Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 114-115).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Instructional Systems, Leadership and Workforce Development. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

The management concept of Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which details the value and benefits employees derive from being members of the organisation, has been widely touted in literature as a determinant of work engagement and retention. The growing body of Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB) acknowledges the importance of these concepts, particularly in the service industry where engagement and retention are critical for good customer relationships. The research followed a quantitative and non-experimental approach by using primary data as the unit of analysis. Using a self-report electronic questionnaire, relationships between EVP, WE and Turnover Intentions were determined from a sample of (N=259) consisting of supervisor to management level employees in commercial banks across Botswana. The adopted composite questionnaire has been validated for the South African sample and proved to have high reliability. The individual instruments have been used in different industries as well as professions and showed no inherent bias. The results showed some important relationships between EVP, WE and Turnover Intentions. Specifically, EVP fulfilment revealed a substantive positive relationship with Work Engagement whereas another substantial relationship exists between engagement and Turnover Intention. While a definitive but small relationship exists between EVP and Turnover Intention, it was recommended that the organisation that participated can buffer turnover intention through leveraging engagement levels, especially the dedication dimension of engagement as it has found to be the prerequisite for vigor and absorption dimensions of engagement.

M.A. (Sociology) / Over the past few decades, South African institutions have responded to a prevailing human rights discourse and pressures from the state and labour unions to put a range of key policies in place. Amongst these, family-friendly policies have gained acceptance and prominence. This study explores and analyses the use of family-friendly policies in a major South African bank and establishes reasons why bank staff do and do not make use of such policies, as well as the ways in which the available policies cater for their particular needs. The research probes the experiences of both male and female employees within this South African bank, the challenges that they face and the agency that they display in balancing their work and family lives by making use of the family-friendly policies within the institution. In-depth qualitative interviews and a documentary study of existing policy are the main methods of the study. The sample was comprised of 18 participants with children of 12 years and younger, two childless participants and one union representative. The final analysis reveals that, in general, the participants were reasonably content with the policies that the bank provides and viewed them as adequate. However, they were of the view that more benefits should be forthcoming and that there should be greater consistency in the application of policies. They also raised the inability of staff to discuss personal issues affecting their work efforts with management. Weber suggested that employees in large-scale bureaucracies accept the legal authority of the institution – its rules, functions and hierarchies. The bank as a bureaucracy does indeed frame employees’ social action; however, in present-day South Africa, policy, unlike being what Weber envisaged, is humanising and enabling, rather than constraining, and bank employees are able to exercise their autonomy to make policy work in their favour.

No description available.

Bakgrund: Tjänsteföretag såsom banker är i stort behov av motiverade anställda då det skapar förutsättningar för goda prestationer och service av bra kvalitet. Motivation har vidare visat sig påverkas i olika riktningar av det distansarbete som numera blir allt vanligare. Bankbranschen är en av de branscher där distansarbetet förväntas kvarstå, vilket ställer krav på arbetsgivare att skapa förutsättningar för att fortsatt möta bankanställdas behov i syfte att upprätthålla deras motivation och således hålla sig konkurrenskraftiga. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att skapa förståelse för bankanställdas motivation vid distansarbete. Med detta syfte ämnar studien att med utgångspunkt i SDT undersöka bankanställdas upplevelse av att arbeta på distans. Frågeställningar: Hur upplever bankanställda autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet vid distansarbete? Metod: Studien utgörs av en kvalitativ fallstudie med utgångspunkt i ett fenomenologiskt vetenskapligt förhållningssätt. Det empiriska materialet insamlades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer vilka utfördes med nio respondenter från en bank i Sverige. Slutsats: Från studien är det möjligt att konstatera att känslan av autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet påverkas vid distansarbete och således att distansarbetet inverkar på bankanställdas motivation. Ett tema som framkommer i studien, som visar sig vara väldigt fördelaktigt för de bankanställdas motivation, är det faktum att distansarbetet numera är förlagt på deltid. Från studien framkommer även resultat som visar att distansarbetet är gynnsamt för bankanställdas privatliv, vilket är fördelaktigt för deras motivation och prestationer i arbetet. / Background: Service companies like banks are in great need of motivated employees as it creates conditions to reach good performance and good quality service. Motivation has further shown to be affected in different directions as of the distance work that nowadays is getting more usual. The banking industry is one of the industries where distance work is expected to stay, which requires employers to create conditions to keep meeting the needs of bank employees in order to keep them motivated and thus stay competitive. Aim: The purpose of the study is to create an understanding of the motivation of bank employees at distance work. With this purpose the study intends to examine, based on SDT, bank employees' experience of working remotely. Research questions: How do bank employees experience autonomy, competence and relatedness in distance work? Methodology: The study consists of a qualitative case study based on a phenomenological scientific approach. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews which were conducted with nine respondents from one bank in Sweden. Conclusion: From the study it is possible to state that the feeling of autonomy, competence and relatedness is affected by distance work and thus that distance work affects the motivation of bank employees. A theme that emerge in the study, which prove to be very beneficial for the motivation of the bank employees, is the fact that distance work is nowadays part-time. Unexpected results also emerge from the study which show that distance work is favorable for bank employees' personal life, which is beneficial for their motivation and performance at work.

