A comparison of safety climate and safety outcomes between construction and resource functions in a large case study organisation

The research described in this paper forms part of an in-depth investigation of safety culture in one of Australia’s largest construction companies. The research builds on a previous qualitative study with organisational safety leaders and further investigates how safety culture is perceived and experienced by organisational members, as well as how this relates to their safety behaviour and related outcomes at work. Participants were 2273 employees of the case study organisation, with 689 from the Construction function and 1584 from the Resources function. The results of several analyses revealed some interesting organisational variance on key measures. Specifically, the Construction function scored significantly higher on all key measures: safety climate, safety motivation, safety compliance, and safety participation. The results are discussed in terms of relevance in an applied research context.

A critical regionalist approach to housing design in Vietnam : socio-environmental organisation of living spaces in pre- and post-reform houses

Vietnam has a unique culture which is revealed in the way that people have built and designed their traditional housing. Vietnamese dwellings reflect occupants’ activities in their everyday lives, while adapting to tropical climatic conditions impacted by seasoning monsoons. It is said that these characteristics of Vietnamese dwellings have remained unchanged until the economic reform in 1986, when Vietnam experienced an accelerated development based on the market-oriented economy. New housing types, including modern shop-houses, detached houses, and apartments, have been designed in many places, especially satisfying dwellers’ new lifestyles in Vietnamese cities. The contemporary housing, which has been mostly designed by architects, has reflected rules of spatial organisation so that occupants’ social activities are carried out. However, contemporary housing spaces seem unsustainable in relation to socio-cultural values because they has been influenced by globalism that advocates the use of homogeneous spatial patterns, modern technologies, materials and construction methods. This study investigates the rules of spaces in Vietnamese houses that were built before and after the reform to define the socio-cultural implications in Vietnamese housing design. Firstly, it describes occupants’ views of their current dwellings in terms of indoor comfort conditions and social activities in spaces. Then, it examines the use of spaces in pre-reform Vietnamese housing through occupants’ activities and material applications. Finally, it discusses the organisation of spaces in both pre- and post-reform housing to understand how Vietnamese housing has been designed for occupants to live, act, work, and conduct traditional activities. Understanding spatial organisation is a way to identify characteristics of the lived spaces of the occupants created from the conceived space, which is designed by designers. The characteristics of the housing spaces will inform the designers the way to design future Vietnamese housing in response to cultural contexts. The study applied an abductive approach for the investigation of housing spaces. It used a conceptual framework in relation to Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) theory to understand space as the main factor constituting the language of design, and the principles of semiotics to examine spatial structure in housing as a language used in the everyday life. The study involved a door-knocking survey to 350 households in four regional cities of Vietnam for interpretation of occupancy conditions and levels of occupants’ comfort. A statistical analysis was applied to interpret the survey data. The study also required a process of data selection and collection of fourteen cases of housing in three main climatic regions of the country for analysing spatial organisation and housing characteristics. The study found that there has been a shift in the relationship of spaces from the pre- to post-reform Vietnamese housing. It also indentified that the space for guest welcoming and family activity has been the central space of the Vietnamese housing. Based on the relationships of the central space with the others, theoretical models were proposed for three types of contemporary Vietnamese housing. The models will be significant in adapting to Vietnamese conditions to achieve socioenvironmental characteristics for housing design because it was developed from the occupants’ requirements for their social activities. Another contribution of the study is the use of methodological concepts to understand the language of living spaces. Further work will be needed to test future Vietnamese housing designs from the applications of the models.

Green crime and the role of environmental courts

Environmental issues continue to capture international headlines and remain the subject of intense intellectual, political and public debate. As a result, environmental law is widely recognised as the fastest growing area of international jurisprudence. This, combined with the rapid expansion of environmental agreements and policies, has created a burgeoning landscape of administrative, regulatory and judicial regimes. Emerging from these developments are increases in environmental offences, and more recently environmental crimes. The judicial processing of environmental or ‘green’ crimes is rapidly developing across many jurisdictions. Since 1979, Australia has played a lead role in criminal justice processing of environment offences through the New South Wales Land and Environment Court (NSW LEC). This article draws on case data, observations and interviews with court personnel, to examine the ways in which environmental justice is now administered through the existing court structures, and how it has changed since the Court’s inception.

