Strategic infrastructure asset management: the way forward

Organisations owning and managing infrastructure asset are constantly striving to obtain the greatest lifetime value from their infrastructure assets. Many such organisations have adopted the concept of “asset management” with the aim of improving the performance of their infrastructure assets. This paper evaluates the adoption of asset management to improve performance in the context of organisations managing infrastructure assets. Relevant previous research studies on main barriers to the adoption of asset management are reviewed. Analysis of these findings, together with deductive reasoning, leads to the development of the proposed improvement strategies. Three issues were identified as barrier to the advancement of the concept of asset management. They are (1) lack of recognition, (2) fragmentation; and (3) growing complexity. To overcome these issues, this paper suggests that the organisations manage infrastructure assets must (1) adopt a more strategic approach in the management of infrastructure assets, (2) develop a framework of strategic infrastructure asset management processes, and (3) identify the core capabilities needed in the management of infrastructure assets. This paper presents the direction for further research to advance the concept of asset management in the management of infrastructure asset.

Talking the talk and walking the walk : how managers can influence the quality of work-life balance in a construction project

Purpose – The construction industry in Australia is characterised by a long work-hours culture, with conditions that make it difficult for staff to balance their work and non-work lives. The objective of this paper is to measure the success of a work-place intervention designed to improve work-life balance (WLB) in an alliance project in the construction industry, and the role the project manager plays in this success. Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on an alliance case study. Interviews were conducted at two points in time, several months apart, after the interventions were implemented. Findings – Results showed that staff on the whole were more satisfied with their work experience after the interventions, and indicated the important role that managers' attitudes and behaviours played. Originality/value – Managerial support for work-life initiatives is a critical element in achieving WLB and satisfaction with working arrangements. The fact that the manager “talked the talk and walked the walk” was a major contributing success factor, which has not previously been demonstrated.

Infrastructure asset management: The challenges and approaches

Infrastructure organisations such as airport, seaport, rail and road are operating in an increasingly challenging business environment as a result of globalisation, privatisation and deregulation. These organisations must ensure that their main resource i.e. their infrastructure assets are well managed in order to support their business operations. Brisbane Airport is used as a case study to understand the challenges faced in the management of infrastructure assets as well as the approaches used to overcome them. The findings can be useful in helping asset managers to identify the resources they should seek to manipulate in order to make improvement to their activities and contribute to the overall performance of their organisation.

Paediatric spinal deformity research at the Mater Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia.

The Paediatric Spine Research group was formed in 2002 to perform high quality research into the prevention and management of spinal deformity, with an emphasis on scoliosis. The group has successfully built collaborative bridges between the scientific and research expertise at QUT, and the clinical skills and experience of the spinal orthopaedic surgeons at the Mater Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. Clinical and biomechanical research is now possible as a result of the development of detailed databases of patients who have innovative and unique surgical interventions for spinal deformity such as thoracoscopic scoliosis correction, thoracoscopic staple insertion for juvenile idiopathic scoliosis and minimally invasive growing rods. The Mater in Brisbane provides these unique datasets of spinal deformity surgery patients, whose procedures are not being performed anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere. The most detailed is a database of thoracoscopic scoliosis correction surgery which now contains 180 patients with electronic collections of X-Rays, photographs and patient questionnaires. With ethics approval, a subset of these patients has had CT scans, and a further subset have had MRI scans with and without a compressive load to simulate the erect standing position. This database has to date contributed to 17 international refereed journal papers, a further 7 journal papers either under review or in final preparation, 53 national conference presentations and 35 international conference presentations. Major findings from selected journal publications will be presented. It is anticipated that as the surgical databases grow they will continue to provide invaluable clinical data which will feed into clinically relevant projects driven by both medical and engineering researchers whose findings will benefit spinal deformity patients and scientific knowledge worldwide.

Modelling complex resource requirements in Business Process Management Systems

Real-world business processes are resource-intensive. In work environments human resources usually multitask, both human and non-human resources are typically shared between tasks, and multiple resources are sometimes necessary to undertake a single task. However, current Business Process Management Systems focus on task-resource allocation in terms of individual human resources only and lack support for a full spectrum of resource classes (e.g., human or non-human, application or non-application, individual or teamwork, schedulable or unschedulable) that could contribute to tasks within a business process. In this paper we develop a conceptual data model of resources that takes into account the various resource classes and their interactions. The resulting conceptual resource model is validated using a real-life healthcare scenario.

