Green skills for the construction industry

The skill shortage issues have long existed in the construction industry in countries like Australia. Couple this with the lead and lag time between market demand and resultant supply has traditionally seen cyclical fluctuation of skills demand within the construction industry. Skills demand and shortages are generally well documented and can even have a level of predictability in Australia given the tendency to have a delayed reaction to global economic downturns. Sustainability issues in the construction industry have attracted growing public awareness. Traditionally driven by ever increasing, if only gradual, mandated minimum requirements, drive towards sustainable developments is now increasingly being created by the client. As this demand increases, accordingly a demand for people with the skills to provide these services should be felt. This research examines the green skill shortage issues within the context of construction industry. Stakeholders from across relevant sectors of the built environment were engaged to ascertain the industry’s utilisation and demand for ‘green skilled’ personnel. These findings will assist stakeholders within the construction industry in negating the effects of a skills shortage in the event of accelerated demand for sustainable construction.

The Good, the Bad and the Efficient : Productivity, efficiency and technical change in the Airline Industry, 2004:2008

This study models the joint production of desirable and undesirable output production (that is, CO2 emissions) of airlines. The Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index is employed to measure productivity growth when undesirable output production is regulated and unregulated. The results show that pollution abatement activities of airlines lowers productivity growth which suggests the traditional approach of measuring productivity growth, which ignores CO2 emissions, overstate "true" productivity growth.

An examination of the legislative framework governing commuter safety in the Queensland Mining Industry

Commuting in the mining industry -Background -The problem -Journey management -The structure of the legislative framework Legislation and Regulation -Workplace safety in Queensland mining -Risk management -Mining legislation and journey management -Commuting and employee responsibilities -Queensland Workers’ Compensation Scheme Industry standards -Industry standards and journey management Regulated and organisational policy documents -Policy documents and journey management Observations & Conclusions

Against Rehabilitation; For Reparitive Justice

The difficulties of re-imagining the possible relationships between crime and justice in capitalist societies, and imagining the possible meanings of democracy in societies characterised by gross inequalities of knowledge, and exclusion of the majority from political decisions are well known. One such difficulty stems from the impossible necessity of maintaining stances of both constant reform and constant critique (see Carlen, 2012). Confronted with economic and cultural inequalities which routinely deny ideals of justice and democracy, there can be a temptation to suppress (or bracket-off) troubling knowledge of criminal justice's and democracy's maligned underbellies and instead talk 'as if' criminal justice's ideal play of governance is always and already realised in its rhetoric. In some senses, this 'as if' talk is aspirational and it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise if more just conceptions of criminal justice and more democratic forms of democracy are to be conceived. However, when, as often happens, aspirational criminal justice concepts become routinised and acted upon as if they can be realised without fundamental social change, they become penal imaginaries, part of a taken-for-granted ideological baggage which, because it is taken-for-granted, obstructs critique (see Carlen, 2008). One such penal imaginary is the concept of rehabilitation, a concept which has a long history of justifying almost every kind of non-lethal response to lawbreaking and which is currently being reborn yet again in theories of criminal desistance and anti-prison campaigns as well as in the more invidious rehabilitation industry with its sales of programmes for cognitive reform.

Relationship between head contractors and subcontractors in the construction industry : a critical review

The interaction between head contractor and subcontractor in modern construction often contributes to the degree of success or failure of any large-scale construction project. In this paper, previous research on the relationship and interaction between head contractor and subcontractor is examined in order to establish how these relationships will affect the overall performance of a project. Based on the review, research questions on how to best manage the interaction and relationship between these two vital project participants are proposed and future research direction discussed.

Cooperative education through a large scale industry-school partnership

In most of the advanced economies, students are losing interest in careers especially in en¬gineering and related industries. Hence, western economies are confronting a critical skilled labour shortage in areas of technology, science and engineering. Decisions about career pathways are made as early as the primary years of schooling and hence cooperation be¬tween industry and schools to attract students to the professions is crucial. The aim of this paper is to document how the organisational and institutional elements of one industry-school partnerships initiative — The Gateway Schools Program — contribute to productive knowledge sharing and networking. In particular this paper focuses on an initiative of an Australian State government in response to a perceived crisis around the skills shortage in an economy transitioning from a localised to a global knowledge production economy. The Gateway Schools initiative signals the first sustained attempt in Australia to incorporate schools into production networks through strategic partnerships linking them to partner organisations at the industry level. We provide case examples of how four schools opera¬tionalise the partnerships with the minerals and energy industries and how these partner¬ships as knowledge assets impact the delivery of curriculum and capacity building among teachers. Our ultimate goal is to define those characteristics of successful partnerships that do contribute to enhanced interest and engagement by students in those careers that are currently experiencing critical shortages.

The apps industry

Australian apps developers typify global industry segmentation, varying in function, focus, employment situation and background. They range from freelancers contracted to build apps on demand and venture capital-backed or bootstrapped startups, to specialist app studios and full service digital agencies for whom apps are one among many services that may include web development, marketing, advertising, business strategy, branding and games development.

