Academic literature on the topic 'Management-employee participation Australia'

The international trend in the growth and incidence of “non‐standard employment”, and its highly gendered nature, is well documented. Similarly, interest in employee involvement or participation by academics and practitioners has seen the emergence of a rapidly growing body of literature. Despite the continued interest in each of these areas, the literature is relatively silent when it comes to where the two areas intersect, that is, what the implications are for employee participation in the growth of non‐standard employment. This paper seeks to redress this relative insularity in the literature by examining some broad trends in this area in Australia. The literature lacks one clear, accepted definition of “non‐standard” employment. For ease of definition, and because of the nature of the available data, we focus on part‐time employment in this paper. The paper analyses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey of 1995 (AWIRS 95). It tests the hypotheses that part‐time employees enjoy less access to participatory management practices in the workplace than their full‐time counterparts, and that this diminishes the access to participation in the workplace enjoyed by female workers in comparison with their male colleagues, since the part‐time workforce is predominantly feminised. These hypotheses were strongly confirmed. This has major implications for workplace equity, and for organisational efficiency.

Sound management practices, and employee awareness and commitment, are the keys to eliminating workplace injury. In Esso Australia's production operations, the goal is NO INJURIES for both company and contractor employees. Achieving this goal entails significant commitment to putting safety first, and elimination of conflicting messages about the production versus safety priorities.Throughout the last decade, Esso Australia has increasingly sought to heighten the safety awareness of all people working within and supporting its production operations. The emphasis has gradually moved from hardware safety to focusing on attitudes within the workforce — at the same time, however, ensuring that facilities meet industry standards.Results in 1988 show a marked drop in injury days lost for the total company and contractor employee group in production operations.A safe work environment is good business. Putting safety first need not cost money; indeed a safer workplace can be more efficient. Achieving a safe environment involves clear communication of goals and values, employee participation, delegation of authority, increasing accountability, effective incident investigation and follow- up, appropriate discipline, and recognition of positive contributions. Of paramount importance is a clear direction from top management that safety is the top priority.

Objective. Recent health system enquiries and commissions, including the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission, have promoted clinical engagement as necessary for improving the Australian healthcare system. In fact, the Rudd Government identified clinician engagement as important for the success of the planned health system reform. Yet there is uncertainty about how clinical engagement is understood in health policy and management. This paper aims to clarify how clinical engagement is defined, measured and how it might be achieved in policy and management in Australia. Methods. We review the literature and consider clinical engagement in relation to employee engagement, a defined construct within the management literature. We consider the structure and employment relationships of the public health sector in assessing the relevance of this literature. Conclusions. Based on the evidence, we argue that clinical engagement is similar to employee engagement, but that engagement of clinicians who are employees requires a different construct to engagement of clinicians who are independent practitioners. The development of this second construct is illustrated using the case of Visiting Medical Officers in Victoria. Implications. Antecedent organisational and system conditions to clinical engagement appear to be lacking in the Australian public health system, suggesting meaningful engagement will be difficult to achieve in the short-term. This has the potential to threaten proposed reforms of the Australian healthcare system. What is known about the topic? Engagement of clinicians has been identified as essential for improving quality and safety, as well as successful health system reform, but there is little understanding of how to define and measure this engagement. What does this paper add? Clinical engagement is defined as the cognitive, emotional and physical contribution of health professionals to their jobs, and to improving their organisation and their health system within their working roles in their employing health service. While this construct applies to employees, engagement of independent practitioners is a different construct that needs to recognise out-of-role requirements for clinicians to become engaged in organisational and system reform. What are the implications for practitioners? This paper advances our understanding of clinical engagement, and suggests that based on research on high performance work systems, the Australian health system has a way to go before the antecedents of engagement are in place.

