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Now business professionals can build a foundation for developing their style of leadership with this fourth edition. New profiles have been added throughout the book that incorporate people, organizations, and nations that have been in the news in the recent past. It also more clearly articulates the connections between the profiles in a chapter and the theory covered. A new chapter explores the latest trends in commonly used workplace technologies and their impact on leadership. It stresses the challenges and opportunities of virtual leadership. Business professionals will also benefit from the inclusion of additional essays by experts in leadership. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Ethical Leadership Chapter 3: Leadership in a Global and Multicultural Society Chapter 4: Evolution of Leadership Chapter 5: Psychology I: Intelligence and Personality Chapter 6: Psychology II: Motivation and Communication Chapter 7: Management and Leadership Chapter 8: Power and Leadership from the Top Chapter 9: Teaming and Leadership Chapter 10: Virtual Leadership Chapter 11: Philosophy and Leadership Chapter 12: Military Leadership Chapter 13: Environmental Leadership Chapter 14: It's Your Turn.

Breaking Through the Grass Ceiling examines the contemporary position of women in agriculture and looks at why farm women are virtually absent from positions of power and leadership. Alston draws on interviews and surveys from Australian women-farmers, bureaucrats, leaders and activists, and compares these to the experiences of powerful men in the industry. Giving a voice to rural women, this book represents a wide-ranging, rich tapestry of opinion and insight. It is clear that ideology and structure prevent agricultural women from becoming prominent in an industry to which they contribute so much. Yet far from being helpless victims, the women emerge as strong, determined characters forging an alternative discourse through multiple strategies of resistance. You will leave this book feeling enormous respect for the women involved, their humor, hard work and commitment to agriculture and to their farms matched by their determination to achieve equality and justice in their industry.

This paper uses data from a survey of women in the Australian sugar industry to examine why women are absent in decision-making positions within the agri-political organization Canegrowers. Canegrowers represents the interests of over 6,000 cane farming families in Australia, but no woman holds any of the 181 positions of elected leadership within the organization. Factor analysis of the 233 returned survey responses revealed that there are five main factors which constrain women’s involvement in agri-politics. These are a lack of support, the conduct, time and location of meetings, the masculinist culture of the organization, women’s multiple commitments and a lack of interest. The paper concludes by highlighting the limited amount of work that has considered women’s leadership in a rural context and identifying some directions future work could take.

This paper uses data from a doctoral study examining women's involvement in the Australian sugar industry to argue that focus groups are a valuable method for feminist rural social research. Sixteen initial and follow up focus groups conducted with 80 women were not just valuable for the production of raw data, they were also valuable in addressing feminist research goals. Using extracts from the focus groups, four examples of their effectiveness as a feminist research method are examined. That is, focus group participation made what is invisible to many women visible; it enabled connections to be made between individual and collective experiences; it facilitated challenges to dominant beliefs; and it provided space for discussion and reflexivity about gender issues. The paper concludes by arguing that the potential of focus groups as an empowering strategy for participants is not just of importance to feminist scholars, but to all rural social researchers who are interested in engaging less hierarchical research relationships, in producing knowledge which is contextualised, and in contributing to political and social change.

This paper describes a feminist doctoral research project undertaken to examine women's leadership in the Australian sugar industry. My purpose is three-fold. Firstly, I seek to bridge the theoretical and the practical by documenting the 'what' and 'how' of a feminist research project within rural sociology. To do so, I explore five principles which guided my approach to undertaking a feminist study. These were: focusing on gender, valuing women's experiences, rejecting the split between subject and object, emphasising personal empowerment and acting for political change. Secondly, I aim to highlight some of the difficulties and dilemmas such an approach brought and describe some of my attempts to work through these tensions. Thirdly, I seek to open up further debate and dialogue on the question of feminist research in rural sociology.

This paper uses data from a survey of women involved in the Australian sugar industry to present evidence of the strategies which could be introduced by agri-political groups to increase women's involvement in agricultural leadership. Of the 181 positions of elected leadership in the Australian sugar industry's agri-political group, CANEGROWERS, none is held by a woman. Factor analysis of the 233 returned survey responses revealed that there are five types of strategies that could be implemented to address this inequity. These are: organisational strategies, education and training strategies, remuneration strategies, support strategies and practical strategies. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the fact that few strategies have been adopted by agricultural organisations to address men's numerical dominance of positions of leadership.

