Small Firm Industrial Relations: Evidence from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey

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Managed decentralism: performance related pay in the Australian public service

Public sector reform seeks to develop a performance-oriented culture in an effort to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the provision and delivery of public services. The implementation of performance related pay as part of an overall performance management system, is integral to the achievement of such public sector reform. There are however two research paradigms which inform the assessment and analysis of performance related pay. In this paper these paradigms are explored in a study of the implementation of performance related pay in the Australian Public Service through an analysis of thirty-nine enterprise bargaining agreements

Managing Environmental Risk in Small Business: an Agenda for Research

In recent times the call for corporate social responsibility has become louder and protecting the environment is one aspect for organisations to address if they are to behave in a socially responsible manner. Environmental management is a continuous process but those businesses that develop and implement an Environmental Management System (EMS) reap long-term sustainable competitive advantage. ISO 14001, the international standard that specifies the requirements for a firm's environmental management system, is examined in this paper and in particular the research on the costs and benefits of this standard for small business is addressed. The lack of available Australian research on this issue in relation to small business leads to a recommendation for research and an agenda for pursuing that research

'Freedom of Choice' or 'Freedom from Choice'?: Bargaining and Individual Contracts in the Victorian Public Sector

John Howard went to the last federal election saying "Employees will have the choice to remain in the current award system....employees will have the choice of entering into workplace agreements." 'Freedom of choice' underlies the federal Government's reforms contained within the Workplace Relations Act 1996, just as it does the Industrial relations reforms which have been made in Victoria since March 1993. In this paper the experiences that the Community and Public Sector Union/State Public Service Federation (Victoria) has had bargaining in the Victorian Public Sector are examined. It is argued that unless the freedom to choose is supported by certain conditions, for example recourse to arbitration, then the outcome for employees can be 'freedom from choice'

Performance related pay in the Australian public service

Governments must strive to do things better, with fewer resources, and above all, differently' (OECD, 1995:6). Public sector reform seeks to develop a performance-oriented culture in an effort to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the provision and delivery of public services. The implementation of a performance management system and in particular performance related pay, is integral to the achievement of such public sector reform. There are however two research paradigms which inform the assessment and analysis of performance related pay. In this paper these paradigms are explored through a study of the implementation of PRP in the Australian Public Service

The Process of Enterprise Bargaining in Context: A Case Study

In this paper a case study of enterprise bargaining at Billanook College is used to illustrate the idea that organisational change is a messy and complex process rather than an event. A contextualist methodology is adopted to provide a descriptive understanding of how the outcomes of organisational change are dependent upon the process, as well as the contexts in which change took place. At Billanook College enterprise bargaining, and in particular the use of a certified agreement, served to formalise outcomes of organisational change and legitimate a range of organisational change issues. The case study reveals that the interplay between the process of change and the context, particularly the industrial context of the organisational change, was influential in shaping the outcomes of enterprise bargaining at Billanook College

Industrial Relations in the Latrobe Valley: Constructing Myths and Confounding Realities

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