The affect of restructuring of organizations on individuals is an area of change that has received little attention from researchers. The literature points to a number of factors that influence how individuals cope with transition. Theorists agree that stages are an intregal part of this process. This study outlines the changes experienced in the ACT Technical and Further Education system between 1987 and 1989- It focuses on the stages model and how individuals perceived themselves moving through particular levels of stages during this time of change. Data from a questionnaire completed by 259 ACT Institute of Technical and Further Education teachers was analysed along with observations and documents produced during 1987 to 1989. Results of the analysis show that individuals felt powerless and alienated by the process of transition. They moved across the stages in a cyclical motion, returning to earlier stages as each new event during the transition impinged on their working lives.

In this study we contribute to the ongoing research on the rationales for corporate diversification. Using plant-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we examine whether combining several lines of business in one entity leads to increased productive efficiency. Studying the direct effect of diversification on efficiency allows us to discern between two major theories of corporate diversification: the synergy hypothesis and the agency-cost hypothesis. To measure productive efficiency, we employ a non-parametric approach—a test based on Varian’s Weak Axiom of Profit Maximization (WAPM). This method has several advantages over other conventional measures of productive efficiency. Most importantly, it allows one to perform the efficiency test without relying on assumptions about the functional form of the underlying production function. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first application of the WAPM test to a large sample of non-financial firms. The study provides evidence that business segments of diversified firms are more efficient compared to single-segment firms in the same industry. This finding suggests that the existence of the so-called ‘diversification discount’ cannot be explained by efficiency differences between multi-segment and focused firms. Furthermore, more efficient segments tend to be vertically integrated with others segments in the same firm and to have been added through acquisitions rather than grown internally. Overall, the results of this study indicate that corporate diversification is value-enhancing, and that it is not necessarily driven by managers’ pursuit of their private benefits.

The monopolistic South African electricity supply industry is undergoing a transformation that would change its ownership and market structure. The objective of this study was to determine whether the strategic choice to transform the industry is indeed appropriate. A qualitative, case based study of the existing and proposed South African electricity supply industry was performed. Various strategic tools and techniques, related to both strategic theory and electricity supply industry models, formed the basis of the evaluation. It was found that to overcome the critical weaknesses in the industry and to take advantage of the opportunities present in the dynamic and complex electricity supply industry the restructuring is appropriate. The restructuring would allow the South African Government to meet its objectives of having an efficient electricity supply industry and meet the huge suppressed demand for low cost electrification. South Africa intends adopting the wholesale competition model, however this study recommends that it should implement the single-buyer model. Should the restructuring be successfully implemented, customers in the South African electricity supply industry can expect high quality electricity at a competitive price. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, 2003.

This study sought to further our understanding of the antecedents of employee perceptions of organisational justice in the context of organisational restructuring. As such, this study focussed on the previously under-researched change management practices of support for downsizing victims and organisational communication quality, and the similarly under-researched organisational justice dimensions of interpersonal and informational justice, while also hypothesising a moderating effect of perceived supervisor support between these two sets of variables. Using an online survey, a total of 234 employees from a large New Zealand organisation in the Education sector were invited to participate in the study, with 71 volunteering to complete the online survey. The results showed no moderating effects of perceived supervisor support, but did show strong, significant main effects of victim support and communication quality on both interpersonal and informational justice. These findings highlight the importance of change management practices in maximising positive outcomes post-restructuring for the organisation and its employees.

