Australia

Australia has a population of 22'000,000 whose life expectancy is 80 years old. The three main religions are basically equally distributed: Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Christians and they have an alphabetisation percentage of 100%. The dominant language is English.

Facts

- One birth every 1 minute and 44 seconds

- One death every 3 minutes and 39 seconds

- An international migrant every 1 minute and 53 seconds

- An overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 12 seconds

Position in the World

- Population growth rate (1.95% per year)............ 112

- Birth rate ................................................................. 164

- Death rate ................................................................ 146

- Migration rate ......................................................... 15

- Infant mortality rate .............................................. 196

- Life expectancy ....................................................... 7

- People living with AIDS ......................................... 81

Australia started to be a British colony since 1788. From that moment it became the home to European migrations and their capitals, but mixed with Australia's own people, the country is now very culturally rich. After the entrance of this amount of human and economic resources, a very strong industry started to blossom providing goods and services and by the beginning of the 20th century Australia already looked like an urban modern country including services like construction, government, transportation, financial services, retailing and personal services.

Currently, Australia is known worldwide for words like hot, dry, the Sydney Opera House, white sharks,snakes, the crocodile hunter, koala bears, kangaroos, surf and boomerang.

The Melbourne Cup

Is known as the race that stops the nation and it is the greatest 3200 metre handicap horse-race in the world. The races are held on the first Tuesday in November, and from 1877 that day has been a public holiday in Victoria. Over 110,000 people attend annually and 80% of the adult Australian population has placed a bet on the race.

It was born with the Victoria Turf Club's intentions to put a "good handicap" to rival its counterpart. The Victoria Jockey Club.

source: www.flemington.com.au

Australia's Wine

Australia has annual exports of 730 million liters of wine which are worth nearly $3 billion and the most important markets are the UK, the U.S, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Japan and Scandinavia. Australia is the 5th largest wine producer and the 4th largest exporter.

The first vineyards in Australia were planted in 1788n in a small area near the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Today there are 170,000 hectares planted.

- Australia has approximately 2,000 wine companies employing around 31,000 people

- In 2006 1.901 million tonnes of grape were crushed

- The sales within Australia have been growing steadily by up to 4% a year over the past decade

- As an exporter earner, wine is more valuable than wool, milk and cream and barley.

- Wine consumption within Australia is growing faster than beer consumption which is actually declining

Australian Organisations

They are mainly "performance driven", performance of the overall process and focus on outcomes. However, there is a strong cultural characteristic of Social Responsibility where excellent human relations are encouraged, support for each other and acknowledgement of efforts.

The downside of current Australian organisations is that they no longer can guarantee jobs and salary for everyone by counting on the government. This means that if the company makes profits, there will be jobs, otherwise there is no support from the government. Also, people within the companies perceive that there is no place for new ideas and innovation, there is no willingness to experiment which can be a huge threat to the company's survival and success in terms of the new global market demands.

Australian managers want to be part of the group, and they are expected to act that way and their leadership style should focus on the group. Managers, as well as workers believe that everybody should be treated as equals and communication at all levels should be encouraged.

References

- Australia's wine facts. 2006. Available at:

http://www.wineaustralia.com/Australia/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jUowz4QA25w%3d&tabid=235 Accessed October 30th 2009

- Class presentation by Andrea Restrepo, Elizabeth Velasquez and Juan Sebastian Osio