ORCID Profile
0000-0002-3549-4691
Current Organisation
Queensland University of Technology
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Business and Management | Industrial Relations | Human Resources Management | Human Resources Management | Law And Society | Social and Cultural Geography | Other Studies in Human Society | Control Systems, Robotics and Automation | Social Change | Industrial Relations | Early Childhood Education (excl. Māori) | Labour Law | Gender Specific Studies | Organisation and Management Theory | Gender Specific Studies | Education Systems | Innovation and Technology Management | Manufacturing Engineering | Manufacturing Robotics and Mechatronics (excl. Automotive Mechatronics) | Law | Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Industrial Relations | Management | Industrial relations | Gender | Technological and Organisational Innovation | Health and Support Services not elsewhere classified | Law Reform | Justice and the law not elsewhere classified | Education and Training Systems Policies and Development | Management of Education and Training Systems | Resourcing of Education and Training Systems | Management | Expanding Knowledge in Engineering | Gender and Sexualities |
Related Links
Publications
Unpaid work experience and internships: A growing and contested feature of the future of work
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 04-02-2020
Expecting the Worst: Circumstances Surrounding Pregnancy Discrimination at Work and Progress to Formal Redress
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-03-2008
Facilitating sustainable professional part-time work: A question of design?
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 29-07-2016
DOI: 10.1017/JMO.2015.27
Abstract: Despite significant socio-demographic and economic shifts in the contours of work over the past 40 years, there has been surprisingly little change in the way work is designed. Current understandings of the content and structure of jobs are predominantly underpinned by early 20th century theories derived from the manufacturing industry where employees worked independently of each other in stand-alone organisations. It is only in the last 10 years that elaborations and extensions to job/work design theory have been posed, which accommodate some of the fundamental shifts in contemporary work settings, yet these extended frameworks have received little empirical attention. Utilising contemporary features of work design and a s le of professional service workers, the purpose of this study is to examine to what extent and how part-time roles are designed relative to equivalent full-time roles. The findings contribute to efforts to design effective part-time roles that balance organisational and in idual objectives.
Reporting sexual harassment: claims and remedies
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-2008
School-aged workers: Industrial citizens in waiting?
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-09-2014
Abstract: While the literature points to significant shifts in young peoples’ labour market participation and the social, economic and political context in which this has occurred, it tells us little about whether and in what sense young people can be considered as industrial citizens. We explored the notion of youth citizenship using data derived from 48 focus groups conducted with 216 young people (13-16 years of age) at 19 high schools in Australia. The findings reveal the ways in which several key dimensions of industrial citizenship come to be shaped and have implications for addressing the vulnerability of youth in employment and informing policy and action.
Signals of support: flexible work for mutual gain
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 27-12-2021
The impact of employment-level characteristics on work-life interference in school-aged children
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 31-07-2014
Abstract: Work–life interference is important for school-aged workers because it influences their educational outcomes/career aspirations. Although research highlights the role of work hours in determining work–life interference for these workers, work/job-level characteristics have received limited attention. Using survey data from Queensland school students who work part-time, we assess the influence of a range of employment-level variables on work–life interference. The results of multiple regression analysis indicate work–life interference is exacerbated by having low trust in managers and limited scope to refuse work hours and stability in work hours, emphasising the importance of organisational variables in integrating work and non-work spheres for school-aged workers.
Workplace sexual harassment 30 years on: A review of the literature
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-03-2012
Workplace sexual harassment 30 years on: A review of the literature
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-03-2012
Reading the visual in the marketing of elite schooling
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Date: 2016
Workplace sexual harassment at the margins
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 17-04-2023
Abstract: Men are overwhelmingly responsible for sexual harassment against women in the workplace. However, the literature also points to less typical manifestations, including sexual harassment by men of other men and by women of men or other women. This article examines these atypical forms of sexual harassment, drawing on a census of all formal sexual harassment complaints lodged with Australian equal opportunity commissions over a six-month period. The analysis reveals some important distinctions and similarities across groups of atypical complaints, as well as between atypical groups and ‘classic’ sexual harassment complaints where men harass women. The article contributes to the relatively undeveloped literature on these less visible forms of sexual harassment and highlights both theoretical and pragmatic challenges in better understanding workplace sexual harassment ‘at the margins’.
