This research, conceptualizes, operationalises and empirically tests a competency-based theory of business-partnering performance within an Australian business-partnering context. Drawing on theory from social psychology and marketing, the research integrates a number of theoretical approaches including resource-based theory, competency based theory, relational factors view, relational interaction theory, and competitive advantage theory to explain why some business partnerships are more successful than others are. The results use a ???process model of business-partnering??? performance to explain the interaction process through which business partners exploit the available partnering related ???operant resources??? and how these resources influence the performance of business partnerships and their ability to achieve a competitive advantage. Specifically, this research investigates a number of important internal resources, which facilitate the building, and maintaining of external businesspartner relations including ???joint alliance competence???, ???joint alliance structure???, ???interpersonal relational competence??? and ???market orientation???. This research shows that an adequate understanding of how these ???operant resources??? are deployed/accessed and co-created by the business partners to achieve a competitive advantage requires integration of ???relational interaction theory??? into ???resource-based theory??? and ???competency-based theory???. The results of this research show that those firms that pursue business partnerships as a competitive strategy can improve performance by engaging in a range of activities, which facilitate the building of ???relational capital??? of the partnership. The results provide support for conclusion that ???communication behaviour??? is a central and important mediating variable in the performance of business partnerships. Overall, the findings are consistent with the literature in finding support for the notion that ???joint alliance competence??? is a direct antecedent of businesspartnering performance. There is support for the notion that the partnership???s ability to govern and manage itself is an important determinant of ???communication behaviour??? and ???co-ordination behaviour???. The results identified ???market orientation???, ???co-ordination behaviour??? and ???relational capital??? as all having a direct influence on business-partnership profitability. Finally, given the relatively high failure rates of business partnerships this research provides greater opportunity for a discussion of the kinds of intervention strategies that could be used to minimise the risk of failure and/or to improve partnership performance. Keywords: competency, alliance, business partnership, relationship marketing, businesspartnering competency, relational factors view, resource based view, relational interaction theory, market orientation, interpersonal relational competency, alliance structure, process model.

This research, conceptualizes, operationalises and empirically tests a competency-based theory of business-partnering performance within an Australian business-partnering context. Drawing on theory from social psychology and marketing, the research integrates a number of theoretical approaches including resource-based theory, competency based theory, relational factors view, relational interaction theory, and competitive advantage theory to explain why some business partnerships are more successful than others are. The results use a ???process model of business-partnering??? performance to explain the interaction process through which business partners exploit the available partnering related ???operant resources??? and how these resources influence the performance of business partnerships and their ability to achieve a competitive advantage. Specifically, this research investigates a number of important internal resources, which facilitate the building, and maintaining of external businesspartner relations including ???joint alliance competence???, ???joint alliance structure???, ???interpersonal relational competence??? and ???market orientation???. This research shows that an adequate understanding of how these ???operant resources??? are deployed/accessed and co-created by the business partners to achieve a competitive advantage requires integration of ???relational interaction theory??? into ???resource-based theory??? and ???competency-based theory???. The results of this research show that those firms that pursue business partnerships as a competitive strategy can improve performance by engaging in a range of activities, which facilitate the building of ???relational capital??? of the partnership. The results provide support for conclusion that ???communication behaviour??? is a central and important mediating variable in the performance of business partnerships. Overall, the findings are consistent with the literature in finding support for the notion that ???joint alliance competence??? is a direct antecedent of businesspartnering performance. There is support for the notion that the partnership???s ability to govern and manage itself is an important determinant of ???communication behaviour??? and ???co-ordination behaviour???. The results identified ???market orientation???, ???co-ordination behaviour??? and ???relational capital??? as all having a direct influence on business-partnership profitability. Finally, given the relatively high failure rates of business partnerships this research provides greater opportunity for a discussion of the kinds of intervention strategies that could be used to minimise the risk of failure and/or to improve partnership performance. Keywords: competency, alliance, business partnership, relationship marketing, businesspartnering competency, relational factors view, resource based view, relational interaction theory, market orientation, interpersonal relational competency, alliance structure, process model.

Bibliography: leaves [i]-vi.

This body of work examines the influence of land use on nearshore water quality, and how this can drive changes to algal and invertebrate communities along Australia's southern coastline. The overall aim of the thesis was to investigate links between increasing coastal water-column nitrogen concentrations (derived from terrestrial inputs) and the expansion of turf-forming habitats that can alter the structure and function of subtidal ecosystems. I initially tested whether human activities in coastal catchments can increase subsidies of nitrogen to open rocky coasts. I identified landscape-scale variation in the supply of Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) to coastal waters adjacent to natural, agricultural and urban catchments. Compared to natural catchments, subsidies of DIN were 8 - 407 times greater in urban catchments, and 1 - 63 times greater in agricultural catchments. Subsidies of nitrogen from urban catchments were attributed to the release of sewage effluent, as delineated by δ¹ ⁵N isotopic values of transplanted algae. Having made this link, I then assessed whether catchment-scale variation in nitrogen subsidies may predict patterns of subtidal habitat structure, particularly as related to theories of regime shifts from forested landscapes to structurally depauperate turf-forming habitats. I validated this hypothesis, demonstrating that both relative covers and patch-sizes of turfed habitat were greater where the ratio of terrestrial nitrogen inputs to ambient coastal resources was large. An important realisation was that loss of forests may be more strongly related to the size of subsidy (i.e. the relative increases in water column nitrogen concentrations along urban coasts) rather than the size of coastal populations. Together, these data link coastal development with modified land-to-sea subsidies, and indirectly support the model that ecological effects may be proportional to the disparity between donor and recipient resources. Having demonstrated a link between nitrogen subsidies and subtidal habitat change, I then investigated factors likely to initiate and maintain such shifts. My results demonstrate that nutrient elevation can alter the natural phenology of turfs, sustaining dense covers throughout periods of natural senescence (winter). Perennial turf covers are able to accumulate large volumes of sediment; a synergy can impede the winter recruitment of canopy-forming species (kelps and fucoid algae). My observations of reduced forest recovery along urban coasts serve to highlight the complex interaction between elevated nutrients, persistent turf covers and increased sediment accumulation, which can reduce the resilience of coastal ecosystems to disturbance. In recognition that regime shifts are likely to have consequences for higher trophic levels, I compared the diet of invertebrate herbivores from healthy and degraded coastlines using stable isotope analysis (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N). Dietary modelling showed that turfs contributed more to the diet of consumers along degraded coastlines where turfed landscapes have replaced extensive covers of macroalgal forest. Additionally, there were strong correlations between covers of turfed habitat, herbivore diet and relative densities. Changes to ambient food quality associated with regime shift may be an important aspect of nutrient-driven change along human-dominated coastlines. The final component of my thesis redressed some of the uncertainty about restoration initiatives for urban coasts by demonstrating that regime shifts are not necessarily permanent. I showed that turf removal can facilitate the recovery of degraded forests. Future restoration, therefore, is a possible outcome of polices that aim to decouple the link between nutrient inputs and recalcitrant turfed habitats that prevent forest recovery. Initiatives that reduce nutrient discharge to coastal waters (e.g., wastewater recycling) are likely to restore the resilience of nearshore marine ecosystems and promote their rehabilitation. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1473469 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 2009

