Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Australian Customs Service'

For the past decade the Australian Customs Service (ACS) has been regarded as an organisation in decline. Customs' history has been sporadically influenced by numerous reports that identify many instances of 'maladministration'. More recently, instances, such as the 'Midford Paramount Affair', have brought media and public notoriety to Customs followed by the establishment of the Review of the ACS in May 1993 (The Conroy Report). This, the latest and most comprehensive report undertaken on the ACS, documented administrative malfunctions of a major kind. Each report, using its own rationale has recommended more advanced levels of information technology (IT) application. To study these protracted administrative issues, the author has used, as the basis of analysis, a dynamic contingent decision-paths schema as well as furthering the theoretical constructs of organisational 'reliability' theory. The dynamic contingent decision-paths schema is designed to provide a conceptual framework regarding public (and private) sector situations of agency decline, evaluation, strategic response and finally 'turnaround' policy and implementation. The ACS is now implementing a comprehensive turnaround strategy, which includes new and novel information technologies. Organisational 'reliability' theory relates to organisations that are required to be highly reliable in their daily work-related activities otherwise crises of some major magnitude may occur. These organisations need to practice near perfect organisational and decision-making performance, and tend to be highly technical, relying increasingly in turn on information technology in managing their respective systems or operations. Customs was an early innovator in using Electronic Data Interchange and is now pursuing e-commerce, which in part is being outsourced, to EDS, a multinational company. The study initially reviews the recent history of the ACS - 'mapping' the nature of the organisation's decline, raising relevant factors which the author argues may be seen as successive 'crisis points', and lastly, addresses the strategic 'turnaround' policies of the organisation. The author believes the nadir for Customs has been reached and there are now positive signs that the ACS has commenced its organisational 'turnaround'. Organisational design matters including structural and cultural issues have been addressed which has allowed Customs to forge new relationships with its clients, as well as fostering 'new' management philosophies. These new philosophies and relationships, together with participation with an industry lead advisory team and a new internal management team, have provided the catalyst for change and recovery. Political and industry pressure and their formal involvement in a recovery strategy provide a high level of confidence for Customs' future and the strategic and operational changes being implemented.

In 1985 Richard Preston identified three Royal Navy (RN) traditions (recruitment of officers at an early age, selection of officers from an elite social group, and insistence on sea service) which had shaped the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). These traditions, he argued, ensured a high level of professionalism amongst officers in the infant RCN, as well as complete interoperability between the two navies, but failed to recognise the distinct needs of Canadian society. Consequently, from the Second World War onwards the RCN chose to move away from the British model and to ???Canadianise??? its officer corps. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) also adopted these traditions, and they are examined here in the context of the social backgrounds, development and character of the permanent executive branch officers of the RAN between 1913 and 1950. This thesis argues that while the British model ensured a high level of professionalism within the RAN officer corps, in many other areas the system proved to be of doubtful utility for Australia. Although the Australian government tried to ensure that its naval officers maintained an Australian character and identity, the selection, training and operational policies of the RAN meant that its officers were, to all intents and purposes, virtually indistinguishable from their RN colleagues. While RAN officers were highly disciplined and professional men with excellent seamanship skills, unfortunately a wide social gulf developed between the Navy???s officers and its sailors. Further, the essentially scientific and practical education and indoctrination that naval officers received in their early years, combined with their narrow professional development, meant that they were, at best, only average higher level administrators and often performed poorly in dealings with their Australian political masters. The system produced a conservative type of officer, suspicious of political activity and intellectual effort, bound to the tradition of ???the Silent Service???, who felt that his country did not understand his work or sacrifices but who had not the capacity to change such community perceptions. Lacking highly educated and politically aware senior officers, the RAN found it difficult to cope with social changes after the Second World War. Consequently, the ???Australianisation??? of the naval officer corps was a slow and painful process and the profession of naval officer in Australia was to be even more marginal than numbers alone dictated.