This article describes the experiences of 10 widowed women involved in the Australian sugar industry. These women – farming in their own right and involving themselves in the public world of agriculture – represent an anomaly. They are of particular sociological interest because the often-invisible gender dimensions of farming are illuminated in the absence of a male partner. The article explores the reasons why the women decide to continue farming after the death of their spouse and the changes that occur in their on-farm roles with widowhood. Of significance is the shift in identity that occurs for the widowed women as they view themselves for the first time as 'a farmer'.

In recent years a considerable Australian literature has emerged on the subject of farm women's leadership. This paper addresses three questions in relation to this literature. The first is, how has the literature represented farm women? The second is, what assumptions about gender and leadership are inherent in this particular representation of farm women and leadership? The third is, what does this way of writing and talking about farm women and leadership mean for changing inequities in the agricultural sector? In addressing the first question, I argue that the dominant representation of women in agricultural leadership in the literature is one that presents women as being interested in different spheres of leadership and as having different skills for leadership. This way of conceptualizing the subject of farm women and leadership is, I argue, in terms of the second question, one which assumes that women and men constitute unitary, fixed categories and that leadership is a known, unambiguous and ungendered concept. Given the consequences of these assumptions, my response to the third question is to argue that a discourse of difference offers little in terms of addressing unequal power relations in the agricultural sector. This is because the discourse ignores differences between women, obscures men who are marginalized in the agricultural sector, leaves unquestioned the conflation between masculinity and leadership, reinforces stereotypical assumptions about women and perpetuates the representation of men as leaders as the agricultural norm.

This paper examines the efficacy of the survey method to investigate questions relating to women and agricultural leadership. I begin by reviewing the feminist critique of the survey using examples from the literature on farming women. I then describe two particular difficulties I encountered in surveying farm women about agricultural leadership in the Australian sugar industry. The first difficulty is the problem of constructing a sample of farm women using official data sources that is representative of the diversity of women in agriculture. The second difficulty is the impact that gendered agricultural identities may have on survey completion rates. The paper argues that, if we are to count farming women `in', rather than `out' when studying agricultural politics, we need to engage with methods which will be inclusive of the diversity of women in farming and which will also give consideration to the construction of gendered identities in agriculture.

While rural and farm women have a long history of interaction with the Australian state, it is only recently that Commonwealth government departments have established specifically dedicated policy machinery to address their needs. What is notable is that this has occurred at a time when other gender equity infrastructure is being disbanded. This article examines this anomaly. To begin, it documents the material and discursive changes in terms of equity for women which have occurred since the election of the Howard government in 1996. Following this, it details the emergence of a state agenda for rural and farm women in Australia and explains some of the definitive elements of this agenda. In the final section, the article gives attention to explaining why equity for farm and rural women has been emphasised by government in a period marked by the erosion of state-sponsored equity initiatives.

This article uses data from interviews with 20 women involved in decision-making positions in Australian farm organizations to explore the ways in which women actively create a subject position which locates them as both ‘agricultural leader’ and ‘woman’. This is a subject position one participant describes as ‘a third sex’. In negotiating their outsider status, the participants describe being engaged in a constant process of self-monitoring and movement between and across different discourses of managerial masculinity and normative femininity. They describe no such difficult identity work being undertaken by the male leaders with whom they work. Based on a range of gender comparisons, the article concludes that women's entry to positions of agricultural leadership does not necessarily suggest that a more inclusive or equitable Australian farming sector is emerging.

