CSR communication and legitimacy : an institutional and rhetorical perspective

This study drew on the notions of institutional theory, legitimacy, and rhetoric, and explored propositions drawn from these concepts to consider the why and how of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication. In doing so, this thesis found that there was often a disconnect between why the organisations were communicating about CSR activities in their reports and how the organisations were communicating about these activities.

Evolutionary Perspectives

The standard approach to industrial economics starts with the industry’s basic conditions, then runs through the structure–conduct–performance paradigm of industrial organization, and finally considers government regulation and policy. Most creative industries segments have been studied in this way, for example in Albarran (2002) and Caves (2000). These approaches use standard economic analysis to explain the particular properties and characteristics of a specific industrial sector. The overview presented here is different again. It focuses on the creative industries and examines their economic effect, specifically their contribution to economic evolu -tion. This is an evolutionary systems approach to industrial analysis, where we seek to understand how a sector fits into a broader system of production, consumption, technology, trade and institutions. The evolutionary approach focuses on innovation, economic growth and endogenous transformation. So, rather than using economics to explain static or industrial-organization features of the creative industries, we are using an open systems view of the creative industries to explain dynamic ‘Schumpeterian’ features of the broader economy. The creative industries are drivers of economic transformation through their role in the origination of new ideas, in consumer adoption, and in facilitating the institutional embedding of new ideas into the economic order. This is not a novel idea, as economists have long understood that particular activities are drivers of economic growth and development, for example research and development, and also that particular sectors are instrumental to this process, for example high-technology sectors. What is new is the argument that cultural and creative sectors are also a key part of this process of economic evolution. We will review the case for that claim, and outline purported mechanisms. We will also consider why policy settings in the creative industries should be more in line with innovation and growth policy than with industry policy.

Bad apples, bad barrel: Exploring institutional responses to child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Australia

This paper considers constructions of institutional culture and power in the cover-up of child sexual abuse (CSA) by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church of Australia. The issue of cover-up has previously been considered in international inquiries as an institutional failing that has caused significant harm to victims of CSA by Catholic Clergy. Evidence given by select representatives of the Catholic Church in two government inquiries into institutional abuse carried out in Australia is considered here. This evidence suggests that, where cover-up has occurred, it has been reliant on the abuse of institutional power and resulted in direct emotional, psychological and spiritual harm to victims of abuse. Despite international recognition of cover-up as institutional abuse, evidence presented by Roman Catholic Representatives to the Victorian Inquiry denied there was an institutionalised cover-up. Responding to this evidence, this paper queries whether the primary foundation of cover-up conforms to the ‘bad apple theory’ in that it relates only to a few individuals, or the ‘bad barrel theory’ of institutional structure and culture.

Amateur Media : Social, Cultural and Legal Perspectives

The rise of Web 2.0 has pushed the amateur to the forefront of public discourse, public policy and media scholarship. Typically non-salaried, non-specialist and untrained in media production, amateur producers are now seen as key drivers of the creative economy. But how do the activities of citizen journalists, fan fiction writers and bedroom musicians connect with longer traditions of extra-institutional media production? This edited collection provides a much-needed interdisciplinary contextualisation of amateur media before and after Web 2.0. Surveying the institutional, economic and legal construction of the amateur media producer via a series of case studies, it features contributions from experts in the fields of law, economics and media studies based in the UK, Europe and Singapore. Each section of the book contains a detailed case study on a selected topic, followed by two further pieces providing additional analysis and commentary. Using an extraordinary array of case studies and examples, from YouTube to online games, from subtitling communities to reality TV, the book is neither a celebration of amateur production nor a denunciation of the demise of professional media industries. Rather, this book presents a critical dialogue across law and the humanities, exploring the dynamic tensions and interdependencies between amateur and professional creative production. This book will appeal to both academics and students of intellectual property and media law, as well as to scholars and students of economics, media, cultural and internet studies.

Capable but not able : the effect of institutional context and search breadth on the absorptive capacity-corporate entrepreneurship relationship

This study investigates how the interaction of institutional market orientation and external search breadth influence the ability to use absorptive capacity to raise the level of corporate entrepreneurship. The findings of a sample of 331 supplier companies providing products and services to the mining industry of Australia and Iran indicate that the positive association between absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship is stronger for companies with greater external knowledge search breadth. Moreover, operating in a less market-oriented institutional context such as, Iran diminishes the ability to utilise a firm’s absorptive capacity to raise their level of corporate entrepreneurship. Yet, firms operating in such contexts are able to overcome these disadvantages posed by their institutional context by engaging in broader external search of knowledge.

Civil litigation limitation periods : submission to the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse

This submission makes one simple yet powerful recommendation for law reform to promote justice for survivors of child sexual abuse. It is informed by extensive analyses of the phenomenon of child sexual abuse and its psychological sequelae, legislative time limits and case law across Australia and internationally, the policy reasons underpinning statutory time limits generally, and the need for fairness, certainty and practicability in the legal system. The recommendation is that legislative reform is required in all Australian States and Territories to remove time limitations for civil claims for injuries caused by child sexual abuse.

Criminological research and institutional ethics protocols : empowering the indigenous other or the academy?

