Thesis (M. S.)--Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Kangari, Roozbeh; Committee Co-Chair: Roper, Kathy; Committee Member: Castro, Daniel; Committee Member: Cummings, William; Committee Member: Thomas-Mobley, Linda.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Cover title: The factors that motivate teaching and administrative staff in an educational institution. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 74-79). Also available in print.

Thesis (M. A. (Dept. of Industrial Psychology, Faculty of Economic and Management Science))--University of the Western Cape, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-270).

Thesis (M.B.A. (Investec Business School))--Rhodes University, 2005. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration.

Thesis (B.A.(Hons.)) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Organisations today are in a state of ever accelerating rate of change. Globalisation of the economy, increasing competition, technological innovation as well as global competition are seen to bring about the ever-accelerating pace of change in the working environment worldwide (Christen 2005:241). For this reason, employees are challenged by changes in their careers that they never anticipated, changes which in the long-run, result in stress conditions that bring negative consequences for both employees and the organisation in their wake. This chapter will provide the background to the topic of the study and survey what other studies have revealed about it. The objectives of the study, the research questions, the research objectives over and above the necessary hypotheses will also be mentioned and to conclude, the chapter will provide the theoretical framework in support of this study.As we may be aware, we live in a world of change, where everything constantly has reformed. Organisations are also part of that big change especially in the new millennium where re-engineering, downsizing, outsourcing and restructuring have become common terms associated with many organisations. Although a number of studies have tried to determine how organisational restructuring benefits the organisation, little has been done to find out how the welfare of employees is affected by the restructuring initiatives. This study investigates the perceptions that employees have of organisational restructuring. It investigates how their job satisfaction, career mobility and their stress levels are affected by restructuring process after the restructuring process as well the stress that such employees experience due to restructuring. A survey was conducted at Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, where data was obtained from 121 respondents and statistically analysed. The findings reflect a negative association between restructuring and stress levels and career mobility. The findings show that job satisfaction was still experienced by the employees at LHDA and that most respondents see organisational restructuring as something that benefits the organisation and has little to do with the interests of the workers.

Former Eastern Airlines flight attendants were surveyed regarding their levels of union, organizational, and dual commitment, union participation, strike participation and support, and current feelings of job stress, job affect and job satisfaction. It was found that union commitment was positively correlated with union participation. Due to the unique situation at Eastern, it was also found that there was no difference in levels of strike participation and support between those dually committed and those unilaterally committed to the union. Strike participation and support also correlated positively with one measure of current job stress. Other findings included a positive correlation between job affect and satisfaction, and a negative correlation between both of these measures and job stress.

Contact Centre agents operate in closely monitored and highly controlled environments and their work consists of solving service requests or assisting customers with information on products or services. Consequently their work involves a great deal of emotional labour and stress. It is not surprising then, that the working environment of the Contact Centre is reported to have a negative impact on the levels of Quality of Worklife of Contact Centre agents, and that in the Contact Centre context, it is likely that low levels of Quality of Worklife exist. It is argued that it is important for organisations to be particularly aware of the Quality of Worklife perceptions of their employees should they want to address Quality of Worklife levels and benefit from the positive consequences of higher levels of the construct. Numerous variables are reported to play either an antecedent, moderating, mediating, or consequential role in relation to the Quality of Worklife construct. A systems model of Quality of Worklife is developed, which illustrates the inter-relationships of these variables and how they affect and are affected by the Quality of Worklife construct. It is argued that leadership is an important antecedent to Quality of Worklife, and this is the antecedent of interest in this study. It is proposed that it is not just any leadership that will contribute to an improved Quality of Worklife, particularly within a challenging context such as the Contact Centre environment. Rather, it is suggested that certain qualities of leaders will have a greater influence on Quality of Worklife. For example, leaders who focus on relationships and are caring - characteristics associated with servant leaders - are deemed more suitable for the Contact Centre context. The research also proposes that there are close associations between Servant Leadership and Trust, which in turn has the potential to affect Quality of Worklife positively. It is argued, therefore, that Trust mediates the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife in the customer service frontline context. While there is a broad base of literature available on servant leadership that focuses on the senior or executive level of leadership, Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) have argued that it is also relevant at the middle level of management and have validated an eight dimensional measure of servant leadership that is suitable for this management level. The Van Laar, Edwards and Easton (2007) Quality of Worklife model is also argued to be an appropriate model and measure of the Quality of Worklife construct, due to the robustness of the instrument design and the appropriateness of its underlying theory to the context of this research. Research has shown that leadership can have a significant relationship with Quality of Worklife. Moreover, a review of the literature on servant leadership reveals that trust, satisfaction, general well-being, and commitment to their jobs increases when employees are exposed to leadership behaviours associated with servant leadership. There is however, no evidence in the literature of any investigation of the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife, or of research investigating the partial mediating effects of Trust between these two constructs. Research was conducted to test this relationship. A survey questionnaire was administered amongst a sample of 555 Contact Centre agents, who were employed in eight different organisations. Confirmatory factor analysis procedures were conducted in STATA (V15.0), to test and validate the factor structure of Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife models. The research also produced a Servant Leadership, Trust and Quality of Worklife structural equation model that supported the hypotheses of the relationships between the constructs. Mediation analysis confirmed Trust’s role as a mediator between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife. The structural equation model confirmed that synergies between Servant Leadership, Trust and Quality of Worklife exist, and that Trust partially mediates the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife. It is therefore argued that an increase in Servant Leadership behaviour by the manager or supervisor of frontline staff has a positive association with increases of Trust, as well as positive associations with Quality of Worklife experienced by employees in the frontline context. Moreover, it is also posited that the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife is partially mediated by Trust of the supervisor. The implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations made for management practice and further research.

