ORCID Profile
0000-0002-3856-1933
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-1994
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-1995
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-12-2023
DOI: 10.1017/ESO.2021.43
Abstract: British Telecom’s 1984 partial privatization set in motion the privatization and deregulation of many international state-owned telecommunications carriers. Most previous research on the privatization and deregulation of state-owned telecommunications carriers has focused on the economic outcomes. However, this was also a time of changes in managerial practice and thinking influenced by organizational theory. This article presents an analysis of the use of the prescriptions of Rosabeth Kanter in the attempted reform of the organizational culture of Australia’s largest business in the 1980s: the government-owned telecommunications monopoly Telecom Australia (now Telstra). It details the attempt to transform Telecom under the incipient threat of the introduction of competition to the telecommunications market and demonstrates how the country’s largest change management program, Vision 2000, represented an alternative approach to telecommunications reform.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-05-2014
Abstract: Trade unions often face complex and uncertain relations with multinational employers, particularly in old industrial regions. Such corporations have long histories in such regions, often attracted by a range of incentives such as financial support, cheap energy and a skilled workforce. However, the plants themselves often experience changes in ownership and face economic uncertainty. This constitutes the terrain within which recognised unions seek to organise, exercise their capacities and realise their purposes. Workers and their unions organise and operate in these plants, usually developing established routines and practices in relation to the terms and conditions of employment and advocacy of worker concerns. However, they also face difficult choices in relation to corporate decisions to restructure and/or close regional plants. In order for unions to respond to the shifting terrain of the employment landscape they must be able to mobilise around political and economic factors that impact on employment. These themes are addressed with specific reference to union struggles in North West Tasmania, a region that is undergoing a process of de-industrialisation.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 03-2011
DOI: 10.1017/S1833367200001620
Abstract: Discussions about deunionisation usually focus on lower levels of the workforce with managers seen as the initiators of deunionisation strategies. Managers, however, occupy contradictory positions as agents of capital, employees and possibly trade unionists. This can place them in the position of being both recipients and conduits in deunionisation strategies. The focus of the study is on Telstra, the major telecommunications carrier in Australia. Using a range of sources such as interviews and company and union materials, this qualitative research shows how between 1992 and 2000 Telstra's senior management's concerns over middle management agency prompted them to reframe the concept of a manager by using a set of managerial practices from the mining company CRA and the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act (1996) to in idualise and deunionise their managerial ranks as a precursor to the deunionisation of the wider workforce.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 26-08-2021
Abstract: As the North West coast of Tasmania, Australia, has deindustrialised, the region’s unions have lost membership, power and relevance. This process of deindustrialisation opens up possibilities for the unions to become involved in regeneration as regional development actors and, by moving outside the workplace and engaging with the community, renew and revitalise themselves. But many unions have found it difficult to move beyond their traditional forms of action and relationships. This article uses the concept of lock-in, and draws on semi-structured interviews, two forums and a workshop, to detail the way the North West coast unions attempted to break from the confines of the workplace and out into the community. Their attempts to do this were uneven and contested. They were, to varying degrees, locked-in and constrained by their traditional relationships with politicians and their own members. At another level they were locked-out from participating in regeneration decisions by long standing relationships between governments and business and their antagonism towards the unions. Although the unions attempted to reimagine themselves, there remained a pattern of regional lock-in where long-standing relationships continued and limited and hindered the unions’ ability to participate in regeneration debates and activities.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Date: 2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-1994
DOI: 10.1177/1045389X9400500502
Abstract: One essential aspect of an intelligent material is that it has some properties which are dynamic which can be utilised and controlled. It is well known that a number of polymeric materials are inherently dynamic. In order to utilise the full potential of polymers for use as intelligent materials it is imperative that processes occurring at the polymer interface are well understood. A large range of surface and other techniques are available to characterise this. At IPRL we has devel oped over a number of years intelligent material systems based on conducting polymers such as polypyrrole. This range of materials has been used as coated films, particles or stand-alone mem branes in systems designed either to sense/monitor the environment or to effect a separation. Poly pyrrole based systems are able to perform sophisticated functions because the polymer is a dynamic material which can change its chemical and physical properties by application of an electrical poten tial (thereby altering the oxidation state of the polymer). This change is accompanied by movement of ions in and out of the material. The paper presents results for a number of characterisation tech niques which elucidate what is happening at the polymer-solution interface such as cyclic voltametry and quartz crystal microbalance, together with other surface techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and the atomic force microscope which provide a microscopic picture of the polymer surface. It is shown that only by using a wide range of techniques is it possible to gain a full understanding of the unique properties of intelligent material such as polypyrrole. Only then can it be said that one is truly more than just scratching the surface.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-1994
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-08-2018
DOI: 10.1111/ANTI.12353
Publisher: Consortium Erudit
Date: 14-01-2009
DOI: 10.7202/038879AR
Abstract: Trade unions face a range of challenges in a global world. As trade, production and consumption relations change, unions have begun to consider how they organize and operate. The argument is that for trade unions to effectively challenge key aspects of these global relations, they must take steps to rebuild the way they organize and operate at local levels. The conditions for this step are a reflective and experienced leadership, opportunities for leaders to meet each other, and for activists to develop practices of solidarity, information exchange and union cooperation with each other. To explore these themes we study a proto-typical case of inter-union coalition building. Over the last four years, three remote and local transport unions, in Victoria, Australia have developed the Victorian Group of the International Transport Federation. In doing this, these unions are building on existing forms of organization and in the process, they are reforging their relations with each other so as to have the potential to challenge international employers.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Date: 2011
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2007
Abstract: Australia has been one of the world's leading proponents of privatisation. One of the key arguments about privatisation is that it would end the inefficient state monopoly of public services and reduce the power of public sector trade unions. Within a relatively short period of the privatisation of the energy and transport sectors in Victoria Australia, there was a reconsolidation of ownership which raised new challenges for the trade unions. After this phase, the main trade unions in these two sectors took steps to meet these new circumstances to renew and rebuild their structures and strengthen their capacity to challenge the new private oligopolies. Thus, paradoxically some unions were able to open up space to renew and rebuild in the post–privatisation world.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 1993
Start Date: 2014
End Date: 2016
Funder: Australian Research Council
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