Equal employment opportunity and diversity management : can either live up to the promise of achieving gender equity?

This paper examines the extent to which women movement into management positions. Like many other countries, this progress in Australia is slow. The paper includes discussion of the theoretical explanations for this and the extent to which these are borne out in Australia. We are aware this group represents only a minority of Australian women workers, and there are many other groups of women workers for whom constraints to women’s access to senior management may not be the most pressing issue. We have, however, chosen to focus on women in management in this paper, as while there was considerable research and public policy attention directed towards this group in the 1980s and early 1990s, over the past decade there seems to have been a reluctance to continue to address this group, despite the numerical evidence that women continue to be disproportionately represented in senior management positions. We believe it’s timely to refocus on women in management.

Forecasting trends in the Brisbane central business district office market

The Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW) holds a significant interest in the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD) in controlling approximately 20 percent of the office space within its confines. This comprises a total of 333,903 square metres of space, of which 170,111 square metres is owned and 163,792 square metres is leased from the private sector. The department’s nominal ownership extends to several enduring, landmark buildings as well as several modern office towers. The portfolio includes the oldest building in the CBD, being the former Commissariat Stores building and one of the newest, a 15,000 square metre office tower under construction at 33 Charlotte Street.

Race and equity in higher education : A harder path for Indigenous academics

Our experiences as Indigenous academics within universities often reflects the experiences we have as Indigenous people in broader society, yet I am still surprised and angered when it is others working in higher education who espouse notions of justice and equity with whom we experience tension and conflict in asserting our rights, values and cultural values. At times it is a constant struggle even when universities have Reconciliation Statements as most of them do now, Indigenous recruitment or employment strategies and university wide anti-racism and anti-discrimination policies and procedures.

The appeal of the International Baccalaureate in Australia’s educational market: A curriculum of choice for mobile futures

In Australia there is growing interest in a national curriculum to replace the variety of matriculation credentials managed by State Education departments, ostensibly to address increasing population mobility. Meanwhile, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is attracting increasing interest and enrolments in State and private schools in Australia, and has been considered as one possible model for a proposed Australian Certificate of Education. This paper will review the construction of this curriculum in Australian public discourse as an alternative frame for producing citizens, and ask why this design appeals now, to whom, and how the phenomenon of its growing appeal might inform national curricular debates. The IB’s emergence is understood with reference to the larger context of neo-liberal marketization policies, neo-conservative claims on the curriculum and middle class strategy. The paper draws on public domain documents from the IB Organisation and newspaper reportage to demonstrate how the IB is constructed for public consumption in Australia.

Measuring internal market orientation

Internal marketing has been discussed in the management and academic literature for over three decades, yet it remains ill defined and poorly operationalized. This paper responds to calls for research to develop a single clear understanding of the construct, for the development of a suitable instrument to measure it, and for empirical evidence of its impact. Existing, divergent conceptualization of internal marketing are explored, and a new, multidimensional construct, describing the managerial behaviors associated with internal marketing is developed, and termed internal market orientation (IMO). IMO represents the adaptation of market orientation to the context of employer-employee exchanges in the internal market. The paper describes the development of a valid and reliable measure of IMO in a retail services context. Five dimensions of IMO are identified and confirmed. These are 1) formal written information generation, 2) formal face-to-face information generation, 3) informal information generation, 4) communication and dissemination of information, and 5) responding to this internal market information. The impact of IMO on important organizational factors is also explored. Results indicate positive consequences for customer satisfaction, relative competitive position, staff attitudes, staff retention and staff compliance.

The impact of internal and external market orientations on firm performance.

The role of internal marketing in developing organisational competencies is identified as a key area for continued research (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2003). One competence of particular interest to marketers is market orientation. This paper examines the impact of internal marketing, operationalised as a set of internal market orientated behaviours (IMO) on market orientation (MO), and consequently organisational performance, and provides the first quantitative evidence to support the long held assumption that internal marketing has an impact on marketing success. Data from UK retail managers were analysed using structural equations modelling employing LISREL software. These data indicate significant relationships between internal market orientation, employee motivation and external marketing success (market orientation, financial performance and customer satisfaction). Our results also support previous findings indicating a positive impact of external market orientation on customer satisfaction and financial performance. For marketing practitioners, the role of internal market orientation is developing marketing strategies is discussed.

Bullish creative industries and the bear market

The creative industries idea is better than even its original perpetrators might have imagined, judging from the original mapping documents. By throwing the heavy duty copyright industries into the same basket as public service broadcasting, the arts and a lot of not-for-profit activity (public goods) and commercial but non-copyright-based sectors (architecture, design, increasingly software), it really messed with the minds of economic and cultural traditionalists. And, perhaps unwittingly, it prepared the way for understanding the dynamics of contemporary cultural ‘prosumption’ or ‘playbour’ in an increasingly networked social and economic space.

Equity and quality in the early years of schooling

For most of the latter part of the twentieth century, the issues of quality and equity have been part of the agenda of compulsory schooling in Australia. However it is only more recently that the two have been brought together, which has drawn attention to the quest to create high quality and high equity schooling. The outcomes of this union have been the focus of analyses undertaken using data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which show that several features of Nordic secondary schools have produced high quality and high equity schooling. This article concentrates on the early years of school and considers the role of curriculum and syllabus documents in creating high quality and high equity in the early years, including the non-compulsory prior-to-school year. It draws on recent research in education generally to identify issues of significance that are instructive in the quest to produce high quality and high equity schooling in the early years. These issues include equity of access, syllabus design and curriculum, and transition to school; but before they are considered, I discuss the context of moves to create high quality and high equity schooling.