Consumer trust research has principally developed from established psychological-based research. This conception of consumer trust largely draws from research pertaining to interpersonal trust. This study combined existing theories from both sociological and psychological research in developing a consumer trust model specifically for banks. Partly because of their historical position in society and also because of their government-protected position, banks, bank branches and bank managers have traditionally held a respected, and trusted position in Australian communities. Because of this reputation and position in communities, banks were seen to display institutional attributes. These attributes were defined in this study as local community focus, local availability and visibility, relationship power symmetry and social obligation fulfilment. This study explored the notion of institution-based trust in an Australian retail banking context. Institution-based trust was a measure of the levels of consumer trust in various defined institutional attributes. It was contended that through the diminishment and divestment of its institutional attributes banks were impairing their institutional cachet. The process was termed 'deinstitutionalisation' and was postulated to have a negative impact on consumer trust. The hypothetico-deductive methodological framework was employed throughout the study, with a mail-based consumer survey used as the main means of primary data collection. 468 useable questionnaires from adult bank customers were yielded and the data analysed. These data were analysed and used to test twenty-three research hypotheses of which nineteen were supported. From the results, it was concluded that perceived local community focus, perceived social obligation fulfilment and perceived relationship power symmetry were antecedents to consumer trust in banks. Also, reasonable availability of conventional bank branch services was found to be an important component of perceived community focus of their banks, thus having an indirect relationship to institution-based consumer trust in banks. Community Banks were found to be exhibiting and promoting many of these institutional attributes. Consumers were found to be less likely to need bank branches for transactional or functional purposes, but branches were seen to be symbolically important. Also, consumers were found to be more likely to identify with intangible elements of their bank, principally bank brand, than with tangible attributes such as the bank branch. Importantly, consumers were found to be trusting of their banks, however they were more likely to believe that banks were less trustworthy now than they were in the past.

Previously consigned to the anonymity of �the product market� by researchers in traditional fields such as labour economics and industrial relations, the customer has recently attracted the attention of scholars from a diverse range of disciplines, including organisational behaviour, work psychology, labour process studies, gender studies, and critical management studies. In large part, this emerging interest in the customer is a result of the increasing dominance of service industries in developed economies and the recognition that service work entails a complex, three-way interaction between customers, management and workers. The literature identifies a range of competing and, at times, contradictory images of the customer. Rather than seeking to reconcile these competing representations, this thesis explores the multi-faceted nature of the customer presence and the implications for managers and workers in the retail banking industry in Australia. The thesis highlights how structural change and shifting discourses of the �customer� have influenced customer relations, employment relations, and worker identity in three areas of the retail banking industry: traditional retail banks, the credit union movement, and community banks. Drawing on detailed qualitative case study evidence, the thesis highlights the range of customers, both �real� and �constructed�, that can be found in the case study organisations. The thesis identifies the ways in which customers influence employment relations and how workers can be active in either accommodating or resisting the impact of these �customers� on workplace practice and worker identity. The central argument of the thesis is that, in addition to customers having a physical presence in and influence on organisational life, management and workers also construct �discursive customers� as a means of influencing the employment relationship and the meanings attached to service work. The study examines how these competing concepts of the customer and customer service influence both the customer-service provider relationship and service workers� relationships with one another and with management. Despite the increasing recognition that service work entails a three-way relationship between customers, management and workers, our understanding of how workers either welcome or resist the presence of this third actor in the employment relationship has, until recently remained very limited. This thesis makes a significant contribution to our understanding that for workers the customer is ever-present physically, emotionally and discursively.