Profiling employees online: shifting public–private boundaries in organisational life
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-08-2016
A man in the centre: inclusion and contribution of male educators in early childhood education and care teaching teams
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-07-2018
Recruitment in the gig economy: attraction and selection on digital platforms
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 03-2023
The critical role of co-worker involvement
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 09-09-2023
DOI: 10.1017/JMO.2019.65
Abstract: This paper extends the work of Thompson, Beauvais, and Lyness (1999, Journal of Vocational Behavior , 54, 392–415) on work–family culture by considering the role co-workers play. The proposed extended measure encompasses non-work spheres beyond the family as it has been established that much of the extant research does not include a large part of the workforce – those without childcare responsibilities (Kelliher, Richardson & Boiarintseva [2019, Human Resource Management Journal , 29, 101]). The extended measure constitutes Thompson et al.'s (1999) three original dimensions plus two additional dimensions: co-worker involvement (support and consequences) and gender expectations. Two quantitative studies confirmed that the extended measure is robust for different types of workers (part- and full-time, males and females). The co-worker dimensions were significantly associated with several outcome measures however, the gender expectation dimensions added little additional variance in relation to employee outcomes. The results support the inclusion of co-workers as an important dimension of the workplace environment that supports work and life balance.
Navigating employability from the bottom up
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-05-2019
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 11-05-2018
Abstract: Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as ‘flexible’. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men’s and women’s careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people’s broader aspirations for gender equality.
Identity orientation and stakeholder engagement - the corporatisation of elite schools
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-02-2015
DOI: 10.1002/PA.1510
The trend toward pre-graduation professional work experience for Australian young planners: essential experience or essentially exploitation
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-10-2016
Naming and claiming workplace sexual harassment in Australia
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2011
Digital Platform Work in Australia
Publisher: Queensland University of Technology
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.5204/REP.EPRINTS.203119
Abstract: This report presents the findings from research commissioned by the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. Digital platforms such as Airtasker, Uber or Freelancer can connect workers with in iduals or businesses looking to obtain services of various kinds on-demand. There has been much debate about ‘gig work’ of this kind, but little data on its prevalence in Australia. This report presents the findings from a national survey commissioned by the Victorian Government to address that gap.The survey, which elicited more than 14,000 usable responses, explored the prevalence and characteristics of digital platform work in Australia to gain insight into the experiences of those participating in such work, and understand the extent to which they combine digital platform work with other forms of paid work. The main findings are summarised below.
Open market internships: What do intermediaries offer?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-12-2020
Performativity and affective atmospheres in digitally mediated care labour
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-07-2023
The practical potential of self-advocacy for improving safety outcomes for school-aged workers
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 17-07-2015
Sacked! Workplace dismissals amongst youth employees
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 03-2011
DOI: 10.5172/JMO.2011.17.2.226
Abstract: Limited academic attention has been afforded to young workers relative to their adult counterparts. This study addresses a phase of the employment relationship for young people that is very infrequently examined – during or around the time when the relationship ends. It examines the relative frequency of different forms of dismissal and the circumstances preceding the dismissals via a content analysis of 1259 cases of employee enquiries to a community advocacy organisation in Australia. Results indicate that dismissal was most commonly associated with bullying, harassment, and taking personal leave. Young men, compared to young women, were disproportionately likely to report allegations of misconduct as preceding dismissal, while females experienced higher rates of sexual harassment and discrimination. The research highlights the types and circumstances of dismissal across a range of employment contexts and reveals the complexities of youth employment relationships which may differ from those of the general workforce.
Fairness in the workplace: organizational justice and the employment relationship
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 27-09-2020
Sexual Harassment in Queensland Workplaces: Internal Labour Market Processes and Progression to Formal Redress
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-03-2005
DOI: 10.1002/APP.22930
Corporate social responsibility in junior and mid-tier resources companies operating in developing nations - beyond the public relations offensive
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2016
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 11-05-2018
Abstract: Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as ‘flexible’. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men’s and women’s careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people’s broader aspirations for gender equality.
