Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Susan Letvak; submitted to the School of Nursing. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jun. 7, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-170).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. / Prepared for: Dept. of Educational Studies. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 100-111.

Bachelor-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2006.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2008.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Stephen L. Mehay, William Bowman. "March 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-102). Also available online.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

M.Ing. / The loss of skills and knowledge of technical professionals experienced by many organizations in South Africa has serious implications on the competitiveness of these organizations in the local and international markets. Organizations should come to realize that they should find creative ways to retain critical skills and knowledge and ensure continuity in terms of succession management. Technical professionals play a crucial role in society. They are responsible for maintaining the technologies that they developed — technologies that are used extensively everyday. The extent of society's reliance on technical professionals is staggering. They ensure that people have clean water, transportation, communication, and countless other necessities. Organizations cannot afford to lose their technical professionals and must find ways to retain them. Research was done on the retention of technical professionals and the research indicated that there are fundamental differences between technical professionals and the other staff in organizations. The characteristics of technical professionals require that they be treated differently from other employees. Separate reward systems should be designed for technical professionals because they have different motives for joining and staying with organizations than other employees. Rewarding and compensating technical professionals, with retention as the objective, require that more attention be given to non-financial rewards. Technical professionals require opportunities to develop themselves and to keep abreast of the latest developments in their fields. Very importantly, they have to be assured proper career development. Performance management of technical professionals is a contentious issue because many of the outputs of technical professionals are intangible and difficult to measure. Performance appraisal systems have to be very well designed and alternatives to conventional performance appraisals should be considered. Some alternatives are peer control, selfevaluation, and evaluation by subordinates. Structural accommodations should be made to accommodate technical professionals because of the cultural differences between professionals and non-professionals. Various accommodations could be effective depending on the nature of the business and the level of dependence the organization has on technical professionals. Some options are dual ladders, triple hierarchies, and broadbanding amongst others. These structural accommodations can ensure that technical professionals do not have to make the transition to management in order to obtain more responsibility, recognition and status in an organization. The transition to management, of a technical professional, might in some cases have detrimental effects on the organization and the individual. For example, the best engineer in a project team is promoted to manage the team. The consequence may be that the team loses their best engineer and the organization gains a manager with little or no management skills. The success of retention strategies are organization-dependant, however, the strategies discussed in this dissertation can help ensure that organizations retain their competitive advantage by effectively managing and retaining their technical professionals.

Literature has also shown that how long an employee stays in an organisation is determined by their relationship with their manager. By identifying the key managerial behaviours that are considered by knowledge workers to be important for retention, organisations will stand a greater chance of retaining these individuals. This research investigated what impact the knowledge worker’s perception of his manager’s behaviour has on his intention to stay with the organisation. The research also aimed to establish whether perceived managerial behaviour affected retention differently for the different race groups. A quantitative study was done which was based on a previous study by Rhule (2004). The current study focuses on knowledge workers in a leading Pulp and Paper company in South Africa. The study found that there is a strong relationship between the knowledge workers perception of the manager’s behaviour and intention to stay. Another key finding is that there is no significant difference between black and white respondents in how competent they perceive their managers to be on managerial behaviours they consider important for retention. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted