Strategic alliance research emerged to explain alliance formation based upon transaction cost minimisation and opportunism reduction. Later research, and early research from Japan, emphasised the role of alliances in facilitating the transfer of knowledge between organisations. Most recently, alliance research has focussed on the development of shared, potentially idiosyncratic, resource stocks. This paper builds on this recent research, testing the proposition that alliances are important vehicles allowing firms to access or acquire external resources, hence shoring up capability gaps and building new capabilities as required during firm, product and industry life cycles. Using a sample from Australian manufacturing small-and-medium-sized enterprises, the paper reveals that alliances employed by firms can be viewed as initiatives to either fill a gap in the firm's resource stock or to exploit a perceived opportunity in its operational and strategic environment.

Objective. This study examines the relationships between job satisfaction and organisational justice during a time of transformational change. Methods. Data collection occurred immediately before a major regional hospital's move to a greenfield site. Existing measures of job satisfaction and organisational justice were used. Data were analysed (n = 316) using descriptive, correlation and regression methods together with interactions between predictor variables. Results. Correlation coefficients for satisfaction and organisational justice variables were high and significant at the P < 0.001 level. Results of a robust regression model (adjusted R2 = 0.568) showed all three components of organisational justice contributed significantly to employee job satisfaction. Interactions between the predictor variables showed that job satisfaction increased as the interactions between the predictor variables increased. Conclusions. The finding that even at a time of transformational change staff perceptions of fair treatment will in the main result in high job satisfaction extends the literature in this area. In addition, it was found that increasing rewards for staff who perceive low levels of organisational justice does not increase satisfaction as much as for staff who perceive high levels of fairness. If people feel negative about their role, but feel they are well paid, they probably still have negative feelings overall.

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) electricity systems are part of Australia's energy supply matrix. In the case of New South Wales (NSW), the state government has had to deal with a complex policy problem. In order to play its role in the federal Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, the NSW government initiated the 7 year Solar Bonus Scheme in 2010. However, in attempting to maximise community investment in small-scale solar PV systems, it relied on faulty financial modelling that applied a generous Feed-in Tariff (FiT) and underestimated the level of investor participation and installed capacity. Consequently, the scheme has resulted in very high public costs that will require policy changes that bring investors and energy retailers into conflict, and unpopular electricity retail price adjustments. This paper uses a structured case and stakeholder analysis to critically analyse the FiT policy, while also highlighting important lessons for policymakers engaging in FiT design.

The goal of this study is to illustrate the variance pattern of competitive advantage. On the basis of an a priori model drawing on the Schumpeterian factors mediating the effects of innovation investment on firm performance, this paper conducts a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause analysis on the intertemporal competitive advantage. The results suggest that the composition of sustainable competitive advantage is a series of short-term advantages. Either sustaining or creating competitive advantage requires concomitant interaction between innovation and effective market engagement. This paper highlights innovative efficiency of such interaction as an influence on a firm's evolution of market fitness in the marketplace.

How firms determine the pay of their executive employees is a vital research area. In the Australian context, mining firms form a large portion of listed companies. These miners tend to have more volatile earnings, operate with less certainty and higher risk in relation to capital investment. We look at a sample of ASX listed miners and non-miners from 2005 to 2013. We note that miners pay their CEOs less (AUD 1 m vs AUD 1.5 m for non-miners) overall. However, we also note that miners tend to use enhanced contingent long-term remuneration arrangements to significantly boost the pay-performance relationship compared to non-miners particularly during the pre-GFC period. Curiously, non-miners tend to have more generous short-term contingent arrangements linking executive pay and performance. The GFC, as an event, has adversely impacted these arrangements, lessening the generosity of pay-performance among miners, while enhancing these arrangements among non-miners. Overall, the results of the study provide support for optimal contracting theory and do not generally support the managerial power approach for both mining and non-mining firms.