Methodological choices in work-life balance research 1987 to 2006 : a critical review
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2010
Mums with cameras: Technological change, entrepreneurship and motherhood
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-08-2020
DOI: 10.1111/GWAO.12526
The legitimation and reproduction of discourse-practice gaps in work-life balance
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 02-2013
Emerging trends affecting future employment opportunities for people with intellectual disability: The case of a large retail organisation
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 15-10-2018
Managing flexible work arrangements in small not-for-profit firms: the influence of organisational size, financial constraints and workforce characteristics
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-01-2017
Financial Timescapes: The Temporal Shaping of Young People’s Financial Lives
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 19-10-2017
Abstract: This article draws on a large qualitative study ( N = 123) to develop an understanding of young people’s financial lives as constituted through experiences of time and temporality. Extending recent accounts of temporality as experienced and lived through our embedded location in the life course, we develop the concept of financial timescapes as a means of focusing on the ways that in idual and personal financial capacities are situated in broader economic and cultural topographies of youth. The findings focus on the acquisition, deployment and consequences of financial lives as temporally situated and experienced by 16–26-year-old Australians. By doing so, we draw attention to how financial timescapes influence the constitution, navigation and cohering of young people’s financial lives. Understanding the significance of financial timescapes to young people’s experiences and socially embedded capacities thus helps to inform a sociological understanding of monetary decision making, financial behaviours and financial trajectories across the life course.
The social legitimacy of disability inclusive human resource practices: the case of a large retail organisation
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2017
‘We just make the pictures…?’ How work is portrayed in children’s feature length films
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2012
Employee dissent on social media and organizational discipline
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-05-2020
Abstract: What kind of surveillance of employees is evident today? The rights of employers to police and act punitively with regard to workplace dissent and misbehaviour have become contentious legal, policy and ethical issues. Drawing on survey responses from employees in the UK and Australia, this study investigates the scope and scale of employee dissent in relation to critical online comments and the private use of social media during work time. The findings reveal a sufficient pool of misbehaviours, albeit that they are emergent and uneven. Also evident were some apparently contradictory responses with respect to employer rights to profile and discipline, at the same time as asserting employee rights to voice and private online identities. The findings contribute to knowledge of how much and what kinds of online dissent exist in the ambiguous space between the public sphere of work and the private lives of in idual employees and what employers do about it.
Ubiquitous yet Ambiguous: An Integrative Review of Unpaid Work
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-07-2017
DOI: 10.1111/IJMR.12153
Identifying predictors of retention and professional wellbeing of the early childhood education workforce in a time of change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-05-2020
Class contestations and Australia's resource boom: The emergence of the 'cashed-up bogan'
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-01-2012
Abstract: This article examines the figure of the ‘Cashed-up Bogan’ or ‘Cub’ in Australian media from 2006 to 2009. It explains that ‘Bogan’, like that of ‘Chav’ in Britain, is a widely engaged negative descriptor for the white working-class poor. In contrast, ‘Cubs’ have economic capital. This capital, and the Cub’s emergence, is linked to Australia’s resource boom of recent decades when the need for skilled labour allowed for a highly demarcated segment of the working class to earn relatively high incomes in the mining sector and to participate in consumption. We argue that access to economic capital has provided the Cub with mobility to enter the everyday spaces of the middle class, but this has caused disruption and anxiety to middle-class hegemony. As a result, the middle class has redrawn and reinforced class-infused symbolic and cultural boundaries, whereby, despite their wealth, pernicious media representations mark Cubs as ‘other’ to the middle-class deservingness, taste and morality.
The trend toward pre-graduation professional work experience for Australian young planners: essential experience or essentially exploitation
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-10-2016
Framing sexual harassment through media representations
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2013
Organizational rhetoric in the prospectuses of elite private schools: Unpacking strategies of persuasion
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2012
Below the tip of the iceberg: Extra-legal responses to workplace sexual harassment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2011
The emergence of the marketing professional in schools
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 14-05-2019
Executive-level support for flexible work arrangements in a large insurance organization
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-09-2017
Developing a framework of effective prevention and response strategies in workplace sexual harassment
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-05-2015
Planning to work for free: building the graduate employability of planners through unpaid work
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 26-07-2018
Employers and child workers: an institutional approach
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-01-2011
Young people's aspirations for education, work, family and leisure
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2011
Abstract: Young people are arguably facing more ‘complex and contested’ transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of ‘non-linear’ paths. Education and training have been extended, identity is increasingly shaped through leisure and consumerism and youth must navigate their life trajectories in highly in idualised ways. The study utilises 819 short essays compiled by students aged 14–16 years from 19 schools in Australia. It examines how young people understand their own unique positions and the possibilities open to them through their aspirations and future orientations to employment and family life. These young people do not anticipate postponing work identities, but rather embrace post-school options such as gaining qualifications, work experience and achieving financial security. Boys expected a distant involvement in family life secondary to participation in paid work. In contrast, around half the girls simultaneously expected a future involving primary care-giving and an autonomous, independent career, suggesting attempts to remake gendered inequalities.
