Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-158).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-277). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-132). Also available on the Internet.

Aiming to better understand how empowering leadership affects employees' innovative performance, this research examines this relationship by reviewing the existing leadership and innovation literature, then theorizing and testing the extent to which employees' entrepreneurial orientation mediates it. This research also proposes that the effect of empowering leadership on followers' entrepreneurial orientation will vary according to the presence of different moderating variables. Hence, the moderating effects of the employees' value of openness in the relationship between empowering leadership and employees' entrepreneurial orientation are examined. Similarly, the effects of the employees' creative self-efficacy in the relationship between employees' entrepreneurial orientation and their own innovative performance are explored. In the study, supervisor-employee matched data from seven factories across three provinces in China were collected. The results of the data analysis supported the association between empowering leadership and employees' innovative performance, as well as the mediating effect of employees' entrepreneurial orientation. The moderating effect of employees' creative self-efficacy was also supported. However, the moderating role of the value of openness was not significant. These findings enable us to better understand the mechanism by which an empowering leader influences employees' innovative performance. It also explains how this process of influencing is subject to employees' various individual characteristics.

This study explores women's understandings and experiences of empowerment so that they could empower themselves by using their own knowledge to see through factors that serve to disempower them. At a time when empowerment and its future is under intense discussion in South Africa, it seems wise to move away from quantitative studies which do not facilitate the development of comprehensive theory in industrial psychology. This study provides a qualitative feminist analysis of women's understandings and experiences of empowerment in an organisation. Written protocols, interviews and a workshop were used as data collection tools and seven women from one organisation participated in the study. The research revealed that women understand and experience empowerment in a number of ways. These understandings and experiences are affected by various factors: organisational factors; personal characteristics and abilities; their relationship with others at work and at home; and societal factors such as double standards for men and women and role expectations. The breadth and scope of the results imply that any attempt to empower women should include relational, motivational and feminist perspectives on power and empowerment. In addition, the results indicate that providing a space in which the women could explore the network of disempowering practices in their lives, was empowering for the women. Through the process of the research, the participants' understandings of empowerment evolved from viewing empowerment as something that is predominantly external (for example, influenced by others and organisational factors) to something that is internal (for example, influenced by motivational factors). This study cautions against seeing empowerment as something that is solely internal because by doing so women are placing the responsibility of empowerment upon themselves thus setting themselves up for failure. However, through the process of seeing empowerment as internal, the women were able to move towards a feminist understanding of empowerment in which not only is empowerment external ("out there") or internal ("within") but includes acknowledging one's own responsibility in empowerment as well as external societal factors that serve to hamper women.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / When one refers to tertiary education in general or specific institutions, its academic functions and features are paramount. Often, there is little dialogue around those who constitute most of the workforce, the administrative staff, and more specifically, the frontline administrators. Given that frontline administrators are ‘customer-facing’ and that their behaviour could significantly influence perceptions of the organisation, these staff members are often portrayed as ones who do not have any authority at work but merely serve a support role. Ensuring that these staff members are ‘taken care of’ is an operational way of guaranteeing that the customers (staff and stakeholders) have a pleasant experience that could positively affect the bottom line. The working lives, feelings of efficiency, job satisfaction and overall empowerment of frontline administrative staff, especially in tertiary education, have not been well documented in scholarly literature. This research project attempts to identify areas where universities of technology could take cognisance of the power that frontline administrative staff hold and also to ascertain how to improve their overall work experience.

M.B.A. / The importance of a free market in a post apartheid South Africa has been acknowledged. The benefits should be spread so that all individuals may be able to share in the wealth generated by the people within the country. Privatization is one mechanism for redistributing the wealth of the State, and the use of an Employee Share Ownership Participation Scheme (E.S.O.P.S.) is away in which the wealth can be spread over a large proportion of the population. This was a basic policy of Thatcher's Government in the U.K. The same rationale is apt for the South African situation. An E.S.O.P.S. is similar to a profit sharing or a pension plan, and may be group with various holistic empowerment strategies. There are however two fundamental differences from these two traditional plans: • It invests only in the equity of the employer • The E.S.O.P.S. provides the organization with an increased finance tool, through an increased ability to borrow. One of the business trends, in the U.S.A. and the U.K. and more recently in South Africa has been to extend the ownership of shares to employees. This secures a stake in the company, an avenue for retiring owners, and as protection against hostile takeover bids. Other motives that have been used are, as an educational experience and also as a part of participative management philosophy. The author heads the Department of Mining Engineering in the new University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Engineering and the Built...

Higher education institutions in South Africa are under pressure on account of changes in their environment so those institutions which can adapt to the changes and continue to carry out their purposes will be the most successful. According to Wellins, Byham and Wilson (1991:21) the employee empowerment and energy that comes with a feeling of ownership, are necessary prerequisites for continuous improvement. When organisational values, leadership actions and human resources systems, for example, rewards, training, and organisational structures are focused on empowerment, continuous improvement actions result. These, in turn, could lead to competitive quality, increased productivity and improved customer service. This dissertation aims to assess what would be an appropriate strategic control model when implementing an empowerment strategy. To this end an empowerment process management model is presented, as well as an investigation into the most effective environment where empowerment can be implemented and the management style needed. Secondly, the characteristics of strategic control are considered and lastly, the particular circumstances of a tertiary education institution are discussed. The findings of this study are that the concept of strategic control and empowerment and the reality which exists at the selected higher education institution concur in certain instances, from the managers’ perspective. Further research to investigate the role of strategic control in implementing an empowerment strategy at the selected higher education institution when all role players are included, is recommended.

This research focused on employee participation in South African organisations as a tool for global competitiveness. Chapter one outlines the background to the study, its aims, statement of the problem and the research methodology. World wide socio -political and political changes were discussed. It emerged that such changes have revolutionalised and democratised countries and their organizations. Despite being recognised as a democratic country now, many of South Africa’s organisations are not yet fully democratic. Such organisations face the danger of being out-performed globally by those organisations that have already democratised themselves, as dictated by global trends. Using a theoretical exploration of relevant literature, the research was designed to determine the extent to which organisations in South Africa have positioned themselves to compete globally through the use of employee participation at the workplace. A theoretically-oriented method was utilised since the concepts of Global Competitiveness, or being “World-Class”, and that of Employee Participatio n are relatively new in South Africa. It is argued that the method contributes, inter alia, to the uncovering of generalisations that could be investigated by future researchers using more accurate and complex designs. At the same time, a broader understanding of the concepts of Global Competitiveness and “World-Class” is gained. From a detailed discussion of the concept “World-Class” it is evident that “world-class” organisations design their strategies, structures and leadership processes in such a way that customers’ needs are continuously met. To ensure that customers are provided with high quality products, globally competitive organisations continuously benchmark their systems, processes and results against those of the best organisation in the world . It is argued that Employment Relations Management as a sub-system of the wider organisational system has to be designed and managed in a way that ensures the satisfaction of the organisation’s employees and external clients. It also has to be benchmarked to ensure that it continues to deliver optimally. This necessitates a paradigm shift in the management of Employment Relations, from the typically Unitarist approach that characterised the work-place prior to the country’s democratisation in April 1994, to an integrated approach that takes cognisance of the interests, values and needs of all stakeholders. Such an approach would, no / Prof. J.A. Slabbert