Modern organisations are increasingly seen as knowledge-based business ventures in which proactive knowledge management is important for competitiveness. The interest in knowledge management seems to have surged across world. In the increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are especially keen to integrate and capitalise on the knowledge of their employees and make it available when and where it is needed. In addition, many firms realise the need to educate and indoctrinate new hirelings into the organisation quickly due to the scarcity of global resources and an aging workforce (Teicholz, 2004). As a result, many organisations implement knowledge management initiatives in an attempt to combine and exploit their knowledge assets. It is therefore necessary to critically evaluate Sasol on these terms. How the knowledge management strategy supports organisational processes is investigated along with collective learning and collaborative decision making within the organisation. An in depth literature study was conducted to gain insight into KM concepts and strategies. It also provided a reference to current best practices. Above all, the literature study helped to gain perspective on the complexities of measuring a phenomenon like KM in an organisation. Performance measurement techniques are discussed and reference made to the eras of knowledge management. A short section makes reference to another organisation considered to be a global leader in integration of knowledge management systems. The research design method that was chosen to authenticate the research objectives is qualitative. The interpretive methods employ an inductive approach that starts with data and tries to derive a theory about the phenomenon of interest from the observed data. Results were obtained from a combination of two methods. Published and available secondary data mainly obtained from Sasol resources. The second was structured interviews conducted from a criterion based sampling strategy conducted on employees to obtain primary data. Sasol employees are supportive of the Sasol KM systems and are (to some extent) using it. Many believe that Sasol is a learning organisation and therefore benefitting from the systems in place. However, the people of Sasol are generally not aware of the full functionality of the deployed systems. Therefore the current state of the Sasol KM system integration is the consequence. Organisational Knowledge, unlike personal knowledge, is only of value if it is shared with others who need it (KMI, 2010). In order to enhance collective learning, learning organisations establish specific learning processes that become embedded in work processes. This is the basis of the outcomes and the recommendations of this research. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The performance of state-owned enterprises in Namibia has been in the spotlight for many years, resulting in the Government of the Republic of Namibia to introduce interventions and strategies to address and improve this performance. The poor performance of state-owned enterprises has been studied in terms of financial aspects with less attention, however, on human resources as a key success factor in contributing to performance. Studying performance in terms of the human resources is an important area for research and intervention. The Government introduced several measures to ensure the efficient governance and monitoring of state-owned enterprises and to ensure that they are performing to the satisfaction and expectations of the stakeholder. These measures included the introduction of the State-Owned Enterprises Act (Act 2 of 2006) of Namibia, as well as governance structures to ensure that the performance of state-owned enterprises is properly maximised. Despite these efforts by the Government to regulate state-owned enterprises with the intention to improve performance, to date the poor performance of state-owned enterprises is still a topical issue in Namibia. Almost a decade after the promulgation of the State-Owned Enterprises Act, in 2006, the government is still financially bailing out a number of the state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises need to take a positive approach that recognise and leverage human resources for contribution to sustainable growth, competitive advantage and performance. Positively oriented high-performance work practices are conceptualised within the context of positive organisational behaviour. Positive organisational behaviour as characterised in the form of psychological capital, with antecedents such as authentic leadership and supportive organisational climate and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, intention to leave, engagement in the Namibian state-owned enterprises context are the main focus of this study. The study aimed to assess the relationship between psychological capital, authentic leadership, supportive organisational climate, job satisfaction, intention to leave, employee engagement and performance for employees in state-owned enterprises in Namibia. A cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data regarding all these constructs as experienced by employees. A convenience sample (N = 452) of employees from 20 state-owned enterprises participated in the study. The measuring instruments used were the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Performance-related Attitudinal Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Scale, Turnover Intention Scale, Engagement Scale, Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Supportive Organisational Climate Questionnaire and a biographical questionnaire. The results of study 1 showed that authentic leadership was positively associated with psychological capital (i.e. experiences of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) and job satisfaction. Authentic leadership affected job satisfaction indirectly via psychological capital. Psychological capital had a medium to large indirect effect on employees’ intentions to leave. The findings suggest that authentic leadership and psychological capital explain job satisfaction and retention of employees in state-owned enterprises. Study 2 showed that authentic leadership and psychological capital predicted employee engagement. A supportive organisational climate was related to employee engagement on individual level, but only if authentic leadership and psychological capital were not included in the model. Psychological capital mediated the relation between authentic leadership and employee engagement on an individual level in state owned enterprises. The results of study 3 showed that authentic leadership and a supportive organisational climate had a positive impact on psychological capital. Psychological capital predicted job performance on an individual level. Psychological capital was not associated with organisational performance. Recommendations for interventions to promote psychological capital, its antecedents and outcomes were made.

