Although the word “participation” has been with mankind for a long time and is widely used by writers on management areas, it still remains difficult to define precisely what it means. As a result, “participation” is one of the most misunderstood and confusing ideas that have emerged from the field of human relations. This study seeks to explore the perceptions and understanding that the various stakeholders have about participative management. The purpose is to find out the meaning and interpretations the stakeholders attach to the idea of participation. This study is an interpretive case study of a Senior Secondary School in the Cala District of the Eastern Cape. A phenomenological approach was employed in data gathering using two data collection tools namely questionnaires and interviews. The collected data provided insight into stakeholders’ views on participative management, highlighted challenges around the implementation of participative management, and revealed strategies to be utilized in promoting participation. The findings reveal that participation is a controversial idea that is easier said than done. There is no recipe for the implementation of a participative approach; it depends on the situation and nature of the subordinates. Furthermore, organization members need to adopt new thinking patterns in order to be responsive to change. Open communication emerges as the key to having genuine participation. However, participation still brings anxiety and fear of losing power to those managers who do not take kindly to it. It is recommended that good interpersonal relations should be maintained at all times to promote participation and that for schools to be effective, partnership with parents and stakeholders is essential.

This study investigated the relationship between job engagement and locus of control on the one hand, and organisational citizenship behaviour on the other among non-academic and academic employees of the University of Fort Hare. Job engagement and locus of control were the independent variables and organisational citizenship behaviour was the dependent variable. Data was drawn from a sample of 300 participants. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. It consisted of four sections including biographical and occupation data questionnaire. To measure job engagement, the 18-item Rich et al., (2010) job engagement scale, with a 5-point Likert scale was used. To measure locus of control, the 16-item Spector (1988) work locus of control scale was used, with 6-point Likert scale. To measure organisational citizenship behaviour, the Fox & Spector (2011) 20 item organisational citizenship behaviour questionnaire, with a 5-point Likert scale was used. Data was analysed using various statistical techniques including the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Technique and the generalised linear regression model. The results indicated that job engagement has a significant positive correlation with organisational citizenship behaviour and locus of control also has a significant positive correlation with organisational citizenship behaviour. However the results also indicated that when job engagement and locus of control are put together, they do not account for a significantly higher proportion of variance in organisational citizenship behaviour than each of them separately. Furthermore, as far as OCB-P and OCB-O are concerned, the results indicated a partial support of the research hypothesis that job engagement and locus of control together account for a significantly higher proportion of variance in organisational citizenship behaviour than any of the two separately. The study recommends that managers in organisations must focus on improving job engagement and promoting internal locus of control in order to ensure high levels of organisational citizenship behaviour.

D.Ed. / This research is particularly concerned with the lack of communication skills, such as reading, writing, conversing, listening, and the implementation of the language medium in an effective manner, displayed by the prospective management assistant. The management assistant is a frontline staff member, and as such should be fully competent in the aforementioned regard. Cognizance is taken of the controversy around outcomes-based education, as well as of the radical and sometimes unrealistic criticisms against this approach. For the purpose of this research and with regard to the education and training of the prospective management assistant a moderate and sober approach to curriculum renewal is advocated. The research questions hereunder formulate the problem with which the relevant study is confronted and address the issue of greater relevance regarding the education and training of the prospective management assistant. The issue of greater and more diverse skills in communication, including critically important attitudes and values not only for this particular learner, but for all people, is stressed: Which communication skills and knowledge, as well as underlying attitudes and values are demonstrated in the execution of the management assistant's task? In which way can a curriculum framework be designed to accommodate the aforesaid skills, knowledge, attitudes and values? The acquisition of skills in communication (including reading, writing, conversing and language skills) for all persons has already been addressed. The importance of communication skills for the prospective management assistant is the focus of this study.

