Description:
Students’ conceptions of learning or preconceived views of what learning means to students have been found to play a significant role in how they choose to approach their learning. This study investigates conceptions of learning held by accounting students in their second- and third-years in university. The study is based on phenomenographic and content-analytic approaches applied to survey responses of 207 accounting students from an Australian university. In the first phase of the analysis we identify 6 learning conceptions. Learning is conceived as: (1) increase of knowledge; (2) understanding; (3) knowledge acquisition for application; (4) a pathway to success; (5) seeing in new ways; and (6) self-development. Compared to similar studies we did not find evidence of the conception ‘learning as memorisation’. In contrast to prior research ‘learning as understanding’ emerged as a lower- order conception of learning in accounting students in this study. In the second phase we find that, after controlling for a range of factors that are likely to affect students’ conceptions of learning third-year students are more likely to adopt a higher-order conception. However, majority of the students, including third year students, continue to adopt low-order conceptions. These findings highlight the need to extend student learning beyond the acquisition of technical skills and knowledge to instil higher-order learning conceptions which underpin the development of generic skills much demanded of professional accountants. As a result, the findings of this study have implications for curriculum and assessment design, and learning and teaching practice in accounting degree programs.
Description:
This study examines the impact of prior learning experience on students' approaches to learning (SAL). It compares SAL of accounting students admitted to university in Australia on the basis of Institutes of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) qualifications (TAFE-to-university) and through direct entry mode (Year 12-to-university). The motivation for the study lies in the need to understand potential learning differences to inform learning interventions for optimal learning outcomes for all students—regardless of entry mode. The findings suggest that prior TAFE learning experience impacts SAL in university. However, the findings question the stereotypical view of the TAFE learning context as fostering surface approaches to learning, as higher scores on deep and achieving approaches were recorded by TAFE-to-university students. The level of adoption of a surface approach was found to be less among students undertaking predominantly third-year units regardless of entry mode. This study's findings have important implications for designing curricula and assessment for accounting units to cater for all students from different educational pathways, for university teachers to adopt an inclusive approach, and for higher education access policy.
Description:
In this paper we examine predictors of job satisfaction within the call centre industry. Using a qualitative methodology, we investigate the nature and extent of job satisfaction of customer service representatives in two large Australian call centres. The findings from the study confirm that monitoring, personal privacy and flexibility correlate to workers' wellbeing and job satisfaction.
Description:
The purpose of this paper is to investigate predictors of workers’ job satisfaction from the labour process and equity theoretical perspectives. The study employed a qualitative approach and draws on data from in depth focus groups of customer service representatives (CSR). The sample for this study was drawn from three Australian call centres operating in a variety of business sectors. The study highlights that three dimensions: monitoring, flexibility and work environment are significantly correlated to CSR job satisfaction. Developing an understanding of these dimensions is critical to understanding CSR job satisfaction perceptions in an industry which exhibits high labour turnover and absenteeism. This study provides new insights on how to manage effectively job satisfaction within call centre environments through the incorporation of more multi-dimensional aspects that are considered to be strong determinants of CSR job satisfaction. The study contributes to the literature by investigating a more multi-dimensional approach to studying job satisfaction in call centre environments. The intensive case study approach highlights the implications for HRM.
Description:
The purpose of this paper is to investigate predictors of workers’ job satisfaction from the labour process and equity theoretical perspectives. The study employed a qualitative approach and draws on data from in depth focus groups of customer service representatives (CSR). The sample for this study was drawn from three Australian call centres operating in a variety of business sectors. The study highlights that three dimensions: monitoring, flexibility and work environment are significantly correlated to CSR job satisfaction. Developing an understanding of these dimensions is critical to understanding CSR job satisfaction perceptions in an industry which exhibits high labour turnover and absenteeism. This study provides new insights on how to manage effectively job satisfaction within call centre environments through the incorporation of more multi-dimensional aspects that are considered to be strong determinants of CSR job satisfaction. The study contributes to the literature by investigating a more multi-dimensional approach to studying job satisfaction in call centre environments. The intensive case study approach highlights the implications for HRM.
Description:
During the early days in the public service, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were in the form of charts and graphs. This was to be my first experience with performance measurement and, although the use of performance indicators was confined to more senior management and did not affect me personally at the time, they were to be at the vanguard of a culture change that would eventually permeate the entire organization and the public sector in general. Experience with performance measure was, to me, the first evidence of aculture of continuous improvement and hinted at what I viewed as an attempt at a marked departure from the bureaucratic past.
Description:
This chapter synthesizes the argument discussed in previous chapters into a holistic account of the context wherein many public sector organizations in this country have moved toward a private sector model of operation. It addresses the concept of institutional isomorphism within the context of institutional theory and describes how many organizations struggle to relinquish the rsisk-averse behaviours and cultures that impede their adoption of mandated private sector practices. "From conclusion"
Description:
Public sector organizations have existed for thousands of years and have long been equated with bureaucracy. Andreski (1984, p.104) cites the Chinese and Roman empires as classic examples of bureaucracy, describing them as "administrative machines," while Gaebler (1996) states that bureaucratic structure originated with the Roman army around 2,500 years ago. This gave rise to the concept of a bureaucracy based on traditional military ideals and "good administration" (Hood 1991) and paved the way for the modernist concept of the bureaucracy. Traditional organizations depended on bureaucratic structures to ensure that work was completed efficiently by removing error and idosyncrasy and reinforcing conformity and obedience. Bureau-cratic, or mechanized, structures rely upon centralized decision-making, formalized rules, and highly specialized tasks (Taylor 1911, 1913 and Weber 1947, cited in Sadler 1999)
Description:
This chapter begins by describing the purpose, aim and scope of the book. It describes the historical context of the public sector culture, the change resulting from the introduction of the philosophies of New Public Mangaement (NPM) and managerialism, and the effects that these changes have had on public sector employees, particularly those employed in the sector prior to the introduction of NPM. The book analyzes institutional theory and examines the effects that attempting to conform to the mandated NPM philosophy while retaining traditional bureaucratic methodologies has had on those affected organizations and their staff members.
