This study empirically compares the Classical Test Theory (CTT) and the Partial Credit Model (PCM) of Rasch focusing on the invariance of item parameters. The invariance concept which is the consequence of the principle of specific objectivity was tested in both CTT and PCM using the results of learners who wrote the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics examinations in 2010. The difficulty levels of the test items were estimated from the independent samples of learn- ers. The same sample of learners used in the calibration of the difficulty levels of the test items in the PCM model were also used in the calibration of the difficulty levels of the test items in CTT model. The estimates of the difficulty levels of the test items were done using RUMM2030 in the case of PCM while SAS was used in the case of CTT. RUMM2030 and SAS are both the statistical softwares. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the four different design groups of test takers. In cases where the ANOVA showed a significant difference between the means of the design groups, the Tukeys groupings was used to establish where the difference came from. The research findings were that the test items' difficulty parameter estimates based on the CTT theoretical framework were not invariant across the different independent sample groups. The over- all findings from this study were that the CTT theoretical framework was unable to produce item difficulty invariant parameter estimates. The PCM estimates were very stable in the sense that for most of the items, there was no significant difference between the means of at least three design groups and the one that deviated from the rest did not deviate that much. The item parameters of the group that was representative of the population (proportional allocation) and the one where the same number of learners (50 learners) was taken from different performance categories did not differ significantly for all the items except for item 6.6 in examination question paper 2. It is apparent that for the test item parameters to be invariant of the group of test takers in PCM, the group of test takers must be heterogeneous and each performance category needed to be big enough for the proper calibration of item parameters. The higher values of the estimated item parameters in CTT were consistently found in the sample that was dominated by the high proficient learners in Mathematics ("bad") and the lowest values were consistently calculated in the design group that was dominated by the less proficient learners. This phenomenon was not apparent in the Rasch model. / Mathematical Sciences / M.Sc. (Statistics)

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2007. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Purpose. This study investigates how foreign-born Chinese managers in the Cape Town area perceive their own leadership in a cross-cultural business situation, and compares these perceptions with how the local South African Xhosa-speaking employees perceive the styles of their foreign managers. The study is important because of the growing private investment in Africa by people from China. Approach. Ten small businesses owned and managed by Chinese nationals were studied: five retail, two wholesale, one restaurant and two Chinese supermarkets. A Likert-type questiormaire was created by operationalising 10 of the 19 aspects of cross-cultural leadership identified by Suutari and Riusala (2001). These ten aspects are: decision participation, autonomy-delegation, consideration, rewarding, informing, conflict management, production emphasis, criticizing, goal setting, and inspiration. Each aspect had four questions associated with it. The questiormaire was given individually to the ten managers and to 20 of their Xhosa-speaking employees, two per business. It was followed by an open interview based mainly on the questiormaire content. The questionnaire responses were analysed statistically, first to test for the sameness of responses of the employees as well as the sameness of responses of the managers, using the Sign Test. Responses of the two groups were compared for each aspect. Interview responses were used to help interpret the numbers and formulate findings. Findings. There are clear, statistically significant differences between the perceptions of the managers' leadership style by the two groups on all ten of the aspects. The Chinese managers show a similar leadership approach when interacting with their