Localisation of the sustainable development goals in an emerging nation
- Authors: Jain, Ameeta , Courvisanos, Jerry , Subramaniam, Nava
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Public Administration and Development Vol. 41, no. 5 (2021), p. 231-243
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- Description: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed to by all member countries of the United Nations, require urgent action on the world's most pressing problems. Success requires bottom-up participation of local stakeholders. This case study of Timor-Leste—a fledgling, fossil fuel-supported economy—maps the awareness and commitment of grassroots stakeholders to the SDGs and the roadblocks to localisation. Guiding this paper is Habermas’ view of societal evolution and communicative action, which aids analysing the socio-political and structural dynamics affecting SDGs localisation in a developing nation. This study reveals stakeholder inability to articulate a clear vision for the SDGs, lack of human capital and funds, a weak public-administrative system, strong socio-political nuances, and poor governance infrastructure to support multi-stakeholder relationships. This paper provides insights for developing a more nuanced and robust public intervention to support local stakeholders that will enable knowledge, cultural and communication transformations required for successful SDGs localisation. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Differences in personality and the sharing of managerial tacit knowledge: an empirical analysis of public sector managers in Malaysia
- Authors: Abdul Manaf, Halimah , Harvey, William , Armstrong, Steven , Lawton, Alan
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Knowledge Management Vol. 24, no. 5 (2020), p. 1177-1199
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- Description: Purpose: This study aims to identify differences in knowledge-sharing mechanisms and personality among expert, typical and novice managers within the Malaysian public sector. Strengthening knowledge sharing function is essential for enabling public institutions around the world to be more productive. Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative study involves 308 employees from management and professional groups within 98 local authorities in the Malaysian local government. Stratified random sampling techniques were used and the sampling frame comprised 1,000 staff using postal surveys. Data analyses were carried out using analysis of variance and correlations to test the research hypotheses. Findings: The findings reveal that expert managers are more proactive in sharing their knowledge, particularly those with the personality traits of conscientiousness and openness. These two personality traits were also related to expert behaviours such as thoroughness, responsibility and persistence, which led to work competency and managerial success. Originality/value: This study provides theoretical insights into how managerial tacit knowledge differs and can accumulate, depending on the personality traits of middle managers. The paper shows the different mechanisms of knowledge sharing, tacit knowledge and personality among expert, typical and novice managers. Practically, this study is important for guiding senior managers in their attempts to identify the most appropriate personalities of their middle managers. This study found that the expert group was higher in conscientiousness, openness and overall personality traits compared with the typical and novice groups. The paper also highlights the value of sharing managerial tacit knowledge effectively. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Impacts of supportive HR practices and organisational climate on the attitudes of HR managers towards gender diversity – a mediated model approach
- Authors: Biswas, Kumar , Boyle, Brendan , Bhardwaj, Sneh
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Evidence-based HRM Vol. 9, no. 1 (2020), p. 18-33
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- Description: Purpose: Using the theoretical lens of the behavioural perspective on HRM, this study examined a mediated model to understand the extent to which organisational factors such as supportive human resource management policies and practices (SHRPP) and organisational climate (OC) can influence the affective attitudes of HR managers towards promoting women into organisational leadership roles. Survey data collected from 182 human resource managers in Bangladesh were analysed using partial least squares–based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and the PROCESS macro to test mediating effects. The results reveal that the adoption of SHRPP is positively associated with OC, which in turn shapes the attitudes of HR managers leading to implementing unbiased promotional practices for organisational leadership roles. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative survey data collected from 182 human resource managers in Bangladesh were analysed using PLS-SEM and PROCESS macro. Findings: The results reveal that the adoption of SHRPP is positively associated with OC which in turn shapes the attitudes of HR managers leading to implementing unbiased promotional practices for organisational leadership roles. Research limitations/implications: Self-report, cross-sectional survey data may contribute to the methodological bias such as common method bias (CMB). Harman's single-factor test revealed that no single component explained a major portion of the total variance. Furthermore, partial correlational analysis using a marker variable coupled with an assessment of social desirability indicates that common method variance is unlikely to have any CMB risks to the validity of the study results. Practical implications: From a practical point of view, the findings of this study suggest that supportive HR practices may create a positive organisational climate that leads to creating a healthy work environment ensuring an equal opportunity for everyone to grow and excel irrespective of their socio-cultural backgrounds and gender identity; thus, facilitating the organisation to take advantage of creativity and innovation offered by their talents, a critical factor for the organisation to survive and flourish in the dynamic market. Social implications: The study findings provide insights into why organisations should adopt fair and transparent HR policies to create a congenial work climate impacting on positive social attitudes towards acceptance of a gender-balanced empowered society. Originality/value: To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study that examined a mediated model to understand how organisational factors such as SHRPP and OC can impact on the affective attitudes of HR managers towards promoting women in the organisational leadership roles. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Bangladesh HR professionals’ competencies: Impact on firm performance and moderating effects of organisation life cycle
