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Investigates Indigenous employment from the demand-side by presenting CEO perceptions of their firm's labor market engagement with Indigenous Australians based on a survey conducted in 1999. Employee behavior which result from Australian businesses' lack of human resource management policies; Comparison of the managers' hiring perceptions of Indigenous workers in terms of their education, skills and commitment; Level of satisfaction of CEO concerning their Indigenous workforce.

This article analyzes the growth of Australia-based multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the Asian economies of China, Indonesia and India. Data on the foreign direct investment (FDI) decision, and the operation and performance of subsidiaries, were drawn from mail surveys of Australia-based MNEs. The internationalization of Australian companies has attracted little attention from researchers. In part, this stems from data problems. Official statistics for outward investment date from 1948, and are available only as broad aggregates of portfolio, direct equity, retained earnings and offshore borrowing by domestic corporations. The Australian Bureau of Statistics does not publish or collect firm-level data on the international activities of firms domiciled in Australia. The paucity of research on Australian MNEs also reflects the small scale of offshore investment. Although Australian firms have engaged in FDI since the mid-1850s when colonial banks established London, England offices to facilitate the flow of bullion from the newly discovered Australian gold fields, the levels of outward investment remained miniscule until the 1980s.

This paper tests whether Japanese subsidiaries in Australia were learning organisations. Two strands of MNE theory are presented: dynamic capability and organisational learning models. Japanese MNEs transferred both work and subcontracting practices to their Australian subsidiaries. Statistical tests showed that there were no significant deepening in work practices or subcontracting relationships between 1993 and 1997. Our tests also revealed no long-term learning, measured by changes in work practices and subcontracting relationships for firms who had operated in Australia for more than 10 and less than 10 years. The paper advances explanations of the absence of short-term and long-term learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the decision of the British government to send convicts to prison in Australia. The net benefit calculation involved in sending convicts to Australia depended on three elements: the difference between the costs of keeping convicts in Great Britain and in Australia during their period of servitude; the net output the ex-convicts produced in each country after their release; and the cost of transportation. The second term is the crucial one in the model, largely determining the size of the positive or negative net benefit. As acknowledged, the crucial assumption in attaining his large, positive net benefit calculation was that ex-convicts in Australia produced output, while similar convicts in Britain did not. Finally, it comes to the conclusion that transporting convicts to Australia was justified on the basis of cost alone is based on the flawed assumption that the ex-convicts in England were professional criminals who did not produce output.