Building social and community cohesion: the role of social enterprises in facilitating settlement experiences for immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds

Australia is a nation of immigrants. Immigration brings much needed skills and labour to Australia. It helps creating a strong economy, drives prosperity and builds Australia’s future. Diverse cultural expression enriches all Australians and makes the multicultural nation more vibrant and creative. Immigrants, including refugees, from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) are vulnerable as they often have higher unemployment rates or are at an earnings disadvantage that may lead to disaffection and community unrest in the long run. Government agencies are facing complicated issues surrounding the design and implementation of strategies that facilitate the settlement of new arrivals in Australia. This paper critically reviews the literature and argues that social enterprises and social entrepreneurship can help to facilitate life satisfaction and self-reliance for NESB immigrants in Australia. In addition, the paper provides a better understanding of what research method may best suit to examine the role of social enterprises in NESB immigrant settlement experiences and how social enterprises may help to integrate the immigrants into culturally diverse socially cohesive nation. Discussion of benefits of the proposed research method will also be provided

Intellectual capital as a strategic tool for organising social services: a qualitative analysis of the Australian non-profit sector

The organisation and delivery of social services have been profoundly affected by the 'new public management' agenda of governments. Social service non-profit organisations (SSNPOs) have had little choice but to respond to commercial imperatives which may compromise the principle of investing in human and social concerns. This paper analyses the usefulness of intellectual capital (IC) - organisational resources contributing to knowledge, information, intellectual property, and human skills and experience - in addressing the conflicts between commercial and social objectives. On the basis of data gathered from in-depth interviews with 35 non-profit managers across 22 large Australian SSNPOs, the analysis confirms that IC assists SSNPOs in managing the social-commercial divide. However, the data also revealed that managers' understandings of the IC concept were often different to those contained in the IC literature. This paper contributes to the social services management debate by, first, arguing that IC can be utilised as a non-profit strategic management conceptual framework. Second, it highlights slippages in the meaning and significance of IC. Third, it prescribes ways the concept may be utilised more effectively in SSNPO practice

Knowledge and learning capabilities in non-profit organizations: a relational capital perspective

Relational capital (RC) represents the knowledge and learning capabilities embedded in relationships external to an organization. The primary goal of this paper is to report preliminary findings through qualitative in-depth interviews collected from 35 senior executives in relation to their perceptions of RC in building knowledge and enhancing learning capability in 22 Australian nonprofit organizations. The findings revealed that RC was valued as the concept perceived to be able to assist nonprofit managers to conceptualize the development of knowledge and learning capabilities in external stakeholder relationships. However, the understanding and application of RC were substantially different to those contained in the literature. Scholars suggest that a balanced view of RC is essential when establishing external stakeholder relationships. The nonprofit managers often adopted a more focused relationship with key external stakeholders, which also happened to be primary fund providers for the organizations. Research implications of this theory-practice divide are discussed. Research limitations and future research direction are presented in the paper

The role of image and reputation as intangible resources in non-profit organisations: a relationship management perspective

The current research on relationship management primarily focuses on enhancing customer relationships through image or reputation in organisations. The resource-based theory portrays image and reputation as important intangible resources that are derived from combinations of internal investments and external appraisals. With this in mind, the role of image and reputation in value creation needs to be carefully delineated. In non-profit settings, stronger image and reputation are likely associated with higher quality of goods and services, better delivery of those goods and services, improved management of donations and funds, and improved outcomes (e.g., higher capability to make a difference in societies). Following a critical analysis of current literature with relevant examples, this paper argues that image and reputation are the keystones of non-profit organisations’ differentiation strategy. The resource-based theory suggests that resource factors represent a stronger explanation of differences in firm performance. Organisations are more likely to grow and develop higher performance potential if more resources are invested in image and reputation. By integrating several disparate resources, image and reputation as intangible resources can become more difficult to imitate and provide a more sustainable source of competitive advantage in organisations. Thus both image and reputation are likely influential elements that assist non-profit organisations in developing and managing relationships with external stakeholders, and thereby aid organisations in attracting important resources such as donations and volunteer support. The study findings contribute to the more general understanding of image and reputation from a relationship management perspective in the non-profit context. Thus, the paper adds a new dimension to the body of literature by arguing that image and reputation can be utilised as relationship management tools in non-profit organisations. However, image and reputation are external to organisations and volatile in nature. Non-profit managers must strategically develop relationship management activities in their organisations, with image and reputation being central

