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Theories within organisation and management studies have offered several concepts and models which indicate that organisational values are important factor for organisational success, including reputation building. Nevertheless, existing theory is still inadequate to explain the link between organisational values and organisation’s reputation because it does not account for the enabling factors that underlies the two concepts. This study argues that the implementation of organisational values is an important organisational action for acquiring positives perceptions of organisational values which influences employee behaviour and shapes organisational reputation. It specifically shows and elucidates the enabling mechanisms that reinforce organisational values to impact on employee perceptions and behaviour. This is important because when employees share and exemplify the values in their work, they are likely to behave in ways that support the organisation’s strategy which impacts on external perceptions and build reputation. This study employed a qualitative approach through a single in-depth case study. It reflects that the understanding of ‘what is going on’ within organisation is most appropriately achieved by building concepts and constructs from empirical studies. By using semi-structured interviews, focus groups and non-participant observations, the data develops and evolves through the responses and behaviours of participants. Employees were selected through purposive sampling and the snow-balling technique was used to reach customers. The data were structured and coded using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the process of aligning organisational values and employee values is significant for understanding how organisational values influence employee behaviours, which in turn enable the organisation to build its reputation. The data suggest that four remediation phases: aware, articulate, accept and act, are important for explaining how a gap between organisational values and employee values can be reduced. This remediation process enabled the senior management team and employees to understand how their perceptions and reactions towards the implementation of organisational values impact upon attitudes and behaviours. The findings suggest that organisational values can be reinforced through various social influences. Social interactions can occur in different forms including the involvement of leaders of the management team in creating, exampling and communicating values as well as through expanding the employee’s role in enacting values through empowerment and trust building. However, the findings emphasise that the process of cascading and instilling values through a top-down or hierarchical is no feasible. Instead, it is a hybrid approach that requires employee buy-in and involvement especially in communicating and enacting organisational values. This is an important insight because employees regularly interact with each other which provide a valuable platform to persuade and influence other colleagues to embrace organisational values. Additionally, the findings also build on the reputation literature by demonstrating the role of reciprocity and mimicking in behaviour as the consequences of social interactions within the organisation. The opportunity to regularly interact with colleagues enables employees to want to reciprocate in return for what they have received in the workplace. This tacit understanding of reciprocity for mutual benefit and the tendency to imitate other’s behaviour improves employee perceptions of organisations which in turn contribute towards reputation building. The study advances current understandings in the organisational reputation literature by providing a unique theoretical and empirical insight into how organisational values can impact on reputation building. It also highlights the important role of internal mechanisms for shaping both internal perceptions and behaviour as well as external perceptions of organisations.

The research in this thesis focuses on the intangible resources of organisations. Intangible resources include an organisation's collective knowledge and learning, leadership talent, the values that shape its culture, routines and processes and the collaborative relationships. These intangible resources are known as intellectual capital (IC) because they support organisational activity along with financial and physical capital. Previous research has classified IC into three principle components of human, organisational and relationship capital and has established a link between IC and organisational value. Recent studies have also emphasised the notion of interrelationships between the three components of intellectual capital in developing capabilities that drive value creation. Yet it is often unclear how the various elements interrelate to one another to generate organisational value. This thesis investigates how IC contributes to organisational value creation. Central to this research is the examination of the mechanisms through which IC factors are integrated within organisations in order to develop capabilities. As innovation is widely agreed to be a determinant of organisational value creation, this research adapted and extended the model of intelligence and innovation proposed by Glynn (1996) to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for empirically examining the synergistic effects of IC. Building upon four major theoretical streams: resource-based view of the firm, innovation theory, intellectual capital theory and organisational capabilities, this research has elaborated the ideas and constructs presented in the original model and de-contextualised them to an intellectual capital perspective. A qualitative, interpretive approach was applied to two in-depth case studies for investigating the intangible resource-base of two knowledge intensive companies. The results were then expanded to a cross-case context in order to compare and contrast the value creating potential of the IC factors. The findings of this research are presented in the form of a descriptive framework that classifies the characteristics of a value creating process. The purpose of the framework is to provide pointers for identifying IC resources and developing capabilities in a way that provides an organisation with sustainable competitive advantage, and thereby, value.

