One of the educational principles and graduate attributes: Recognise, understand and respond to potential ethical issues confronting accountants as covered in various cases discussed in class.
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The University of Western Australia
All Participating Schools
The University of Western Australia
Crawley
Perth, WA, 6009
Australia
UWA Business School
Crawley
Perth, WA, 6009
Australia
Demographic Information
Number of full-time MBA students (2011):
20
Number of part-time MBA students (2011):
80
Total duration of full-time MBA program:
16 months
MBA faculty (Fall 2010):
127
Females as percent of student body:
47%
Private Sector (81%)
Non-profit (10%)
Government (9%)
Description of MBA Program:
At the UWA Business School, we believe that business leaders have an obligation to manage social, ethical and environmental issues. That’s why our MBA course was the first in Australia to introduce a mandatory ethics unit in 2009: Ethical Dimensions of Organisations, Management and Leadership.
This is supported by a range of other MBA units with embedded ethical, social and environmental components, including Accounting, International Management, and Economics for Climate Change. From 2011, MBA students will also be able to enroll in the four units that make up the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact: Entrepreneurs and Social Innovation, Leadership for Social Impact, Social Investment and Philanthropy, and Corporate Responsibility and Accountability.
Many of our students also take advantage of volunteer opportunities in the area of ethical business practice. UWA’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team uses business skills for a range of social activities, including assisting family businesses, helping high school students to understand financial literacy, and assisting rural indigenous communities.
Meanwhile, regular seminars, public lectures, conferences, forums, and debates provide students with an opportunity to hear from and interact with prominent business leaders. High profile guest lecturers such as the Premier of Western Australia, the Honourable Colin Barnett, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, ensure that theory is tied to contemporary events in the political and business landscapes. In 2010, students were challenged to consider the proper role of government in free enterprise, and the extent to which the banking sector should be regulated, amongst other social and ethical issues.
On a more interactive level, recent panels and debates have addressed issues such as the role of women in leadership, the impact of the free market model and the global financial crisis on society, and the role of microfinance in ending world hunger. Each event has included opportunities for audience questions and networking, making issues of ethics and responsibility accessible and relevant.
Theory alone does not prepare responsible business leaders. We recognise this, and our MBA students are given the opportunity to put theory into practice through curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities. For example, MBA students enrolled in the 2010 International Study Programme conducted a study tour of India. Over 14 days, the students visited IT and high tech businesses and manufacturing firms, in addition to meeting with business and government leaders. The unit exposed the students to the extremes of economic growth and severe poverty, encouraging the students to gain a greater understanding of the impact of culture on business and themselves as leaders.
Throughout the Business School, our courses, volunteer opportunities, and community engagement activities ensure that our MBA students don’t just learn about responsibility. They practice it.
How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?:
The UWA Business School maintains an awareness of social, ethical and environmental impacts in all of its teaching, research and community outreach activities.
People are at the heart of the Business School, and as such we maintain an equity and diversity policy. In recent years, this has seen large numbers of female students and international students enrolling in the Faculty. We value this diversity among our students - it allows for a variety of perspectives, encourages cultural competence, and plays a role in empowering – through learning - groups who have traditionally been marginalised within society.
In the School’s most common activities – teaching and research – there are various practices in place to ensure ethical behaviour. All students are treated equally, anti-discrimination policies apply, and there are numerous policies on ethical academic standards, including in relation to plagiarism. Meanwhile, all human research proposals must be assessed as ethically acceptable and compliant with the requirements of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research.
The School’s commitment to social sustainability is evidenced in the Centre for Social Impact, which is based at the Business School. The Centre’s work focuses on teaching, research and policy development that uses entrepreneurship and other business practices to create positive social capital and address disadvantage within the community. From 2011, the Centre will, through the Business School, offer a Graduate Certificate in Social Impact.
All of these sustainable practices come together in the new $50 million UWA Business School building, which was officially opened in May 2009. The building is not only environmentally sustainable, but also utilises an open-plan structure to maximise collaborative learning opportunities.
