A study of social responsibility of Sri Lankan immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia

Increasing globalisation, technological advancement and migration waves in the last few decades have changed the look of many advanced countries to be more cosmopolitan and Australia is no exception. The number of South Asian migrants in Australia is steadily increasing. Among the South Asians, there are 31,482 Sri Lankans in the state of Victoria and the majority of them are entrepreneurs. Social responsibility perceptions and practices of these entrepreneurs have not been researched. The study aims to fill this gap by undertaking a triangulation method to investigate the social responsibility perceptions and practices of these entrepreneurs and identify whether or not they are influenced by home country contextual factors, specifically national culture, and business environment. The study is a work in progress and the survey will be undertaken in the second quarter of the year. Socially responsible businesses have the potential to promote an overall approach to quality and sustainable development as they can have positive impacts not only on their own businesses but also on the community and the environment in which they operate. This study is thus significant as it will deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to Australia.

Shared learning : a collaborative approach for supporting pre-service teacher's reflective practice

Independent learning and critical thought are developed when students are encouraged to express and review their own understandings and the ideas of others as part of their learning journey. This paper focuses on an innovation to engage and support pre-service teachers (students) in a collaborative approach to learning following a teaching practicum. Through the creation of a learning community, information and practice is shared and further challenged in a supportive environment. The opportunity for students to review their own work in relation to responses of peers enables them to become involved in the process of critiquing their own beliefs and practices as well as their peers, within a set framework. Favourable outcomes for both students and university staff augur well for the future development of the process.  

Corporate social responsibility, new activism and public relations

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse why some contemporary corporate organisations are reluctant to articulate the effect of their market positioning behaviour on the unwilling communities that oppose their activities. It describes the communicative interactions between several large corporate organisations and the grassroots activist groups opposing their activities, in Victoria, Australia.

Design/methodology/approach – Extensive secondary data were collected, including extensive newspaper and radio transcripts from the campaign periods, web site downloads, letters and other campaign documents. The research design applied to the data, a qualitative, interpretative analysis, drawing on key theoretical frameworks.

Findings – The research findings suggest that powerful protest strategies, combined with the right political and social conditions, and a shift in the locus of politics and expertise, bring to light public concerns about the ethics of corporate practices, such as public relations, used egocentrically by organisations, to harmonise their activities in late modern Western society. It finds that no serious overhaul of business ethics can occur until the unity of public relations is critically scrutinised and reformed. It helps define an alternative holistic communicative approach which could be applied more widely to business practice that helps avoid the limitations and relativism of public relations.

Originality/value – The research flags new ways of thinking expressed in the notion of public communication that could lead to creative and unusual coherences vital to deal with the apparent ecological challenges for society in late modernity.

Gambling and corporate social responsibility (CSR) : re-defining industry and state roles on duty of care, host responsibility and risk management

During the 1990s, states embraced legalised gambling as a means of supplementing state revenue. But gaming machines (EGMs, pokies, VLTs, Slots) have become increasingly controversial in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, which experienced unprecedented roll-out of gaming machines in casino and community settings; alongside revenue windfalls for both governments and the gambling industry. Governments have recognised that gambling results in a range of social and economic harms and, similar to tobacco and alcohol, have introduced public policies predicated on harm minimisation. Yet despite these, gaming losses have continued to climb in most jurisdictions, along with concerns about gambling-related harms. The first part of this article discusses an emerging debate in Ontario Canada, that draws parallels between host responsibility in alcohol and gambling venues. In Canada, where government owns and operates the gaming industry, this debate prompts important questions on the role of the state, duty of care and regulation ‘in the public interest’ and on CSR, host responsibility and consumer protection. This prompts the question: Do governments owe a duty of care to gamblers?

The article then discusses three domains of accumulating research evidence to inform questions raised in the Ontario debate: evidence that visible behavioural indicators can be used with high confidence to identify problem gamblers on-site in venues as they gamble; new systems using player tracking and loyalty data that can provide management with high precision identification of problem gamblers and associated risk (for protective interventions); and research on technological design features of new generation gaming products in interaction with players, that shows how EGM machines can be the site for monitoring/protecting players. We then canvass some leading international jurisdictions on gambling policy CSR and consumer protection.

