Title: An insight into public sector readiness for change - the Fiji experience

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into public sector readiness for change from the perspective of four dimensions, namely, change management, change communication, change resistance, and readiness for change; to determine associations between these four dimensions; and to establish a prediction model for readiness for change. Using a structured survey questionnaire, data was collected from the employees of the Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (MSAF). These research findings suggest statistically significant positive correlations exist between three change variables, namely, change management, change communication, and readiness for change; whereas, negative correlations exist between change resistance and the other 3 variables. The results also show that change management, change communication, and change resistance added statistically significantly to the prediction of readiness for change. This paper makes its theoretical contribution to the scarce theoretical strands relating to change efforts of public enterprises; and practical contribution towards prediction of readiness for change, policy making, and strategic planning at government levels.

Title: Impacts of total factor productivity on agricultural growth in the Pacific Island countries

Abstract: The agriculture sector plays an important role in small Pacific Island economies and has significant impacts on the livelihood of households. However, total agricultural production and productivity in these economies are generally low. This, together with limited sources of factor inputs, calls for improving technical efficiency and technology to enhance agriculture production. Based on the Malmquist index approach, this study computes growth of total factor productivity and its components, namely, pure technical efficiency growth, scale efficiency growth and technological growth for the agriculture sector of 15 Pacific Island countries over 1980-2012. Impacts of these productivity growth measures are further quantified by estimating panel data regression models using the generalized method of moments estimators. There is sufficient statistical evidence that agriculture’s total factor productivity growth and its components, which though are slow in Pacific Island countries, contribute significantly to these small economies’ agricultural growth.

Title: Genetic loss in food crops in the Pacific : socio-economic causes and policy issues

Abstract: Genetic diversity of traditional food crops is declining in the Pacific Islands. Background information on the evolution of the diversity of these crops is provided, socioeconomic reasons for this loss are outlined, the economic consequences of this loss are analysed, and the economic benefits and costs of conserving crop varieties is examined. The potential economic benefits foregone by failing to conserve a crop variety are shown to depend on the nature of the demand function for the crop’s production. The economics associated with the conservation of crop diversity by in situ and ex situ methods are discussed.

Title: The effectiveness of the destination websites in promoting linkages between visitors and the community in Tonga

Abstract: Whilst tourism has brought Tonga potentially significant prospects for job creation and local business ownership, many tourists lack knowledge about the cultural experiences on offer at their holiday destination. This signifies a lost opportunity to form linkages between foreign tourists and the Tongan community. This study analysed the content of 40 Tongan websites to see how effectively they promoted linkages to community based tourism industries. It found the majority of websites had very weak content on local handicrafts, food and cultural events and were ineffective at promoting linkages between tourists and the community, thereby reducing the potential for local community participation in the tourism industry.

Title: Regulations, costs and informality : the case of Fiji

Abstract: Informal sector is considered to be a ‘cushion’ for the majority of workers in the developing world, where the formal sector jobs are limited and social securities for the unemployed do not exist. While the size of the sector is quite large in the developing world, it appears to be relatively low in Fiji even when the economic growth of the country has been abysmally low during the last three decades. This is because the entry requirement to the informal sector has been quite stringent and time consuming, and may have led individuals to either remain unemployed or concentrate on subsistence production. Relative flexibility for entry and running businesses in the informal sector would not only improve the economic condition of the workers, but also overall economic growth. Separate and flexible legislations are, therefore, needed for the informal sector to grow and contribute to the economy.

Title: Irrigated ethnoagriculture, adaptation and development : a Pacific case study

