HRM in professional service firms : engendering commitment to what or whom?

Professional service firms (PSFs) present HR professionals with a number of unique challenges, as they share characteristics of both service and knowledge intensive organizations. While many of these firms are relying on High Commitment Work Practices (HCWPs) to enhance critical employee behaviors such as service quality and turnover, the analysis presented in this paper raises questions about traditional understandings of commitment in professional service environments. In particular, data from three Danish financial investment PSFs suggest that employees are more committed to developing and promoting their own professions than to the organization itself, which has important implications for the way in which HCWPs are designed and utilized. In addition, the focus of HCWP research has favored the use of social exchange theory as an underpinning framework for considering the impact of HR practices on employee commitment. In the context of PSFs, we question the applicability of social exchange theory and instead draw upon the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework (1982) to analyze how specific HRM practices contribute to the development of commitment, and to successful organizational outcomes in PSFs.

Service convenience and social servicescape : retail vs hedonic setting

Purpose – While there have been numerous studies on the antecedents and consequences of service quality, there has been little investigation of the moderators of service quality. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effects of two moderators: service convenience and the social servicescape. The moderating effects are tested in two service settings: retail and hedonic (concert). Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 270 customers at kitchen display showrooms and 320 concert-goers was undertaken. The results were analysed using regression analysis. Findings – The results show support for ten of the 12 hypotheses. Service convenience moderated the relationships between perceived service quality and its three sub-dimensions (interaction, environment, and outcome quality), differently in different settings (retail vs hedonic). This supports the authors' general argument that the outcome dimension tends to be more important to customers in a retail setting, while interaction and environment quality dimensions tend to be more important in hedonic service consumption. Practical implications – These findings suggest that managers need to use different service management tactics in retail and hedonic service settings. Specifically managers in retail settings need to pay more attention to service convenience to achieve service quality and managers in hedonic settings should concentrate on the social servicescape. Originality/value – This paper is the first to test the moderating factors of service convenience and social servicescape on service quality.

Emergency Health Services (EHS) : demand and service delivery models. [Monograph 2 : Queensland EHS users’ profile]

Emergency health is a critical component of Australia’s health system and one which is increasingly congested from growing demand and blocked access to inpatient beds. The Emergency Health Services Queensland (EHSQ) study aims to identify the factors driving increased demand for emergency health and to evaluate strategies which may safely reduce the future demand growth. This monograph addresses the characteristics of users of emergency health services with an aim to identify those that appear to contribute to demand growth. This study utilises data on patients treated by Emergency Departments (ED) and Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) across Queensland. ED data was derived from the Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) for the period 2001-02 through to 2010-11. Ambulance data was extracted from the QAS’ Ambulance Information Management System (AIMS) and electronic Ambulance Report Form (eARF) for the period 2001-02 through to 2009-10. Due to discrepancies and comparability issues for ED data, this monograph compares data from the 2003-04 time period with 2010-11 data for 21 of the reporting EDs. Also a snapshot of users for the 2010-11 financial year for 31 reporting EDs is used to describe the characteristics of users and to compare those characteristics with population demographics. For QAS data, the 2002-03 and 2009-10 time periods were selected for detailed analyses to identify trends. • Demand for emergency health care services is increasing, representing both increased population and increased relative utilisation. Per capita demand for ED attention has increased by 2% per annum over the last decade and for ambulance attention by 3.7% per annum. • The growth in ED demand is prominent in more urgent triage categories with actual decline in less urgent patients. An estimated 55% of patients attend hospital EDs outside of normal working hours. There is no evidence that patients presenting out of hours are significantly different to those presenting within working hours; they have similar triage assessments and outcomes. • Patients suffering from injuries and poisoning comprise 28% of the ED workload (an increase of 65% in the study period), whilst declines of 32% in cardiovascular and circulatory conditions, and musculoskeletal problems have been observed. • 25.6% of patients attending EDs are admitted to hospital. 19% of admitted patients and 7% of patients who die in the ED are triage category 4 or 5 on arrival. • The average age of ED patients is 35.6 years. Demand has grown in all age groups and amongst both men and women. Men have higher utilisation rates for ED in all age groups. The only group where the growth rate in women has exceeded men is in the 20-29 age group; this growth is particularly in the injury and poisoning categories. • Considerable attention has been paid publicly to ED performance criteria. It is worth noting that 50% of all patients were treated within 33 minutes of arrival. • Patients from lower socioeconomic areas appear to have higher utilisation rates and the utilisation rate for indigenous people appears to exceed those of European and other backgrounds. The utilisation rates for immigrant people is generally less than that of Australian born however it has not been possible to eliminate the confounding impact of different age and socioeconomic profiles. • Demand for ambulance service is also increasing at a rate that exceeds population growth. Utilisation rates have increased by an average of 5% per annum in Queensland compared to 3.6% nationally, and the utilisation rate in Queensland is 27% higher than the national average. • The growth in ambulance utilisation has also been amongst the more urgent categories of dispatch and utilisation rates are higher in rural and regional areas than in the metropolitan area. The demand for ambulance increases with age but the growth in demand for ambulance service has been more prominent in younger age groups. These findings contribute significantly to an understanding of the growth in demand for emergency health. It shows that the growth is amongst patients in genuine need of emergency healthcare and public rhetoric that the congestion of emergency health services is due to inappropriate attendees is unable to be substantiated. The consistency of the growth in demand over the last decade reflects not only the changing demographics of the Australian population but also the changes in health status, standards of acute health care and other social factors. The growth is also amongst patients with acute injury and poisoning which is inconsistent with rates of chronic disease as a fundamental driver. We have also interviewed patients in regard to their decision making choices for acute health care and the factors that influence these decisions and this will be the subject of a third Monograph and publications.

