"Regardless of age" : Australian university managers' attitudes and practices towards older academics
- Authors: Earl, Catherine , Taylor, Philip , Cannizzo, Fabian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Work, Aging and Retirement Vol. 4, no. 3 (2018), p. 300-313
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: As with other industrialized nations Australia's population is aging and older workers are encouraged to work for longer. At the same time, Australia's university sector, which is aging, is being reconfigured through changes that potentially marginalize its older workers as higher education institutions try to become more competitive in a global market. In this context, youthfulness appears to embody competitiveness and academic institutions are increasingly aspiring to a young workforce profile. This qualitative article builds on previous research to explore to what extent ageist assumptions shape attitudes to older workers and human resource management (HRM) practices within Australian universities even when HRM practitioners are well versed in antidiscrimination legislation that (unlike the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in the United States) applies to workers of all ages. Semistructured interviews conducted with 22 HRM practitioners in Australian universities reveal that university HRM practices generally overlook the value of retaining an older workforce by conflating "potential" with "youthfulness," assuming that staff potential and performance share a negative correlation with age. While mostly lower-ranked institutions have attempted to retain older academics to maintain an adequate labor supply, this study finds that university policies targeting the ongoing utilization of older workers generally are underdeveloped. Consequently, the availability of late career employment arrangements is dependent upon institutions' strategic goals, with favorable ad hoc solutions offered to academics with outstanding performance records, while a rhetoric of performance decline threatens to marginalize older academic researchers and teachers more generally.
Towards a model of eco-sustainable agricultural production in a regulated river basin
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry , Richardson, Colin
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics Vol. 2, no. 8 (2011), p. 59-87
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: A clear path to the new eco-sustainable techno-economic paradigm is mapped out in Courvisanos (2009a) using a framework for innovation and investment developed from the seminal work of Adolph Lowe and Michal Kalecki. This theoretical framework is based around three elements that are crucial to achieving this eco-sustainable paradigm: (i) cumulative effective demand for eco-sustainable products, services and processes, (ii) ecological rules for capital investment to ensure resource saving and long-term carrying capacity, and (iii) iterative flexible public and private planning and monitoring processes to allow ecologically sustainable innovation to be supported by infrastructure, R&D and learning and development systems. This path was specifically applied in Courvisanos (2009a) to regional (non-metropolitan) Australia, an area of food and fibre production that is fragile because of drought, fire and massive storms due to ecological degradation and greenhouse warming. The heartland of regional Australia is the nation’s food bowl, the Murray-Darling River Basin (MDRB), which is under great stress due to salination and drought. There also is great rainfall variability with huge floods due to climate change, as became evident in 2010. A path for resolution of the concerns of specific regional and corporate interests along the whole Murray-Darling river system has not yet emerged. What is required is an eco-sustainable framework that addresses these issues in a holistic manner.
- Description: 200300879
Regional innovation for sustainable development : An Australian perspective
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics Vol. 1, no. 3 (2009), p. 119-143
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: 2003007338