Fabric of a dream: the Fletcher Jones story

This is the story of how a shell-shocked World War I veteran, who left school at 12, ended up building a national icon. An inspiring man with bold and imaginative ideas, Fletcher Jones was influenced by Japanese reformer Toyohiko Kagawa. Jones established his clothing design, retail and manufacturing business with emphasis on quality, service and innovation. But his primary concern was for people both his customers and his workers and they, in turn, were intensely loyal.

Exploding the stability myth : structural change in the Australian trade union movement, 1969-85

Traditional studies of long-term change in trade union structure have predominantly relied upon the aggregate number of trade unions as the principal measure, or indicator of change over time. Using the Australian trade union movement as an example, this article argues that our understanding of the long-term change in the external structure of trade unions would be better served by using Waddington's structural events approach examining the incidence of four distinct 'structural events'--union formations, dissolutions, breakaways and mergers. In doing so, this article presents new data on structural change in the Australian trade union movement between 1969 and 1985. It casts doubt on the traditional argument, which relied on the apparent lack of change in the aggregate number of unions reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to argue that this period was one of structural rigidity. The structural events data reveals that far from being a period of structural stability, it was in fact one of significant change, albeit in the composition of the Australian trade union movement, rather than in the aggregate number of trade unions in operation.

A cross country analysis of dynamics in comparative advantage and trade patterns in textiles and clothing

This paper examines pattern of comparative advantage in textiles and clothing trade as revealed by export shares of selected developed and developing economies. The estimated revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indices provided strong evidence of comparative advantage enjoyed by the developing economies. However, a few developed high income economies have enjoyed sustainable comparative advantage, especially in textiles trade. Significant negative correlations are observed between country specific income levels and the estimated absolute and relative RCA indices. While most of the developing economies achieved significant improvement of comparative advantage over time in clothing trade, the evidence is mixed for textiles. Additional evidence from Grubel-Lloyd (G-L) index of intra industry trade (IIT) suggest that global textiles trade could be mainly explained on the basis of product differentiation and economies of scale while clothing trade is more based on comparative advantage. Results of the study also suggest that the trading nations should engage in exploitation of forms of competition such as product differentiation in textiles trade, whereas for clothing, cost minimising remains a valid strategy.

Sources of productivity growth in Australian textile and clothing firms

This paper estimates the sources of productivity growth in Australian textile and clothing firms based on the Business Longitudinal Survey (BLS) from 1995 to 1998. Productivity growth estimates have been obtained for each sub-category of textile and clothing firms. Sources of growth in multifactor productivity (MFP) are examined with growth in technical efficiency and scale effects based on estimates of stochastic frontier production functions. Separate estimates of output growth have been compared with the productivity growth estimates for each of the product categories. MFP improved in all clothing firms and declined in textile firms over 1997–1998 by four-digit level of Australia New Zealand Standard Industrial classification Scheme (ANZSIC). MFP declined in most major categories of both textile and clothing firms in 1995–1997. Changes in technical efficiency mostly dominated scale effects in the overall direction of MFPG in both textile and clothing firms. The findings of the study provide evidence for policies for improving the firms' operative performance in the ongoing liberalised regime.

Legacies of White Australia : race, culture and nation

The White Australia policy continues to haunt Australia. Here, leading Australian scholars provide an informed debate on the essential issues of race, identity and nation that will determine our attitudes to immigration, multiculturalism and Australian-Asian engagement in the twenty-first century.