2024 | Book

Managing the Post-Colony: Voices from Aotearoa, Australia and The Pacific

Editors: Gavin Jack, Michelle Evans, Billie Lythberg, Jason Mika

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

Part of: Springer Professional "Business + Economics & Engineering + Technology" , Springer Professional "Business + Economics"

Table of Contents

About this book

This edited book is the second in the book series “Managing the Post-Colony”. The book series is co-edited by Nimruji Jammulamadaka (IIM Calcutta, India) and Gavin Jack (Monash University, Australia). The book series seeks to present cutting-edge, critical, interdisciplinary, and geographically and culturally diverse perspectives on the contemporary nature, experience, and theorisation of managing and organising under conditions of postcoloniality.

This book specifically presents voices and perspectives from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and The Pacific, locations with shared and distinctive histories and present-day experiences of colonisation and imperialism. Ways of managing, organising, and doing business in these places demonstrate cultural continuity and change in such histories, present sites of postcolonial struggle, and diverse prospects for self-determined future-making.

The book explores struggles and prospects of managing in the post-colony through qualitative empirical cases, historical and legal studies, conceptual essays and provocations, and interviews with Indigenous business leaders. It contributes to the ongoing diversification, provincialisation, and decolonisation of management and organisation studies and practice.

A strong focus is placed on diverse Indigenous knowledges and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika, and Māori peoples, and insights into the capacity for Indigenous culture-specific modes of business to offer decolonising futures.

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction: Ways of Managing, Organising and Decolonising Business Futures in Aotearoa, Australia and The Pacific

Abstract

This chapter sets the scene for this second volume in the book series Managing the post-colony by introducing its aims, contexts, organisation and individual chapters. Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific are diverse locations with shared as well as distinctive histories and present-day experiences of colonisation and imperialism, political economies and cultural values. Ways of managing, organising and doing business in these places demonstrate cultural continuity and change in such histories, present sites of postcolonial struggle, and diverse prospects for decolonisation and self-determined future-making. This volume explores these struggles and prospects of managing in the post-colony through the presentation of a series of qualitative empirical cases, historical and legal studies, conceptual essays and provocations, and interviews with Indigenous business leaders. It seeks to contribute to the ongoing diversification, provincialisation and decolonisation of management and organisation studies (MOS) and practice. A strong focus is placed on presenting diverse Indigenous knowledges and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika and Māori peoples, and insights into the capacity for Indigenous culture-specific modes of business to offer decolonising futures.

Gavin Jack, Michelle Evans, Billie Lythberg, Jason Mika

Neocolonial Dynamics in Business, Enterprise and Employment

Frontmatter

Chapter 2. Indigenous Business in Australia: Opportunities, Tensions and New Futures

Abstract

This chapter presents insights into the growing Indigenous business ecosystem in Australia built from four deep conversations with Indigenous business leaders Sean Gordon, Robynne Quiggin, Ian Trust and Leesa Watego. The question at the centre of these conversations was: How is Indigenous business in Australia generating economic independence and prosperity, fostering Aboriginal leadership, enabling cultural sharing, and enhancing self-determination? While business as a vehicle offers a modicum of independence and a space from which to share culture and create cultural value, business also requires Indigenous business leaders to make sense of past and present economic dependencies that frame their experience. Greater numbers of Indigenous Australians are establishing businesses and building the Indigenous economy, however, there is a suspicion and lack of trust that creates tension and ambivalence. What we collectively explore in this chapter is how Indigenous business leaders navigate opportunities, tensions, and work hard to produce new futures for their families, communities, and Indigenous Australia.

Sean Gordon AM, Robynne Quiggin, Ian Trust AO, Leesa Watego, Michelle Evans, Gavin Jack

Chapter 3. Towards an Indigenous-Led National Employment Narrative in Australia: Tackling Racism, Changing Practice

Abstract

As the Australian government seeks to include an Indigenous voice in the Australian constitution, there is a growing movement to enhance Indigenous voices and their experiences within the employment labour market and workplace experience narratives. This chapter provides insight into the societal constructs that led to the development of the Gari Yala survey—the first, and largest, data set which provided Indigenous people the opportunity to share their experiences of racism and work. By conducting surveys and engaging mobs through Indigenous research methodology, such as yarning circles, there is hope that the policy setting will change to better support Indigenous peoples.