The building epitomises sustainable building standards and is aiming for a four-star green rating from the Green Building Council Australia. Elements of sustainable design include chilled beam air conditioning and solar blades over the windows. Further, the building’s architectural design elements incorporate colours that represent the key economic regions of Western Australia – the Goldfields, Pilbara, Wheatbelt, and Kimberly. The building provides leading edge facilities with flexible learning spaces, fostering an environment that encourages high levels of interaction, working and learning.
In its activities, the School is governed by an overarching, university-wide code of ethics and code of conduct that applies to all staff and students. The code encompasses the principles of: equity and justice; respect for people; and personal and professional responsibility. The full policy can be found at <http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au/publications/code_of_ethics>.
In addition, UWA has put in place various procedures to ensure that the code of ethics is upheld. Staff and students can seek assistance with matters relating to the code of conduct from the Equity and Diversity Adviser Scheme, Employee Relations and Management Services, Equity and Diversity, Complaints Resolution, or the UWA Student Guild.
The many sustainable practices that have been implemented across the campus will ensure that the UWA Business School can continue to improve on its social, ethical and environmental outcomes well into the future.
Course Name: Accounting
Instructor: Prof Phil Hancock, Asst/Prof Lydia Kilcullen, Ms Deborah Gilchrist
Course Name: Advanced Topics in Management: Corporate Governance
Instructor: Prof David Yermack
One of the educational principles and graduate attributes: Recognise potential ethical and social issues related to corporate governance.
Instructor: Asst/Prof Stacie Chappell, Dr Mark Edwards
Course Name: International Management
Instructor: Prof Roger Smith, Mr Sathya Ganganahalli, Prof Bob Armstrong
Topic 5: Social responsibility, law and ethics (Chapter 8-9)
Course Name: Leadership for Social Impact
Instructor: Prof Paul Flatau
Provides students with an introduction to the challenges and opportunities of leading organisations and social programs with the purpose of improving social outcomes. This unit examines current challenges in achieving social benefit, leadership in the social economy, leadership focused on identifying adaptive challenges, new forms of organising and collective intelligence, and new governance systems and demands. (New unit from 2011)
Instructor: Assoc/Prof Paul Crompton, Adj/Prof Paul Hardisty
Full unit
Instructor: Prof. Paul Flatau, Mr Jeremy Nichols
Provides an overview and introduction to evaluation and social impact assessment, the underpinning principles of evaluation and social impact assessment and examines some of the key social impact measurement approaches increasingly used by business, government and leading third sector organisations in Australia and internationally, including Logic Models such as LogFrame; Social Return on Investment (SROI); and Social Accounting and Audit (SAA). (2011 Trimester 2 unit)
Course Name: Social Impact: Entrepreneurs and Social Innovation
Instructor: Asst/Prof Jo Sneddon, Assoc/Prof Cheryl Kernot
New unit from 2011
Course Name: Social Investment and Philanthropy
Instructor: Ms Kylie Charlton, Ms Elena Douglas
This unit introduces the history, core concepts and current issues in the fields of philanthropy, fundraising and social investment undertaken by government and business. It examines the major changes re-shaping philanthropy and social investment internationally and in the Australian context: global economic realignments, the privatisation of community services; new patterns of wealth distribution and of inter-generational wealth transfer; greater expectations of the role of corporate citizenship and of corporate philanthropy. (New unit from 2011)
Type: Forum
Date: August, 2010
Speakers:
Michael Malone, CEO of iinet;
John Knowles, CEO of Good Samaritan Industries;
Dushan Jeyabalan, Opportunity International;
Stephen Langsford, CEO of Quickflix;
Toni Stampalija, The Hunger Project;
Lee Hunter, YouTube
More Australians than ever volunteer and the online world offers new and varied ways to donate one’s time and expertise.
A panel of high-profile leaders from not-for-profit organisations (and one for-profit organisation) shared their tales and the passion that drives them to volunteer.
Date: December, 2010
Speaker: Hugh Mackay, psychologist, social researcher and novelist
At the breakfast author Hugh Mackay examined whether Australians can be seen as ‘good givers’.
He discussed our motivations, moral frameworks and expectations for giving, and questioned whether these attitudes and practices are changing amongst different generations of Australians.
