M. Tech. (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Retailing refers to the activities involved in selling goods or services to the final consumer for personal use as opposed to business purposes. It is a socio-economic system that gets people together to interchange goods and services for a small payment, which matches the final consumers’ needs. In South Africa, the industry has grown by a yearly average of 3 percent in the past eight years and Gauteng, as a province, contributed 26.5 percent to this growth. Therefore, the retail industry has been growing at a very slow rate. Letooane (2013:2) asserts that that there is a need for research in leadership power bases, QWL and how best the needs of employees can be satisfied to improve their intention to stay. In this reard, the primary objective of the study was to examine the relationship between leadership power bases, quality of work life (QWL) and intention to stay among employees at a selected retail outlet in Gauteng province. The research methodology applied to conduct the study was a consolidation of a literature review and an empirical study.The study focused on the work of French and Raven (1959) power sources, namely coercive, legitimate, reward, referent and expert power. It also looked at QWL as the nature of the workforce in retail today is generally very different from the workforce of the past decades. In addition, the study explored how QWL will assist retailers in enhancing their employees’ intention to stay. A quantitative research approach was followed in this study and a simple random probability sampling method was adopted. A structured questionnaire, divided into four sections, was utilised to survey 300 (both male and female) employees from three branches of the selected retail company in the Daveyton township. The pilot study preceded the main survey and the internal consistency reliability was ascertained. Of the 300 questionnaires distributed to the participants, a total of 285 responses were usable for data analysis (response rate of 95 percent). The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0, was used to analyse data into descriptive statistics, reliability and validity analysis, correlations and finally, regression analysis, which was used to test the relationship among the constructs under investigation. The results indicated that coercive power base (β=0.456) and legitimate power base (β=0.210) contribute positively to the prediction of QWL, while reward power indicated a negative prediction of QWL (β= -0.044). Furthermore, the influence of QWL towards employees’ intention to stay was represented by a positive beta weight of (β=0.754). Additionally, all Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.764 to 0.913, (exceeding the threshold of 0.7) thus suggesting that all the items in the scale tap into the same underlying constructs. Results from this research study will assist retailers to increase the QWL levels in their companies by advancing the factors that were identified in this research study. Additionally, these results may enable retail store managers to comprehensively understand how employees perceive power bases and how these employees’ perceptions influence QWL and, subsequently, their intention to stay. The implications of the results are addressed as well as the limitations of the study and future research opportunities are further identified.

Makt samt organisatoriskt commitment är två väsentliga begrepp gällande ett företags ledarskap och deras anställda. Ledarskapets kärna utgörs av den influens ledargestalten har över sina underordnade och begreppet makt ska för ledaren fungera som ett drivmedel gällande hens influens. Det gäller således för ledargestalter att tillämpa makten i syfte att influera sina anställda mot organisationens uppsatta mål. För att lyckas få de anställda att sträva efter samma mål som organisationen satt upp samtidigt som de ska arbeta för att få kompetent arbetskraft att stanna krävs det av ledaren att hen kan främja organisatoriskt commitment bland de anställda. Syftet med studien är därmed att utifrån positioneringsmakt och kunskapsmakt analysera hur ledare för ett konsultföretag skapar affektivt, kalkylerande och eller normativt commitment hos sina anställda. Då studien avser att inge en djup och grundlig förståelse gällande dess syfte tillämpas en fallstudiedesign med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi samt en deduktiv ansats. Vidare ämnar studien undersöka ett specifikt fallföretag utifrån vilket studiens primärdata samlats in via tio intervjuer. Intervjuerna har fördelats på åtta av Crabats anställda konsulter, företagets VD samt företagets ägare. För att på ett djupare plan kunna presentera studiens problematisering har en teoretisk referensram utformats vilken behandlar studiens huvudbegrepp samt beskriver övriga relevanta begrepp inom ämnet. Det går inte genom studiens slutsatser att urskiljer vilken form av maktbas som främjar vilket commitment i fallföretaget. Dock går det att konstatera att fallföretaget tillämpar två maktbaser, kunskapsmakt samt positioneringsmakt, vilka i valt fallföretag sammantaget gynnar tre former av commitment, affektivt, normativt samt kalkylerande commitment. Då fallföretaget utgörs av majoriteten män hade det varit intressant om vidare forskning undersökte om ovannämnda maktbaser främjar andra former av commitment i en konsultverksamhet med en majoritet kvinnor. / Power and organisational commitment are two essential concepts regarding a corporation’s leadership and workforce. The core of leadership consists of the influence the leader has over the workforce and the concept of power is to work as a propellant regarding his or hers influence. It thus applies that the leader utilise the power to influence the workforce to work towards the organisation's goals. For the leader to achieve the above and at the same time strive to retain proficient labour it is vital that he or she can enable organisational commitment among the employees. The aim of the study is therefore to analyse how a leader within a consulting firm uses his or her power in order to generate organisational commitment. The study is intended to convey a deep and thorough understanding regarding its aim, therefore we applied a case study design with a qualitative research strategy and a deductive approach. Furthermore, the study intends to examine a specific case company from which the study's primary data has been obtained through interviews with the company’s employees, the company's president and the owner. To be able to present the reader with a deeper understanding regarding the study’s problem discussion a theoretical framework, which addresses the study's main concepts and describes other relevant concepts appropriate to the subject has been developed. We could not based on the study’s conclusions distinguish between which powerbase that benefits which form of organisational commitment. However, it is clear that the case company applies two forms of power bases, knowledge - and the positioning base of power which, in the selected case company collectively promotes three forms of commitment, affective, normative and calculating commitment. Since the case company’s employees are comprised by a majority of men, it would be interesting if further research investigated whether the above-mentioned power bases promotes other forms of commitment in a consultancy with a majority of women employed.