A social matching system : using implicit and explicit information for personalized recommendation in online dating service

Online dating websites enable a specific form of social networking and their efficiency can be increased by supporting proactive recommendations based on participants' preferences with the use of data mining. This research develops two-way recommendation methods for people-to-people recommendation for large online social networks such as online dating networks. This research discovers the characteristics of the online dating networks and utilises these characteristics in developing efficient people-to-people recommendation methods. Methods developed support improved recommendation accuracy, can handle data sparsity that often comes with large data sets and are scalable for handling online networks with a large number of users.

Fraud and its PREY : conceptualising social engineering tactics and its impact on financial literacy outcomes

Financial literacy may not be as effective as previously thought in protecting against fraud victimisation. It does not inoculate investors from persuasion or social engineering tactics used by offenders to secure investment in fraudulent schemes. In fact, recent research indicates that overconfidence in investment knowledge may make individuals more susceptible to fraud. Using boiler room fraud as a case study, this article introduces the PREY (Profiled, Relational, Exploitable and Yielding) model to capture the psychological tactics used by fraud perpetrators to influence the thoughts and decision-making processes of individuals. The PREY model operationalizes the tenets of social engineering and demonstrates how such tactics could be re-engineered to increase the effectiveness of fraud prevention within the financial literacy context.

Learning processes in creative service teams : towards a dynamic systems theory

The fastest-growing segment of jobs in the creative sector are in those firms that provide creative services to other sectors (Hearn, Goldsmith, Bridgstock, Rodgers 2014, this volume; Cunningham 2014, this volume). There are also a large number of Creative Services (Architecture and Design, Advertising and Marketing, Software and Digital Content occupations) workers embedded in organizations in other industry sectors (Cunningham and Higgs 2009). Ben Goldsmith (2014, this volume) shows, for example, that the Financial Services sector is the largest employer of digital creative talent in Australia. But why should this be? We argue it is because ‘knowledge-based intangibles are increasingly the source of value creation and hence of sustainable competitive advantage (Mudambi 2008, 186). This value creation occurs primarily at the research and development (R and D) and the marketing ends of the supply chain. Both of these areas require strong creative capabilities in order to design for, and to persuade, consumers. It is no surprise that Jess Rodgers (2014, this volume), in a study of Australia’s Manufacturing sector, found designers and advertising and marketing occupations to be the most numerous creative occupations. Greg Hearn and Ruth Bridgstock (2013, forthcoming) suggest ‘the creative heart of the creative economy […] is the social and organisational routines that manage the generation of cultural novelty, both tacit and codified, internal and external, and [cultural novelty’s] combination with other knowledges […] produce and capture value’. 2 Moreover, the main “social and organisational routine” is usually a team (for example, Grabher 2002; 2004).