- Authors: Prikshat, Verma , Biswas, Kumar , Nankervis, Alan , Hoque, Rakibul
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Evidence-based HRM Vol. 6, no. 2 (2018), p. 203-220
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- Description: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the HR roles of Bangladesh HR professionals in the public and private firms in Bangladesh using Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS) model (2016). The impact of identified HR competencies on firm performance and moderation of this relationship concerning different stages of organisation life cycle (OLC) is also explored. Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative study uses the HRCS model (RBL, 2015) as its underpinning analytical framework, and explores the impact of identified HR competencies on firm performance and analyses whether this relationship is moderated by different OLC stages. The sample for this study consisted of 202 HR professionals from both public and private organisations in Bangladesh. Findings: Results confirmed that all the nine competencies of HRCS model were demonstrated by the HR professionals in Bangladesh. The “credible activist” competency achieved the top ranking and “paradox navigator competency” recorded the lowest. Minor variation in terms of levels of competencies was observed in the context of private and public firms. HR competencies positively impacted the firm performance and only the maturity and growth stages of a firm’s life cycle moderated this relationship. Originality/value: There is a deficit of studies which have tested this relationship in terms of the moderating effects of OLC stages in the Asian developing country context. Focusing on this paucity of research concerning the transference of western human resource management models in developing economies and their resultant impact on firm performance, this is the first study set out to explore whether the most cited western HRCS model (RBL, 2015) is useful in understanding HR competencies in Bangladesh. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Stadiums and scheduling : Measuring deadweight losses in the Victorian Football League, 1920–70
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Borrowman, Luc , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. , no. (2017), p.
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- Description: Over a 50 year period, Australian Rules football's major league, the Victorian Football League, did not always use its largest and best-equipped stadium for regular season games between its most popular teams or schedule those teams to play twice in a regular season. We calculate deadweight losses from the use of capital goods (stadiums) and effects of match scheduling in this professional sports league. Such analysis has not been attempted previously because of the absence of a counterfactual. The welfare losses were significant but not sufficient to threaten the survival of a distance-protected cartel.
Funding Australian economics research : Local benefits?
- Authors: Doraisami, Anita , Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Economic and Labour Relations Review Vol. 27, no. 4 (2016), p. 511-524
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- Description: In Australia there is a systematic ranking of academic research performance, with a major impact metric being based on publications in prestigious journals. Other countries like Britain with its Research Excellence Framework also have similar metrics. While much analysis and publicity is devoted to the rankings of the quality of research, there has been very little focus on how this ranked research has then gone on to make a public policy impact. In the case of the economics discipline, there has been little exploration of the relationship between publication in a high-ranked journal and contribution to an analysis of Australia's most pressing economic issues. This article investigates the extent to which articles in the Diamond list of journals from 2001 to 2010 addressed Australian economic issues. Our results indicate that articles on current policy issues accounted for a very modest fraction of total Diamond list journal articles. One possible explanation for this finding, which is investigated further, is the correlation between an economics department's Excellence in Research Australia ranking and the number of staff who obtained their doctorates from an overseas university. Such a correlation has implications for the status afforded to economics research with a specific national focus. © University of New South Wales.
John Maynard Keynes and the Keynes of the Commonwealth, Douglas Copland
- Authors: Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 55, no. 1 (2015), p. 1-19
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- Description: When Douglas Copland of the University of Melbourne was about to go abroad in 1933, a leading Australian businessman, Herbert Gepp, hailed him as the 'Keynes of the Commonwealth'. Gepp was referring to Copland's contributions to Australian economic policy, not that of the British Commonwealth, but there were similarities between Copland and John Maynard Keynes. In full flight, Copland impressed his compatriots with his prodigious work ethic, networking skills, persuasive powers with policy-makers, and practice of popularising economics in order to effect stabilisation policy. For a short time, there were two Keynes, one at the centre, the other at the periphery. © 2015 Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
Microfoundations and Marxism
- Authors: King, John E.