Nareen Young, Joshua Gilbert

Chapter 4. Indigenous Clean Energy Enterprises in Australia

Abstract

For remote and regionally based communities, access and cost of primary services such as power and water are ever increasing, and in the face of the global transition to clean energy, building energy infrastructure serves as a financial imperative. For Indigenous regional and remote communities, establishing economic authority over energy assets and their operation is a key lever for self-determination. However, the shaping role of state authority and history set a structural backdrop to the operations of Indigenous owned energy infrastructure. This chapter examines the role jurisdictional context plays in the context of Indigenous clean energy enterprises in two Australian states and the Northern Territory as a backdrop to the embodied experience of three Indigenous business leaders who manage the tensions that geo-political context raises as they work towards Indigenous self-determined aspirations.

Michelle Evans

Chapter 5. Managing Māori Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Features, Characteristics and Capabilities

Abstract

Within entrepreneurship research the concept of ecosystems is relatively recent. Central to this emerging research is consideration of the political, economic and social elements that support sustainable communities of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial activity. The focus of this research to date has remained centred on the ‘Silicon Valley norm’ with little consideration of contexts that do not strive to fit this norm. Going outside of ‘the norm’, we explore entrepreneurial ecosystems of an Indigenous-Māori community. We follow Welter’s (2011) suggestion for an interdisciplinary perspective to develop the tools and concepts ‘to explore the variety, depths and richness of contexts’ (p. 177). We offer a number of contributions to activate ideas about managing Māori entrepreneurial ecosystems in post-colony environments. We give descriptive accounts of the historical trajectory to identify how management adapts over time (kin-based organising and pan-tribal organising). We identify the cultural values underpinning the system and the nature of the actors involved. We then describe elasticity and ambidexterity as novel capabilities unique to Māori entrepreneurial ecosystems. We explore each of these and consider how they have enabled Māori to constantly adapt to exogenous disruptions.

Kiri Dell, Billie Lythberg, Christine Woods

Neocolonial Dynamics in Factors of Production: Land, Sea and Money

Frontmatter

Chapter 6. The Ambivalence of Accounting and the Struggle for Customary Land in Fiji and PNG

Abstract

This chapter examines the complex relationship between accounting and customary land in the post-colonial states of Fiji and Papua New Guinea. These two countries represent the two largest economies in the South Pacific and while both share many similarities in terms of history and culture, they also possess significant differences that have shaped their systems of land administration. The chapter is primarily based on my doctoral research that was founded on primary and secondary data sources. I conduct a comparative analysis of the case studies to contribute to the theme of this book by highlighting the vestiges of colonialism in two post-colonial states in the Pacific. I illuminate how accounting has had an ongoing influence in perpetuating the post-colonial condition in the form of new actors such as transnational corporations and new processes that heavily rely on the craft of accounting. While these cases illustrate the ongoing practices of land alienation and the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, the cases also provide some evidence to suggest that Indigenous peoples, especially those with knowledge of accounting and who hold positions of power, can use accounting to enact different forms of resistance.

Glenn Finau

Chapter 7. Tax Reform in Tonga and Its Impact on Vulnerable Communities

Abstract

This chapter focusses on the impact of tax reform on vulnerable communities in the Kingdom of Tonga. As a former British protectorate, Tonga is heavily influenced by its colonial connections. Economic turmoil and mismanagement during the late 1990s forced the Tongan government to seek technical and financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank, which led to a comprehensive Economic and Public Sector Reform (EPSR) programme. The EPSR is a Western model recommended by donor agencies as the solution to Tonga’s economic woes. The EPSR comprised public sector reform, private sector growth, and revenue generation. Tax reform was the main tool for revenue generation, which set out to strengthen tax compliance and administration as well as implement Consumption Tax (CT) as a value-added tax. The EPSR is based on Western values and ideology, but failed to recognise that Tongan cultural values are important to the local community. A very different model and outcome of reform might have been possible had this been the case.

