Search

Purpose: Social procurement is becoming an increasing policy focus for governments around the world as they seek to incentivise new collaborative partnerships with private organisations in industries like construction to meet their social obligations. The limited construction management research in this area shows that the successful implementation of these policies depends on a new generation of social procurement professionals who are promoting these policies into an institutional vacuum with little organisational identity, legitimacy and support. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what these actors do to promote and build support for the implementation of these policies in their organisations. Design/methodology/approach: A thematic analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 social procurement actors in the Australian construction industry is presented. Findings: Results portray an experimental, disconnected and nascent institutional field of practice with a high degree of role ambiguity and conflict. In the absence of a clear organisational identity and legitimate power-base, social procurement actors are forced to rely on incremental rather than radical innovation and the power of stories to persuade others to engage with their vision for creating social value through construction. Originality/value: Contributing new insights to the emerging “practice theme” in social procurement research, this paper provides important conceptual and practical information about the attributes which determine their success, how they fit into existing organisational structures and how they build support to achieve enabling institutional change. Academically, the results advance understanding of how social procurement professionals are implementing these policies into their organisations. Practically, they provide new information which enable social procurement professionals to improve their practices and construction companies to recruit the right people int

Social procurement is re-emerging as an innovative collaborative policy tool for governments around the world to leverage their construction supply chains to help them address intransigent social problems such as long-term unemployment. Such policies challenge deeply rooted institutional norms and structures in the construction industry and research shows that they are being championed by a small and largely undefined group of social procurement professionals who suffer significant role conflict and ambiguity. Contributing new insights to this nascent research, this paper traces etymological definitions of champion roles, merging them with organisational theory to present a new typology of social procurement champions in the construction industry. Drawing on a thematic analysis of snowballed interviews with fifteen recognised champions of social procurement in the Australian construction industry, findings highlight four distinct types of social procurement champion: champions of organisations; champions of the concept; champions of people; and champions of a solution. It is found that there is no one pure type of social procurement champion. Rather, champions have to adapt their social procurement roles to the highly dynamic and varied organisation contexts in which they operate. These findings advance the emerging social procurement debate within and outside construction by highlighting the many different roles which are needed to implement social innovations like social procurement into a project-based industry like construction. It is concluded that organisations which see this as one person’s responsibility are likely to fail in implementing these new policy reforms.

BACKGROUND: Previous research on employee well-being for those who have experienced social and economic disadvantage and those with previous or existing mental health conditions has focused mainly on programmatic interventions. The purpose of this research was to examine how organisational structures and processes (such as policies and culture) influence well-being of employees from these types of backgrounds. METHODS: A case study ethnographic approach which included in-depth qualitative analysis of 93 semi-structured interviews of employees, staff, and managers, together with participant observation of four social enterprises employing young people. RESULTS: The data revealed that young people were provided a combination of training, varied work tasks, psychosocial support, and encouragement to cultivate relationships among peers and management staff. This was enabled through the following elements: structure and space; funding, finance and industry orientation; organisational culture; policy and process; and fostering local service networks.. The findings further illustrate how organisational structures at these workplaces promoted an inclusive workplace environment in which participants self-reported a decrease in anxiety and depression, increased self-esteem, increased self-confidence and increased physical activity. CONCLUSIONS: Replicating these types of organisational structures, processes, and culture requires consideration of complex systems perspectives on implementation fidelity which has implications for policy, practice and future research.

Purpose: This research addresses the lack of project management research into social procurement by exploring the risks and opportunities of social procurement from a cross-sector collaboration perspective. Design/methodology/approach: A content analysis of five focus groups conducted with thirty-five stakeholders involved in the implementation of a unique social procurement initiative on a major Australian construction project is reported. Findings: Results show little collective understanding among project stakeholders for what social procurement policies can achieve, a focus on downside risk rather than upside opportunity and perceptions of distributive injustice about the way new social procurement risks are being managed. Also highlighted is the tension between the collaborative intent of social procurement requirements and the dynamic, fragmented and temporary project-based construction industry into which they are being introduced. Ironically, this can lead to opportunistic behaviours to the detriment of the vulnerable people these policies are meant to help. Practical implications: The paper concludes by presenting a new conceptual framework of project risk and opportunity management from a social procurement perspective. Deficiencies in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) are also highlighted around an expanded project management role in meeting these new project management requirements. Originality/value: Social procurement is becoming increasingly popular in many countries as a collaborative mechanism to ensure construction and infrastructure projects contribute positively to the communities in which they are built. This research addresses the lack of project management research into social procurement by exploring the risks and opportunities of social procurement from a cross-sector collaboration perspective.

