The retention of employees, especially talented ones, is a topic that is mainly discussed between HR practitioners, but is also a cause for conversation around the boardroom table. Researchers have recommended numerous policies and best practices that should be implemented to reduce employee turnover and improve employee morale. This study was conducted to find if a relationship exists between numerous independent variables and retention rate. A quantitative study was conducted via a self-administered survey questionnaire that was sent to 6 802 HR managers, owners, senior managers and executives. Constructs identified in the literature were used to design the questionnaire survey, and data were analysed from 247 completed survey questionnaires. A positive relationship exists when HR reports to senior management and where HR has the autonomy to spend on training. The presence of an HR department, the existence of retention strategies, and the involvement of senior managers in the implementation and management of retention strategies, does not have an influence on a high retention rate. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M. Ing. / Change management is a crucial component in the daily activities inherent within the civil engineering industry, which if used effectively, can mitigate the impact of project scope changes and be beneficial to the life cycle of the a project. Project scope changes regularly occur during the construction phase of civil engineering projects, and normally result in severe disruptions. Although scope changes during the implementation phase are avoided where possible, their existence is a practical reality. These changes can be managed by a Change Management System (CMS) that can minimize the impact of these changes. This dissertation investigates different change management systems, which are used by major companies to mitigate the impact of project scope changes. Case studies on change management systems are provided, and the advantages and disadvantages of these systems are discussed. These change management systems were used as a reference axis for a newly proposed project scope change management system, namely the Proactive Change Management Database System (PACMDS). The PACMDS was developed by the author, to minimize the impact of scope changes in civil projects. In a survey done to establish whether the PACMDS would be effective in mitigating project scope changes, it was found that the PACMDS would assist in managing project scope changes effectively.

D.Phil. (Leadership in Performance and Change) / The aim of this study was to develop a clearly defined organisational change management model to facilitate effective change leadership within Group Payment Systems. one of the departments of a South African bank A modernist qualitative methodology, with casing as research design and grounded theory as research strategy, was employed to develop a substantive model ...

D.Phil. / The aim of the study was to explore and understand the emerging leadership challenges in order to further enhance the development of leadership and management in the information technology industry in South Africa. A combined casing and life-story approach in this modernist qualitative research study was employed. Selective sampling, as described by Plummer (1983; 2001) as part of his critical humanistic approach, was employed to select the CEO, Mr X, from a particular South African information technology company. Data were obtained mainly from solicited sources, but also some that were unsolicited. This resulted in a life story containing rich descriptive data obtained at first hand from Mr X’s professional career and associated areas of his life. The life -story of this storyteller was organised manually as well as with the aid of ATLAS-Ti 5.0, a computer-based software package suitable for this type of study. The leadership landscape model of Veldsman (2004), a local expert in the area of leadership, together with key theoretical concepts found in the literature, were used to construct an enhanced leadership model. Appropriate qualitative guidelines were used to ensure a study that attends to both academic rigour and aesthetics. The resultant constructed leadership model offers important, if not unique, insights and findings regarding the leadership environment, individual psychosocial dynamics, competencies and capabilities, as well as leadership roles, modes, styles and processes that contribute to personal leadership effectiveness. The thesis illuminates and offers recommendations for a number of methodological and theoretical implications regarding local and global leadership studies, as well as for practice and policy regarding leadership and managerial development.

