Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The purpose of the present study is to enrich academic knowledge, the understanding of management theory, and professional management practice for leaders in a South African Higher Education Institution (HEI) under volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions. Due to increased globalisation and rapid changes in the technological, social, economic, and political spheres, the environment in which organisations function has become increasingly VUCA. These factors create a unique set of challenges for the leaders of these organisations. Traditionally tested and proven methods of leading organisations no longer guarantee high performance. The dynamic environment is challenging leaders to find new ways to be successful. To further complicate matters, the speed, frequency, and intensity with which the organisational environment is changing are ascending in nature. The field of Higher Education in South Africa demonstrates the challenges and opportunities VUCA imposes on organisational leadership.

Aim: The aim of this study is to understand how digitalization affects on leadership. We investigate how the discussion on digital transformation and leadership has emerged in recent years. Method: This study is based on a single case study connecting a Swedish company called Sandvik. Qualitative research methods have been applied which includes in-depth interviews. Results & Conclusion: The results of our study suggest that digitalization was more or less articulated by the Sandvik managers. Almost all the leaders suggested that digitalization brings new opportunities to their company with the help of which Sandvik got the effective edge on leadership in the digital world. The empirical results show that all the interviewees were in favour of the fact that their organization, leadership, and employees are affected by digitalization. The interviewees believed that their daily life, as well as business-related activities, has been revolutionized by digital transformation. Implications: Managers need to build a situation that will promote the creation of new leaders. Leaders need to make sure that their middle-level managers understand and let them make choices about the core strategy behind the digital transformation. Our theoretical contribution enlists that digitalization was seemed to as an effective and essential driver for promoting effective leadership in an organization.   Suggestions for Future Research: Qualitative studies support us to understand how things operate in reality but it does not completely provide one answer to the research questions. It is difficult to generalize the impact of digitalization on leaders and employees since the situation could be different for other companies. It might have been interesting to compare the situation of digital impact on leaders and employees in different industrial segments in the future. As this research is taken under time bond restrictions, we can develop only a concise and short detail therefore future research should be taken to explore a more clear and concise description of the selected topic.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Vieira de Oliveira.pdf: 455081 bytes, checksum: 45813aa8dd382a2ec3624608684c8782 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-09 / Promoting specialists to leaders without previous preparation can be considered an acceptable practice in some organizations. When promoted, those professionals can face some difficulties in leading a group because they are still connected to their previous competencies as a technician, and the organization can lose some efficiency if it does not take the responsibility in developing its leadership giving support on leaders development. This paper intends to identify how and why technical specialists became leaders, and if they completed their knowledge after being promoted, connecting technical and leadership skills. It has been tested three hypotheses (1) specialists have been desired leadership position in their career planning, (2) specialists considered promotion to leader as a pay grade increase, and have a prominent position, and (3) if there was a continuous improvement of Alvo Telecom leaders, identifying talents and developing them before and after they take the leadership role. Supported by a theoretical framework that describes the professional experts in information technology (IT) and contemporary leadership, the research adopted a case study as a research method, with exploratory and qualitative methodological approach, based on interviews with structured questionnaire composed by open and closed questions. The result obtained after interviewing nine leaders of that organization, almost all of them no longer wished to continue in their technical career, however few have really prepared before getting an opportunity to lead a team, although they possessed characteristics and traits of leadership. The promotion was due to their performance as technician, and their superiors also considered existent leadership skills. There was not a direct objective of getting a raise, but contribute more to the organization beyond their technical role, and transmit knowledge to team members. Leaders had own characteristics of leadership, however lacked developing others, and they expected, somehow, that the organization could direct them and do a periodic evaluation of their accomplishments / Promover especialistas em líderes sem o devido preparo pode ser visto como uma prática aceitável dentro de uma determinada organização. Quando promovido, estes profissionais podem ter dificuldades em liderar um grupo, pois ainda estão fortemente ligados às atividades e competências técnicas e a organização pode perder eficiência se não assumir a responsabilidade em promover um ambiente de aprimoramento em gestão, dando condições e também exigindo que os novos líderes se desenvolvam nas novas habilidades. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo identificar como e por quais motivos os técnicos especialistas de uma empresa de telecomunicações alcançaram a posição de líderes e se eles complementaram sua formação após serem promovidos, alinhando habilidades técnicas e de liderança. Foram testadas três hipóteses (1) os especialistas almejavam a carreira gerencial dentro do planejamento de carreira, (2) os especialistas viam a promoção a líder como uma possibilidade de aumentar salários e ter uma posição de destaque e (3) se havia um trabalho de melhoria contínua dos gestores da organização Alvo Telecom, identificando talentos e desenvolvendo-os antes e depois de assumirem a função de liderança. Sustentada por um referencial teórico que descreve o profissional especialista na área tecnologia da informação (TI) e a liderança contemporânea, a pesquisa adotou o estudo de caso como método de pesquisa, com abordagem exploratória e procedimento metodológico qualitativo, baseado em entrevistas estruturadas com questionário de questões abertas e fechadas. Do resultado obtido nas entrevistas de nove líderes daquela organização, quase a totalidade dos entrevistados desejavam não mais seguir a carreira puramente técnica, porém poucos se estruturaram academicamente com antecedência à primeira oportunidade oferecida para gerenciar pessoas, embora detivessem características e os traços de liderança. A promoção se dava através do reconhecimento pelo desempenho como técnico e também considerava potenciais habilidades de liderança identificadas pelos superiores. Não havia um desejo de obter apenas um aumento salarial, mas sim contribuir com a organização além de suas funções técnicas e repassar seu conhecimento aos membros de um grupo. Os líderes tinham características próprias para o exercício da liderança, entretanto faltava desenvolvimento de outras e eles esperavam, de alguma maneira, que a organização os orientasse e fizesse um balanço periódico de suas realizações

