Towards a literacy of attention

In 1997, business trend analyst Linda Stone proposed the term "continuous partial attention" to characterise the contemporary experience of wanting to be ‘a live node on the network’. She argued that while it can be a positive and functional behaviour, it also has the potential to be disabling, compromising reflective and creative thought. Subsequent studies have explored the ways in which technology has slowly disrupted the idea and experience of a "centred" and "bounded" self. Studies of ‘Gen Y’ show the ease with which young people accommodate this multiplying of the self as they negotiate their partial friendships and networks of interest with family and work. In teaching and learning circles in tertiary education we talk a lot about problems of student ‘disengagement’. In characterising our challenge this way, are we undermining our potential to understand the tendencies of contemporary learners? This paper begins a consideration of how traditional models, frameworks and practices might oppose these partially engaged but continuously connected and interpersonal "dividuals". What questions does this provoke for learning environments towards harnessing yet counterpointing the crisis students might experience; to recognise but also integrate their multiple selves towards what they aim to become through the process of learning?

Using ontology for the representational analysis of process modelling techniques

Selecting an appropriate business process modelling technique forms an important task within the methodological challenges of a business process management project. While a plethora of available techniques has been developed over the last decades, there is an obvious shortage of well-accepted reference frameworks that can be used to evaluate and compare the capabilities of the different techniques. Academic progress has been made at least in the area of representational analyses that use ontology as a benchmark for such evaluations. This paper reflects on the comprehensive experiences with the application of a model based on the Bunge ontology in this context. A brief overview of the underlying research model characterizes the different steps in such a research project. A comparative summary of previous representational analyses of process modelling techniques over time gives insights into the relative maturity of selected process modelling techniques. Based on these experiences suggestions are made as to where ontology-based representational analyses could be further developed and what limitations are inherent to such analyses.

Looking through the haze of discontent : smokers as a data source

In the case of industrial relations research, particularly that which sets out to examine practices within workplaces, the best way to study this real-life context is to work for the organisation. Studies conducted by researchers working within the organisation comprise some of the (broad) field’s classic research (cf. Roy, 1954; Burawoy, 1979). Participant and non-participant ethnographic research provides an opportunity to investigate workplace behaviour beyond the scope of questionnaires and interviews. However, we suggest that the data collected outside a workplace can be just as important as the data collected inside the organisation’s walls. In recent years the introduction of anti-smoking legislation in Australia has meant that people who smoke cigarettes are no longer allowed to do so inside buildings. Not only are smokers forced outside to engage in their habit, but they have to smoke prescribed distances from doorways, or in some workplaces outside the property line. This chapter considers the importance of cigarette-smoking employees in ethnographic research. Through data collected across three separate research projects, the chapter argues that smokers, as social outcasts in the workplace, can provide a wealth of important research data. We suggest that smokers also appear more likely to provide stories that contradict the ‘management’ or ‘organisational’ position. Thus, within the haze of smoke, researchers can uncover a level of discontent with the ‘corporate line’ presented inside the workplace. There are several aspects to the increased propensity of smokers to provide a contradictory or discontented story. It may be that the researcher is better able to establish a rapport with smokers, as there is a removal of the artificial wall a researcher presents as an outsider. It may also be that a research location physically outside the boundaries of the organisation provides workers with the freedom to express their discontent. The authors offer no definitive answers; rather, this chapter is intended to extend our knowledge of workplace research through highlighting the methodological value in using smokers as research subjects. We present the experience of three separate case studies where interactions with cigarette smokers have provided either important organisational data or alternatively a means of entering what Cunnison (1966) referred to as the ‘gossip circle’. The final section of the chapter draws on the evidence to demonstrate how the community of smokers, as social outcasts, are valuable in investigating workplace issues. For researchers and practitioners, these social outcasts may very well prove to be an important barometer of employee attitudes; attitudes that perhaps cannot be measured through traditional staff surveys.

Wrong way, go back! Negotiating success in industry-based research

Literature addressing methodological issues in organisational research is extensive and multidisciplinary, encompassing debates about methodological choices, data-collection techniques, epistemological approaches and statistical procedures. However, little scholarship has tackled an important aspect of organisational research that precedes decisions about data collection and analysis – access to the organisations themselves, including the people, processes and documents within them. This chapter looks at organisational access through the experiences of three research fellows in the course of their work with their respective industry partners. In doing so, it reveals many of the challenges and changing opportunities associated with access to organisations, which are rarely explicitly addressed, but often assumed, in traditional methods texts and journal publications. Although the level of access granted varied somewhat across the projects at different points in time and according to different organisational contexts, we shared a number of core and consistent experiences in attempting to collect data and implement strategies.

