when their team is a home favorite and when their team is a home underdog.
Executive Remuneration Developments in Australia: Responses and Reactions
Authors: Kovačević Savo 
Published: March 2013

AbstractRewards for Australian executives continue to stir debate. A recent Australian government response to pay concerns was to call on the Productivity Commission (PC) to investigate the oversight, accountability and transparency of remuneration practices. At least two PC-related outcomes were controversial: the ‘two strikes’ and ‘clawback’ proposals. This article considers the reactions of two key stakeholders, namely the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Business Council of Australia. The views of these two organisations reflect an ongoing evaluation of rules- and principles-based governance structures. Asserting the need to consider alternate analytical models when studying executive pay, the present article concludes with several questions about the intent(s) driving remuneration reforms and their possible consequences.
Double Entry Book Keeping: A Conversation
Authors: Gleeson-White Jane , Harcourt Geoff 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe following is an edited version of a conversation between Jane Gleeson-White and Geoff Harcourt about Jane’s book, Double Entry. This conversation was part of UNSWriting and presented at Io Myers Studio by the Creative Practice and Research Unit in the School of the Arts and Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW. UNSWriting brings together writers, academics, and students of writing to facilitate the flow of ideas in and around the city, the country and internationally. The conversation was broadcast by the ABC as part of their Big Ideas program. Emeritus Geoffrey Harcourt is Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Australian School of Business, UNSW, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Cambridge University, Emeritus Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, and a leading post-Keynesian scholar.
The ‘Pre-Invention’ of Precarious Employment: The Changing World of Work in Context
Authors: Quinlan Michael 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe term ‘precarious employment’ is widely used to describe irregular and insecure work arrangements that have grown substantially in both rich and poor countries since the late 1970s. Like the term ‘contingent work’, precarious employment has been adopted and increasingly used by academic researchers and later policymakers since the 1980s. However, the term has deeper historical roots and its recent use can be more accurately seen as a revival as labour markets have taken on some features characteristic of an earlier period. This article examines the use of the term ‘precarious employment’ in political and public debate in the century or more prior to the 1930s, finding that in key respects, this use mirrors contemporary debates. Recognising that precarious employment was a pervasive feature of labour markets in developed countries prior to World War Two has a number of major benefits for contemporary debates. These include a better understanding of the policies that shape the extent of precarious employment. Historical evidence also provides a guide for and reinforcement of a growing body of contemporary research, pointing to both the immediate and broader social effects of precarious employment.
Industry Policy under Economic Liberalism: Policy Development in the Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Task Force
Authors: Hampson Ian 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe sudden decline in Australian manufacturing associated with the current resources boom necessitates a renewed examination of the foundations of industry policy. Since the reforms of the 1980s, industry policy has been characterised by an economic liberal approach, the purity of which has been compromised by political pragmatism — particularly evident in the continued support for the auto industry. This article examines the issues raised by industry policy, and the history of industry policy in Australia, as a context for a review of a Report recently released by the Non-Governmental Members of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Manufacturing. This review finds useful proposals within the document, as well as a strong statement of the need for interventionist policy, albeit buried in the main text and an appendix. That this discussion is not front and centre in the Report’s presentation indicates ongoing sensitivity about the main choice in industry policy — whether the government should selectively intervene, or leave the organisation of industry to the market.
Central bank independence: A social economic and democratic critique
Authors: Pixley Jocelyn , Whimster Sam , Wilson Shaun 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe advent of quantitative easing by the world’s major central banks invites renewed questions about the meaning and role of central bank independence in an age of economic crisis. This article draws together insights from economic sociology, history and democratic theory to engage in further discussion about the proper role of central banks in democratic society. We stress some related themes. Our brief history of central banks aims to show how these banks have always been embedded in economic and political coalitions and conflicts, therefore qualifying the term independence; our study also aims to show that in satisficing between conflicting tasks, central banks need to maintain a balance between cognitive competences and normative expectations. Independence is better understood as a form of dependence on the coalition of interests that supported the financial climate prevailing before the global crisis of 2008, one of low wage-price inflation, high borrowing and debt, and loss of prudential control. We argue that independence amounts to a form of re-privatisation of central banks, and that they are increasingly suborned to the pressures of financial markets. At the same time, asset price inflation has sacrificed growth and employment and therefore prolongs the crisis. The economic measures now demanded by the financial crisis prompt new doubts about the independent central bank experiment, potentially in favour of the ex ante model of governmental oversight of central banks.
Labor Flexibility and Employment Law: The New Order
Authors: Brookes Brian 
Published: March 2013

AbstractIn the past decade there has been a retreat from full employment and a fundamental change in the labour market away from physical production work and towards the service sector. There have been changes in the structure of industry and the workforce, and changes in arrangements under which work is performed. There is emerging a secondary or marginal labour market in which both full-time and casual, temporary and part-time workers are confronted with a situation where they are required to decide whether or not to enter work arrangements geared to the flexible organisational needs of the business enterprise rather than their own needs. Tensions between employer demands for flexibility, and for a largely unregulated use of the workforce, and employee concern to ensure job security and minimal protection in employment (including health and safety) means that employment law today has to respond to organizational relationships in determining whether or not to intervene between the parties to new work arrangements. The question is whether or not the principles of traditional employment law are flexible enough to become the legal framework of a technological society.
Industrial Relations Strategies in the Air Pilots' Dispute 1989
Authors: McDonald Jim 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis paper examines the defeat of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) in the 1989 pilots’ dispute in terms of strategic inertia. In challenging the Government, the Commission, the ACTU and the airlines over the wage fixation guidelines the AFAP failed to take full account of the current industrial relations context. A successful attempt by the Federation to achieve increases outside the indexation buidelines in 1977–78 ever one of the significant examples of AFAP strength in past campaigns which may have led the Federation leadership to emulate previous strategies. The AFAP thus limited consideration of tactical options in 1989. Its reaction to legal action initiated by the airlines was to organise the mass resignation of members, weakening its bargaining position. Both US air traffic controllers in their 1984 dispute and the AFAP maintained inflexible courses, ignoring every opportunity to retreat and regoup in the face of major defeats. In contrast, Qantas pilots and Australian Air Traffic Controllers gained significant salary increases within the guidelines. Having lost exclusive coverage of pilots, the Federation’s future may now be dependent on closer links with the trade union movement and amalgamation.