The purpose of this study was to identify instances when workers in a business environment used thinking skills, including creative thinking, decision making, and problem solving in a manner that was beneficial and to examine how they perceived they acquired thinking skills. Twenty-seven banking employees from nine branches were interviewed using the behavioral event interview method. The nine branches represented three banks operating in Virginia. At each branch, a manager, a new account representative, and a teller were interviewed. The behavioral event interview method was selected as it has been a successful tool in both industrial and educational settings. Additionally, its purpose is to identify competencies necessary to do a given job well. The tape recorded interviews were transcribed and yielded a total of 55 behavioral events. The events were reviewed and instances of creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, and combinations of the three were identified and coded according to definitions presented in the study. Sixty-two instances of thinking skill use were identified within the events. Instances from the interviews of creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, and combinations of these were presented. Further, two interrelated themes emerged from the instances of thinking skill use. The first theme involved the generation of new ideas, determining the best alternative, implementing an alternative, or a combination of these in order to generate business or sales for the bank. The second theme involved the generation of new ideas, determining the best alternative, implementing an alternative, or a combination of these in order to solve a known problem. This study revealed that the interviewees did not receive formal thinking skill preparation from education or work training programs. They attributed most of their thinking skill development to experience. Outcomes of this study can be used to teach thinking skills by the infusion approach, the most commonly used method for teaching these skills. It relies on the skills being taught in real-life contexts. / Ph. D.

This study assessed intended communication behavior in terms of ethics, information content effectiveness, and the potential relationship between the two. Participants were 33 university finance majors who wrote open-ended responses to simulated loan presentation scenarios containing ethical communication content. The analysis consisted of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. A panel of bank loan officers judged the finance majors" open-ended responses for ethics and content effectiveness. From the officers' scores, the responses were categorized as: (1) ethical, (2) unethical, (3) effective, (4) ineffective, (5) ethical/effective, (6) ethical/ineffective, (7) unethical/effective, or (8) unethical/ineffective. The finance majors' answers tended to be judged as ethical, but the judgements were mixed as to the effectiveness of their responses. The responses that were judged to be both ethical and effective tended to be direct followed by a sales pitch on the benefits of the loan. The sales pitch portion of the responses was typically irrelevant to the question posed in the scenarios. Responses that were judged to be both unethical and ineffective tended to be either responses that were naive or responses that avoided the question being asked in the scenario. The findings indicate that it is difficult to provide an unethical response that is also effective. However, an ethical response can just as easily be effective or ineffective. In other words, an effective response is likely to be ethical, but an ethical response gives no indication as to whether it is effective or ineffective. One main conclusion resulted from the findings: Effective communication does not have to occur at the expense of communicating in an unethical manner. Beneficiaries of this study are both business people and educators. It can help banking trainers determine what content should be targeted in management training programs with regard to communication behavior in a loan presentation. Business communication faculty can benefit in two primary ways: the study shows the intended communication behavior of finance majors ("where the students are") and it provides preliminary data on what communication techniques are considered effective, ineffective, ethical, and unethical by business people, specifically loan officers. / Ph. D.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between work performance and the sense of coherence, using the salutogenesis approach and the influence of employees' biographical variables on work performance. The sense of coherence construct is discussed and conceptualised in terms of its comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Similarly, work performance is discussed and conceptualised in terms of its dimensions and dynamics. The integration of the literature study characteristics such as the cognitive, affective, conative and interpersonal characteristics were discussed. The research was conducted among 80 employees at a banking institution. The quality of life questionnaire and performance appraisal ratings were used. The relationship between biographical variables such as age, marital status, gender, qualifications, tenure, functional department and work performance were investigated. The results confirmed the empirical investigation that there was not a significant relationship between work performance and SOC. However, a significant relationship was found between job category and work performance, and between age and work performance. Finally, recommendations made for future research included using a bigger sample size in order to improve the generalisation of the findings to other organisational environments, and to further determine the relationship between other aspects of work performance (not just the KPAs) such as the human attributes of work performance and SOC. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