Hugh Mackay is a psychologist, social researcher and novelist who has made a lifelong study of the attitudes and behaviour of Australians. He is the author of twelve books, including five bestsellers. The second edition of Advance Australia…Where? was published in 2008, and his fifth novel, Ways of Escape, came out last year. His latest non-fiction book, What Makes Us Tick? will be published in October. He is a fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and, in recognition of his pioneering work in social research, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by Charles Sturt, Macquarie, NSW and Western Sydney Universities. In 2004, he received the University of Sydney’s alumni award for community service.
Hugh is a former deputy chairman of the Australia Council, a former chairman of trustees of Sydney Grammar School, and was the inaugural chairman of the ACT Government’s Community Inclusion Board. He was a weekly newspaper columnist for over 25 years and now writes occasionally for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a frequent guest on ABC radio.
Type: Public Lecture
Date: August, 2009
Speaker: Alcoa visiting Prof Jean-Claude Usunier, University of Lausanne
Consumers make stereotypical associations between products and countries based on their perception of a country’s know-how and reputation. For instance, people associate Switzerland with watches and vodka with Russia. Such associations when shared globally reflect product ethnicity, a concept which has explored in this public lecture. Research was undertaken in several countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, Mexico, Tunisia, the UK, and the United States) to measure product ethnicity based on associations consumers make based on either country or product as initial stimulus.
In an increasingly global world, country-of-origin is progressively blurred as products are designed, manufactured and branded in more than one place, and as several countries are simultaneously recognised as legitimate homes to particular products. Consumer product familiarity, product involvement, and country familiarity emerge as key factors in determining the strength of product-country associations.
Consumers often tend to associate goods more closely with their own country (a phenomenon called ethnocentric association tendencies). Consumers from individualist, developed countries tend to associate products more strongly with their own country than do consumers from collectivist, developing countries. Professor Usunier also showed that consumers are more willing to buy product offerings which are congruent rather than non-congruent with product ethnicity.
Date: July, 2010
Speaker: Prof Peter Hartley, Rice University
"Many authors have argued that the optimal size of R&D in the energy industry is 5 to 10 times the current level Some have proposed spending up to 30 times the current $5B/year In the early 80s energy companies were investing more in R&D than drug companies, but by 2005 the opposite was true Energy sector investments have recently gained the attention of many governments, but also of the US venture capital industry. The interest of the former has been motivated in part by a claim that new energy investments can be the new IT boom""
Research issues:
Prof Hartley wants to investigate the claim that technological progress in renewable energy can be the next engine of growth"" Is government intervention in energy investment to promote renewable energy warranted, and if so what form should it take? How should we evaluate the effects of taxes/subsidies in this industry where intertemporal considerations loom large?"
Type: Public Lecture
Date: August, 2009
Speaker: Saul Eslake, Director or Productivity Growth, Grattan Institute
Saul Eslake has held the position of Chief Economist in the firms McIntosh Securities, National Mutual Funds Management and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ). Saul recently joined Grattan Institute as Director of Productivity Growth Research Program. In this public lecture, Saul Eslake discussed some of the key aspects of the global financial crisis and the main policy responses to the crisis from an international and Australian perspective. In addition, the presentation covered some of the challenges that Australia will face in the aftermath of the crisis.
Date: March, 2010
Speaker: Richard Weller, Winthrop Professor, The University of Western Australia, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts
Throughout his career Professor Richard Weller has worked selectively on significant and often large scale urban projects around the world. He is renowned for combining teaching, research and practice as a Professor of Landscape Architecture at The University of Western Australia.
This breakfast Professor Weller discussed some of the urban consequences of Australia’s mid-century growth projections at a national level and then related this to Western Australia. He demonstrated a simple method for engaging both decision makers and the wider public in regional planning issues by explaining his recent research into modelling development scenarios for the future of Perth.
Date: March, 2010
Invited speaker: Prof Michael Shields, Melbourne University
A large body of empirical research suggests a link between mental health and labour force participation; however, there are few studies that effectively control for the two-way causality between work and health. In this study, Prof. Michael Shields estimated the effect of mental health on labour force participation by using the death of a close friend as an identifying variable. Estimates from 2SLS and IV-FE models suggested that a reduction in mental health has large negative impacts. These results were close to the cross-sectional relationship but differed a lot from a simple Fixed Effects relation (which is much smaller), strongly suggesting that the endogeneity problem is due to correlated time-varying unobservables. He found that a one standard deviation decrease in our mental health measure decreases the probability of participation by approximately 25 percentage points.