employees. The Xhosa-speaking employees have perceptions similar to one another about their managers' leadership style. Thus a disjunction is shown between the two culturally different groups. The responses of the Chinese managers were analysed in light of the literature on Chinese culture, and in most ways they were seen to be managing using a traditional Chinese-based style. In general, they make the decisions and do the planning, do not delegate much, withhold infonnation, do not reward good performance, and are not inspirational. However, they do tend to be kind. Research limitations. The study compared only those two ethnic groups in a small geographic area, with small sample sizes. It also studied reported perceptions. Further research could tty to isolate just cultural differences, and focus more on leadership behaviours. Practical implications. Acknowledgement of the local culture and perhaps use of a more inclusive, less authoritarian management-leadership style seem important for existing and future Chinese managers. Culturally-based management training can be offered for them and for potential investors, to support future small business investors in South Africa and beyond. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Doel. Hierdie studie behels 'n ondersoek na hoe buitelands-gebore Sjinese bestuurders in Kaapstad hulle eie leierskap beoordeel in 'n kruis-kulturele sake omgewing. Hierdie sienings word dan vergelyk met die persepsies van hoe plaaslike Suid-Afrikaanse Xhosa-sprekende werknemers die bestuurstyl van hulle buitelandse werkgewers beoordeel. Hierdie studie is belangrik vanweë die toenemende private belegging in Afrika deur Sjinese burgers. Benadering. Tien klein sake-ondememings wat deur Sjinese burgers besit en bestuur word, is ondersoek: vyf in die kleinhandel, twee in die groothandel, een restaurant en twee Sjinese supermarkte. 'n Likert-tipe vraelys is saamgestel deur die operasionalisering van 10 van die 19 aspekte van kruis-kulturele leierskap s00s deur Suutari en Riusala (2001) geïdentifiseer. Hierdie tien aspekte is: besluit-deelneming, outonomie-delegasie, konsiderasie, beloning, inkennisstelling, konflik-bestuur, produksie-beklemtoning, kritisering, doelsteIling-bepaling, en inspirasie. Elke aspek is aan vier vrae gekoppel. Die vraelys is aan elkeen van die tien Sjinese bestuurders gegee, en aan 20 van hulle Xhosa-sprekende werknemers, twee per sake-ondememing. Dit is opgevolg deur 'n oop onderhoud wat hoofsaaklik op die inhoud van die vraelys gebaseer was. Die antwoorde op die vraelys is statisties ontIeed, eerstens vir die ooreenstemming van die antwoorde van die werknemers, sowel as die ooreenstemming van die antwoorde van die bestuurders deur middle van die "Sign" toets. Die antwoorde van die twee groepe is met mekaar vergelyk vir elke aspek. Die terugvoering vanaf die onderhoude is gebruik om die getalle te interpreter en om resultate te help formuleer. Bevindings. Daar is helder, statistiese beduidende verskille tussen die beoordeling van die bestuurders se leierskapstyl deur beide groepe wat betref al tien die aspekte. Die Sjinese bestuurders toon 'n soortgelyke leierskap benadering wanneer hulle met hul werknemers omgaan. Die Xhosa-sprekende wer1cnemers het onderling soortgelyke persepsies betreffende hul bestuurders se leierskapstyl. Dus bestaan daar 'n uiteenlopende siening tussen die twee kulturele groepe. Die beoordeling van die Sjinese bestuurders is ontleed in die lig van literatuur oor Sjinese kultuur, en dit het geblyk dat hulle 'n tradisionele Sjinese bestuurstyl navolg. In die algemeen is daar bevind dat hulle die besluite neem en die beplanning doen, dat hulle nie veel delegeer nie, dat hulle inligting weerhou, dat hulle nie goeie werkverrigting beloon nie, en dat hulle nie werkers aanmoedig nie. Desniteenstaande is hulle goedhartig. Navorsingsbeperkings. In hierdie studie is slegs twee etniese groepe in 'n klein geografiese gebied, met klein steekproewe, ondersoek. Persepsies waaroor verslag gedoen is, is ondersoek. In verdere navorsing kan daar probeer word om kulturele verskille te isoleer, en om op leierskapsgedrag te fokus. Praktiese implikasies. Erkenning van die plaaslike kultuur en miskien 'n meer insluitende, minder outoritêre bestuurstyl blyk belangrik te wees vir bestaande en toekomstige Sjinese bestuurders. Kultuur-gebaseerde bestuursopleiding kan vir hulle en voornemende beleggers aangebied word om toekomstige klein sake-beleggers in Suid-Afrika en elders te ondersteun.

