An ecology of centre-based child care

The studies in the thesis were derived from a program of research focused on centre-based child care in Australia. The studies constituted an ecological analysis as they examined proximal and distal factors which have the potential to affect children's developmental opportunities (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The project was conducted in thirty-two child care centres located in south-east Queensland. Participants in the research included staff members at the centres, families using the centres and their children. The first study described the personal and professional characteristics of one hundred and forty-four child care workers, as well as their job satisfaction and job commitment. Factors impinging on the stability of care afforded to children were examined, specifically child care workers' intentions to leave their current position and actual staff turnover at a twelve month follow-up. This is an ecosystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983), as it examined the world of work for carers; a setting not directly involving the developing child, but which has implications for children's experiences. Staff job satisfaction was focused on working with children and other adults, including parents and colleagues. Involvement with children was reported as being the most rewarding aspect of the work. This intrinsic satisfaction was enough to sustain caregivers' efforts to maintain their employment in child care programs. It was found that, while improving working conditions may help to reduce turnover, it is likely that moderate turnover rates will remain as child care staff work in relatively small centres and they leave in order to improve career prospects. Departure from a child care job appeared to be as much about improving career opportunities or changing personal circumstances, as it was about poor wages and working conditions. In the second study, factors that influence maternal satisfaction with child care arrangements were examined. The focus included examination of the nature and qualities of parental interaction with staff. This was a mesosystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983), as it considered the links between family and child care settings. Two hundred and twenty-two questionnaires were returned from mothers whose children were enrolled in the participating centres. It was found that maternal satisfaction with child care encompassed the domains of child-centred and parent-centred satisfaction. The nature and range of responses in the quantitative and qualitative data indicated that these parents were genuinely satisfied with their children's care. In the prediction of maternal satisfaction with child care, single parents, mothers with high role satisfaction, and mothers who were satisfied with the frequency of staff contact and degree of supportive communication had higher levels of satisfaction with their child care arrangements. The third study described the structural and process variations within child care programs and examined program differences for compliance with regulations and differences by profit status of the centre, as a microsystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Observations were made in eighty-three programs which served children from two to five years. The results of the study affirmed beliefs that nonprofit centres are superior in the quality of care provided, although this was not to a level which meant that the care in for-profit centres was inadequate. Regulation of structural features of child care programs, per se, did not guarantee higher quality child care as measured by global or process indicators. The final study represented an integration of a range of influences in child care and family settings which may impact on development. Features of child care programs which predict children's social and cognitive development, while taking into account child and family characteristics, were identified. Results were consistent with other research findings which show that child and family characteristics and child care quality predict children's development. Child care quality was more important to the prediction of social development, while family factors appeared to be more predictive of cognitive/language development. An influential variable predictive of development was the period of time which the child had been in the centre. This highlighted the importance of the stability of child care arrangements. Child care quality features which had most influence were global ratings of the qualities of the program environment. However, results need to be interpreted cautiously as the explained variance in the predictive models developed was low. The results of these studies are discussed in terms of the implications for practice and future research. Considerations for an expanded view of ecological approaches to child care research are outlined. Issues discussed include the need to generate child care research which is relevant to social policy development, the implications of market driven policies for child care services, professionalism and professionalisation of child care work, and the need to reconceptualise child care research when the goal is to develop greater theoretical understanding about child care environments and developmental processes.

Sustainable relationship : an Australian case study

Successful construction project managers often stress the importance of team working, relationship management, project environment and senior management commitment as being key determinants of project success. However, it is generally accepted that the construction industry has stronger preference for displaying distrust rather than emancipating the full benefits of cooperation. In the research domain, the impact of culture and organisation on project performance is becoming an increasingly important topic for the establishment of a sound relational approach to projects. Relational procurement strategies emphasise the importance of sustainable relationships. However, the efficacy of relational contracting is, so far, unproven. This study examines the organisational factors that facilitates sustainable relationship between project organisations and hence, lead to long-term business success. Initial findings captured from a survey undertaken with construction contracting organisations in Australia, where the perceptions of professional personnel and supply chain relationships are reported in this paper. A four-level project performance effectiveness model developed in this research is also presented.

Providing a better work environment for competitive advantage – conceptual considerations linking commitment and firm-specific human resources

Managing for uncertain futures is a major concern in the area of strategic management with environmental stability fading and increasing global impacts on local decisions. One critical resource that has attained special interest lies in talented and qualified employees. It is a challenge to motivate such employees to invest in firm-specific assets that may form a valuable basis for competitive advantage. Short term contracts and a lack of care for employees make it hard to establish a committed workforce. The aim of the paper is the elaboration of a conceptual framework showing the links and contributing to a better understanding of how the alignment of interests of employees and firms maybe a valuable contribution to the understanding of competitive advantage.