Type: Forum
Date: May, 2010
Speakers:
Kay Goldsworthy Bishop, Anglican Archdiocese
Katie Lahey CEO, Business Council of Australia
James Pearson CEO, Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WA)
Peter Van Onselen Associate Professor in Politics & Government, Edith Cowan University, and Contributing Editor, “The Australian”
Are quotas the only answer?
How to solve the problem of so few women walking Australian corridors of power: boardrooms, executive suites, government.
In this roundtable discussion that approached this problem from a diverse range of perspectives to come up with real solutions.
Type: Public Lecture
Date: July, 2010
Speaker: WestNet Infrastructure Group Visiting Professor Juan de Dios Ortuzar, Director of Research and Graduate Studies, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC)
In this public lecture, the WestNet Infrastructure Group Visiting Professor Juan de Dios Ortuzar and Professor Margarita Greene discussed how crime is essentially a social problem but happens in space; as we are far from finding solutions at the social level, it is important to try and understand (and work with) the spatial conditions. They discussed the results of a research project aimed at identifying the spatial characteristics of urban safety and the feeling of (in)security in residential areas. Rather than provide answers, the results help clarify the problem and raise new fine tuned questions.
Date: July, 2009
Speaker: Assoc/Prof Sanjay Goel, University of Minnesota; Mr Wayne Bubb, Business Coaching Systems, WA
Until now, a predominant theme in analyses of family business has been to claim that the tension between the ‘family’ and ‘business’ can be to the detriment of performance of family businesses. However, evidence-based research argues that the ‘family’ can be the niche advantage for family businesses that provides a source of competitive strength in business. However, as family businesses have found, to maximize this advantage, this has to be a managed process.
In the seminar, Assoc/Prof Sanjay Goel presented his research in this area. In addition, Mr Wayne Bubb from Business Coaching Systems, Western Australia provided an insight on how the family provides an advantage for family business.
Date: August, 2009
Speaker: Dr David Gruen, Australian Treasury
In this seminar, Dr David Gruen, Australian Treasury shared his insights on the causes of global financial crisis and its implications for macroeconomics and finance. He points out a need for greater coordination of acroeconomic policy across the world's major economies, which will involve strengthening the role, and the governance, of the International Monetary Fund.
Type: UWA Business School International Week
Date: March, 2010
Speaker: Malcolm Fialho, Senior Diversity Officer, Equity and Diversity, The University of Western Australia
As part of the UWA Business School International Week, this session offered participants the opportunity to:
Unpack their own unique racial story, linking it to the local, national and global context;
Understand the concept of race privilege, and how to examine its influence;
Utilise the insights gained to develop a more meaningful and targeted response around race and culture in a University context.
Type: Leaders Lunches
Date: October, 2009
Speaker: Alcoa Visiting Professor Mary Gentile, Senior Research Scholar, Entrepreneurship & Management, Babson College
"Giving Voice to Values (GVV) is an innovative approach to promoting a higher level of integrity in education and the workplace. This approach was pioneered by former Harvard Business School faculty member Dr. Mary Gentile and was launched by the Aspen Institute and the Yale School of Management with ongoing support from Babson College. It draws on actual experience as well as scholarship, GVV fills a long standing and critical gap in the development of values-centered leaders.
GVV starts from the premise that most of us already want to act on our values but need to have a reasonable chance of doing so effectively and successfully. This curriculum is about raiding those odds.
GVV’s goal is to build a conversation across the core curriculum, not only in ethics courses and provide the teaching aids and curriculum for a new way of thinking about ethics education. GVV’s curriculum focuses on ethical implementation and asks the questions:
• What if I were going to act on my values?
• What would I say and do?
• How could I be most effective?
In her speech, Dr Gentile explained the rationale and principles behind this empowering approach and discussed how it is being used by educators in over 100 pilot sites across the globe."
