This research confirms that organisational creativity is of growing interest to leaders due to an an anticipated move into the information age, and the growth of the new economy. For some leaders it also represents a new post-cost-cutting strategy to ensure organisational growth and sustainability. The research used a grounded theory approach and consisted of in-depth interviews with leaders from both the profit and non-profit sectors and included 3 case studies -- the Four Corners unit at the ABC, the advertising industry and 3M. The research also includes two comparison studies, between a range of profit and non-profit organisations, most of which are renowned for creativity. The core question attempted to be answered was how can organisations become more creative. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Leadership has been of the highest interest for decades as leaders are one of the main factors for organisational success. However, when understanding start-ups the classical leadership theories lack insight into how a leader can grow and thrive together with the organisation. The most used theories today determine what is generally understood as good and bad leadership styles. However, these fail to incorporate the start-ups' unique position and the leaders´ dynamic relationship with their organisation. Start-ups act in new, uncertain environments and more than two-thirds end up failing before growing into an established organisation. The critical phase in which the leaders could affect whether a start-up shall grow or fail is called the transition phase.  This study therefore aims to understand the perspective of leaders in start-ups through growth. By looking through the leaders' perspective, the study investigates how the transformational- and transactional leadership affect start-ups through growth. The second aim of the thesis is to gain a further understanding of the managerial challenges leaders face due to start-up growth.  The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with CEOs and top managerial founders of start-ups in the Northern region of Sweden. The studies managers had all been part of the organisation's growth journey and provided unique insights into the mind of a leader.  The findings portray two main trends of leadership, proactive and reactive. These findings provide insight into the importance of knowledge and positive attitudes toward change as contributing factors for proactively working towards adaptation and development. The findings also portrayed that managerial challenges are mostly connected to the lack of knowledge of leadership. The study concludes with a proposed framework, introducing a complementary dimension to the body of literature on leadership and growth. The dimensions are “Knowledge of leadership” and “Positive attitudes of change”.

Bibliography: leaves 116-138 / Bibliography: leaves 116-138 / The purpose of this research study was to examine the impact of institutional constraints, management competencies, strategic and structural constraints on the performance of black-owned small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). A quantitative survey was conducted using the probability sampling (N=353) of the black-owned SMMEs in CTMM. The Pearson’s correlational analysis was used to determine the relationship between institutional constraints, management competencies (as composite sets of human resources, financial resources and information resources), strategic and structural constraints, and the performance of the business (as composite sets of financial growth and organizational growth). The results indicated a negative relationship between the dependent variables and independent variables. The item analysis, dimensionality analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were performed to determine the factor structure of all the independent and dependent variables, the results yielded a good fit of all the measurement models. These findings may provide new practical knowledge for the financial and non-financial institutions to consider the position of black-owned SMMEs when they design policies, which add to the theoretical knowledge in the SMMEs sector. / Business Management / M. Comm. (Business Management (Finance))