Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Public welfare Victoria Melbourne'

The Picturesque aesthetic emerged in the later 18th century, uniting the Sublime and the Beautiful and had its roots in the paintings of Claude Lorrain. In Britain, and in Australia, it came to link art, literature and landscape with architecture. The Picturesque aesthetic informed much of colonial culture which was achieved, in part, through the production and dissemination of architectural pattern books catering for the aspirations of the rising middle classes. This was against a background of political change including democratic reform. The Italianate villa, codified and promoted in such pattern books, was a particularly successful synthesis of style, form and function. The first Italianate villa in England, Cronkhill (1803) by John Nash contains all the ingredients which were essential to the model and had a deeper meaning. Deepdene (from 1807) by Thomas Hope gave the model further impetus. The works of Charles Barry and others in a second generation confirmed the model's acceptability. In Britain, its public status peaked with Osborne House (from 1845), Queen Victoria's Italianate villa on the Isle of Wight, Robert Kerr used a vignette of Osborne House on the title page of his sophisticated and influential pattern book, The Gentleman's House (1864,1871). It was one of many books, including those of J.C, Loudon and AJ. Downing, current in colonial Victoria. The latter authors and horticulturists were themselves villa dwellers with libraries and orchards, two criteria for the true villa lifestyle. Situation and a sense of retreat were the two further criteria for the villa lifestyle. As the new colony of Victoria blossomed between 1851 and 1891, the Italianate villa, its garden setting and its landscape siting captured the tenor of the times. Melbourne, the capital was a rich manufacturing metropolis with a productive hinterland and international markets. The people enjoyed a prosperity and lifestyle which they wished to display. Those who had a position in society were keen to demonstrate and protect it. Those with aspirations attempted to provide the evidence necessary for such acceptance, The model matured and became ubiquitous. Its evolution can be traced through a series of increasingly complicated rural and suburban examples, a process which modernist historians have dismissed as a decadent decline. These villas, in fact, demonstrate an increasingly sophisticated retreat by merchants from ‘the Town’ and by graziers from ‘the Country’. In both town and country, the towers of villas mark territory newly acquired. The same claim was often made in humbler situations. Government House, Melbourne (from 1871), a splendid Italianate villa and arguably finer than Osborne House, was set in a cultivated landscape and towered above all It incorporated the four criteria and, in addition, claimed its domain, focused authority and established the colony's social status. It symbolised ancient notions of democracy and idealism but with a modem appreciation for the informal and domestic. Government House in Melbourne is the epitome of the Italianate villa in the colonial landscape and is the climax of the Picturesque aesthetic in Victoria.

This thesis examines the perceptions of lecturers, graduates and employers of personal and interpersonal skills development in an accounting degree at Victoria University. The development of personal and interpersonal skills in students in higher education has been the focus of discussion amongst accounting educators, accounting practitioners and the accounting profession for many years. There is a general consensus on what skills are necessarily sought to ensure success within the accountancy profession but very few previous studies on how those personal and interpersonal skills are being developed. This research study presents a research framework which emphasises the complex interrelationships between an accounting curriculum, accounting lecturers, accounting graduates and employers of graduate accountants and their perceptions of how personal and interpersonal skills are developed. A case study approach, combining archival, qualitative and quantitative methods, is used to investigate how a Bachelor of Business Accounting degree in one Australian university facilitates personal and interpersonal skills development. The case study results indicate that the curriculum, as the vector for skills development, has both explicit and implicit references to skills outcomes. Graduates� perceptions of many of the personal and interpersonal skills considered in this study are closely related to the curriculum findings. However, there appears to be a lack of convergence between lecturers� perceptions, the curriculum and graduates� perceptions. Employers generally agree that graduates display most of the personal and interpersonal skills, albeit at a low level, in the workplace. There are curriculum implications arising from the results of this research for accounting academics who design and develop accounting programs where the value of graduates� personal and interpersonal skills are acknowledged. As a first step, academics need to improve accounting curricula by explicitly integrating personal and interpersonal skills in their subjects. Communicating to students the explicit nature of personal and interpersonal skills development and making them aware is the next step.

