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This paper critically examines the influence of information technology (IT) on women’s career structures. Globalization is forcing an increasing inter‐dependence of radically re‐engineered labour forces and the further “internal” exploitation of the internationalization of the dual labour market many women have endured. The global trend is towards further fragmenting a shrinking, gender‐based set of career opportunities and creating an increasingly marginalized, part‐time, “pink collar” labour force, associated with the putative revolution of the tertiary sector transforming out of industrial, manufacturing economies. The implications of the emergence of a “pink collar” labour force largely go unexamined. The much heralded argument that IT will transform “coercive” organizational structures and work practices needs, yet again, to be critically examined in the context of the further destruction of professional opportunities for women in radically re‐engineered public sectors, aggressively “micro‐economized” labour forces and rapidly dissipating organizational and social contracts.

Examines access to justice, within the Australian context of an adversarial system, from a consumer’s perspective. It is argued that the current system of justice represents the most conservative element of Australian society and that the courtroom discourse structure and the legal professional code of practice do little to ensure access to justice or quality of service. Inequality in communication and in the distribution of wealth, affecting all spheres of social life, especially the legal system, pose major barriers to access to justice. Stemming from these two principal barriers to equality in access to justice, a multitude of other barriers are perceived to exist. These perceived barriers are magnified by various platforms of social and political analysis as well as historical, contextual factors and administrative action. Attention is drawn to the emerging need for a continuous alignment of administrative and justice systems with democratic justice principles and global social changes.

With ever greater needs to account for the demands and desires of multiple stakeholders, it is proposed that governance considerations need, as much, to apply to the application of IS/IT challenges as to the whole corporation. The arguments for greater governance attention in the IS/IT arena are presented. Two key models of governance are highlighted, the control and stakeholder models. It is concluded that the stakeholder philosophy to governance will become pre‐eminent in the future.

In recent decades, there have been far too many examples of the world’s business being not sufficiently attentive to governance, with little foresight as to emerging consequences, such as major oil spills, chemical leaks and Enron. Many leaders do not seem to address issues beyond short‐term profitability. The emerging worldwide view is that corporations need to adopt governance models that are more holistic in their approach, pluralistic in representing varying interests, egalitarian in the treatment of stakeholders and essentially more collaborative in their mode of operation. Corporate leaders must emerge more cognitively, emotively and behaviourally reflexive. Such reflexivity comes through the application of practical wisdom to facilitate corporate change. Fully realising value from the board of directors as the guide of the organisation, and specifically from non executive directors (NEDs) is crucial to enduring sustainable change. NEDs’ abilities to span the boundary between the needs and wants of a variety of legitimate stakeholders and the survival requirements of the firm poses a unique management development challenge. NEDs who effectively provide holistic and reflexive insight into the challenges of corporate systems are likely to enhance organisational, societal and environmental wellbeing. Through reflexivity, well skilled and capable NEDs can stimulate the desire to change in the leadership of the organisation and may, as such, prevent future crisis. Towards this end, this presentation will examine how NEDs can leverage their role to promote corporate social performance.

Following an overview of the leadership arena, examines completely the lesser explored concept of discretionary leadership with the view that the phenomenon of downsized, delayered organizations will demand even greater discretionary choices and behaviour from the executives and thereby testing the togetherness concept of co‐operation, sharing and working together. A benchmarking survey of the Australian Public Service (benchmarked against a private sector and health management sector database) emphasizes the point of creeping fragmentation in organizations and highlights that the capabilities of cohesion, quality dialogue and cabinet responsibility will be demanded even more from the leadership of today’s organization. Gives attention to understanding, practising and developing today’s private and public sector leaders in the capabilities of discretionary leadership.

States that the major reasons for difficulties in cross‐cultural communication stem from the fact that actors from different cultures have different understandings regarding the interaction process and different styles of dialogue. Suggests that better understanding of communication within other cultures is the key to success. Uses past literature to suggest a number of cultural variability constructs concerning preferred interaction behaviours and the common themes they share. Presents three case studies to illustrate this.

To meet the information processing needs of the new global organisation, IS/IT managers and their IS/IT staff need to develop new skills, so that they may be more focused on the business rather than on technical processes. In exploring the theme of the changing role and contribution of the IS/IT professional, this monograph provides a literature analysis of the changing skills of IS/IT professionals and identifies the new skills and competencies required for successful IS/IT development and utilisation. The monograph also presents capability‐related models that have been tested in two global corporations. The results of the two case studies suggest that there is a need for improvement in the area of IS/IT leadership for effective IS/IT development and utilisation. Strategies for developing IS/IT leadership capabilities are discussed at the end of the monograph.

Leadership philosophy is explored through gender and other demographic characteristics in the Australian Public Service (APS), at the federal government level. Leadership philosophy is conceptualised as the leader’s attitudes, values and behaviour. Gender differences in characteristics of leaders (executives and middle managers) are examined in terms of strategic behaviour, management style, work‐related values, adoption of information technology, perceived organisational morale, family/work conflict and personal, work and family satisfaction. The gender differences are investigated using questionnaire responses from a sample of 750 respondents, of which 569 were male and 145 female. The APS findings are compared with a Cranfield study conducted in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), where gender differences are explored in terms of management and strategic orientation. A sample of 515 chief executives, medical, clinical, HR and financial directors, chairpersons and other non‐executive directors, consists of 406 male and 108 female respondents. The APS study reveals that there are no significant gender differences in the majority of measured characteristics. Similarly in the NHS Trusts study, no significant gender differences are found in terms of management and strategic orientation. The conclusion reached is that other demographic characteristics are influential in forming leadership philosophies, namely job and organisational tenure and experience of senior management responsibilities, thus highlighting the importance of organisational demographics and their impact on leadership attitudes and practice.

This paper explores the effects of information technology (IT) on the eve of the third millennium, and its ramifications for labour organization, business and culture. IT is conceptualized as a catalyst for a period of seminal change within the global economy. The lack of IT awareness, social diversity and the need to tap the creative synergy of socio‐cultural differences, through the better understanding of IT effects on culture are highlighted. A need for self‐reflection and a critical examination of adopted management models, especially those within embedded ethnocentric contexts of shared beliefs, values and cognitive structures, are also explored. It is argued that organizations need to learn to manage cultural diversity. The need for development of organizational ideologies that build on cognitive structures, culturally sensitized to diversity, is central to a generic strategy for managing increasingly culturally diversified organizations comprising the globalized economy in the third millennium.