Chart of accounts : a framework for measuring the economic and social contributions by older Australians

National Seniors Australia (2008) acknowledged the huge contributions that older people have made to Australian society in its policy statement, AdvantAGE Australia. National Seniors Australia commissioned this study to find out more about the extent of these contributions and the factors that influence these contributions. The key outcome of this study is a framework or ‘Chart of Accounts’ that allows users to a) track the participation of older Australians in paid and unpaid work; and b) estimate the value of economic and social contributions by older Australians as well as the value of losses for not utilising the knowledge and skills that older Australians have built up over a lifetime. Users can also make predictions of future contributions and participation in paid and unpaid work by using existing data as the baseline.

Surviving the Titanic disaster : economic, natural and social determinants

The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 took the lives of 68 percent of the people aboard. Who survived? It was women and children who had a higher probability of being saved, not men. Likewise, people traveling in first class had a better chance of survival than those in second and third class. British passengers were more likely to perish than members of other nations. This extreme event represents a rare case of a well-documented life and death situation where social norms were enforced. This paper shows that economic analysis can account for human behavior in such situations.

Sustaining the ecological, social and economic values of the forests of Southern Tasmania

This thesis articulates a methodology that can be applied to the analysis and design of underlying organisational structures and processes that will consistently and effectively address ‘wicked problems’ (the most difficult class of problems that we can conceptualise: problems which consist of ‘clusters’ of problems; problems within these clusters cannot be solved in isolation from one another, and include sociopolitical and moral-spiritual issues (Rittel and Webber 1973)) in forestry. This transdisciplinary methodology has been developed from the perspective of institutional economics synthesised with perspectives from ecological economics and system dynamics. The institutionalist policymaking framework provides an approach for the explicit development of holistic policy. An illustrative application of this framework has been applied to the wicked problem of forestry in southern Tasmania as an example of the applicability of the approach in the Australian context. To date all attempts to seek solutions to that prevailing wicked problem set have relied on non-reflexive, partial and highly reductionist thinking. A formal assessment of prevailing governance and process arrangements applying to that particular forestry industry has been undertaken using the social fabric matrix. This methodology lies at the heart of the institutionalist policymaking framework, and allows for the systematic exploration of elaborately complex causal links and relationships, such as are present in southern Tasmania. Some possible attributes of an alternative approach to forest management that sustains ecological, social and economic values of forests have been articulated as indicative of the alternative policy and management outcomes that real-world application of this transdisciplinary, discursive and reflexive framework may crystallise. Substantive and lasting solutions to wicked problems need to be formed endogenously, that is, from within the system. The institutionalist policymaking framework is a vehicle through which this endogenous creation of solutions to wicked problems may be realised.

School education as social and economic governance : responsibilising communities through industry-school engagement

This article examines shifts in educational and social governance taking place in Queensland, Australia, through Industry School Engagement Strategy of Education Queensland and its Gateway Schools program. This significant educational initiative is set within the context of the social investment agenda first articulated in the education policy framework, Queensland State Education-2010. The article traces the historic extension of this governmental strategy through establishment of the Gateway Schools concept that brokers industry-school partnerships with global players in the Queensland economy. Industry sectors forming the partnerships include Minerals and Energy, Aerospace, Wine Tourism, Agribusiness, Manufacturing and Engineering, Building and Construction and ICT. We argue that this ‘post-bureaucratic’ model of schooling represents a new social settlement of neoliberal governance, in which educational outcomes align with economic objectives, and frame the conditions for community self-governance.

The implementation of social and economic policy through the tax regime : a review of Australia's tax expenditures program

Each year the Australian Federal Treasury releases its Tax Expenditures Statement providing details of concessions, benefits, and incentives delivered through the tax regime to Australian taxpayers. The current Tax Expenditures Statement, released on 25 January 2008, lists approximately 300 tax expenditures and reports on the estimated pecuniary value in terms of revenue foregone, estimated to be a total of $50.12 billion for the 2006-07 financial year. Apart from the annual Tax Expenditures Statement, and despite the recurring fiscal impact, there is very little other scrutiny of Australia’s Federal tax expenditures program. This is despite tax expenditures often being seen as an alternative to direct expenditures with similar impact on the Federal budget. The object of tax expenditures is to provide government assistance and meet government objectives, and, as such, tax expenditures are departures from the revenue raising aspect of the tax regime. Within this context, this article examines the fundamental concept of tax expenditures as contrasted with direct expenditures and considers the role they play in the current tax regime.