There has been a recent proliferation of social procurement policies in Australia that target the construction industry. This is mirrored in many other countries, and the nascent research in this area shows that these policies are being implemented by an emerging group of largely undefined professionals who are often forced to create their own roles in institutional vacuums with little organisational legitimacy and support. By mobilising theories of how organisational champions diffuse innovations in other fields of practice, this paper contributes new insights into the evolving nature of these newly emerging roles and the motivations which drive these professionals to overcome the institutional inertia they invariably face. The results of semi-structured interviews, with fifteen social procurement champions working in the Australian construction industry, indicate that social procurement champions come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and bring diverse social capital to their roles. Linked by a shared sense of social consciousness, these champions challenge traditional institutional norms, practices, supply chain relationships, and traditional narratives about the concepts of value in construction. We conclude that, until normative standards develop around social procurement in the construction industry, its successful implementation will depend on external institutional pressures and the practical demonstration of what is possible in practice within the performative constraints of traditional project objectives.

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Researchers are turning greater attention to the role of social enterprise in addressing health inequities. However, few studies explicate the organizational features through which social enterprise may improve health equities. This article reports on a scoping study that finds researchers are focusing on understanding the perspectives of target beneficiaries, thus examining the ‘transactional’ organizational features that are most apparent in daily life—including interpersonal relationships and the allocation of tasks. The role of ‘transformational’ features—including organizational strategy and leadership—remain relatively unexamined. Given that the transactional and transformational features of organizations are intertwined, future research should develop holistic analyses of organizations that show how social enterprises improve health equities and health equity outcomes.

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Researchers are turning greater attention to the role of social enterprise in addressing health inequities. However, few studies explicate the organizational features through which social enterprise may improve health equities. This article reports on a scoping study that finds researchers are focusing on understanding the perspectives of target beneficiaries, thus examining the ‘transactional’ organizational features that are most apparent in daily life—including interpersonal relationships and the allocation of tasks. The role of ‘transformational’ features—including organizational strategy and leadership—remain relatively unexamined. Given that the transactional and transformational features of organizations are intertwined, future research should develop holistic analyses of organizations that show how social enterprises improve health equities and health equity outcomes.

Emerging social procurement imperatives are driving new forms of cross-sector collaboration between private, public and social enterprise sectors in the construction industry. Yet there is little understanding of how and why social enterprises and private construction firms collaborate in meeting new social procurement imperatives and of the institutional and organizational factors shape these practices. Drawing on theoretical insights from governance, management and policy studies and three case studies of major organizations from across the construction social value chain, the organizational and institutional factors that drive cross-sector collaborations are explored. Documentary analysis of social procurement strategy and policy, non-participant observation of social procurement initiatives in action and in-depth interviews with senior social procurement champions suggest that existing processes of social value co-creation through supply chain relationships more closely reflect a cooperative than a collaborative model, are largely driven by commercial concerns and influenced by industry norms and institutional imperatives. It is concluded that there are significant differences in experience and opportunity for collaboration based on supply chain position and organizational scale and that these have notable effects on the co-creation of social value and the legitimacy of different social benefit providers in the construction industry.

Purpose – This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolutionand institutional drivers.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on secondary analysis of source materials and theexisting literature on social enterprise in Australia. Analysis was verified through consultation with keyactors in the social enterprise ecosystem.Findings – With its historical roots in an enterprising non-profit sector and the presence of cooperative andmutual businesses, the practice of social enterprise in Australia is relatively mature. Yet, the language ofsocial enterprise and social entrepreneurship remains marginal and contested. The nature of social enterpriseactivity in Australia reflects the role of an internally diverse civil society within an economically privilegedsociety and in response to an increasingly residualised welfare state. Australia’s geography and demographyhave also played determining roles in the function and presence of social enterprise, particularly in rural andremote communities.Originality/value – The paper contributes to comparative understandings of social enterprise andprovides the first detailed account of social enterprise development in Australia.Keywords Australia, Social enterprise, Institutional driversPaper type Research paper

