Enhancing employment services for people with severe mental illness: the challenge of the Australian service environment

Objectives:  Comparatively few people with severe mental illness are employed despite evidence that many people within this group wish to obtain, can obtain and sustain employment, and that employment can contribute to recovery. This investigation aimed to: (i) describe the current policy and service environment within which people with severe mental illness receive employment services; (ii) identify evidence-based practices that improve employment outcomes for people with severe mental illness; (iii) determine the extent to which the current Australian policy environment is consistent with the implementation of evidence-based employment services for people with severe mental illness; and (iv) identify methods and priorities for enhancing employment services for Australians with severe mental illness through implementation of evidence-based practices. Method:  Current Australian practices were identified, having reference to policy and legal documents, funding body requirements and anecdotal reports. Evidence-based employment services for people with severe mental illness were identified through examination of published reviews and the results of recent controlled trials. Results:  Current policy settings support the provision of employment services for people with severe mental illness separate from clinical services. Recent studies have identified integration of clinical and employment services as a major factor in the effectiveness of employment services. This is usually achieved through co-location of employment and mental health services. Conclusions:  Optimal evidence-based employment services are needed by Australians with severe mental illness. Providing optimal services is a challenge in the current policy environment. Service integration may be achieved through enhanced intersectoral links between employment and mental health service providers as well as by co-locating employment specialists within a mental health care setting.

Corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in transitional countries – evidence from Chinese listed firms

The objective of this thesis is to investigate whether the corporate governance practices adopted by Chinese listed firms are associated with the quality of earnings information. Based on a review of agency and institutional theory, this study develops hypotheses that predict the monitoring effectiveness of the board and the audit committee. Using a combination of univariate and multivariate analyses, the association between corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management are tested from 2004 to 2008. Through analysing the empirical results, a number of findings are summarised as below. First, board independence is weakened by the introduction of government officials as independent directors on the boards. Government officials acting as independent directors, claim that they meet the definition of independent director set by the regulation. However, they have some connection with the State, which is the controlling shareholder in listed SOEs affiliated companies. Consequently, the effect of the independent director’s expertise in constraining earnings management is mitigated as demonstrated by an insignificant association between board expertise and earnings management. An alternative explanation for the inefficiency of board independence may point to the pre-selection of independent directors by the powerful CEO. It is argued that a CEO can manipulate the board composition and choose the "desirable" independent directors to monitor themselves. Second, a number of internal mechanisms, such as board size, board activities, and the separation of the roles of the CEO and chair are found to be significantly associated with discretionary accruals. This result suggests that there are advantages in having a large and active board in the Chinese setting. This can offset the disadvantages associated with large boards, such as increased bureaucracy, and hence, increase the constraining effects of a large and resourceful board. Third, factor analysis identifies two factors: CEO power and board power. CEO power is the factor which consists of CEO duality and turnover, and board power is composed of board size and board activity. The results of CEO power show that if a Chinese listed company has CEO duality and turnover at the same time, it is more likely to have a high level of earnings management. The significant and negative relationship between board power and accruals indicate that large boards with frequent meetings can be associated with low level of earnings management. Overall, the factor analysis suggests that certain governance mechanisms complement each other to become more efficient monitors of opportunistic earnings management. A combination of board characteristics can increase the negative association with earnings management. Fourth, the insignificant results between audit committees and earnings management in Chinese listed firms suggests that the Chinese regulator should strengthen the audit committee functions. This thesis calls for listed firms to disclose more information on audit committee composition and activities, which can facilitate future research on the Chinese audit committee’s monitoring role. Fifth, the interactive results between State ownership and board characteristics show that dominant State ownership has a moderating effect on board monitoring power as the State totally controls 42% of the issued shares. The high percentage of State ownership makes it difficult for the non-controlling institutional shareholders to challenge the State’s dominant status. As a result, the association between non-controlling institutional ownership and earnings management is insignificant in most situations. Lastly, firms audited by the international Big4 have lower abnormal accruals than firms audited by domestic Chinese audit firms. In addition, the inverse U-shape relationship between audit tenure and earnings quality demonstrates the changing effects of audit quality after a certain period of appointment. Furthermore, this thesis finds that listing in Hong Kong Stock Exchanges can be an alternative governance mechanism to discipline Chinese firms to follow strict Hong Kong listing requirements. Management of Hong Kong listed companies are exposed to the scrutiny of international investors and Hong Kong regulators. This in turn reduces their chances of conducting self-interested earnings manipulation. This study is designed to fill the gap in governance literature in China that is related to earnings management. Previous research on corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in China is not conclusive. The current research builds on previous literature and provides some meaningful implications for practitioners, regulators, academic, and international investors who have investment interests in a transitional country. The findings of this study contribute to corporate governance and earnings management literature in the context of the transitional economy of China. The use of alternative measures for earnings management yields similar results compared with the accruals models and produces additional findings.