Indigenous commentators have long critiqued the way in which government agencies and member of academic institutions carry out research in their social context. Recently, these commentators have turned their critical gaze upon activities of Research Ethics Boards(REBs). Informed by the reflections on research processes and by Indigenous Canadian and New Zealand research participants, as well as the extant literature, this paper critiques the processes employed by New Zealand REBs to assess Indigenous‐focused or Indigenous‐led research in the criminological realm.

Outback institutions : an application of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to four case studies in Australia’s Outback -- Part 4 : Incentives for community participation and land use decisions in Etheridge Shire, Queensland

Natural resource management planning in the Northern Gulf region of Queensland is concerned with ‘how [natural assets] and community aspirations can be protected and enhanced to provide the Northern Gulf community with the economic, social and environmental means to meet the continuing growth of the region in an ecological and economically sustainable way’ (McDonald & Dawson 2004). In the Etheridge Shire, located in the tropical savanna of the Northern Gulf region, two of the activities that influence the balance between economic growth and long-term sustainable development are: 1. the land-use decisions people in the Shire make with regards to their own enterprises. 2. their decisions to engage in civically-minded activities aimed at improving conditions in the region. Land-use decision and engagement in community development activities were chosen for detailed analysis because they are activities for which policies can be devised to improve economic and sustainable development outcomes. Changing the formal and informal rules that guide and govern these two different kinds of decisions that people can make in the Etheridge Shire – the decision to improve one’s own situation and the decision to improve the situation for others in the community – may expand the set of available options for people in the Shire to achieve their goals and aspirations. Identifying appropriate and effective changes in rules requires, first, an understanding of the ‘action arena’, in this case comprised of a diversity of ‘participants’ from both within and outside the Etheridge Shire, and secondly knowledge of ‘action situations’ (land-use decisions and engagement in community development activities) in which stakeholders are involved and/or have a stake. These discussions are presented in sections 4.1.1.1 and 4.1.1.2.

Institutional determinants of growth-aspiration entrepreneurship

The thesis is a country-level study on the institutional and human capital determinants of growth-aspiration entrepreneurial activity. By using country-level panel-data analysis, the study is to our knowledge the first to test to what extent country-level human capital accumulation is associated with the prevalence of growth-aspiration entrepreneurship. Overall findings of the study suggest that there are different effects of the institutional determinants on the prevalence of growth-aspiration entrepreneurship in developing countries and developed countries. The study also found that country-level human capital moderates the effects of the institutional environment.

Institutional response and Indigenous experiences of Cyclone Tracy

Early on Christmas morning 1974 Tropical Cyclone Tracy, a Category 4 storm, devastated the Northern Territory city of Darwin leaving only 6% of the city’s housing habitable. The extent of the disaster was largely the result of unregulated and poorly constructed buildings, predominantly housing. While the engineering and reconstruction process demonstrated a very successful response and adaptation to an existing and future risk, the impact of the cyclone of the local community and its Indigenous population in particular, had not been well recorded. NCCARF therefore commissioned a report on the Indigenous experience of Cyclone Tracy to document how Indigenous people were impacted by, responded to, and recovered from Cyclone Tracy in comparison to non-Indigenous groups. The report also considers the research literature on disasters and Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, with a specific focus on cyclones, and considers the socio-political context of Indigenous communities in Darwin prior to Cyclone Tracy.

Externally oriented capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship : institutional and managerial contingencies

This research adopts three different theoretical lenses- the attention-based view, institutional perspective and network theory- to investigate the effect of externally oriented capabilities (absorptive capacity and networking capabilities) on corporate entrepreneurship. Based on an Australian and Iranian sample of mining equipment, technology and service providers, this thesis provides new understanding of why some firms are able to generate higher levels of corporate entrepreneurship than others and opens new directions for more capabilities-oriented research in corporate entrepreneurship. In particular, this research provides new insight into how entrepreneurial management, institutional context and external knowledge search breadth shape the relationship between externally oriented capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship.

The importance of good data, analysis and interpretation for showing the economics of reducing healthcare-associated infection

To the Editor—In a recent review article in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Umscheid et al1 summarized published data on incidence rates of catheter-associated bloodstream infection (CABSI), catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), surgical site infection (SSI), and ventilator- associated pneumonia (VAP); estimated how many cases are preventable; and calculated the savings in hospital costs and lives that would result from preventing all preventable cases. Providing these estimates to policy makers, political leaders, and health officials helps to galvanize their support for infection prevention programs. Our concern is that important limitations of the published studies on which Umscheid and colleagues built their findings are incompletely addressed in this review. More attention needs to be drawn to the techniques applied to generate these estimates...

The economics of credence goods : an experiment on the role of liability, verifiability, reputation and competition

Credence goods markets are characterized by asymmetric information between sellers and consumers that may give rise to inefficiencies, such as under- and overtreatment or market breakdown. We study in a large experiment with 936 participants the determinants for efficiency in credence goods markets. While theory predicts that liability or verifiability yield efficiency, we find that liability has a crucial, but verifiability at best a minor, effect. Allowing sellers to build up reputation has little influence, as predicted. Seller competition drives down prices and yields maximal trade, but does not lead to higher efficiency as long as liability is violated. (JEL D12, D82)