"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
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- 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.
Australasian university management, gender and life course issues
- Authors: Neale, Jenny , White, Kate
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Vol. 33, no. 4 (2014), p. 384-395
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- Description: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues arising for women and men in senior management in New Zealand and Australian universities where life course and career trajectories intersect, and analyses how the stereotypical masculinist culture of universities can create additional problems for women. Design/methodology/approach - The data presented here comes from 47 interviews undertaken with women (27) and men (20) senior managers - a total of 26 interviews from New Zealand universities and 21 from Australian universities. "Senior Management" was defined in this study as those academic managers with university wide responsibilities, who were currently in senior management positions. Findings - Life-course issues for women aspiring to senior management roles in universities are framed around hegemonic constructions of masculinity; notions of academic careers subsuming personal life in professional roles; and structural constraints making rational choice impossible for many women. Furthermore, the excessive hours worked in such roles equate with the definition of extreme jobs. The paper concludes that the way in which women and men in senior HE endeavour to balance work and family life differs but creates issues for them both. Research limitations/implications - The structure and operation of Australian and New Zealand universities make gender diversity and management difficult to operationalise, given the competing imperatives of work and other life course trajectories. It is crucial to reframe life course and career intersections are conceptualised to ensure that diversity can be maximised. Originality/value - This paper focuses on women and men in senior management positions in New Zealand and Australian universities, but the findings can be generalised to other countries with HE systems based on the British University model. In discussing how institutional culture affects the intersection of career and life course trajectories, this paper highlights the detrimental outcomes for individuals and the resultant lack of diversity in the sector. Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
Innovation economics and the role of the innovative entrepreneur in economic theory
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry , Mackenzie, Stuart
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics and Management Vol. 2, no. 14 (2014), p. 41-61
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- Description: Innovation has become a widely used, but ill-defined, everyday term in the 21st century. Firms are urged to be innovative to gain or sustain a ‘competitive edge’; consultants advertise their strategic advice as the essence of innovation; the survival of local organisations depends on the capacity building that comes from innovation; schools are exalted to have innovation in their curriculum; and universities promote themselves as leaders in innovation. Likewise, the term entrepreneur, used to describe the human agency behind innovation, is equally ill-defined in everyday use. Entrepreneurs’ value to society varies widely from positive to negative depending on the emphasis of journalists, academics, businesspersons, unionists, right-wing think tanks and left-wing activists. Such imprecise definition is, however, undesirable in academic discourse and the focus of this paper is the shifting role of the innovative entrepreneur in economic theory and some of the reasons for this dynamic. In this paper, innovation economics is defined as a body of economic theory that contends a priori that economic development is the result of appropriated knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship operating within an institutional environment of systems of innovation. This distinguishes innovation economics from other branches of economics, including mainstream neoclassical theory, which views capital accumulation as the primary driver of economic development, chiefly in the form of economic growth. In the innovation economics paradigm, the socio-economic world functions as an open and complex system, exhibiting tendencies to adaptation. This isin contrast to neoclassical economics that regards the economy as a closed system exhibiting tendencies to mechanical equilibrium. A history of economic thought perspective is adopted in this paper to first trace out the rise of the innovative entrepreneur in early theories of political economy, to in effect create a nascent innovation economics. Then, the disappearance of innovation economics is facilitated by the infanticide of the innovative entrepreneur at the hands of neoclassical theory. In the first half of the 20th century, the history of economic thought marked the resurrection of the entrepreneur as an innovating agent by Joseph Schumpeter and then the nurturing of this agent in economic theory by Micha
Environment, innovation and sustainable development: Introduction to an interdisciplinary approach
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics Vol. 2, no. 8 (2011), p. 3-10
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- Description: The disappointing outcome from the United Nations Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in December 2009 affected many social researchers who had hoped that the world leaders would shine a guiding light towards a sustainable development paradigm shift in society. A guiding light that would provide a clear pathway for all the world’s citizens to an environmentally safe and equitable “Spaceship Earth” (Boulding, 1966). Much discussion arose after this failed summit about the need for ‘bottom-up’ adaptation and resilience as the alternative. Valuable as such an approach is to address the environmental concerns, its incremental change and modest institutional reforms limit the extent of sustainable development. Paradigm shift requires creative destruction of the type Joseph Schumpeter advocated when in times of crisis. Innovation lies at the heart of such a radical approach. Based on the need to raise the profile of this innovation approach to sustainable development, the Research Network on Innovation – the sponsor of this journal – decided to organise the next biennial Spirit of Innovation conference around the theme ‘Environment, Innovation and Sustainable Development’. Thus was that on the 7th and 8th October 2010, the “Spirit of Innovation IV” Forum was held at the Euromed Management School in Marseille.
- Description: 2003009224
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
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- 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
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting : A study of selected banking companies in Bangladesh
- Authors: Khan, Md Habib-Uz-Zaman , Halabi, Abdel , Samy, Martin
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Social Responsibility Journal Vol. 5, no. 3 (2009), p. 344-357
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- Description: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by banks in the developing economy of Bangladesh. This paper also aims to examine the users' perceptions relating to CSR disclosures issues. Design/methodology/approach – The study collected two types of data. First the annual reports of 20 selected banking companies, which are listed in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), were considered. A questionnaire was also used to investigate the level of users' understanding and their perception of CSR reporting. Findings – The principal findings are twofold: first, the study shows that the selected banking companies did some (albeit little) CSR reporting on a voluntary basis. Second, that the user groups are in favor of CSR reporting, and would like to see more disclosure. The current disclosures by the selected banks, however, are not ample at all to measure the social responsiveness of the organizations. Originality/value – The paper provides useful informaiton on users' perceptions relating to CSR disclosures issues.
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
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- Description: 2003007338