Gender patterns for aspirations for transitional employment and training and development in local government

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the patterns of transitional employment (TE) aspirations and training and development (T&D) needs of women within local government. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative survey methodology was used to identify aspirations in a sample of 1,068 employees from the Australian Local Government Association. Findings – Mature-aged women were very interested in continuous learning at work despite their limited formal education. Their training preferences consisted of informal delivery face-to-face or online in the areas of management or administration. Younger women were interested in undertaking university courses, while a minority were interested in blue collar occupations. Practical implications – Through the identification of patterns of TE and T&D aspirations, long term strategies to develop and retain women in local government may be developed. Findings suggest that mature-aged women would benefit from additional T&D to facilitate entry into management and senior administration positions, as well as strategies to facilitate a shift in organizational climate. Social implications – Mature-aged women were found to be a potentially untapped resource for management and senior administrative roles owing to their interest in developing skills in these fields and pursuing TE. Younger women may also benefit from T&D to maintain their capacity during breaks from employment. Encouragement of women in non-traditional areas may also address skill shortages in the local government. Originality/value – Mature-aged women were found to be a potentially untapped resource for management and senior administrative roles owing to their interest in developing skills in these fields and pursuing TE. Younger women may also benefit from T&D to maintain their capacity during breaks from employment. Encouragement of women in non-traditional areas may also address skill shortages in the local government.

A prototype augmented reality collaborative process modelling tool

Identifying, modelling and documenting business processes usually requires the collaboration of many stakeholders that may be spread across companies in inter-organizational business settings. While there are many process modelling tools available, the support they provide for remote collaboration is still limited. This demonstration showcases a novel prototype application that implements collaborative virtual environment and augmented reality technologies to improve remote collaborative process modelling, with an aim to assisting common collaboration tasks by providing an increased sense of immersion in an intuitive shared work and task space. Our tool is easily deployed using open source software, and commodity hardware, and is expected to assist with saving money on travel costs for large scale process modelling projects covering national and international centres within an enterprise.

Business Process Management (BPM) education in Australia : a critical review based on content analysis

Business Process Management (BPM) is a top priority in organisations and is rapidly proliferating as an emerging discipline in practice. However, the current studies show lack of appropriate BPM skilled professionals in the field and a dearth of opportunities to develop BPM expertise. This paper analyses the gap between available BPM-related education in Australia and required BPM capabilities. BPM courses offered by Australian universities and training institutions have been critically analysed and mapped against leading BPM capability frameworks to determine how well current BPM education and training offerings in Australia actually address the core capabilities required for BPM professionals. The outcomes reported here can be used by Australian universities and training institutions to better align and position their training materials to the BPM required capabilities. It could also be beneficial to individuals looking for a systematic and in-depth understanding of BPM capabilities and trainings.

A comparative analysis of business analysis (BA) and business process management (BPM) capabilities

Many initiatives to improve Business processes are emerging. The essential roles and contributions of Business Analyst (BA) and Business Process Management (BPM) professionals to such initiatives have been recognized in literature and practice. The roles and responsibilities of a BA or BPM practitioner typically require different skill-sets; however these differences are often vague. This vagueness creates much confusion in practice and academia. While both the BA and BPM communities have made attempts to describe their domains through capability defining empirical research and developments of Bodies of knowledge, there has not yet been any attempt to identify the commonality of skills required and points of uniqueness between the two professions. This study aims to address this gap and presents the findings of a detailed content mapping exercise (using NVivo as a qualitative data analysis tool) of the International Institution of Business Analysis (IIBA®) Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide) against core BPM competency and capability frameworks.

The role of legislative, executive and judicial mechanisms in ensuring a fair and effective asylum process

A good faith reading of core international protection obligations requires that states employ appropriate legislative, administrative and judicial mechanisms to ensure the enjoyment of a fair and effective asylum process. Restrictive asylum policies instead seek to ‘denationalize’ the asylum process by eroding access to national statutory, judicial and executive safeguards that ensure a full and fair hearing of an asylum claim. From a broader perspective, the argument in this thesis recognizes hat international human rights depend on domestic institutions for their effective implementation, and that a rights-based international legal order requires that power is limited, whether that power is expressed as an instance of the sovereign right of states in international law or as the authority of governments under domestic constitutions.

FDR and victims of family violence: Ensuring a safe process and outcomes

Family dispute resolution (FDR) is a positive first-stop process for family law matters, particularly those relating to disputes about children. FDR provides the parties with flexibility within a positive, structured and facilitated framework for what are often difficult and emotional negotiations. However, there are a range of issues that arise for victims of family violence in FDR that can make it a dangerous and unsafe process for them unless appropriate precautions are taken. This article discusses the nature of FDR and identifies the many positive aspects of it for women participants. The article then considers the nature and dynamic of family violence in order to contextualise the discussion that follows regarding concerns for the safety of participants in the FDR process. Finally, it offers some suggestions about how Australia could approach FDR differently to make it safer for victims of family violence.

Near infrared optical materials from polymeric amorphous carbon synthesized by collisional plasma process

The synthesis of polymerlike amorphous carbon(a-C:H) thin-films by microwave excited collisional hydrocarbon plasma process is reported. Stable and highly aromatic a-C:H were obtained containing significant inclusions of poly(p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV). PPV confers universal optoelectronic properties to the synthesized material. That is a-C:H with tailor-made refractive index are capable of becoming absorption-free in visible (red)-near infrared wavelength range. Production of large aromatic hydrocarbon including phenyl clusters and/or particles is attributed to enhanced coagulation of elemental plasma species under collisional plasma conditions. Detailed structural and morphological changes that occur in a-C:H during the plasma synthesis are also described.