The challenges women face in progressing to senior ranking positions are widely acknowledged and have been investigated in numerous studies, both in South Africa and abroad. The present study sought to contribute to this body of knowledge by identifying factors that hinder, as well as support specifically black South African female researchers in progressing to senior ranking positions within a Research and Development or scientific organisation. Research and Development (R&D) organisations within the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) sector, as is the case in most South African organisations, have seen an increase in the employment of female researchers, particularly at lower ranking positions. However, there seem to be factors that continually hinder black South African female researchers from being appointed into senior ranks, despite clear growth and development strategies and processes, training and development opportunities and increasing organisational support that is meant to bring about greater gender equity at the senior levels. As such, it proved imperative to undertake this study not only to understand the factors that support or hinder the progress of black South African women researchers into senior ranking positions, but also to ensure that organisations develop responsive and supportive interventions that facilitate the advancement of this cohort of researchers. A quantitative approach to addressing the research question was utilised. Following a literature review to identify both individual and organisational/structural level factors that have been shown to either support or hinder the career success of woman, an online questionnaire was developed and distributed to all the female researchers (of all race groups, career levels and age groups) employed in a South African R&D organisation (n=104). Data was obtained from a convenient sample of them (n=41). It was noted though that at the time the data was collected there were no black South African females employed in the highest scientific/researcher rank of the organisation. Whilst the organisation seems to deploy resources equally to all its' employees, black South African women continue to be under represented at the top ranks in the organisation. Arguably, R&D organisations seem to perpetuate a masculine culture that makes it increasingly difficult for women in general to progress to higher ranking positions. It seems that the situation is being further exasperated by career advancement requirements that do not take into account the different roles that women typically need to fulfil at work and at home, nor that support work-life balance for them. It was apparent that the organisation did provide them with organisational and supervisory support and that they are found to be loyal to the organisation, however, women particularly black South African researchers still fail to progress to senior ranking positions in the organisation. Organisations struggle to achieve gender equity at the senior ranking positions, and hopefully the present study will provide some insight into factors that negatively affect the career advancement of female equity candidates in the organisation, while also providing insight into factors that have proven to facilitate this process. The outcomes of the present study would potentially lead to more structured frameworks and strategic female development programmes that ensure that black female South African researchers do indeed advance through the different ranks and achieve the highest ranks within the SET sector of the economy.

Bibliography: leaves 160-183. / The purpose of this research was to examine whether transformational and transactional leadership would be identifiable amongst a diverse sample of HR specialists. Furthermore, the effects of these leadership styles on subordinates' perceptions, viz., willingness to exert extra effort, satisfaction with the leader and leadership effectiveness, and subordinates' performance ratings were investigated. Both self and subordinate ratings of leadership were obtained (n = 330) in order to overcome single-rater error and enhance rater accuracy. Self-rating and rater forms of Bass and Avolio's (1990b) MLQ (Form 5) were used to collect leadership data. The results of principal components factor analyses partially supported the factor structure identified in previous research. However, the four component factors comprising transformational leadership did not emerge. Descriptive analyses of composite leader and subordinate ratings showed that transformational leadership was more prevalent amongst HR specialists than transactional leadership. As found in previous research, self-ratings were inflated relative to subordinate ratings. Transformational factors of charisma, inspiration, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration were found to be significantly and positively correlated with the perceptual outcomes, as was the transactional factor of contingent reward. No similar relatedness was found between the transactional factor of management-by-exception and these outcomes. Nonleadership, or laissezfaire leadership, was found to be negatively correlated with all these measures. Charisma and contingent reward were found to be significantly related to subordinates' performance ratings in a positive direction.

Performance appraisal is a human resources function that many organisations undertake. Organisations should therefore try to understand why many often perceive their performance system to be unfair. The purpose of this study was to examine employee perception of performance appraisal and its relationship with their organisational commitment. Using a justice approach, this study considers issues regarding perceived fairness, trust, process clarity, and quality of communication regarding the performance appraisal system. Performance appraisal is a tool, which if managed well, will increase work performance. A quantitative research approach was used and a cross-sectional field survey generated the primary research data. An online survey consisting of 55 questions was e-mailed to 150 staff members who participate in the performance appraisal system at a Meat processing plant in Namibia. Regression analysis was employed to examine the relationship between employee perception of performance appraisal and organisational commitment. The results of the statistical analyses show that very weak to moderate relationships exist between organisational commitment and employees' perceptions' of performance appraisal. The results indicate that for an organisation to obtain employee commitment, the organisation should ensure that performance appraisal is a company-wide system that is well understood, fair and clearly communicated to the employees. Furthermore, managers should create an environment within the organisation to enhance employees' perceptions about the performance appraisal system.

Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to identify enablers of upward mobility into middle and senior management positions among female employees in a particular organisation of the financial services sector. Motivation for the study: In the South African context, it was demonstrated that although women comprised 51.2% of the adult population in 2016 (numbering approximately 28 53 million and were supported by progressive legislation and had a 45.8% representation in the workforce, they occupied a relatively low percentage of management positions. South African research on enabling factors that are important for the career progression of women has been conducted in national banks, South African business schools and the education sector. The findings revealed that enabling factors for the career progression of women include supervisor support, education, social networks, top management support and family-friendly policies. Identifying such enabling factors is important since there is strong evidence that the promotion of women into management roles is not only morally right but can also increase business performance. Research design and method: The research design was descriptive. A cross-sectional qualitative approach was used to collect the primary data. Data analysis was exploratory. Since the aim of the study was to investigate perceptions of female employees in middle and senior management positions through their lived experiences, in-depth one-on-one interviews with 15 female employees were completed. Purposive sampling was used to secure the research participant sample. The results from the qualitative data were collected and analysed using content analysis. Themes extracted were used to report the findings of the study. Findings: The results show that organisational support structures (i.e. supervisor support and career development), employee competence (i.e. education and social networks) and strategic interventions (i.e. top management support and family-friendly policies) are important factors for the career progression of women in the financial services sector under investigation. Practical implications: The enabling factors identified in this study can be used to enhance interventions for the advancement of promotion of women into senior management positions. Contribution: The findings of the study indicate that organisational support structures, employee competence and strategic interventions are important factors for the career progression of women, adding to the discourse of the promotion of women into senior management positions.

The study investigated the job involvement of a sample of 125 graduate engineers in South Africa. In particular, whether gender differences existed in the level of job involvement, as well as in the factors influencing job involvement (N = 68 males; N = 57 females). The specific factors investigated were biographic variables and career anchors. The method used was the analytical survey method; three questionnaires were administered. These were: the Lodahl and Kejner (1965) Job Involvement Scale, Schein's (1982) Career Anchor Inventory and a biographic questionnaire. Questionnaires were sent to all female engineers who are registered with one of the professional engineering institutes, while the male sample was drawn from a variety of sources. Intercorrelation coefficients were calculated for all variables. Analyses of variance were performed to test for significant differences amongst male and females with respect to the variables and relationships measured and a stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of job involvement by career anchors. No gender differences in level of job involvement were found. However, significant gender differences were found in the relative strength of four out of the nine career anchors measured. Social conditioning and expectations were proposed as the reasons for this. Further, significant differences were found with respect to the degree to which career anchors are related to job involvement for males and females. Contrary to conventional wisdom, being married and having children did not affect the job involvement of female engineers, while married men were more job involved than unmarried men. The study did not contribute greatly to the understanding of the dynamics of female job involvement, inasmuch as career anchors were found to explain only 8, 8% of the variance in job involvement scores. In contrast, career anchors were found to be significant predictors of job involvement for males. (38,8% of the variance explained). Implications of the results are discussed in terms of the alleviation of the skills shortage and organisational strategies such as the development of technical or specialist career ladders, job design and career counselling and career management skills for both males and females, are proposed. Further areas for research, especially into the dynamics of female job involvement, are suggested.

Bibliography: pages 95-99. / The aim of this study was to determine the value of individual job evaluation factors as predictors of the total value of jobs to develop an abbreviated job evaluation scale in a large assurer in South Africa. This would enable the streamlining of the' organization's existing internally developed job evaluation system. A total of thirteen jobs, evaluated by three raters at two committee meetings were analyzed using Kendall's coefficient of concordance (W} and Pearson's product-moment coefficient of correlation (r) to determine interrater reliability. A total sample of 282 jobs at middle management was drawn from the organization's bank of 1200 job evaluation records and 188 jobs were analyzed. Firstly the intensity of the correlation between the individual factor scores and total job scores was measured and, using the Pearson product-moment coefficient .of correlation (r) it was found to be significant. Secondly, factor analysis determined three underlying factors in the system, Effort, Skill and Responsibility, which were used to form the basis for building a prediction model. Thirdly, stepwise regression, performed to determine at which point the addition of extra individual factor scores would not produce a significant difference to the coefficient of determination (R2 ), isolated Competence, Decision level and Interaction as optimum combination. Using multiple linear regression and the aspects, identified above, total job scores were predicted using the balance of the sample of 94 jobs.

