What is it about?
Australian governments keep talking about working more collaboratively with Indigenous people, but continue to struggle with making the shift. This paper examines the role of boundary spanners in collaboration and in overcoming the pull of the status quo. It suggests that openness to new ways of working is critical, and that a more diverse workforce might assist in developing the right mindsets.
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Why is it important?
There is increasing evidence that boundary spanning activities can lead to improved outcomes in remote Indigenous Australia. Governments struggle with these kinds of activities though, so finding ways to help them to make the transition is important. I find that career public servants are less open to collaboration than those who have also worked outside. This suggests that a focus on training might need to be supplemented with recruitment of a more diverse workforce.
Perspectives
This article was based on a surprising finding in my broader research project. I had expected policy actors who had worked in remote communities to be more open to collaboration, and was surprised to find that the defining factor was whether they had worked outside the public sector during their careers. This led me to think about the role of socialisation and whether training, or diversification of staff, was going to deliver the results needed. It is a small scale study, but I hope it challenges some of the normal assumptions about how to foster new ways of working.
Prudence R Brown
University of Queensland
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Attempting to Cultivate Mindsets for Boundary Spanning in Remote Indigenous Policy, Australian Journal of Public Administration, December 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8500.12287.
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