Outrage management in cases of sexual harassment as revealed in judicial decisions
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1471-6402.2010.01559.X
Abstract: Sexual harassment can be conceptualized as a series of interactions between harassers and targets that either inhibit or increase outrage by third parties. The outrage management model predicts the kinds of actions likely to be used by perpetrators to minimize outrage, predicts the consequences of failing to use these tactics—namely backfire, and recommends countertactics to increase outrage. Using this framework, our archival study examined outrage-management tactics reported as evidence in 23 judicial decisions of sexual harassment cases in Australia. The decisions contained precise, detailed information about the circumstances leading to the claim the events which transpired in the courtroom, including direct quotations and the judges' interpretations and findings. We found evidence that harassers minimize outrage by covering up the actions, devaluing the target, reinterpreting the events, using official channels to give an appearance of justice, and intimidating or bribing people involved. Targets can respond using countertactics of exposure, validation, reframing, mobilization of support, and resistance. Although there are limitations to using judicial decisions as a source of information, our study points to the value of studying tactics and the importance to harassers of minimizing outrage from their actions. The findings also highlight that, given the limitations of statutory and organizational protections in reducing the incidence and severity of sexual harassment in the community, in idual responses may be effective as part of a multilevel response in reducing the incidence and impact of workplace sexual harassment as a gendered harm.
Social media(tion) and the reshaping of public/private boundaries in employment relations
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-03-2016
DOI: 10.1111/IJMR.12061
A manager-centred perspective on organisational work-life agendas
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 18-12-2015
'Our' community: corporate social responsibility, neoliberalisation, and mining industry community engagement in rural Australia
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1068/A45676
Abstract: This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal mobilisations of community undertaken by private corporations. It does so by examining the ways in which the mining industry, empowered through the legitimising framework of corporate social responsibility, is increasingly and profoundly involved in shaping the meaning, practice, and experience of ‘local community’. We draw on a substantial Australian case study, consisting of interviews and document analysis, as a means to examine ‘community-engagement’ practices undertaken by BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation in the Shire of Ravensthorpe in rural Australia. This engagement, we argue, as a process of deepening neoliberalisation simultaneously defines and transforms local community according to the logic of global capital. As such, this study has implications for critical understandings of the intersections among corporate social responsibility, neoliberalisation, community, and capital.
Mining work, family and community : a spatially-oriented approach to the impact of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine closure in remote Australia
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-2012
Abstract: While changes in work and employment practices in the mining sector have been profound, the literature addressing mining work is somewhat partial as it focuses primarily on the workplace as the key (or only) site of analysis, leaving the relationship between mining work and families and communities under-theorized. This article adopts a spatially oriented, case-study approach to the sudden closure of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in the south-west of Western Australia to explore the interplay between the new scales and mobilities of labour and capital and work–family–community connections in mining. In the context of the dramatically reconfigured industrial arena of mining work, the study contributes to a theoretical engagement between employment relations and the spatial dimensions of family and community in resource-affected communities.
Just benefits? Employee benefits and organisational justice
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 03-06-2019
Abstract: Employee reward is central to contemporary debates about work and employment relations and in the context of ongoing wage stagnation, benefits represent a growing proportion of total reward value. Past studies have shown that when employees perceive benefits as unfair, this has a negative impact on engagement, performance and retention. Yet no previous studies have explored the components of a benefits system that influence employees’ fairness concerns. Using organisational justice as a theoretical lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine how dimensions of an employee benefits system influence the fairness perceptions of employees. This paper reports on a qualitative, inductive case study of the benefits system in a large finance and insurance company, drawing on three data sources: interviews with the company’s benefits managers, organisational documents and open-text responses from a benefits survey. Three dimensions of the benefits system strongly influenced fairness perceptions – constraints on accessing and utilising benefits prosocial perceptions about the fairness of benefits to third parties and the transparency of employee benefits. The study informs organisations and benefits managers about the important role of supervisors in perceived benefits usability, and how benefits may be managed and communicated to enhance employee fairness perceptions. This study makes a conceptual contribution to the benefits literature through a detailed exploration of the type of organisational justice judgements that employees make about benefits and identifying for the first time prosocial fairness concerns about the impact of benefits on third parties.