M.Comm. / The global environment is changing drastically and companies need to respond to this change in order to survive. The concept of shared services has seen its boom in the market as one of the measures to adapt to the ever changing global environment. With the strengthening of the global economy, corporations implement shared services to enhance their competitive advantage. Shared services are implemented for various reasons inclusive of quality, cost, time and economies of scale. The result is changes in processes, technology and culture / people. Change is not easy. People resist as it impacts on culture i.e. the way they currently operate. The introduction of shared services is no different. The changes it leads to create a sense of discomfort thereby leading to resistance. It is, thus, of critical importance to manage the transition of people from the current to the future culture. It has been evident that the softer side of change (people) is the most neglected area when managing change. The study focuses on change management to transform people’s attitudes and behaviours from a functional culture to a service oriented culture. The researcher identified this transition as not successful when introducing shared services, and this forms the research problem. The study is qualitative and exploratory in design with the aim of identifying change management tools and techniques in the implementation of shared services. Various tools have been identified with communication being the most critical tool in managing change. The conclusion drawn is that focus should not only be on the technical areas of change, but involve people as well. No change can be successful without the involvement of the people that are expected to implement it, no matter how sophisticated the processes or technology is.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The problem investigated in this study is that gender equity and change management in the City of Cape Town and in particularly the Diversity Equity and Change Management Department, has not been adequately assessed and a coherent set of options to address this problem has not yet been adequately researched. In particular, the situation is that senior management is not representative and that recruitment and appointment procedures as well as the change management process are not conducive to gender equity. The nature of this study is qualitative and the case study method has been utilized. The scope of the study is on gender equity and the change management process followed by management and staff at the City of Cape Town, in particular the Diversity Equity and Change Management Department since 2000 to 2007, with the view of proposing options for improvement. In 2006 the City of Cape Town Employment Statistics indicated that 80% of top management within departments across the City is still white males. At professional and middle management level white males and females dominated this level with 69.5%. In the technical and associate professions, the tally for whites is 38% and at elementary level 6.5% (Department Human Resources HRD IT System, July 2006). In order to equalize employment statistics in the COCT drastic steps should be taken to eliminate imbalances between both Black and white employees in terms of occupational levels. Disadvantaged Black women and men should benefit from employment, recruitment and selection, appointments and training and development processes and the acquisition of knowledge and skills beyond those acquired within the realm of empowerment. However, women should be adequately represented not nearly in the workplace but overall to enable them to participate in the decision-making of important work related and home related issues. Women should keep on addressing inequality and gender equity to enhance change processes and gender awareness amongst themselves and in the workplace. The gender institutional framework within the COCT as a whole in particularly the Diversity Equity department and the active participation in decision-making in the various structures of the City combines with their history of politics in the women's movement to augur well for continued gender sensitivity in policy formulation and outcome. / South Africa

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study has been conducted before when the company in question underwent a restructuring (name change) but did not threaten the loss of jobs. This study is being conducted again because another restructuring has taken place over the period of 2011/2012 and involved the retrenchment of employees nationally. The company represented in the study is one of the largest cleaning companies in South Africa and has a very broad and influential client base. They are in high demand in the cleaning industry and have positively impacted many companies and organisations over their many years of existence. Because of the magnitude of the workplace restructuring this time around, more people have been affected (both those who were retrenched as well as those who were left behind). According to Vermeulen, 2002, “Downsizing” is a term that emerged in managerial circles and was used in the business press, but no precise theoretical formulation underpins any clear definition of the term. When hearing the term downsizing, one often will use this together with the term “laying-off” interchangeably. However, some authors will focus on different elements of downsizing for example in reporting on a comprehensive study of downsizing in American industry, Cameron, Freeman and Mishra (1993) limited the term's use to a programme which is an intentional process. This process involves an overall reduction in personnel with a view to improving the efficiency of the organisation. The process wittingly or unwittingly affects work processes at the organisation concerned. According to Hellgren, et al (2005), the attitudinal constructs investigated in this study were job satisfaction, job involvement, organisational commitment, and turnover intention. Job satisfaction represents a general affective response to the overall job situation. Following Locke (1976, p. 1300), we define job satisfaction as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience”. ...employees who survived downsizing were likely to experience high levels of stress and decreased levels of organizational commitment and motivation. These individuals are often known as the "victims" of downsizing due to research that documents the devastation of job loss, focusing on negative consequences in terms of psychological and physical well-being (Bennett, Martin, Bies, & Brockner, 1995; Cappeili, 1992; Fallick, 1996; Leana & Feldman, 1992). This study inevitably aimed to prove that workplace restructuring very well has an effect or impact on an employee’s job satisfaction, whether these effects were positive or negative. The findings of the study highlighted significant positive correlations between the two variables and highlights strong relationships between employees’ career advancement opportunities and job satisfaction; trust and job satisfaction, communication and job satisfaction, as well as employee commitment and loyalty and job satisfaction whereas trust (2) or employee morale seem to have no significant relationship with job satisfaction.