Integrated sustainable urban infrastructure management: the Brisbane urban growth model

Sustainable urban development and the liveability of a city are increasingly important issues in the context of land use planning and infrastructure management. In recent years, the promotion of sustainable urban development in Australia and overseas is facing various physical, socio-economic and environmental challenges. These challenges and problems arise from the lack of capability of local governments to accommodate the needs of the population and economy in a relatively short timeframe. The planning of economic growth and development is often dealt with separately and not included in the conventional land use planning process. There is also a sharp rise in the responsibilities and roles of local government for infrastructure planning and management. This increase in responsibilities means that local elected officials and urban planners have less time to prepare background information and make decisions. The Brisbane Urban Growth Model has proven initially successful in providing a dynamic platform to ensure timely and coordinated delivery of urban infrastructure. Most importantly, this model is the first step for local governments in moving toward a systematic approach to pursuing sustainable and effective urban infrastructure management.

Ubiquitous eco cities : telecommunication infrastructure, technology convergence and urban management

Efficient and effective urban management systems for Ubiquitous Eco Cities require having intelligent and integrated management mechanisms. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated, transparent and open decision-making system and necessary infrastructure and technologies. In Ubiquitous Eco Cities telecommunication technologies play an important role in monitoring and managing activities via wired and wireless networks. Particularly, technology convergence creates new ways in which information and telecommunication technologies are used and formed the backbone of urban management. The 21st Century is an era where information has converged, in which people are able to access a variety of services, including internet and location based services, through multi-functional devices and provides new opportunities in the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities. This chapter discusses developments in telecommunication infrastructure and trends in convergence technologies and their implications on the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities

Small and medium enterprises’ solution to improve on-site waste management in office building retrofit projects

Office building retrofit projects are increasingly more intensified as existing buildings are aging. At the same time, building owners and occupants are looking for environmentally sustainable products. These retrofit projects usually take place in center business district (CBDs) with on-site waste becoming one of the critical issues. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) carry out most of the work in retrofit projects as subcontractors. Despite their large involvement, they often do not have adequate resources to deal with the specific technical challenges and project risks related to waste. Few research has been done on their performance of waste management operations. This paper identifies characteristics of on-site waste in office building retrofit projects. It examines the specific requirements for contractors to manage waste in the projects before exploring the existing performance of SMEs. By comparing requirements for SMEs and their potential areas for improvement, a framework is established for performance promotion of SMEs in on-site waste management of office building retrofit projects. The paper will raise the consciousness and commitment of SMEs as sub-contractors to waste management. It also explores ways of supporting SMEs for experience accumulation, performance promotion and project culture establishment towards effective and efficient on-site waste management in the growing sector of office building retrofit and upgrade.

GVS : A flexible, low-end, 3D visualisation framework for enhancing conceptual groundwater models for community, management and simulations

In this paper we discuss an advanced, 3D groundwater visualisation and animation system that allows scientists, government agencies and community groups to better understand the groundwater processes that effect community planning and decision-making. The system is unique in that it has been designed to optimise community engagement. Although it incorporates a powerful visualisation engine, this open-source system can be freely distributed and boasts a simple user interface allowing individuals to run and investigate the models on their own PCs and gain intimate knowledge of the groundwater systems. The initial version of the Groundwater Visualisation System (GVS v1.0), was developed from a coastal delta setting (Bundaberg, QLD), and then applied to a basalt catchment area (Obi Obi Creek, Maleny, QLD). Several major enhancements have been developed to produce higher quality visualisations, including display of more types of data, support for larger models and improved user interaction. The graphics and animation capabilities have also been enhanced, notably the display of boreholes, depth logs and time-series water level surfaces. The GVS software remains under continual development and improvement

How government agencies engage with stakeholders

As a result of the managerial reforms adopted by government agencies since the 1980s, the stakeholder approach has become more widely accepted as a strategic management tool. However it remains a difficult and demanding task for agencies to determine who their stakeholders are and to optimise interactions with them. This paper examines how government agencies identify, classify and engage with stakeholders who have competing demands, differing access to resources and the ability to exert political pressure. To do this, the stakeholder approaches of nine agencies at three levels of government in Queensland were studied. This resulted in the development of a Stakeholder Classification Model for Public Agencies which could be used to create more focused and relevant stakeholder interventions.

