Suchergebnisse

Australian financial prudential supervision is still to some degree influenced by the Banking Act 1945 that restricted the Australian central bank's regulation only to 'banks'. One of the aims of the Campbell Committee Inquiry of the early 1980s was to increase competitive neutrality in the financial system so those financial intermediaries could be treated on an equal footing. The more recent Wallis Inquiry has advocated that this process should be pushed further. As the Australian government is now in the process of creating a single body, separate from the Reserve Bank, to conduct prudential supervision of all deposittaking institutions it seems an opportune time to reflect on the manner in which the Australian prudential supervision has evolved. This paper provides an historical description of the current institutional approach to regulation of deposit‐taking financial institutions and analyses the reasons behind the predominance of institutional rather than functional financial regulation in Australia to date.

This ethnographic study was undertaken to build a picture of physiotherapy practice through prolonged observation. Several building blocks of the therapists' culture were created one of which was the negotiation and meaning of food rituals in the practice of a team of physiotherapists in a UK National Health Service hospital. Interviews were carried out following the observations to gain the therapists' perspectives in an open critical exploration of assumptions and ideas. The analysis was iterative and followed a systematic recognized ethnographic approach. The findings revealed explicit and implicit meanings of the food rituals. Explicitly they were instrumental in sustaining continuity and a strong sense of harmony. They were seen as a morale-booster, a key ingredient to mark departures and a powerful component of the therapists' break time. They underpinned a need for cohesion within an environment of constant change. Implicitly, they were a vehicle to expose tensions and a catalyst for isolation. Food rituals, for this team, reduced the anxiety and stress, which unpredictability, a hallmark of clinical practice can engender. By hiding their concerns in rituals, the team members were able to avoid a real confrontation with issues of authority and hierarchy that underscored these activities. They also maintained the continuity of a professional tradition and contributed to a strong sense of professional autonomy which can smooth the pathway to inter-professional collaboration.