Environmental disclosure practices in national oil and gas corporations and international oil and gas corporations operating in Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries

This study will examine the differences in environmental disclosure practices between national oil and gas corporations (NOGCs) and International oil and gas corporations (IOGCs) in oil sector in countries Arab petroleum exporting (CAPE). Environmental disclosure is defined as disclose environmental activities identify environmental risks of such activities, and how they are managing these issues. Disclosure shows effects on the environment as a result of accidents that occur in the oil companies. Environmental disclosure refers to how and to what extent firms disseminate information about their environmental activities. This information may be released within the company annual reports, and/or separate sustainability reports. There is a vast amount of research that has been conducted about environmental disclosure, in particularly in developed countries. In contrast to developing countries, there are a few studies undertaken in developing countries. There are also no studies that have examined the difference in disclosure between the developed and developing countries (Ahmad & Gao 2005; Ahmad & Mousa 2011; Al-Tuwaijri, Christensen & Hughes 2004). This study is a comparative study between international and national companies in terms of the quantity of environmental disclosure (QTED) and quality of environmental disclosure (QLED) contained in the annual reports 2008, 2009 and 2010. Content analysis has used in this study by words counts to measure the QTED in the annual reports whereas index environmental disclosure is used to measure the QLED in annual reports. Despite the slight increase in the environmental disclosure practices in national companies, the difference is still significant compared with international companies

Eco-apparel marketing strategy: an innovative approach to overcome marketing barriers

The aim of this paper is to identify the marketing barriers facing eco-apparel products and to devise a marketing strategy framework that could be employed to overcome these barriers in an effort to make eco-apparel the preferred choice for the majority of apparel customers. The production of eco-apparel has a minimal negative effect on the natural environment as compared to the production of conventional apparel. While some research has touched on the subject of eco-apparel marketing, the barriers to eco-apparel marketing have not been comprehensively identified and adequately studied, and at the same time eco-apparel has remained a niche market. To identify and sufficiently address the marketing barriers, it is important to understand the key factors in apparel marketing and the performance of eco-apparel across those key factors. The research is thus underpinned by theory derived from strategic marketing, namely the Strategy Canvas and Four Actions Framework (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). The qualitative research method was employed in this study. The research made use of both primary and secondary data. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 apparel managers and 12 apparel consumers. In addition, the research utilized 12 technical reports relevant to both eco-apparel and conventional apparel. NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software, was employed along with the manual process to organise and analyse the data, and the findings from apparel managers and apparel consumers were triangulated. The theoretical contribution of this research is the development of a marketing strategy framework using the Strategy Canvas and Four Actions Framework. With respect to practical contribution, the findings of the research are expected to help in the formulation of marketing strategies that can successfully boost market demand for eco-apparel and therefore at the same time help to reduce the negative impact on the natural environment

Facilitating Knowledge Transfer for Innovation: Towards a Decision Support System to Identify Knowledge Stock in the ICT Profession

In this research-in-progress paper I show how individuals in a professional service firm passionately, and of their own volition, engage in work activities across multiple social media, that fall well outside of formal work requirements. I refer to the personas these workers create as “alter-identities” to signify that this form of identity work sits alongside formal work roles. Utilising a reflexive research approach, I set out to explore 1) how professionals maintain alter-identities and 2) implications vis-à-vis organisational expectations. I offer initial insights into the role of social media, and the ways in which individuals reconcile alter-identities with formal requirements. I will contribute new insights on the role of digital technologies, such as social-media, in knowledge work contexts, and theorise the role of alter-identity performance as a way for organisations to innovate formal work models in a bottom-up, employee-driven way. Such practices might foster organisational responsiveness in rapidly changing environments