This thesis sets out to examine contemporary organisational restructuring. In particular it documents and examines the role of engineers and systems analysts in designing and delivering new technologies and work systems. On the basis of fieldwork observations and detailed cross sectoral interviewing of over three hundred personnel in over sixty organisations, the thesis documents the kind of restructuring that is taking place and who is involved in the process. Whilst examining the role of trade unions, management and engineers within this process of restructuring the key focus is systems analysts - who hitherto, have remained a largely uncharted and under-researched group of workers. Through fieldwork, interviews and literature reviews the thesis highlights who systems analysts are and what is involved in the process of systems analysis and design. The thesis, First, documents and offers a critical assessment of the process of business restructuring and some of the key attempts to theorise this process. Second, it documents and examines a series of methods, values and techniques which constitute a design culture, or referral point, from which engineers and analysts interpret what is in the organisations interest, make sense of their own work, pass judgement on their designs and assess their relationships to others involved in the design process. Third, through an analysis of the tools and techniques used for systems analysis and design the thesis demonstrates that there is a profound contradiction between, on the one hand, attempts to develop tools and techniques to more accurately embody the social in the technical and, on the other hand, the influence which prevailing property relations and configurations of power have on the tools and techniques used in systems design. This influence is manifest in the continued existence of a software bottleneck and in system failure and user dissatisfaction. Fourth, the thesis highlights the nature of union involvement in the design process and demonstrates some of the key issues and concerns unions face in the 1990s. Finally, the thesis assesses a number of key attempts to analyse the class position of' intermediate strata' and demonstrates, on the basis of fieldwork studies and interviews the class position of engineers and systems analysts and how this influences the types of technologies and systems these groups design.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-06-15Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:47:58Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ajonas_acs_me_prud.pdf: 6412772 bytes, checksum: 52e4b20b57c669edee7acf10db0b6c8c (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Secretaria de Estado da Educação / Essa pesquisa teve como objetivo realizar uma análise do processo de reestruturação urbana, enfatizando as mudaças geradas na centralidade urbana. Para isso, tomamos como recorte territorial o município de Itu – SP. Desse modo, buscamos compreender as transformações que se processam na área central do município de Itu e que podem ser observadas na relação entre as formas herdadas e as novas dinâmicas que lhe são impostas pelo desenvolvimento econômico, pela expansão de seu tecido urbano e pelo crescimento populacional. Essas novas dinâmicas modificam o centro, atribuindo-lhe novos conteúdos, identificáveis, entre outros, pela intensificação de seus fluxos, implicando em novas centralidades. Com isso, gera-se o descompasso entre formas e funções no centro histórico. Procuramos apreender essas transformações indentificando suas conseqüências no plano da morfologia urbana, por meio da criação de novas centralidades. Para o desenvolvimento dessa pesquisa, priorizamos o enfoque econômico, por meio de análise das empresas existentes em nossa área de estudo. Os dados evidenciaram aspectos do centro que permitiram um maior entendimento de sua dinâmica e estrutura, bem como o conteúdo informacional existente nas novas centralidades que se configuram. / This research had the objective to achieve an analyze of the restructuring urban process, emphasizing the changes generated in the centrality urban. For this, we assumed as territories bound the Itu municipality – SP. This way, we tried to understand the changes that occurs in the central area of the Itu municipality and it can be observed in the relation between the inherited forms and the new dynamics which are attributed for the economic development, for the urban tissue’s expansion and for the population increase. These new dynamics change the center, attributing to it new contents, identified, among others, for the intensification of its flows, resulting in news centralities. So, generate itself the incompatibility between forms and functions in the historical center. We tried to apprehend these changes identifying its consequences in the urban morphology’s plane, through the creation of news centralities. For this research’s development, we priorited the economic point, through the analyze of the companies existent in our study area. The datuns evidenced centre’s aspects that allowed a greater understanding of its dynamic and structure, as well as the informational content existent in the new centralities that configures itself.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The phenomenon of change has been the subject of debate for decades. Whether the change was planned or as the result of a catastrophic event, change affects nations, people, businesses, the economy and the environment. Typical changes in businesses are mergers, restructuring, transformations and retrenchments. Consequently, to this contentious phenomenon, change has been the subject of research by social scientists, behavioural theorists and analysts. Their collective endeavours have provided the world with a wealth of scientific knowledge. The Metro District Health Services in the Western Cape have undergone major restructuring and transformation. It is with this premise the question is posed, are change agents, leaders, and employees sufficiently empowered to mitigate the challenges and appease the expectations associated with restructuring, transformation and change?Supporting and contextualizing the study to the existing body of knowledge, previous research is reflected upon in an attempt to add value to future change initiatives. The reflections include different perspectives of change management, the multifaceted and evolutionary nature of change. The theoretical framework underpinnings of organisational development and transformation were also explored. One point of departure was to establish what is needed to ensure organisational success and describes activities, action plans and strategies, which modifies the organisational structures. The suggested methodologies, dimensions, variables influencing or enabling transformation formed the baseline for this study, with the emphasis placed on models of change, communication, theories of success formulae for organisational change, competencies of change agents, behaviour and attitudes of all stakeholders. Circumventing the purpose and contextualizing the baseline for this research, the survivor syndrome was explored and the dimensions of different change elements offered value to this study. The intent of the restructuring and transformation initiative, was to strengthen the Metro District Health Services by decentralizing Primary Health Care Services. Selected employees were tasked as change agents to facilitate the process and were simultaneously directly impacted by the process. The objective of this study is to explore and understand the effects of change on selected employees functioning at different levels within the Metro District Health Services during restructuring and transformation of the provisioning of healthcare services. In determining the effects the variables explored were their attitude towards change, their commitment to the organisation, the barriers and challenges encountered with the implementation of the process.The selected participants were part of an intensive restructuring and transformation process. The sample chosen from the population of 350 employees at the regional office of the Metro District Health Service and was representative of the greater population. The sample includes selected managers and employees at different hierarchal levels ranging from salary levels five to fourteen. Ensuring representativeness the different departments were used as strata and within each department a random sampling method was used to select respondents. Support was provided to explain that stratified sampling is a procedure of selecting a probability sample where a heterogeneous population is first divided into subgroups (known as strata) on the sampling frame, and simple random samples are drawn from each stratum. The research methodology was a combination of qualitative and quantitative research design. A questionnaire was distributed consisting of three sections, Section A Biographical Information, Section B Structured Interview (10 participants), Senior Managers were approached to conduct the structured face to face interviews asking open ended questions and Section C Survey Questionnaire was completed by the rest of the sample group by indicating on a likert scale their agreement or disagreement with the statements. The questionnaires have been demonstrated to be psychometrically sound in that their reliability and validity have been reported on and supported in previous studies. The analysis of the raw data involved statistical computations using Statistical Package for Social Science called Moonstats© and Thematic Content Analysis for the interpretation of the qualitative data. The limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future change initiatives and future research projects on the subject.