This study examined the emerging debate on spirituality in the workplace. As spirituality gains impetus, organisations have proactively accommodated the needs of their multi-ethnic and multi-faith workforce and have started integrating spirituality into their policies. The study sought to gauge the employees and managers’ perceptions of the importance of spirituality in the workplace. Spirituality represents a complex phenomenon that embraces an awareness of others, coupled with a sense of fulfilment and values, which add meaning to life. Overall, a lack of clear policy and acknowledgment regarding spirituality within organisations is apparent. The extant literature suggests that spirituality as a research topic suffers from fragmentation, dearth, and confusion which sometimes makes it difficult to propose a comprehensive theory. The complexity and ambiguity of spirituality as a concept means it is often confused with religious rituals. Spirituality is not the same as religion, although religion can be the focus of an individual’s spirituality or the way in which an individual’s spirituality is recognised and expressed. Both spirituality and religion can operate independently from each other. As a result, many scholars have realised the need for a more unified interpretation of the term spirituality. Adopting a predominantly positivist stance, two organisations in England were surveyed. Using a purpose-designed questionnaire, a return of 628 was achieved, with a reliability of 0.87 (Cronbach Alpha). Analysis was undertaken as a data set using independent variables which related to biographical factors, including a person’s faith and their organisation. This was supported by qualitative data using semi-structured interviews with senior management in both organisations. Findings and analysis highlighted that employees did not feel comfortable discussing spirituality; nor did they feel it was appropriate to practise spirituality within the workplace. In their perceptions of spirituality policies, both organisations proffered initiatives that, in the absence of a coherent policy, employees struggled to accommodate employee spiritual needs. Overall, the findings revealed that the limited policies or procedures that were in place often left the employees ambivalent as to whether the organisation had any genuine interest in their spiritual well-being. Since employee spirituality is under-researched, this study investigated the nature of workplace spirituality to benefit academic research through expanding the knowledge in this area, to produce a model of spirituality. The study findings will led to new knowledge on spirituality that can assist in the formulation of suitable strategies to enhance employee spiritual well-being. This study is pertinent in the current economic recession, whereby employees of different ethnic backgrounds may feel vulnerable, with the possibility of spirituality manifesting itself in the workplace as a source of conflict. To address the issue of potential spiritual conflict, organisations will need to build high-trust relationships in the workplace.

This study deals with individual possibilities for competence development in knowledge-intensive firms, especially advertising and audit firms. The study has an individual perspective which means that the organization is analyzed as subjective perception of indivi­duals. In this approach I seek for differences between people (subjective interpretations), instead of similarities (intersubjective interpretations). Different subjective interpretations are important for the understanding of different possibilities and restrictions individual competen­ce development. Different individuals can, depending on different values about work and life in general, have different experieces of possibilities for competence development. The rese­arch problem deals with different relations between the individual and the organization from the individual perspective of personal competence development. The empirical study is in two parts; case studies at the individual level and a questionnaire to people in advertising firms and audit firms. From the theoretical perspective and the empirical studies, different types of relations between man and organisation have been developed; Respectful professional, respectless professional, respectful holistic, respectless holistic, sectorial professional and holistic professional. The implications of these relations are that certain individual values seems to fit these knowledge- intensive firms better than others. These individual values have been termed respectful, pro­fessional and holistic. Individuals with these values experience their possibilities of compe­tence development better than other individuals. Individuals with the values termed re­spectless and sectorial were less pleased with their companies and their possibilities of compe­tence development. The study also show that individual commitment to organisational values is important for the experienced possibilities for personal competence development. / digitalisering@umu