by Lok Ka Chiu, Wong Huck Keung. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-122). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.iv / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / LIST OF TABLES --- p.ix / Chapter / Chapter 1. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Scope and Objectives --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Evaluation and Control of Risks --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Measurement of Performance of Treasury Activities in a Dealing Room --- p.4 / Chapter 1.2 --- Methodology and Sources of Information --- p.6 / Chapter 2. --- EVALUATION AND CONTROL OF RISKS --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Scope of Risk Management --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Board and Senior Management Oversight --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Independent Risk Management and Control Functions --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- "Integration of People, System and Organisation" --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2 --- Risk Management Process --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Risk Management --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Limit Control System --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Reporting System --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Management Evaluation and Review --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3 --- Various Types of Risks --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Market Risk Management --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.1.1 --- Mark to Market Evaluation --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.1.2 --- """Worst Reasonable Case"" Scenario / ""Stress"" Scenario Analysis" --- p.26 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Liquidity Risk Management --- p.29 / Chapter 2.3.2.1 --- Controlling the Liquidity Risks --- p.30 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Credit Risk Management --- p.30 / Chapter 2.3.3.1 --- Limiting / Controlling Credit Risk --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.3.2 --- Credit Risk Limit --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Operation Risk Management --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.4.1 --- Proper Management and System Support --- p.32 / Chapter 2.3.4.2 --- Proper Internal and Operational Control --- p.33 / Chapter 2.3.5 --- Legal Risk Management --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.5.1 --- Enforceability of Agreements --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.5.2 --- Making Use of Netting Agreements --- p.35 / Chapter 2.4 --- Internal Control and Audit --- p.35 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Internal Audit Activities --- p.36 / Chapter 3. --- PREVAILING MARKET FOCUS ON RISK MANAGMENT --- p.37 / Chapter 3.1 --- Management Supervision and Internal Control System within Local --- p.38 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Branch and Additional Monitoring at Head Office / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Client Suitability and Risk Disclosure --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Resources to Support Existing Range of Treasury Products --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2 --- A Central Banker's View on Derivatives --- p.40 / Chapter 4. --- THE CASE OF AN INTERNATIONAL BANK IN HONG KONG RE: EVALUATION AND CONTROL OF RISK --- p.43 / Chapter 4.1 --- Overview of Activities of the Chosen Bank --- p.44 / Chapter 4.2 --- Reasons for Choosing one Particular Bank for this Case Study --- p.46 / Chapter 4.3 --- Organisational Structure of Global Control Department --- p.47 / Chapter 4.4 --- Risk Control System of the Chosen Bank --- p.47 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Board and Senior Management Oversight --- p.47 