The role of culture in knowledge management : the case of developing economies

This paper explores the role of culture in Knowledge Management (KM) through a spectrum of cultural and institutional perspectives. The case studies cover a wide range of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America as well as transition economies of the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe. The paper demonstrates how knowledge management processes and practices are influenced by local culture and institutions as well as interaction with the broader international community.

“Entrepreneurial management” as a strategic choice in firm behavior : linking it with performance

Establishing the core principals of “entrepreneurial management” within an organization describes a certain strategic choice that affects a company in six dimensions, according to Stevenson (1983). Our aim is to empirically measure entrepreneurial management (it’s existence and degree) and to link this measured strategic choice (for or against) entrepreneurial management with firm performance. Our argument here is that companies that follow core principals of entrepreneurial management should outperform other more administrative firms in certain measures of strategic performance. This paper builds on an empirical investigation published by Brown, Davidson & Wiklund (2001), who have developed and tested a reliable measurement instrument for Stevenson’s definition of “entrepreneurial management” (Stevenson 1983, Stevenson & Jarillo 1990). In the first part of our paper we aim to replicate and to some extent improve this study. In the second part we link the measured degree of “entrepreneurial management” with firm performance. To our knowledge, even so Stevenson’s definition of entrepreneurial management is commonly acknowledged and Brown et al. (2001) developed a reliable instrument to empirically capture this behavioral approach to management, the construct of entrepreneurial management never before has been linked to firm performance in an empirical study. Since most papers on corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance are based on Covin & Slevin’s (1991) or Miller’s (1983) concept of entrepreneurial orientation, we contribute to the literature on corporate entrepreneurship in a novel way, given the fact that the entrepreneurial management dimensions measured in our study can theoretically and empirically be clearly distinguished from the construct of entrepreneurial orientation as defined by Covin & Selvin (1991).

Transnational business masculinities : media representations of gender and management in global mining corporations

This paper examines Australian media representations of the male managers of two global mining corporations, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. These organizations are transnational (or multinational) corporations with assets and/or operations across national boundaries (Dunning and Lundan, 2008), and indeed their respective Chief Executive Officers, Tom Albanese and Marius Kloppers are two of the most economically (and arguably politically) powerful in the world overseeing 37 000 and 39 000 employees internationally. With a 2008 profit of US$15.962 billion and assets of US$ 75.889 Billion BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company. In terms of its profits and assets Rio Tinto ranks fourth in the world, but with operations in six countries (mainly Canada and Australia) and a 2008 profit of US$10.3 billion it is also emblematic of the transnational in that its ‘budget is larger than that of all but a few nations’ (Giddens, 2003, p. 62).

Nonprofit organizational and work unit identification and the occupational stress process

Research investigating the transactional approach to the work stressor-employee adjustment relationship has described many negative main effects between perceived stressors in the workplace and employee outcomes. A considerable amount of literature, theoretical and empirical, also describes potential moderators of this relationship. Organizational identification has been established as a significant predictor of employee job-related attitudes. To date, research has neglected investigation of the potential moderating effect of organizational identification in the work stressor-employee adjustment relationship. On the basis of identity, subjective fit and sense of belonging literature it was predicted that higher perceptions of identification at multiple levels of the organization would mitigate the negative effect of work stressors on employee adjustment. It was expected, further, that more proximal, lower order identifications would be more prevalent and potent as buffers of stressors on strain. Predictions were tested with an employee sample from five organizations (N = 267). Hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses revealed some support for the stress-buffering effects of identification in the prediction of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, particularly for more proximal (i.e., work unit) identification. These positive stress-buffering effects, however, were present for low identifiers in some situations. The present study represents an extension of the application of organizational identity theory by identifying the effects of organizational and workgroup identification on employee outcomes in the nonprofit context. Our findings will contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics in nonprofit organizations and therefore contribute to the development of strategy and interventions to deal with identity-based issues in nonprofits.