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Dr Mary Bambacas
Position: Lecturer Dr Mary Bambacas
Division/Portfolio: Division of Business
School/Unit: The International Graduate School of Business
Campus: City West Campus
Office: WL5-36
Telephone: +61 8 830 20301
Fax: +61 8 830 20709
Email: Mary_dot_Bambacas_at_unisa_dot_edu_dot_au
URL for Business Card: http://people.unisa.edu.au/Mary.Bambacas

I have been in business for many years and have now come to the university to research areas of interest

University of South Australia

Teaching interests

  • Human Resource Management
  • Organisational Behaviour

I teach the following courses

BUSS 5246Leading and Managing People

Professional associations

Australian Institute of Management

Academy of Management USA

Australian Human Resources Institute

International Employment Relations Association

Retail SA

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy

Research interests

  • Employee commitment to the organisation in the Chinese context
  • Transnational MBA students learning mode preferences
  • Employee perceptions and their influence on organisational commitment

Research publications

Bambacas, Mary (2004) HRM practice: encouraging people commitment In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference of the Australian New Zealand Academy of Management, Aberdeen, New Zealand, December.

Bambacas, Mary (2004) Valued HRM practices: Moderator for manager’s commitment? In Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual International Employment Relations Association Conference, Rockhampton, July

Bambacas, Mary (2002) HRM practice: the commitment challenge for the 21st Century In Proceedings of the Tenth International Employment Relations Conference, Gold Coast, July.

Bambacas, Mary (2002) HRM practices and the development of relationship with commitment In Proceedings of the Tenth International Employment Relations Conference, Gold Coast, July.

Bambacas, Mary (2002) Do valued HRM practices influence attitude?. In Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference of the Australian New Zealand Academy of Management, Victoria, December

Bambacas, Mary and Margaret Patrickson (2001) Employee commitment: changes required in performance appraisal and training and development. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Employment Relations Conference, , July.

Hartmann, Linley C. and Mary Bambacas (2000) Organizational commitment: A multi method scale analysis and test of effects. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol 8, No 1, 89-108.

Community Service

Organisation Name:   Government of SA
Section:   Minister of Education and Childrens Services
Level of involvement:   Deputy Chairperson
Year from:   2005
Year to:   2007

Research Degree Supervisor

I am very interested in organisations retaining employees so organisational commitment is a large part of my research. I am also interested in HR practices that foster organisational commitment

Current Projects:

 “Improving employee commitment: How do HR managers in an organisation select, recruit and train work
 The aim of this project is twofold.
The first aim is to clarify the organisation process in preparing supervisors to deliver commitment oriented practices to their staff. This will help ascertain whether and if so how organisations deliberately select, recruit and train managers in supervisory roles so as to engender positive employee perceptions and commitment (affective-attachment and normative-obligation as opposed to continuance-low alternatives and high sacrifice to leave).
The second aim is to gather information on the way managers perform their supervisory roles when assisting in employee career development in areas such as performance appraisals, providing feedback, skill development, career counselling, challenging assignments, and flow of information so as to engender positive perceptions and commitment
“The delivery of the MBA English and Mandarin transnational programs by UniSA staff”
 The IGSB has more than 1,000 students undertaking the MBA in Asia and Europe, with approximately half of these students undertaking the MBA in Mandarin. The teaching model consists of an 11 week term (77 days). However contact time is limited to 24 hours spread over a three to four day intensive involving six four hour teaching blocks. Weekdays, teaching blocks are held in the evenings, after work, usually followed by whole day weekend sessions. This visit is scheduled either in the beginning or the middle of each course, so it is sometimes held as early as Week 2 of the teaching cycle. In addition, the enrolled students work full-time, have English as a second language and enrol in two concurrent courses each term.

Lecturers involved with the MBA English and the MBA Mandarin are concerned that the mode of delivery compromises the learning outcomes for these cohorts. Not only does the compression of the 24 face-to-face hours into three days discourage reflective activities and the assimilation of new information, it also compares unfavourably with the 33 face-to-face hours available to local students. The transnational students are allowed insufficient time to operate effectively with and upon a body of knowledge of sufficient depth and their opportunities to practice the skills and attitudes which underpin UniSA’s graduate
qualities are significantly curtailed.
The objective of this project is to identify alternative and improved arrangements for the delivery of the MBA English and Mandarin transnational programs by UniSA staff (fulltime and sessional), with the goal of improving the teaching and learning outcomes for students.



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