Thesis (doctoral)--Nova Southeastern University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-97).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-151).

No / This article examines the current interest in leadership in general and the growing interest in leadership in social work, in particular. It highlights the lack of a generalized definition of the word and the different ways it is interpreted in social work. The implicit assumptions on which much leadership writing appears to be founded are noted. Leadership can be seen as a further development of the managerial agenda, from one perspective, or as a countervailing factor maintaining professional autonomy, from another. In considering some of the components of leadership as identified by some in the field, the paper considers the extent to which these skills are exclusive to leadership and asks whether they might already be present but overlooked in the profession. The paper concludes that expectations of leadership within social work would benefit from debate and clarification if this is to be a useful future theme.

The first question you might ask yourself when you start reading this thesis could possibly be: what is it that makes this research important, interesting, and worth reading? The answer could only be found in the eyes of the beholder and when you join in on the journey you will discover your own meaning. My wish is to contribute with views and a space for reflection that can inspire leaders to look at and act on possibilities within leadership. In many ways this research might challenge traditional ways of thinking and doing research with its aim to contribute with the uniqueness of how sense-making can be developed through the perspective of systemic practice research. In systemic practice research my own practice and development becomes very important. This includes how I understand and interpret issues related to the research question and how my understanding emerges during the research process. Ways to develop systemic practice in general for the future also becomes important. The thesis explores stories leaders tell about how they make sense of leadership and possibilities they see. This also includes me and how I have made sense. Systemic practice could be described as a reflexive and reflecting practice. This means that I will share my own reflections through the whole thesis. My learnings from this research journey could also be seen as emerging through the reflections I have made during the process. The method is inspired by systemic and social constructionist perspectives related to practice research and also grounded theory. The sense I have made and express in this thesis is inevitably intertwined with experiences from past and present but also with hopes for the future, issues I would like to address for the future. The learning is partly influenced by interviews with leaders from different fields. Their sense-making has been summarised in themes that are explored and connected with and complemented with theoretical perspectives. The thesis highlights leaders’ personal and professional development as intertwined in an infinite process. The research also casts light on exploring aspects connected to values and ethics. From this journey a conceptualising of a leadership relational ethical compass and an organisational relational ethical compass has been developed. It shows that if we are grounded in values we also can be guided by these values in our leadership. But our values also need to be transformed in a meaningful and useful way to our employees and in relation to the mission we have. Leadership possibilities that arise could be seen as the aesthetics of leadership and how leadership is noticed and experienced. Often, small actions make a huge difference; how we think, communicate, and the words we use all create worlds and invite people into different patterns and meaning making conversations that are more or less helpful. The thesis highlights the importance of being comfortable with oneself and the mission as a leader. The thesis pays interest to how leaders’ self-development is intertwined with the potential of the organisation. Leaders can always increase their ability to interact with others in a meaningful and constructive way. This also shows that the mind-set we have as leaders plays an important role in how we experience our mission and the possibilities we see. The thesis is built on the idea of different domains. The introduction and methodology part represents what we can call the production domain. After this you will be invited to my personal domain and stories from my life that has influenced my sense-making. The next part will show some of the results and reflections that have arisen from interviews and will from this view take part of the production domain combined with reflections. The last chapter could be seen as my reflexive domain; how I have interwoven learning from the whole and come to certain hypotheses. The aesthetical domain could be seen as the overall how; how I have put it all together, the language and approach I have used, and how I have lived my values. This thesis and the research could also be seen as built on four parts: My professional development which is my systemic leadership practice. Developing systemic leadership practice in general. Focus on conducting systemic practice research which could be seen as in its birth. Interviews with leaders and connection to their understanding to increase aspects of leadership, sense-making and possibilities.