Financial accounting: building accounting knowledge

Financial Accounting: Building Accounting Knowledge is a new textbook written for the first financial accounting subject that a student majoring in accounting is required to study. Based on the successful introductory accounting textbook, 'Accounting: building business skills', this text will provide students and academics with a well written and accessible textbook on the principles of financial accounting, with ample illustrations and applications to business. The text maintains the balance between a 'user' and 'preparer' perspective effectively by integrating real financial information and business decision choices throughout the chapters. Through the use of real company information and financial statements students will quickly appreciate the use of accounting information. The textbook clearly outlines to students how accounting information communicates the financing, operating, and investing activities of a business. The text builds a strong conceptual understanding and develops skills in the application of accounting principles and techniques, providing students with a solid foundation for studying accounting.

Sexuality in a criminal justice curriculum : a study of student conceptualisations of gay identity

Heteronormative discourses provide the most common lens through which sexuality is understood within university curricula. This means that sexuality is discussed in terms of categories of identity, with heterosexuality accorded primacy while all 'others' are indeed 'othered'. This article draws on research carried out by the authors in a core first year university ethics class, in which a fictional text was introduced with the intention of unpacking these discourses. An ethnographic study was undertaken where both students and teachers engaged in discussions over, and personal written reflections on, the textual content. In reporting the results of that study this article uses a post-structural framework to identify how classroom and textual discourses might be used to break down socially constructed categories of sexuality and students' conceptualisations of non-heterosexual behaviour. It was found that engaging in discussion in the context of the fictional text allowed some students to begin to recognise their own heteronormative views and engage in an informed critique of them.

Management

Building on the strengths of its popular previous editions, Management 4th Australasian edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to both reflect contemporarymanagement thinking and to highlight the issues facing managers of the21st century. A solid foundation of theory provides the background to a wealth ofillustrative examples, highlighting organisations operating inAustralia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. A balance of small-to medium- size enterprises and larger multinational corporations arefeatured. A critical thinking perspective is integrated throughout thebook, asking and encouraging student to analyse research and theory inthe light of contemporary management practice. Each copy of the printed textbook comes with a free copy of the Wiley Desktop Edition:a full electronic version of the text that allows students to easilysearch for key concepts, create their own colour-coded highlights andmake electronic notes in the text for revision. Key themes of the text include: The importance of ethical and socially responsible management Recognition of the continuing need to cater for the increasing diversity of the workforce The importance of managing people, technology, knowledge and quality in achieving organisational goals An appreciation of the challenges and opportunities presented bythe ever changing environment in which contemporary managers operate.

Social change grant-making : a failure of innovation?

Focusing primarily on Anglophone countries, this article begins by looking at the changing environment of foundations, the pressures on foundations and some responses to those pressures. It then focuses on the potential of a structural change approach - often known as 'social change' or 'social justice' grant-making - as a solution to some of the modern dilemmas of foundations, and considers why this approach has, with some exceptions, gained relatively little support. This raises the wider issues of why and how resource-independent, endowed foundations change when conventional explanations of organisational change do not easily apply. Researching a 'lack' is clearly difficult; this article adopts an analytic perspective, examining the characteristics of the structural change approach as a mimetic model, and draws on the work of Rogers (2003) on the characteristics required for the successful diffusion of innovations. It suggests that the structural change approach suffers from some fundamental weaknesses as a mimetic model, failing to meet some key characteristics for the diffusion of innovations. In conclusion, the article looks at conditions under which these weaknesses may be overcome.

Governance issues in accounting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify some key issues for the analysis of corporate governance based on the papers within this special issue including the Guest Editor's perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – The five papers included in this special issue are summarized and their main contribution to the literature is highlighted. Findings – The paper collectively deal with the role and impact of corporate boards on the quality of information provided to capital markets. Practical implications – The theoretical and empirical research included in the special issue advance the understanding of corporate governance which provides impetus for practitioner and policy change. Originality/value – The normative concepts of best practice need to be validated by empirical testing in the context of firms and their institutional settings. This suite of papers provides evidence of the effectiveness of corporate governance in improving accounting quality