In light of this new research, we ask whether the risk of legal liability poses a tipping point for more interventionist public policy responses by both the state and industry. This includes a proactive role for the state in re-regulating the gambling industry/products; instituting new forms of gaming machine product control/protection; and reinforcing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and host responsibility obligations on gambling providers – beyond self-regulatory codes. We argue the ground is shifting, there is new evidence to inform public policy and government regulation and there are new pressures on gambling providers and regulators to avail themselves of the new technology – or risk litigation

Corporate social responsibility : a resource-based view of the firm

This paper reviews the application of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an intangible dynamic resource, its application in the formulation of marketing strategies and its association with business performance, using the theoretical framework of resource-based view of the firm (RBV). The study aims to address the control and governance of the application of the CSR with respect to self-control and regulatory control of corporate compliance. A model of CSR is suggested that represents the predictors of the construct (CSR) to facilitate the test of its usefulness in explaining the extent to which organisations may choose to be socially responsible.

Corporate responsibility reports assurance trends and the role of management accountants

Over the past decade, corporate responsibility (CR) has moved from the fringes of the business world to being a significant boardroom agenda. What began largely as an extension of public relations reporting where organisations disclosed basic health and safety monitoring, and environmental impact results has now grown to a wider set of governance practices premised on the philosophy of sustainability.

This paper discusses some of the developing trends in the area of assurance of CR reports, and the emerging challenges faced by the assurance providers and managers alike. The paper also explores the role of management accountants in enhancing CR reporting and its assurance practices.

Assuming responsibility : teachers taking charge of their professional development

The paper reports on some of the findings of an extensive study undertaken in Victoria as part of a national Science, ICT and Mathematics Education in Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR) project. One of the significant findings of the study was the extent to which teachers in the schools where the study data were collected took responsibility for many aspects of their own professional development. This was not at the expense of, but rather was in addition to, their involvement in school- and region-based professional development activity. The study also identifies some of the challenges faced, mostly related to the location of their schools in a rural or regional setting.

Pre-service pedagogies : atorylines of responsibility and risk-taking

This paper emerges from a three year study within a core education subject in preservice teacher education classrooms in Australia. This ‘practitioner research’ (Zeichner, 1999) engaged the problematics of ‘teaching and learning‘ and ‘teacher and learner’ in a learner-centred, arts based curriculum. An abundance of storylines and positionings (Harré & van Langenhove, 1991, 1999; Harré & Slocum, 2003) were revealed; among them were storylines of ‘responsibility for teaching and learning’ and ‘risk taking in learning’
The paper provides accounts of how preservice teachers positioned themselves and others within these storylines. The shifts made by students of positioning and between storylines provide substantial argument for the use of leaner-centred, arts based curriculum. Account is also made of the ways participants persisted with positioning even when this jeopardized their own learning or that of others.

Skill shortages in health : innovative solutions using vocational education and training

Introduction: This article reports findings of a project funded by the Australian National Council for Vocational Education Research. The project explores solutions to current and projected skills shortages within the health and community services sector, from a vocational education and training perspective. Its purpose is to locate, analyse and disseminate information about innovative models of health training and service delivery that have been developed in response to skill shortages.

Methods: The article begins with a brief overview of Australian statistics and literature on the structure of the national health workforce and perceived skill shortages. The impact of location (state and rurality), demographics of the workforce, and other relevant factors, on health skill shortages is examined. Drawing on a synthesis of the Australian and international literature on innovative and effective models for addressing health skill shortages and nominations by key stakeholders within the health sector, over 70 models were identified. The models represent a mixture of innovative service delivery models and training solutions from Australia, as well as international examples that could be transposed to the Australian context. They include the skill ecosystem approach facilitated by the Australian National Training Authority Skill Ecosystem Project. Models were selected to represent diversity in terms of the nature of skill shortage addressed, barriers overcome in development of the model, healthcare specialisations, and different customer groups.

