After the rains: Water’s impact for valuation practices

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reduce the potential for litigation by improving valuers’ awareness of water risks. As part of a valuer’s due diligence, the paper provides guidance as to how to identify such risks by explaining the different types and examining how online search tools can be used in conjunction with more traditional methods to evaluate the probability of these risks occurring. Design/methodology/approach The paper builds on prior research, which examined the impact of water to and for valuations. By means of legal/doctrinal analysis, this paper considers relevant issues from the perspective of managing client expectations and needs. In so doing it identifies online tools available to assist in identifying at risk properties and better informing clients. Findings While the internet provides a variety of tools to gain access to relevant information, this information most commonly is only provided subject to disclaimer. Valuers need to ensure that blind reliance is not given to use of these tools but that the tools are used in conjunction with individual property inspections. Research limitations/implications Although the examples considered primarily are Australian, increasing water risks generally make the issues considered relevant for any jurisdiction. The research will be of particular interests to practitioners in coastal or riverine areas. Practical implications Valuation reports are sought for a variety of purposes from a variety of clients. These range from the experienced, knowledgeable developer looking to maximise available equity to the inexperienced, uneducated individual looking to acquire their home and thinking more often than not with their heart not their head. More informed practices by valuers will lead to valuation reports being more easily understood by clients, thus lessening the likelihood of litigation against the valuer for negligence. Originality/value The paper highlights the issue of water risks; the need for valuers to properly address potential and actual risks in their reports; and the corresponding need to undertake all appropriate searches and enquiries of the property to be valued. It reinforces the importance of access to the internet as a tool in the valuation process.

Understanding curriculum planning practices that promote equity and excellence for students with disability

This thesis analyses how primary teachers plan from the Australian Curriculum for students with disabilities as part of their curriculum planning to achieve equity and excellence for all. The researcher used an institutional ethnographic approach to create data maps that visually represented how these teachers navigated across thirty-one curriculum organising texts in their individual and classroom planning. By identifying the complexity of the process, types of texts that were most influential, and the everyday/night work of curriculum planning, leaders can strategically plan to support teachers to have high expectations for students with disabilities. Key themes include students with disability, curriculum entitlement and practices that promote equity.

Western medicine and Australian Indigenous healing practices

Most projects undertaken by government health organisations are formulated on values and beliefs about health and illness that are derived from Anglo/Celtic culture. Health beliefs differ between cultures and it has been identified that the differences in the Indigenous and non-Indigenous constructs of health impacts negatively on the effectiveness of mainstream healthcare provided to Indigenous peoples [2]. This implies that strategies that incorporate, or better still are derived from, Indigenous health beliefs have a greater potential to be effective. This article introduces a prospective survey project asking how western medicine and traditional treatments interface with each other.

NFPOs and their anti-corruption disclosure practices: Evidence from Australia

By focusing on major Australian overseas aid not-for-profit organisations (NFPOs), this study has found that NFPOs’ public disclosures lack appropriate commentary relating to anti-corruption measures. We found that this could be due to a break down in regulatory oversight caused by a lack of mandatory reporting standards. This finding reinforces the experience of NFPOs in terms of addressing anti-corruption issues. The key lesson is that there is a need for significant improvement in the anti-corruption regulations, hence associated disclosure practices within the NFPOs sector.

Do inventory management practices affect economic performance? An empirical evaluation of the machine tool SMEs in Bangalore

Inventory management (IM) has a decisive role in the enhancement of manufacturing industry's competitiveness. Therefore, major manufacturing industries are following IM practices with the intention of improving their performance. However, the effort to introduce IM in SMEs is very limited due to lack of initiation, expertise, and financial constraints. This paper aims to provide a guideline for entrepreneurs in enhancing their IM performance, as it presents the results of a survey based study carried out for machine tool Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bangalore. Having established the significance of inventory as an input, we probed the relationship between IM performance and economic performance of these SMEs. To the extent possible all the factors of production and performance indicators were deliberately considered in pure economic terms. All economic performance indicators adopted seem to have a positive and significant association with IM performance in SMEs. On the whole, we found that SMEs which are IM efficient are likely to perform better on the economic front also and experience higher returns to scale.

Adding value: Principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher-librarian

This paper reports on a study into principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher-librarian. Nine principals in Australia were interviewed about the role of the teacher-librarian and library in their school. The findings indicated a range of ways in which the teacher-librarian adds value to the school, including in their role as teacher, providing the principal with a broad perspective on the workings of the school, providing advice and ideas, and providing leadership in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) at the school. It also identified a number of personal qualities valued by principals.

The accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO)

This study examines the accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO), one of the largest Fair Trade umbrella organizations. Our aim is to explore whether new forms of accounting and related disclosures emerge in the reporting practices of FLO and how these reflect their self-declared social mission towards the emancipation and sustainability of producers. Using thematic analysis and reflecting on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power, we analyse FLO’s reporting practices from 2006 to 2013. Our findings reveal that FLO mobilises the taken-for-granted images and symbols of ’fairness’ in the Fair Trade system by using descriptive statistics of Fair Trade premium distributions and pictures of producers but keeps silent to current concerns surrounding the limitations of Fair Trade. Such findings extend important insights into how new forms of accounting and related disclosure are used to legitimise the practice of Fair Trade.

Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia

My doctoral dissertation in sociology and Russian studies, Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia, employs a "micro" or "grassroots" perspective on the transition. The study is a collection of articles detailing social networks in five different contexts. The first article examines Russian birthdays from a network perspective. The second takes a look at health care to see whether networks have become obsolete in a sector that is still overwhelmingly public, but increasingly being monetarised. The third article investigates neighbourhood relations. The fourth details relationships at work, particularly from the vantage point of internal migration. The fifth explores housing and the role of networks and money both in the Soviet and post-Soviet era. The study is based on qualitative social network and interview data gathered among three groups, teachers, doctors and factory workers, in St. Petersburg during 1993-2000. Methodologically it builds on a qualitative social network approach. The study adds a critical element to the discussion on networks in post-socialism. A considerable consensus exists that social networks were vital in state socialist societies and were used to bypass various difficulties caused by endemic shortages and bureaucratic rigidities, but a more debated issue has been their role in post-socialism. Some scholars have argued that the importance of networks has been dramatically reduced in the new market economy, whereas others have stressed their continuing importance. If a common denominator in both has been a focus on networks in relation to the past, a more overlooked aspect has been the question of inequality. To what extent is access to networks unequally distributed? What are the limits and consequences of networks, for those who have access, those outside networks or society at large? My study provides some evidence about inequalities. It shows that some groups are privileged over others, for instance, middle-class people in informal access to health care. Moreover, analysing the formation of networks sheds additional light on inequalities, as it highlights the importance of migration as a mechanism of inequality, for example. The five articles focus on how networks are actually used in everyday life. The article on health care, for instance, shows that personal connections are still important and popular in post-Soviet Russia, despite the growing importance of money and the emergence of "fee for service" medicine. Fifteen of twenty teachers were involved in informal medical exchange during a two-week study period, so that they used their networks to bypass the formal market mechanisms or official procedures. Medicines were obtained through personal connections because some were unavailable at local pharmacies or because these connections could provide medicines for a cheaper price or even for free. The article on neighbours shows that "mutual help" was the central feature of neighbouring, so that the exchange of goods, services and information covered almost half the contacts with neighbours reported. Neighbours did not provide merely small-scale help but were often exchange partners because they possessed important professional qualities, had access to workplace resources, or knew somebody useful. The article on the Russian work collective details workplace-related relationships in a tractor factory and shows that interaction with and assistance from one's co-workers remains important. The most interesting finding was that co-workers were even more important to those who had migrated to the city than to those who were born there, which is explained by the specifics of Soviet migration. As a result, the workplace heavily influenced or absorbed contexts for the worker migrants to establish relationships whereas many meeting-places commonly available in Western countries were largely absent or at least did not function as trusted public meeting places to initiate relationships. More results are to be found from my dissertation: Anna-Maria Salmi: Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia, Kikimora Publications, 2006, see www.kikimora-publications.com.

Consent Practices and Biomedical Knowledge Production in Tissue Economies

The use of human tissue sample collections has become an important tool in biomedical research. The collection, use and distribution of human tissue samples, which include blood and diagnostic tissue samples, from which DNA can be extracted and analyzed has also become a major bio-political preoccupation, not only in national contexts, but also at the transnational level. The foundation of medical research rests on the relationship between the doctor and the research subject. This relationship is a social one, in that it is based on informed consent, privacy and autonomy, where research subjects are made aware of what they are getting involved in and are then able to make an informed decision as to whether or not to participate. Within the post-genomic era, however, our understanding of what constitutes informed consent, privacy and autonomy is changing in relation to the needs of researchers, but also as a reflection of policy aspirations. This reflects a change in the power relations between the rights of the individual in relation to the interests of science and society. Using the notions of tissue economies and biovalue (Waldby, 2002) this research explores the changing relationship between sources and users of samples in biomedical research by examining the contexts under which human tissue samples and the information that is extracted from them are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research examines how individual rights, particularly informed consent, are being configured in relation to the production of scientific knowledge in tissue economies in Finland from the 1990s to the present. The research examines the production of biovalue through the organization of scientific knowledge production by examining the policy context of knowledge production as well as three case studies (Tampere Research Tissue Bank, Hereditary Non-polyposis Colorectal Cancer and the Finnish Genome Information Center) in which tissues are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research shows how interpretations of informed consent have become divergent and the elements and processes that have contributed to these differences. This inquiry shows how the relationship between the interests of individuals is re-configured in relation to the interests of science and society. It indicates how the boundary between interpretations of informed consent, on the one hand, and social and scientific interests, on the other, are being re-drawn and that this process is underscored, in part, by the economic, commercial and preventive potential that research using tissue samples are believed to produce. This can be said to fundamentally challenge the western notion that the rights of the individual are absolute and inalienable within biomedical legislation.