The relationship between Australian nonprofit community service providers and government has been the subject of a considerable deal of scholarly and practitioner analysis, mostly directed at analysing its changing nature, deficiencies and suggestions for improvement. Socio-legal analysis of the relationship in Australia is a very modest part of this literature (Carney, Ramia & Yeatman 2001; Finn & Smith 1992; McGregor-Lowndes & Turnour 2003; Meltz 1997). It is quite scant compared to analysis of government-business relations and in particular Public Private Partnerships (PPP) (for example, Carroll& Steane 2000; Duncan 2005; Hodge & Greve 2005).

Despite increasing social, economic and political interest in the growing global marketplace of health and medical tourism, it remains relatively unexamined in sociological and tourism literature. In this paper, I seek to understand health and medical tourism by briefly exploring its history, varying definitions, and contemporary developments. This highlights how health and medical tourism is a subjective practice and embodied experience which, due to increasing options available to tourists, is difficult to classify. Furthermore, as health and medical tourism involves an active body that is not restricted by time and place, it challenges traditional sociological understandings of tourism, which classify tourism as a passive, escapist and leisurely activity that occurs over ‘there’ in contrast to ‘here’.

Globality generates increasingly diffuse networks of human and non-human innovators, carriers and icons of exotic, polyethnic cosmopolitan difference; and this diffusion is increasingly hard to ignore or police (Latour 1993). In fact, such global networks of material-symbolic exchange can frequently have the unintended consequence of promoting status systems and cultural relationships founded on uncosmopolitan values such as cultural appropriation and status-based social exclusion. Moreover, this materialsymbolic engagement with cosmopolitan difference could also be rather mundane, engaged in routinely without any great reflexive consciousness or capacity to destabilise current relations of cultural power, or interpreted unproblematically as just one component of a person’s social environment. Indeed, Beck’s (2006) argument is that cosmopolitanism, in an age of global risk, is being forced upon us unwillingly, so there should be no surprise if it is a bitter pill for some to swallow. Within these emergent cosmopolitan networks, which we call ‘cosmoscapes’, there is no certainty about the development of ethical or behavioural stances consistent with claims foundational to the current literature on cosmopolitanism. Reviewing historical and contemporary studies of globality and its dynamic generative capacity, this paper considers such literatures in the context of studies of cultural consumption and social status. When one positions these diverse bodies of literature against one another, it becomes clear that the possibility of widespread cosmopolitan cultural formations is largely unpromising.

This paper seeks to interrogate the Seachange phenomena by utilising cultural theoretical principles developed by Durkheim (1995[1912]) and later reconceptualised through Smith (1999). It is argued that nature plays a significant role within the Seachange discourse by being ‘sacralised’ against the ‘profane’ metropolis. By interrogating public documentation developed by local councils, it is shown that nature is constructed as ‘pristine’ and ‘untouched’. This is counter-posed against the city which is aesthetically devoid of authenticity or pleasantness. Objects of technology which signify the metropolis then are considered profane and require separation from the natural world. However, the paper shows that through policy innovation, this separation is achieved on an aesthetic, predominantly visual level rather than physically, due to the demands of these areas for services (Gurran, Squires & Blakely, 2006). This occurs through hiding the ‘profane’ objects from the spectacle of nature, or if that is not possible, by blending them aesthetically into the natural surrounds. The paper concludes by examining the manner in which past ‘mundane’ objects such as 19th century infrastructures, are symbolically transformed to represent part of the area’s ‘sacredness’. Thus, the sacred/profane distinction is not fixed and immobile, but can shift according to cultural understandings.

This paper examines the idea of social economy in an era of network governance. In particular, it focuses on recent approaches to social inclusion involving strategic partnerships that combine social and economic objectives. The paper outlines some key themes in both the social economy and network governance literatures, linking them together through the issue of cross-sector joint action. The intention is to highlight the conceptual and empirical challenges this area of research poses. In this regard, we propose some preliminary questions and tentative responses as part of a broader program of research which involves conceptualising and mapping the Australian social economy.

