Undergraduate performance in accounting and business-based information technology

The pervasiveness of information systems (IS) in organizations mandates the need for high levels of IS skills. In recognition, professional bodies impose IS course requirements for accreditation. For both students and employers, performance in IS courses has become important. The tertiary entrance overall performance score accounted for 19.7 per cent of the variance in students' passing grades. Thereafter, proficiency in office automation software and programming accounted for 1.5 and 0.8 per cent of the variance, respectively. Students living in a stable, family home-based environment performed better and it is likely that this environment underpinned other factors affecting performance.

Do organizational climate and competitive strategy moderate the relationship between human resource management and productivity?

This study examined whether the effectiveness of human resource management (HRM)practices is contingent on organizational climate and competitive strategy The concepts of internol and external fit suggest that the positive relationship between HRM and subsequent productivity will be stronger for firms with a positive organizational climate and for firms using differentiation strategies. Resource allocation theories of motivation, on the other hand, predict that the relationship between HRM and productivity will be stronger for firms with a poor climate because employees working in these firms should have the greatest amount of spare capacity. The results supported the resource allocation argument.

Postcolonialism and the politics of qualitative research in international business

This paper offers a re-configuration of international business research by subjecting it to a postcolonial critique. This critique sees international business research as exhibiting continuities with the colonial project in the way it appropriates the Other. Qualitative research in international business often reproduces a neopositivist separation of theory and method, which can marginalize discussion of the important ontological, epistemological and political issues inherent in any research process

A Neglected Aspect of Business: Human and Social Capital in the Sri Lankan Tea Plantations

This paper examines idiosyncrasies of tea plantation culture and politics in relation to Sri Lankan national and popular cultural typologies, with special reference to female tea plantation workers. Tea production in Sri Lanka is heavily based on manual labour, and it is the largest industry that provides accommodation for employees and their families. In this paper, it is argued that politico-cultural production relations have dominated labour productivity in tea plantations. Ways in which female workers have been marginalized, through patriarchal politics, ethnicity, religion, education, elitism, and employment are explained. This culture of the plantation community operates negatively with respect to the management agenda. It is also argued that social capital development in tea plantations is important not only for productivity improvement, but also for reasons of political and social obligation for the nation, because migrant plantation workers have been working and living in plantations over 150 years.