M.A. (Strategic Communication) / In today’s increasingly competitive business environments, one of the greatest challenges that continue to face organisations extends beyond financial performance, market share, and attracting and retaining employees and customers, to now include the reputation of the individual that heads up or leads the organisation – in most instances the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The leader’s reputation has become increasingly important for a number of reasons, one of which includes customers making purchasing and contracting decisions based on the reputation of the CEO and no longer on the products and services offered by organisations only. It is no surprise then that leaders who have a solid leadership stature, reputation or ‘personal brand’, attract more customers. The CEO’s reputation impacts on all aspects of organisational existence – from internal communication to branding, from customer service to the external image and reputation and media exposure. The aim of this study was to develop a measurement scale with which to measure leader reputation in the South African business context by using two high profile organisations in the financial industry. In order to do so, a conceptually relevant set of leader reputation criteria were developed from a comprehensive review of available literature. Eight key dimensions of leader reputation were developed, which served as the framework for measuring leader reputation within the South African business context, namely; Individual Accountability, People Alignment, Brand Citizenship, Communication Competence, People Management, Personal Charisma, Ethical Leadership and Adaptability. This study adopted a quantitative research design which used a survey questionnaire, descriptive analysis and multivariate research techniques. The survey questionnaire was completed by 122 respondents from two financial industry organisations. The results of the statistical analysis suggest that the survey questionnaire was a reliable and valid instrument, and that there are very few differences between various subsets (based on biographical data) of the sample.

Please refer to the full document to access the abstract. / Thesis (MBA) - University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2005.

The introduction of mixed generations in the church has resulted in age related differences in worldviews that have eventually amounted to conflicts in the church branch. This research surfaces the underpinning structures of these age related conflicts and the emerging leadership dynamics by looking at the individual, organisational and societal levels of analysis of a church branch. The main objective was to sensitise the church on these issues in order to carefully manage the consequences. This research was undertaken as a case study at the Umlazi branch of the African Gospel Church, a SADEC Pentecostal church founded in the 1940s in Durban. This church subscribes religiously to the founders identity, such that the church has been at conflict as the older church members supported the traditionalist agenda whilst the youth were very contemporary in the interpretation of their needs and expectations from the church. As a practitioner researcher I adopted a critical systems approach at meta-methodological level, where I used a repertoire of methods to critically intervene and expose the complexities that exist in this church context. I followed Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as a dominant method of intervention as it exposed a rich picture of the situation and Critical Systems Heuristics for boundary critique. The empirical tools of research were questionnaires, open ended interviews and focus group discussions. The research revealed that age related conflicts were mere manifestations of a problem that is deeply rooted in the doctrines and the ecclesiastic teachings of the church, thus implying that the church has elevated its legacy to a level higher than the generic doctrine of the gospel. This situation has resulted in the youth being powerless and rejecting the church system as they argue that the times have shifted and the church has to reflect this change. The characteristics of this church are such that leaders and pastors are generally appointed at old age, thus leaders subscribe to the traditionalist agenda by default. I have not as yet reverted to the branch to close the SSM loop, where we would have discussed the possible solutions for implementation. I believe a further intervention would be necessary as the findings suggest that there are deeper tensions than I had anticipated. Thus, in the tradition of Critical Systems Practice, I would need to go into a further reflexive and creative mode to plan a next step. Due to the limitations of time and understanding the restraints of a short dissertation I have not done this. This research, however, managed to fulfil its objective by exposing the issues of concern and possible approaches of addressing them from a theoretical framework. An ecclesiastical discourse to address leadership competency, change management and intergenerational activities would need to be given special attention as a recommendation. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

The research focused using System Dynamics to model and simulate an engineering project with the main aim of understanding: - Why change orders are notorious for negatively impacting on project execution; - The root cause(s) of the behavior in order to find ways to better manage change orders in future projects; The research was carried out at a leading KZN-based engineering consultancy using data from a recently completed project as a basis for the model. The research took the following approach and sequence: Introduction: In this section I present the dominant school of thought, the reductionist scientific perspective and its strengths. I then highlight the weakness of the school and present systems thinking as an alternative way of viewing life issues. I then propose system dynamics as one of the better methodologies that can help us understand a dynamic and non-linear system. Literature Survey: In this section I review literature on project management with the primary aim of highlighting that projects, regardless of size, are complex non-linear systems. I then cover literature on system dynamics with the aim of justifying my perspective, that it is suitable for application in the project management context. Research Methodology and Results Analysis: This section presents the methodology I followed in executing the research. The research process started off with extensive data reviewing from a recently completed project. It also covered conversations with the research participants in order to help me fully understand the project that was to be modelled. The data reviewing and interviews culminated in a group model building exercise where a number of “what if” scenarios were explored and discussed with the participants. The final stage of the research was to get the participants to respond to a post-modelling questionnaire. The outcomes from these processes were then used to answer the original research questions and to draw any additional insights. The resultant model can now be used as a learning tool for teaching clients of the unintended consequences that can result from issuing change orders. Conclusion: I then close off the research by concluding that change orders do have a non-linear impact on project execution and they require careful management. I then suggest that the best way to manage this is by educating all the project participants, especially the client of how their well meaning requests can be detrimental to the project if not well managed. Additionally it was surprising to all participants that for some reason, exploration of change orders that are not approved is rarely ever charged for. This “work for no pay” can negatively impact on the financial situation of the service provider which may have a knock-on effect to other areas of the project. Value: This research eventually revealed itself to be about learning to effectively lead a group modeling exercise and what pitfalls to look out for when creating models. There is great value for people interested in finding progressive and well informed ways for model building and managing change orders in projects. This system dynamics in project management research is grounded on the concepts of the learning organization and systems thinking as the core drivers. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.