Date: September, 2010
Speaker: Dr Paul Chen, Australian National University
"Do workers reward fair wages with higher job effort, better labour relations, and greater workplace labour productivity and profitability (positive reciprocity) and punish unfair wages with lower effort, worse relations, and lesser productivity and profitability (negative reciprocity)? The importance of fairness and reciprocity in labour markets rests largely on experimental results examining the behaviour of subjects in laboratory settings.
In the seminar, Paul Chen shared his research outcomes. He examined whether workers, who report whether they feel that their pay is fair or unfair, reciprocate in their normal, everyday jobs using a large, economy-wide, Australian linked survey of workers and workplaces. Without controls for pay schemes, no statistically significant evidence of positive reciprocity is found although evidence of negative reciprocity in labour relations and workplace labour productivity was found. Paul introduced controls for pay scheme to isolate a particular payment arrangement which would best foster reciprocity. Under that particular scheme, however, no greater evidence of reciprocity is found relative to other pay schemes."
Date: April, 2010
Speaker: Assoc/ Prof Remus Ilies, Michigan State University
This presentation described a stream of research that examines the effects of various work demands and experiences on employee well-being and was aimed at uncovering moderating mechanisms that could be used to enhance well-being by diminishing negative and enhancing positive effects of work on employees’ well-being. First, the two studies that examined the negative effects of high job demands, both impersonal and interpersonal, on various well-being indicators (affective experience, blood pressure, psychological distress, emotional burnout) and the extent to which job control and social and organizational support buffer such negative effects were described. Second, this presentation described a study examining the effects of positive day-today work experiences on daily affect and on job satisfaction, and the extent to which work-family interpersonal capitalization (discussing a positive work event with one’s spouse or significant other at home) can amplify such positive effects. Finally, some ongoing research on attributions for work-family conflict, guilt and shame, citizenship behaviors, and other adaptive or maladaptive work or family behaviors that are induced by specific emotions was introduced.
Type: Public Lecture
Date: April, 2010
Speaker: Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar, Vice President and Country Director, The Hunger Project- Bangladesh
The UWA Business School was proud to host the visit to Perth of Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar who joined The Hunger Project as Country Director in Bangladesh in 1993 and was named Vice President 2003. He is the founder-Secretary of Shujan (Citizens for Good Governance), a civil organisation.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries with 150 million people, 49 percent of whom live below the national poverty line. The Hunger Project has been active in Bangladesh since 1990 and is currently the largest volunteer-based organisation covering all 64 districts. Dr Majumdar outlined how The Hunger Project works in rural areas to promote self reliance and the sustainable end of hunger through the training of local government leaders, women and youth.
Date: November, 2009
Speaker: Prof Sabrina Helm, University of Arizona
In services marketing, potential customers often rely on referrals to overcome initial purchase uncertainty. Therefore, providers aim at stimulating referrals, e.g. by using customer referral campaigns. However, these induce cost and, moreover, paying for referrals might affect the recipient’s perception of the sender’s credibility. Consequently, this paper addresses the following research question: Does paying for referrals have a negative effect on sender credibility as perceived by the recipient? By conducting an experiment addressing mobile telecommunication services, Prof. Helm found evidence for this negative effect on sender credibility. The effect does not differ between sender-recipient relationships characterised by strong or weak ties. These findings caution managers to consider this potential “social side effect” of using referrals.
Type: Public Lecture
Date: October, 2009
Speaker: Alcoa Visiting Professor Mary Gentile, Senior Research Scholar, Entrepreneurship & Management, Babson College
Despite four decades of good faith effort to teach Ethics in business schools, readers of the business press are still greeted on a regular basis with headlines about egregious excess and scandal. It becomes reasonable to ask why these efforts have not been working.
Giving Voice to Values (GVV) is an innovative approach to promoting a higher level of integrity in education and the workplace, pioneered by former Harvard Business School faculty Dr Mary Gentile.
GVV is not about persuading people to be more ethical. Rather GVV starts from the premise that most of us already want to act on our values, but that we also want to feel that we have a reasonable chance of doing so effectively and successfully. This curriculum is about raising those odds.
