Via the submission of six published papers, this thesis draws together the body of work by Broadbridge on retail management and women’s careers. It reveals the factors that continue to be problematic for women’s careers and why in 2010 they continue to be under-represented in the retail management hierarchy. A contextual background to the selected papers is provided in three chapters which summarise some wider issues for the non specialist reader: an introduction to career development models, the gendered processes in management and a contemporary overview of retail employment in the UK. Of the six papers presented, each adopts a different theoretical perspective and so cumulatively a comprehensive understanding of the reasons for women’s continued under-representation in retail management positions is gained. The overall findings from the papers indicated that the main reasons for women’s and men’s differential experience in the retail management hierarchy can be located in issues of male control. Retail management is male dominated, male identified and male centred. This can present itself in a variety of different ways, and through overt or covert means of behaviour and underlying organisational cultures. Key theoretical contributions to the thesis are located in three sets of theory: the sexual division of labour and the organisation of retail work; the gendered retail career, and work-life balance and multiple role demands. Empirical and methodological contributions come from the corpus of data and the use and refinement of a mixed methods approach to understanding the subject area.

D.Com. (Economics) / At the beginning of 1990, a sequence of events took place which were to provide the initiative for this study. The unbanning of South Africa's major black political organisations shifted the focus ofthe public debate to negotiations on a democratic constitution. Regional issues, such as had been debated with substantial fervour in KwaZulu/Natal, became negligible when contrasted with the realisation that South Africa's two dominant political forces had agreed upon the necessity for a ceasefire. Until 1990, these two groups, namely the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) had been engaged in a bitter and long-standing war. In using dictatorial political powers to suppress access by blacks, coloureds and Indians to universally accepted basic human rights, the NP committed acts of institutionalised violence, which led to increasing resistance amongst disenfranchised South Africans and unparalleled international ostracism. The ANC was not a passive victim ofthe policies of statutory racial segregation and had, since especially the rnid-1970s, embarked upon a strategy of armed resistance as part of its endeavours to focus the attention ofdecision-makers within South Africa and abroad on the plight of the disenfranchised majority. An agreement was reached to end armed hostilities shortly after the unbanning of the ANC, but it was clear that an ideological war would continue to be fought between the ANC and the NP well into the future. Central to the debate on determining fundamental conditions for inclusive participation in constitutional negotiations would be the issues of guarantees for minority rights; the relative roles of the state and the market in economic processes; and the degree to which policies aimed at redressing racially-based income inequalities need to be pursued by government. The intractable nature of differences of opinion on these issues, combined with the new focus on constitutional negotiations at national level, led to the discontinuance of the activities of the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba, which had sought a political compromise for the region amongst all representative groups. At the time, the author had been managing a socio-economic research unit within the Indaba's secretariat. Contact had been established earlier with an organization launched in Durban in February 1990 with the specific objective to encourage affirmative action policies, mainly amongst organisations in the private sector. This organisation, the National Economic Initiative (NEI), had its roots in the group of American-owned companies that had been signatories to the Sullivan code of employment practices.

D.Phil. / The major part of what is known about women in leadership positions, and the challenges they are facing, is based on studies conducted in first-world countries. There clearly is a gap in the literature in terms of studies that focus on female leaders in Africa. Much has still to be said about the role that cultural practices and prejudices play in hampering the growth and progress of these women. This authentic study of a South African Zulu female manager provides a unique insight into the way she negotiated the challenges of climbing the corporate ladder in a male-dominated environment. Its postmodernist approach challenges the writer to use herself as a research subject while applying the principle of reflexivity in stepping back and analysing lived experiences from a researcher‟s perspective. In opening up her innermost feelings to the world, the researcher reveals who she really is, and how she, as a Zulu woman, wife, mother, and manager, negotiated her way between her own traditional culture and the Western corporate world. This creates real challenges to the researcher, as she has to keep sliding between being the subject and being the researcher at the same time. This narrative of "self" is recreated through interviewing people who had been part of the researcher‟s life during the period which was the focus of the study as well as the researcher recalling significant events. The research focuses on the challenges of being a minority leader in a South African workplace. The resistance to a black female as their superior by black males is highlighted, as is the manner in which these cultural prejudices result in discrimination against women by members of their own culture. The research also illuminates the impact of legislation aimed at transforming the local workplace and the leadership fraternity in a post-apartheid South Africa.

M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / In line with recent media reports, it is apparent that homosexual individuals are treated unfairly in a variety of contexts. Yet, little is known regarding the discrimination of homosexual employees in the South African workplace. The objective of this study was to examine the nature of discriminatory experiences of South African homosexual employees. In this study a qualitative approach was used with hermeneutic phenomenology as the method of data analysis. Data were collected through the means of semi-structured interviews with ten homosexual employees from various industries within the Gauteng province. The findings suggest that homosexual individuals do experience discrimination at work and that the experiences of discrimination at work are slightly different for gay employees than for lesbian employees. Three themes generated for gay employees (workplace bullying, the use of prejudice and stereotypes, and problems with people management practices, policies and procedures), while four themes were generated for lesbian employees (workplace bullying, the use of prejudice and stereotypes, problems with people management practices, policies and procedures, and sexual harassment). The contributions of the study will be to provide much needed awareness and understanding of workplace discrimination against homosexual employees. It is hoped that the findings of this research will lead to a re-examination of human resource practices and policies regarding diversity training and anti-discrimination.