The performance of state-owned enterprises in Namibia has been in the spotlight for many years, resulting in the Government of the Republic of Namibia to introduce interventions and strategies to address and improve this performance. The poor performance of state-owned enterprises has been studied in terms of financial aspects with less attention, however, on human resources as a key success factor in contributing to performance. Studying performance in terms of the human resources is an important area for research and intervention. The Government introduced several measures to ensure the efficient governance and monitoring of state-owned enterprises and to ensure that they are performing to the satisfaction and expectations of the stakeholder. These measures included the introduction of the State-Owned Enterprises Act (Act 2 of 2006) of Namibia, as well as governance structures to ensure that the performance of state-owned enterprises is properly maximised. Despite these efforts by the Government to regulate state-owned enterprises with the intention to improve performance, to date the poor performance of state-owned enterprises is still a topical issue in Namibia. Almost a decade after the promulgation of the State-Owned Enterprises Act, in 2006, the government is still financially bailing out a number of the state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises need to take a positive approach that recognise and leverage human resources for contribution to sustainable growth, competitive advantage and performance. Positively oriented high-performance work practices are conceptualised within the context of positive organisational behaviour. Positive organisational behaviour as characterised in the form of psychological capital, with antecedents such as authentic leadership and supportive organisational climate and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, intention to leave, engagement in the Namibian state-owned enterprises context are the main focus of this study. The study aimed to assess the relationship between psychological capital, authentic leadership, supportive organisational climate, job satisfaction, intention to leave, employee engagement and performance for employees in state-owned enterprises in Namibia. A cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data regarding all these constructs as experienced by employees. A convenience sample (N = 452) of employees from 20 state-owned enterprises participated in the study. The measuring instruments used were the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Performance-related Attitudinal Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Scale, Turnover Intention Scale, Engagement Scale, Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Supportive Organisational Climate Questionnaire and a biographical questionnaire. The results of study 1 showed that authentic leadership was positively associated with psychological capital (i.e. experiences of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) and job satisfaction. Authentic leadership affected job satisfaction indirectly via psychological capital. Psychological capital had a medium to large indirect effect on employees’ intentions to leave. The findings suggest that authentic leadership and psychological capital explain job satisfaction and retention of employees in state-owned enterprises. Study 2 showed that authentic leadership and psychological capital predicted employee engagement. A supportive organisational climate was related to employee engagement on individual level, but only if authentic leadership and psychological capital were not included in the model. Psychological capital mediated the relation between authentic leadership and employee engagement on an individual level in state owned enterprises. The results of study 3 showed that authentic leadership and a supportive organisational climate had a positive impact on psychological capital. Psychological capital predicted job performance on an individual level. Psychological capital was not associated with organisational performance. Recommendations for interventions to promote psychological capital, its antecedents and outcomes were made.

There is a wealth of studies which suggest that manager's positive perceptions/expectations can considerably influence organisational performance; unfortunately, little empirical evidence has been obtained from development studies. This first time research explores how Japanese aid workers' perceptions towards the local staff affects their behaviour and performance in cross-cultural project settings. Moreover, this research focuses on the perceptual and behavioural trait differences of successful and unsuccessful aid workers. With cooperation from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 244 valid responses were obtained from the aid workers (managers) through a webbased survey. As a result of statistical analysis, positive causal relationships were confirmed between perception related factors and behaviour related factors and the organisational performance variable. These results strongly suggest that aid worker's positive perceptions result in positive behaviour in local colleagues and subsequently higher organisational performance. In addition, it was discovered that the aid workers' positive perception/expectation about work and their local colleagues was related to higher organisational performance, whilst conversely, the negative perception on their part was generally associated with negative behaviour and lower organisational performance.Although the differences in perceptual tendencies suggested by that these findings apply to Japanese aid managers; however, as human nature is universal, positive perception and behaviour should bring out positive output in most organisations. It is recommended that there is a need for people-related and cross-cultural management skills to ensure successful future activities, and stress management competencies to maintain positive managerial perception on the part of aid workers.

