M.Com. (Business Management) / Companies in the Republic of South Africa are under increasing pressure to improve productivity, due to increased world market competition and change in market situations. For a country to grow economically, to create job opportunities and to restrict inflation and increases in labour costs, productivity improvement is essential. If the real output per worker increases the real income will increase, and will lead to an increased living standard. Productivity improvement within a business enterprise organisation cannot be applied to one aspect only. There is a relation between factors that influence productivity. Productivity improvement can only improve successfully within a business enterprise if management, workers and work groups strive together to solve productivity problems. Group based incentive schemes have always been used, especially at top management level. It has only recently drawn attention as a total organisation incentive scheme. Management started believing that all workers can play a role and make a contribution to productivity improvement. Group productivity incentive schemes encourage management, workers and work groups to work together to solve productivity problems. Management and workers can benefit by a properly designed productivity incentive scheme. Workers earn a higher income, as well as improving their standard of living, enabling them to gain better job security. The company can increase its level of productivity to become more competitive and to improve profitability. This study determines: All the important aspects which must be considered for the successful use of group incentive schemes to increase the productivity of direct labour in the manufacturing

M.Comm. / Spoornet ( South African Transport Services before 1991) realised since the early 1980's that pressure from its environment would have a serious effect on its economic survival. Since 1991 it has had to fight for its marketshare. Road transport companies started to beat Spoornet on all levels and robbed it of its client base. Spoornet was forced to reform its customer services approach. Pantograph-overheadwire entanglements is one of the obstacles in obtaining customer satisfaction due to the fact that one such incident can cause a train delay of up to three hours. Due the impact this has on the predictability of service, the Chief Engineer (Electrical) set as first objective an entanglement figure of 1 per million pantograph kilometres. A few informal investigations were made into possible technical reasons but none was made into the possible non-technical reasons. As hypothesis it was stated that the efforts of personnel in the organisation to solve the entanglement problem were being handicapped by the lack of motivation, which caused a atmosphere of conflict and frustration. This frustration and conflict has a negative influence on productivity and effectiveness which could be the cause of entanglements. Research done on this was conducted on a dual approach; Literature study as secondary information. Structured interview as primary information. The hypothesis was tested with this study and it was shown that inter-groupconflict, motivation, resource employment and the current approach all had aspects which needed to be addressed to solve the pantograph-overheadwire entanglement problem.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Personnel motivation is one of management's most important tasks, but due to a lack of understanding of the nature of motivation, it is also frequently neglected resulting in losses to the organisation. The purpose of this document was to perform a motivation study on the supervisory staff of a railway maintenance depot. With the results of this study the cause of the low level of motivation was determined, followed by recommendations to management in order to address these problem areas ...

M. Com. (Business Management) / Managers are increasingly expressing their anxiety about their future security, and are more concerned than ever about their job security and a stable set of rewards. This concern has been triggered by the employers who are having to make increasingly difficult decisions about their workforce compensation and its relationship to performance. There is a general perception that organisations use ‘one size fits all’, type of rewards to motivate their managers. There is also a perception that managers are only motivated by financial rewards as compared to non-financial rewards in order for them to stay with the company. The aim of the study: The aim of this study was to determine whether rewards are perceived as a motivator by managers at a furniture retail company. Motivation for the study: The rationale for this study was to find out the perception of managers with regards to rewards as a motivator. Research design, approach and method: This survey study used quantitative methods to determine the perceptions of rewards amongst managers at a furniture retail company. The target population of the study was 172 junior and middle-level managers working for a furniture retail company. In this study the target population included women and men of different age groups, race groups, and so forth. Non- probability sampling (purposive sampling) was employed as the intent was to survey junior and middle managers only. SPSS Version 15 was used to analyse the data to ensure that a quantitative analysis for the study could be conducted. The completed questionnaires by the respondents were coded and analysed to calculate frequency distribution to analyse personal data, central tendency and percentage distribution. These statistics were presented in the form of computer graphics with the help of STATKON for data analysis. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for this study to distinguish between two groups of samples in the population in order to decide whether there was a statistically significant difference. Main findings: The results for this study showed that there were statistically significant relationships between age and compensation. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management between female managers and their male counterparts. For gender and compensation, the results revealed that there was a significant difference between female and male managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management.. Regarding salary earned and compensation, there was a significant difference between higher earning and lower earning managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management Conclusion, limitations and recommendations: The respondents showed general satisfaction when it came to the rewards offered in the organisation. The results of the study revealed that rewards do motivate employees, especially in making decisions whether to stay with the company or not. The employees were very satisfied with the rewards that they received in the organisation. A major limitation of this study is that the research was only conducted in one organisation and therefore, given the diversity of companies in the retail industry, the results cannot be generalised to all organisations and other industries. In future, research should be conducted on a larger scale including more organisations within the same sector as well as across sectors so that comparisons can be made which can also be used for benchmarking. Contribution/value-add: This study has attempted to add to the body of knowledge in terms of understanding the role that rewards play in motivating managers and how these can change their behaviour in the course of achieving company objectives. The study also examined the relevant rewards perceived to be motivators by both junior and middle managers in a company.