The Global Financial Crisis : Neo-Liberalism, Social Democracy, and Criminology

This chapter begins with a discussion of the economic, political, and social context of the recent global financial crisis, which casts into relief current boundaries of criminology, permeated and made fluid in criminology's recent cultural turn. This cultural turn has reinvigorated criminology, providing new objects of analysis and rich and thick descriptions of the relationship between criminal justice and the conditions of life in ‘late modernity’. Yet in comparison with certain older traditions that sought to articulate criminal justice issues with a wider politics of contestation around political economies and social welfare policies of different polities, many of the current leading culturalist accounts tend in their globalized convergences to produce a strangely decontextualized picture in which we are all subject to the zeitgeist of a unitary ‘late modernity’ which does not differ between, for example, social democratic and neo-liberal polities, let alone allow for the widespread persistence of the pre-modern. It is argued that that contrary to this globalizing trend there are signs within criminology that life is being breathed back into social democratic and penal welfare concerns, habitus, and practices. The chapter discusses three of these signs: the emergence of neo-liberalism as a subject of criminology; a developing comparative penology which recognizes differences in the political economies of capitalist states and evinces a renewed interest in inequality; and a nascent revolt against the ‘generative grammar’, ‘pathological disciplinarities’, and ‘imaginary penalities’ of neoliberal managerialism.

Using social media to create a participatory library service : an Australian study

Public libraries are increasingly using social media in an attempt to meet users in their own spaces. Social media can be useful when used to create a participatory library service – to engage with users. However, there has been little empirical investigation into the success of social media use by public libraries. This article reports on the findings of a research project that explored the use of social media by Australian public libraries. Two organisations participated in case studies that involved interviews, document analysis, and social media observation. To contextualise the use of social media in the case study organisations, a sub study was undertaking involving observation of an additional 24 public libraries across Australia. This article focuses on the findings from the observation sub study. It presents and applies a methodology for classifying social media content to determine whether the sample libraries’ social media use is indicative of a participatory approach to service delivery. This article explores how a range of social media platforms are used by the sample libraries and considers what ‘best practice’ in participatory library service looks like. The two case study organisations’ use of social media is highlighted as exemplary practice.

The need for internal social marketing (ISM): extending the people focus to service employees

BreastScreen Queensland (BSQ) is a government-based health service that provides free breast cancer screening services to eligible women using digital mammography technology.' In 2007, BSQ launched its first social marketing campaign' aimed at achieving a 30 per cent increase in women's programme participation by addressing the barriers to regular screening and by dispelling myths about breast cancer (Tornabene 2010). 'The Facts' mass media social marketing campaign used a credible spokesperson, Australian journalist]ana Wendt, to deliver the call to action' Don't make excuses. Make an appointment'.

Rove n Rave™ development : a partnership between the university and the disability service provider to build a social website for people with an intellectual disability

Rove n Rave ™ is a website designed and created for, and with, people with an intellectual disability. Its aim is to provide them with a user-friendly online platform where they can share opinions and experiences, and where they can find reviews which will help them to choose a place to visit themselves. During the development process, input on design requirements was gathered from a group of people with an intellectual disability and the disability service provider. This group then tested the product and provided further feedback on improving the website. It was found that the choice of wording, icons, pictures, colours and some functions significantly affected the users' ability to understand the content of the website. This demonstrated that a partnership between the developer and the user is essential when designing and delivering products or services for people with an intellectual disability.

