The Australian Parliament: a gendered organisation

This study, drawing on interviews with 13 male and 15 female members of the Australian parliament, has two aims. The first is to contribute to knowledge about the nature of the Australian parliament, an institution which has seldom been subjected to gender analysis. This is particularly pertinent given the significant increase in women's representative status over the past decade. The second of the paper's aims is to demonstrate the efficacy of contemporary gender and organisational theory, particularly work on men and masculinities, for investigating questions related to women's involvement in politics. The paper draws on Joan Acker's (‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations’, Gender and Society, 4, 1990, 139–58; ‘From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions’, Contemporary Sociology, 21, 1992, 565–9.) notion of ‘gendered organisations’ to interrogate the data.

Inter-sector leader transitions and organisation transformation : a research agenda

Faced with the need for strategic change, structural and cultural realignment, innovation and value-adding, many public sector organisations are tapping into a wider senior leadership talent pool and attracting successful leaders from other sectors (Flynn and Thompson, 2009). Leadership renewal has resulted, in some cases, in the external recruitment of whole senior leadership teams (Hockridge, 2008), raising issues about the influence of context on leader success (Pawar and Eastman, 1997) and potential leader transition failure, a costly outcome for leaders and organisations (Howard, 2001). There is little research on inter-sector leader transitions, which is surprising given the significant costs associated with leader acquisition and failure(Conger, 2010; Day and Halpin, 2004). For example, it is not clear what organizations do (or do not do) to ensure the outcomes of their significant investment in inter sector transitions are realised. In addition, it is not clear how the individual leader manages the challenging transition into a new leadership context and how their approach to leadership facilitates or inhibits successful transition (Avolio, 2010). Leader assimilation programs have been developed to assimilate new leaders (Manderscheid, 2008); however, assimilation is not necessarily a desired organisational outcome (Denis and Pineault, 2000). In this paper we critically review the limited literature on inter-sector leader transitions and transformational change outcomes and argue for a mutual accommodation approach. We draw on our own initial empirical work to propose the elements of a program for achieving this outcome from the perspective of the public organisation and the inter-sector appointee.

Safety leaders' perceptions of safety culture in a large Australian construction organisation

Safety culture in the construction industry is a growing research area. The unique nature of construction industry works – being project-based, varying in size and focus, and relying on a highly transient subcontractor workforce – means that safety culture initiatives cannot be easily translated from other industries. This paper reports on the first study in a three year collaborative industry and university research project focusing on safety culture practices and development in one of Australia’s largest global construction organisations. The first round of a modified Delphi method is reported, and describes the insights gained from 41 safety leaders’ perceptions and understandings of safety culture within the organisation. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted, and will be followed by a quantitative perception survey with the same sample. Participants included Senior Executives, Corporate Managers, Project Managers, Safety Managers and Site Supervisors. Leaders’ definitions and descriptions of safety culture were primarily action-oriented and some confusion was evident due to the sometimes implicit nature of culture in organisations. Leadership was identified as a key factor for positive safety culture in the organisation, and there was an emphasis on leaders demonstrating commitment to safety, and being visible to the project-based workforce. Barriers to safety culture improvement were also identified, with managers raising diverse issues such as the transient subcontractor workforce and the challenge of maintaining safety as a priority in the absence of safety incidents, under high production pressures. This research is unique in that it derived safety culture descriptions from key stakeholders within the organisation, as opposed to imposing traditional conceptualisations of safety culture that are not customised for the organisation or the construction industry more broadly. This study forms the foundation for integrating safety culture theory and practice in the construction industry, and will be extended upon in future studies within the research program.

Having a yarn about smoking : using action research to develop a 'no smoking' policy within an Aboriginal health organisation

Objectives: This article reports on a culturally appropriate process of development of a smoke-free workplace policy within the peak Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation in Victoria, Australia. Smoking is acknowledged as being responsible for at least 20% of all deaths in Aboriginal communities in Australia, and many Aboriginal health workers smoke. Methods: The smoke-free workplace policy was developed using the iterative, discursive and experience-based methodology of Participatory Action Research, combined with the culturally embedded concept of ‘having a yarn’. Results: Staff members initially identified smoking as a topic to be avoided within workplace discussions. This was due, in part, to grief (everyone had suffered a smoking related bereavement). Further, there was anxiety that discussing smoking would result in culturally difficult conflict. The use of yarning opened up a safe space for discussion and debate,enabling development of a policy that was accepted across the organisation. Conclusions: Within Aboriginal organisations, it is not sufficient to focus on the outcomes of policy development. Rather, due attention must be paid to the process employed in development of policy, particularly when that policy is directly related to an emotionally and communally weighted topic such as smoking.