Based on bioecological and cultural historical approaches, the aims of this study were to identify and explore ecological factors influencing the environment’s success in developing talented male football players, to identify and explore ecological conditions associated with becoming a professional football player, and to present a qualitatively derived ecological framework of the environmental conditions associated with becoming a professional football player. It followed a shift in research attention from the individual athlete to the environment in which he or she develops. A cultural praxis framework was adopted as a guiding principle and a single case study was used as a methodological approach. A successful talent development environment was the case under study, from which 17 participants were approached for data collection. The participants numbered ten young talented footballers, five of their parents and two of their coaches. Data was collected via individual open-ended and semi-structured interviews which were supplemented through unstructured observations, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis with the focus on positive factors congruent with successful developmental outcomes. The results revealed how the developing players as active participants in their talent development process interacted with contextual factors associated with successful talent development and outline. Based on the data analysis, an empirical conceptual framework of factors playing a role in talent development is proposed. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

In the 21st century change is inevitable and management accounting has not been immune to the changing business environment. The morphogenic change, has been brought about because of three distinctly identifiable drivers of change namely rapidly advancing communications and information technology, the onslaught of globalisation and an increased emphasis on the knowledge worker in organisations. Questions have been raised by business leaders about management accountants ability to keep pace with the challenges, as well as higher education's ability to provide graduate management accountants with the required skills for the new business environment. A triangulation method was used to conduct an investigation into the perception of the skills required and acquired by South African management accountants to meet the challenges of the changing business environment. As the fundamental nature of the study implied performance measurement, a balanced scorecard was employed to report on and measure if academia is delivering what practice wants. The study found that tertiary management accounting education has been slow to adopt the changes of the business environment and that a gap does indeed exist between what practice want and educators teach. Information obtained from the customer, learning and growth, internal business process and financial perspectives of the balanced scorecard was used to develop a framework for curriculum design. Academics involved in curriculum design should take note of the recommendations listed in this research in order to ensure that qualifications remain relevant to an ever-changing business environment. / Financial Accounting / D.Comm.

Introduction: An interconnected world is impelling workforce composition towards cultural heterogeneity. Since leadership is a cultural construct, leaders should display those styles that enable them to function effectively in culturally varied conditions. Cultural intelligence could assist leaders in this respect. Purpose: To investigate the role cultural intelligence plays in the leadership style (empowering and directive leadership) and leadership effectiveness domain, so as to aid leader selection and development. Method: A systematic review of the cultural intelligence literature, coupled with content and thematic analysis, allowed for the knowledge to be organised per the concept, definition and truth statement (validated hypotheses) elements of the general body of scientific knowledge framework. Correlation and regression analysis of cross-sectional survey data, from 1140 respondents, were used to assess relationships between leader cultural intelligence, leadership styles (empowering and directive) and leadership effectiveness. Results: Nine concepts associated with, and 24 different definitions of cultural intelligence, were identified. Sixty percent of hypotheses on cultural intelligence have been confirmed as truth statements. The relationship between leader cultural intelligence and empowering leadership demonstrated a large practical effect. This relationship was underpinned primarily by metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence. The relationship with directive leadership carried a medium practical effect, and was strongest at the motivational and cognitive cultural intelligence levels. The part played by subordinates’ cultural identity in the display of empowering and directive leadership by culturally intelligent leaders was insignificant; rather, leader cultural intelligence was the dominant informant of these leadership styles. Finally, leader cultural intelligence did not impact the relationship between empowering leadership and leadership effectiveness. Although it did negatively affect the directive leadership and leadership effectiveness relationship, the moderation had no practical effect. Conclusions: The concepts associated with cultural intelligence are: accomplishment, culture, expatriates, experience, fit, intelligence, motivation, supervision and training. Cultural intelligence definitions remain mostly based on those of the seminal authors. The majority of truths cover just six themes. Leadership style (empowering and directive) is a function of leader cultural intelligence. Although leader cultural intelligence extends beyond subordinates’ cultural identity in predicting empowering and directive leadership, it does not influence their relationships with leadership effectiveness. / Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) / D.B.L.