Abstract Working life has entered a new era characterised by turbulence and continuous change. Employees are experiencing feelings of incompleteness, uncertainty over their future, and rapid changes in the direction and rhythm of work as companies are executing simultaneous change processes. On the other hand, as a result of an ageing population, there is an increasing need to motivate employees into postponing their retirement. The current developments emphasise the significance of well-being at work. Well-being at work includes health and safety, risk management in the work environment, the usability of tools, the psycho-social aspects influencing work community, change management, and any other factors that can have an effect on the well-being experienced by employees. This doctoral dissertation analyses well-being at work through four viewpoints, published in separate scientific articles. Three of the viewpoints sought answers via processes in which employees and end-users participated significantly. The fourth viewpoint was approached by interviewing experts in the field of well-being. In this research, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the analyses of the data. According to this research, the main factors influencing well-being at work include the employee, the working community, the work itself, leadership and management, and external factors. The management should strive towards balancing these factors via active and open communication. The results show how personnel participation in the development of performance indicators promotes the integration of safety aspects into a natural part of industrial production activities. Employee participation facilitates the acceptance of performance indicators, acts as training, and improves information flow within a company. The results of this doctoral dissertation can be beneficial for both public and private sectors, especially for small and medium sized companies. Managers should be able to identify all relevant external and internal change processes, contemplate their impact on well-being at work, and change their management styles accordingly. / Tiivistelmä Käynnissä oleva työelämän murros merkitsee jatkuvaa muutosta, asioiden keskeneräisyyttä, epävarmuutta tulevasta, toiminnan suunnan ja rytmin nopeita vaihteluja, erilaisten muutosprosessien samanaikaisuutta ja työyhteisöjen perustehtävien muuttumista. Toisaalta väestön ikääntyessä työvoiman haluun ja kykyyn jatkaa työelämässä nykyistä pitempään kiinnitetään yhä enenevässä määrin huomiota. Molemmat kehityskulut korostavat työhyvinvoinnin merkitystä. Työhyvinvointi sisältää työterveyden ja -turvallisuuden, työympäristön riskienhallinnan ja työvälineiden käytettävyyden, työyhteisön psykososiaaliset tekijät, muutoksen hallinnan ja muut tekijät, jotka voivat vaikuttaa työntekijöiden kokemaan hyvinvointiin tai pahoinvointiin työssä. Tämän väitöstutkimuksen tavoitteena on neljän esimerkin avulla tutkia työhyvinvointia. Kolmeen näkökulmaan haettiin vastauksia prosessilla, johon työpaikkojen henkilöstö ja/tai loppukäyttäjät osallistuivat merkittävästi. Neljättä näkökulmaa lähestyttiin asiantuntijahaastatteluiden avulla. Tutkimusaineiston analyysissä on käytetty sekä kvalitatiivisia että kvantitatiivisia menetelmiä. Tämän tutkimuksen mukaan työhyvinvoinnin keskeiset osatekijät ovat työntekijä, lähityöyhteisö, työ, johtaminen ja työyhteisön ulkopuoliset tekijät. Johdon tulisi osata tasapainottaa nämä työhyvinvointiin liittyvät tekijät. Väitöskirjan tulosten mukaan suorituskykymittareiden rakentaminen henkilöstön yhdessä toteuttamana hankkeena auttaa liittämään työturvallisuusasiat luontevaksi osaksi teollisuuden tuotantotoimintaa. Henkilöstön osallistuminen suorituskykymittareiden rakentamiseen helpottaa käyttöönottoa, toimii koulutuksena ja parantaa tiedonkulkua yrityksen sisällä. Tämän tutkimuksen tulokset ovat hyödynnettävissä sekä yksityisellä että julkisella sektorilla, erityisesti pienillä ja keskisuurilla työpaikoilla. Johdon tulisi hahmottaa työyhteisössä käynnissä olevat sisäiset ja ulkoiset muutosprosessit, pohtia niiden vaikutusta työhyvinvointiin ja tarpeen mukaan muuttaa johtamiskäytäntöjä.

This research investigates the relationship between leadership styles and different types of organisational commitment in Eskom Eastern Region. The literature provided discusses the leadership and organisational commitment. Information was gathered, using two instruments, from a sample of 86 leaders and 334 raters. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, which was formulated from Bass and Avolio’s (1997) Full Range Leadership Development Theory, was used to determine leadership style within the organisation. Employee commitment was captured using Bagraim’s (2004) Organisational Commitment, a South African adaptation of Meyer and Allen’s (1997) Three-Component Model of employee commitment. Leadership was identified as the independent variable and organisational commitment as the dependent variable. Data obtained from each of the research instruments was then statistically analysed. Two-tailed correlation analysis showed that although the relationship is not strong, there is a positive relationship between the transformational leadership behaviours and commitment (affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment). The correlation analysis also indicates a weak, but significant, positive relationship between transactional leadership behaviours and continuance commitment. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between transactional leadership behaviours and affective commitment as well as between transactional leadership behaviours and normative commitment. The correlation results showed a weak, but significant, negative correlation between laissez-faire leadership behaviours and affective commitment. There was no statistically significant correlation between laissez-faire leadership behaviours and continuance commitment as well as between laissez-faire leadership behaviours and normative commitment. Overall findings from this study suggest that transformational and transactional leadership behaviours do play important roles in determining levels of affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. These findings also reveal that the laissez-faire leadership behaviour had a negative relationship with affective commitment. This research therefore adds a new dimension to the body of literature that will help researchers’ efforts to understand the relationship between leadership style and organisational commitment. As this research takes place in the South African context, it contributes to the bank of findings relating to the development of organisational commitment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences, outcomes and degree of employee engagement, as it relates to business success of Johnson Controls. The research was conducted by questionnaire using a sample of 120 employees of Johnson Controls Uitenhage Plant. The sample represents 45 percent of the total population of 267 employees. The study discusses certain key influences of engagement - the degree to which employees are engaged and the resultant outcomes of employee engagement. The result of the study proves that communication, leadership behaviours, policies, practices, recognition and rewards are real factors influencing engagement. The study also validated that productivity, safety, customer satisfaction, employee retention and quality are outcomes of engagement. A strong relationship was found to exist between employee engagement and business success. The study also found that a strong relationship exist between leadership behaviours, policies and procedures, and recognition and rewards. Communication was found to have no relationship with employee engagement.