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Economic and Labour Relations Review Vol. 26, no. 4 (2015), p. 652-659
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- Description: The 'microfoundations' metaphor had been used by mainstream macroeconomists with the intention of explaining macroeconomics in terms of microeconomics, or more precisely in terms of statements about individuals, viewed as representative agents with rational expectations who maximise lifetime utility, subject to shocks within a general equilibrium framework. Of the three reasons for rejecting this explanatory strategy, the focus here is on downward causation. Although individuals are heavily influenced by society, their decisions and behaviour are not sufficient as the explanatory foundations for a macrotheory. © The Author(s) 2015.
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
Blended learning: Issues, benefits and challenges
- Authors: O'Connor, Christine , Mortimer, Dennis , Bond, Sue
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Employment Studies Vol. 19, no. 2 (2011), p. 63-83
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- Description: This paper discusses the use of 'blended' learning where the use of traditional lectures and tutorials is supplemented, and often replaced to some extent, by new approaches to learning such as computer and on-line simulations, and other interactive on-line packages designed to cover more basic aspects of the curriculum (or provide remedial support) in the students' own time. It reviews some of the reasons for the introduction of blended learning and addresses the potential benefits and some of the potential issues that need to be considered when using innovative teaching strategies in a blended learning setting. The authors draw from examples of their experiences with blended learning. It is argued that new approaches to teaching such as student centred and blended learning offer considerable possibilities to enhance the student experience, but only if proper attention is paid to integrating the 'new' and 'old' aspects of the teaching program, as well as to the development of appropriate administrative systems and support.
- Description: 2003009301
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
Tripartite consultation: an emergent form of governance shaping employment relations in China
- Authors: Shao, Sijun , Nyland, Christopher , Zhu, Jiuhua
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Industrial Relations Journal Vol. 42, no. 4 (2011), p. 358-374
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- Description: This article examines China's approach to industrial consultation by examining six tripartite bodies at the national, provincial and county levels. It argues that the institutionalisation of tripartitism is consistent with China's overall approach to market reform being characterised by experimentalism, gradualism, dynamism and a gradual softening of party domination. Despite limitations, it is accepted that China is building a transition tripartite system that is bolstering the autonomy and representational capacity of the social partners.
Integrating the historiography of the nineteenth-century gold rushes
- Authors: Reeves, Keir , Frost, Lionel , Fahey, Charles
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 50, no. 2 (2010), p. 111-128
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- Description: In the century preceding World War I, the world experienced a series of gold rushes. The wealth derived from these was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself was generally unprofitable for diggers and mine owners, the increase in the world's gold supply stimulated global trade and investment. In this introductory article we integrate the histories of migration, trade, colonisation, and environmental history to identify endogenous factors that increased the world's gold supply and generated sustained economic growth in the regions that were affected by gold rushes.
Sojourners or a new diaspora? Economic implications of the movement of Chinese miners to the south-west Pacific goldfields
- Authors: Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 50, no. 2 (2010), p. 178-192
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- Description: Chinese gold seekers were the largest non-British group on the goldfields of Australasia and constituted the largest nationality on some diggings. In considering the movement of Chinese miners to and throughout the goldfields colonies of the southwest Pacific, this articles argues there existed a more complex pattern of migration than that suggested by the sojourner model of arrival, brief stay and departure. It examines the links between migration patterns and economic activity, and argues that economic history perspectives complement the insights offered by recent social and cultural history in the field.
Managing cultural diversity and perceived organizational support: evidence from Australia
- Authors: Leveson, Lynne , Joiner, Therese , Bakalis, Steve
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Manpower Vol. 30, no. 4 (2009), p. 377-392
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- Description: Purpose – The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of their organization's management of cultural diversity, their perceived organizational support and affective commitment. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to a sample of employees working in a large Australian financial institution. Findings – Analysis of the data shows that, when controlling for perceived organizational support, there is no direct relationship between cultural diversity management perceptions and affective commitment. Rather, the data support an indirect relationship between the two variables via perceived organizational support. Research limitations/implications – Implications are, first, that managers need to recognize the potential contribution of developing a positive workplace atmosphere for cultural diversity to strengthen employee perceived organizational support, which in turn enhances affective commitment. Second, the research findings underscore the importance of perceived organizational support in linking cultural diversity management perceptions to organizational outcomes, such as affective commitment. Third, managers should not underestimate the influence of initiatives, such as making all employees feel included in the “taken‐for‐granted” informal networks in engendering positive organizational and individual attitudes. Originality/value – The paper examines cultural diversity management from the employees' (rather than a management) perspective to develop a fully mediated model using organizational support to link cultural diversity management perceptions to commitment. The study reinforces the need to rethink simple relationships between cultural diversity management perceptions and organizational/individual outcomes, to consider more complex models that include important mediating variables to more fully understand the effects of cultural diversity management.
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