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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 26 August 2022

Heather Douglas and Robin Fitzgerald

Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is a dangerous form of domestic violence. We need to understand and address the challenges of prosecuting offences of NFS to help ensure the safety…

Abstract

Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is a dangerous form of domestic violence. We need to understand and address the challenges of prosecuting offences of NFS to help ensure the safety of women and children. This policy brief draws on an examination of prosecution case files involving NFS. It identifies the key challenges and makes recommendations for responding to them.

Details

Emerald Open Research, vol. 1 no. 13
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-3952

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 April 2018

Heather Douglas, Buriata Eti-Tofinga and Gurmeet Singh

This study aims to examine the geographic, historical and institutional influences on social enterprise in a small Pacific island country.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the geographic, historical and institutional influences on social enterprise in a small Pacific island country.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on theoretical literature and factual materials published by reputable sources and based on local knowledge of the authors, the study considers how Fiji’s location; history; and social, economic, political and cultural institutions affect social enterprise.

Findings

Social enterprise is influenced by Fiji’s remote location and small economy, which reduces access to external information and suggests that the nation is slow to embrace new ideas. Fiji’s demographics, ethnic divisions and cultural arrangements create economic and political tensions that affect how support services and economic policies are delivered. Indians were brought to Fiji under the British colonial administration, and Fijians with Indian heritage now make up almost 40% of the population. Informal separation and growing tensions between these Fijian Indian citizens and indigenous Fijians have contributed to political instability. The resulting outmigration of skilled nonindigenous people has reduced levels of human capital and expertise. This limits Fiji’s capacity to innovate, including developing a robust social enterprise sector. Although social enterprise could be a very effective way to address social and economic problems in Fiji, it seems unlikely that the government will embrace the concept without support and encouragement from external sources, especially international aid and UN agencies.

Research limitations/implications

Generalisability is not assumed with this study, as it examines only one Pacific island country; however, it is likely that the findings will apply in other small Pacific island countries having similar cultural arrangements.

Practical implications

This paper offers information that will assist practitioners, researchers and policymakers in understanding and negotiating complexities of the institutional environment in remote locations, especially in small Pacific island countries.

Originality/value

As one of the first studies of a small Pacific island country, this paper extends scholarship in this region and adds to the current understandings of social enterprise. In particular, the paper adds valuable, new knowledge of the effects of geographic location, political instability and cultural and ethnic divisions. This study is likely to be relevant for other small countries in isolated locations, especially those in the Pacific region with similar cultural environments.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 14 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 November 2017

Jo Barraket, Heather Douglas, Robyn Eversole, Chris Mason, Joanne McNeill and Bronwen Morgan

This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolution and institutional drivers.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolution and institutional drivers.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on secondary analysis of source materials and the existing literature on social enterprise in Australia. Analysis was verified through consultation with key actors in the social enterprise ecosystem.

Findings

With its historical roots in an enterprising non-profit sector and the presence of cooperative and mutual businesses, the practice of social enterprise in Australia is relatively mature. Yet, the language of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship remains marginal and contested. The nature of social enterprise activity in Australia reflects the role of an internally diverse civil society within an economically privileged society and in response to an increasingly residualised welfare state. Australia’s geography and demography have also played determining roles in the function and presence of social enterprise, particularly in rural and remote communities.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to comparative understandings of social enterprise and provides the first detailed account of social enterprise development in Australia.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 13 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 May 2018

Buriata Eti-Tofinga, Gurmeet Singh and Heather Douglas

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships and influences of change enablers for social enterprises in organizations undergoing cultural change.

1271

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships and influences of change enablers for social enterprises in organizations undergoing cultural change.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected through a survey of social enterprises in two Pacific Island nations, and analyzed with Pearson and regression analyses.

Findings

The study finds that social enterprises are better equipped to implement cultural change when they exploit a robust entrepreneurial capability while optimizing strategic, financial and adaptive capabilities. These capabilities should be aligned with the enterprise’s culture and processes associated with transitioning the organizational culture to access resources and achieve its mission. Based on these results, a Cultural Change Enabling (CCE) Framework is proposed to help social enterprises leverage the dynamic interactions between the enterprise, its capabilities and environment, and organizational change processes.

Practical implications

Using the CCE Framework will benefit leaders of public benefit organizations, including social enterprises, to identify their capabilities, and develop an enabling culture to advance their trading activities and social mission so that social enterprises might operate sustainably.

