Dr Megan Paull

Studies of workplace bullying have only recently commenced exploration of the role and influence of bystanders. Even when bystanders are aware of bullying taking place, they do not directly intervene, and intervention is not the only role they can play. This study, part of a larger project to examine cross-cultural differences in workplace bullying, used online story-based questions to seek to understand bystander actions in workplace bullying scenarios. While limited in its scope, the study confirms a need for more in-depth research into the responses of bystanders to workplace bullying, and to the possibilities for empowering bystanders to take action for and on behalf of targets.

Social behaviour, its origins, development, and manifestation are the foundation upon which the game of life and survival are built. The biological and inherited basis for behaviour as seen in the natural world can provide valuable insights into how people behave and organise themselves at work. One or more individuals can rise above all others by displaying ‘social supremacy’. Conflict, competition, the fight for dominance, leadership and survival, are as apparent in the natural world as in modern organisations where colleagues jostle for power, position and place. Even within socially cohesive societies, structure, hierarchy and cooperation are required to ensure effective functioning of the group. The end result could be the continuation of the business for humans, or the survival of individuals or groups within animal communities. This paper focuses on the ‘conflict – cooperation’ dimension of work and draws comparisons between social supremacy at work and the natural world.

Global perspectives and interpersonal and intercultural communication competencies are viewed as a priority within Australian higher education. For management educators, globalisation, student mobility and widening pathways present numerous challenges, but afford opportunities for curriculum innovation. The Interaction for Learning Framework (ILF) seeks to help academics introduce curriculum change and increase peer interaction opportunities. Although the framework has many strengths to recommend it, the ILF does not provide a process by which academics can easily evaluate the outcomes produced by its implementation. In this paper, we examine the efficacy of a popular four level training evaluation framework – the Kirkpatrick model – as a way to appraise the outcomes of ILF-based curriculum interventions.

Investment in leadership development programs continues to rise as organisations struggle to develop leaders at all levels. In this study personal reflections from 40 senior leaders completing an almost year-long leadership development program are analysed using an integrated series of content analysis techniques. In examining a corpus of over 50,000 words, the study presents evidence that the use of reflective learning activities has led to the formation of leadership wisdom: a necessary set of attitudes and values, cognitive skills and life experiences that enable individuals to lead in uncertain environments. The paper concludes that reflection is a cornerstone of successful leadership development programs, and adds value to the discourse on successful leadership.

This qualitative study investigated corporate governance and management practices, with a particular focus on communications between the board and senior management, in two disability service organisations in the nonprofit sector. Fifteen interviewees participated across the two case studies and their insights and contributions were thematically analysed. Among the key findings was a significant contrast in communication processes across the two organisations. In one, communications were tightly controlled by the CEO (hourglass-shaped approach) and, in the second, there was a more accessible communication process between the board and senior management. This paper explores these two communication models.

This paper builds on the notion of ‘fair game’ and introduces the concept of ‘sanctioned target’ to examine the mechanism through which an individual or group come to be treated as such. For this study, national culture and values were the backdrop in the exploration of these themes, and data was collected from undergraduate and postgraduate students in four Business Schools in India, Turkey and Australia. Despite the diversity in the cultures studied, qualitative analysis of responses suggest that a number of dimensions seem to be common elements in attributing lower value to an individual or group (in effect making them sanctioned targets) across all three countries. Differences were also detected in the findings, these related to less visible factors that create diversity amongst individuals and groups. Results offer valuable insights for the detection, prevention and management of negative behaviors in workplaces and across national cultures.

This paper is an organisational ethnographic study of the university re-registration process that the SAI (the University) has undergone as part of the new regulatory regime under the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) legislative requirements. This was an arduous and complex ten-month process that resulted in a one hundred and thirty three page application document with more than five hundred and thirty pieces of individual evidence to support the claims being made by the University in responding to the one hundred and two threshold standards. The co-authors were organisationally embedded key actors and this paper is their collective and self-reflective autoethnographic organisational ‘story’ collated into a combined written voice.