The future of facilities management : educators and professional bodies working together

Facilities management programmes in Australia suffer from poor recruitment levels. This is in strong contrast to nearby Asian countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore where facilities management is a well-respected profession and programmes recruit in the 100’s. Facilities management seems to be more regarded as purely a technical or even a janitorial job by potential students rather than a profession that offers scope for the development and exercise of high level skills in Australia. The word “management” seems to be ignored in the minds of the general public, despite the aspirations of practitioners and researchers to reach board-level influence. Facilities management is not the only one of the built-environment professions being viewed in this way. A number of professional bodies have difficulty recruiting fresh graduates into their ranks in Australia and research suggests that low recruitment levels will lead to a moribund profession with the potential for being downgraded to quasi or para-professional status. This paper would like to stimulate debate about the future of construction professions generally, how to encourage quality graduate entrants and educate employers about the need, indeed the necessity, for requiring professional qualifications in addition to graduate or post-graduate education to ensure the highest standards and continuing development of skills and knowledge.

Executive compensation and corporate governance with special reference to Bangladesh; some emerging issues

This discussion paper considers corporate governance issues associated with executive compensation arrangements. An historical perspective is used to demonstrate the absence of a sound empirically-based understanding of good corporate governance practices in relation to share-based payment arrangements. The paper provides an overview of issues including the potential earnings dilution and volatility effects of the introduction of regulations affecting executive remuneration. Potential future research questions have been framed addressing each of the major issues identified in this paper. We conclude that corporate regulators should ensure they are familiar with and consider best practice models for corporate governance when developing new, or revising existing business regulation. It is proposed that further research to remedy this deficiency would enable a more accurate assessment of the impact of management on accounting regulation and the better design and implementation of regulation.

Indicative markers of leadership provided by ICT professional bodies in the promotion and support of ethical conduct

Most countries with a mature Information and Communications Technology (ICT industry have at least one professional body (PB) that claims to represent its members working with such technology. Other ICT PBs operate in the international arena. These PBs may differ in membership criteria, jurisdiction and even objectives but all profess to promote high ethical and professional standards. This study seeks to determine the common indicative markers that demonstrate that an ICT PB is offering leadership in identifying, promoting and supporting ethical conduct amongst a variety of constituencies including its own members and beyond. An extensive literature review identified over 200 prospective markers covering a broad range of potential activities of an ICT PB. These were grouped into nine major areas: ethical professional practice; continuous professional development; research and publication; education of future professionals; members’ career development; social obligations; professional engagement; preserving professional dignity/ reputation and regulation of the profession. These markers were arranged hierarchically in a word processing document referred to as a “marker template”. An analysis of selected ICT PBs websites was undertaken to confirm and refine the template. It will be used in the future for a comparative study of how professional bodies offer leadership to their various constituencies in the area of ethical conduct.

Corporate commitment to sustainability – is it all hot air? A review of the linkage between executive pay and sustainable performance

Across time, companies are increasingly making public commitments to sustainable development and to reducing their impacts on climate change. Management remuneration plans (MRPs) are a key mechanism to motivate managers to achieve corporate goals. We review the MRPs negotiated with key management personnel in a sample of large Australian carbon-intensive companies. Our results show that, as in past decades, the companies in our sample have MRPs in place that continue to fixate on financial performance. We argue that this provides evidence of a disconnection between the sustainability-related rhetoric of the sample companies, and their ‘real’ organisational priorities.

Export quality : representing Fijian bodies and the economy of war

Fijian bodies have become a valuable commodity in the economy of war. Remittances from workers overseas are Fiji’s largest income – exceeding that of tourism and sugar export. This essay examines historical and contemporary representations of the black male body that perpetuate the exploitation of Fijians by inscribing the Fijian male body as warrior, criminal and protector. Taking a multidisciplinary approach informed by sociology, cultural theory, Pacific studies, visual culture, feminist and post-colonial theory, my practice is the vehicle through which I address issues of neocolonial commodification of Fijian bodies. Through an analysis of my own staged photographs and vernacular images taken by Fijians working for private security military companies and British and US armies, I hope to challenge audiences to consider their own perceptions of Fijian agency and subjectivity. By theorising the politicisation of the black body and interrogating colonial representations of blackness, I argue that we can begin to create links between the historical and contemporary exploitation of Fijians and that at the essence of both is an underlying racial hierarchy and economic requirement for cheap and, arguably, expendable labour.

Corporate governance of executive remuneration with special reference to Bangladesh

This discussion paper focuses on corporate governance issues associated with executive compensation arrangements. An historical perspective is used to demonstrate the absence of a sound empirically-based understanding of good corporate governance practices in relation to share-based payment arrangements. The paper provides an overview of issues including the potential earnings dilution and volatility effects of the introduction of regulations affecting executive remuneration. Potential research questions have been framed addressing each of the major issues identified in this paper. It is concluded that corporate regulators should ensure they are familiar with and that they consider best practice models for corporate governance when developing new or revising existing business regulation. It is proposed that further research to remedy this deficiency would enable a more accurate assessment of the impact of management on accounting regulation and the better design and implementation of regulation.

