“It's Self-Determination. Blackfullas Making Right Decisions for Blackfullas”: Why Indigenous-owned businesses create better Indigenous employment outcomes

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Version of Record (VoR)

Author(s)
Eva, Christian
Harris, Jessica
Bodle, Kerry
Foley, Dennis
Hunter, Boyd
Nichols, Nina
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2023
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that businesses that are Indigenous-owned are far more likely to employ Indigenous people than non-Indigenous-owned businesses (Hunter, 2015, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 26, 631). The majority of the literature on Indigenous employment uses a deficit discourse, describing factors that prevent or exclude Indigenous people from non-Indigenous-owned organisations. There is markedly less literature using a strength-based approach, detailing how Indigenous-owned businesses create workplaces without barriers to Indigenous employment. Through 32 semistructured interviews with Indigenous business owners, managers, and Indigenous employees of Indigenous-owned businesses, this paper provides insights into how participants' businesses create workplaces that are more supportive of, and conducive to, Indigenous employment. This paper finds that Indigenous approaches to governance inform an organisational level of cultural competence, which creates tailored and specific practices that support better Indigenous employment outcomes. This resonates with the concept of Indigenous ways of “knowing, being, and doing,” and how this framework encompasses participants' approaches to business operations. In the light of increasing public and private policy commitments to improve Indigenous employment outcomes, it is imperative that the Indigenous business sector's best practice inform said policies, given its successes. However, inherent in these findings are broader discussions into more systemic and societal issues that go beyond workplace policy.

Journal Title

Australian Journal of Social Issues

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)

ARC

Grant identifier(s)

IN180100052

LP210301176

Rights Statement
Rights Statement

© 2023 The Authors. Australian Journal of Social Issues published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian Social Policy Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Item Access Status
Note

This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.

Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Human society

Persistent link to this record
Citation

Eva, C; Harris, J; Bodle, K; Foley, D; Hunter, B; Nichols, N, “It's Self-Determination. Blackfullas Making Right Decisions for Blackfullas”: Why Indigenous-owned businesses create better Indigenous employment outcomes, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 2023

Collections