The purpose of this dissertation was to understand and analyse the facilitative role of specialist and niche business-to-business (trade) media in the emergence of communities of practice, part of the knowledge management discipline, using models from systems theory to assist in the qualitative research process. First, it was considered how to define communities of practice and business-tobusiness (B2B) media. How communities of practice (CoPs) emerge and why they are an important part of a management toolkit going forward in business, is described. Sharing knowledge emerged as the key to the creation of CoPs as well as being the core currency that business-to-business media trade in to service their stakeholders. How learning takes place through shared experience, narratives and storytelling emerged as essential to how knowledge is created. Soft systems methodology as the analytical lens through which to measure the data set was also investigated once it was decided to use a qualitative inductive approach to collating and analysing the data. A semi-structured interview schedule was employed and 17 research subjects interviewed. The respondents to this study were drawn from leading media houses in South Africa, including award-winning B2B publications, bar one from a US online think tank on new media. The impact of new media technologies/internet on communication and the distribution of information and engagement of communities in the CoP and B2B space, was a strong theme throughout this dissertation. The findings revealed that while communities of practice is not a widely used term in the networks that B2B media utilise to embed themselves in industries, it is true that some of the networks and associations they are close to and derive meaning from, do in fact contain characteristics common to CoPs and could be termed CoPs, even when formally unrecognised as such. What was a stronger theme emerging from the data was that B2B media could in fact benefit more from facilitating CoPs to aid information gathering and improve credibility within the industry sectors they serve. B2B media in South Africa, in particular, were regarded as immature and sometimes lacking in ethics and innovation, according to respondents. To improve their sustainability, several characteristics emerged from the research that B2B media should focus on as a 'model for sustainability': 1) Special interest/niche communities - to assist in building knowledge assets; 2) Sustainability - through a multi-media platform business model; 3) Values - for application to serve their industry sectors; 4) Educational role through the facilitation of networks such as CoPs; and, 5) Communication channels - utilised for deeper engagement with their communities in emergent new media models where their own stakeholders were influencing content. The value inherent in this dissertation lies in the original research undertaken into the B2B media industry in South Africa which has not been formally studied, particularly not from a knowledge management perspective. This study could also be of interest to knowledge management practitioners who are interested in the role specialist media can play in aiding CoPs with information for knowledge creation. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

This dissertation explores the relevance of corporate governance in the nonprofit sector in South Africa, and asks the question "How can the application of current formal governance measures lead to positive change at The Valley Trust? ". Significantly, in South Africa it has been a time of transformation, with the emergence of world-class strategies to enhance governance in both the public and the private sectors. Are the principles of good governance are applicable too, to non-profit organisations? South Africa has evidence of relevant documentation both in the public and private sectors. In the private sector the King 2002 report strengthened the original King report which in turn was guided by the Cadbury report on corporate governance in the North. The King 2002 report on corporate governance is considered to be world class and emphasises risk management, leadership, direction, control and disclosure. The Public Finance Management Act, together with the subsequent Treasury Regulations and the local government's Municipal Finance Management Act, spell out the way forward for governance in the public sector with the emphasis on effectiveness, efficiency and economy as assessment criteria in terms of revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities (REAL) with special reference to risk management and accountability. In terms of enhancing sustainability and good stewardship, The Valley Trust, a non-profit organisation working in Primary Health Care and Development in Southern Africa, has the opportunity to use the resources available, and to apply the current thinking and principles of good governance. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.