GVV cited in the New York Times article “Is It Time To Re-Train B-Schools?” (March 14, 2009), is being piloted in over 100 sites from Yale to INSEAD to MIT to the Indian School of Business to the University of Western Australia – as well as business settings and non-profit organisations.
In her speech, Dr Gentile explained the rationale and principles behind this empowering approach to developing the ethical muscles – the skills and confidence – required to voice and act on our values.
Type: Forum
Date: August, 2010
Speakers: Professor Gerard Hastings, Director, Institute for Social Marketing, University of Stirling, United Kingdom; Professor Walter Wymer, Editor, Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, University of Lethbridge, Canada; Professor Rob Donovan, Professor, Behavioural Research, Division of Health Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
"This one day forum provided an opportunity to hear about the latest research in social marketing, non-profit marketing, health promotion, and related areas.
The forum featured a combination of internationally renowned guest speakers and paper presentations from Western Australian Researchers.
Main topics:
1. The Power of Critical Analysis in Social Marketing
2. Strategic Social Marketing: factoring in individual motivation & environmental forces
3. Going Upstream
Other topics to be covered include….
• Consumers’ ethical decision making
• Addressing child obesity
• Alcohol advertising and minors
• Donation behaviours
• Destigmatising mental health
• Consumer values
• Consumers’ participation in healthcare delivery"
Type: Public Lecture
Date: September, 2010
Speaker: Colin Barnett, Premier of Western Australia
The Western Australian Premier delivered a lecture addressing the changing balance of power in Australia’s federal system of government. The Premier began by examining the causes of this shifting balance of power, such as taxation reform and the growing importance of Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meetings. He then went on to discuss the effects on the proposed federal healthcare agreement and Western Australia’s booming mining industry, arguing that we must be careful not to compromise the state’s interests.
Pages
Cognitive–energetical theories of information processing were used to generate predictions regarding the relationship between perceived workload and fatigue within and across consecutive days of work. Repeated measures were taken aboard a naval vessel from a sample of 20 Navy patrol vessel crew members during nonroutine and routine patrols. The hypotheses were tested through growth curve modeling. There was a nonmonotonic relationship between workload and fatigue in the routine patrol; moderate workload was associated with the lowest fatigue. The relationship between workload and fatigue changed over consecutive days in the nonroutine patrol. At the beginning of the patrol, low workload was associated with fatigue. At the end of the patrol, high workload was associated with fatigue. These results suggest that the optimal level of workload can change over time and thus have implications for the management of fatigue, particularly where prolonged operations are involved.
Purpose – While some previous research supports the existence of a finance gap within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, particularly for female owned SMEs, the evidence is hardly unequivocal. Further, much of the prior research has focused on supply- rather than demand-side issues. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate both supply- and demand-side issues for female and male SME owners.
Design/methodology/approach – From the results of three focus groups and a review of the literature eight hypotheses were formulated for testing with a mail survey sent to 534 SME owners.
Findings – Based on 123 responses, the findings provide no evidence to suggest that a supply-side finance gap exists within the Australian SME sector. There is also no evidence that Australian SME owners (particularly female owners) are being discouraged from applying for loans from a financial institution because they believe their application will be rejected. The results suggest that other demand-side issues (particularly risk-taking propensity and desire to maintain control) play a more important role in the capital structure decision making of SME owners.
Research limitations/implications – This study's major limitations are its reliance on a sample of solely Western Australian businesses that were not representative of the population of Western Australian SMEs and its relatively small sample size.
Practical implications – Financial advisers need to be sensitive to various demand-side issues when advising SME owners about the merits of applying for external funding.
Originality/value – This study adds to the limited available evidence concerning the importance of various demand-side issues to SME owners considering accessing external funding.
This article examines the argument that gender mainstreaming offers the way forward for closing the gender pay gap. It juxtaposes research on the process of gender mainstreaming with our account of the processes involved in Australian state government Inquiries into the gender pay gap since the late 1990s. We indicate that the continuous process of analysis and response that gender mainstreaming can offer demands political will, intensive links between research and action, and adequate resources — which means that gender mainstreaming is seldom delivered in practice. We use our account of the Australian Inquiries to argue that, provided adequate political and financial resources are in place, the gender pay gap can be narrowed through the institutional mechanisms of an industrial relations system but that the regulatory approach is limited by its vulnerability to changes in industrial relations policy. The article concludes that, whatever strategy is used to narrow the gender pay gap, it must be able to show those who use and observe it that gender itself is a continuous, effortful and political process.