European company is a supranational form of public limited company. The aim of European Union was to make unified legal form for enterprises. The aim was not very successful because of disagreement of member states on employee participation. Also the fragmentation of legal frame of European company is too deep. The thesis analyse legal basis of European company and ways of its establishment. Examples from practice of Court of Justice of the European Union show difficulties in seat transfer before European company existed. Statistics and charts demonstrate unique position of Czech Republic. It is because of the absolutely highest number of established European companies, which is caused by trading trend with ready-made companies.

This study investigates the role social information and personal dispositions play in the development of attitudes of unionized employees towards employee involvement programs. A theoretical model was developed in order to understand how social information and dispositions form union member attitudes towards employee involvement programs. This was designed from models of employee involvement and attitude formation. Data were collected from employees at electrical power generation facilities. Measures of organizational and union commitment, locus of control, participativeness, social information provided by the company, social information provided by the union, and employee involvement attitudes were gathered through a survey distributed at the facilities. General affect and satisfaction towards four types of employee involvement programs union members are most likely to encounter were measured. Specific hypotheses were developed in order to test and analyze parts of the theoretical model. While the results were at times contrary to the hypothesized relationships within the model, the data fit with the theorized model well enough to provide support for it. This model effectively demonstrated how employee involvement attitudes are formed from such data, and the relationships between the variables measured. / Ph. D.