Pauliasi Tony Fakahau

Chapter 8. Pupuri Whenua—Holding Fast to the Land in the Time of Environmental Crises

Abstract

In Aotearoa, Māori tribal entities are perpetually engaged in place-based environmental management within their domains as acts of pupuri whenua—holding fast to the land—through resistance, resurgence, and resilience against māuiui whenua, or sickness of the land from unremitting settler-colonial legacies and present-day central government policies. Māuiui whenua is distinguished by protracted environmental catastrophes. In Tairāwhiti, multiple system failures to protect our environment lead to multiple exposures to disaster events. This chapter addresses Māori concepts of pupuri whenua and māuiui whenua applied within a coastal location in the Tairāwhiti region. In freehold title, Port Awanui was excluded from the Ngā Rohe Moana Act (2019), an act that returns legal governance of the coastal territory to Ngāti Porou, not coming under tribal management until May 2023. As an anomaly in this framework, Port Awanui warrants attention. In recognising the unbroken, inalienable, and enduring mana of the hapū o Ngāti Porou, this chapter highlights the importance of Mana Motuhake Ngāti Porou mo ngā uri whakatipu—self-determination for the future—in land and marine management exercised through rangatiratanga (collective authority) by hau kāenga (local people of a marae or vicinity) with environmental knowledge.

Natalie Robertson

Decolonising Business Futures

Frontmatter

Chapter 9. Reshaping the Culture of Indigenous Business: 2019 Futures Forum

Abstract

In 2019 Indigenous Business Australia (IBA) hosted 60 of Australia’s emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander business, organisation and management leaders in a four-day intensive event; the Futures Forum. Participants were prompted to conceive a “50-year Vision for Re-Shaping the Culture of Indigenous Business”. They were immersed in Indigenous Knowledge experiences such as yarning (talking) circles and cultural walks, combined with critical, speculative and strategic design techniques including relational futures mapping to help them design narratives of Indigenous business futures. The intention of the Futures Forum was to be a decolonising event both in its pre-event organisational qualities and in the workshop steps. On the former, this chapter discusses communication and design tactics undertaken to organise and build interest in the event that deliberately acted to decentre mainstream neoliberal conceptions of business forums towards an Indigenous-led decolonising approach. On the latter, it describes how the elucidation of forms of coloniality in past, present and future is relationally unpacked in the event. This chapter describes the theoretical frameworks, methodologies and reflections of the event.

Tristan Schultz

Chapter 10. Setting Aside the Master’s Tools: Developing Mātauranga Māori Models for Māori Economic Development

Abstract

In the mid-1800s, Māori developed a successful model of economic development that reflected and integrated their culture, traditional knowledge, and ways of knowing in Māori society. Colonisation disestablished that model along with most aspects of Māori society. Now, after a century of hibernation, the challenge for Māori is to redevelop the Māori economy in a way that again reflects mātauranga Māori. There are a range of examples worldwide where non-Western models of doing business and operating an economy reflect and integrate a difference in culture. Several examples—Chinese, Japanese, and Muslim—are highlighted, showing how non-Western business and economic models thrive alongside predominant Western approaches. With more than a century of enforced cultural decline through colonisation, the Western models of capitalism, exploitation of natural resources, and the inexorable pursuit of economic growth pervade New Zealand and Māori business. Understanding that “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (Lorde 1984), the extra challenge for Māori is to reclaim mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) in the economic and business spheres as a basis for developing ‘new tools’—new business and economic principles, models, and practices grounded in mātauranga Māori.

Richard Tauehe Jefferies

Chapter 11. Te Ara Hihiri: An Indigenous Framework Exploring Entrepreneurial Potential

Abstract

The concept of the Entrepreneurial University and its place within entrepreneurial ecosystems has received significant attention since it emerged as a construct in the latter part of the twentieth century (Etzkowitz, Res Policy 34:823–833, 2003; Rothaermel et al., Ind Corp Chang 16:691–791, 2007; Graham, Creating University-based Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Evidence from Emerging World Leaders, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014.). While the University of Auckland has built a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem that is ‘robust and well balanced’, establishing itself as ‘an emerging centre of excellence in entrepreneurship and innovation’ (Graham, Creating University-based Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Evidence from Emerging World Leaders, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014: 129), a number of challenges still remain. Specific to the purpose of this book series and this chapter, is the challenge of engaging Māori students and staff in the entrepreneurial activities of the University of Auckland. In this chapter, we present Te Ara Hihiri—a pedagogical framework that emerges from the practical challenge of connecting entrepreneurial activity and the Indigenous community within the University. We suggest this provides one illustrative example of what Bartlett (J Environ Stud Sci 2(4):331–340, 2021) call ‘Two-eyed Seeing’ where the strengths of Indigenous understanding can be combined with Western business practice to provide relevant insight for building the entrepreneurial university.

