Organisational culture is widely celebrated as a legitimate source of corporate success. The study aimed to investigate the possible relationship between organisational culture and performance among four departments within Liberty Life’s Operations division. The objectives were twofold: The first was to investigate which culture was dominant in each department. Information from the administration of Wallach’s (1983) organisational culture index questionnaire to measure the existing organisational culture in the various departments was obtained from a sample of 170 employees in Liberty Life. The second was to assess how the dominant culture affected the department’s performance in terms of adhering to the agreed service level agreement. Daily service level agreement adherence results for each department were used as the performance measure. The findings from the research indicated that departments with an innovative culture had a lower percentage of cases outside the agreed service level agreement than the departments with a bureaucratic or supportive culture. Recommendations with regard to changing organisational culture to support high adherence to service level agreement are also discussed. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

In the highly competitive and dynamic world of fashion retailing, developing and retaining loyal customers is a requirement for survival, let alone success. Marketing practitioners have found that to keep customers loyal, a firm must go beyond merely satisfying to truly delighting them (Schlossberg, 1990; Arnold, Reynolds, Ponder and Lueg, 2005). However, only Arnold et al. (2005) explored the concept of customer delight in a generic (multi-format) retail environment. To the author’s knowledge, there has not been any similar research conducted in the South African retail environment and none specific to fashion apparel retailers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine customer delight in the context of fashion retailing. Specifically, qualitative research was conducted to determine the antecedents and outcomes of delightful shopping experiences for these customers. Critical incident analysis of 33 depth interviews with shoppers revealed several factors associated with delightful shopping experiences and the resultant business outcomes. Together with presenting a model that fashion retailers can use to stage delightful shopping experiences, a number of strategic implications are discussed, and limitations and directions for future research are also addressed. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP), the world’s four billion poorest people, represents an opportunity for large companies to grow their revenue. However, the challenges in the BoP require organisations to adopt an entrepreneurial orientation in order to be successful. Entrepreneurship within an existing organisation, known as intrapreneurship, requires the prevalence of certain internal organisational factors. This study sought to establish if the internal organisation factors that support intrapreneurship were prevalent in BoP business units; to establish the limitations/ shortcomings in this regard and to establish the changes required to further support intrapreneurship. A review of the intrapreneurship literature highlighted three prominent internal organisational factors that support intrapreneurship, management support, autonomy/work discretion and reward/reinforcement, which formed the scope of the study. A list of characteristics describing the three internal organisational factors was developed from literature. Expert interviews were conducted to obtain perspective on how the three internal organisation factors exhibit themselves in BoP business units. The results of the study confirmed the prevalence of the three internal organisational factors in BoP business units, highlighted the limitations/ shortcomings in terms of supporting intrapreneurship and the changes required to the internal organisational factors to further support intrapreneurship. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

No description available.

No description available.

What does driving a sports car have to do with a first kiss, shopping in New York or purchasing a pair of designer shoes? These comparisons were used in a recent ad campaign for the Alfa Romeo Spider and are prime examples of an experiential analogy. The predominance of experiential analogies in recent advertisements suggests that they are persuasive. Yet understanding what comes to mind when consumers process these comparisons remains to be investigated. By drawing on analogy and consumption experience literatures, an important moderator of analogical persuasiveness is identified, preference for the base experience, and the influence of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes is explored. Substantial focus has been devoted to understanding how consumers learn and are persuaded by functional analogies. Digital cameras have been compared to computer scanners, personal digital assistants to secretaries and off-line web readers to VCRs. These functional analogies differ substantially from experiential analogies where consumers are encouraged to compare two experiences. Three studies were conducted to investigate what contributes to the persuasive effect of an experiential analogy. Study 1 explored how base preference moderates the effect of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes. The findings suggest that an analogy is maximally persuasive for those who like the experience that an advertised product is compared to and cognitively associate a high number of emotions with the advertised product. In Study 2, a cognitive load manipulation was used to provide additional support for the effect of emotional knowledge transfer and base preference on consumer attitudes. Study 3 explored another important moderator, emotional soundness, specific to the persuasiveness of an experiential analogy. The findings from Study 3 further replicated the effect of base preference and emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes and demonstrate that there needs to be sufficient underlying similarities in order for one to infer that the comparison experience and the advertised target product would have emotions in common with one another. The role of affect in the processing of an experiential analogy was also investigated. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

In the current global market, companies are forming partnerships with other organisations with the aim of sustaining their competitive advantage. Most organisations participate in transactions such as mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures in order to maintain their competitive advantage (Sorge, 2002). South Africa forms part of the global market and is not immune towards the stipulated growth strategies. It is believed that South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rate internationally (Human Capital Mangement, 2005). There are various reasons that have contributed towards this perception; factors such as structural changes in the labour market have been highlighted as one of the factors that have contributed to the high unemployment rate (HCM, 2005). It is further said that when mergers and acquisitions occurs, structural changes are bound to occur (Greeve, 2008). Despite the constant merger activities that are occurring in various industries, research has shown that most mergers add no value or reduce shareholders value for the acquiring firm (Kusewitt, 2007). The primary objective of this research is to investigate how organisational behaviour is influenced in an acquired firm.There seems to be high level of uncertainity, trust and communication breakdown amoung employees of Kansai Plascon. This research will investigate whether this perception is related to the acquisition transaction that has occurred. The study will collect its primary data using a set of questionnaires that will be distributed to the employees of Kansai Plascon. The data will be analysed and interpreted.

The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA; L.eBuffe & Naglieri, 1999), a standardized strength-based measure, was used with 125 kindergarten children from two different regions in British Columbia to investigate the relationship between mother and teacher ratings of students’ strengths and behaviour problems. Results suggest that the level of agreement between mother and teacher ratings for children’s strengths is similar to the level of agreement between mother and teacher ratings for children’s problem behaviours. The level of agreement between motherreported and teacher-reported scores was found to be low for all DECA scales and most DECA items, with some differences found upon examination of the sample by gender. The findings revealed three main trends: first, a higher degree of correspondence and a lower degree of difference was found between mother and teacher ratings for the Self-Control scale and items, compared to the other scales and items; second, a lower degree of correspondence and a higher degree of difference was found between mother and teacher ratings for the Attachment scale and items, compared to other scales and items; third, the level of agreement between mothers and teachers ratings was higher for boys than for girls. These patterns of cross-informant correspondences and differences are discussed in the context of the need for practitioners to obtain rating information from both mothers and teachers, since each rater provides a unique perspective. Furthermore, the importance of highlighting children’s strengths in the assessment process is emphasized. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.