Purpose – A research study has been undertaken at the University of South Australia to introduce application of lessons learned process in construction contractors ' bidding process in the context of knowledge management. The study aims to identify barriers to effectively capture lessons learned in Australian construction industry and how knowledge management can benefit from lessons learned application. Design/methodology/approach – The research study has been undertaken through conducting a “methodological triangulation” and “interdisciplinary triangulation”. This involved an extensive literature review of knowledge management, organisation learning, lessons learned and associated processes and administration of a questionnaire to a sample of construction contractors operating in Australia to elicit opinions on the main barriers to capturing lessons learned, practices such as existence and retention of documentation procedures. A total of 81 useable responses were received from 450 organisations. Response data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics with correlation analysis to examine the strength of relationship among the barriers. Findings – The top-3 barriers to the effective capturing of lessons learned were “lack of employee time”, “lack of resources” and “lack of clear guidelines”, whereas, “lack of management support” was the least ranked barrier. The study established that despite the majority of the ACCs having formal procedures for recording the tenders submitted and their outcomes, only a minority actually retained the lessons learned documentation for each project. The larger contractors were found to be more aware of the importance of lessons learned documentation. A comparative analysis with previous studies also found a disparity in the ranking of the barriers. Research limitations/implications – The majority of the participants were small construction contractors in Australia. The reason is that the researchers were not aware of the contractors ' size prior to inviting them for participation in the research study. Second the findings may not generalize to other industries or to organisations operating in other countries. Originality/value – The findings of this survey help ACCs to understand the importance of lessons learned documentation as part of lessons learned implementation and identify the barriers to effectively document their lessons learned. The study provides insights on the barriers and proposes advocated solutions in form of drivers and enablers (critical success factors) of organisational learning capturing among the Australian construction contractors. By reviewing the current literature, “post-project reviews” and “lessons learned” as important elements of organisation learning knowledge transfer, are addressed. Finally, contribution of this study to knowledge and practice has been discussed in this paper.

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is a new aspect to be considered in organization in order to overcome work stress issues among employees. The critical study of PSC which build from the foundation of work of psychological safety and safety climate pioneered in 2010 by Maureen F. Dollard and Arnold B Bakker in Australia. The features of climate specifically expected to affect psychological health. New construct of PSC was defined as shared perception of organizational policies, practices and procedures to protect employees’ psychological safety and health. Previous studies stated that there are four main elements in PSC which are management commitment, management priority, management and employee participation involvement in stress prevention and organizational communication. It is believed that PSC could be a potential contributor in achieving organization’s aim for more positive psychological health environment among employees. Therefore, this paper aims to explicate the theoretical development of PSC and identify the impact on work stress among employees.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a definition of talent and talent management in the luxury hotel sector with a focus on talent retention strategies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was used and 27 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in luxury hotels in four countries (the USA, the UK, Australia and Greece). Findings Talent refers to those who “go above and beyond”. Talent retention strategies in luxury hotels include a friendly, family-oriented and open access culture, teamwork, compensation, succession planning and training and development. A hybrid exclusive and inclusive approach to talent management (TM) is proposed with the implicit engagement of the individuals. Practical implications Luxury hotels should choose TM practices that fit the organizational culture with a focus on retention strategies that are tailor-made to the individual or groups of individuals. Opportunities to progress, succession planning and employee participation to TM are valued in the industry. Originality/value This study provides findings from empirical comparative research conducted in four different countries, whereas most published work on TM focuses on bibliographic reviews. It provides a conceptualization of talent and TM. This study frames the nature of TM in hotels and advances the knowledge of talent retention strategies found to be effective in hospitality.

Non-union representative employee participation recently has attracted increasing international attention in employment relations due to the growing representation gap in many countries as union membership declines, and mounting evidence of the benefits of representative employee participation for enterprise flexibility and efficiency. However, relatively little is known about Australian experiments in employee participation, although it is essential to learn from Australian experience in order to develop effective public policy. This case study represents a contribution to this larger project. SMEC is a non-union employee representative body that has adopted a European works council organizational model. The case study evaluates SMEC's effectiveness as a non-union form of representative employee participation. It concludes that the opportunities for the formation of genuinely independent works council style organs of employee participation remain severely constrained by the current Australian regulatory environment, which tends to encourage a union substitution role.

