Business courses tailored to the cultural values of Indigenous Australians are needed to encourage entrepreneurship and reduced welfare dependency, according to a University of Queensland PhD student.
Dennis Foley was recently awarded the Fulbright Postgraduate Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to travel to Hawaii for eight months to study a diverse range of Indigenous Hawaiian businesses across the state's five main islands.
The information gathered will form part of his PhD, jointly supervised by Drs Jessica Kennedy and Maree Boyle, through UQ's Graduate School of Management.
'My thesis will explore Indigenous Hawaiian entrepreneurship then relate this to Indigenous Australian businesses along Australia's eastern seaboard,' Mr Foley said.
Mr Foley, a lecturer with the Aboriginal Studies Unit, Riawunna, at the University of Tasmania, said his Masters thesis completed at Griffith University had focused on Aboriginal businesses in Queensland and New South Wales and concluded Indigenous cultural values could be compatible with owning and operating businesses.
'I am interested in how running a business affects the Indigenous people involved and whether they can successfully retain family and wider community values including a strong connection to the land,' he said.
'My Masters thesis found the key to this successful transition was when successful people were able to ?open doors' for other Indigenous people, creating jobs and opportunities for Indigenous communities. This wealth-sharing with communities has a domino effect. The business person becomes a role model for the community.
'Wealth has a pluralistic application rather than being hoarded.' Mr Foley's Masters thesis was recently published by UQ's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit in its Research Report Volume Four.
Mr Foley will examine a range of wholly owned Indigenous Hawaiian businesses including a helicopter charter company, an international online book store, an orchid plantation exporting to 27 countries and a telecommunications operation.
Based at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, a suburb of Honolulu, during his visit, he has also received a $3000 Travel Grant from UQ for his study trip.
'We talk about the problems of Aboriginal society in Australia. I want to demonstrate to non-Indigenous Australia that we can be an economic force and self-sufficient and access to appropriate skills and training is a key part of this process,' Mr Foley said.
He said most business courses at Australian tertiary institutions were grounded in a white, Eurocentric value system with which many Indigenous people could not relate.
'My PhD will assist policy makers in the government and tertiary education sectors to develop more culturally appropriate business courses for Aboriginal people. I am already in the process of developing these courses for the University of Tasmania,' he said.
Mr Foley recently published his first book entitled Repossession of Our Spirit (publishers: Aboriginal History Inc. at the Australian National University) on the creation stories and history of his family's traditional country around northern Sydney.
The prestigious Australian Fulbright program was established in 1949. Since then, almost 2500 Australians and more than 1700 Americans have been granted scholarships.
Media: For further information, contact Dennis Foley (telephone 03 6226 2774, mobile 0409 570 368, email: Dennis.Foley@utas.edu.au) or Shirley Glaister at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2339, email: s.glaister@mailbox.uq.edu.au). Mr Foley departs for Hawaii on July 3, 2001.
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