The fundamental problem of a company restructuring is the absence of a common criteria indicator when deciding among the product, process and source alternatives. The aim of the study is to solve the problem with new process metrics of capital and ROI and to describe the main areas of the practical use of the new solution.

The workplace of today is global, fast paced and under intense pressure to stay competitive and achieve financial results. This makes change an inevitable part of any organisation because in order to survive and thrive in this environment organisations need to continuously change and re-invent themselves. This study was conducted in a mining company and the industry has been one of the biggest contributors to the South African economy for over a century. There have been many changes and developments within the mining industry over the years. The mining industry has also experienced a lot of transformational activities such as mergers, acquisitions, downsizing and restructuring. During these changing and uncertain times it is important to pay special attention to the employees in the organisation as people still remain the most important asset in any organisation. Change can be a pleasant or traumatic experience for people and this makes it important to ensure that with all changes to the work environment employees are well looked after and their wellbeing is maintained. Employee wellness has been a subject of much interest for many years and it has been found that organisations that invest in the wellness of their employees have greater benefits and are more successful at managing change. This study was conducted to investigate the impact of a restructuring exercise on the wellness of middle managers. The study aimed to determine the impact/effect of a restructuring exercise on employee wellness in a sample of employees in the middle management category. This research investigated possible wellness factors that were impacted on during this organisational restructuring exercise. Three wellness dimensions were looked at and these included: physical, mental and social dimensions of wellness. The intention is to use the information collected as guidelines in the development of future employee wellness programs, taking into account change management and how to better handle it. A qualitative approach was followed and employees from a mining company were asked to participate in the study. Data was collected firstly through the use of an open ended questionnaire and thereafter two focus groups were conducted. The focus group sessions were recorded and the data was transcribed. A process of coding was used to analyse and get the central themes from the data. In conclusion the results indicated that the restructuring exercise had a significant impact on the wellness of middle managers. The general responses were negative and indicated that people’s wellness was definitely impacted on. The key themes and sub themes that emerged across all dimensions were grouped into the following: communication, trust, personal health management (nutrition, physical health and fitness and sleeping habits), mental wellbeing (stress and anxiety, morale, uncertainty), workplace environment and social status. The role of managers/leaders was seen as key during this process. Also it was clear that the development and implementation of relevant wellness programs was important to manage employee wellness during such activities. Therefore recommendations and strategies for managing change and wellness offered in this study take into account the responses from the participants and the key issues identified. This study was conducted in a specific organisation with a limited number of participants from the Corporate Office and therefore the findings should not be generalised to other middle managers in other organisational contexts without a degree of caution. Another important limitation to consider is that this research was taken at a specific time during this restructuring exercise. The negative responses could have been influenced by the timing of this research, in that, although there was a lot of communication pertaining to the changes envisaged to employees, there however were no final decisions made or implemented yet. Employees were in a waiting period and they did not know what was going to be the extent of the impact of these changes on them. A recommendation is that this research is undertaken at a later stage when all changes are implemented. In this case this was however not possible due to a time factor from the researcher’s side and delays within the organisation. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

This project proposes a mobility plan for the city centre of Limassol, with the goal of minimizing the use of the car and the social and environmental impacts of car traffic. The inner city of Limassol with the population of 160 000 to 200 000 suffers from a high dense traffic, facing excessive pollution, disconnected areas, an incomplete pedestrian and bike system. The project will focus on minimzing traffic and creating a complete pedestrian system in order to find new life lines for the city. The proposal presents a clear structure of a circular loop and six linear axes. The strategy in designing the loop and these lines is to highlight the unique qualities and different characters of specific locations. Together the loop and axis will allow the inner city to function more as a whole, in respect to live, work, culture, education and tourism.