The main objective of this research was to determine whether functional units (departments) in an industrial organization differed significantly with respect to their experience of the organizational climate. Two approaches to organizational theory were drawn from, namely, the systems and contingency approaches. Both emphasize the importance of the task environment and the need for the organization to adapt to its task environment. Systems theorists, Katz and Kahn (1978), have identified a number of organizational components or subsystems which enable the organization to function efficiently. Each component has a fairly specialized function; each develops a distinctive nucleus of operating procedures and values. Contingency theorists, Lawrence and Lorsch (1967, 1969), stated that different parts of the organization face different environments. Organizations therefore tend to become internally segmented into functional units. Organizational climate was highlighted as the general notion specifying the organizational identity or self-awareness of the organization; however, it may vary within the organization from work group to work group. The total number of 54 white employees in four units: marketing, personnel/public affairs, finance and production, at all levels - general employees, supervisory/foremen, middle management, senior management - completed a measure of their perceptions of the organizational climate of their individual units. The Organizational Climate Index for Profit Organizations developed by De Cock, Bouwen, de Witte and de Visch (1984), was used. The scale requires a forced choice on a scale with a scoring pattern of 4,3,2,1. Total scores on each of the 6 climate scales, grouped into 20 subscales, were obtained for each functional unit. One-way analysis of variance (the Kruskal-Wallis Test) was used for assessing the significance of differences between the four units on the different climate subscales. The results of the study supported the hypothesis that had been formulated. It was concluded that significant differences exist between the functional units marketing, personnel/public affairs, finance and production of the industrial organization concerned, with respect to the climate dimensions. It was concluded that, in order to achieve maximum integration between functional units and their members in an organization, business will need to concern itself with the differences in expression of human behaviour and motivation in units.

Bibliography: leaves 70-73 / Lateral thinking has become an important topic in business and one of the apparent solutions to the dilemma of acquiring more creativity in the organisation has been to train employees in lateral thinking. This study had three objectives. To determine whether delegates attending lateral thinking training acquired more lateral thinking skills and knowledge than those without this training. To determine whether lateral thinking training impacted on style of thinking and to determine whether preferred styles of thinking facilitated the acquisition of lateral thinking skills. An experimental group was trained in lateral thinking. Subjects were tested on their lateral thinking skills before and after training. Subjects were also tested to assess their cognitive style before training and six months thereafter. A control group was tested in a similar fashion.

Bibliography : leaves 114-125. / This research explored the relationship between role innovation and the perceived employee-organisational relationship. Role innovation is an inclusive perspective of individual innovation in the workplace. The design incorporated an qualitative preliminary phase and a quantitative survey format as suited to the exploratory nature of the research. The exploratory component elicited detailed information from eight R&D professionals. It focused on the construct of role innovation so as to ensure that the constructs and assessment methods were relevant and meaningful for the sample population. The sample of the subsequent survey research consisted of mid level (N = 51) employees from the administration, production and research and development departments of an electrical manufacturing firm in the Western Cape, South Africa. In the questionnaire role innovation was measured using Janssen's (2000) nine item scale of role innovation, which incorporates separate sub-scales for idea generation, idea promotion and idea realisation. The perceived employee-organisation relationship (PEOR) was assessed according to six factors; three forms of organisational commitment affective, continuance and normative as measured by Meyer, Allen and Smith's (1993) item scale, value congruence (measured using McDonald and Gantz's (1992) comparative values scale), perceived supervisory support (measured using the scale developed by Oldham and Cummins (1996) and perceived organisational support (measured using the Perceived Organisational Support Scale as developed by Eisenburger (2001)). The constructs of intrinsic motivation was incorporated as a moderating factor given the strong evidence of its influence on individual innovation. This was assessed using the Intrinsic/Extrisic Motivation Scale as developed by Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby and Herron (1996). Few significant relationships were found, however those indicated through correlation proved statistically robust through ANOVA, regression analysis and the Kruder-Wallis test for non- parametric means. The role innovation instrument proved reliable for the South African sample, however the sub-scales of idea promotion and idea realisation were combined following strategic factor analysis. The most important finding was a negative relationship between normative commitment and role innovation (idea generation). A positive relationship was also found between intrinsic motivation and role innovation (idea generation and idea promotion and realisation). Subsequent discussion focused on the important of contextual factors as external variables moderating the importance of the PEOR factors in predicting role innovation. The primary limitations of this research are the lack of causal direction and the sample size, which limited the sophistication of the statistical analysis. The findings indicate promise for future innovation research linking affective variables with individual actions.

This study identified the trending domains and content themes found in the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology (SAJIP) from 2014 to 2017. These trends were then compared with those in the South African Journal of Human Resource Management (SAJHRM), Deloitte Human Capital Trends Reports, and related Google search data over the same period. This was done through a content analysis, documenting the frequencies and percentages of HPCSA domains and content themes that are present in each of the four sources, including across 218 studies in the two academic journals. Results revealed that while there were similar trends found in the SAJIP and SAJHRM, when these are compared to the Deloitte Human Capital Trends report and Google Trends results, it is concluded that much of the I-O Psychology research does not address the concerns of those operating as practitioners. The insights gathered through the study suggest that further efforts are required to understand and align research in the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology to the concerns of HR practitioners in South Africa.