Quantification of allochthonous nutrient input into freshwater bodies by herbivorous waterbirds

1. Waterbirds are considered to import large quantities of nutrients to freshwater bodies but quantification of these loadings remains problematic. We developed two general models to calculate such allochthonous nutrient inputs considering food intake, foraging behaviour and digestive performance of waterbirds feeding in terrestrial habitats: an intake model (IM), mainly based on an allometric relationship for energy requirements and a dropping model (DM), based on allometric relationships for defaecation.

2. Reviewed data of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content of herbivorous food varied according to diet type (foliage, seeds and roots), season and fertilization. For model parameterization average foliage diet contained 38.20 mg N g⁻¹ and 3.21 mg P g⁻¹ (dry weight), whereas mean faeces composition was 45.02 mg N g⁻¹ and 6.18 mg P g⁻¹.

3. Daily allochthonous nutrient input increased with body mass ranging from 0.29 g N and 0.03 g P in teals Anas crecca to 5.69 g N and 0.57 g P in mute swans Cygnus olor. Results from IM differed from those of DM from ducks to swans by 63–108% for N and by −4 to 23% for P. Model uncertainty was lowest for the IM and mainly caused by variation in estimates of food retention time (RT). In DM food RT and dropping mass determined model uncertainty in similar extent.

4. Exemplarily applying the models to Dutch wetlands resulted in mean annual contribution of herbivorous waterbirds to allochthonous nutrient loading of 382.8 ± 167.1 tonnes N a⁻¹and 34.7 ± 2.3 tonnes P a⁻¹, respectively, which corresponds to annual surface-water loadings of 1.07 kg N ha⁻¹ and 0.10 kg P ha⁻¹.

5. There was a distinct seasonal pattern with peak loadings in January, when bird abundances were highest. Lowest inputs were in August, when bird abundance and nutrient content in food was low and birds foraged less in terrestrial habitats. Three-quarters of all nutrient input was contributed by greater white-fronted goose Anser albifrons, greylag goose Anser anser, wigeon Anas penelope and barnacle goose Branta leucopsis alone.

6. We provide general, easy to use calculation methods for the estimation of allochthonous nutrient inputs by waterbirds, which are applicable to a range of waterbird species, a variety of potential diets and feeding behaviours, and across spatial scales. Such tools may greatly assist in the planning and execution of management actions for wetland nutrient budgets.

Skin pedagogies and abject bodies

How does the beauty industry ‘narrate the skin’? What does it teach women from different cultural groups about the female body? How does skin function as a site where female subjection and abjection are produced and reproduced? In this paper we examine the skin industry pointing to its extreme commodification of the female body and to the inexcusable pressure this places on females of most age and cultural groups.We focus on two examples. Firstly, we show what the skin industry teaches girls and women about both their skin colour ‘problems’ and desirable practices of whitening and, secondarily, tanning. Secondly, we consider what the cosmetic surgery industry teaches us about female bodily ‘imperfections’ linked to certain ethnic and racial groups and the necessary ‘remedies’. Overall we show how the socio-cultural normalization of perfect skin is a product of a range of contemporary and enduring social and cultural forces overlain by complex pedagogies of power, expertise and affect.

MAAGs: the next generation. A study of the development of medical audit advisory groups and the arrangements for supporting clinical audit in primary care

Background: MAAGs have, historically, been disparate organisations with a lack of central direction, albeit with the same goal: to develop and support the performance of audit in primary care. This goal has been (and is being) achieved in a number of ways all over the country. In the last two years, MAAGs have witnessed many changes in primary care and are adapting themselves to suit these new arrangements at a local level.

Aim: To formalise our knowledge of where MAAGs are going, how they are getting there and the support they are receiving.

Method: A postal questionnaire to the 104 MAAGs in England and Wales, addressing 6 main issues of relevance to the development of MAAGs and the support they are receiving.

Results: At least two MAAGs have dissolved, leaving a possible total of 102 still in existence. Of these, 76 (74.5%) responded to the survey. The composition of the MAAG committee has changed dramatically since the inception of MAAGs in 1990, and staffing levels appear to have risen substantially. MAAGs appear to be more adequately funded by their health authorities than has previously been reported and many are actively seeking additional sources of funding. There is still large variation in levels of MAAG funding. Furthermore, funding is unrelated to the number of GPs or practices served. Security for MAAG staff appears to have been addressed in many areas, with 84% of MAAGs having at least one member of staff on a permanent employment contract. Many MAAGs are developing rolling programmes in an attempt to eliminate the short-sighted approach to the development of clinical audit that has existed since MAAGs were first set up.

Conclusion: Many MAAGs (with the obvious exception of those that have been dissolved) appear to be thriving without central direction or initiative. It is now evident that we were a little hasty in our concerns for the future of MAAGs beyond April 1996. It would seem that many organisations have taken the situation which arose two years ago as an opportunity to grow and develop in ways that may not have been possible within the confines of the Health Circular.