[Truncated abstract] The Australian higher education sector has changed markedly in the last two decades. The size of the sector has swelled in size as new universities have been created from former Colleges of Advanced Education and Institutes of Technology, and succeeding governments have introduced policies that have embedded increasingly corporate and commercial practices into university administration. This has caused the creation of what are becoming known as ‘enterprise universities’. This thesis examines hypotheses arising from two fundamental questions. (i) Given the increasingly market-oriented higher education environment in Australia, will a model developed from the study of services marketing (which has developed since the 1970s as a distinct sub-branch of the Marketing discipline) show itself to be applicable to universities operating in the Australian sector? (ii) If so, are there demonstrable differences in the way in which ‘student customers’ respond in terms of the antecedents of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty within different types of university? . . . The study found that the model tested was highly appropriate for indicating the major antecedents of satisfaction and loyalty in this setting. It showed that the institutional image was a relatively stronger antecedent of perceived value and customer satisfaction than were elements of service quality, and that the model was effective in accounting for a large proportion of the variance found in students’ loyalty to their institution. It also found that there was relatively little difference between students attending different types of university in these matters. It argues that there is an important imperative for Australian universities to take a strategic image management approach to their marketing initiatives, and also issues related to the nature of higher education as a positional and public good.

The following dissertation is an exploratory case study of a telecommunications organisation�s call centres. Specifically, it was focused on investigating internal service quality issues that related to the frontline employee role, a clearly underdeveloped area of study in services marketing literature. The study involved firstly identifying the internal services delivered to frontline employees, and then gaining their perceptions of the service quality dimensions most important to them within each workplace situation. This in turn provided an indication of how internal services could be customised and classified to best meet frontline employees� work requirements and therefore increase their job effectiveness. In addition, the case study explored frontline employees� overall perceptions of the quality of delivery of each internal service, which helped provide further insights into their work needs. Frontline employees� perceptions were also sought regarding the importance of each internal service to them, in terms of increasing their ability to generate revenue for the organisation. This provided an indication of how different internal services impacted upon their exchanges with external customers. Twelve internal services and seven internal service quality dimensions were identified through conducting extensive observation and undertaking interviews with frontline employees at one of the call centres. The information obtained helped inform a web-based online survey that was implemented to address the three focal research questions. The online survey was successfully completed by 301 frontline employees. The results showed that while all twelve internal services shared some similarities in their demand characteristics, some groups of internal services were distinctly different to others. As a result of these similarities and differences, the internal services were classified into four categories: trainingintensive internal services; communication-based internal services; real-time-based internal services; and, performance-related internal services. While the four classification categories can provide a solid guide for internal suppliers about how to approach groups of internal services, it was apparent that frontline employees had unique needs in each of the twelve internal services. This emphasised the need for the classification scheme to be used only as a guide, whereby internal suppliers should methodically identify all the quality attributes most important to frontline employees in each individual internal service situation. The results also showed that frontline employees perceived some internal services as more important than others, in terms of increasing their ability to generate revenue for the organisation. As a result, it was suggested that internal services could also be classified according to their �importance� levels, as this could help managers in their allocation of organisational resources. The case study provided a valuable insight into frontline employees� needs, and other internal service quality issues related to their roles. Because the results and conclusions were specific to a particular case, it is essential that this area of research be extended further in future.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Graduate School of Management, University of Western Australia.
Title taken from title screen (viewed October 5, 2007). Includes bibliographical references (p. 355-383) and appendices.

Drawing upon case studies of three organisations operating six call centres in Australia, this thesis explores the manifestations and interplay of employee resistance and accommodation in response to five facets of employer control: electronic monitoring; repetitious work; emotional control; the built environment; and workplace flexibility. Accommodation refers to the ways workers protect themselves from and adapt to the pressures that make up their day-to-day experiences of work. Accommodation, unlike resistance, which implies opposition to control, may superficially resemble consent to control. I argue that resistance and accommodation are not polar opposites; rather they are both reflections of the conflict and tensions that lie at the heart of the employment relationship. At the study sites, employees utilised resistance and accommodation both separately and concurrently. An explanation of these seemingly contradictory responses and of the links among accommodation individual resistance and collective resistance lies in the concept of ???self???. In this thesis, ???self??? refers to workers??? perceptions of fairness, dignity and autonomy. I examine how these notions frame worker discontent and promote employee solidarity. ???Everyday resistance???, a concept first developed by Scott (1985) in relation to peasant struggles, is employed to highlight the existence of subterranean struggles in workplaces that otherwise appear to be harmonious. At the study sites, everyday resistance was a multi-faceted, widely employed strategy whose strength lay primarily in its immediate impact. There was, however, no necessary sequential development from accommodation, through everyday resistance to overt, formal forms of conflict. What was evident was that multiple responses to employer control could co-exist and inhibit or promote one another. But it was through organised collective resistance that more formalised gains were made and widely held grievances addressed. I suggest that, although everyday resistance may lay the groundwork for more formal struggles, one should not conclude that traditional collective resistance is ???genuine??? resistance and everyday resistance is simply a second-best prelude to it. Although conflict is always present, its intensity differs. If we are to understand the complexity of worker responses to managerial control, we need to expand the theoretical frameworks within which we analyse and interpret conflict.