Monitoring and regulatory role of the balanced scorecard in controlling organisational identities

This thesis employs the theoretical fusion of disciplinary knowledge, interlacing an analysis from both functional and interpretive frameworks and applies these paradigms to three concepts—organisational identity, the balanced scorecard performance measurement system, and control. As an applied thesis, this study highlights how particular public sector organisations are using a range of multi-disciplinary forms of knowledge constructed for their needs to achieve practical outcomes. Practical evidence of this study is not bound by a single disciplinary field or the concerns raised by academics about the rigorous application of academic knowledge. The study’s value lies in its ability to explore how current communication and accounting knowledge is being used for practical purposes in organisational life. The main focus of this thesis is on identities in an organisational communication context. In exploring the theoretical and practical challenges, the research questions for this thesis were formulated as: 1. Is it possible to effectively control identities in organisations by the use of an integrated performance measurement system—the balanced scorecard—and if so, how? 2. What is the relationship between identities and an integrated performance measurement system—the balanced scorecard—in the identity construction process? Identities in the organisational context have been extensively discussed in graphic design, corporate communication and marketing, strategic management, organisational behaviour, and social psychology literatures. Corporate identity is the self-presentation of the personality of an organisation (Van Riel, 1995; Van Riel & Balmer, 1997), and organisational identity is the statement of central characteristics described by members (Albert & Whetten, 2003). In this study, identity management is positioned as a strategically complex task, embracing not only logo and name, but also multiple dimensions, levels and facets of organisational life. Responding to the collaborative efforts of researchers and practitioners in identity conceptualisation and methodological approaches, this dissertation argues that analysis can be achieved through the use of an integrated framework of identity products, patternings and processes (Cornelissen, Haslam, & Balmer, 2007), transforming conceptualisations of corporate identity, organisational identity and identification studies. Likewise, the performance measurement literature from the accounting field now emphasises the importance of ‘soft’ non-financial measures in gauging performance—potentially allowing the monitoring and regulation of ‘collective’ identities (Cornelissen et al., 2007). The balanced scorecard (BSC) (Kaplan & Norton, 1996a), as the selected integrated performance measurement system, quantifies organisational performance under the four perspectives of finance, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. Broadening the traditional performance measurement boundary, the BSC transforms how organisations perceived themselves (Vaivio, 2007). The rhetorical and communicative value of the BSC has also been emphasised in organisational self-understanding (Malina, Nørreklit, & Selto, 2007; Malmi, 2001; Norreklit, 2000, 2003). Thus, this study establishes a theoretical connection between the controlling effects of the BSC and organisational identity construction. Common to both literatures, the aspects of control became the focus of this dissertation, as ‘the exercise or act of achieving a goal’ (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985, p. 180). This study explores not only traditional technical and bureaucratic control (Edwards, 1981), but also concertive control (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985), shifting the locus of control to employees who make their own decisions towards desired organisational premises (Simon, 1976). The controlling effects on collective identities are explored through the lens of the rhetorical frames mobilised through the power of organisational enthymemes (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985) and identification processes (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008). In operationalising the concept of control, two guiding questions were developed to support the research questions: 1.1 How does the use of the balanced scorecard monitor identities in public sector organisations? 1.2 How does the use of the balanced scorecard regulate identities in public sector organisations? This study adopts qualitative multiple case studies using ethnographic techniques. Data were gathered from interviews of 41 managers, organisational documents, and participant observation from 2003 to 2008, to inform an understanding of organisational practices and members’ perceptions in the five cases of two public sector organisations in Australia. Drawing on the functional and interpretive paradigms, the effective design and use of the systems, as well as the understanding of shared meanings of identities and identifications are simultaneously recognised. The analytical structure guided by the ‘bracketing’ (Lewis & Grimes, 1999) and ‘interplay’ strategies (Schultz & Hatch, 1996) preserved, connected and contrasted the unique findings from the multi-paradigms. The ‘temporal bracketing’ strategy (Langley, 1999) from the process view supports the comparative exploration of the analysis over the periods under study. The findings suggest that the effective use of the BSC can monitor and regulate identity products, patternings and processes. In monitoring identities, the flexible BSC framework allowed the case study organisations to monitor various aspects of finance, customer, improvement and organisational capability that included identity dimensions. Such inclusion legitimises identity management as organisational performance. In regulating identities, the use of the BSC created a mechanism to form collective identities by articulating various perspectives and causal linkages, and through the cascading and alignment of multiple scorecards. The BSC—directly reflecting organisationally valued premises and legitimised symbols—acted as an identity product of communication, visual symbols and behavioural guidance. The selective promotion of the BSC measures filtered organisational focus to shape unique identity multiplicity and characteristics within the cases. Further, the use of the BSC facilitated the assimilation of multiple identities by controlling the direction and strength of identifications, engaging different groups of members. More specifically, the tight authority of the BSC framework and systems are explained both by technical and bureaucratic controls, while subtle communication of organisational premises and information filtering is achieved through concertive control. This study confirms that these macro top-down controls mediated the sensebreaking and sensegiving process of organisational identification, supporting research by Ashforth, Harrison and Corley (2008). This study pays attention to members’ power of self-regulation, filling minor premises of the derived logic of their organisation through the playing out of organisational enthymemes (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985). Members are then encouraged to make their own decisions towards the organisational premises embedded in the BSC, through the micro bottom-up identification processes including: enacting organisationally valued identities; sensemaking; and the construction of identity narratives aligned with those organisationally valued premises. Within the process, the self-referential effect of communication encouraged members to believe the organisational messages embedded in the BSC in transforming collective and individual identities. Therefore, communication through the use of the BSC continued the self-producing of normative performance mechanisms, established meanings of identities, and enabled members’ self-regulation in identity construction. Further, this research establishes the relationship between identity and the use of the BSC in terms of identity multiplicity and attributes. The BSC framework constrained and enabled case study organisations and members to monitor and regulate identity multiplicity across a number of dimensions, levels and facets. The use of the BSC constantly heightened the identity attributes of distinctiveness, relativity, visibility, fluidity and manageability in identity construction over time. Overall, this research explains the reciprocal controlling relationships of multiple structures in organisations to achieve a goal. It bridges the gap among corporate and organisational identity theories by adopting Cornelissen, Haslam and Balmer’s (2007) integrated identity framework, and reduces the gap in understanding between identity and performance measurement studies. Parallel review of the process of monitoring and regulating identities from both literatures synthesised the theoretical strengths of both to conceptualise and operationalise identities. This study extends the discussion on positioning identity, culture, commitment, and image and reputation measures in integrated performance measurement systems as organisational capital. Further, this study applies understanding of the multiple forms of control (Edwards, 1979; Tompkins & Cheney, 1985), emphasising the power of organisational members in identification processes, using the notion of rhetorical organisational enthymemes. This highlights the value of the collaborative theoretical power of identity, communication and performance measurement frameworks. These case studies provide practical insights about the public sector where existing bureaucracy and desired organisational identity directions are competing within a large organisational setting. Further research on personal identity and simple control in organisations that fully cascade the BSC down to individual members would provide enriched data. The extended application of the conceptual framework to other public and private sector organisations with a longitudinal view will also contribute to further theory building.