Action or inaction: bystander intervention in workplace sexual harassment
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-04-2016
Recruitment in the gig economy
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-01-2021
Family responsibilities discrimination in Queensland workplaces: where business and caring collide
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-2008
Abstract: Although a large body of literature has addressed many of the issues relating to flexible working from both a supply and demand perspective, less attention has focused on situations where these two positions conflict. This research explores a secondary, qualitative data set consisting of over 200 cases of alleged family responsibilities discrimination reported to a community advocacy organization in Brisbane, Australia. Findings indicate that discord in the work environment occurs in relation to (1) requests for part-time work (2) altered duties during or after maternity leave (3) requests for changes to rostered work hours (4) having to take leave to care for sick children and (5) opportunities for recruitment or promotion. Direct family responsibilities discrimination was evident in only six cases, while the remainder were indirect. A small number of cases were formally lodged for redress although financial compensation was limited. Economic factors such as a shrinking labour force highlight the importance of finding solutions to situations where business imperatives and the well-being of families collide.
Employers and child workers: an institutional approach
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-01-2011
Wrong way, go back! Negotiating access in industry-based research
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2009
Men. masculinities and flexible work in a local government authority
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 07-11-2008
DOI: 10.1108/17542410810912717
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to establish the strongly entrenched connection between hegemonic masculinity and participation in full‐time employment. It subsequently examines the extent to which male flexible workers in local government represent a challenge to this orthodoxy. The paper reports on findings from interviews with 12 men and 13 women undertaking flexible work in a local government authority in Australia. It was found that while two of the male flexible workers articulate alternative discourses of masculine subjectivity dissociated from participation in full‐time work, the remainder demonstrate the continued centrality of a full‐time presence in the workplace to hegemonic masculinity. This paper argues that these findings are indicative of the continued dominance of masculinities in local government organisations.
Daggy shirts, daggy slogans? Marketing unions to young people
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-2010
Abstract: In light of declining trade union density, specifically among young workers, this article explores how trade unions recruit, service and organize young people. Our focus is the way in which trade unions market their services to the young. We use, as a lens of analysis, the services and social marketing literature and the concept of an ‘unsought, experience good’ to explore trade union strategy. Based on interviews with a number of union officials in the state of Queensland, it is clear that unions see the issue of recruitment of young people as significant, and that innovative strategies are being used in at least some unions. However, the research also indicates that despite union awareness, strategies are uneven and resource allocation is patchy. While the research was carried out in one state, the results and conclusion are broadly applicable to the Australian labour movement as a whole, and have implications for union movements in other Anglophone countries.
The emotional geography of a mine closure: A study of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2010
Low pay but still we stay: Retention in early childhood education and care
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-10-2018
Abstract: A professional, skilled and engaged early childhood workforce is critical to economic and social productivity and positive life trajectories for children. Yet high staff turnover, skill loss and unmet standards of staff qualification pervade the sector, limiting optimal outcomes. For many early childhood educators, alternatives of better paid and less challenging sources of employment are available in other employment sectors, a fact that explains turnover rates as high as 30%. However, this study reverses the emphasis on why early childhood educators leave the sector and asks instead ‘Why do so many stay?'. This question is a significant one when it is considered that the remuneration of educators in early childhood barely meets minimum wage thresholds, and that they face challenging working conditions and few opportunities for career progression. The findings of the study contribute to an understanding of retention in early childhood education and care occupations specifically, and in feminised, low-paid occupational groups more broadly. The study also informs policy and strategy responses to low retention in the early childhood sector in Australia and internationally.