The social mechanism of political deliberation and citizen participation in Guangdong China

Many studies have focused on why deliberative institutions should be established in order to develop Chinese people’s citizenry skills; however few focus on the social conditions and public sentiments that shape the development of deliberative mechanisms. Skills and awareness of citizenry is not only brought into being by deliberative institutions that are set up by the government, but evolve through interplays between technologies and social changes. As a test-bed for economic reform Guangdong is increasingly identified by translocality and hybrid culture. This is framed by identity conflict and unrests, much of which is due to soaring wealth polarisation, high volumes of population movement, cultural collisions and ongoing linguistic contestations. These unrests show the region’s transformation goes beyond the economic front. Profound changes are occurring at what anthropologists and philosophers call the changing social conciseness or moral landscape (Ci, 1994; Yan, 2010). The changing social moralities are a reflection of the awareness of individuals’ rights and responsibilities, and their interdependencies from dominant ideologies. This paper discusses Guangdong’s social and cultural characteristics, and questions how existing social conditions allow the staging of political deliberation by facilitating political engagement and the formation of public opinion. The paper will investigate the tragedy of Xiao Yueyue in Foshan, Guangdong, where ‘right’ and ‘responsibility’, ‘self’ and ‘other’ define the public sentiments of deliberation and participation.

Research data finder : an institutional metadata repository

QUT’s new metadata repository (data registry), Research Data Finder, has been designed to promote the visibility and discoverability of QUT research datasets. Funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), it will provide a qualitative snapshot of research data outputs created or collected by members of the QUT research community that are available via open or mediated access. As a fully integrated metadata repository Research Data Finder aligns with institutional sources of truth, such as QUT’s research administrative system, ResearchMaster, as well as QUT’s Academic Profiles system to provide high quality data descriptions that increase awareness of, and access to, shareable research data. In addition, the repository and its workflows are designed to foster smoother data management practices, enhance opportunities for collaboration and research, promote cross-disciplinary research and maximize existing research datasets. The metadata schema used in Research Data Finder is the Registry Interchange Format - Collections and Services (RIF-CS), developed by ANDS in 2009. This comprehensive schema is potentially complex for researchers; unlike metadata for publications, which are often made publicly available with the official publication, metadata for datasets are not typically available and need to be created. Research Data Finder uses a hybrid self-deposit and mediated deposit system. In addition to automated ingests from ResearchMaster (research project information) and Academic Profiles system (researcher information), shareable data is identified at a number of key “trigger points” in the research cycle. These include: research grant proposals; ethics applications; Data Management Plans; Liaison Librarian data interviews; and thesis submissions. These ingested records can be supplemented with related metadata including links to related publications, such as those in QUT ePrints. Records deposited in Research Data Finder are harvested by ANDS and made available to a national and international audience via Research Data Australia, ANDS’ discovery service for Australian research data. Researcher and research group metadata records are also harvested by the National Library of Australia (NLA) and these records are then published in Trove (the NLA’s digital information portal). By contributing records to the national infrastructure, QUT data will become more visible. Within Australia and internationally, many funding bodies have already mandated the open access of publications produced from publicly funded research projects, such as those supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). QUT will be well placed to respond to the rapidly evolving climate of research data management. This project is supported by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). ANDS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program and the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative.

