M.Comm. / Riding the wave of change is a challenge that companies often take on but just as often fail in. First National Bank decided to take on such a challenge when they merged with FirstRand Ltd. Moving from a second to a third wave company was a challenge not only management faced, but all the employees of First National Bank. The wave change required changes in various aspects of the company, for example management styles, company structure and culture of the company. A performance decline was experienced during the process of restructuring. Therefore management had to ensure that employees were motivated and focused throughout the period of change. However is it possible to keep employees motivated and focused? During this process of change the atmosphere among employees was tense and stressful. How does management assure their employees that the change is beneficial for them as well as for the company? Managing the change and ensuring that it is successful is a responsibility that lies heavily on management's shoulders. How does management guarantee successful change management? The aim of this study is to examine how First National Bank and FirstRand ensured a successful third wave change.

M.Comm.

M.Phil. / The premise of this research study was to study the phenomenon of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in order to understand the processes and practices of risk management within First National Bank (FNB). Risk management became a favourite topic for discussion in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Some analysts, chief financial officers and observers have noted that risk management is to blame for the economic recession and myriad of bank failures that ensue. However, the intention of this research study was not to analyse the GFC or to devote itself entirely to defend risk management and risk managers.

M. Tech. Business Administration / Leadership and management style play a crucial role in an organization, yet not all leaders and managers are good. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dominant leadership and management style at First National Bank (FNB) in Gauteng. A quantitative, sample-based research method was used. An MLQ questionnaire instrument was used to collect data. A random sample comprising 150 FNB managers was selected. Of the 150 questionnaires distributed, 69 were completed which comprises 46% of the population. SAS Software version 9.2 was used to describe and cluster respondents & biographical variables. The General Linear Model was used to test the effect of each demographic variable.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Within a highly regulated industry such as banking, learning takes place not only to better equip staff to deal with problems which may cross their paths, but to enable them to develop and grow into new roles within the bank. In addition to the regulation in the industry, there is also legislation goveming the learning providers within the industry. These learning providers have to abide by multiple rules and regulations set out by the Skills Development Act and the Banking Sector Training Authority, which grants accredited training-provider status to in-house learning departments of the various banks. With all the reports and returns that now have to be submitted to the Department of Labour, and the Skills Development levy that is paid to the South African Revenue Service, businesses are turning their attention to the amount of money actually being spent on training, and are starting to ask pertinent questions about the impact of learning. To answer these questions, the learning strategies that organisations adopt in order to become learning organisations need to be scrutinised and analysed, before moving on to how the measurement of retum on investment in learning can be determined and integrated into the balanced scorecard measurement for learning and growth. In the course of this study, the issues mentioned above will be discussed from a generic, theoretical point of view, before applying them specifically to the case of First National Bank. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In 'n hoogs gereguleerde bedryf soos die bankwese, vind leer nie net plaas om personeel beter toe te rus om probleme te hanteer wat oor hulle pad kan kom nie, maar ook om personeel nuwe rolle binne die bank te laat ontwikkel en aanneem. Bo en behalwe die regulasies van die bedryf, is daar ook wetgewing ingevolge waarvan verskaffers van opleiding binne die bedryf moet optree. Hierdie opleidingsverskaffers moet aan verskeie reels en regulasies valdoen soos neergele deur die Wet op Vaardigheids-ontwikkeling en die sektorale onderwys- en opleidingsowerheid vir die bankwese (BANKS ETA), wat geakkrediteerde opleidingsverskafferstatus aan interne opleidingsdepartemente van die verskillende banke toestaan. Met al die verslae en opgawes wat deesdae aan die Departement van Arbeid verskaf moet word sowel as die vaardigheidsontwikkelingsheffing wat aan die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomstediens betaal moet word, word ondernemings al hoe meer bewus van die hoeveelheid geld wat hulle aan opleiding bestee, en begin vra hulle al hoe meer tersaaklike vrae oor die impak van opleiding. Om hierdie vrae te beantwoord, moet 'n mens die leerstrategiee wat organisasies aanvaar ten einde leerorganisasies te word, onder die loep neem en ontleed. Hierna kan die aandag verskuif na die wyse waarop die meting van opbrengs op belegging in opleiding bereken en geintegreer kan word by die gebalanseerde-telkaartmeting van leer en groei. In hierdie studie word bogenoemde sake uit 'n generiese, teoretiese hoek bespreek voordat dit meer bepaald op Eerste Nasionale Bank toegepas word.