Purpose – This research paper falls within the interpretive research philosophy and considers talent management within the field of competitive advantage. It aims to explore the organisation members’ perceptions of talent, talent management, the factors perceived to facilitate competitive advantage and the role of leadership in the facilitation of talent management. It attempts to achieve a greater understanding of talent management as practically applied by organisations. Design/Methodology – A qualitative research approach in collecting and analysing data was implemented for this particular research study to address the research problem. The research design consists of a qualitative case study of one organisation. The organisation was purposively selected due to its superior performance in its particular industry. The data was collected by using in-depth interviews and observation and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Organisational documents supplemented the data collection process. Rationale – Current talent management literature shows a lack of understanding of talent and the role leadership plays in talent management. A number of authors have called for research which focuses on the perspectives of all stakeholders, especially at the individual level. It was also suggested that greater focus is allocated to small to medium enterprises, as multi-national corporations dominated the current literature. This research paper has the potential to increase levels of understanding at both organisation and individual level. This study examined TM from a range of perspectives, focused on a smaller organisation and is one of the few qualitative studies in the world within a developing country—research that is lacking in the literature. Findings – Participants held different views on talent and talent management, supporting the lack of consensus on these topics and the lack of a standardised understanding. The findings highlight that talent management was mostly perceived to involve the correct positioning of people within the organisation and that talent involved skills, knowledge and abilities to perform their roles well. Organisational structure, processes, and the lack of leadership ability were perceived as the dominant factors affecting the effective implementation of talent management practices. Talent management was perceived as important by the middle and lower-level participants of the study and was perceived as not important by higher-level participants—a contrasting finding due to the fact that the higher-level candidates felt that it was important to retain staff, understood the consequences of staff loss and that it was difficult to replace talent. Theoretical and managerial implications – The findings correspond with previous studies that the understanding of talent management is still lacking and thus potentially jeopardizes shaping a competitive advantage. The leadership cadre at the case organisation failed to see the importance of talent management and failed to link talent management to competitive advantage and ultimately failed to strategise potential talent management practices and effective talent management implementation. The modern business environment is changing and the realisation that talent management is of crucial importance to sustained competitive advantage is becoming evident. Limitations – The main source of error was a potential bias of results and a lack of rigorous data analysis, which was overcome by attending to the reliability of the research. Future research – There is potential for further empirical research to be conducted in other industries while maintaining focus on smaller businesses. The focus must also be maintained on the perspectives of all stakeholders in organisations. / Business Management / M. Com.

This dissertation reflects the results of a study during which the 2006 annual reports of the top-40 JSE listed companies, were assessed for their disclosure of the required corporate governance statements. Content analysis was used to identify the information. The results obtained indicate that the majority of the JSE's top-40 listed companies adhere to good corporate governance disclosure practices. However, there are areas in which the non-disclosure of information was prevalent. These include the disclosure of information on the selection of external auditors and whistle blowing. Future research, employing sources such as SENS announcements, press releases, trading updates, cautionary announcements and websites together with annual reports should be conducted. / Financial Accounting / M.Com. (Accounting)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership among senior leaders in a South African financial services organisation. The sample consisted of 973 participants. A convenience sample was used, as the leaders were part of a strategic organisational initiative and completed measurement instruments as part of this process. All participants completed the Bar-On EQ-i, in order to measure emotional intelligence, whereas the leadership data were obtained from an organisation-specific multi-rater which accessed self-ratings, peer and subordinate ratings as well as manager ratings in terms of leadership behaviours linked to organisational worldviews of leadership effectiveness. The results show that there was a statistically significant relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership among the leaders, but that there was poor predictive strength between these variables. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MCom (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