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis has tried to construct a comprehensive analysis of a clearly defined community of Egyptian Jews in Australia and France, based on the oral history of Egyptian born migrants. Built around the conceptual framework of forced emigration, integration and acculturation, it looks at the successful experience of this particular migrant group within both Australian and French societies. Like the other Jewish communities of Arab lands, the Egyptian Jewish community no longer exists, as it was either expelled or forced into exile in the aftermath of the three Arab-Israeli wars (1948, 1956, 1967). This thesis argues that the rise of an exclusively Arab-Islamic type of nationalism, the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and the escalating Arab-Israeli conflict constituted the fundamental causes for the demise of Egyptian Jewry. As a consequence, almost half of the Jewish population of Egypt went to Israel. The rest dispersed throughout the Western world, mainly in France, North and South America. In Australia, a small group of around 2,000 found a new home. Apart from those who migrated to Israel, the majority of Egyptian Jews experienced a waiting period in Europe before they were accepted by any of the countries of immigration, a period facilitated by international and local Jewish welfare agencies. My interviewees chose Australia mostly to be reunited with family members. They first had to overcome the racial discrimination of the ‘White Australia’ Immigration policy towards Jews of Middle Eastern origin, a hurdle surmounted thanks to the tireless efforts of some leaders of the Australian Jewish community. With their multiple language skills, multi-layered identity and innate ability to interact with a variety of ethnic groups, they succeeded in establishing themselves in an unfamiliar country that initially welcomed them reluctantly. As such, they can be said to have successfully acculturated and integrated into Australian society, whilst retaining their own cultural diversity. The more numerous Egyptian Jews living in France also successfully acculturated. As a larger group, they were better equipped to assert themselves within the older Jewish/French community and retain their distinctive Sephardi culture. Studies such as the present one provide insight into the process of integration and identity reconstruction, as well as the diverse strategies used to ensure a successful acculturation, and the value of a multi-layered identity.

[Truncated abstract] Pressure ulcers affect a substantial proportion of patients admitted to health care services worldwide imposing considerable physical, social and economic burdens on patients and communities. As largely preventable wounds their prevalence is likely to escalate as the life expectancy and incidence of people living longer with other chronic diseases increases. Clinical practice guidelines are promulgated as evidence-based tools to assist clinicians and patients to determine care strategies, reduce inequities in healthcare provision and lower the burden of illness through improved health outcomes. This prospective multi-centre study evaluated the effectiveness of the Australian Wound Management Association?s Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prediction and Prevention of Pressure Ulcers within ten selected Australian tertiary hospitals. The data, collected in 2000, examined pressure ulcer prevalence in a subset of five of these hospitals and junior doctors’ and nurses’ knowledge of pressure ulcers in all ten hospitals at two time points, before and after guideline implementation. Pressure ulcer prevalence was ascertained by two surveyors who independently examined the skin of all consenting adult patients on a designated day. ... In addition, it is recommended that all Australian health care facilities providing in-patient, residential aged or domiciliary care services be required to demonstrate compliance with the Australian Council of Health Care Standards framework for pressure ulcers in order to be an accredited healthcare provider. The use, benefits and cost utility of pressure reducing / relieving devices in the prediction and prevention of pressure ulcers in Australian contexts of care, is required to substantiate current guideline recommendations and assist service providers and clinicians in choosing devices according to patient need. A recommendation will be forwarded to the Australian Wound Management Association suggesting the Association develop a toolkit to facilitate implementation and adoption of their guidelines. It is recommended that training of doctors, nurses and allied health personnel in the prediction, prevention and management of pressure ulcers should be of a higher priority within under-and-postgraduate education programs. From a community perspective and with a view to improving the health of the community, it is proposed that pressure ulcers be the subject of ongoing health promotion campaigns aimed at raising patients’, caregivers’ and community awareness of the potential for pressure ulcers due to the secondary effects of lifestyle related chronic diseases and ensuing reduced levels of immobility.

Thesis (M. Env. Studies)--University of Adelaide, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-118).

Thesis (B.A. Hons.)--University of Adel., 1967. / [Typescript].

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of History, 2005. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-213).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-274).