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The Public System of Digital Bookkeeping SPED was developed with the aim of enabling greater integration between the tax administrations themselves then between them and taxpayers through the use of technology and, consequently, the socioeconomic standard, in a unique environment, raising tax collection efficiency and ultimately reducing the costs of administration and compliance. The purpose of this research was to examine whether public investment directed to the establishment and maintenance of the project actually resulted in a reduction in the costs of tax compliance temporary and permanent. The random Survey method was not used as a mechanism for data collection. The questionnaire containing 22 questions was sustained in the forecasting model of regulatory impact developed and applied by the Australian Taxation Office ATO in your country, adapted to identify reduction in compliance costs related to three specific organizational aspects: People, Technology and Contracting Services Consulting. The questionnaire was emailed to 20 people with executive position or managers directly involved in the project in SPED size businesses and distinct segment. Responded to the survey 20 of the 20 companies. The data collected were analyzed through descriptive and exploratory, in the latter case using the cluster analysis. The survey approach has met both the qualitative and the quantitative research. The results indicate that the SPED caused an increase in compliance costs temporary and permanent, mainly due to the implementation strategy defined and applied solely by the public administration. The analysis also allowed evidence that public investments directed to the implementation and maintenance of SPED comparatively similar to private investments directed to the same end, which shows a tendency to shift costs of administration for compliance costs for taxpayers
O Sistema Público de Escrituração Digital SPED foi desenvolvido com o fito de possibilitar maior integração entre as próprias administrações tributárias, depois entre elas e os contribuintes, através do uso de tecnologia e, consequentemente, de dados socioeconômicos padronizados, em um ambiente único, elevando a eficiência arrecadatória e, finalmente, reduzindo os custos de administração e de conformidade. O propósito desta pesquisa foi analisar se os investimentos públicos direcionados ao estabelecimento e manutenção do projeto realmente resultaram em redução nos custos de conformidade tributária temporários e permanentes. O método Survey não aleatório foi utilizado como mecanismo de levantamento de dados. O questionário desenvolvido contendo 22 questões foi apoiado no modelo de previsão de impacto regulatório desenvolvido e aplicado pela Australian Taxation Office ATO em seu país, adaptado para identificar redução nos custos de conformidade relacionados a três vertentes organizacionais específicas: Pessoas, Tecnologia e Contratação de Serviços de Consultoria. O questionário foi enviado por email a 20 pessoas com cargo de direção ou gerência diretamente envolvidos no projeto SPED em empresas de tamanho e segmento distintos. Responderam à pesquisa 20 das 20 empresas. As informações coletadas foram analisadas sob a ótica descritiva e exploratória, neste último caso utilizando-se da análise de cluster. A abordagem de pesquisa realizada atendeu tanto à pesquisa qualitativa como a pesquisa quantitativa. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o SPED provocou aumento dos custos de conformidade temporários e permanentes, sobretudo, devido à estratégia de implementação definida e aplicada unicamente pela administração pública. A análise também possibilitou evidenciar se os investimentos públicos direcionados para a implantação e manutenção do SPED são, comparativamente, semelhantes aos investimentos privados direcionados para o mesmo fim, o que demonstra tendência de transferência dos custos de administração para os custos de conformidade dos contribuintes