Developing and Integrating HRM Practices in MNC Subsidiaries in China

Whilst previous research on Human Resource Management (HRM) in subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs) has focused extensively on the HRM practices that exist in foreign subsidiaries and the extent to which they resemble MNC home country and/or local host country practices, considerably less attention has been directed at the question of how these practices come to exist. Accordingly, this thesis aims to shed light on the processes that shape HRM practices and capabilities in MNC subsidiaries. The main contribution of the thesis is the focus on how; how HRM practices are integrated in MNC subsidiaries, and how subsidiary HRM capabilities are developed through involvement in social networks. Furthermore, this thesis includes a time aspect which, despite not being purely longitudinal, provides an indication of the ongoing changes in HRM in MNC subsidiaries in China. Data for this study were collected in 2005-2006 through structured face to face interviews with 153 general managers and HR managers in 87 subsidiaries of European MNCs located in China. Five of the six thesis papers build on this questionnaire data and one paper builds on qualitative data collected at the same time. Two papers build on dual data sets, meaning that they in addition to the abovementioned data include quantitative questionnaire data from 1996 and 1999 respectively. The thesis focuses on the following four sub-questions i) To what extent do subsidiary HRM practices resemble parent MNC and host country practices? How has this changed over time and why? ii) How are HRM practices integrated into MNC subsidiaries and why are certain integration mechanisms used? iii) How does involvement in internal and external social networks influence subsidiary HRM capabilities? iv) What factors influence the strategic role of the subsidiary HR department? Regarding the first sub-question the findings indicate that the HRM practices of MNC subsidiaries in China are converging with both local company practices and parent MNC practices. This is interesting in the sense that it suggests that the isomorphic pressures the subsidiary faces from the MNC and from its local host environment are not always in conflict with each other. Concerning the question of how HRM practices are integrated into MNC subsidiaries and why certain integration mechanisms are used, the thesis provides a fine-grained examination of four mechanisms that MNCs use to integrate HRM practices in subsidiaries. The findings suggest that MNCs use a variety of different integration mechanisms as complements rather than as substitutes for each other. Furthermore, it is apparent that different contextual factors in the subsidiary and the subsidiary-headquarters relationship influence why certain mechanisms are or are not used. The most interesting contribution of the thesis in regard to the third question is that it highlights the importance of network involvement for learning about HRM practices in the Chinese context. Networks with other MNCs in China clearly emerged as particularly important contributors to enhanced HRM capabilities. Finally, concerning the fourth sub-question the findings indicate that the role of the HR department in MNC subsidiaries in China had become more strategic between 1999 and 2006.

Managers Talk about Gender: What Managers in Large Transnational Corporations Say about Gender Policies, Structures and Practices

Mainstream research on management generally continues to ignore gender relations. Even so, over recent years there has been a major growth of international research on gender relations in organizations. Yet, most of this has focused on gender relations in lower or middle levels rather than at the apex of the organization. This book draws on research on gender policies, structures and practices of management in large Finnish corporations. It builds on earlier survey work of gender policies in the 100 largest corporations in Finland, to examine, through qualitative interviews, more detailed gendered processes in seven selected corporations. These represent corporations that are ‘relatively active’, ‘moderately active’, and ‘not active’ in relation to gender equality. Key issues include contrasts between formal policies and organizational practices; different corporate contexts and individual managers’ views; definition and scope of gender policy; and the relation of gender policies and diversity policy. This focus on gender policies is understood and located within organizational structures, most obviously gendered corporate hierarchies. Important structures include national context in relation to transnationalization, relations of headquarters and subsidiaries, and interrelations of management, policy development and policy implementation. Gender relations in practice and gender practices are considered in more detail. These women and men managers operate at the intersections of gendered transnational managerial work, careers and family-type relations, including marriage and children, or lack thereof. Women and men managers may be part of the same management levels or management teams, but have totally different family-type situations and gendered experiences. Interconnections of management, domestic life and transnationalizations are intensely gendered matters. The debate on the public/private continues to be important for both gender relations and organizational relations, but complicated through transnationalizations. The modern transnational corporation is considered in terms of gender divisions and gender power, with particular reference to top management. The concluding discussion notes implications for research and policy.