CSI Lincoln : an investigation into a declining housing market

The residential property market in New Zealand has been experiencing a boom and bubble period from 2001 through to mid 2007. Following a number of increases in the Official Cash Rate by the Reserve Bank and a decline in net migration numbers the housing market was perceived to be over inflated and due for a major correction. Numerous media, Government Departments, property experts and economists have been predicting significant reductions in the median price of residential property throughout New Zealand. This paper will analyse house prices in specific socio-economic locations within Christchurch over the past 12 months to determine how significant the current housing decline is. This study will review the change in residential property prices, variations in property listings since April 2008, sale volumes and days on the market across a range of housing sectors to determine the extent and range of any residential property downturn in the NZ recession.

Audience and Market Foresight Trends and Foresight in Digital Media

This report provides an overview of trends in digital media over the period from 2009-2015. It applies scenario analysis to provide foresight on macro trends in the economy, politics, society and culture that will impact upon digital media market development in Australia, and the prospects for growth in online and digital media industries. It considers developments in the diffusion of innovations in advertising and marketing, mobile media, user-created content, and legal issues for consumers engaging in online transactions.

Audience & Market Foresight : Consumer Trends in Digital News and Information in Australia

We all know that the future of news is digital. But mainstream news providers are still grappling with how to entice more customers to digital news. This paper provides context for a survey currently underway on user intentions towards digital news and entertainment, by exploring: 1. Consumer behaviours and intentions towards digital news and information use; 2. Current trends in the Australian online news and information sector; 3. Issues and emerging opportunities in the Australian (and global) environment. Key influences on digital use of news and information are pricing and access. The paper highlights emerging technical opportunities and flags service gaps as at December 2008. These gaps include multiple disconnects between: 1. Changing user intentions towards online and location based news (news based on a specific locality as chosen by the user) and information; 2. The ability by consumers to act on these intentions via the availability and cost of technologies; 3. Younger users prefer entertainment to news; 4. Current digital offerings of traditional news providers and opportunities. These disconnects present an opportunity for online news suppliers to appraise and resolve. Doing so may enhance their online news and information offering, attract consumers and improve loyalty. Outcomes from this paper will be used to identify knowledge gaps and contribute to the development of further analysis on Australian consumers and their behaviours and intentions towards online news and information. This will be ndertaken via focus groups as part of a broader study by researchers at the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology supported by the Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre.

Applying brand equity to the social product of breastfeeding

Social marketing has successfully adopted many of the techniques of commercial marketing; however, a key commercial marketing theory that does not appear to be utilised in social marketing theory is brand equity. Given that a key outcome of brand equity is loyalty, which is also a desired outcome of many social marketing programs, brand equity appears to be a relevant theoretical framework. This study presents descriptive results of the brand equity levels of 296 Gen Y Australians for the social product of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is a desirable health behaviour with significant health and wellbeing outcomes for infants, mothers and communities. It was selected as the focus of this paper because loyalty to the behaviour is not increasing, according to the targets set by national government authorities.

High quality/high equity systems of education: Curriculum, teachers and reform in the search for equitable outcomes for all students

The issue of what an effective high quality / high equity education system might look like remains contested. Indeed there is more educational commentary on those systems that do not achieve this goal (see for example Luke & Woods, 2009 for a detailed review of the No Child Left Behind policy initiatives put forward in the United States under the Bush Administration) than there is detailed consideration of what such a system might enact and represent. A long held critique of socio cultural and critical perspectives in education has been their focus on deconstruction to the supposed detriment of reconstructive work. This critique is less warranted in recent times based on work in the field, especially the plethora of qualitative research focusing on case studies of ‘best practice’. However it certainly remains the case that there is more work to be done in investigating the characteristics of a socially just system. This issue of Point and Counterpoint aims to progress such a discussion. Several of the authors call for a reconfiguration of the use of large scale comparative assessment measures and all suggest new ways of thinking about quality and equity for school systems. Each of the papers tackles different aspects of the problematic of how to achieve high equity without compromising quality within a large education system. They each take a reconstructive focus, highlighting ways forward for education systems in Australia and beyond. While each paper investigates different aspects of the issue, the clearly stated objective of seeking to delineate and articulate characteristics of socially just education is consistent throughout the issue.

Competitiveness factors : a study of the real estate market in China

The execution of 'macro-adjustment' policies by the central government to cool down the overheated real estate market in the past few years has created an unfavourable operating environment for real estate developers in Mainland China. Developers need to rethink their business model and create a new form of competitive advantage in order to survive. Despite this, research into the factors that influence the competitiveness of the real estate market in China has been limited. Therefore, a survey of 58 real estate actitioners, experts and academics in China was conducted to probe opinion on the factors that influence competitiveness in real estate firms in China. Survey results suggest that the developer's financial competency, market coverage and management competencies are vital to its competitiveness. Findings also highlight the importance of industry ecognition/award, share in different types of property sales/development projects, profit after tax, growth rate of their securities price, and diversification of R&D in reflecting the competitiveness of real estate developers in China. The findings provide an insight into the factors that influence competitiveness in China's real estate market and also assist practitioners to formulate competitiveness improvement strategies.