Based on a fourteen-month period of ethnographic research conducted in an Australian Coastal hotel, this thesis explores the issues of management in a flexible organization. Using a textual approach to the study of organizations, the thesis focusses on the customer service discourse, its constituents, and the processes of its symbolic (re-) production in the hotel studied. Using a variety of textual data-among them academic publications from authors as diverse as Foucault, Clegg, Haugaard, Ritzer and Castoriadis; various forms of fieldnotes; and detailed descriptions of ritual and ceremonial events - the thesis not only provides a vivid account of organizational life at the hotel, it also identifies aspects of the latter such as meetings, training and reward programmes, and customer response schemes, as disciplinary technologies applied to govern both employees and customers. Extending the considerations about the disciplinary qualities of the customer service discourse and linking them with the issues of new forms of control as recently debated in the larger field of organization studies, the thesis will identify the processes of imagination, normalization, and subjugation as central to the establishment of a new management doctrine: corporate culturism. This discussion will also reveal the essentially hybrid nature of control under this new doctrine and it will expose the process of managing meaning as fundamental to its constitution and endurance. Respectively, the thesis will identify the hotel studied as an organization that thrives on corporate culturism. As the thesis represents a contribution to the field of (organizational) ethnography, it will - by recurrently reflecting on some of the contemporary debates in the field- implicitly address status and practicability of empirical (ethnographic) research in a postmodern world.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The main purpose of my thesis is to understand, from the perspectives of Southern Sudanese themselves, their resettlement experiences in Australia, to provide knowledge about how their experiences of exile reshape their thinking of home, place, identity, gender roles, and traditional practices, to explore the extent of their resettlement and integration into Australian society, and to inform policy on the resettlement of refugees and the settlement services offered to them. The thesis explores the range of interactions and relationships among Southern Sudanese and between them and their Australian hosts. It demonstrates how these interactions and relationships shaped and reshaped the Southern Sudanese sense of identity and belonging in resettlement in Australia. The thesis also provides insights into the relationships between the war that forced them out of their homeland, their flight, life in refugee camp or in exile, and how these affected their ability to resettle. To understand these, I have listened to how they described their lives before and during the war, while seeking refuge, and of their present and future life in Australia. From this I will show how they reproduce and maintain some aspects of their culture within the context of the Australian society, as well as how they are adapting to some aspects of life in that society. In this thesis I also explore the concepts of place, home and identity. In order to understand these concepts and how fluid they are in the current transnational era, I follow Thomas Faist’s (2000) thinking about the causes, nature and the extent of movement of international migrants from poorer to richer countries (also Cohen 1997; Kaplan 1995; Appadurai 1995). Faist in particular examines the process of adaptation of newcomers to host countries and the reasons why many migrants continue to keep ties to their home or place of origin. These ties, according to Faist, link transnational social spaces which range from border-crossing families and individuals to refugee diaspora. In this, I argue that resettlement involves complex interactions between newly arrived Southern Sudanese and members of Australian society. These complex interactions include firstly an array of social interactions occurring between Southern Sudanese and the staff of support organisations delivering settlement services to them. I show how the Southern Sudanese perceived the services they receive vis-à-vis the staff’s perceptions of Southern Sudanese as recipients of their services. Secondly they include various kinds of social interactions, relationships and networks among the Southern Sudanese and between them and members of Australian society through making friendships, home visitations, joining social and cultural clubs, and becoming involved in professional associations and churches which are predominantly Australian. I show how these social relations and networking are being enacted and maintained and/or fall apart over time. I ascertain whether these relationships have enhanced their resettlement or not. Thirdly, the thesis shows the impact of a shift in gendered roles and intergenerational conflicts between parents and children on family relationships and how these in turn affect their actual settlement. This thesis is based on these themes and on the analysis drawn from detailed qualitative ethnographic research which I conducted over a period of fourteen months between January 2006 and March 2007 and from the literature. In keeping with the traditions of ethnographic fieldwork practices, I carried out structured and unstructured in-depth interviews and Participant Observation of informants during the fieldwork. The subjects of this thesis are the Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in South Australia and some staff of organisations which delivered settlement services to them. The fundamental questions which these ethnographic explorations attempt to answer are how do the Southern Sudanese experience resettlement in Australian, interact with members of their host society, construct their identities in relation to their notions of home and place, and negotiate shifting gender roles and relationships in the family. I show how their previous life experiences in Southern Sudan, their plight, their flight from war, their life in refugee camps and/or in refugee settings in other countries, their personal socio-economic and historical backgrounds, have affected their resettlement in Australia. I also explore their current and ongoing relations with their homeland and other Southern Sudanese diaspora and show how this perpetuates their identity as Southern Sudanese. I argue that success or failure in resettlement hinges mostly on the Southern Sudanese ability or inability to understand and speak the English language, their access to employment and stable housing, relationships with Australians, and the quality and quantity of settlement services which they access and receive. I assert that the interplay between/among these factors have combined to influence significantly the settlement processes and the extent of integration of Southern Sudanese into Australian society. Furthermore, I assert that these factors are inseparable and need to be examined and explained in relation to one another as they tend to be interwoven into the daily life experiences of Southern Sudanese.
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Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2009