Kiri Dell, Billie Lythberg, Jamie Newth, Christine Woods

Re-Imagining and Transforming Institutions

Frontmatter

Chapter 12. Disrupting, Intervening, and Re-imagining Health, Development, and Social Change: A Culture-Centered Approach

Abstract

This chapter explores the meta-theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach (CCA) by de-centering expert driven, neoliberal formations of health organizing and foregrounding subaltern voices at the “margins of the margins” of societies as the owners of health and development communication processes. The CCA critically analyzes the colonial–capitalist production of knowledge formulated for and directed at local and Indigenous communities, in turn amplifying these prior erased voices into hegemony. These subaltern voices center frameworks of alternative health organizing. This chapter will discuss the ways in which the CCA has been deployed among communities at the raced, classed, gendered margins of colonialism–capitalism. The infrastructures for voices at the margins resist structural oppressions that threaten human health and well-being through processes of alternative organizing. The CCA as a method, recognizes that voice democracy, particularly among those who have experienced perpetual voice erasure, is at the heart of social transformation. The ways in which the CCA converges with and diverges from postcolonial and decolonial thought will be examined and contextualized within the many examples of voice democracy and structural interrogation brought about by culture-centered interventions.

Christine Elers, Mohan Dutta, Pooja Jayan, Mahbubur Rahman, Phoebe Elers

Chapter 13. Methodologies for Conducting Academic Business Research with Indigenous Communities in Australia

Abstract

In this chapter we report on the Indigenous research methodological approaches used in a study we conducted. Our research explored the needs and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous small business owners. We describe the realisation that participatory action research was not a suitable methodological approach, despite it being recommended to the team. Using Indigenous Ways of Being, Knowing and Doing, we adopted an Indigenous research methodological approach that focused on the 5Rs—relationships, relevance, respect, responsibility and reciprocity. After conducting 56 interviews with small business owners and stakeholders across Australia, we recommend that research that is not truly participatory should not try to bolt on a methodological approach that has the potential to be forced. We emphasise the need for methodological approaches that are guided by relational accountability. Insights into the experiences of the authors are designed to be informative for other researchers conducting qualitative research. Findings from this research may be of interest to researchers and policy-makers working with Indigenous small business owners.

Kerry Bodle, Lorelle Frazer, Levon Blue, Douglas Hunt, Mark Brimble, Scott Weaven

Chapter 14. Gross National Generosity in the Postcolonial Pacific

Abstract

This chapter argues that official development assistance (ODA) is a form of neocolonialism and demonstrates this using examples from Pacific Island Countries (PICs). The chapter includes a discussion of how even well-meaning ODA can negatively impact the postcolony and devolve into a contemporary form of colonisation when provided within a win–lose or winner-takes-all framework. Analysis utilising dependency theory (development), common-pool resources (political economy), schismogenesis (psychology) and gift-giving theory (anthropology) will show how the current ODA system leads to an erosion of relationships due to the incommensurability of value systems and cultural interpretations. Data for analysis are drawn from research conducted by the author in 2015–2017, consisting of interviews with policymakers in Vanuatu, Tonga and Kiribati. The chapter introduces Gross National Generosity (GNG) as a more balanced framework for ODA based on reciprocity, rather than exchange, and for governments of recipient countries to engage more resourcefully with international donors.

Kaitu’u ‘i Pangai Funaki

Chapter 15. Coda

Abstract

This coda gives a brief evaluation of the significance of the contributions to this book taken as a whole. It highlights some limitations and thoughts for the future, particularly in respect of provoking colonial institutions and business leaders beyond the academy.

Gavin Jack, Michelle Evans, Billie Lythberg, Jason Mika

Title: Managing the Post-Colony: Voices from Aotearoa, Australia and The Pacific
Editors: Gavin Jack
Michelle Evans
Billie Lythberg
Jason Mika
Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN: 978-981-9703-19-7
Print ISBN: 978-981-9703-18-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0319-7