A reflective model for colour studies learning

In a university context how should colour be taught in order to engage students? Entwistle states, ‘What we learn depends on how we learn, and why we have to learn it.’ Therefore, there is a need to address the accumulating evidence that highlights the effects of learning environments on the quality of student learning when considering colour education. It is necessary to embrace the contextual demands while ensuring that the student knowledge of colour and the joy of discovering its characteristics in practice are enhanced. Institutional policy is forcing educators to re-evaluate traditional studio’s effectiveness and the intensive 'hands-on' interactive approach that is embedded in such an approach. As curriculum development involves not only theory and project work, the classroom culture and physical environment also need to be addressed. The increase in student numbers impacting the number of academic staff/student ratio, availability of teaching support as well as increasing variety of student age, work commitments, learning styles and attitudes have called for positive changes to how we teach. The Queensland University of Technology’s restructure in 2005 was a great opportunity to re-evaluate and redesign the approach to teaching within the design units of Interior Design undergraduate program –including colour. The resultant approach “encapsulates a mode of delivery, studio structure, as well as the learning context in which students and staff interact to facilitate learning”1 with a potential “to be integrated into a range of Interior Design units as it provides an adaptive educational framework rather than a prescriptive set of rules”.

What is that place? Observations of the impact of environment colour through photographic analysis

Isolating the impact of a colour, or a combination of colours, is extremely difficult to achieve because it is difficult to remove other environmental elements such as sound, odours, light, and occasion from the experience of being in a place. In order to ascertain the impact of colour on how we interpret the world in day to day situations, the current study records participant responses to achromatic scenes of the built environment prior to viewing the same scene in colour. A number of environments were photographed in colour or copied from design books; and copies of the images saved as both colour and black/grey/white. An overview of the study will be introduced by firstly providing examples of studies which have linked colour to meaning and emotions. For example, yellow is said to be connected to happiness1 ; or red evokes feelings of anger2 or passion. A link between colour and the way we understand and/or feel is established however, there is a further need for knowledge of colour in context. In response to this need, the current achromatic/chromatic environmental study will be described and discussed in light of the findings. Finally, suggestions for future research are posed. Based on previous research the authors hypothesised that a shift in environmental perception by participants would occur. It was found that the impact of colour includes a shift in perception of aspects such as its atmosphere and youthfulness. Through studio-class discussions it was also noted that the predicted age of the place, the function, and in association, the potential users when colour was added (or deleted) were often challenged. It is posited that the ability of a designer (for example, interior designer, architect, or landscape architect) to design for a particular target group—user and/or clients will be enhanced through more targeted studies relating colour in situ. The importance of noting the perceptual shift for the participants in our study, who were young designers, is the realisation that colour potentially holds the power to impact on the identity of an architectural form, an interior space, and/or particular elements such as doorways, furniture settings, and the like.

A FR.E.S.H idea

This paper explores the possibility of including human factoring in a business process model. The importance of doing so is twofold: (1) The organization becomes transparent in its processes as all participants (human, activities and events) are identifiable. (2) Including human factoring allows organizations to hire accordingly to the process needs. (3) Human factoring alleviates the current work related stress that is being encountered. (4) Enable quicker transition for newer employees into job scope. This was made possible by including a human behaviour layer in between pools within a process to depict human behaviour and feeling. Future work includes having a human thought symbol and a human interaction symbol included into the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN).

Determining heavy vehicle suspension health from vibratory wheel loads

A low-cost test bed was made from a modified heavy vehicle (HV) brake tester. By rotating a test HV’s wheel on an eccentric roller, a known vibration was imparted to the wheel under test. A control case for dampers in good condition was compared with two test cases of ineffective shock absorbers. Measurement of the forces at the bearings of the roller provided an indication of the HV wheel-forces. Where the level of serviceability of the shock absorbers varied, differences in wheel load provided a quality indicator corresponding to a change of damper characteristic. Conclusions regarding the levels of damper maintenance beyond which HV suspensions cause road damage and dynamic wheel forces at the threshold of tyre wear at which HV shock absorbers are normally replaced are presented.

Adjusting building thermostats for environmental gains : understanding the issues

There has been increasing reliance on mechanical heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to achieve thermal comfort in office buildings. The use of universal standards for thermal comfort adopted in air-conditioned spaces often results in a large disparity between mean daily external summer temperatures and temperatures experienced indoors. The extensive overuse of air-conditioning in warm climates not only isolates us from the vagaries of the external environment, but is generally dependent on non-renewable energy. A pilot study conducted at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) involved altering the thermostat set-points to two or three degrees above the normal summer setting in two air-conditioned buildings during the subtropical summer. This paper presents the findings of the research that led to the formulation of the test study. The findings of the test study are printed in the companion paper DES 72: Adjusting Building Thermastats for Environmental Gains – a Pilot Study.