Few women have achieved leadership positions in Australian agriculture despite their qualifications, experience and contributions to the industry. Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research currently being conducted suggests various explanations for this position offered by key people in the industry. Some imply the notion that women lack what it takes to succeed (whatever that may be); others, that women are not interested in or comfortable with current structures and practices and that their absence is a form of resistance to gender oppression (Alston, in press). Yet, such explanations are unsatisfactory when one examines the statistics relating to the farm workforce. Women make up 40 per cent of farm business partners and 32 per cent of the paid farm workforce (Rowe 1997). As well, up to 50 per cent of farm women work off the farm for income to support their families and to allow their partners to remain in agriculture (Alston 1995; OSW 1988). Latest research reveals that women now contribute 48 per cent of real farm income ($14 billion in 1995-6) (RIRDC & DPIE 1998). Further, it is widely recognised in the industry that twice as many farm women as farm men hold tertiary qualifications, a trend that is not isolated to Australia (Gooday 1995). Despite their very evident contributions and qualifications, current figures suggest that only eight per cent of industry leadership positions (Centre for International Economics 1997) and 17 per cent of DPIE sponsored Board positions are held by women (DPIE 1997). There is only one woman on the 40 member National Farmers' Federation Council (National Farmers' Federation 1997). Agriculture is not the only industry which limits the access of women to leadership. Korn-Ferry research (1997) found that women's representation in corporate governance was six per cent, and only one per cent of Australian executive directors of companies were women. This paper examines the way gender and power relations and the culture of farm organisations act to restrict women's access to leadership positions despite the outspoken support for gender equity from some industry leaders. By offering public support for the idea of gender equity and then by failing to facilitate women as leaders, farm organisations appear able to absolve themselves of any further efforts. 'We've tried and failed. There can't be any women out there' appears to be the message. The male culture surrounding agriculture and the gendered nature of traditional farmer organisations are addressed in this paper as well as structural impediments which act to restrict women's access to leadership. In particular, the paper will focus on interviews with women who have attempted to gain high profile positions in agriculture.

In Australia, as in the rest of the industrialised world, social capital has been identified as a key element in rural regeneration. For example, the Prime Minister, John Howard, speaks openly of the need for a 'social coalition' between communities, governments and businesses that will build social cohesion and trust at community level. For two decades successive Australian governments have followed the world-wide trend in industrialised nations to devolve responsibility for social welfare programs to local areas and to nongovernment agencies, the stated rationale being to break down welfare dependency and to promote individual responsibility. The dismantling of the welfare state and the triumph of capitalism have been defining features of the Australian landscape in recent years. Meanwhile globalising trends have had significant effects on Australian rural people. Rural populations have higher rates of aging and ill health and many rural areas are experiencing increasing levels of poverty and unemployment. It would appear that there has never been a more important time to increase social capital in rural areas. However, government policies of devolution, privatisation and managerialism have been formulated with free market principles as the dominant determinant and with little apparent consideration of the effects on social capital. Services are being withdrawn in many rural areas and in others, NGOs report being overloaded and underfunded. There is widespread acceptance of the view that Australian rural people are becoming more socially isolated and alienated. This paper will examine social capital in Australian rural areas drawing on a case study conducted in a small country town in 2001. It will look at the need to match rhetoric with action and will discuss social policy initiatives that have impacted on the development of social capital.

This text interprets the predicament faced by Australia's regional people from their own perspective and proposes a means by which they can act together to find a secure future under globalisation. The authors advocate a new kind of regionalism with broad objectives for people to pursue. Contents 1. The global misfortune of regional Australia 2. Understanding globalisation 3. People versus policy 4. The social transformation of Australian farming 5. Voices from the farm 6. Regional decline: division and disadvantage 7. People confronting dependency 8. Beyond productivism and environmental degradation? 9. New cultures for old 10. The new millenium: pathways and policies.

It is well known that agricultural Western Australia has experienced chronic socioeconomic difficulties in the last twenty years associated with depopulation and centralisation of services. In the last decade there have also been significant financial and economic changes in the national and international agricultural sector. Extensive agricultural sector research (Lawrence 1986; Lawrence, Vanclay & Furze 1992; Tonts 1996a; Lloyd & Malcolm 1997; Taylor 1991) has shown that the demand for efficiency together with world agricultural and technological trends have all attributed to far-reaching change in the Australian agricultural sector. In Western Australia, 1.25 million of a total state population of 1.7 million people live in the capital city Perth, while the small rural population is scattered unevenly over a huge area. The wheatbelt which stretches from Geraldton in the north to Esperance in the south is a large geographic area, which has never been heavily populated and has few rural urban centres. Even though the overall population of the region has increased in the years between 1961 and 1996, research (Haslam McKenzie 1998b) shows that those Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) divisions which are limited to agricultural production and can be defined as completely rural show a persistent decrease in population. The depopulation trend is exacerbated when the populations of regional towns in these more rural districts are excluded. Despite these statistics, there is evidence supporting the finding that a number of towns have been able to grow or at least remain static in terms of growth as services are directed to larger rural towns. There have been a number of businesses that have developed and grown in and around these centres, some of which are directed, owned or part owned by women. It would seem from a recent survey (Haslam McKenzie 1997) and other research (Elix & Lambert 1998; Management 1998; Haslam McKenzie 1998a), that women bring to rural businesses, both on and off-farm, a perspective not appreciated that is meaningful and measurable, in terms of community viability. This paper will present some examples of women who are committed to their businesses, regions and the rural future. It will discuss the issues that women consider important, and how women's perspectives can contribute to the long term viability of a rural region.