Pathways to employment for migrants and refugees? The case of social enterprise

This paper examines the use of social enterprise – that is, not for personal profit businesses that have a strong social purpose- to support training and employment pathways for migrants and refugees facing multiple forms of exclusion. Drawing on an evaluation of a program that supports seven social enterprises in the Australian state of Victoria, the study finds that social enterprise affords unique local opportunities for economic and social participation for the program’s participants. Nevertheless, there are limits to the impacts of programs that mediate transitions within an increasingly flexible labour market without redressing the broader social determinants of labour market segmentation.

ACE research vignette 010 : when do sales and employment grow together?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team and other international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.

From Absence to Presence, from Silence to Voice: Victims in Transitional Justice Since the Nuremberg Trials

As much as victims have been absent in traditional and national criminal justice for a long time, they were invisible in transitional and international criminal justice after World War II. The Nuremberg Trials were dominated by the perpetrators, and documents were mainly used instead of victim testimony. Contemporaries shared the perspective that transitional justice, both international and national procedures should channel revenge by the victims and their families into the more peaceful venues of courts and legal procedures. Since then, victims have gained an ever more important role in transitional, post-conflict and international criminal justice. Non-judicial tribunals, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and international criminal courts and tribunals are relying on the testimony of victims and thus provide a prominent role for victims who often take centre stage in such procedures and trials. International criminal law and the human rights regime have provided victims with several routes to make themselves heard and fight against impunity. This paper tracks the road from absence to presence, and from invisibility to the visibility of victims during the second half of the last and the beginning of the present century. It shows in which ways their presence has shaped and changed transitional and international justice, and in particular how their absence or presence is linked to amnesties.

New organisational leadership capabilities : transitional engineer the new designer?

Traditionally, design has been centred within the manufacturing and production areas of companies and or as a styling afterthought. Increasingly, design is viewed as a vital and important strategic business resource (Dell’Era, Marchesi & Verganti, 2010) and consequently companies worldwide look to design to help them innovate, differentiate and compete in the global marketplace. The role of the professional designer is evolving to a point where they are needed to work beyond being a specialist in the manufacturing and aesthetics of an artefact (Wrigley & Bucolo, 2011). This paper challenges the values held by academics and industry regarding the traditional role of designers in business. It investigates the emerging transitional engineering framework and puts forward a proposal for the next generation designer in the future era of design. Questions surrounding how designers will develop these new skills and how the Authors’ new framework of design led innovation can contribute to the future of design will be presented. This research is needed to better equip future designers to have a more central role in business.

Regulating precarious employment : the case of young Australian retail workers

Young workers are highly susceptible to the precarities of external labour markets. They are more likely to be employed in precarious, part-time and insecure work and to lose their jobs in an economic downturn. For young people, the process of transitioning between education and employment includes periods in and out of further education and in and out of employment, and in underemployment. The underemployment of youth is the global norm (Roberts 2009). The policy orthodoxy in industrialised nations normalises these transitions as ‘natural’ and as a ‘stage’ through which young people must pass. Here, the state plays a vital role in providing both welfare support and regulatory protection for young people in precarious work and transitioning from it.

Employment opportunities in Australia for educational researchers: A review of recent advertisements

The Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) by promoting the conference theme has identified a need to be more proactive to ensure growth in the number of educational researchers. Within the Higher Education sector there are a number of methods used to encourage interest in a particular area, and these include policy, funding, sponsorship, employment and scholarships. There are three types of employment for academics: Research, Lecturing and Teaching and Learning and two types of scholarships: either students self-identify the topic or topics are targeted with associated funding. The aim of this study is to review the academic positions and targeted scholarships of Australian Universities and research organisations gathered from advertisements in a national newspaper. This will establish a baseline of recent practice from July to December, 2006 and identify opportunities for researchers in all Disciplines and specifically in education. Results reveal the two main groups for academics are Research and Lecturing, with a small number in Teaching and Learning. Although the Education Discipline is well represented overall (3rd in 12 Disciplines after Health and Science) in terms of research opportunities education then moves to 10th position. A further significant finding is the highly contractual nature of research versus the more stable, tenured environment for lecturing. There are a number of implications arising from this short study. Firstly, the Discipline of Education as a targeted area for research alone is significantly under-represented in the advertised positions but is well represented in lecturing where the role always requires teaching and research. Thus it seems the amount of time devoted to research by academics in the education Discipline is significantly lower than for health or science. Secondly, there are few industry/Government targeted scholarships in the education Discipline therefore any growth in numbers of educational researchers through postgraduate study is not expanded by funding to meet identified needs. In conclusion AARE, an association interested in promoting the growth of educational research, has an obvious need to encourage and review the outcomes of this study and perhaps adopt some of the successful strategies employed by other Disciplines to improve the opportunities for educational researchers in the future.