This study investigated the determinants of team proactive performance amongst 43 shift teams from a UK chemical processing plant. Using external ratings of team proactive performance, the study found that the most proactive teams were those with higher levels of self-management, transformational team leaders, and a higher-than-average level of proactive personality. The relationship between transformational leadership and team proactive performance was mediated by favourable interpersonal norms. In addition, lower diversity of proactive personality amongst team members had an indirect association with team proactive performance via its negative effect on favourable interpersonal norms.
The authors aimed to clarify the similarities, differences, and interrelationships among multiple types of proactive behavior. Factor analyses of managers’ self-ratings (N = 622) showed concepts were distinct from each other but related via a higher-order structure. Three higher-order proactive behavior categories were identified—proactive work behavior, proactive strategic behavior, and proactive person-environment fit behavior—each corresponding to behaviors aimed at bringing about change in the internal organization (e.g., voice), the fit between the organization and its environment (e.g., issue selling), and the fit between the individual and the organization (e.g., feedback seeking), respectively. Further analyses on a subsample (n = 319) showed similarities and differences in the antecedents of these behaviors.
The purpose of this article is to account for changes in the family construct of the Singaporean Overseas Chinese resulting from migration and settlement. The family institution then changes in response to family policy, so that today it bears little resemblance to the traditional blueprint. Differences between the family institutions of the three major racial groups in Singapore have emerged as a result of discriminatory policy pressures. The Singaporean government has used family planning policies to create the ideal social structure and human resource capital, possibly at the expense of Malays and women with less education. The fate of the Chinese family institution in Singapore may also differ to its counterparts in Malaysia and China. In Malaysia, the pro-Malay affirmative action program contributed to a dramatic reduction in Overseas Chinese fertility, while creating unintended consequences that are not easily reversible. The article concludes with issues for marketing scholars to ponder.
This study drew on three theoretical perspectives – attribution theory, power, and role identity theory – to compare the job-related outcomes of sexual harassment from organizational insiders (i.e., supervisors and co-workers) and organizational outsiders (i.e., offenders and members of the public) in a sample (n = 482) of UK police officers and police support staff. Results showed that sexual harassment from insiders was related to higher intentions to quit, over-performance demands, and lower job satisfaction, whereas sexual harassment from outsiders was not significantly related to any of the outcome variables investigated. We also examined two moderator variables: equal opportunity support and confidence in grievance procedures. Consistent with our hypotheses, equal opportunity support mitigated the effects of sexual harassment from supervisors on intent to quit and over-performance demands. Confidence in grievance procedures moderated the relationship between sexual harassment from supervisors and all outcome variables. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
The status of women in employment in general and in management in particular has interested researchers in Australia since the mid-1970s, although interest in women's industrial and occupational employment segregation and pay inequality has an even longer history. To assist the process of review, the author has divided developments into a number of eras to illustrate the progression of both policy and research over the various periods. The eras are as follows: 1. First Era (1970s-1980s): Establishing the Baseline, 2. Second Era: Continued Development and New Perspectives, 3. Third Era: Mid 1990s to 2007, and 4. Fourth Era: The Present. Women in management now represent a whole spectrum of people from the committed and single-focus 'careerist' to the woman who is content to be in management because of status and earning capacity, but who also combines work with family, social life and other community activities.
Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory and previous research on work engagement, the present study investigates gain spirals between employees' engagement and their task, social, and personal resources. It focuses on the key resources of job control, positive work relationships, and active coping behavior. In a three-wave design, work engagement (T2) is suggested to function both as an outcome and antecedent of these resources, so that engagement mediates indirect longitudinal effects of initial (T1) on subsequent (T3) resources. Item-level structural equation modeling supported our hypotheses in a three-wave panel (N = 416) of hospital physicians with measurement intervals of 14 and 19 months. Connections between engagement research and other evolving perspectives in organizational research are highlighted. Unique contributions of the present study and their implications for further research and practice are discussed.
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