Study of the effect of M&A on real estate industry firms' performance

This paper proposes to adopt data envelopment analysis (DEA) based Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) indices methods to evaluate the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on acquirers in short-term and long-term window. Based on analyzing 32 M&A deals conducted by Chinese real estate firms from 2000-2011, the study result demonstrate that the effect of M&A on developers’ performance is positive. Through M&A, the developers’ Malmquist TFP experienced a steady growth; their technology has got noticeable progress immediately after acquisition; and their technical efficiency has suffered a slight decrease in short-term after acquisition, but then achieved marked increase in the long-term when realization of integration and synergy. However, there is no evidence that the real estate firms have achieved scale efficiency improvement after M&A in either short-term or long-term.

Creating a Sustainability Scorecard as a predictive tool for measuring the complex social, economic and environmental impacts of industries, a case study : assessing the viability and sustainability of the dairy industry

Sustainability is a key driver for decisions in the management and future development of industries. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987) outlined imperatives which need to be met for environmental, economic and social sustainability. Development of strategies for measuring and improving sustainability in and across these domains, however, has been hindered by intense debate between advocates for one approach fearing that efforts by those who advocate for another could have unintended adverse impacts. Studies attempting to compare the sustainability performance of countries and industries have also found ratings of performance quite variable depending on the sustainability indices used. Quantifying and comparing the sustainability of industries across the triple bottom line of economy, environment and social impact continues to be problematic. Using the Australian dairy industry as a case study, a Sustainability Scorecard, developed as a Bayesian network model, is proposed as an adaptable tool to enable informed assessment, dialogue and negotiation of strategies at a global level as well as being suitable for developing local solutions.

Taking cues from outer space : the E&P sector can learn much about asset maintenance from the space and satellite industry

The E&P sector can learn much about asset maintenance from the space and satellite industry. Practitioners from both the upstream oil and gas industry and the space and satellite sector have repeatedly noted several striking similarities between the two industries over the years, which have in turn resulted in many direct comparisons in the media and industry press. The similarities between the two industries have even resulted in a modest amount of cross-pollinating between the respective supply chains. Because the operating conditions of both industries are so extreme, some oil and gas equipment vendors have occasionally sourced motors and other parts from aerospace contractors. Also, satellites are now being used to assess oil fires, detect subsidence in oil fields, measure oil spills, collect and transmit operational data from oil and gas fields, and monitor the movement of icebergs that might potentially collide with offshore oil and gas installations.

How does innovation happen in the upstream oil & gas industry? Insights from a global survey

Few would argue that the upstream oil & gas industry has become more technology-intensive over the years. But how does innovation happen in the industry? Specifically, what ideas and inputs flow from which parts of the sector’s value network, and where do these inputs go? And how do firms and organizations from different countries contribute differently to this process? This paper puts forward the results of a survey designed to shed light on these issues. A joint research initiative between the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Queensland University of Technology, the survey was sent to 469 executives and senior managers who played a significant role with regards to R&D and/or technology deployment in their respective business units. A total of 199 responses were received from a broad range of organizations and countries around the world. Several interesting themes and trends emerge from the results, including: (1) service companies tend to file considerably more patents per innovation than other types of organization; (2) over 63% of the deployed innovations reported in the survey originated in service companies; (3) neither universities nor government-led research organizations are considered to be valuable sources of new information and knowledge in the industry’s R&D initiatives; and (4) despite the increasing degree of globalization in the marketplace, the USA still plays an extremely dominant role in the industry’s overall R&D and technology deployment activities. By providing a detailed snapshot of how innovation happens in the upstream oil & gas sector, this paper provides a valuable foundation for future investigations and discussions aimed at improving how R&D and technology deployment are managed within the industry.

A critical analysis of business process management education and alignment with industry demand : an Australian perspective

Business Process Management (BPM) is accepted globally as an organizational approach to enhance productivity and drive cost efficiencies. Studies confirm a shortage of BPM skilled professionals with limited opportunities to develop the required BPM expertise. This study investigates this gap starting from a critical analysis of BPM courses offered by Australian universities and training institutions. These courses were analyzed and mapped against a leading BPM capability framework to determine how well current BPM education and training offerings in Australia address the core capabilities required by BPM professionals globally. To determine the BPM skill-sets sought by industry, online recruitment advertisements were collated, analyzed, and mapped against this BPM capability framework. The outcomes provide a detailed overview on the alignment of available BPM education/training and industry demand. These insights are useful for BPM professionals and their employers to build awareness of the BPM capabilities required for a BPM mature organization. Universities and other training institutions will benefit from these results by understanding where demand is, where the gaps are, and what other BPM education providers are supplying. This structured comparison method could continue to provide a common ground for future discussion across university-industry boundaries and continuous alignment of their respective practices.