In many industries, service is the critical determinant of success or failure. Service failure is almost inevitable, and this has the potential for the organisation to lose its customer. However, if implemented successfully, Service Recovery can rectify the breakdown in service, and turn angry, frustrated customers into loyal ones. Service Recovery is vital for profitability, especially for companies operating in the services market, like First National Bank (FNB). Unfortunately, few service firms know how satisfied customers are with their Service Recovery efforts, and FNB is no exception. This study attempted to rectify the situation, to ensure that the bank does not fail its customers a second time. The major focus of the study is to assess client satisfaction with Service Recovery (SR) from FNB. By using the RECOVSAT instrument (developed by Boshoff in 1999), the study aims to establish how effective FNB was in terms of the six dimensions of SR, namely communication, empowerment, feedback, atonement, explanation, and tangibles. The relationship between each of the dimensions and customer satisfaction, as well as between customer satisfaction and loyalty, was measured, and a hypothesis for each relationship rejected or accepted. The empirical results show that, from 702 complainants, a RECOVSAT score of 68% was computed, which could be regarded as only satisfactory. The dimensions of communication, explanation, atonement, and empowerment, had the strongest positive correlation with customer satisfaction, while feedback and tangibles, although positively correlated, were not statistically significant, and thus not as important as the first four dimensions. FNB performed best on tangibles (81%), then communication (75%), explanation (70%), atonement (68%), empowerment (62%), and lastly feedback (51%). The study reinforced the view that customer satisfaction is positively related to loyalty. Other findings were that, administration and errors were the most frequent complaints, followed by pricing, fees, and interest, while time delays/waiting were the third most numerous. Over 54% of complainants had been with the bank for over 10 years, which could be a problem if the customers had left the bank, as the profitability of a customer generally increases with time. Age and gender did not appear to be factors that influenced behaviour of complainants. In terms of the managerial implications, it is recommended that FNB implement a Customer-Complaint-Handling (CCH) system that is both national and inter-group. The bank should also focus on empowering employees, improving communication skills, explaining to customers why the problem occurred, apologising, and offering some atonement. By adopting the recommendations, FNB should improve their service recovery, and as a consequence, their customer satisfaction and loyalty, and profitability should also increase.

This research investigates the relationship between innovation and leadership in First National Bank in South Africa. In an information age paradigm, innovation is a key driver of organisational success. Innovation allows an information age company to create a sustainable competitive advantage over its competitors. First National Bank (FNB) has recognised the need for innovation and measures the amount of innovation generated in each business unit on an annual basis. Leadership is a key factor influencing innovation in large, multi-segment organisations, particularly transformational leadership. Large multi-segment organisations often have multi-functional teams and transformational leadership of these teams more effectively promotes innovation. Large multi-segment organisations also often have complex decision making processes. Transformational leadership ensures optimal innovative decisions rather than adequate decisions are reached. FNB is a multi-segment organisation comprising ten business units each headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The relationship between the level of innovation being generated annually by each business unit and the leadership style of the business unit CEO formed the focus of this research. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to gather information on the leadership style of each CEO's. Data on the level of innovation within each of these business units was supplied by First National Bank. Data was statistically analysed against the innovation generated by each business unit using correlation analysis. Most of the results testing the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and innovation were found not to be significant. This contradicts the theory which suggests a positive relationship between transformational leadership and innovation.