La société coopérative européenne (SCE), sœur cadette du GEIE et de la société européenne (SE), a vu le jour le 22 juillet 2003. Nouvelle forme sociale européenne, elle était censée combiner mobilité européenne et identité coopérative, tout en offrant des outils «modernes» de gouvernance et de financement destinés à relever les défis auxquels les coopératives font face. Hélas, en juxtaposant des outils tantôt des droits nationaux, tantôt empruntés à son aînée la SE, le législateur européen s'est perdu et porte ainsi la responsabilité de l'échec d'une SCE qui ne parvient ni à répondre aux besoins des coopératives, ni à créer une identité coopérative européenne, ni à permettre aux coopératives de tirer effectivement avantage du marché unique et à concourir à son développement. Les raisons à cet échec sont multiples. D'une part, la méthode utilisée consistant à s'inspirer largement du statut de la SE néglige la spécificité coopérative et ignore la complexité croissante des droits coopératifs nationaux. Ainsi, l'adoption d'un règlement-cadre offrant un grand nombre d'options aux législateurs nationaux et renvoyant excessivement aux droits coopératifs nationaux, non harmonisés et pour certains d'une complexité sans pareil, aboutit à la création de 30 variantes nationales de la SCE, qui ne conservent d'européen que l'étiquette. L'identité coopérative de la SCE apparaît ainsi comme une identité variable et plus proche de l'identité des coopératives nationales de l'État membre d'immatriculation que de celle des SCE immatriculées dans d'autres États membres. Le législateur européen, soucieux de ménager les susceptibilités nationales et l'autocompréhension nationale des mouvements coopératifs qui diverge fortement entre États membres, a ainsi négligé de doter la SCE d'une identité coopérative européenne assumée et discriminante. D'autre part, les atouts européens de la SCE, comme la constitution par voie de fusion ou le transfert du siège social, répondent mal aux besoins des coopératives, dont l'ancrage local est prononcé à raison du particularisme de leur objet. De même, les outils supposés procurer à la SCE une efficacité économique supérieure déçoivent car importés sans cohérence particulière de droits coopératifs nationaux. L'introduction de cette hétérogénéité aggrave le dilemme interne et externe des coopératives. Pour finir, le législateur communautaire néglige l'environnement disparate dans lequel évoluent les coopératives. En particulier, !'instrumentalisation du droit fiscal par certains États membres, adeptes du concept d'économie sociale, est préjudiciable à la SCE en termes de mobilité et de distorsion de concurrence sous l'angle des aides d'État.Dans ces conditions, la SCE ne paraît pas en mesure de remplir les objectifs fixés par le législateur européen et son échec ne saurait surprendre. Pourtant une autre voie était possible, consistant pour le législateur européen à proposer l'institution d'une coopérative européenne dotée d'une identité discriminante et de la flexibilité nécessaire à son efficacité, offrant ainsi une réelle alternative aux coopératives nationales et permettant de donner au mouvement coopératif européen un nouveau souffle. Pour ce faire, il aurait été nécessaire de se démarquer de la méthode adoptée pour la SE et des droits coopératifs nationaux, de réduire les renvois aux droits nationaux au maximum, de hiérarchiser les principes coopératifs et de recentrer la SCE sur son objet si particulier, tout en flexibilisant les principes coopératifs qui relèvent davantage d'une conviction idéologique que d'une nécessité juridique et qui, partant, ne contribuent pas à conférer à la SCE une identité propre. / The European Co-operative Society (SCE), younger sister of the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) and the European Company (SE), was born on July 22, 2003. New European legal form, the SCE was supposed to combine European mobility with a European co-operative identity, whilst offering co­operatives "modern" tools to improve co-operative governance and financing, the long lasting co-operative dilemma of the last century. Alas, by juxtaposing tools borrowed from national laws or from its predecessor, the SE, the European legislator loses himself and thus bears the responsibility for the failure of the SCE that does not respond ta co-operative needs, nor does it create a European co-operative identity, nor does it allow co-operatives ta effectively benefit from the single market and contribute to its development. Various reasons explain this failure. On the one hand, the method used to draw broadly on the SE statute neglects co-operative features and ignores the increasing complexity of national co-operative laws. Thus, the adoption of a framework regulation offering too many options for national legislators and excessive references ta national co-operative laws that lack harmonization and are for some of them very camplex, results in the creation of 30 national variations of SCE with a European label. The co-operative identity of the SCE appears to be variable and closer to the national identity of co-operatives in the Member State of registration. The European legislator, anxious to spare national sensitivities and the self-understanding of national co-operative movements which strongly differs among Member States, has failed to provide the SCE with an assumed and discriminating European co-operative identity. On the other hand, the European advantages of the SCE like the constitution by way of merger or the transfer of seat do not take into account co-operative needs. Co-operatives have strong local roofs and a very special legal purpose. Similarly, the tools made available to the SCE that are supposed to provide higher economic efficiency disappoint as they are imported from national co-operative law without any consistency. The introduction of this heterogeneity exacerbates the internal and external dilemma of co-operatives. Finally, the European legislator ignores the disparate environment in which co-operatives evolve. In particular, the instrumentalisation of tax law in some Member States who are attached to the concept of social economy is detrimental to the SCE's mobility and distorts competition between SCEs. Under these circumstances, the SCE does not seem able to fulfill the objectives set by the European legislator and its failure is not surprising.Yet another way would have been possible, consisting for the European legislator to propose the creation of a European co-operative with a distinct and discriminating identity and the necessary flexibility to improve efficiency, providing a real alternative to national co-operatives and giving the European co-operative movement new life. To do this, it would have been necessary to stand out from the method adopted for the SE and reduce references to national co-operative law to a maximum, prioritize co-operative principles and refocus the SCE on its particular purpose, white giving more flexibility to co-operative principles which are more of an ideological belief than a legal requirement and therefore do not contribute to give the SCE its own identity.

The problem of this study was the status of classified staff decision making participation in policy determination, administrative practices, and working conditions in Texas public junior/community colleges as reported by their presidents and those persons, chief personnel officers, on each campus who have responsibility for classified staff employees. The conclusions to the study, with respect to Texas public junior/community colleges, were (1) the classified staff employees may not be aware of the total college goals, (2) classified staff employees may have little motivation to perform their jobs effectively, (3) future turnover rates among classified staff employees could increase, (4) the classified staff employees' input appears to have a low priority in the area of decision making, (5) classified staff employees may be seeking jobs with open participation in decision making, and (6) the exclusion of classified staff employees from participation in decisions could lead to formal bargaining in the future.