Mediators of the relationship between person-organisation fit and individual outcomes

To date, research on P-O fit has focused heavily on the effect of P-O fit on individual and organisational outcomes. Few studies have attempted to explain how or why P-O fit leads to these outcomes. Meglino, Ravlin, and Adkins (1989) and Schein (1985) identified several intervening mechanisms for explaining fit-outcome relationships but only few of these explanations have been tested empirically (Cable & Edwards, 2004; Edwards & Cable, 2009; Kalliath, Bluedorn, & Strube, 1999). This thesis investigates role conflict, cognitive style and organisational justice as three potential mediating mechanisms in the relationship between P-O fit (defined as fit between personal and organisational values – value congruence or value fit) and outcomes including job satisfaction, job performance, service performance, affective commitment and continuance commitment. The study operationalised P-O fit using three measures: subjective fit, perceived fit and objective fit. The mediation model of subjective fit was tested using a Mplus analytical technique, while the mediation models of both perceived and objective fit were tested by modeling the difference between two scores (that is, between personal values and organisational values) using a polynomial regression and response surface analysis (Edwards, 1993). A survey of 558 mid-level managers from seven Brunei public sector organisations provided the data. Our results showed that the relationship between P-O fit and outcomes was partially mediated by organisational justice and cognitive style - for all the three measures of fit, while role conflict had no mediating effects. The findings from this research therefore have both theoretical and practical implications. This research contributes to the literature by combining these theoretical explanations for value congruence effects into one integrated model, and by providing evidence on the partial mediating effects of organisational justice and cognitive style. Future research needs to address and investigate other potential mechanisms by which value congruence affects individual and organisational outcomes. In addition, the study is considered to be the first to test these mediating roles for a value fit-outcomes relationship using three different measures of fit in a non-Western context.

VAMP3 regulates podosome organisation in macrophages and together with Stx4/SNAP23 mediates adhesion, cell spreading and persistent migration

The ability of cells to adhere, spread and migrate is essential to many physiological processes, particularly in the immune system where cells must traffic to sites of inflammation and injury. By altering the levels of individual components of the VAMP3/Stx4/SNAP23 complex we show here that this SNARE complex regulates efficient macrophage adhesion, spreading and migration on fibronectin. During cell spreading this complex mediates the polarised exocytosis of VAMP3- positive recycling endosome membrane into areas of membrane expansion, where VAMP3's surface partner Q-SNARE complex Stx4/SNAP23 was found to accumulate. Lowering the levels of VAMP3 in spreading cells resulted in a more rounded cell morphology and most cells were found to be devoid of the typical ring-like podosome superstructures seen normally in spreading cells. In migrating cells lowering VAMP3 levels disrupted the polarised localisation of podosome clusters. The reduced trafficking of recycling endosome membrane to sites of cell spreading and the disorganised podosome localisation in migrating macrophages greatly reduced their ability to persistently migrate on fibronectin. Thus, this important SNARE complex facilitates macrophage adhesion, spreading, and persistent macrophage migration on fibronectin through the delivery of VAMP3-positive membrane with its cargo to expand the plasma membrane and to participate in organising adhesive podosome structures.

Reading in the Australian curriculum English : describing the effects of structure and organisation on multimodal texts

The recently introduced Australian Curriculum: English Version 3.0 (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2012) requires students to ‘read’ multimodal text and describe the effects of structure and organisation. We begin this article by tracing the variable understandings of what reading multimodal text might entail through the Framing Paper (National Curriculum Board, 2008), the Framing Paper Consultation Report (National Curriculum Board, 2009a), the Shaping Paper (National Curriculum Board, 2009b) and Version 3.0 of the Australian Curriculum English (ACARA, 2012). Our findings show that the theoretical and descriptive framework for doing so is implicit. Drawing together multiple but internally coherent theories from the field of semiotics, we suggest one way to work towards three Year 5 learning outcomes from the reading/writing mode. The affordances of assembling a broad but explicit technical metalanguage for an informed reading of the integrated design elements of multimodal texts are noted.

Safety leaders’ perceptions of safety culture in a large Australasian construction organisation

This paper reports safety leaders’ perceptions of safety culture in one of Australasia’s largest construction organisations. A modified Delphi method was used including two rounds of data collection. The first round involved 41 semi-structured interviews with safety leaders within the organisation. The second round involved an online quantitative perception survey, with the same sample, aimed at confirming the key themes identified in the interviews. Participants included Senior Executives, Corporate Managers, Project Managers, Safety Managers and Site Supervisors. Interview data was analysed using qualitative thematic analysis, and the survey data was analysed using descriptive statistics. Leaders’ definitions and descriptions of safety culture were primarily action-oriented and some confusion was evident due to the sometimes implicit nature of culture in organisations. Leadership was identified as a key factor for positive safety culture in the organisation, and there was an emphasis on leaders demonstrating commitment to safety, and being visible to the project-based workforce. Barriers to safety culture improvement were also identified, including the subcontractor management issues, pace of change, and reporting requirements. The survey data provided a quantitative confirmation of the interview themes, with some minor discrepancies. The findings highlight that safety culture is a complex construct, which is difficult to define, even for experts in the organisation. Findings on the key factors indicated consistency with the current literature; however the perceptions of barriers to safety culture offer a new understanding in to how safety culture operates in practice.

Collaborative tagging in participatory webs : the death of information organisation?

Many organisations, companies and libraries started to use participatory webs to extend their services and engage more users. However, some librarians are still hesitated to implement participatory webs in their libraries, particularly in developing countries. This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of participatory webs focusing on collaborative tagging. This paper draws from the literature of published articles discussing topics but not limited to participatory webs, participatory libraries, collaborative tagging, folksonomy and taxonomy. The advantages of implementation of the participatory webs in the library outweigh the disadvantages of it. Participatory webs do not necessarily mean the death of information organisation but it can supplement and improves information organisation in the library. This paper may help to broaden knowledge of LIS professionals in the implementation of participatory webs in the library.

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.