Description:
A dramatic transformation has taken place in the public sector worldwide as many governments have privatised many of their organisations and agencies. As a result, public sector employees worldwide have been exposed to contradictory pressures as their senior executive managers demand adherence to the traditional bureaucratic mechanisms for which they have always been known while concurrently attempting to conform to the economic reductionist principles of their private sector competitors. We argue that this has led to many staff, as well as the organisations in which they work, experiencing situations of double bind. Through the lens of autoethnography, this paper examines the double bind with which I, as an Australian public sector worker, am faced and some of the effects.
Description:
The previous chapter charted the exposition of my journey from hope to despair during my long career in the public sector. I articulated the pressure placed on men resulting from the organizational injunction of expecting me to conform to two contradictory paradigms- those of traditional bureaucracy with its attendant emphasis on process and procedure and NPM with its customer-centric and efficiency focus. The public sector workplace of today is very different from the one of several decades ago. While some change must be expected within any environment I have found that the changes to which I have been exposed as a result of the government's NPM policy represent a considerable departure from the conditions of old.
Description:
Public sector organisations worldwide have been subject to transformation as governments have placed them on a commercial footing, positioning many of them in the private sector. Intended by-products have included increased efficiency and value-adding as well as opportunities for revenue. Some organisations are reluctant to relinquish their bureaucratic practices. The pressure to operate using two mutually exclusive paradigms has made it difficult for staff as the paradigms are often contradictory. Organisations attempting to conform to opposing paradigms often fail to conform to any isomorphist model. This has implications for institutional theory. Most research into this topic has focused on public sector executives or quantitatively examined lower level staff. This paper studies lower level public servants from a personal viewpoint utilising autoethnography, providing insight into the circumstances resulting from Australian governments’ implementation of new public management. Derived from anthropology and ethnography autoethnography provides insights drawn from personal experience to illustrate and extend extant theory.
Description:
Stress has been defined as a relationship between a person and the environment in which the factors within that environment exceed the person's abilities, thus putting his or her health or well-being at risk (Lazarus & Folkman 1984). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) emphasize the interplay between the person and his personal charcteristices and events occuring within the environment, recognizing the degree to which an event or events are described as stressful depend on the person's cognition of those events and how he evaluates them relative to his abilities to cope with the situation. Stress occurs when competing demands leads to overload (Lazarus & Folkman 1984)
Description:
Public sector oganizations and cultural change uses a long-term perspective on privatization to explore trends in culture change within the public sector.
Description:
Governments worldwide have pursued privatisation and corporatisation agendas as a way to divest themselves of the financial responsibilities and administrative burdens that managing public sector organisations entail. Due to these organisations’ perceptions of the requirement to maintain their traditional risk averse behaviours in the management of the public funds involved, many government organisations require their employees to observe the traditional bureaucratic methodologies with which their administrations have always been run. The intent is to maintain legislative accountability and public transparency. As a result many organisations maintain their tall and rigid hierarchical structures. In the face of this many public sector workers at this level adopt the risk averse culture they perceive their employing organisations possess, leading them to virtually abdicate their responsibilities for ownership of their job outcomes through the perception that the responsibility that comes with greater authority higher in the organisation will cover them. This breeds a culture of learned helplessness.
Description:
Whistle blowing on organisational wrongdoing is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, a renewal of existing literature reveals that every potential whistle blower is not always inclined to blow the whistle, despite protection being accorded to whistleblowers through legislation. The cost of blowing the whistle can be a deterrent to potential whistle blowers. It is quite plausible that an organisational culture which institutionalizes a dominant value based system can decrease whistle blowers expectations of retaliation. The purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for a dominant value enacted organisational culture which can serve as an impetus for whistle blowing in the public sector. It is important that organisations make their value systems "lived" practices to motivate potential whistleblowers to report on wrongdoing. It can be argued that the institutionalisation of enacted values can lead to low perceptions of retaliation, which is often a deterrent in blowing the whistle.
Description:
This purpose of this article is to explore impediments to effective whistleblowing as a strategy for promoting anti-corruption practices within the South African public sector. Corruption, which violates the public service code of conduct; deters foreign investment, increases the cost of public service delivery, undermines the fight against poverty and unnecessarily burdens the criminal justice system. The article addresses the question on whether legislation on whistleblowing is adequate to encourage whistleblowing in the public sector.A review of literature determines that the effective implementation of whistleblowing legislation is largely dependent on addressing the challenges identified in the article. The quantitaive research method was employed in the study to ascertain the views of employees in the public sector on whistleblowing. Empirical findings confirm the hypothesis that the protection of whistleblowers through legislation is inadequate to encourage whistleblowing. The article provides a conceptual framework for the effective achievement of the intended outcomes of whistleblowing in the public sector.