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Final 23 nov 05.pdf: 659695 bytes, checksum: 26500e108b828b8a8f98dc43a6af772f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-12-15 / Leadership has been considered one of the basic issues for a successful company in the contemporary world since there is an upward demand for leaders that are able to sustain the Agency s success. The concept of Agency has to be understood as professionals that are in leadership positions inside the organization and are working for the stockholders. Among the many leadership theories developed in the last ten decades there is the group of Contemporary Leadership Theories and in this group there is one theoretical approach that outstands, the Visionary Leadership approach developed by Burt Nanus in 1992. This approach suggests a way of leadership that holistically benefits the organization which results are reflected in every stakeholder. Organizations inevitably achieve success under this kind of management. Therefore the purpose of this study is to analyze if nowadays successful leaders agree with the approach suggested by Burt Nanus and if they do so, how this is put into practice. In order to obtain the data for this study, a research was conducted with the first leader of many profit-oriented companies. Data were collected through a questionnaire using the Likert 5 possibilities scale in order to asses the degree of agreement / disagreement with the Visionary Leadership concepts. Also was researched with those leaders, which were the recognized drivers that lead to the development of this leadership style. The obtained results point that the researched leaders considers themselves visionary leaders, validating the visionary leadership concept and suggesting ways to be used in its development. From this data was possible to reflect about the importance of investing in people to add value to the company / No mundo contemporâneo, a liderança tem sido considerada uma das questões fundamentais para o sucesso das organizações, haja vista a crescente procura por líderes que garantam o sucesso das agências, aqui entendidas como os profissionais que estão na liderança das organizações, respondendo pelos interesses dos acionistas. Dentre as muitas teorias de liderança desenvolvidas nos últimos cem anos, há as Teorias Contemporâneas de Liderança e, fazendo parte dessas, chama-nos a atenção a abordagem da Liderança Visionária desenvolvida por Burt Nanus em 1992. Essa abordagem propõe uma forma de liderar que beneficia as organizações de uma forma holística, e os resultados disso se refletem na comunidade como um todo, isto é: funcionários, fornecedores, acionistas e clientes. Sob esse estilo de direção, inevitavelmente as organizações obtêm sucesso. O propósito deste estudo, portanto, é analisar se líderes de sucesso concordam com a abordagem de Burt Nanus e, em caso afirmativo, como a aplicam. Para tanto, realizamos uma pesquisa com o primeiro líder de várias empresas com fins lucrativos. Os dados foram coletados por um questionário em que se utilizou uma escala de tipo Likert de 5 possibilidades, e avaliou-se o grau de concordância/discordância com os conceitos da Liderança Visionária. Pesquisou-se, ainda, quais os meios reconhecidos pelos participantes como responsáveis pelo desenvolvimento desse estilo de liderança. Os resultados obtidos apontam que os líderes pesquisados se consideram visionários, reafirmam o conceito da liderança visionária, e sugerem meios para serem utilizados no seu desenvolvimento. A partir desses dados, pudemos refletir sobre a importância de investir em pessoas para agregar valor ao negócio

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