The objective of this study was to investigate what the critical elements were for an employee performance appraisal system (EPA) to be effective and successful and whether the latter would enhance employee engagement. The study hypothesised that three elements, namely the level of trust in the appraiser, communication by the appraiser and the level of training of the appraiser would be critical to achieve an effective EPA. Effective performance appraisal is known to benefit organisations by helping them measure performance, motivate employees and most commonly help to make HR related administrative decisions, such as promotions and rewards. The study was conducted in a national public entity, which is constituted and mandated in terms of the PPEC Act, No 9 of 1983, to perform cold chain services and also under the APS Act, No.119 of 1990. The organisation studied also delivers inspection and food safety services for perishable products as mandated by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The research adopts a survey approach where self-administered questionnaires were used to gather data from the employees to measure their opinions of the measured elements of the employee performance appraisal (EPA). The surveys were issued to a total of 150 employees within the organisation and a total of 82 usable surveys were returned. The findings of the study revealed that the employees were generally satisfied with the level of competency, training of, and trust in, the appraiser, but there was still work to be done in improving the system and making it more successful and rewarding. Communication by the appraiser was found to be not significantly related to the effectiveness of the current performance appraisal system.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

by Chi-heng Chan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-71). / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1 --- Existing models on purchase intentions --- p.4 / Chapter 1.2 --- Objective --- p.7 / Chapter 2 --- Modelling --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1 --- Beta Distribution --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2 --- Beta-binomial Distribution --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3 --- A new model without the binomial assumption --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Difficulties of the binomial assumption --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- A new measure of stated purchase intentions --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Modelling the True purchase intention --- p.19 / Chapter 3 --- Methodology --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1 --- Two Approaches of Estimation --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Least Square Approach --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Maximum Likelihood Approach --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2 --- Estimation Procedures --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Least Square Estimation --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Maximum Likelihood Estimation --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Difference between DUNLSF and DUMPOL --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Evaluation of the Two approaches --- p.28 / Chapter 3.3 --- Results --- p.28 / Chapter 3.4 --- Simulation Study --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Procedure --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Simulation Results --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Evaluation of performance --- p.41 / Chapter 4 --- An Example --- p.42 / Chapter 4.1 --- Review on Usage of survey --- p.42 / Chapter 4.2 --- The Survey --- p.43 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Details of the survey --- p.44 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Results and Findings --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Interpretation --- p.47 / Chapter 5 --- Discussions and Conclusions --- p.51 / Chapter 5.1 --- Discussions --- p.51 / Chapter 5.2 --- Further Implications --- p.52 / Chapter 5.3 --- Conclusion --- p.54 / Chapter A --- Beta Distribution --- p.55 / Chapter B --- Programmes of estimation --- p.57 / Chapter B.l --- Minimization of (??) by the algorithm DUNLSF --- p.57 / Chapter B.2 --- Minimization of (??) by the algorithm DUMPOL --- p.60 / Chapter C --- Programmes of simulation --- p.63 / Chapter C.1 --- Simulation 1 (Refer to P.39) --- p.63 / Chapter C.2 --- Simulation 2 (Refer to P.40) --- p.67 / Chapter C.3 --- Simulation 3 (Refer to P.41) --- p.67 / Chapter D --- Programmes for figure drawing --- p.68 / Bibliography --- p.69

Graduation date: 1994

Marketers and advertisers have long searched for new and more powerful ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising. One data source that has proven useful is consumers’ moment-to-moment affective responses to advertisements. The first essay of my dissertation examines consumers’ moment-to-moment evaluations of advertisements and presents an application of principal components analysis that allows researchers to understand divergence in consumer response and link this divergence to specific elements of the ad’s storyline. While traditional research has focused on the aggregate peak, final moment and linear trend of consumers’ affect traces in predicting overall evaluations of the advertisement, this application provides better predictions of holdout evaluations. Additionally, I find these traditional measures do not provide insight into consumers’ credibility assessments of the advertisement and illustrate that these evaluations are determined much earlier in the advertisement. The second essay of my dissertation examines how important consumer characteristics (receiver factors), such as prior brand attitude and product category involvement, impact consumers’ moment-to-moment affective responses to advertisements. I also examine how these consumer characteristics moderate the relationship between consumers’ affect traces and important downstream variables such as attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand and likelihood to purchase the product. I demonstrate that consumers form biased evaluations based on their prior brand attitude and category involvement and illustrate how advertisers can reduce these biases resulting in greater attitude change in consumers less positively predisposed to the product. / text

We examine whether the precepts of what have been termed 'close', 'intimate', or, more specifically, 'communal' relationships in Social Psychology may be communicated via Web site content and whether this positively impacts Site-Loyalty. We introduce a variable called Site-Communality defined as the extent to which Web site content signals that a company's relationship with its customers goes beyond the formal, 'tit for tat' business dealings that are typically expected from purely commercial exchanges, and instead, more closely abide by the norms and behaviours evocative of friendships and/or family relations. We develop multi-dimensional measures of Site-Communality and Site-Loyalty. Using Structural Equation Modelling (LISREL VIII), we then empirically investigate the influence of Site-Communality on the attitudes and behavioural intentions associated with Site-Loyalty using cross-sectional data collected from 305 subjects asked to explore and evaluate one among many real Web sites chosen so as to maximize variability on Site-Communality. / Our results show that Site-Communality has a strong, direct, positive effect on the attitudes and behavioural intentions associated with Site-Loyalty. This directly contradicts conjectures from several authors dismissing as unimportant or irrelevant to Web site design, the affective/relational aspects more closely associated with traditional, interpersonal, face-to-face commercial encounters (e.g., Cox & Dale, 2001; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Malhotra, 2001, 2002). Generally, such factors were believed to loose their relevance in self-service, Web-based commercial environments, at best, becoming contingently important only when customer/employee communications actually occurs (i.e., emails/telephone conversations). / However, contrary to our expectations, our results show that the positive relationship between Site-Communality and Site-Loyalty is attenuated (rather than accentuated) by the visitor's 'Communal-Orientation in Traditional Commercial Environments' which is defined as the extent to which a consumer enjoys 'getting to know' employees (i.e., waitress, bank teller, hair stylist) and relating with them on a more personal-level than is typically required for the effective delivery of a service. One possible explanation for this unexpected result is that when highly communally-orientated consumers are exposed to a Web site high in Site-Communality, they may be reminded of what they are missing out on if they choose to conduct their business online rather than in more traditional business environments.

Thesis (M.P.H.M. (Primary Health Care Management))--Mahidol University, 2007. / LICL has E-Thesis 0023 ; please contact computer services.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2008.