Child rearing Inc : On the perils of political paralysis Down Under

In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child-rearing through government intervention and the generation of “experts,” citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper (this issue), Smeyers touches on a number of tensions before concluding that child rearing qualifies as a practice in which liberal governments should be reluctant to intervene. In response, I draw on recent experiences in Australia and argue that certain tragic events of late are the result of an ethical, moral and social vacuum in which these tensions coalesce. While I agree with Smeyers that governments should be reluctant to “intervene” in the private domain of the family, I argue that there is a difference between intervention and support. In concluding, I maintain that if certain Western liberal democracies did a more comprehensive job of supporting children and their families through active social investment in primary school education, then both families and schools would be better equipped to deal with the challenges they now face.

Working with refugee survivors of torture and trauma : an opportunity for vicarious posttraumatic growth

Clinical work with people who have survived trauma carries a risk of vicarious traumatisation for the service provider, but also the potential for vicarious posttraumatic growth. Despite growing interest in this area, the effects of working with survivors of refugee-related trauma have remained relatively unexplored. The aim of the current study was to examine the lived experiences of people working on a daily basis with survivors of torture and trauma who had sought refuge in Australia. Seventeen clinical, administrative, and managerial staff from a not-for-profit organisation participated in a semi-structured interview that was later analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Analysis of the data demonstrated that the entire sample reported symptoms of vicarious trauma (e.g., strong emotional reactions, intrusive images, shattering of existing beliefs) as well as vicarious posttraumatic growth (e.g., forming new relationships, increased self-understanding, greater appreciation of life). Moreover, effortful meaning making processes appeared to facilitate such positive changes. Reduction in the risks associated with this work, enhancement of clinician well-being, and improvement of therapeutic outcomes is a shared responsibility of the organisation and clinician. Without negating the distress of trauma work, clinicians are encouraged to more deeply consider the unique positive outcomes that supporting survivors can provide.

Militarism and International Relations : Political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, 212 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-61491-7

An engaging narrative is maintained throughout this edited collection of articles that address the issue of militarism in international relations. The book seamlessly integrates historical and contemporary perspectives on militarism with theory and relevant international case studies, resulting in a very informative read. The work is comprised of three parts. Part 1 deals with the theorisation of militarism and includes chapters by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Martin Shaw, Simon Dalby, and Nicola Short. It covers a range of topics relating to historical and contemporary theories of militarism, geopolitical threat construction, political economy, and the US military’s ‘cultural turn’.

Motivations for an organisation within a developing country to report social responsibility information : evidence from Bangladesh

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export organisation within a developing country. Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives from a major organisation in Bangladesh are interviewed to determine the pressures being exerted on them in terms of their social and environmental performance. The perceptions of pressures are then used to explain – via content analysis – changing social and environmental disclosure practices. Findings – The results show that particular stakeholder groups have, since the early 1990s, placed pressure on the Bangladeshi clothing industry in terms of its social performance. This pressure, which is also directly related to the expectations of the global community, in turn drives the industry's social policies and related disclosure practices. Research limitations/implications – The findings show that, within the context of a developing country, unless we consider the managers' perceptions about the social and environmental expectations being imposed upon them by powerful stakeholder groups then we will be unable to understand organisational disclosure practices. Originality/value – This paper is the first known paper to interview managers from a large organisation in a developing country about changing stakeholder expectations and then link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of analysis.

The political economy of food in schools : the case of Queensland State education

Food in schools is typically understood from a biomedical perspective. At practical, ideational and material levels, whether addressed pedagogically or bureaucratically, food in schools is generally considered from a natural sciences perspective. This perspective manifests as the bioenergetic principle of energy in versus energy out and appears in policy focused on issues such as obesity and physical activity. Despite the considerable literature on the sociology of food and eating, little is understood about food in schools from a sociological perspective. This oversight of one of the most fundamental requirements of the human condition--namely, food--should be of concern for educators. Investigating food through a political economy lens means understanding food in schools as part of broader economic, political, social and cultural conditions. Hence, a political economy of food and schooling is concerned with the formation of ideas about food relative to political, economic, and cultural ideologies in social practice. From a critical sociology study of food messages students receive in the primary school curriculum, this paper reports on some of the official food messages of an Australian state's education policy, as a case to highlight the current political economy of food in Australia. It examines the role of the corporate food industry in the formation of Australian food policy and how that policy created artefacts infused with competing messages. The paper highlights how food and nutrition policy moved from solely a health concern to incorporate an economic dimension and links that shift with the quality of food available in Queensland schools.