Abstract: The practice of terraced and irrigated creekfield taro (Colocasia esculenta) agriculture was once prevalent in the seasonally-dry regions of many Pacific Islands. This ethnoagricultural system has been characterised as technically sophisticated, intensive, highly productive and ecologically sustainable; with links to social stability and enhanced biodiversity. The food output is highly nutritive. However, despite these advantages, a decline in irrigated terracing has been the historic trend over the last century. Given the decline, the question must be asked: how resilient and sustainable is creekfield ethnoagriculture, especially in a changing world? The late Holocene development of irrigated creekfields was probably advanced by superior characteristics of resilience and adaptation in the face of climate change, but evidence is hindered by lack of research. Conversely, creekfield decline appears to have a strong relationship with the influence of extralocal colonial, modern and globalised development during a historically benign climate period of low agricultural risk – now being replaced by a putatively higher-risk period of vulnerability driven by Anthropocene global warming. An ethnoagricultural case study of Fijian irrigated terrace systems (colloquially called vuci), amid other research from the Pacific, indicates enhanced resilience and increased livelihood stability – characteristics that are needed for adaption to the predicted adverse conditions of the future. The prospects for the revitalization of such systems are discussed. Only some of the reasons for decline are important today, and a developmental reintensification is possible, especially with increased populations and parallel food demands. Innovative technologies can be used to ‘progress with the past’, exemplified by the activities of an NGO which has been reintroducing the ideas and practice of vuci in the Fiji Islands.

Title: A comparative study of stress amongst teachers of the western division in Fiji

Abstract: Stress is an unavoidable aspect of modern life and can have serious effects on one’s health and performance. There is an absence of empirical research and literature regarding stress amongst teachers in Fiji. As such, there is an important need for basic research on teacher stress to be carried out in Fiji. The aim of this study was to investigate stress amongst school teachers.Fifty one teachers from the western division of Fiji were selected for this study. The Teacher Work Stress Inventory of G. J. Boyle et al. was used to measure teacher stress. Data was analysed using the IBM SPSS 21. Percentages, means, standard deviations, and t-test were used to describe the data. On the basis of data analysis, the study revealed that female, married, urban, i-Taukei, and secondary school teachers have more stress than their counter parts. It was also noted that all teachers at some point or the other experience different levels of stress, weather moderate, mild or extreme.

Title: Australia - a hegemonic power in the Pacific region

Abstract: “The Australian colonies displayed expansionist tendencies almost from the beginning” is a pointed statement, and there is evidence that Australia exerted its influence on and expanded its spheres of interest to neighbouring territories in Melanesia and in the Pacific region as a whole almost from the beginning of its existence. This article gives an overview about Australia acting as a hegemonic power in the Pacific Islands before World War I, its engagement in the decades afterwards, and its regional political involvement recently, perceived and interpreted from a European viewpoint

Title: The Magnus Effect and the Flettner Rotor : potential application for future Oceanic shipping

Abstract: Shipping is the lifeline of the Pacific. All current sea-transport options are fossil fuel powered and increasingly unsustainable. Globally, a range of renewable energy technologies is emerging with application in commercial shipping, including wind, solar and bio- fuels/gases. Such technologies have, to date, received little attention in the development of alternative energy solutions for Oceania, despite transport being the largest user of fossil fuels by Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and exploration of appropriate technologies for PIC sea-transport is currently embryonic. Anton Flettner invented and proved the Flettner Rotor that utilises the Magnus effect for propulsion in the 1920s as an effective method of reducing fuel use and increasing ship stability for commercial blue water shipping. The then low cost of fossil fuels and the emerging diesel ship propulsion engineering did not see the idea progress past the initial prototypes. The technology was briefly revisited in the 1980s. In the past decade a number of leading shipping designers and researchers have begun seriously reinvestigating modern application of Flettner technology with impressive results. This technical review documents the literature of this technology to make it available to researchers seeking potential means for reducing Oceanic shipping costs for both transport and fishing at all levels of vessel size.

Title: Hayden White and the burden of history

Abstract: In his essays “The Burden of History” (1966), “Interpretation in History” (1972), “The Historical Text as Literary Artefact” (1974), “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” (1980) and “Getting Out of History” (1982), Hayden White discusses the main tenets of his theory of historiography, narrativity and, inevitably, the relationship between the history and literature. In the essays, White argues for a common constructivist character of history and fiction, and rejects the Rankean notion of a ‘science of history’. Drawing support from the historiographical and literary theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss, R. G. Collingwood and Northrop Frye, White suggests historians must acknowledge history’s basis in the literary arts and treat the historical text as a literary artefact in order for the discipline to regain the prestige that it enjoyed in the early nineteenth century. The kind of eclectic history that White advocates is found in Klaus Neumann’s Not the Way it Really Was, a text that itself rejects a positivist view of history.