Originality/value

As one of the first studies to examine the readiness for organizational change in social enterprises, this study provides new insights on the capabilities for organizational change, and the dynamics of organizations undergoing cultural transformation.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 31 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2018

Heather Douglas, Buriata Eti-Tofinga and Gurmeet Singh

This paper aims to examine the contributions of hybrid organisations to wellbeing in small Pacific island countries.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the contributions of hybrid organisations to wellbeing in small Pacific island countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The concept and different forms of hybrid organisations are examined, and then the operation and contributions to wellbeing of three Fijian hybrid organisations are considered.

Findings

Hybrid organisations in this region operate with a commitment to the common good and an ethic of care. Fijian hybrid organisations improve social and economic wellbeing for individuals, families and communities by providing employment, schools and training facilities, financial and support services, sustainable agriculture projects and facilitating networking. These services improve individual and community social and economic wellbeing, build resilience, add to personal and family security, offer opportunities for the future, advance leadership skills and sustain the environment. Commercial activities that support these organisations in their wellbeing endeavours include product sales, service fees, project levies and investment income.

Research limitations/implications

Generalisability beyond the Pacific region is not assured, as this review only examines hybrid organisations in small Pacific island countries.

Practical implications

Hybrid organisations offer an alternative pathway to achieve a sustainable enterprise economy, an approach that is more culturally relevant for the Pacific region. Policies to nurture the development of these organisations, and research into the startup, operation, impact and effectiveness of different hybrid organisation models would help to improve wellbeing in this region. International charities and aid agencies could advance the wellbeing of people living in this region by supporting the development of hybrid organisations. External agencies seeking to support hybrid organisation development are advised to consider providing funding through a regional agency rather than engaging directly with national governments.

Social implications

Developing a robust hybrid organisation sector will improve social and economic wellbeing for people living in small island nations.

Originality/value

As one of the first studies to examine wellbeing and hybrid organisations, this review adds to hybrid business theory by its consideration of small Pacific island countries. The authors add to existing understandings of how hybrid organisations contribute to social and economic wellbeing for individuals, families and communities. The review identifies each form hybrid organisational form adopts. Each has a central commitment to generating social and economic value but different revenue sources. The review adds valuable new knowledge to the limited scholarship of this region by identifying the philosophical foundations and contributions to wellbeing of these hybrid organisations. A future research agenda and policy development process is proposed to improve wellbeing and advance hybrid organisations in the region.

Details

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8021

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2017

Buriata Eti-Tofinga, Heather Douglas and Gurmeet Singh

The purpose of this paper is to examine how leadership is shaped by a changing cultural context.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how leadership is shaped by a changing cultural context.

Design/methodology/approach

This is an exploratory study based on semi-structured interviews with leaders of Fijian cooperatives.

Findings

The political and cultural environment in Fiji has changed over time, and these changing arrangements shape expectations of what is considered to be appropriate leadership in Fijian cooperatives. To be consistent with changing societal values, leaders of Fijian cooperatives employ a context-sensitive hybrid leadership style in which legitimacy is an important dimension.

Research implications

Researchers need to examine the cultural context as a dynamic influencing element of leadership.

Practical implications

Leaders of cooperatives and similar values-based organizations would benefit from applying a legitimate and context-sensitive hybrid leadership style.

Originality/value

This study contributes new understandings of the cultural influences on organizational leadership.

Details

European Business Review, vol. 29 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-534X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2016

Jane Farmer, Tracy De Cotta, Katharine McKinnon, Jo Barraket, Sarah-Anne Munoz, Heather Douglas and Michael J. Roy

This paper aims to explore the well-being impacts of social enterprise, beyond a social enterprise per se, in everyday community life.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the well-being impacts of social enterprise, beyond a social enterprise per se, in everyday community life.

Design/methodology/approach

An exploratory case study was used. The study’s underpinning theory is from relational geography, including Spaces of Wellbeing Theory and therapeutic assemblage. These theories underpin data collection methods. Nine social enterprise participants were engaged in mental mapping and walking interviews. Four other informants with “boundary-spanning” roles involving knowledge of the social enterprise and the community were interviewed. Data were managed using NVivo, and analysed thematically.

Findings

Well-being realised from “being inside” a social enterprise organisation was further developed for participants, in the community, through positive interactions with people, material objects, stories and performances of well-being that occurred in everyday community life. Boundary spanning community members had roles in referring participants to social enterprise, mediating between participants and structures of community life and normalising social enterprise in the community. They also gained benefit from social enterprise involvement.

Originality/value

This paper uses relational geography and aligned methods to reveal the intricate connections between social enterprise and well-being realisation in community life. There is potential to pursue this research on a larger scale to provide needed evidence about how well-being is realised in social enterprises and then extends into communities.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2021

Behnam Abedin, Heather Douglas, Jason Watson and Reihaneh Bidar

Small social enterprises (SEs) face many challenges as they seek to secure their survival, sustainability and performance, but little is known about the interrelations among these…

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Abstract

Purpose

Small social enterprises (SEs) face many challenges as they seek to secure their survival, sustainability and performance, but little is known about the interrelations among these challenges and how these SEs might mitigate their challenges by using online platforms.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the results of 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with founders of small SEs in Australia, the authors present two integrative frameworks: one demonstrates how different challenges directly or indirectly influence SE performance, and the other represents the linkage between online platforms use and SE performance.

