With a dominant focus of economic rationality in development and management operations, interpretations of sustainable development have limited capacity to account for the contribution of social sustainability. This paper examines commitment to and accountability for social sustainability in Australian local government from the perspective of functional council managers. A mixed methods approach was adopted and...

The realities of subgroups of regional small businesses (regional-SBs) are essential for proper policy process but are under-researched. This study explores and seeks to reduce the aforementioned gap. Firm-and-manager-specific attributes of regional-SBs (drawn from a sample of 500 Australian regional-SBs) are evaluated to determine if they differ from common perceptions of small businesses (SBs) and...

This paper reports on research which follows the difficult process of farm families preparing for and subsequently leaving farming. The period of exit covers the millennium drought of 2000-2010 in four case study areas in Victoria, Australia. It is concerned with families still of working age, in order to trace their subsequent employment outcomes. Identifying...

This paper extends previous studies (O’Malley, (2011, 2012a, 2012b) of the effects of local transaction services on regional incomes by using linear regression and correlation analysis to investigate relationships between income, the transaction services industries, the remaining transformation industries, and remoteness in the 140 functional economic regions of Australia for 2006. The measure of transaction...

This paper assesses the need for education services in the mining communities through a case study of the Moura Township in central Queensland, Australia. The study involves a case study approach with a survey method to assess the current performance and the need for education services of the Moura residents. This study found about two...