Results: Key barriers to the development of innovative solutions to skills shortages identified were: policy that is not sufficiently flexible to accommodate changing workplace needs; unwillingness to risk take in order to develop new models; delays in gaining endorsement/accreditation; current vocational education and training (VET) monitoring and reporting systems; issues related to working in partnership, including different cultures, ways of operating, priorities and timelines; workplace culture that is resistant to change; and organisational boundaries. For training-only models, additional barriers were: technology; low educational levels of trainees; lack of health professionals to provide training and/or supervision; and cost of training. Key enhancers for the development of models were identified as: commitment by all partners and co-location of partners; or effective communication channels. Key enhancers for model effectiveness were: first considering work tasks, competencies and job (re)design; high profile of the model within the community; community-based models; cultural fit; and evidence of direct link between skills development and employment, for example VET trained aged care workers upskilling for other health jobs. For training only models, additional enhancers were flexibility of partners in accommodating needs of trainees; low training costs; experienced clinical supervisors; and the provision of professional development to trainers.

Conclusions: There needs to be a balance between short-term solutions to current skill shortages (training only), and medium to longer term solutions (job redesign, holistic approaches) that also address projected skills shortages. Models that focus on addressing skills shortages in aged care can provide a broad pathway to careers in health. Characteristics of models likely to be effective in addressing skill shortages are: responsibility for addressing skills shortage is shared between the health sector, education and training organisations and government, with employers taking a proactive role; the training component is complemented by a focus on retention of workers; models are either targeted at existing employees or identify a target group(s) who may not otherwise have considered a career in health.

Skills, strategies, sport and social responsibility : reconnecting physical education

Physical education is one of the more difficult subjects in the curriculum for generalist classroom teachers in primary schools to incorporate confidently into their teaching. In many primary schools, the generalist classroom teacher defers to a physical education specialist. This situation has both positive and negative features. In this context, this study brings together several prominent models of physical education teaching in an approach that enables the curriculum to be encountered through the interests of the children. This approach offers a generalist teacher, through appropriate professional development, a means for delivering a high-quality physical education programme, and also complements the repertoire of the specialist physical education teacher at both primary and secondary school levels.

Consideration of corporate social orientation in managing sport organisations' internal stakeholders

Increasing pressure from the public has raised the expectations on corporations to be better citizens of their communities and society as a whole (Bennet 2002; Carroll 1999; Epstein 1989; Van Marrewijk 2003; Wood 1991). As a result, corporations have engaged in corporate social responsibility efforts with most of the subsequent research focused on its impact on consumer response (e.g., attitudes, behaviours, etc.) (Bhattacharya & Sen 2001, 2004; Porter & Kramer 2002). Similarly, research interest on corporate social responsibility in the sport industry has risen, yet no research studies have explored the influence and perceptions about corporate social responsibility of important internal constituents (employees and volunteers) of sport organisations. Particular interest would be in uncovering what employees and volunteers specifically believe are important among CSR elements (ethical, discretionary, legal, economic) and what impact a sense of 'shared CSR values' with the respective sport organisation would have on employee and volunteer response. Will understanding how shared social values influence organisational commitment provide insight on recruitment, retention and/or development strategies of employees and volunteers? Further, assessing any difference in sensemaking between these two groups would be of additional value to this line of enquiry, as the perceptions of the organisation are understood as "tantamount to reality, since organisations are social constructions made up of and acting in accordance with shared perceptions," (Brickson 2007, p. 865) particularly those of employees and volunteers of sport organisations. With increasing academic and industry interest of corporate social responsibility in sport and to address the obvious gap on CSR and employees and volunteers in the literature, the present study will explore how CSR impacts internal constituents (employees and volunteers) of sport organisations. Specifically, the main purpose of the present study is to assess the level of perceived shared values as they related to CSR (measured as corporate social orientation) between employees- organisation and volunteers- organisation. Further, the influence of the level of perceived shared corporate social orientation (CSO) on organisational identification will be evaluated in the context of a proposed model, which includes the relationship of perceived shared corporate social orientation>organisational identification> attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (i.e., commitment, satisfaction, and organisational behaviour). Using a sample of employees and volunteers of a sport organisation, the respondents will be asked to complete an online survey composed of demographic items, the corporate social orientation scale, and items that measure organisational identification, value commitment, job/ volunteer satisfaction, and organisational citizenship behaviours. Discussion of how other stakeholder (e.g., sponsors, consumers, etc.) perceptions on CSR potentially impacts the model and outcomes (e.g., corporate reputation, consumer behaviour) will be addressed. Analyses and results will support discussion and conclusions made to provide evidence for practitioner and researcher implications.