An online community of learners in rural, regional and remote Australia

The re-emergence of regional policy and planning in Western Australia

Environment, Society and Natural Resource Management: Theoretical Perspectives From Australasia and the Americas

An overview of the extraordinary social, environmental, political and cultural changes and conflicts sweeping rural Australia. All too often, community decline, environmental degradation and agricultural restructuring are treated as separate issues. This book brings them together to identify what is behind these issues. Contents 1. Rural Australia: an introduction / L. Bourke and S. Lockie 2. Rural sociology perspectives and problems: a potted history / S. Lockie 3. 'Out there': spaces, places and border crossings / D. Stehlik 4. The rural as urban myth: snack foods and country life / J. Finkelstein and L. Bourke 5. Beyond life in 'the bush': Australian rural cultures / I. Gray and E. Phillips 6. Bush politics: the rise and fall of the Country/National Party / A. Green 7. Power and politics: Power and politics: debate over native title / V. Watson 8. One big happy family? Social problems in rural communities / L. Bourke 9. The more things change, the more they stay the same: health care in regional Victoria / Y. Collins 10. Rural communities / L. Bourke 11. Rural community development / B. Cheers and A.E. Luloff 12. The collective and individual philosophy of research relating to an indigenous nation / R. Henderson and J. Muir 13. Globalising agriculture: structures of constraint for Australian farming / P. McMichael and G. Lawrence 14. Industrialised agriculture: agribusiness, input-dependency and vertical integration / D. Burch and R. Rickson 15. Getting big and getting out: government policy, self-reliance and farm adjustment / V. Higgins and S. Lockie 16. Cultural diversity, economic change and family farming in the Australian sugar industry / J. Elder 17. Farming women and the masculinisation of farming practices / A.P. Davidson 18. A job of one's own / L. Bryant 19. Agriculture and environment / S. Lockie 20. Community development management? Landcare in Australia / S. Lockie 21. Property rights and natural resource management: tiptoeing round the slumbering dragon / I. Reeve 22. Biotechnology to the rescue? Can genetic engineering secure a sustainable future for Australia agriculture? / J. Norton 23. Positive futures for rural Australia / S. Lockie.

Economic restructuring over the last decade or so has created a wide diversity of positive and negative outcomes for regional cities and towns across Australia, evident through change in a range of socio-economic measures over the decade 1986 - 96. This paper develops and applies a multi-variate model to categorise community opportunity and vulnerability by identifying a typology of large regional cities and towns in Australia with populations over 10,000. Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis are used for a set of variables which measure both changes over the decade 1986-96 and static measures at the 1996 census of population, industry and occupation mix, income distribution, and social housing disadvantage. Spatial patterns in the performance of large regional cities and towns on the dimensions of change are identified and analysed, and some regional policy implications are raised.

This paper examines the role of neoliberalism in shaping Australian federal regional development policy over the past three decades. As in other parts of the world, since the 1980s Australian federal governments have tended to favour the role of market forces, as opposed to direct intervention in regional development. By the 1990s, however, the negative social and economic impacts of neoliberal approaches, together with a widespread electoral backlash, contributed to an adjustment in the direction of regional development policy. We argue that this transition is reflective of a wider shift in neoliberal politics, whereby limited government intervention and institution building are increasingly seen as appropriate policy responses. While in part this is linked to the shortcomings of previous policy approaches, it is also apparent that political opportunism is an important element of this shift.