Purpose: Employee engagement (EE), supervisor support (SS) and interprofessional collaboration (IPC) are important contributors to patient safety climate (PSC). The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a model that suggests the presence of a three-way interaction effect between EE, IPC and SS in creating a stronger PSC. Design/methodology/approach: Using validated tools to measure EE, SS, IPC and PSC data were collected from a questionnaire of 250 clinical and support staff in an Australian health service. Using a statistical package (SPSS) an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Bivariate correlations between the derived variables were calculated and a hierarchical ordinary least squares analysis was used to examine the interaction between the variables. Findings: This research finds that PSC emerges from synergies between EE, IPC and SS. Modelling demonstrates that the effect of IPC with PSC is the strongest when staff are highly engaged. While the authors expected SS to be an important predictor of PSC; EE has a stronger relationship to PSC. Practical implications: These findings have important implications for the development of patient safety programmes that focus on developing excellent supervisors and enabling IPC. Originality/value: The authors provide quantitative evidence relating to three of the often mentioned constructs in the typology of patient safety and how they work together to improve PSC. The authors believe this to be the first empirically based study that confirms the importance of IPC as a lead marker for improved patient safety.

The growth of interactive online lifestyles and social networks has arguably left IT users more exposed to privacy breaches. While governments continue to revise privacy legislation, the issue of online business relationships and privacy expectations remain contentious. Indeed, fewer studies have explored the expectations of users who willingly and knowingly engage in online activities that carry privacy risks. In this study, we examine the expectations and attitudes towards online privacy of a select group of 102 IT professionals. Using a qualitative survey, we show that these users have expectations of online privacy, particularly securing and protecting information from unknown third parties. Unfortunately, these expectations may go unsatisfied with third-party monitoring enabling information disclosure. In response, users argue that enhanced technical and complementary administrative measures should be actively pursued to improve privacy outcomes. The article builds further understanding of privacy expectations and trust behaviours, while exposing the importance of technical credibility from the online organisation and user perspectives.

The confusion concerning the theoretical roots of the dynamic capabilities view and the fact that it was often being positioned as an extension to the resource-based view in strategic management, prompted a paper by Galvin, Rice, and Liao (2014) that suggested that the dynamic capabilities view would benefit from adopting a more explicit Darwinian approach. In response to this paper, Arndt and Bach (2015) highlighted that the seminal papers in the field do indeed take an evolutionary perspective and that in operationalizing the variation-selection-retention cycle in an empirical setting it is necessary to move away from firm performance as a dependent variable and instead use survival, which more closely aligns with the concept of natural selection. In this paper, we respond to this recent critique to articulate the benefits of a Darwinian nomenclature and how this will assist in positioning the dynamic capabilities view as an independent, though complementary, theory to the resource-based view. However, we do clearly recognize that until the key terms of variation, selection and retention can be operationalized at the routine, firm and industry level, such an approach may not in itself bring the field towards a common understanding of how dynamic capabilities operate in different environments.

The Australian Government's installation of the now defunct carbon price in July 2012, triggered a review of the Renewable Energy (RE) Feed-In Tariff (FiT) policies in the state of Victoria. In this article, concept analysis techniques and mapping software have been used to examine RE FiT design elements and priorities proposed by eighty-six RE investors and FiT stakeholders during the course of the review. The results show that concept analysis and mapping can be used to analyse FiT designs enabling identification of combinations of discrete elements including fixed and variable payment rates, differing levels of market regulation and competition, varying tariff operating periods, and eligibility rules for RE system sizes, development sites and low emissions technologies. In addition, while the economic elements of FiT designs were afforded the highest priority by stakeholders, broader contemporary analysis shows that policy makers and regulators should continue to combine economic, technology, system and administration elements into tariffs that can deliver new RE supplies. Also, the results show that governments may elect to change the combinations of these design elements, introduce other ancillary policy instruments and regulatory mechanisms, and reshape the FiT schemes in order to accommodate significant shifts in public policies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the manner in which employees' experience of distributive justice (DJ) moderates the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic values on role engagement (RE). RE is especially important in the healthcare setting (examined here) due to the sector's complexity, changeability and emotionally challenging nature. Design/methodology/approach Using data collected from a survey of employees from a large government health district in Southeast Queensland (Australia), this study examined the determinants of RE among a group of employees working across three hospital locations. Findings The focus of the study was on the impact, both directly and in combination, of espoused extrinsic and intrinsic values and perceived DJ on RE. The authors identify strong direct effects from DJ on RE, and complex third-order effects for the combinations of intrinsic (IM) and extrinsic motivation and DJ in predicting RE. Research limitations/implications As a cross-sectional and attitudinal survey, care must be taken in relation to common-method variance. Post hoc controls were performed in relation to this.