Commitment issues in delegation process

Delegation is a powerful mechanism to provide flexible and dynamic access control decisions. Delegation is particularly useful in federated environments where multiple systems, with their own security autonomy, are connected under one common federation. Although many delegation schemes have been studied, current models do not seriously take into account the issue of delegation commitment of the involved parties. In order to address this issue, this paper introduces a new mechanism to help parties involved in the delegation process to express commitment constraints, perform the commitments and track the committed actions. This mechanism looks at two different aspects: pre-delegation commitment and post-delegation commitment. In pre-delegation commitment, this mechanism enables the involved parties to express the delegation constraints and address those constraints. The post-delegation commitment phase enables those parties to inform the delegator and service providers how the commitments are conducted. This mechanism utilises a modified SAML assertion structure to support the proposed delegation and constraint approach.

Effects of different practice task constraints on fluctuations of player heart rate in small-sided football games

This paper analyzes effects of different practice task constraints on heart rate (HR) variability during 4v4 smallsided football games. Participants were sixteen football players divided into two age groups (U13, Mean age: 12.4±0.5 yrs; U15: 14.6±0.5). The task consisted of a 4v4 sub-phase without goalkeepers, on a 25x15 m field, of 15 minutes duration with an active recovery period of 6 minutes between each condition. We recorded players’ heart rates using heart rate monitors (Polar Team System, Polar Electro, Kempele, Finland) as scoring mode was manipulated (line goal: scoring by dribbling past an extended line; double goal: scoring in either of two lateral goals; and central goal: scoring only in one goal). Subsequently, %HR reserve was calculated with the Karvonen formula. We performed a time-series analysis of HR for each individual in each condition. Mean data for intra-participant variability showed that autocorrelation function was associated with more short-range dependence processes in the “line goal” condition, compared to other conditions, demonstrating that the “line goal” constraint induced more randomness in HR response. Relative to inter-individual variability, line goal constraints demonstrated lower %CV and %RMSD (U13: 9% and 19%; U15: 10% and 19%) compared with double goal (U13: 12% and 21%; U15: 12% and 21%) and central goal (U13: 14% and 24%; U15: 13% and 24%) task constraints, respectively. Results suggested that line goal constraints imposed more randomness on cardiovascular stimulation of each individual and lower inter-individual variability than double goal and central goal constraints.