The statistics in the Australian minerals industry are stark: women comprise approximately 18% of minerals industry workforce (both sites and corporate) compared to a national participation rate of 45%; women represent just over 3% of all employees at mine sites and minerals processing operations; and Indigenous women represent 12% of all Indigenous employees. It is widely recognised that the effective participation of women in the minerals industry is limited by a number of key structural issues, including: the low level of part time work in the minerals industry compared to other sectors, including other traditionally male oriented industries is an obvious impediment in that 40% of female employment nationally is part time; the industry’s culture of overwork, long hours and intensity has had a more negative impact on women than men because of their additional caring responsibilities; and the remote nature of the industry is also a factor inhibiting female participation in the industry, though this is much less so in regard to the engagement of Indigenous women.

The discussion paper sought community comments (submissions were due by 29 November 2002) on governments' future responsibility for, and their role in providing facilitation and coordination support both under the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) and the National Action Plan (NAP) for Salinity and Water Quality. The Commonwealth Government was undertaking an evaluation of the Trust funded facilitator and coordinator community support networks as part of the evaluation of the first phase of the NHT. Since late 1980s facilitator and coordinator networks played important role in supporting community groups to achieve on-ground results aimed at sustainable NRM. In March 2002 the Minister for the Environment and Heritage (David Kemp) announced interim arrangements for up to 650 facilitator/coordinator positions during 2002/03 to assist the community in the transition from the first to the second phase of the NHT. This paper sought community input to an anlysis conducted by the Commonwealth Government [Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia (AFFA) and Environment Australia (EA)] in consultation with the States and Territories. The analysis included investigating the needs and options for, and roles and responsibilities of the facilitator and coordinator networks in the delivery of the extension of the NHT from 2003/04 to 2006/07 (p.1).

NAP & NHT There are two principal investment initiatives currently under way to address natural resource management issues in Australia: * the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP); and * the second stage of the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT). The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality announced in November 2000 has the commitment of $1.4 billion over 7 years from the Commonwealth, States and Territories to address salinity and deteriorating water quality in priority catchments and regions across Australia. The goal of the Action Plan is to enable regional communities to use targeted action to prevent and stabilise salinity, improve water quality and secure reliable allocations for human uses, industry and the environment. The Action Plan has ushered in a new era for natural resource management across Australia. The Plan provides for the Commonwealth and the State /Territory Governments to jointly: * provide technical support for regional bodies to develop regional plans; * accredit the plans; * invest, through block funding, in priority outcomes; and * develop a national performance information and evaluation framework to help assess and report on the progress of regional bodies in the implementation of plans against defined targets. Consistent with the regional delivery approach of the National Action Plan is the new structure for the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust. The Commonwealth Government has extended the Natural Heritage Trust for a further five years with funding of $1.032 billion. The NHT will also provide more funding directly to regional groups for large, strategic projects that deliver agreed priorities through regional integrated natural resource management plans. NHT2 This second phase of the Government's Natural Heritage Trust will feature a new streamlined structure - for example the Trust's existing 23 programs will be consolidated and simplified, with future investment made through four overarching programs with the following focus: * Landcare - reversing land degradation and promoting sustainable agriculture; * Bushcare - conserving and restoring habitat for our unique native flora and fauna which underpin the health of our landscapes; * Rivercare - improving water quality and environmental flows in our river systems and wetlands; and * Coastcare - protecting our coastal catchments, ecosystems and the marine environment. A monitoring and evaluation framework will cover both the Trust and the National Action Plan and contribute to a better understanding of the state of our environmental and natural resource assets, and thus to more informed actions that will sustain these critical assets.

Much of the investment in capacity building is aimed at supporting change - change not only in the way individuals, institutions and organisations "think" but most importantly in the way they go about their "daily business". It is recognised that in order to have any discernible impact on resource condition, investments in capacity building must be strategically and purposefully targeted. A sound program logic underpinning the setting of specific change targets is fundamental to ensuring that capacity building investments are made wisely. Furthermore, the fact that many of the change targets may be non-biophysical and may appear somewhat removed from the "on-the-ground" outcomes that investors are looking for, a sound program logic is particularly important in providing the arguments to support investment in these non-biophysical areas. To provide guidance on the above, a capacity building program logic has been developed which is nested within the broader INRM program logic and embodies four key messages. As well as supporting strategic planning, the capacity building program logic can be used as the basis for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of investments in capacity building.