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.

Creative Work Beyond the Creative Industries : Innovation, Employment and Education

Creative workers are employed in sectors outside the Creative Industries often in greater numbers than within. This is the first book to explore the phenomena of the embedded creative and creative services through a range of sectors, disciplines, and perspectives. Despite the emergence of these creative workers, very little is known about their work life, and why companies seek to employ them. This book asks: how does creative work actually ‘embed’ into a service or product supply chain? What are creative services? What work are embedded creatives doing? Which industries are they working in? This collection explores these questions in relation to innovation, employment and education, using various methods and theoretical approaches, in order to examine the value of the embedded creative and creative services and to discover the implications of education and training for these creative workers. This book will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders in the Creative Industries, in particular digital media, application development, design, journalism, media and communication. It will also appeal to academics and scholars of innovation, Cultural Studies, business management and Labour Studies.

Embedded digital creative workers and creative services in banking

This chapter explores the roles and functions of both digital creative workers and creative services firms in an industry beyond the core creative industries: banking. The chapter focuses on the design and development of apps and mobile websites for smartphones and tablet computers, with examples drawn principally from the Australian banking sector. While it might be assumed that utility and practicality are more critical and more highly valued in apps development for financial services institutions than innovation and aesthetic design, this chapter illustrates the growing importance placed on creative work in this sector.

Frontier Techniques for Measuring and Estimating Airport Efficiency : An Empirical Review with Practical Guidelines for Analysis and Future Research

Airport efficiency is important because it has a direct impact on customer safety and satisfaction and therefore the financial performance and sustainability of airports, airlines, and affiliated service providers. This is especially so in a world characterized by an increasing volume of both domestic and international air travel, price and other forms of competition between rival airports, airport hubs and airlines, and rapid and sometimes unexpected changes in airline routes and carriers. It also reflects expansion in the number of airports handling regional, national, and international traffic and the growth of complementary airport facilities including industrial, commercial, and retail premises. This has fostered a steadily increasing volume of research aimed at modeling and providing best-practice measures and estimates of airport efficiency using mathematical and econometric frontiers. The purpose of this chapter is to review these various methods as they apply to airports throughout the world. Apart from discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches and their key findings, the paper also examines the steps faced by researchers as they move through the modeling process in defining airport inputs and outputs and the purported efficiency drivers. Accordingly, the chapter provides guidance to those conducting empirical research on airport efficiency and serves as an aid for aviation regulators and airport operators among others interpreting airport efficiency research outcomes.

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.

Make-Buy Decisions in the Face of Radical Innovations

Make-buy decisions are an important aspect of the overall strategic plans for most firms, and the introduction of a new and potentially radical technology into an industry should therefore be a cue for managers to review their make-buy policies. Should a company make in-house the components and processes underpinning the technology, or should it buy them from an outside supplier? Earlier attempts to answer this question may have failed to agree on a single verdict because they have overlooked two important market forces: supplier relations and industry clockspeed. Based on an intensive three-year study at the University of Cambridge which analyzed supply chain management practices from a broad range of manufacturers around the world, this book helps to resolve this classic technology outsourcing dilemma and gives managers the tools they will need to determine if they should make or buy the components and processes that go into a potentially radical innovation.