Accident Compensation Reform

The aim of the article is to provide a survey of the major issues involved in the reform of accident Compensation schemes. The article outlines the economic and social pressures for reform of existing accident compensation schemes, discusses the major reform issues and raises the major challenges facing the reform process. The article focuses on the experience of the Victorian Government in developing and implementing its reform of workers compensation (Workcare) and on its proposed reform of the existing compulsory third party motor accidents scheme to illustrate the key issues.     

THE SHORT-TERM EFFECT OF DOMESTIC OIL PRICE INCREASES ON THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

The rise in the domestic price of oil products implied by the new import parity pricing policy for domestic crude oil is likely to pose some problems for macroeconomic management. In this paper an attempt has been made to quantify the short-run adjustment problems involved, using the ORANI 78 model of the Australian economy. Results are presented for a range of variables of interest, including macroeconomic variables, industrial and workforce composition and farm incomes. With fixed real wages, farm incomes are projected to decline by between 6 and 8 per cent.     

Bricoleurs and boundary riders: managing basic research and innovation knowledge networks

A major focus of national and institutional research policies during the 1990s has been on improving linkages between publicly funded research activities and industry for the purpose of advancing economic and other national objectives. The transfer of scientific knowledge, however, within and between public research institutions, universities and other innovative organizations is taking place within rapidly changing organizational environments. The emergence of new organizational structures that transcend institutional boundaries, scientific disciplines and the boundaries between basic and applied research are all contributing to as well as responding to changes in the ways science intersects with industrial innovation.
Recent international evidence suggests that innovative organizations during the next decade will depend more on their ability to maintain quite complex organizational research linkages than on their internal organizational research capabilities. Case studies of the organizational approach adopted by companies and commercial-research agency consortia in China and Australia lead to a discussion of a typology of academic-industry alliances. The typology provides insights into different collaborative R&D management strategies associated with different forms of science-industry alliance.     

The job stress–job performance relationship in the social service encounter

• The current study empirically examines job performance by considering perceived customer demands as a new antecedent of job stress (JS) and the mediating role of emotion‐focused coping (EFC) on the relationship of JS and physical consequences (PC), and in‐turn job performance. A mailed survey that solicited 2500 social service providers working in the United States rendered a useable random sample of 533. Regression analyses supported the hypothesized relationships. Findings suggest that emotions play an important role in the quality of the social service encounter evidenced by the mediating role of EFC in the relationship between JS and job performance. The introduction of an intervening variable (i.e., EFC) in the JS–job performance relationship extends affective event theory (AET). The findings offer management new insights into the service encounter by identifying a source of JS that creates barriers to value added benefit creation.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.