This paper presents an overview of industrial relations in Nordic countries. Key features are a high degree of centralisation, high levels of unionisation, a tripartite approach to government decision making and a keen interest in employee participation. The last decade has seen the onset of more turbulent economic forces, moves to decentralisation and a shift in wage determination towards a greater role for enterprise bargaining. Several parallels with Australian experience are explored. A critical difference is that Nordic unions have escaped the significant falls in membership suffered by Australian unions.

Given the increasing high social and economic costs of occupational injury and illness to the Australian community, identification of initiatives to reduce the burden is urgently required. Paramount to reversing this trend is the need to identify and address the causes of the injury and illness. Employee involvement in occupational health and safety has for some time been espoused as an essential element in any occupational health and safety program, but its relationship with safety performance still remains unexplored. Although various theories suggest that the involvement of employees will increase their sense of ownership, there is little research to suggest that employees have the ability to develop a valid and reliable tool to measure safe practices in the workplace. The primary purpose of this study was to provide preliminary evidence of content and construct validity of an employee developed checklist in measuring compliance with safe behaviours. The second objective was to compare behaviours at two workplaces, one with an incentive scheme to promote safe behaviour and one without. The third objective was to determine the relationships between demographic characteristics of participants and compliance with safe behaviour. The study was conducted in two distinct phases. The first phase was an instrument development phase while the second was an implementation phase. Phase I involved the design of an employee developed checklist (EDC) and a theoretically developed checklist (TDC). Content validity testing was conducted by a panel of five experts in the field of instrument design and occupational health and safety. Phase II involved the observation of a sample of 44 ride on lift truck operators from two large manufacturing and logistics companies based in Victoria, over a three month period to measure compliance with safe work practices. Data was analysed to establish whether the EDC is a valid and reliable tool when compared against the TDC. The results provide preliminary evidence to suggest that employees possess the necessary skill and knowledge to develop a valid observational checklist. A Wilcoxon signed-ranks test for dependent samples indicates that there was no significant difference between the compliance scores recorded on the EDC and the scores recorded on the TDC. Further analysis of scores obtained for three items on the EDC were analysed against similar items on the TDC with no significant deficiencies found. Additionally, analysis of the correlation between the scores obtained on the TDC and EDC revealed a moderately strong positive relationship between the two checklists (r, = 0.414, p=.032). Inter rater reliability testing by intra class correlation and percentage agreement revealed problems with both the EDC and TDC, which may be partially explained by the relatively high level of compliance with safe behaviour at both sites and the method of testing. In this sample, age, gender and the presence of safety incentive schemes had no significant effect on the level of compliance. The level of experience did, however, show a positive relationship with compliance levels (r, = 0.32, p=.048). The results of this study present a number of potential benefits for workplaces including the justification of employee involvement in occupational health and safety measurement, employee involvement in goal setting and the feasibility of developing a proactive, inexpensive and flexible measure of occupational health and safety performance.