Findings

The authors’ findings indicate that SEs face social, economic and organizational challenges, and that SEs use online platforms to mitigate these challenges and improve their performance. Online platforms enable these enterprises to identify funding opportunities, recruit staff and volunteers, connect with other SEs, form partnerships, promote their organization, market their products and services, and avoid competition and duplication in their ecosystem.

Research limitations/implications

The authors provide a guiding model for further research on using online platforms to mitigate challenges for small enterprises to improve performance. This study advances current understanding of why some SEs fail to thrive, while others survive, flourish and grow.

Originality/value

The authors’ study advances the resource-based view by identifying how online platforms offer a valuable resource to improve SE performance, and assist managers to maintain the strategic direction of their enterprise.

Details

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 72 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0401

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 July 2020

Melissa Bull, Kerry Carrington and Laura Vitis

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global policy issue with significant social, economic and personal consequences. The burden of VAWGs is distributed unequally, with…

Abstract

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global policy issue with significant social, economic and personal consequences. The burden of VAWGs is distributed unequally, with rates of gender violence significantly higher in low- to middle-income countries of the Global South. Yet the bulk of global research on gender violence is based on the experiences of urban communities in high-income English-speaking countries mainly from the Global North. This body of research typically takes the experience of women from Anglophone countries as the norm from which to theorise and frame theories and research of gender-based violence. This chapter problematises theories that the privilege women in the Global North as the empirical referents of ‘everyday violence’ (Carrington et al., 2016). At the same time, however, it is important to resist homogenising the violence experienced by women across diverse societies in the Global South as oppressed subaltern Southern. This binary discourse exaggerates the differences and obfuscates the similarities of VAWG across Northern and Southern borders and reproduces images of women in the Global South as unfortunate victims of ‘other’ cultures (Durham, 2015; Narayan, 1997). This chapter contrasts three examples, the policing of family violence in Indigenous communities in Australia; Image-based Abuse in Singapore; and the policing of gender violence in the Pacific as a way of concretising the argument.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Feminism, Criminology and Social Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-956-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 June 2005

Samantha Punch

Although there has been much psychological research about children's sibling relations, it has been a neglected area of study in sociology (exceptions are Brannen et al., 2000;…

Abstract

Although there has been much psychological research about children's sibling relations, it has been a neglected area of study in sociology (exceptions are Brannen et al., 2000; Kosonen, 1996; Mauthner, 2002). This paper, based on empirical research on siblings in Scotland, explores the nature of the generational power structure within families from children's perspectives. Childhood is a relational concept which forms part of the generational order. Alanen explains this as “a complex set of social processes through which people become (are constructed as) ‘children’ while other people become (are constructed as) ‘adults’” (2001, pp. 20, 21). Generational processes shape the nature of child-parent relations (Mayall, 2002). Alanen states that:one position (such as the parental position) cannot exist without the other (child) position; also what parenting is – that is, action in the position of a parent – is dependent on its relation to the action “performed” in the child position, and a change in one part is tied to change in the other (Alanen, 2001, p. 19).In other words, child-parent relations are based on the understanding that childhood is relational with parenthood (see also Mayall, 2002). Alanen (2001) argues that the social construction of childhood and adulthood involves a process, including the agency of both children and adults, which she refers to as a set of “practices”:It is through such practices that the two generational categories of children and adults are recurrently produced and therefore they stand in relations of connection and interaction, of interdependence (Alanen, 2001, p. 21).These practices of generationing may be “childing” practices through which people are constructed as children or “adulting” practices through which a distinct adult position is produced. The ways in which children in the present study talked about the differences between their relationships with their parents and their siblings indicated that there are a range of generationing practices that take place within families. They referred to particular kinds of behaviour that were acceptable to engage in with other children (in this case with their siblings) but not with their parents. Overwhelmingly the key issue which children highlighted as distinct between their relations with parents and siblings was the differential nature of power in these relationships. Whilst it is not surprising that children perceive the distribution of power to be more unequal between children and parents than between siblings, the aim of this paper is to explore the nature of this power and how it is experienced from children's point of view. In particular the paper discusses the ways in which children perceive child-parent relations compared with their sibling relationships in relation to the giving and receiving of power within the home.

Details

Sociological Studies of Children and Youth
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-183-5

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