The nature of consumer ethnocentrism in Australia is examined through the application of the CETSCALE to a total of 377 respondents from Victoria. Two groups of respondents — members of the Australian Owned Companies Association (AOCA) and a comparable sample from the general population were used to assess ‘known group validity’ of the scale. The results suggest that the CETSCALE is a reliable measure of consumer ethnocentrism in Australia and offers evidence of ‘known group validity.’ Two underlying dimensions of ethnocentrism, termed emotional and reasoned ethnocentrism, were detected and found to be invariant across the two groups. Awareness and knowledge of three Australian made logos was found to be lower than expected for both groups.

Allowing employees to work at home for at least part of the week is a management concept said to be rapidly gaining popularity. There is evidence that employees working at home are more productive, satisfied and committed, and that homeworking allows organisations to reduce office overheads, recruit from a wider pool, and retain valued workers. This paper examines the spread of homeworking and its telecommunications-based variant teleworking in Australia. A survey of human resource managers in Western Australia shows that, while 28 percent of large organisations have homeworkers, they are generally few in number and permitted only on an informal basis. Factors inhibiting use of homeworking include a lack of awareness and support amongst senior and middle managers, concerns over issues such as security and occupational health, and unsupportive organisational cultures. It is concluded that, contrary to media reporting, home-working and teleworking are not likely to become widespread in Australia in the near future.

One of the most important strategic issues for managers involves deciding the size of the organisation. Factors which influence this decision include economic, social and political change. The boundaries of the organisation are thus not fixed, and are in part contingent upon the particular characteristics of the environmental context. Theoretical progress in the discipline of strategic management, as far as it relates to matters of organisational size (and structure), requires that serious consideration be given to the analysis of the dynamics of vertical integration which is available in the New Institutional Economics literature. One of the most interesting strands in this literature is the Transactions Costs Economics developed by R.H. Coase and O.E. Williamson. This paper provides an overview of the Coase-Williamson theory of vertical integration. It then uses this theory as a point of departure in conducting an empirical discussion of decisions to integrate vertically taken by one of the world's largest mining enterprises, The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, during the first 30 years of its existence. The paper seeks to demonstrate that theorising in strategic management is enriched if analytical (albeit critical) attention is paid to advances in the economics of organisation.

Organisation theory makes extensive use of analogies to encourage diversity in thought and explanation of complex phenomena. Analogies are able to provide insights about the internal and external behaviour of organisations of organisations. This is readily observed in the use of the systems concept in the description of organisations.

Systems thinking is often seen as unifying; spanning the physical, biological, and social sciences. The term systems theory is perhaps a misnomer in that in its general form it is neither testable, falsifiable nor predictive. However, most of the theories or laws describing the physical universe use the concept of a system. It can be argued that it fits Kuhn's concept of a paradigm.

People are routinely described as the most important asset of an organisation. There is, however, considerable evidence that people are managed poorly in many workplaces. This paper explores the importance of the fair and effective management of people at work and suggests some benchmarks to assist in the assessment of HRM in organisations. It surveys workplace experience and indicates some common barriers to good HRM, concluding with some suggestions for strategy to embed high quality people management in our workplaces.

In this paper, we contend that business education could benefit from attention to a field of study concerned with the way in which adults learn, and their motivation as students. We warrant the assertion that, although university business faculty tend to present a conventional wisdom set in the traditional paradigm(s) of their discipline areas, there is growing need for managers and academics to reject the concept of certainty, and to be open to conflicting values, change, uncertainty, and continuous learning. Conformity to a central paradigm requires that any ideas that stray from the established path be ignored, but emerging paradigms in business theory and research increase the urgency of the need for significant changes in the traditional curriculum and methodology of business education. We consider it long overdue for students of organisations, including current and future practitioners, to participate in the dialogue and benefit from new approaches, which will challenge the community of business academics to redesign both the content and the methodology of courses.

The growing trend towards IT outsourcing within the United Kingdom (UK) public sector is analysed. Factors influencing the degree of success experienced in a range of IT outsourcing deals are detailed, and then used as a framework for analysing and discussing two case histories — of selective and large-scale IT outsourcing — drawn from different parts of the public sector. Both examples demonstrate how distinctive public sector contexts influence the direction and degree of outsourcing. At the same time, they highlight a range of managerial and organisational issues raised by moves towards contractual, core competence forms of organising. Selective outsourcing is revealed as effective provided key decisions and actions are taken. The large-scale outsourcing case raises a number of critical issues not just for how it can be conducted in public sector contexts, but also about the efficacy of such arrangements in terms of cost savings, possible over-dependence on a few suppliers, and ability to respond flexibly to changing political requirements and legislation.

Little is known about the extent to which the Marketing Decision Support System (MDSS) technology is currently used in Australia, or about the scope for the technology in Australia towards the year 2000. This paper reports the results of recent survey research into MDSS in Queensland by industry sector (agriculture and mining, manufacturing, construction, and services). The results suggest that there is an urgent need to boost the pace of MDSS development in all industry sectors, and that this should be given a high priority in government policy initiatives to enhance Australia's competitive advantage. It is possible, otherwise, that the present gap in information usage between Australia and its competitors will widen, with consequent negative implications for the nation's current account deficit, foreign debt and unemployment.

China has adopted economic reform and an open door policy and decided to establish a socialist market economy, which has not only strengthened her economic power and accelerated her modernization process, but also promoted her educational development and reform. The development of MBA graduate education in China is a very good example of this. However, it has taken quite a long time for the MBA program to receive attention from government, industry, business circles, colleges and universities and people from all walks of life. On the one hand, the development of the MBA program in China shows that the economic reform and modernization process have had a great effect on the demand for qualified personnel; on the other hand, the MBA program suits the design of China's market economic system and promotes China's social and economic development.