Foreigners working locally increasingly find themselves the victims of xenophobic violence, justified by the assertion that they have a lesser right to employment in South Africa than its own citizens. Given that South Africa subscribes to a broadly cosmopolitan set of international agreements supporting a basic human right to work regardless of national or ethnic origin, the implication is that even within a cosmopolitan-like framework it must permissible for citizens to exercise special considerations toward one another, and especially in regard to employment. As demonstrated by Robert Goodin and others, this case is difficult to make if foreign residents are also expected to contribute to the social good which makes citizenship so instrumentally valuable. Given that associativist models for special obligations are problematic when applied to citizens, it is argued that foreigners enjoy the same right to work as any other residents.

A research report submitted to the School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment (25%) of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management (Public and Development Management) Johannesburg, 2016 / Gender inequality persists in artisan employment in South Africa as males continue to outnumber females significantly in artisan employment and the trends point to highly gendered industry participation. Females who manage to enter artisan occupations in the highly gendered workplace are faced with historically ingrained attitudes of males towards females. Discriminatory practices, social norms and persistent stereotypes shape the females’ learning experience. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore the learning experiences of female artisans in the South Africa automotive industry, during the work-based phase of their apprenticeship. A qualitative exploratory research study approach was adopted using semi-structured face–to-face interviews. Fourteen female apprentices, learnership candidates and artisans were interviewed, including two industry training experts. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used. The findings revealed that the general experiences of the female participants were challenging. The quality of learning they received is not equal to that of their male counterparts and the workplace culture consists of prejudice, gender discrimination, racial discrimination, stereotypes and barriers to employment. Interestingly, the participants were uncritical of the experience of gender discrimination, although, they were very critical of racial discrimination. This suggests a need to conduct and create awareness sessions about gender discrimination in the industry for both genders. / MT 2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management by Research (MMR). Johannesburg, October 2016 / The plight of the female manager as a result of gender inequality has been thoroughly documented within academic research. A well-known metaphor of this inequality is the “glass-ceiling”, a phenomenon where a female manager’s career is stymied by an invisible barrier. While the barrier takes on the characteristics of glass by being subtle, women can observe positions, but are unable to attain them because of gender discrimination. The research objective was to examine career strategies to overcome the “glass-ceiling” challenges. This empirical project contributes to the literature on gender in management by introducing a novel theory, marketing mix, when understanding the idea of a career strategy. A theoretical contribution has also been made to marketing theory in that it has been expanded by being applied to individuals, which is an unusual sample as the majority of studies on this theory have been largely conducted on organisations. A qualitative research methodology was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 female managers participating in a leadership development programme from a State Owned Company (SOC). Key results were consistent that strategies of overcoming the “glass-ceiling” were the importance of having a professional persona, negotiating remuneration, benefits of belonging to informal networks, and the benefits of having a mentor. The researcher found that female mangers apply career strategies in order to succeed; however, these tactics were applied in silos and not holistically. These behaviours then became ineffective / GR2018

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree oi'Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg / Abstract not clear. / AC 2018

This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree, Masters of Arts in Sociology in the Faculty of Humanities (School of Social Sciences) at the University of Witwatersrand, 2016 / During the apartheid era, black women were forced into the rural areas to live off the land, without opportunities and choices to allow them to build decent lives for themselves. After many decades of apartheid, South Africa finally became a democratic country in 1994. Following the establishment of democracy in 1994, the South African society experienced quite a number of changes on the economic, social, and political level. Amongst those changes was the rectification of the constitution which recognized all citizens (men and women, black and white) as equal. Numerous acts were put in place to promote equality in all spheres of life. However, to this day, poverty and inequality remain evident on many black women in the country. Microfinance is embraced by many development organizations, states and agencies around the world as the main and efficient form of women’s empowerment. South Africa is also one of the states which have joined the bandwagon, with its Department of Trade and Industry (dti) having various microfinance programmes aimed at empowering women. However, with all the programmes, there seems to be no changes in the situations of black women, especially rural poor women in the country as illustrated by statistics. This paper, therefore, attempts to find out the reason behind the low status of women in post-apartheid South Africa by reviewing critical literature on empowerment and microfinance as an empowerment strategy to understand their impact on women’s lives. The study also analyse the dti’s policy documents on empowerment as one of the state’s institutions which promotes women’s empowerment through microfinance. Furthermore, this study argues that the current women’s empowerment strategy (microfinance) is not for the benefit of poor black women, but for that of the institutions offering these programmes. This argument is supported by an analysis conducted on dti’s women’s empowerment strategic documents and programmes, which was used as a case study for this paper. This study suggests that changes in the designing and implementation of the policies are required. / GR2017

Thesis. 1976. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Rotch. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 242-252. / by Paul Osterman. / Ph.D.