The ability to successfully innovate on a sustained basis is critical in today�s �hyper-competitive� environment characterised by increasingly rapid technological change and shortening product life cycles, and where competitors quickly imitate sources of competitive advantage. At the same time, organisations find managing innovation difficult; both larger firms who fight to avoid being outplayed by smaller, more nimble competitors, and smaller firms struggling to compete against the resources and reach of larger, global competitors. This research develops an assessment instrument designed to assist organisations to improve their ability to innovate. An inductive, case-based methodology is adopted utilising action research techniques to develop the Innovation Capability Assessment instrument. The starting point of the research was an extensive analysis of the corporate entrepreneurship and innovation literature. The literature provided a basis for understanding what question areas might need to be included in such an instrument and led to the development of an initial theoretical framework and a preliminary assessment instrument. The preliminary assessment instrument was further developed and refined via five exploratory case studies. Three subsequent confirmatory case studies were used to validate the instrument�s effectiveness. The case studies were carried out at Australian organisations operating within a variety of industries and of varying sizes, all of whom were looking to improve their innovation performance. Data was collected through interviews with key members of each organisation and through assessment and action planning workshops involving participants from a cross-section of each organisation. The case studies led to additional assessment questions being added to the instrument, and the rationalisation of others. This research identifies the enablers of organisational innovation and finds that these are common to all the case organisations involved in the fieldwork. The innovation enablers form the basis of the Innovation Capability Assessment instrument that measures innovation performance against 21 questions within three key assessment areas: strategic management of innovation, the internal environment, and a series of innovation competencies. The relative importance of each innovation enabler to the organisation is also assessed. The Innovation Capability Assessment instrument is shown to be very relevant across a variety of organisation types and sizes. In addition, it is useful for an organisation to identify and prioritise weaknesses, and develop actions for improving their innovation capability.

Contrary to popular belief, teenage mothers are a declining proportion of birthing women; however they receive much negative public attention. Of particular public concern is the high cost of supporting teenage mothers, in terms of financial, health and welfare resources. Historically, the typical founding mother of white Australia was single, but post-war changes in the family structure incorporated the expectation that children be born into two-parent households with the male as the breadwinner. Policy changes in the seventies saw the introduction of the Sole Parents Pension which meant that many birthing teenage women could choose to keep their infants rather than have a clandestine adoption or an enforced marriage. The parenting practices of teenage mothers have been criticised for being less than optimal, and mother and child are reported as being disadvantaged cognitively, psychosocially, and educationally. One widespread nursing service which provides support for new mothers in Victoria is the Maternal and Child Health Service; however, teenage mothers appear reluctant to use such services. Why this should be so became an important question for this research, since little is known about the parenting practices of teenage mothers. This study therefore sought to explore mothering from the perspective of five sole supporting teenage mothers each of whom had a child over six months of age. The research methodology took an interpretive ethnographic approach and was guided by feminist principles. The data were collected through repeated interviewing, participant observation, informal discussions with key informants, field notes and journalling. Data analysis was aided by the use of the software, program NUD-IST. It was found that the young women in this study each chose to give birth with full realisation that their existence was dependent on the Welfare State. Unanticipated, however, were the many structural barriers which made their lives cataclysmic, but these reinforced their determination to prove themselves worthy and capable mothers. The young women negotiated motherhood through a range of social supports and through maternal practice. Unquestionably, their social dependency on the welfare system forced them into marginal citizen status. Moreover, absolute and intrinsic poverty levels were experienced, brought about by inadequate welfare payments. Formal support agencies, such as the Maternal and Child Health nurses were rarely approached to provide childrearing support beyond the initial months following birthing, since the teenagers' basic needs such as shelter, food and clothing took precedence over their parenting needs. Additionally, some nurses were perceived to hold judgmental attitudes towards teenage mothers. It was far easier to forestall confrontation with nurses and the other 'older' women clientele by avoiding them. Thus XI they turned to charitable agencies who provided a safety net in the form of emergency supplies of money, food, or equipment. Informal networks of friends provided alternative modes of support when family help failed to materialise. The children, however, provided the young women with an opportunity to transform their lives by breaking free of the past, and by creating a new, mature existence for themselves. Despite being abandoned by family, friends, lovers and society, in the privacy and isolation of their own homes, they attempted to provide a more nurturing environment for their children than they themselves had received. Each bestowed unconditional maternal love on the child and were rewarded through the pleasures of watching their children grow and develop into worthwhile individuals. The children became the focus of their attention and their reason for living. In the course of their welfare dependency, the young women became public property, targets of surveillance, and were subjected to stigmatising and condescending public attitudes wherever they went. In this way, it was evident that they were an oppressed group, but each found ways of resisting. Rather than focussing on their oppressive or disabling lives, or dwelling on their disadvantaged status, the young women sought their identities as mature women through motherhood and by demonstrating that they could do this important job well. Through motherhood their lives had meaning and a sense of purpose. The thesis concludes that motherhood in the teenage years is difficult. However, if appropriate supports are made available, teenage mothers need be no different from non-teenage mothers. But with state resources shrinking, and their own resources limited, teenage mothers are disadvantaged. In some ways, this study showed that all levels of support were inadequate, although those provided through the charitable organizations were seen to be the most appropriate. This reflects the current policy of economic rationalism adopted by most Western liberal democracies in the 1980s and 1990s and no less by the former Keating Labor Government in Australia.