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Independent Risk Management and Control Function --- p.49 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Risk Management --- p.49 / Chapter 4.4.3.1 --- Description of Risk Management Systems --- p.50 / Chapter 4.4.3.2 --- Limits for each type of risks involved in its treasury activities --- p.53 / Chapter 4.4.4 --- Operational Risk Management --- p.57 / Chapter 4.4.5 --- Legal Risk --- p.57 / Chapter 4.4.6 --- Internal Control and Audit --- p.59 / Chapter 4.5 --- Problems in Implementing Sound Control System --- p.60 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Limited Human Resources --- p.60 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Powerful Risk Analytical Tools too costly for an individual branch --- p.60 / Chapter 4.5.3 --- Management Philosophy Biased towards Profit Making --- p.61 / Chapter 4.5.4 --- Necessary Skills in Control Department are in Short Supply --- p.61 / Chapter 4.5.5 --- Time Lag in Coping with Fast Growing Market Development --- p.62 / Chapter 4.6 --- Suggested Areas for Further Improvement --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.1 --- Change in Management's attitude and philosophy towards risk Management --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.2 --- Setting up of Independent Control and Reporting Channel --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.3 --- More Rigorous Management Supervision --- p.64 / Chapter 4.6.4 --- Upgrade the Status and Delegate more authority to the Control Staff --- p.64 / Chapter 4.6.5 --- Training and Development of Existing Staff --- p.65 / Chapter 4.6.6 --- Explore the Benefits of Netting Arrangements --- p.65 / Chapter 4.6.7 --- Modify the Bonus System for Traders --- p.65 / Chapter 4.6.8 --- Follow the Market Trend towards more Disclosure to Customers --- p.66 / Chapter 4.6.9 --- Installation of Value-at-risk Evaluation Model for Complex Products --- p.66 / Chapter 5. --- MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE OF TREASURY ACTIVITIES IN A DEALING ROOM --- p.68 / Chapter 5.1 --- Principles for Performance Measurement --- p.69 / Chapter 5.2 --- Other Important Aspects of Performance Measurement From a Practical Perspective --- p.73 / Chapter 5.3 --- Dealers' General Attitude towards Performance Targets --- p.77 / Chapter 5.4 --- Possibilities of Over-exaggeration of Trading Results / Hiding of Losses --- p.78 / Chapter 5.5 --- Actions to be Taken by Banks to Reduce the above Risks --- p.79 / Chapter 6. --- THE CASE OF AN INTERNATIONAL BANK IN HONG KONG RE : MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE OF TREASURY ACTIVITIES IN A DEALING ROOM --- p.81 / Chapter 6.1 --- Situation before Implementation of New Computer System --- p.81 / Chapter 6.2 --- Current Situation --- p.84 / Chapter 6.3 --- Reasons for Inability to Measure the Performance of Treasury Activities Satisfactorily --- p.91 / Chapter 6.4 --- Suggested Areas for Further Improvements --- p.94 / Chapter 7. --- PRACTICES OF OTHER FOREIGN BANKS IN HONG KONG --- p.97 / Chapter 7.1 --- General Situation --- p.97 / Chapter 7.2 --- Current Practices of Some Active Players --- p.99 / Chapter 7.2.1 --- Overall View on Dealing Room Activies of these Banks --- p.100 / Chapter 7.2.2 --- Policies and Procedures on Risk Management --- p.100 / Chapter 7.2.3 --- Independent Risk Managment Unit --- p.100 / Chapter 7.2.4 --- Risk Management --- p.101 / Chapter 7.2.5 --- Dealings in Derivatives with Customers --- p.101 / Chapter 7.2.6 --- Involvement of Internal Auditors --- p.102 / Chapter 7.2.7 --- Performance Measurement --- p.102 / Chapter 8. --- CONCLUSION --- p.103 / APPENDIX 1. Summary of Response on Questionnarie --- p.108 / APPENDIX 2 . Brief Background Information --- p.115 / APPENDIX 3 . Procedure Manual on Benchmark Rates --- p.116 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.121 / GLOSSARY --- p.123