Whistling While They Work: Enhancing the Theory and Practice of Internal Witness Management in Public Sector Organisations. The protection of whistleblowers and other internal witnesses to corruption, misconduct and maladministration is a great unsolved problem in public sector governance. Involving 11 integrity institutions, this first national study of internal witness management will describe and compare organisational experience under varying public interest disclosure regimes across the Au ....Whistling While They Work: Enhancing the Theory and Practice of Internal Witness Management in Public Sector Organisations. The protection of whistleblowers and other internal witnesses to corruption, misconduct and maladministration is a great unsolved problem in public sector governance. Involving 11 integrity institutions, this first national study of internal witness management will describe and compare organisational experience under varying public interest disclosure regimes across the Australian public sector. By identifying and promoting current best practice in workplace responses to public interest whistleblowing, the project will use the experience and perceptions of internal witnesses and first- and second-level managers to identify more routine strategies for preventing, reducing and addressing reprisals and other whistleblowing-related conflicts.Read moreRead less
Investigating the Impact of Work Design on Productive Wellbeing in Mercy Health: The Modernising Third Sector. Around the world the Third Sector (TS) of the economy is coming under pressure to modernise their management. The typical approaches to modern management being imposed overseas may not be appropriate for TS organisations and therefore they need to be critically examined, especially for their impact on employees. In Australia the TS is a large (approx. $15billion), yet low-profile set of ....Investigating the Impact of Work Design on Productive Wellbeing in Mercy Health: The Modernising Third Sector. Around the world the Third Sector (TS) of the economy is coming under pressure to modernise their management. The typical approaches to modern management being imposed overseas may not be appropriate for TS organisations and therefore they need to be critically examined, especially for their impact on employees. In Australia the TS is a large (approx. $15billion), yet low-profile set of organisations, of which the health industry is central. This project will investigate the issues that make workplaces in a TS health organisation a healthier and more productive place to work. The results could directly help improve workplaces covering more than 150,000 employees.Read moreRead less
Enhancing volunteer capacity to maximise the volunteer resources for contextually diverse community organisations. The study aims to maximise the volunteer resources available to community organisations through the development of a flexible organisational volunteer model that enhances each volunteer's capacity, particularly at key points of their engagement.Individual volunteer capacities will be analysed using a multidimensional measure validated with different volunteer samples across diverse ....Enhancing volunteer capacity to maximise the volunteer resources for contextually diverse community organisations. The study aims to maximise the volunteer resources available to community organisations through the development of a flexible organisational volunteer model that enhances each volunteer's capacity, particularly at key points of their engagement.Individual volunteer capacities will be analysed using a multidimensional measure validated with different volunteer samples across diverse organisations and social contexts. The model will help community organisations determine the self-efficacy of volunteers; enhance individual and collective volunteer capacity;identify new volunteer pathways responsive to the lifestyles and social and economic circumstances of volunteers;and create a more capable and responsive pool of volunteers.Read moreRead less
New methods for small group analysis from sample surveys. National and state averages of statistics on issues such as unemployment, salinity, drought impact, and health often hide large differences between population sub-groups and between small areas. This local variation needs to be understood so that effective policies can be developed and carried out efficiently and their impact monitored. This project will provide, for the first time, robust and efficient methods for providing information o ....New methods for small group analysis from sample surveys. National and state averages of statistics on issues such as unemployment, salinity, drought impact, and health often hide large differences between population sub-groups and between small areas. This local variation needs to be understood so that effective policies can be developed and carried out efficiently and their impact monitored. This project will provide, for the first time, robust and efficient methods for providing information on these variations using data from large-scale national and state surveys. This will lead to significant improvements in the data available for small population groups and small areas, allowing better targeting of policies aimed at addressing local differences.Read moreRead less
Handling Missing Data in Complex Household Surveys. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has an extensive program of household surveys that is a key source of information on the social and economic conditions of the population. They provide statistics and data on a large range of social and economic topics, such as health, education, the labour force, income and expenditure. Analysis of household survey data by a variety of organisations underpins policy development and evaluation and the e ....Handling Missing Data in Complex Household Surveys. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has an extensive program of household surveys that is a key source of information on the social and economic conditions of the population. They provide statistics and data on a large range of social and economic topics, such as health, education, the labour force, income and expenditure. Analysis of household survey data by a variety of organisations underpins policy development and evaluation and the expenditure of billions of dollars. This project will substantially improve the cost-efficiency and reliability of Australian household survey data, by creating new approaches for handling missing data that deal with the realities of typical household surveys.Read moreRead less