There have been a limited number of studies carried out on employee workplace identity. There have been many studies carried out on organizational change; however, they have been carried out mostly from an instrumentalist perspective where the topic of organizational change has been treated in isolation from other aspects of organization. The question of how a relationship exists between employee workplace identity and organizational change has been left unanswered. This thesis applies narrative theory as a conceptual bridge across identity and change. By considering how employees derive a sense of workplace identity from the workplace narratives, and organizational change as the destruction of existing workplace narratives and adoption of new workplace narratives, it is possible to gain new understandings of these concepts. A theory is developed which explains how narrative theory creates a relationship between identity and change. This new theory is further developed to explain how narrative theory creates a relationship between organizational identity, culture, leadership, conflict, and change. The new extended theory is applied to a narrative presentation of empirical data, which offers a powerful explanatory lens for understanding the relationship between these chosen aspects of organization.

This study attempted to identifj and explore the role the building plays in the organisation culture of nursing homes. To do this a research plan was formulated in which the central plank was a case-study of a seventy-five bed high care nursing home. As part of the case-study, interviews were conducted at the nursing home with ten members of staff, two residents and a daughter of a resident. The study was also informed by interviews with two architects, who specialise in the design of nursing homes and aged care facilities. A theoretical model entitled the 'Conceptual Framework' was developed prior to the case-study. It was tested by applying it to findings related to the physical context and the organisation culture of the case-study venue. The hypothesis that the building does influence the culture of the nursing home environment was explored by studying the manner in which the building influenced the lives of those who work in the nursing home and those who live there. This challenge was met with the use of theoretical contributions from organisation theory and psychodynamics, which together provided a vehicle for analysis of the culture and the building's role in it.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the motivation of the employees in the Austrahan pubhc service with special attention to the Western Melbourne Institute Of TAFE (TAFE), and Darebin City Council (DCC), located in Melbourne. The dependent variables considered in this study were: age, education, decision making process, employee development programs, measurement and feedback of actual results, opportunities for advancement, group cohesion, and performance based pay systems.

Religion and culture can impact profoundly on healthcare practices and health outcomes. The Australian community is rich and diverse in differing cultures and religions, and at times of medical emergency the paramedic increasingly will be required to respond to healthcare needs of this diverse community. This study is designed to investigate current paramedic practices as they relate to an awareness of the cultural and religious needs of community groups as a holistic approach. It also incorporates the voices of these community groups from their experiences with emergency paramedics during pre‐hospital health care for those living in Melbourne, Australia.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) Melbourne, is at the crossroads. Change is sweeping the economic and political environment within which international fire services operate. The MFB is not insulated from this change. Unless alternative productivity strategies can be achieved, the emergency response sector of the Brigade will suffer the same fate as the corporate sector of the MFB and other statutory authorities. Downsizing within this sector has been occurring in response to the above conditions over the past four years. This study investigates the impact of change upon public safety agencies in general, then compares data gathered on the MFB against this to: • Identify the level of organisational commitment that currently exists; • Develop an understanding of the impact of downsizing upon public sector employees. This study reviews the body of literature concerned with culture and change, downsizing and outsourcing and examines and builds upon the framework of previous research, particularly in the area of downsizing and its impact upon survivors. The study was designed as a one shot correlational study. A questionnaire was designed and administered to the population. Responses were analysed and discussed in context with the referenced literature. This study extends previous research in that it compares those findings with current findings. Low morale, job insecurity, poor communication and negativity have been identified as consistent with that of previous research (Brockner 1992; Brockner, Grover and Blonder 1988; Cascio 1993). In other areas the findings vary from previous research, in that organisational commitment remains high, contrary to the literature.