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att skapa förståelse för en organisations specifika onboardingprocess och vilka delar som beskrivs viktiga för att en nyanställd ska komma in i sin roll samt organisationen utifrån HR-funktionens, chefer och nyanställdas perspektiv. Förhoppningen med studien är också att nyckelpersoner inom onboarding kan använda sig av studiens resultat för att reflektera över hur onboardingprocessen upplevs och fungerar i deras organisation. Metod: Studien är en kvalitativ fallstudie med induktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna genomfördes med fem tjänstemän, två chefer och en HR-manager. Slutsats: Studien framställer flertalet centrala delar med onboardingprocessen utifrån de tre perspektiven. Det mest centrala under processen, i det specifika fallet, är att kunna arbeta med individanpassning för att möta samtliga behov. Även tidsaspekten är en av de mest centrala delarna som påverkar upplevelsen av onboarding. / Purpose: The purpose of this study is to create an understanding of an organisation’s specific onboarding process. The aim is also to provide an understanding of the essential parts in adapting to the position and organisation described by the HR-function, managers and officials. The results of the study will hopefully provide key individuals in the field of onboarding with the opportunity to reflect on how the onboarding process is experienced and how it functions in their organisation. Method: This study is a qualitative case study with an inductive approach. The empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with five officials, two managers and one HR manager. Conclusion: This study highlights a number of essential parts regarding the onboarding based on the three perspectives. The most essential part in this specific case is being able to work with individual factors to satisfy the needs of the new employee. The aspect of time is also one of the most essential parts that will affect the experience of onboarding.

This study identifies the characteristics of seven key principles of good/corporate governance at three levels: as notions that originated in business; in their applications to sport through systematic review; and in relation to the interpretations given to them in the Olympic Movement. The aims of this study are, thus, to establish and utilise the IOC s definitions/interpretations and operationalisations of corporate and/or good governance developed in a western framework and apply to a non-western NOC, the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC). This study adopts critical realist assumptions which give rise to the hypothesis that both the regularities of the Korean society and its unobservable social structures have an impact on the corporate governance of the KOC. It also uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine each interviewee s discourse in order to identify the knowledge embraced by it and to interpret social practice(s) and the exercise of power. CDA is employed in relation to four selected events follows: the KOC/KSC merger, budgetary planning, the recruitment of staff in terms of gender and disability equity and the processes used for selecting the KOC President and the Chef de Mission. The unobservable deep structure is shown to be real domain in Korean society by the social practices exhibited in the four events. The government and, in particular, the State President represent the highest and most influential authority in decision-making on Korean sports policy. That power relationship coupled with the pre-existing structure of the KOC/KSC s financial dependency on the government has resulted in a situation where the government has been able to interfere greatly in the KOC/KSC s overall decision-making on sports policy including the election of the President of the KOC. The KOC/KSC President is the most influential stakeholder in the decision-making within the organisation including the selection of Chef de Mission. As the pre-existing structure of cultural expectations determines that women should usually quit their jobs after marriage and that people with disabilities are incapable of working, the strongly male with abilities-dominated organisational culture has resulted in a social phenomenon whereby few females or people with impairments have succeeded in being promoted to senior positions. From the macro-level perspective, the first KOC/KSC merger accomplished on the orders of the State President shows the dominance of economic power as suggested in Marxist influenced forms of analysis. The incumbent KOC President, who is at the pinnacle of the business elite, contributed to the KOC/KSC merger, which illustrates the aspect of elitism. In connection with the budgetary process, this may be viewed as evidence of the existence of a neo-corporatist structure in which the state plays a central role and acts in a unitary way with the involvement of a limited number of actors. With respect to the meso-level perspective, the aspect of clientelism is exhibited since the government habitually appoints its political aides to be the heads of various sporting organisations. Concerning political governance, it becomes obvious that the government has direct control over KOC/KSC s policy. In terms of systemic governance, the relations among the domestic stakeholders of the KOC are more likely to follow a hierarchical type of governance, as the government has adopted the highest position and the National Federations are under the control of the KOC/KSC. With reference to Lukes (1974) second dimension of power this can be evidenced in the context of the non-decision making roles of women and the disabled. The IOC s interpretations of the key principles of corporate governance in a western framework are applied to the KOC. Accountability, responsibility, transparency and democracy are established but the KOC s governance practices are not equivalent, while effectiveness and efficiency are interpreted as the same ways of the IOC s. In general, power centralisation is apparent throughout the Korean cultural context. The KOC s power structure and organisational culture is likely to be concentrated to the KOC President within the organisation and broadly, the Korean government enjoys its power centralisation decision-making in the Korean context which gives rise to a peculiarly Korean way of interpreting and applying the principles of corporate governance. In such circumstances, nevertheless, where the KOC is making an effort to align its practices with the IOC s recommendations as much as possible, the indication is that the KOC is on course to reflect the IOC s governance practices.