The movement or flow of employees into, around and out of organisations (‘employee flow’) has long been a central issue in human resource management and industrial psychology. This is especially so for the specific element of employee turnover, but also applies to staffing and internal talent development. Employee flow is especially salient in a South African context characterised by scarce skills. The voluminous literature on employee flow has tended to view each element such as recruitment or turnover separately, and has generally focused on internal outcomes (e.g. commitment or satisfaction). This thesis attempts to add two crucial features, namely EF as a whole system (i.e. inflows, intraorganisation flows and outflows of staff in conjunction), and customer-based outcomes. Something of a synthesis is thus sought between EF and ideas of marketing productivity. Marketing productivity has been proposed as one of the most important foci of the marketing discipline (Rust, Ambler, Carpenter, Kumar, & Srivastava, 2004; Sheth & Sisodia, 2002). It refers to links between marketing and organisational performance or value. Models such as the ‘service profit chain’ (Heskett, Sasser & Schlesinger, 1997) identify the antecedents of marketing productivity to be internal organisation characteristics such as staff satisfaction or loyalty. This thesis seeks to expand such models in the context of a system of EFs. Advanced decision theoretic utility theories of EF (e.g. Boudreau & Berger, 1985) allow for the complete, integrated value of employee movements over time to be modelled. Such a model is constructed and links to marketing metrics, notably service perceptions, investigated. Organisational value arising via the outcomes for customers are further investigated. Thus increased value of employee movements is proposed to generate organisational value, mediated by improved customer equity (e.g. Gelade & Young, 2005). An empirical, survey-based study was conducted to assess the model. EF was assessed in business-to-business relationships from the perspective of the customer using conceptions of decision theoretic utility analysis, and both intermediate and outcome-based customer perceptions of service quality used as dependent variables. Moderation effects from frequency of interaction and integration of the customer into the supply chain were also tested, as well as controls for characteristics of the transaction, organisation and industry. Results suggest that EF does significantly affect various stages of service quality provision, notably ‘potential quality’, which it appears mediates links to other aspects of service provision, especially final service outcomes. In addition, EF was also found to affect outcomes through the intermediate relational element of 'soft process quality', possibly highlighting the importance of relationship management and soft skills in B2B relationships. Employee outflows in particular showed evidence of relatively strong effects, possibly highlighting the ongoing salience of turnover, in particular effective identification and management of functional versus dysfunctional turnover instead of a sole focus on retention. Results were significantly stronger for service industries than others (presumably as service is the outcome), and when there were relatively few supplier contact staff (perhaps due to social networking, bonding, exchange or emotional contagion). This thesis adds substantially to the methodologies underlying service profit chain models. It explicitly included new constructs (EF utility). Contextually, it was the first proper test of this model in South Africa. Theoretical contributions arose from new inter-disciplinary syntheses of utility models, finally linking employee and customer utilities to the organisation. Ultimately, practical significance may arise for managerial models, estimating and justifying human resource interventions.

Organisations can create a competitive advantage through the way they design their human resource systems. High involvement work systems are considered to be a way to increase organisational performance and decrease employee turnover. However, the components involved are difficult and complex to define, and the synergy amongst the different components hard to evaluate. The literature suggests that the research is not uniform in its approach, and most research does not clearly define the variables involved or agree on the expected results of such systems. This research looks at high involvement work systems in the New Zealand organisational context, and relating these systems to employee turnover and organisational performance. The results of the study suggest that there does not appear to be a relationship between high involvement work systems, and employee turnover and organisational performance; but high involvement systems may contribute to increased labour productivity in New Zealand organisations.