This project provides various points of view to determine whether the private sector can build-own-operate-transfer pubhc infrastructure projects more efficiently than the public sector and will use as an example the building of the City Link Project. The project will argue the advantages of it being managed by the private or public sector. Some consideration will be given to the argument that the Victorian State Government simply does not have the capital or the expertise to complete a public infrastructure project the size of the City Link.

Chronic diseases have increased dramatically in Australia and around the world over the past decade, causing pain, suffering, disability, psychosocial problems, early mortality and economic and public health crisis. However, many chronic diseases and conditions could be prevented with better evidence based and community based health promotion strategies. Guided by a philosophy of idealism, the aim of this thesis was to develop a community centred health promotion strategy to assist the improvement of health and the prevention of chronic disease in an Australian context. More specifically, the research was concerned with exploring the potentiality of statistical or epidemiological evidence and community collaboration as pathways to chronic disease prevention and improvement of health at an individual, community and system level. The research utilised a praxis paradigm and action research design over three stages. Stage One included in depth quantitative analysis of health and epidemiological data and addressed the question: What is the current evidence/knowledge about health status, determinants and inequalities in Victorian communities and the broader Victorian and Australian context? Stage Two involved qualitative participatory action research methods to engage a small group of community members from the Brimbank region of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) in the community governance of health promotion and disease prevention. The questions addressed were: What are the benefits of community based health promotion and prevention? What ideas for health promotion action does the community have to offer? Stage Three involved a minor evaluation of the strategy as a whole and addressed the question: In what ways, can health evidence and community involvement in health promotion contribute to better health outcomes? Stage One identified various determinants that impact on health status and result in inequalities. Stage Two revealed six major benefits for community based health promotion and prevention and generated a number of useful ideas for health promotion action in the community. Stage Three showed positive evaluations by the participants and identified numerous indicators of success of the health promotion strategy as a whole.

This study investigated childbirth education programs in Victoria from the perspective of the educators themselves. Prior to the study the Ministerial Review of Birthing Services in Victoria (1990) entitled “Having a Baby in Victoria” identified shortcomings in the childbirth education programs offered to expectant women and their partners. The study sought to interpret the experiences of the childbirth educators with regard to the development, implementation, delivery and evaluation of their programs.

Community interventions are a recent development in the field of prevention. This study sought to address the current gap in this area, between scientific knowledge and community practice, through an understanding of practitioners’ experiences of implementation. A case study was undertaken to explore the context and complexity of implementation processes. Data was collected concurrently with the implementation of a community intervention located in rural Victoria, Australia, which aimed to reduce early school leaving. Implementers’ perspectives on a guide to best practice, developed from the academic literature, were sought. Concepts from systems theory and ecological approaches were combined to create a framework suitable for the analysis of the data. The intervention was viewed as an open system. Its progression from being a subsystem of the funded organization to a subsystem of both the funded organization and the community was examined. Factors such as meeting community needs and community members as program staff were found to facilitate community acceptance. The interactions within and between the subsystems of the intervention and the community were also explored. School retention rates were suggestive of some level of impact on school leaving. Additional positive outcomes were the facilitation and/or strengthening of links between community subsystems, and a perceived change within the funded organization. This thesis goes some way towards bridging the gap between science and practice in this field. Findings contribute to the debate regarding flexibility versus fidelity and a greater understanding of the unique challenges faced by rural interventions.