Tensions frequently occur when people and young people seek to make use of a multitude of public spaces (Loader 1996; Brown 1998; White 1999; valentine 2004; Whie and wyn 2008). In Australia over a number of years, various strategies have been adopted by local councils, police and other stakeholders such as business groups, to respond to such tensions. Rarely, if ever, are children and young people involved in meaningful ways in the design and control of public space that reflects their needs and aspirations (white 1999;; Freeman and riordan 2002; Freeman 2006). Deploying the prisms of urban planning and law and order to deal with perceived public space issues impacts adversely on children and young people, contributing to their partial or complete removal from public space (Harris 2006; Waiton 2001). The provisional matrix presented here draws on existing material advocating child rights, extending these rights to unclude young people, as there are few frameworks of rights that are tryly inclusive of young people (Skelton 2007).

This paper briefly summarises1 findings from a South Australian study that examined whether Judges' decisions to sentence offenders to imprisonment differed between Indigenous and non-Indigenous offenders when they appeared before the court under similar circumstances. Results showed that Indigenous offenders were less likely than their non-Indigenous counterparts to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment when appearing before the court under seemingly similar circumstances. Focal concerns (attribution) perspectives are used to explore these findings.

Place identification in urban sociology has traditionally be associated with a sense of ‘being at home’ and connected to the formation of stable and fixed identities. The rise in transnational migration and the increasing number of refugees around the world has made particular regions and communities, within many western nations, culturally diverse. This has led to a re-conceptualisation and re-examination of the relationship between place and home. In light of this new paradigm I explore the existence of multicultural places and investigate the ways, if any, we can speak of ‘being at home’ in these diverse urban places. If home has been traditionally associated with order, sameness and identity while multicultural places are conceptualised in terms of fluidity, contingency, heterogeneity and difference then there seems to be an inherent tension between these two ideas. Are the ideas of home and multiculturalism mutually exclusive? I maintain that they are dialectically interwoven, especially when we acknowledge that otherness and home should not be conceived in binary terms. In order to examine this complex relationship the paper provides a brief discussion of home within the discourses of modernity and postmodernity and then links these discourses to phenomenological and sociological approaches to home. The concluding section demonstrates how home and otherness are expressed in intercultural moments where sameness and diversity rub against each other causing occasional friction but also moments of intercultural dialogue.

Postmodern society frequently presents new technologies and ways of doing things. The definition of community has been reshaped by the impact of globalisation. Distances have been reduced by people’s ability to access various types of technology. Many nations foster Lifelong Learning because education is believed to be ‘one of the principal means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development’ (Delors 1996: un). Networking among communities and/or stakeholders links social and educational resources. In Victoria, initiatives such as the Local Learning and Employment Network (LLEN) have resulted in networks of local stakeholders to scaffold the school to work transition. Schools, Adult Community Education (ACE) providers and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) providers have networked to provide alternative pathways to further education or work for young people in years 11 and 12. However, despite the intent of lifelong learning to overcome exclusion and increase social capital, Bauman (1998) indicates that the freedoms of postmodernity may result in feelings of powerlessness, as previously secure spaces become destabilised. This paper, drawing on the theories of Bauman, discusses some consequences that the shifting of local and global boundaries has on communities and asks if lifelong learning meets the challenges of postmodernity.

Beyond the limited efficiency and economy goals of neoliberal health policy lies the promise of genuine health services reform. In maternity care in particular, recent policy developments have sought to make the management of birth more ‘women-centred and family-friendly’. Interprofessional collaboration and greater consumer participation in policy and decision-making are key means to achieve this goal, but changing the entrenched system of medicalised birth remains difficult. Recent social contestation of maternity care has destabilised but not eradicated pervasive medical hegemony. Further reform requires analysis both of institutionalised patterns of power, and attention to the fluidity and situated knowledge shaping organisational and professional practices. Accordingly, this paper outlines a framework with which to explore the multi-layered social processes involved in implementing organisational and cultural change in maternity care. Analysis of social interventions in health systems, we suggest, can be advanced by drawing on strands from critical organization studies, complexity and critical discourse theories and social practice approaches.