The aim of this paper is to provide enterprise system and BPMS implementers an alternative approach to address those critical success factors that can be supported by new web based collaborative technology and to propose a typical model or configuration to deploy this approach as a methodology. In order to achieve this aim the following objectives are identified: <li>Gain an understanding of enterprise and BPMS systems and the history of failed enterprise system implementations; </li> <li>Identify and analyse the critical success factors of enterprise system implementation with a specific view on those that require communication and collaboration that can be supported by a Web 2.0 technology; </li> <li>Gain an understanding of change management as a critical success factor for enterprise system implementation and the role of communication and collaboration as components of change management; </li> <li>Research the current state of Web 2.0 collaborative technology and determine the components that may be useful to support the specific requirements identified for change management as a critical success factor in enterprise system implementation; </li> <li>Propose a model using Web 2.0 tools in the BPMS deployment; </li> <li>Identify areas to be investigated in future research such as a case study. </li> The application of the principles identified and researched for the model is demonstrated through the application of the principles to a specific case, in this instance the FlowCentric Business Process Management Suite. / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Informatics / unrestricted

The research used a change management approach to analyze the restructuring of the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital from a tertiary to a central hospital. The study was underpinned by two objectives. Firstly, to analyze the restructuring of the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital from a tertiary to a "central" hospital using the Core Elements Framework of change management developed by Antwi and Kale (2014). Secondly, to use the knowledge gained through literature review combined with the experiences of the managers at Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital to inform future healthcare reforms in general and particularly in the restructuring of hospitals. The Core Elements Framework by Antwi and Kale (2014) identifies six fundamental change elements from both emergent and planned change management approaches. The six elements are regarded by theorists from the two different schools of thought i.e. emergent change and planned change as key for successful change. The Core Elements Framework by Antwi and Kale, (2014) demonstrates the strength of not viewing the two approaches to change management as mutually exclusive but as complementing each other when the other is falling short. The study identified the following: ■ The change was prompted by clearly identifiable external factors more than internal factors. ■ There was notable lack of organizational harmony which may have negatively impacted the change process. ■ The Private Public Partnership (PPP) funding model which was aimed at delivering the central hospital collapsed, after a study discovered that it benefited the private sector more than the public sector. ■ There was no proper consultation of major stakeholders for preparation of the change. ■ Resources in all material forms were not made available for the change to take off, this means that there was no organizational capacity to execute the change. The study draws the conclusion that lack of organizational capacity, organizational harmony and a proper consultation process for stakeholders are the main reasons why the restructuring of the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital is not yielding the desired results. The study recommends that organizations should implement a multidimensional approach for any change initiative to be successful and that organizations must ensure the availability of the necessary resources when embarking on change.

The general purpose of this study is to investigate and identify the relationship between transformational and leadership personality preferences. The aim of the study is therefore to establish an empirical link between transformational leadership and certain aspects of personality preferences in order to verify if these leaders can be distinguished from others by means of their personality preferences. The transformational leaders’ ratings as identified by use of the Multifactor questionnaire are compared with personality preferences indicated on the scales of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator®. Given the research literature an expectation exists that a statistically significant difference will be found between aspects of personality preferences of transformational and non-transformational leaders. Therefore transformational leaders will be identifiable from non-transformational leaders by their personality preferences. The research group was a convenience sample that consisted of 66 leaders chosen from two organisations in the financial and entertainment industries at the level of team leader or in a supervisory capacity. The statistical procedures utilised in the analysis of the data included analysis of frequencies, ttests and cross tabulations. Firstly, the transformational leaders in the selected organisations were identified successfully. As far as determining the personality preferences of the identified transformational leaders and establishing any possible links between the transformational leadership style and chosen personality preferences, the only significant difference was found between the introversion and extroversion preferences. A significant difference between introversion and extroversion in terms of the Intellectual Stimulation rating on the MLQ was found as well as in terms of the Average and Inspirational Motivation ratings. No other statistically significant differences or interdependencies were found between the personality preferences as identified by the MBTI® and any of the ratings on the MLQ. The third objective of determining whether personality preference can be utilised to predict transformational leadership is therefore answered. From the findings of this study it seems as if personality preferences cannot be utilised to predict transformational leadership in for instance a selection process in a company. As this research group was highly selected and not representative of the general population, it is not possible to generalise the findings of this study. Although the research group was not representative, the findings of this study matched with those of other studies, and the deduction is therefore made that if this study was to be repeated, similar results would be found. / Prof. S. Kruger