Critical discourse analysis and political economy of communication : understanding the new corporate order

This article uses critical discourse analysis to analyse material shifts in the political economy of communications. It examines texts of major corporations to describe four key changes in political economy: (1) the separation of ownership from control; (2) the separation of business from industry; (3) the separation of accountability from responsibility; and (4) the subjugation of ‘going concerns’ by overriding concerns. The authors argue that this amounts to a political economic shift from traditional concepts of ‘capitalism’ to a new ‘corporatism’ in which the relationships between public and private, state and individual interests have become redefined and obscured through new discourse strategies. They conclude that the present financial and regulatory ‘crisis’ cannot be adequately resolved without a new analytic framework for examining the relationships between corporation, discourse and political economy.

Australian copyright regimes and political economy of music

In this chapter I review the history of copyright in Australia through a singular and exemplary ruling of the Australian High Court made in 2012 and then relate that to the declining fortunes of Australian recorded music professionals. The case in point is Phonographic Performance Company [PPCA] of Australia Limited v Commonwealth of Australia [2012] HCA 8 (hereafter, HCA 8 2012). The case encapsulates the history of copyright law in Australia, with the judicial decision drawing substantive parts of its rationale from the Statute of Anne (8 Anne, c. 19, 1710), as well as copyright acts that regulated the Australian markets prior to 1968. More importantly the High Court decision serves to delineate some important political economic aspects of the recorded music professional in Australia and demonstrates Attali’s (1985) assertion that copyright is the mechanism through which composers are, by statute, literally excluded from capitalistic engagement as ‘productive labour’.

Attitudes, Ideologies and Self-Organisation : Information Load Minimisation in Multi-Agent Decision Making

Sophisticated models of human social behaviour are fast becoming highly desirable in an increasingly complex and interrelated world. Here, we propose that rather than taking established theories from the physical sciences and naively mapping them into the social world, the advanced concepts and theories of social psychology should be taken as a starting point, and used to develop a new modelling methodology. In order to illustrate how such an approach might be carried out, we attempt to model the low elaboration attitude changes of a society of agents in an evolving social context. We propose a geometric model of an agent in context, where individual agent attitudes are seen to self-organise to form ideologies, which then serve to guide further agent-based attitude changes. A computational implementation of the model is shown to exhibit a number of interesting phenomena, including a tendency for a measure of the entropy in the system to decrease, and a potential for externally guiding a population of agents towards a new desired ideology.

Catalysing design principles through the dreaming of sustainable subtropical cityscapes : the collaborative construction of new place identities

This paper addresses the question of how to open up pathways and build capacity to facilitate the movement towards sustainable sub-tropical cities. The focus is on outlining a collaborative planning and co-design process that can help catalyse the emergence of sustainable place-habitats and so re-weave and colour anew the tapestry of our sub-tropical cities. Cities are portrayed as self-organising complex adaptive system phenomena, being constantly re-shaped by local and global social-political, environmental, cultural and economic forces as well as planning regimes. While constructing a sustainable city is at essence a design process incorporating new sustainable practices and legislation to reinforce their use, these steps are necessary but not sufficient. Sustainable sub-tropical city-making could be re-thought as a dreaming-re-storying process. This paper explores a new co-design process, which can channel collaborative efforts around re-inventing sustainable place-habitats across the cityscape. A further outcome of this co-design process is the alignment of the emergent design principles and planning actions that can trigger the re-storying of a new sustainable sub-tropical city. Besides a new co-design process, we also advocate the building of sub-tropical city learning networks to facilitate the cross-fertilization for Dreaming sustainable sub-tropical cities.