Thesis (MTech (Human Resource Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Occupational challenges exist in all working environments, and affect all levels of organisational personnel from top management to employee levels. State hospitals in South Africa place occupational demands mainly upon registered nurses who make up most of the hospital staff. The focus of the research investigation concentrated mainly on a population of three groups of registered nurses at a state hospital in Cape Town. They are staff nurses, professional nurses and enrolled nursing assistants. These nurses are experiencing a decline in morale, due to staff shortages, a lack of resources and a perceived lack of leadership. They experience various levels of stress, which affect their personal health and morale. The objective of the research was to analyse the impact on the state registered nurses of three main contributors of occupational challenges faced by these nurses, namely a lack of resources, staff shortages and a perceived lack of good leadership. The nurses are employed to provide quality care for patients in state hospitals.

Thesis (DTech (Human Resource Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012. / This study's main aim was to develop a model of employee satisfaction for health-related professions in South Africa. Health-related professions refer to a variety of practitioners who work in the healthcare sector mostly in support capacity to the clinical or medical practitioner. They include laboratory technologists, pharmacists, radiographers, emergency medical services (paramedics), nurses, and optometrists. These practitioners comprise a diverse group who deliver high quality care to patients across a wide range of care pathways and in a variety of settings. This band of professionals was chosen as the focus of the study because most studies, which relate to health workers' satisfaction and motivation in South Africa, have concentrated on medical doctors and nurses without a commensurate interest in other health-related professionals. The study is a multi-faceted one, and incorporates both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study is also exploratory because no model of this kind exists amongst health-related professions of South Africa. Permission to access selected institutions for the study was granted before the researcher approached the population for the study. The researcher decided not to use a sample, but to include all members of this population in the participating institutions in order to get as many participants as possible. From a total population of 987, only 117 usable questionnaires were returned. Data that was collected was coded for Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) suitability. SPSS was utilized to generate the frequency and descriptive statistics. The data collection instrument was the Plus Delta Organizational Climate Questionnaire, which was modified on the basis of a preliminary study. The data instrument achieved a coefficient alpha (Cronbach) of 0.8, which extended its reliability. With the use of factor analysis, this study was able to identify seven (7) factors which influence employee satisfaction within the health-related professions in South Africa. These factors include Role Clarification and Job Design, Equitable Performance Management, Integrated Leadership and Knowledge Sharing and Self-efficacy, while the other factors include Family-friendly Work Environments, Leader Credibility and Innovation, and Excellent Customer Relations and Technology. These factors make up the model of employee satisfaction for health-related professions considered in this research. While the researcher suggests that further studies should be conducted in order to establish the validity of the model, the researcher also makes a call for a data collection instrument to be distilled from the model. However, this study will undoubtedly add to the sparse literature on health-related practitioners. This position is assumed because most literature on health professions' job satisfaction/dissatisfaction favours doctors and nurses. The study will also assist in understanding some of the reasons for the often reported sense of job insecurity among practitioners in South Africa. The study has produced a model, which health-related professions can utilise to manage themselves better. It is hoped that the model will serve health-related professions with better gains, such as reduction in health-related professional attrition, elimination of low levels of trust between management and staff and reduction in high incidences of absenteeism, which constituted research problems of this study.