The ecological dynamics of 1v1 sub-phases in association football

This paper analyzes effects of different practice task constraints on heart rate (HR) variability during 4v4 smallsided football games. Participants were sixteen football players divided into two age groups (U13, Mean age: 12.4±0.5 yrs; U15: 14.6±0.5). The task consisted of a 4v4 sub-phase without goalkeepers, on a 25x15 m field, of 15 minutes duration with an active recovery period of 6 minutes between each condition. We recorded players’ heart rates using heart rate monitors (Polar Team System, Polar Electro, Kempele, Finland) as scoring mode was manipulated (line goal: scoring by dribbling past an extended line; double goal: scoring in either of two lateral goals; and central goal: scoring only in one goal). Subsequently, %HR reserve was calculated with the Karvonen formula. We performed a time-series analysis of HR for each individual in each condition. Mean data for intra-participant variability showed that autocorrelation function was associated with more short-range dependence processes in the “line goal” condition, compared to other conditions, demonstrating that the “line goal” constraint induced more randomness in HR response. Relative to inter-individual variability, line goal constraints demonstrated lower %CV and %RMSD (U13: 9% and 19%; U15: 10% and 19%) compared with double goal (U13: 12% and 21%; U15: 12% and 21%) and central goal (U13: 14% and 24%; U15: 13% and 24%) task constraints, respectively. Results suggested that line goal constraints imposed more randomness on cardiovascular stimulation of each individual and lower inter-individual variability than double goal and central goal constraints.

Team role preference and online role play

Role play approaches have been used in online environments in an effort to create a mix of contested ideas and to promote participant engagement. While it is recognised that there is an aspect of ‘fun’ associated with role play there is a need to understand role assignment more rigorously than simply levels of reported participation and enjoyment. It is the contention of this paper that individuals are unlikely to be able to authentically play a role and, that in fact, there may be little purpose to contrived roles. Additionally, the literature has widely reported that personality factors, such as introversion and extroversion continue to be of significance in the way that individuals contribute in online contexts. The findings in the study reported in this paper confirm that introversion and extroversion do, indeed, play a role in the way individuals contribute in online environments. Thus, this paper argues that an active consideration needs to be given to individuals preferred (or natural) way of working even where use is made of online role play.

Building a software architecture for a human-robot team using the ORCA framework

This paper considers the problem of building a software architecture for a human-robot team. The objective of the team is to build a multi-attribute map of the world by performing information fusion. A decentralized approach to information fusion is adopted to achieve the system properties of scalability and survivability. Decentralization imposes constraints on the design of the architecture and its implementation. We show how a Component-Based Software Engineering approach can address these constraints. The architecture is implemented using Orca – a component-based software framework for robotic systems. Experimental results from a deployed system comprised of an unmanned air vehicle, a ground vehicle, and two human operators are presented. A section on the lessons learned is included which may be applicable to other distributed systems with complex algorithms. We also compare Orca to the Player software framework in the context of distributed systems.

Nascent venture performance : linking novelty of venture ideas and commitment of firm founders as predictors

The individual-opportunity nexus emphasizes that both the characteristics of individuals and venture ideas have roles in the entrepreneurial process (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Following upon this assertion the present study examined whether the venture idea novelty and investment of resources can make an important part in the venture creation process. Data analysed for a sample of nascent entrepreneurs in Australia suggests that the novelty of venture ideas restricts the performance of nascent ventures. However, the more investment of time and money do not show a significant impact to the venture performance.

Supply chain sustainability : a relationship management approach moderated by culture and commitment

This research explores the nature of relationship management on construction projects in Australia and examines the effects of culture, by means of Schwarz’s value survey, on relationships under different contract strategies. The research was based on the view that the development of a sustainable supply chain depends on the transfer of knowledge and capabilities from the larger players in the supply chain through collaboration brought about by relationship management. The research adopted a triangulated approach in which quantitative data were collected by questionnaire, interviews were conducted to explore and enrich the quantitative data and case studies were undertaken in order to illustrate and validate the findings. The aim was to investigate how values and attitudes enhance or reduce the incorporation of the supply chain into the project. From the research it was found that the degree of match and mismatch between values and contract strategy impacts commitment and the engagement and empowerment of the supply chain.

Improving team dynamics and innovation : the “Aspect Design” approach applied to interaction design

Interaction Design is a fast developing branch of Industrial Design. The availability of cheap microprocessors and sensor electronics allow interactions between people and products that were until recently impossible. This has added additional layers of complexity to the design process. Novice designers find it difficult to effectively juggle these complexities and typically tend to focus on one aspect at a time. They also tend to take a linear, step-by-step approach to the design process in contrast to expert designers who pursue “parallel lines of thought” whilst simultaneously co-evolving both problem and solution. (Lawson, 1993) This paper explores an approach that encourages designers (in this case novice designers) to take a parallel rather than linear approach to the design process. It also addresses the problem of social loafing that tends to occur in team activities.