Friedman Economic Policies, Social Exclusion and Crime: Toward a Gendered Left Realist Subcultural Theory.

Left realists contend that people lacking legitimate means of solving the problem of relative deprivation may come into contact with other frustrated disenfranchised people and form subcultures, which in turn, encourage criminal behaviors. Absent from this theory is an attempt to address how, today, subcultural development in North America and elsewhere is heavily shaped simultaneously by the recent destructive consequences of right-wing Friedman or Chicago School economic policies and marginalized men's attempts to live up to the principles of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of this paper, then, is to offer a new left realist theory that emphasizes the contribution of these two key determinants.

News media representations of homelessness : do economic news production pressures prevent journalists from adequately reporting complex social issues

This study used both content and frame analyses to test news-media representations of homelessness in The Courier-Mail newspaper for evidence of restricted journalism practice. Specifically, it sought signs of either direct manipulation of issue representation based on ideological grounds, and also evidence of news organisations prioritising low-cost news production over Public Sphere journalistic news values. The study found that news stories from the earlier parts of the longitudinal study showed stereotypical misrepresentations of homelessness for public deliberation which might be attributed to either, or both of the nominated restricting factors. However news stories from the latter part of the study saw a distinct change in the way the issue was represented, indicating a journalistic capacity to thoughtfully and sensitively represent a complex social issue to the public. Further study is recommended to ascertain how and why this change occurred, so that journalistic practice might be further improved.

Corporate governance as social responsibility : a meta-regulation approach to raise social responsibility of corporate governance in a weak economy

Corporate governance (CG) denotes the rules of business decision-making and directs the internal mechanism of companies to follow the output of the rules. It includes the customs, policies, laws and institutions as a set of processes that affects the way in which a corporation is directed, administered or controlled.

Legal regulation of corporate social responsibility : evidence from Bangladesh

The business corporations' internal strategies in weak economies merely respond to the public policy goals for social development. The role of corporate self-regulation in Bangladesh is not an exception. The extent to which legal regulations related to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Bangladesh could contribute to including CSR notions at the core of self-regulated corporate responsibility is the focus of this paper. It explains that the major Bangladeshi laws related to corporate regulation and responsibility do not possess recurrent features to compel corporate self-regulators to contribute to developing a socially responsible corporate culture in Bangladesh. It suggests that, instead of relying on the prescriptive mode of regulation, Bangladesh could develop more business-friendly but strategic legal regulations.

Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation in the EU and USA : The Trend and the Way Forward

The core principles of CSR are being integrated into the core policy objectives of different economies and global companies and are also moving beyond their individual business initiatives. This integration can be seen from individual states’ perspectives; states are also accepting these issues in their socio-economic strategies and thus are establishing these issues within national economies. Given this background, this chapter explicates the trends in implementing CSR principles in the EU and USA. It demonstrates that companies in the developed countries use a mix of different strategies to incorporate CSR principles in their self-regulatory mechanisms. Strategies based on legal regulation are not foremost in this mix; rather, in these countries regulation-based strategy is meant to assist the non-legal drivers of CSR.

Harnessing SD and CSR within corporate self-regulation of weak economies : a meta-regulation approach

The semantic of the terms “sustainable development” and “corporate social responsibility” have changed over time to a point where these concepts have become two interrelated processes for ensuring the far-reaching development of society. Their convergence has given dimension to the environmental and corporate regulation mechanisms in strong economies. This article deals with the question of how the ethos of this convergence could be incorporated into the self-regulation of businesses in weak economies where nonlegal drivers are either inadequate or inefficient. It proposes that the policies for this incorporation should be based on the precepts of meta-regulation that have the potential to hold force majeure, economic incentives, and assistance-related strategies to reach an objective from the perspective of weak economies.

The relationship of entrepreneurial orientation, Vincentian values and economic and social performance in social enterprise

This study focuses on the managerial question “should social enterprises become more entrepreneurial?” It adapts the Covin and Slevin (1989) entrepreneurial orientation scale to measure the adoption of entrepreneurship by a social enterprise, and develops a scale that combines a Vincentian based focus to serve the poor with a propensity to take a more entrepreneurial approach toward business as a measure of a social value orientation (SVO).