This thesis is an empirical examination which links two important areas of management accounting research. The first area relates to the relation between superiors' evaluative styles and the two dependent variables of job related tension and managerial performance. The second area relates to the impact of culture on management accounting system. Two of Hofstede's (1980) dimensions of culture were used in this study. They were power distance and individualism. Two studies, Brownell and Hirst (1986) and Brownell and Dunk (1991), both of which were conducted with samples from a low power distance/high individualism nation were re-examined within the framework suggested by Harrison (1992) that research results related to budgetary participation can be generalized between high power distance/low individualism and low power distance/high individualism nations. Multiple linear regressions were used to test the three-way interaction between budget emphasis, budgetary participation and task characteristics (task uncertainty, task variability or task difficulty), affecting each of the two dependent variables of managerial performance and job related tension. A four-way interaction between budget emphasis, budgetary participation, task difficulty and culture was also tested. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 410 functional heads from 142 manufacturing companies located in Singapore and Western Australia. Singapore was selected as a surrogate for a high power distance/low individualism culture and Western Australia as a surrogate for a low power distance/high individualism culture. The results of the study lend support to the existence of a three-way interaction affecting managerial performance in the case of task difficulty (Van de Ven & Delbecq,1974) but not in the results of Brownell and Hirst (1986) and Brownell and Dunk (1991). No significant three-way interaction between the independent variables affecting job related tension was found. Furthermore, the absence of any four-way significant interaction between budget emphasis, budgetary participation, task difficulty and culture affecting managerial performance provide strong support for Harrison's (1992) hypotheses that research results on budgetary participation can be generalized between nations with high power distance/low individualism culture and nations with low power distance/high individualism culture.

This thesis explores employee participation in the management of workplace change through an organisational justice framework within the context of the Australian Higher Education (HE) sector. The thesis examines the extent to which the Australian HE sector makes provisions for participative workplace change, the extent to which participants within the sector perceive participative workplace change as providing fairness, and practices that can facilitate and foster participative workplace change. The provisions for participative workplace change are examined through a longitudinal study of enterprise bargaining agreements across all public universities in Australia for the period of 1997-2006. The research findings identify a decline in both the degree and form of employee participation in workplace change across this decade. The perceptions of participative workplace change are examined through an altitudinal survey of management and union executives within all public universities in Australia. The research findings identify considerable divergence between management and union executives in relation to employee participation, workplace change and organisational justice. The practices for participative workplace change are examined through twenty semi-structured interviews with management and union executives drawn from amongst the respondents to the attitudinal survey. The research findings identify areas of convergence around organisational justice dimensions and workplace change practices between management and union executives. The thesis concludes that it is a combination of fair processes and fair interactions which are most effective in facilitating workplace change and fostering employee participation in the Australian HE sector and which in turn are seen to be able to contribute to shared perceptions of organisational justice.

The thesis examines issues associated with an employee's inclination to participate in an employee involvement program. The critical challenge confronting management of attracting and maintaining the effective participation of employees is central to the success of a participatory strategy. However, program impetus, design, formulation and execution is often of an ad-hoc nature and premised on achieving unrealistic outcomes derived from attempts to isomorphically replicate contemporary human resource management practices. This qualitative and quantitative study provides important lessons for managers of small to medium sized manufacturing organisations, particularly as it relates to governing issues associated with the participation of employees in decision making processes. First, the necessity to thoughtfully design the participative structure and its mode of operation in accordance with an organisation's strategic objectives. Secondly, to ensure that the premises and parameters of issues of governance associated with the participation of employees in decision making processes are clearly defined and understood by all participants and finally, on-going success depends on senior executive support and commitment.

There is increasing interest in employee participation in the workplace. This has in part been attributed to support for the process by Government, employers, unions and tribunals. During the 1980s, legislative support was provided by the Federal Government in the form of the industrial democracy provisions of the Public Service Reform Act 1984. Since the late 1980s, the federal industrial tribunals have encouraged the adoption of participation as a vehicle through which change might occur, such change being driven by the economic imperatives of global competition and its importance to the Australian economy. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AFRC), in 1991, required the parties to include provisions for consultation in their enterprise agreements and insisted on enterprise bargaining being conducted in a consultative manner. Employee participation has thus become an important management tool in the application of human resource policies and policy objectives. Past research has shown that middle and frontline management commitment and support for employee participation programs are key factors in determining the effectiveness of such programs. This study explores middle and frontline management responses to the implementation of employee participation within the Australian Taxation Office and the impact of that program on middle and frontline managers in that organisation. Adopting a case study approach, the study uses evidence from two branch offices of the Australian Taxation Office to show the responses of middle and frontline management to the adoption of employee participation as a means of introducing a performance management program and the impact of that initiative on middle and frontline management in those branches.