Current government policy in Victoria, as elsewhere, is seeking to change the provision of maternity care from an obstetric-led system to a flatter, more collaborative system that brings midwives to the front line as primary carers, at least in the public sector. However, dominant medical discourses continue to exert a sedimentary effect on contesting claims from midwives that deny the high-risk nature of the majority of births and which valorise the competence of the female body. Although there have been modifications in maternity arrangements (and the incumbent government is currently considering more), medical discourses continue to legitimate obstetric power via legal and professional structures, fortify the obstetric ‘habitus’, infect mainstream popular consciousness and undermine autonomous midwifery practice. Drawing from research material gleaned from in-depth interviews with nine obstetricians and thirty midwives conducted in 2004 and 2005, I argue that alternative discourses may strategically undermine obstetric dominance. Specifically, reversing stereotypes; inverting the binary opposition and privileging the subordinate term (or substituting the negative for positive); and defamiliarizing what is perceived to be fixed and given, all play on the ambiguities of representation and present social activists (midwives, childbirth educators and women) with valuable opportunities to challenge fundamentalist medical orthodoxies.

The increasing use of online technologies, including ‘virtual worlds’ such as Second Life, provides sociology with a transformed context within which to ply creative research approaches to ongoing social issues, such as the ‘bystander effect’. While the ‘bystander effect’ was coined following a real-life incident, the concept has been researched primarily through laboratory-based experiments. The relationship between ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ world environments and human behaviours are, however, unclear and warrant careful attention and research. In this paper we outline existing literature on the applicability of computer-simulated activity to real world contexts. We consider the potential of Second Life as a research environment in which ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ human responses are potentially more blurred than in real-life or a laboratory setting. We describe preliminary research in which unsolicited Second Life participants faced a situation in which they could have intervened. Our findings suggest the existence of a common perception that formal regulators were close at hand, and that this contributed to the hesitation of some people to personally intervene in the fraught situation. In addition to providing another angle on the ‘bystander effect’, this research contributes to our understanding of how new technologies might enable us to conduct social research in creative ways.

Youth and risk are artefacts of expertise, constructed at the intersection of a wide range of knowledges about Youth and so-called Youth issues: an intersection marked by institutionalised, scientific representations of education, family, the life course, risk, and so on. In this paper I suggest that the messiness of human experiences and existence requires knowledge practices in the social sciences that can rethink what counts as truth. These interests – which are grounded in the knowledge practices that frame the work being undertaken in a large scale, qualitative investigation of the cultural drivers shaping the alcohol practices of 14 to 24 year old Australian’s - will be addressed through a discussion of the ways in which Tim Winton’s (2008) new novel Breath can be read as an allegorical tale about the terror of being ordinary: and of the teenage years as being a time in a life in which the fear of being ordinary compels Winton’s key characters to seek out, sometimes stumble upon, and embrace that which promises to make their’s a life less ordinary. In these recollections risk is something that breathes energy and purpose into lifeworlds that are dominated by the institutionalised ordinariness of family, school, and work.

This article explores the role of sociology in understanding the phenomenon of online dating. Based on an examination of our qualitative study of 23 online daters, combined with the findings of the small number of other empirical studies available, we argue that further sociological consideration of the online dating phenomenon is required to: illuminate the social conditions informing these activities; enhance knowledge of if, and how, online technologies mediate intimate connections; and advance a critically informed understanding of the nature of intimacy in a global era.

Exploration of issues relating to commercialisation within the nonprofit sector.

Decline of community and atteuation of social ties in contemporary urbanism

This article presents a reflective case study analysis of an attempt to enhance student learning through the introduction of student-centred teaching methods in a masters-level social research methods subject. The introduction of a range of specific techniques, including case study teaching, problem based learning, groupwork, role-play and simulation, is reflected upon. The article concludes that the re-orientation of the curriculum toward student-centredness in this case had a positive effect on student performance, learning experience and subject evaluation. In particular, the use of student-centred techniques facilitated a strong social context for learning, and provided students with a common experiential framework from which to explore the technical aspects of the curriculum. However, the analysis also found that students continued to place value on more formal teaching methods, and that the value of student-centred techniques in this case rested in the way in which they were integrated with more didactic teaching practice.