Amanda Roan

Women, Information Technology and Waves of Optimism: Australian Evidence on Mixed-Skill Jobs

Optimism about the increased engagement of women in information technology employment has been informed, in part, by essentialist ideas about the suitability for women of emerging jobs combining technical with interpersonal, artistic or other ‘non-technical’ skills. Drawing on evidence from Australia, we highlight limitations to this brand of optimism, questioning the potential for women in mixed-skill jobs in computing and multimedia organisations.

Shadowing Experiences and the Extension of Communities of Practice: A Case Study of Women Education Managers

Recent developments in workplace learning have focused on relational and social network views of learning that introduce practitioners to the norms, values and assumptions of the workplace as well as the learning processes through which knowledge is acquired. This article reports on a qualitative study of a mentoring programme designed to assist women education managers gain promotion by broadening their networks and stimulating insights into the senior management positions for which they were being prepared. The findings are that members reflexively assess and reassess goals and values to demystify knowledge and resolved cognitive dissonance in these processes. Moreover, this article shows that women participants learn from the networks, and that the networks learn from the participant in a reciprocal and informal way. The article concludes that organizational learning programmes must focus on enabling such networks to flourish.

Australian Workplace Agreements in practice: The 'hard' and 'soft' dimensions

The purpose of this paper is to assess the claim by the Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) and the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business (DEWRSB) that Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) allow employers to integrate both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ dimensions of ‘strategic’ human resource management (HRM) theory, providing greater efficiency and profitability, while also giving employees more flexibility. Based on a review of the literature and the content of 539 AWAs approved between March 1997 and June 1998, we conclude that the general trend of AWAs is towards the ‘hard’ HRM philosophy of minimisation of costs and maximisation of flexibility of hours. Provisions based around the developmental and personal needs of employees are relatively uncommon and, where they occur, are usually brief. Contrary to Government predictions, there is very little evidence that AWAs are being used to advance the philosophy of ‘soft’ HRM.

Public sector outsourcing: implications for training and skills

Since the early 1980s, governments and policy makers in Australia have emphasized the importance of the national skills base to the attainment of international competitiveness. Workforce training programs and institutions have undergone considerable restructuring as a consequence. In recent years, there has also been a rapid growth in the use of contract labour supplied by agencies to perform specific functions. This paper addresses the impact of these concurrent developments in the area of clerical and administrative work. Focusing on two key areas of public sector employment, the Australian Public Service and the higher education system, it highlights the potentially damaging effects a reliance on contract employees can have on training and the skills base.

Smart State: Queensland in the Knowledge Economy

This paper aims at providing some understanding of emerging elements of the knowledge economy and the policy frameworks that might be developed to foster regional entities that will prosper by meeting the challenges of engagement in the global knowledge economy. Through a review of extant and emerging literatures a novel conceptual framework is developed to assist in policy evaluation and development. This framework is then applied to Queenslands Smart State suite of policies. The paper concludes that Queensland has in place many elements of the policy framework required to foster a knowledge economy. It is argued however that several tensions within the policy framework are evident, and as this is an emergent area of policy development, further in-depth evaluation of both the policy settings and the effectiveness of policy is warranted.

The regulation of employment services: Private employment agencies and labour market policy

Public policy relating to the labour market has undergone significant change over recent years. These changes reflect demands for greater flexibility in the labour market, and respond to pressures of growing levels of unemployment and consequent exacerbation of divisions within the labour market. A conflict is apparent, however, in the mix of policies adopted. Accompanying moves towards a more ‘active’ style labour market policy has been a trend towards greater reliance on private means of delivery such that the dividing line between public (CES) and private employment agencies is becoming increasingly blurred. Evidence from a survey of private employment agencies and employers conducted in Brisbane in 1992/93 suggests that such a trend may reduce the capacity to regulate employment services and facilitate a commitment to employers’ interests at the expense of those of many entrants to the labour market.

Trading in Emotions: a Closer Examination of Emotional Labor

In this chapter, we reanalyze the conceptual map of emotional labor in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the construct. Our starting point is Ashkanasys (2003) five-level model of emotions in organizations, which places emotional labor at the midpoint (Level 3): the interpersonal level. We argue here that emotional labor is a complex construct that can be viewed from different levels of organizational analysis. For example, it can also be considered as an organizational level variable (Level 5) and from the within person perspective (Level 1). More particularly, we posit that recent fragmentation of the construct of emotional labor in the literature has tended to divert the focus from its primary purpose: a value adding activity for the organization. In this chapter, therefore, we describe and discuss horizontal and vertical relationships between the key elements of the conceptual map of emotional labor and suggest directions for future research.

A “New Institutional” Perspective on Women's Position in Architecture: Considering the Cases of Australia and Sweden

Surprisingly little research on the position of women in architecture has attended to how the regulatory framing and governance of the architecture profession, through institutional and professional bodies, serves to construct and constrain professional identity in gendered ways.1 This article attempts such an analysis, applying a “new institutional” approach to understanding the continuing under-representation of women in architecture. Focusing primarily on the Australian architecture profession, we draw a contrast with features of the profession in Sweden. Our focus is on the legal rational institutions that legitimise and consequently shape the profession, and we attempt to show how credentials and registration processes, along with professional associations, act as legitimising frames for professional practice.

Developing Management Student Cultural Fluency for the Real World: A Situated Cultural Learning Approach.

Purpose To connect students with the real world of management practice, the purpose of this paper is to extend and operationalize the situated cultural learning approach (SiCuLA) through five learning processes occurring within communities of practice. These include integration of cultural contexts, authentic activities, reflections, facilitation, and the construction of a collaborative learning community. Design/methodology/approach To investigate the complex processes and principles of cultural learning, a multi-method approach is applied to an extensive comparative study of default and intervened cases within three management classes. Evidence is drawn from multiple sources of qualitative data including class observations, meeting minutes, focus groups, and group interviews with students and instructors. Findings Results indicated that in default cases, little explicit attention was given to a situated perspective of culture, or to the rich sources of cultural knowledge available among members of the classroom community. In contrast, following the intervention cases where SiCuLA was applied, there was strong evidence that much more attention was given to enhancing student contextual knowledge. Nonetheless, there were some challenges in applying these processes within the classroom context. Originality/value This is the first study to extend and operationalize SiCuLA in a classroom setting. More importantly, the evidence forms the empirical basis for deriving theoretical principles for cross-cultural management (CCM) education and training. It contributes to studying cultural contexts as sources of knowledge for learning through active co-participation. It also contributes to positive CCM learning with an emphasis on human agency that encourages students to take more responsibility and ownership of their cultural learning.

A dynamic model of entrepreneurial identification and dis-identification: An emotions perspective

Despite recognition of the centrality of emotions in entrepreneurship, little attention has been given to role of emotions in the development of entrepreneurial identity or enactment of entrepreneu ...