Text in Afrikaans / Summaries in English and Afrikaans / In die vinnig veranderende omgewing waarin universiteitbiblioteke funksioneer is daar besorgdheid oor die vermoe van universiteitbiblioteke om tred te hou met die verandering ten einde suksesvol te kan bly voortbestaan. Kreatiwiteit en innovasie speel 'n rol in die veranderingsproses. Organisasiekultuur het 'n invloed op die mate waarin kreatiwiteit en innovasie in 'n organisasie gestimuleer word. 'n Voorlopige model wat op die literatuur gebaseer is, het getoon dat strategie, organisasiestruktuur, ondersteuningsmeganismes, innovasiegedrag en kommunikasie die organisasiekultuurdeterminante is wat kreatiwiteit en innovasie in organisasies beinvloed. In die onderhawige empiriese studie is bestaande data, wat ingesamel is om die organisasiekultuurvan 'n universiteitbiblioteek te beskryf, gebruik om die voorlopige model te toets. 'n Faktorontleding het getoon dat strategie, doelgerigtheid, vertrouensverhouding, innovasiegedrag, werkomgewing, klientgeorienteerdheid en bestuursondersteuning 'n invloed het op die mate waarin kreatiwiteit en innovasie in die universiteitbiblioteek gestimuleer en bevorder sal word. / In the rapidly changing environment in which university libraries function there is concern about the ability of such libraries to keep pace with change in order to be able to survive. Creativity and innovation have a role to play in the change process. Organisational culture has an influence on the degree to which creativity and innovation are stimulated in an organisation. A preliminary model which is based on the literature, has shown that strategy, organisational structure, support mechanisms, innovation behaviour and communication are the organisational culture determinants that influence creativity and innovation in organisations. In the empirical study, existing data which were collected to describe the organisational culture of a university library, were used to test the preliminary model. A factor analysis showed that strategy, purposefulness, trust relationship, innovation behaviour, work environment, customer orientation and management support influence the degree to which creativity and innovation are stimulated and promoted in the university library. / Information Science / M.Inf.

Text in Afrikaans / Summaries in English and Afrikaans / In die vinnig veranderende omgewing waarin universiteitbiblioteke funksioneer is daar besorgdheid oor die vermoe van universiteitbiblioteke om tred te hou met die verandering ten einde suksesvol te kan bly voortbestaan. Kreatiwiteit en innovasie speel 'n rol in die veranderingsproses. Organisasiekultuur het 'n invloed op die mate waarin kreatiwiteit en innovasie in 'n organisasie gestimuleer word. 'n Voorlopige model wat op die literatuur gebaseer is, het getoon dat strategie, organisasiestruktuur, ondersteuningsmeganismes, innovasiegedrag en kommunikasie die organisasiekultuurdeterminante is wat kreatiwiteit en innovasie in organisasies beinvloed. In die onderhawige empiriese studie is bestaande data, wat ingesamel is om die organisasiekultuurvan 'n universiteitbiblioteek te beskryf, gebruik om die voorlopige model te toets. 'n Faktorontleding het getoon dat strategie, doelgerigtheid, vertrouensverhouding, innovasiegedrag, werkomgewing, klientgeorienteerdheid en bestuursondersteuning 'n invloed het op die mate waarin kreatiwiteit en innovasie in die universiteitbiblioteek gestimuleer en bevorder sal word. / In the rapidly changing environment in which university libraries function there is concern about the ability of such libraries to keep pace with change in order to be able to survive. Creativity and innovation have a role to play in the change process. Organisational culture has an influence on the degree to which creativity and innovation are stimulated in an organisation. A preliminary model which is based on the literature, has shown that strategy, organisational structure, support mechanisms, innovation behaviour and communication are the organisational culture determinants that influence creativity and innovation in organisations. In the empirical study, existing data which were collected to describe the organisational culture of a university library, were used to test the preliminary model. A factor analysis showed that strategy, purposefulness, trust relationship, innovation behaviour, work environment, customer orientation and management support influence the degree to which creativity and innovation are stimulated and promoted in the university library. / Information Science / M.Inf.