Financial institutions using social media – do consumers perceive value?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions of value of financial institutions using social media to interact with consumers; if overall perceived value predicts a consumer’s intention to adopt, and if intention predicts self-reported adoption of social media to interact with a financial institution; and if perceptions of value in using social media to interact with a financial institution changes over time. Design/methodology/approach Self-administered surveys were run at two time points; 2010 and 2014. Data were analyzed using multiple and mediated regressions, and t-tests. Comparisons are made between the two time points. Findings Perceived usefulness, economic value, and social value predicted overall perceived value, which in turn predicted a consumer’s intention to adopt social media to interact with a financial institution. At Time 2, adoption intention predicted self-reported usage behavior. Finally, there were significant differences between perceptions across Time 1 and 2. Research limitations/implications The implications of the research highlight the importance of overall perceived value in the role of adoption intention, and that at Time 2, adoption intention predicted self-reported adoption to read and share content. A reduction in perceptions of value and intentions from Time 1 to Time 2 could be explained by perceptions of technology insecurity. In future studies, the authors recommend examining inhibitors to adoption including hedonic value. Practical implications The findings suggest that consumers will use social media if the sector creates and clearly articulates consumer value from using social media. The sector also needs to address technology security perceptions to increase usage of social media. Originality/value This paper is one of the first to investigate the consumer’s perspective in social media adoption by financial institutions, by exploring the role of value in consumer adoption and usage of social media.

Beyond social justice agendas: Indigenous knowledges in pre-service teacher education and practice in Australia

The space and positioning of Indigenous knowledges (IK) within Australian curricula and pedagogy are often contentious, informed by the broader Australian socio-cultural, political and economic landscape. Against changing educational policy, historically based on the myth of terra nullius, we discuss the shifting priorities for embedding Indigenous knowledges in educational practice in university and school curricula and pedagogy. In this chapter, we argue that personal and professional commitment to social justice is an important starting point for embedding Indigenous knowledges in the Australian school curricula and pedagogy. Developing teacher knowledge around embedding IK is required to enable teachers’ preparedness to navigate a contested historical/colonising space in curriculum decision-making, teaching and learning. We draw one mpirical data from a recent research project on supporting pre-service teachers as future curriculum leaders; the project was funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT). This project aimed to support future curriculum leaders to develop their knowledge of embedding IK at one Australian university. We propose supporting the embedding of IK in situ with pre-service teachers and their supervising teachers on practicum in real, sustained and affirming ways that shifts the recognition of IK from personal commitment to social justice in education, to one that values Indigenous knowledges as content to educate (Connell, 1993). We argue that sustained engagement with and appreciation of IKhas the potential to decolonise Australian curricula, shift policy directions and enhance race relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians .

Managing flexible work arrangements in small not-for-profit firms: The influence of organisational size, financial constraints and workforce characteristics

Small, not-for-profit organisations fulfil a need in the economy that is typically not satisfied by for-profit firms. They also operate in ways that are distinct from larger organisations. While such firms employ a substantial proportion of the workforce, research addressing human resource management (HRM) practices in these settings is limited. This article used data collected from five small not-for-profit firms in Australia to examine the way one significant HRM practice – the provision and utilisation of flexible work arrangements – operates in the sector. Drawing on research from several scholarly fields, the article firstly develops a framework comprising three tensions in not-for-profits that have implications for HRM. These tensions are: (1) contradictions between an informal approach to HRM vs. a formal regulatory system; (2) employee values that favour social justice vs. external market forces; and (3) a commitment to service vs. external financial expectations. The article then empirically examines how these tensions are managed in relation to the specific case of flexible work arrangements. The study reveals that tensions around providing and accessing flexible work arrangements are managed in three ways: discretion, leadership style and distancing. These findings more broadly inform the way HRM is operationalised in this under-examined sector.

The economic consequences of financial reporting on Twitter

The use of social media has spread into many different areas including marketing, customer service, and corporate disclosure. However, our understanding of the timely effect of financial reporting information on Twitter is still limited. In this paper, we propose to examine the timely effect of financial reporting information on Twitter in Australian context, as reflect in the stock market trading. We aim to find out whether the level of information asymmetry within the stock market will be reduced, after the introduction of Twitter and the use of Twitter for financial reporting purpose

The economic consequences of corporate financial reporting on Twitter

The use of social media has spread into many different areas including marketing, customer service, and corporate disclosure. However, our understanding of the timely effect of financial reporting information on Twitter is still limited. In this paper, we examine the timely effect of financial reporting information on Twitter in the Australian context, as reflected in the follow-up stock market reaction. With the use of event methodology and comparative setting, we find that financial reporting disclosure on Twitter reduces the information asymmetry level. This is evidenced by reduction of bid-ask spread and increase of share trading volume. The results of this study imply that financial reporting disclosure on social media assists the dissemination of information and the stock market response to this information