Tensions Arising from Imposing NPM in Australian Public Universities: A Management Perspective

This study seeks to identify the characteristics causing tensions in the move towards a corporate culture in Australian public universities. The findings reveal ongoing structural, competency and behavioral issues contributing to the tensions. Two theoretical propositions have emerged regarding the status of the change process. First, the change to a corporate culture is slow but continuing. Second, universities have accepted that public sector, collegial and corporate cultures have to co‐exist, thus adopting an adapted version of new public management (NPM). These findings provide avenues for further research to confirm both the characteristics and theoretical propositions.     

Antecedents of attitude towards online mediation

While the majority of studies so far have examined the effectiveness and benefits of electronic settlement applications, this study explores factors that affect the adoption and use of online mediation services. To this end, structural equation modeling analysis was applied to data obtained from users and mediators involved in an online mediated dispute. Subject perceptions regarding an overall mediation system including information technology and a human mediator were assessed. The findings suggest that while perceived usefulness of the information system explains the variance in attitude towards online mediation, the perceived usefulness of the mediator does not shape this attitude. Thus, mediators are being conceptualized as external to the service and their characteristics do not affect attitudes towards online mediation services, nor the intention to adopt it. This phenomenon is explained using biases in attribution.     

Remembering Mancur Olson

Mancur Olson, professor of Economics at the University of Maryland-College Park, died February 19, 1998. He served the Southern Economic Association as a member of the Executive Committee in 1978-80, as President-Elect in 1980-81, and as President in 1981-82. Three of his colleagues, Wallace Oates, Joe Oppenheimer, and Thomas Schelling, contributed personal essays to a memorial symposium in Public Choice Studies (No. 31, 1998), a journal published in Japanese. The Editor thanks the Japan Public Choice Society for permission to publish these contributions in English for the benefit of our readers.     

Corporate Environmental Responsibility

This paper offers directions for the continuing dialogue between business ethicists and environmental philosophers. I argue that a theory of corporate social responsibility must be consistent with, if not derived from, a model of sustainable economics rather than the prevailing neoclassical model of market economics. I use environmental examples to critique both classical and neoclassical models of corporate social responsibility and sketch the alternative model of sustainable development. After describing some implications of this model at the level of individual firms and industries, I offer an ethical justification of the sustainability alternative that is derived from the same values that underlie traditional market economics.     

A two-stage approach to defining an affected community based on the directly affected population and the sense of community

Studies have demonstrated the inadequacy of relying on existing administrative boundaries or simple proximity to define an affected community. The proposal and siting of hazardous facilities can have a range of impacts upon people across wide areas, with some more affected than others as a result of living with the physical impacts of construction or the fear associated with perceived risk. We term those most affected the directly affected population and propose a two-stage model for identifying an affected community which places those most affected at the centre of the definition. The second stage is to identify the relationships those most affected have with the wider elements of the sense of community to discover the existing community or communities which are affected. Illustrated by the siting of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Dounrey in the north of Scotland, we show that elements of the lived community experience may have very different shapes, extents and conflicting interests which pose challenges for their incorporation into a siting process. The two-stage model presented in this paper, by placing those most directly affected at the centre and working from there out into the existing communities, identifies issues early in any siting process to improve their incorporation and amelioration.