<p>This thesis explores and explains the existence of a best practice model to optimise the transfer of funds (&ldquo / the transfer funding process&rdquo / ) between funders and service providers in the public sector. Using ideas about best practice in a specific context, the Health environment, it investigates the perceptions of managers about the transfer of funds between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and the Local Authority of the City of Cape Town, the existence of a formula that will indicate appropriate amounts to transfer to service providers, and how information systems might assist with the process and the formula.</p>

<p>In an attempt to make South Africa a more just society after the first democratic elections on 27 April 1994, the South African society had to undergo a number of radical changes which impacted the social, economical, political and educational arena. These changes have influenced recruitment, retention and turnover. Changes at leadership levels in the private and public sphere coupled with a huge exodus of highly skilled professionals are evident as topics of equality and social justice appear at the top of company agendas. Many proponents have conducted research on organisational justice and the fact that more than twenty five thousand articles have been published on job satisfaction attest to the importance of these two variables on organisational performance. In an article examining past, present and future states of organisational justice it is argued that organisational justice has the potential to explain many organisational behavioural outcome variables. An investigation of the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and work behavior found job satisfaction to be made up of a large fairness component. The rationale behind the support for the study is the argument that employees who perceive that they have been fairly treated is likely to hold positive attitudes about their work, their work outcomes and their managers. If South African organisations wish to remain competitive then organisations need to understand how perceptions of justice influence attitudes and behaviour and consequently affect the success of the organisation. Agricultural Colleges, a division of the Department of Agriculture are no exception. The Agricultural Colleges' primary aim is to provide training to its prospective communities, and is continuously being evaluated in terms of how well its academic employees achieve its vision, mission and goals. It is evident from responses to job advertisements, low morale and high turnover that most of the academic employees in Agricultural Colleges are dissatisfied with their jobs, pay, management and the institutions based on their current salary. Attracting, recruiting and retraining highly skilled, internationally marketable and mobile employees are critical factors in determining the present and future success in agricultural training in South Africa. Limited research to examine the effects of organisational justice on organisational outcomes in an environment where the workforce consists of academics is the gap this research attempts to fill. This study is designed to assess the impact of organisational justice on job satisfaction of academic employees in agricultural colleges in South Africa. Also, to determine whether biographical values influence the relationship between organisational justice and job satisfaction.</p>

<p>This thesis explores and explains the existence of a best practice model to optimise the transfer of funds (&ldquo / the transfer funding process&rdquo / ) between funders and service providers in the public sector. Using ideas about best practice in a specific context, the Health environment, it investigates the perceptions of managers about the transfer of funds between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and the Local Authority of the City of Cape Town, the existence of a formula that will indicate appropriate amounts to transfer to service providers, and how information systems might assist with the process and the formula.</p>

<p>In an attempt to make South Africa a more just society after the first democratic elections on 27 April 1994, the South African society had to undergo a number of radical changes which impacted the social, economical, political and educational arena. These changes have influenced recruitment, retention and turnover. Changes at leadership levels in the private and public sphere coupled with a huge exodus of highly skilled professionals are evident as topics of equality and social justice appear at the top of company agendas. Many proponents have conducted research on organisational justice and the fact that more than twenty five thousand articles have been published on job satisfaction attest to the importance of these two variables on organisational performance. In an article examining past, present and future states of organisational justice it is argued that organisational justice has the potential to explain many organisational behavioural outcome variables. An investigation of the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and work behavior found job satisfaction to be made up of a large fairness component. The rationale behind the support for the study is the argument that employees who perceive that they have been fairly treated is likely to hold positive attitudes about their work, their work outcomes and their managers. If South African organisations wish to remain competitive then organisations need to understand how perceptions of justice influence attitudes and behaviour and consequently affect the success of the organisation. Agricultural Colleges, a division of the Department of Agriculture are no exception. The Agricultural Colleges' primary aim is to provide training to its prospective communities, and is continuously being evaluated in terms of how well its academic employees achieve its vision, mission and goals. It is evident from responses to job advertisements, low morale and high turnover that most of the academic employees in Agricultural Colleges are dissatisfied with their jobs, pay, management and the institutions based on their current salary. Attracting, recruiting and retraining highly skilled, internationally marketable and mobile employees are critical factors in determining the present and future success in agricultural training in South Africa. Limited research to examine the effects of organisational justice on organisational outcomes in an environment where the workforce consists of academics is the gap this research attempts to fill. This study is designed to assess the impact of organisational justice on job satisfaction of academic employees in agricultural colleges in South Africa. Also, to determine whether biographical values influence the relationship between organisational justice and job satisfaction.</p>