This study empirically compares the Classical Test Theory (CTT) and the Partial Credit Model (PCM) of Rasch focusing on the invariance of item parameters. The invariance concept which is the consequence of the principle of specific objectivity was tested in both CTT and PCM using the results of learners who wrote the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics examinations in 2010. The difficulty levels of the test items were estimated from the independent samples of learn- ers. The same sample of learners used in the calibration of the difficulty levels of the test items in the PCM model were also used in the calibration of the difficulty levels of the test items in CTT model. The estimates of the difficulty levels of the test items were done using RUMM2030 in the case of PCM while SAS was used in the case of CTT. RUMM2030 and SAS are both the statistical softwares. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the four different design groups of test takers. In cases where the ANOVA showed a significant difference between the means of the design groups, the Tukeys groupings was used to establish where the difference came from. The research findings were that the test items' difficulty parameter estimates based on the CTT theoretical framework were not invariant across the different independent sample groups. The over- all findings from this study were that the CTT theoretical framework was unable to produce item difficulty invariant parameter estimates. The PCM estimates were very stable in the sense that for most of the items, there was no significant difference between the means of at least three design groups and the one that deviated from the rest did not deviate that much. The item parameters of the group that was representative of the population (proportional allocation) and the one where the same number of learners (50 learners) was taken from different performance categories did not differ significantly for all the items except for item 6.6 in examination question paper 2. It is apparent that for the test item parameters to be invariant of the group of test takers in PCM, the group of test takers must be heterogeneous and each performance category needed to be big enough for the proper calibration of item parameters. The higher values of the estimated item parameters in CTT were consistently found in the sample that was dominated by the high proficient learners in Mathematics ("bad") and the lowest values were consistently calculated in the design group that was dominated by the less proficient learners. This phenomenon was not apparent in the Rasch model. / Mathematical Sciences / M.Sc. (Statistics)

Text in English / Global and South African business challenges necessitate an increased focus on the need for effective leadership. The leaders of South African public listed organisations need to investigate new business solutions to enhance and sustain organisational effectiveness. Public listed South African organisations on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) were selected as the organisation type for this study. This study was motivated by the need for public listed South African organisations to explore organisational leadership as a means to assist in differentiating their organisations from competitors, thereby enhancing organisational competitiveness. The primary research objective of this study was to investigate and establish an organisational leadership brand concept model for public listed South African organisations. The discussion of the literature covered the global and South African business context, the concepts of the nature of organisational leadership, brand and organisational leadership brand, and emminated in an exploratory conceptualisation of organisational leadership brand for public listed South African organisations. The pragmatic paradigm was used as the foundation of this study. The study adopted an exploratory, sequential mixed methods research approach, combining a qualitative emphasis and supportive quantitative research approach to conduct the exploratory research. The qualitative findings proposed the concepts: the nature of organisational leadership and organisational leadership brand, including stakeholders and these concepts served as the basis for designing the quantitative survey questionnaire. The quantitative results indicated reliable questionnaire items, and based on the exploratory statistical analysis of the multivariate linear regression equation, described the organisational leadership brand (OLB) concept exploratory model with the best fit. An integration of the qualitative findings and quantitative results provided the empirical support to achieve the primary research objective. The OLB concept model integrates the concepts of organisational leadership and organisational leadership brand. The study contributed across the methodological, theoretical and practical domains as follows: the nature of organisational leadership for South African public listed organisations was conceptualised; the elements comprising the concept of OLB for public listed South African organisations was described; the OLB concept model for public listed South African organisations describes the development of organisational leadership brand equity through four levels of organisational leadership brand equity development; and the OLB concept model for public listed South African organisations may assist by providing guidance for the senior leadership of organisations in establishing organisational leadership brand equity. Furthermore, the study’s research approach provides support for the use of a mixed methods research approach in the study of organisational leadership within the pragmatic context of business organisations / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Consulting Psychology)