While there is significant evidence to suggest that the alignment of Human Resources (HR) and Information Technology (IT) has a positive impact on firm performance, there is little discussion on how to achieve alignment. Literature in both the HR and IT disciplines provides confirmation of the need to identify and address the people management issues in order to realise the expected returns from IT investments. This research will contribute to these discussions with insights into how an organisation with alignment between IT and HR might appear, who should be responsible for the alignment, and how enabling and inhibiting factors impact the alignment process.

Includes bibliographical references. Electronic publication: Full text available in PDF format; abstract in HTML format. Private practice as a career option for nurses has been slowly increasing since the 1980's. However, the reasons for this development have not been fully investigated so that it can be understood and placed within the changing contexts of health care and health services. The expansion and extension of nurses' roles is a contemporary topic in health care reform and therefore one that deserves investigation. The aims of this study were to develop a theory on private practice nursing and to describe the characteristics and work of the self-employed nurse in Australia. Electronic reproduction.[Australia] :Australian Digital Theses Program,2001.xvii, 350 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm.

Private practice as a career option for nurses has been slowly increasing since the 1980's. However, the reasons for this development have not been fully investigated so that it can be understood and placed within the changing contexts of health care and health services. The expansion and extension of nurses' roles is a contemporary topic in health care reform and therefore one that deserves investigation. The aims of this study were to develop a theory on private practice nursing and to describe the characteristics and work of the self-employed nurse in Australia. Nurses working in a variety of settings have been able to provide information on being self-employed. In doing so, this study was able to describe the persona of the nurse entrepreneur, explore the reasons why nurses and midwives in Australia establish private fee-for-service practices, identify the factors which have influenced this action and describe the scope of practice of nurses and midwives in private practice. This combined Delphi technique and Grounded Theory study is the first in-depth study of Australian nurses and midwives in private practice. The study enables nurses to provide direct information on being self-employed and enhances the profession's ability to articulate about this area of nursing. The significance of the research is in increasing the understanding of this area of practice development and affords greater insight into its efforts to improve and maintain quality nursing services within the Australian health care system. One hundred and six nurses and midwives were invited to participate in the study, in which participants completed two rounds of semi-structured postal questionnaires. Delphi technique was applied to rate responses on Likert scales to ascertain respondents' consensus on certain topics. Participants were also provided the opportunity to make additional comments. Results indicated that nurses in private practice are well experienced with an average of 21 years nursing experience and hold several qualifications. Job satisfaction, being able to be more involved in achieving quality health outcomes and maximising skills and abilities are significant influences for private practice. These results suggest that private practice nursing can contribute effectively to broadening the range of primary health services available to the population and to addressing the issues of retention and recruitment of nurses. Self-employed nurse entrepreneurs push the boundaries of the profession and expand the realm of nursing practice. Entrepreneurship is a path for the future of nursing as it offers expanded career opportunities for nurses and opportunities for increased ambulatory health services. In addition, the broad, expert knowledge nurses hold on many aspects of health can be disseminated throughout the health sector to the advantage of corporate health partners. There is further development required in this innovative and expanding area of the nursing profession.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Clinical Nursing, 2003.

This paper on industrial democracy and employee participation aims at reaching a conclusion on the likely future of these concepts in this country over say, the next decade. An integral part of this aim will be some observations on what might be the most appropriate form(s) which will serve the wide-ranging interests of the protagonists and what strategy options might be available to encourage and facilitate an expansion of participative practices. The approach adopted relies on a search of the extant literature including research findings and reviews, theoretical analyses, documented experiences and comments and observations by a wide range of writers on the subject. From these sources a background of historical and current expectations, attitudes and activities is built up to provide the basis for the conclusions which this paper aims to make. Worker alienation in industry has been debated since Karl Marx wrote of the plight of workers under industrial capitalism. Alienation exists and can be identified when 'workers are unable to control their immediate work processes, to develop a sense of'purpose and function which connects their job to the overall organisation of production, to belong to integrated industrial communities and when they.fai1 to become involved in the activity of work as a mode of personal self-expression'.Alienation is characterised by powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation and selfestrangement. The concept of alienation is still of importance throughout the world today and seems to be reduced significantly by the introduction of participative practices directly involving the worker. There is an impressive array of research findings which show consistently that satisfaction in work is enhanced by a genuine increase in workers' decision-making power. Since the days of the industrial revolution few ideas have persisted and been pursued from a multitude of directions as some form of democracy in the arena of industrial labour. Clearly, the concept is one of long standing and there are a number of compelling reasons why it should be addressed by contemporary society. In general, the case for industrial democracy and worker participation rests on a number of arguments which may be classified as the political, moral and economic arguments. The political argument relates to the need to extend democracy from the political to the industrial arena and this can be achieved by allowing workers to have a greater say in decision making at work. The moral argument is about the need to provide for the personal development and satisfaction of individual worker. The several tenets of democracy, viz., freedom of expression, access to information, participation and equality, must be the prerogative of everyone if we are to have a truly democratic society. These principles must extend into every facet of life, not least of all, the workplace. Efforts to improve the quality of worklife must be regarded as a social issue because it impacts on the lives of such a large proportion of the population. The moral argument is of such fundamental importance and has such far reaching implications for society that the case for industrial democracy and participation conceivably could be justified on this ground alone. Finally, the economic argument relates to the belief that participation will improve productivity and industrial relations. One of the prime reasons advanced is that participation fosters a more cooperative attitude between workers and management which raises productivity by reducing industrial stoppages. It can be argued that this concept of using participation to improve productivity looks upon the worker as a special kind of factor of production and whose special characteristics must be taken into account if effectiveness is to be maximised. This contrasts with the view that democracy is a right of the worker. The continuing debate suggests that there are some basic human problems of industrial organisation for which various concepts of industrial democracy and participation are seen as possible solutions. In essence, the debate indicates that the fundamental concerns relate to the sharing of power between workers and management; effective co-operation between all members of an enterprise in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness and/or industrial harmony; and the personal fulfillment of the members of the enterprise. There is adequate justification for the debate to be continued and intensified in this country. Certainly, in recent years there has been renewed interest in the subject brought about largely by the need for improved competitiveness and efficiency and by the demands of a better educated and organised workforce for greater involvement in those aspects which impact upon their worklife. The relevance of this paper is thus will established. The subject is approached by firstly examining in Chapter 2 definitions, forms and levels of implementation of participation. Understanding the concepts involved is of greater importance than lengthy definitional debates but clarification of the meanings of the terms 'industrial democracy' and 'employee participation' does facilitate further discussion. Along with these considerations the chapter also examines the primary forms of participation and whether there is any relationship between the form of participation practised and the level within the enterprise at which this occurs. Chapter 3 analyses three models of participation in use in development, implementation and effectiveness of such schemes and to ascertain what lessons these hold for the development of participatory schemes in Australia. Three European schemes have been selected, viz., joint consultation, co-determination and worker management, as they represent quite a broad spectrum of participatory processes. Contemporary Australian developments are examined in Chapter 4 to determine the form, content and thrust of the activities undertaken, the current state of progress including the attitudes of the principal parties and whether there has been any shift in direction and/or emphasis since the early 1970's.. Chapter 5 then provides information about specific Australian experiences with the European models of participation dealt with in Chapter 3 together with the effectiveness of these models in the Australian industrial environment. It seems that the way ahead in Australia will be predicated on the basis of factors such as the attitudes and actions of governments, employers and unions; the experiences of the last decade or so and the barriers to an expansion of democracy in the workplace. Chapter 6 examines these factors to determine the likely future of the democratisation of work and the strategy options available to encourage and facilitate an expansion of participatory practices.