Service Ecosystems Management for Collaborative Process Improvement. Australian government agencies currently explore opportunities for streamlining their business processes. A promising approach relates to the improvement of cross-agency processes based on service-enabled technologies. This project will use requirements within Queensland Government for the design of a service ecosystem and methodological and management concepts to derive a general framework for intra-organisational ecosystems. ....Service Ecosystems Management for Collaborative Process Improvement. Australian government agencies currently explore opportunities for streamlining their business processes. A promising approach relates to the improvement of cross-agency processes based on service-enabled technologies. This project will use requirements within Queensland Government for the design of a service ecosystem and methodological and management concepts to derive a general framework for intra-organisational ecosystems. Though the focus will be on government processes, the project will generalise beyond this scope for a wider uptake of service ecosystems in Australian organisations. This will lead to reduced process costs and risks and will leverage the exploration of new revenue streams, e.g. shared services and reward schemes.Read moreRead less
Analysis of the financial circumstances of local governments, to assess viability, and improve planning, resource allocation and accountability. The project aims to (a) develop a framework for improved reporting by local government, through a critical analysis of AAS 27 and extant legislative guidelines; (b) assess the financial viability of existing local government units; (c) identify units which may be candidates for amalgamation. Outcomes will include (i) proposals to enhance NSW's pioneer ....Analysis of the financial circumstances of local governments, to assess viability, and improve planning, resource allocation and accountability. The project aims to (a) develop a framework for improved reporting by local government, through a critical analysis of AAS 27 and extant legislative guidelines; (b) assess the financial viability of existing local government units; (c) identify units which may be candidates for amalgamation. Outcomes will include (i) proposals to enhance NSW's pioneering provisions for infrastructure reporting, contained in the NSW Local Government Act 1993 and accompanying guidelines; (ii) a pioneering assessment of the financial circumstances of local government units, having regard to the projected costs of upgrading legacy infrastructure; (iii) development of a framework for assessing future funding needs. Read moreRead less
Advocacy in the age of compacts: Strengthening the policy development dimension of partnership agreements between government and community organisations. The proposed research will be the first attempt to evaluate the roll-out of compacts in Australia. In order to ensure that the new compacts continue to be responsive to the needs of both government and community organisations it is crucial that their early operation be evaluated and the findings used to create ongoing mechanisms for monitoring, ....Advocacy in the age of compacts: Strengthening the policy development dimension of partnership agreements between government and community organisations. The proposed research will be the first attempt to evaluate the roll-out of compacts in Australia. In order to ensure that the new compacts continue to be responsive to the needs of both government and community organisations it is crucial that their early operation be evaluated and the findings used to create ongoing mechanisms for monitoring, outcome evaluation, and skill-building. The proposed project will assist Austraian governments to identify performance indicators for outcomes in the context of the compacts, particularly those that lead to the effective contribution of community organisations in policy development.Read moreRead less
Facilitating workplace change: Redefining the role of industrial tribunals in Australia. Amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 passed in 2013 have the potential to re-define the role of Australia’s national workplace relations tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, by requiring it to promote cooperative and productive workplace relations. This project aims to identify an innovative model of tribunal intervention that meets these new imperatives through case studies from the Hunter region of NSW, whe ....Facilitating workplace change: Redefining the role of industrial tribunals in Australia. Amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 passed in 2013 have the potential to re-define the role of Australia’s national workplace relations tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, by requiring it to promote cooperative and productive workplace relations. This project aims to identify an innovative model of tribunal intervention that meets these new imperatives through case studies from the Hunter region of NSW, where tribunal members have for two decades been working proactively with managers, employees and their representatives in major construction projects and large public sector organisations to achieve cooperative and effective workplace change. Read moreRead less
Creating sustainable employment for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups . This project aims to address long-term unemployment and labour market exclusion of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups by generating new employer-led solutions. The project expects to create, with employers, successful strategies for recruiting disadvantaged workers into better quality jobs, and to co-produce best practice employer engagement toolkits and minimum job quality standards. Anticipated outcomes include increasi ....Creating sustainable employment for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups . This project aims to address long-term unemployment and labour market exclusion of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups by generating new employer-led solutions. The project expects to create, with employers, successful strategies for recruiting disadvantaged workers into better quality jobs, and to co-produce best practice employer engagement toolkits and minimum job quality standards. Anticipated outcomes include increasing the success of government-funded employment programs by improving employment opportunities and reducing cycling between work and welfare. Significant benefits for disadvantaged groups, businesses and society will result in increased employee wellbeing, organisational performance and economic competitiveness.Read moreRead less