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Magister Artium - MA / The aim of the study is to prove that a correlation exist between job satisfaction and the levels of absenteeism, turnover, performance and customer satisfaction. Data were collected using the Job Satisfaction Survey which is a self-administered questionaire to measure job satisfaction of call centre representatives. Additional data were collected using the company's existing measures for measuring absenteeism, turnover, performance and customer satisfaction. The study found a relationship between job satisfaction and performance, between job satisfaction and turnover and between job satisfaction and customer service. However, no relationship was found between job satisfaction and absenteeism, which is consistent with previous studies. / South Africa

Please read the abstract in the 00front of this document / Dissertation (MA (Industrial Sociology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Sociology / unrestricted

Five models delineating the person-situation fit controversy were developed and tested. Hypotheses were tested to determine the linkages between vision congruence, empowerment, locus of control, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee performance. Vision was defined as a mental image of a possible and desirable future state of the organization. Data were collected from 213 employees in a major flower import company. Participants were from various organizational levels and ethnic backgrounds. The data collection procedure consisted of three parts. First, a profile analysis instrument was used which was developed employing a Q-sort based technique, to measure the vision congruence between the CEO and each employee. Second, employees completed a survey instrument which included scales measuring empowerment, locus of control, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and social desirability. Third, supervisor performance ratings were gathered from employee files. Data analysis consisted of using Kendall's tau to measure the correlation between CEO's and each employee's vision. Path analyses were conducted using the EQS structural equation program to test five theoretical models for goodness-of-fit. Regression analysis was employed to test whether locus of control acted as a moderator variable. The results showed that vision congruence is significantly related to job satisfaction and employee commitment, and perceived empowerment acts as an intervening variable affecting employee outcomes. The study also found that people with an internal locus of control were more likely to feel empowered than were those with external beliefs. Implications of these findings for both researchers and practitioners are discussed and suggestions for future research directions are provided.

The purpose of this study was to develop motivational strategies for motivating public sector workers in Kenya. To achieve this objective the following procedure was followed: • An examination of the public service was undertaken and the following factors were considered: The history of the public service; Past government reform programmes; The problem of corruption; Future government reform programmes; and The motivational climate in the service. iv • A literature survey was conducted on the approaches used by organisations in motivating employees. The findings were used to develop a motivational strategy model. On the basis of the strategies in the model, a questionnaire was developed for the empirical research study. • The empirical study was undertaken to examine the level of motivation in the public service and to identify the motivational strategies currently used in the public service in Kenya. The study also sought to determine the extent to which public sector managers agreed or disagreed that the motivational strategies developed by the study would be effective in motivating employees in their organisations. The results of the empirical study were incorporated into the integrated motivational strategy model presented in chapter six. The study established that the level of motivation among the public sector workers was extremely low. According to the research findings, 87 per cent of the respondents indicated that the level of motivation of employees in their organisation was low while 13 per cent indicated that it was high. It was also established that the climate in the public service was not conducive for motivating employees: the indicators were lack of job security; very low salaries; limited training and development opportunities; lack of career development programmes and lack of adequate working tools and equipment. It was further established that the government could no longer afford to make any substantial increases in salaries to the workers because the wage bill was extremely high at the level of 9.6 per cent of the GDP. It was observed that any further increases in salaries would v have a negative impact on the economy of the country. In view of the above, this study becomes extremely relevant as it suggests ways of enhancing the levels of motivation in the public service to improve service delivery in the public sector without allocation of vast financial resources. The study strongly recommends the application of the integrated motivational strategy model in its entirety; to enhance the level of employee’s motivation and work performance and achieve efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery. The study also recommends that further research be carried out to determine the effects of corruption on employee motivation and ways of eliminating the vice in the public service.

Middle managers are important role players in organisations today. They are the link between the executive and the employees of organisations. Managers must ensure that the employees under their supervision fulfil their duties and responsibilities in the execution of their tasks, in order that the organisation achieves the strategic goals as set by the executive. For employees to perform at their peak and to ensure continual motivation, employees should find themselves in a motivated work environment. Managers are key to establishing this motivating climate; however they are only able to do this if they have sufficient authority to motivate their subordinates. Managers must not only have the authority, but they must also have the leadership skills and capacity to motivate. The question which forms the base of this research is whether managers are authorised and equipped to motivate their subordinates. The research topic fell within the quantitative paradigm with data being collected through the use of a questionnaire, which was distributed via electronic means to a sample of the population. The sample was selected using a non-random sampling method. The results were analysed and interpreted to ascertain if they aligned with the theory. The Respondents confirmed that motivation is deemed important which is the responsibility of managers to motivate their subordinates. The organisations in which the managers work should enable them to reward and recognise the employees. It was clear that the authority to reward and recognise is still limited in organisations, which creates substantial complications for managers who are not able to utilise all the tools of motivation which is needed for subordinates to achieve their full potential. Recommendations were submitted that organisations should consider effectively empowering and up-skilling their managers on all the tools of motivation and techniques on how to enhance their emotional intelligence to better understand and motivate their subordinates.