The thesis deals with the emergence of bank and non-bank entities that provide a range of unique transaction-based payment services broadly called Mobile Financial Services (MFS) to unbanked, underserved and underbanked persons via mobile phones. Models of MFS from Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), banks, combinations of MNOs and banks, and independent Mobile Financial Services Providers are covered. Provision by non-banks of ‘bank-type’ services via mobile phones has been termed ‘transformational banking’ versus the ‘additive banking’ services from banks. All involve the concept of ‘branchless banking’ whereby ‘cash-in/cash out’ services are provided through ‘agents.’ Funds for MFS payments may available through a Stored Value Product (SVP), particularly through a Stored Value Account SVP variant offered by MNOs where value is stored as a redeemable fiat- or mobile ‘airtime’-based Store of Value. The competitive, legal, technical and regulatory nature of non-bank versus bank MFS models is discussed, in particular the impact of banking, payments, money laundering, telecommunications, e-commerce and consumer protection laws. Whether funding mechanisms for SVPs may amount to deposit-taking such that entities could be engaged in the ‘business of banking’ is discussed. The continued use of ‘deposit’ as the traditional trigger for the ‘business of banking’ is investigated, alongside whether transaction and paymentcentric MFS rises to the ‘business of banking.’ An extensive evaluation of ‘money’ based on the Orthodox and Claim School economic theories is undertaken in relation to SVPs used in MFS, their legal associations and import, and whether they may be deemed ‘money’ in law. Consumer protection for MFS and payments generally through current statute, contract, and payment law and common law condictiones are found to be wanting. Possible regulatory arbitrage in relation to MFS in South African law is discussed. The legal and regulatory regimes in the European Union, Kenya and the United States of America are compared with South Africa. The need for a coordinated payments-specific law that has consumer protections, enables proportional risk-based licensing of new non-bank providers of MFS, and allows for a regulator for retail payments is recommended. The use of trust companies and trust accounts is recommended for protection of user funds. | vi
Public, Constitutional and International Law
LLD

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Este estudio analiza las percepciones de mejoría en el español y de conocimiento cultural de los participantes en un programa de ayudantes de inglés, Auxiliares de Conversación, mientras trabajaron en escuelas primarias y secundarias en varias regiones de España. Los participantes provenían de varios países anglófonos, entre ellos los Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Canadá, Nueva Zelanda, Australia. Varios participantes rellenaron encuestas a través de internet para evaluar su crecimiento lingüístico y cultural durante el programa, experiencia en los centros educativos y alojamiento. Además, plantearon varias sugerencias para el programa para futuros auxiliares y profesores. Seis auxiliares fueron entrevistados sobre los mismos temas en mayor profundidad.