The Growing 'Gig Economy'
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2022
Teachers and the emotional dimensions of class in resource-affected rural Australia
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2010
The impact of disruptive innovation on creative workers
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 15-12-2021
Challenging the assumptions supporting work experience as a pathway to employment
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 15-06-2021
Means of Control in the Organization of Digitally Intermediated Care Work
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-12-2021
Abstract: Digital platforms that facilitate care work are new entrants to the intermediary marketplace and they are growing in number in response to rising demand for care services. This study examines, through the lens of labour process theory, the means of control utilized by digital platforms operating in Australia which organize and direct disability and aged care. The analysis of terms and conditions and website content reveals four means of control that influence the enactment of the labour process: Shifting risks and responsibilities from the platform to workers and clients Apportioning the costs of doing business to workers Dictating contractual arrangements and Monitoring quality standards of service work. The findings advance knowledge of how power relations embedded in platform business models and the organization of work direct a precarious, freelance workforce. More broadly, the study demonstrates the explanatory power of labour process theory for understanding emergent forms of work and labour.
How education and training systems can support a digitally-enabled workforce for the manufacturing industry of the future
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 31-08-2023
Abstract: This paper explores how education and training systems can support a digitally-enabled workforce for the Australian manufacturing sector. The study is based on interviews with 17 sector-level manufacturing stakeholders from industry, government and education/training organisations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of how education and training systems currently support a digitally-enabled manufacturing workforce as well as opportunities for alternative configurations or developments. Analysis revealed three themes reflecting core dimensions of a supportive education and training system: partnerships, pedagogy and prospects. Cooperative, integrated and sustained partnerships are needed between vocational education and training (VET) institutions, universities, government, industry, high schools and private training providers. Pedagogy emphasises the vital importance of infusing curriculum with digital and technology skills and capabilities, alongside innovative and experiential delivery modes including simulated environments, online learning, on-the-job training, flexible delivery and micro-credentials. Prospects reflects the need for forward-looking assessment and planning to respond to industry trends and develop associated qualifications, skills and investments required to meet future industry needs. With growing demand for digitally-enabled skills to support manufacturing, an industry which is acknowledged as critical for economic prosperity and national sovereignty, the findings contribute novel insights into current limitations and future opportunities to bridge the gap between skills shortages in the manufacturing industry, and education and training systems that deliver graduate readiness and a digitally-enabled workforce.
Naming and claiming workplace sexual harassment in Australia
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2011
Corporate social responsibility and the parameters of dialogue with vulnerable others
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-08-2013
Abstract: This article presents a case study of corporate dialogue with vulnerable others. Dialogue with marginalized external groups is increasingly presented in the business literature as the key to making corporate social responsibility possible in particular through corporate learning. Corporate public communications at the same time promote community engagement as a core aspect of corporate social responsibility. This article examines the possibilities for and conditions underpinning corporate dialogue with marginalized stakeholders as occurred around the unexpected and sudden closure in January 2009 of the AU$2.2 billion BHP Billiton Ravensthorpe Nickel mine in rural Western Australia. In doing so we draw on John Roberts’ notion of dialogue with vulnerable others, and apply a discourse analysis approach to data spanning corporate public communications and interviews with residents affected by the decision to close the mine. In presenting this case study we contribute to the as yet limited organizational research concerned directly with marginalized stakeholders and argue that corporate social responsibility discourse and vulnerable other dialogue not only affirms the primacy of business interests but also co-opts vulnerable others in the pursuit of these interests. In conclusion we consider case study implications for critical understandings of corporate dialogue with vulnerable others.
How professional photographers engage with and resist digital platform work
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-05-2021
Abstract: While there is emerging research on the motivations of workers who engage with specific digital platforms, scant attention has been afforded to the contours of the digital economy as they affect workers in occupational or professional contexts. Drawing on interviews with 51 Australian photographers, the authors examined the extent to which, and why, photographers engage with or resist digital platform work. The photographic profession is an ideal context in which to examine such questions due to the fragmentation of the workforce and the recent proliferation of platforms. The findings revealed that the level of worker engagement is explained by platform control over price, service and product quality, and relationship management. The experiences of self-employed, freelance workers complicate our understanding of work afforded by digital platforms. Engaging with the political economy surrounding freelance creative labour, the study enables a richer theorisation of the experiences of platform-generated work in this context.
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View Funded ActivityIndustrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC200100001
Start Date: 08-2021
End Date: 08-2026
Amount: $4,879,415.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityLinkage Projects - Grant ID: LP0774931
Start Date: 2007
End Date: 12-2010
Amount: $231,246.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP1093442
Start Date: 2010
End Date: 12-2014
Amount: $396,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityLinkage Projects - Grant ID: LP190100216
Start Date: 02-2021
End Date: 02-2024
Amount: $251,442.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity