Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1939. / Vita. Published also as Teachers college, Columbia university, Contributions to education, no. 784. Bibliography: p. [257]-278.

Inaug.-Disc.--Wirtschaftshochschule Mannheim. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 110-115.

Thesis (M.A.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2006. / "Master of Arts Instructional Design"--T.p. Title from PDF title page (viewed on Aug. 29, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 30, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Paul J. Baker (chair), John R. McCarthy, Larry D. Kennedy, Kenneth H. Strand. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-131) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Emotional labor has been defined by Hochschild (1983) as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (p. 7, 1983). Many jobs contain an emotional component that goes beyond the normal burden on feelings caused by work and thus require “emotional labor”. Hochschild (1983) distinguished between two approaches available to the emotional laborer - surface acting and deep acting. This thesis examines the relationships between employee emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983), customer perceived interaction quality and customer intention to continue the private banking service relationships. It also tests the mediating effects of customer expectations of emotional labour on the relationship between employee emotional labour and customer perceived interaction quality. Dyadic data was generated from customer-relationship manager pairs involved in private banking service relationships. Key findings demonstrate that employee deep acting relates positively with customer perceived interaction quality; however, employee surface acting does not relate negatively. At a more specific level, the greater the customer expectations of deep acting - the more positive the relationship between employee deep acting and customer perceived interaction quality and the more negative the relationship between employee surface acting and customer perceived interaction quality. The lower the customer expectations of surface acting, the more positive the relationship between employee deep acting and customer perceived interaction quality. Higher levels of customer perceived interaction quality then relate positively to the customer intention to continue the service relationship. This work helps simultaneously explore the flow of emotional labour from employees to customers and helps understand the service relationship holistically. Findings establish the importance of emotional labour and how it influences customers’ perception of their interactions. This knowledge is useful in building sustainable and fruitful service relationships for the benefit of the customers, employees and organizations.

Twenty years ago David Ulrich presented a new concept asking HR to move away from administration and routine and to become strategic. By using new technological developments (newly developed software, the internet, and the segmentation of HR services) he created the foundation for HR to become a ‘business partner’. However, contemporary HR departments still seem be dominated by administrative tasks, now executed by new IT systems. This is reinforced by the Roffey Park “Management Agenda 2014” which states that the vast majority of HR professionals view themselves as “too reactive” spending “too much time on unimportant things” (p.33). Working as a consultant in HR I am confronted with these realities and the impact of Ulrich’s model on relationships between HR and its customers. By interviewing experts and surveying line managers and employees, the evidence indicates that the relationship between HR and employees faces disturbances, as benefits from business partnering are not obvious to HR’s customers. Hence, HR is at a crossroads as a function; it can either contribute to business by using current (and future) technological tools, or increasingly lose significance within the business. This research develops an ‘in-partnership’ approach that aims to re-connect HR and business. The in-partnership approach addresses relationships and helps to overcome the segmentation in HR by entering into a dialogue between HR and business. This research therefore provides novel insights into HR by understanding the importance of the relationships with the different communities which need to benefit from Business Partnering, allowing a useful contribution to practice that values the relationships to HR customers, internally as well as externally.

Thesis (DTech (Human Resources Management))--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2001 / The Job Characteristics Model is widely accepted as a conceptual tool for addressing problems related to employee demotivation, dissatisfaction and marginal performance. The validity of the Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1980) was assessed by reviewing relevant studies of the model. The review and evaluation are based on studies testing the variables and the relationships between the variables as contained in the model. The reviewed evidence confirmed that the dimensionality of the job characteristics is best represented by the five-factor solution as proposed by the model. The subjective self-report measures of the five job characteristics as formulated by the theory and measured by the revised Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) were also supported. No evidence was found for the multiplicative Motivating Potential Score (MPS), and as a result the use of a simple additive index of job complexity is recommended as the predictor of personal and work outcomes. Strong empirical support emerged for the relationships between the job characteristics and the personal outcomes. Much weaker relationships between the job characteristics and the work outcomes, however, materialized. Results failed to support the mediating effect of psychological states on the job characteristics/outcomes relationships as specified by the model. The postulated relationships between job characteristics and psychological states were also not confirmed by empirical evidence. The role of growth-need strength, knowledge and skill, and work environment characteristics, as moderators of the relationships between job characteristics and psychological states, as well as of the relationships between psychological states and personal and work outcomes, was seriously questioned.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Human Resource Information Systems (HRISs) are systems that merge Human Resources (HR) and Information Systems (ISs) for a fast, easy, and convenient way of operating and reporting the human and material resources in an organisation. The retail sector is an important and active sector in terms of its job creation and a major contributor to the economy. This research focuses on the level of impact HRISs have in the retail sector by reassessing its functions, problems, prospects, and benefits to the retail industries. This research further focuses on two retail outlets that use HRISs to explore how effective HRIS implementation is, the benefits these systems are able to offer, and its contribution to the organisation. A multiple case study was used as research strategy. Interviews and semi-structured questionnaires were conducted to collect the data. Data was analysed using summarising, categorising and thematic analysis. The problem statement is that HRISs are difficult to implement and maintain and as a result, organisations cannot effectively utilise these systems to their benefit. The aim of this research is based on exploring how HRISs can be implemented and maintained in order for organisations to gain the expected benefits of the system. The contribution of the study is a proposed guideline for retail organisations to assist in the effective implementation and maintenance of their preferred HRISs. All ethical standards as required by CPUT were followed. Consent was obtained in writing from the companies as well as the interviewees.

The broad aim of the research presented in this thesis was to explore the process by which small firm owner-managers become employers, their early experiences as employers and the impact of these experiences on their subsequent management decisions. The research topic derived from the researcher’s interests and experience in human resource management and small business and was designed to contribute to a richer understanding of early employment in small firms, as there was a lack of published research in the field. The study used an interpretive, qualitative approach. The research design derived from an analysis of four pilot interviews, in which issues emerged that were then explored in the literature review. These issues included motivation to become an employer; the use of social capital within networks as an alternative to employment; the experiences and learning process of the owner-manager during and after the decision to become an employer; and subsequent employment policy and behaviour. The main fieldwork comprised a further fifteen semi-structured interviews with micro-business owner-managers, eight of whom had become employers and seven who had not. The analysis of both the pilot and subsequent interviews was conducted through thematic analysis that gave rise to approximately fifty themes. These were then reduced on the basis of inter-case frequency to ten key issues. A ‘thick description’ of these was presented and used as the basis for the development of a model of the process, as presented in Chapter Five. The findings highlighted the use of social capital as an alternative to initial staff employment, that once exhausted led to the hiring of first employees by members of the ‘employer’ sample, most of whom could be characterised as ‘reluctant employers’. Contrary to expectations, the first employment experience was not of high salience to the majority of these owner- managers. Instead, the later experiences of employment were perceived by the employers to be of greater significance, in particular the emergence of skilled and trustworthy employees enabling the gradual development of early formal structures in the firm. In some cases, such an employee was perceived as significantly contributing to the business and its growth potential - one who in the thesis is referred to as ‘first line manager’ These positive experiences of employment tended to be self-reinforcing, leading to further enhancement of the owner-managers’ self-concept as employers and bringing some stability and formality to employment relations practices within the firm, with the characteristics of these employees tending to become informal templates for further employment decisions. In developing the model, an understanding is advanced of the various tensions to which owner-managers were subjected in becoming employers. These included finding a balance between the use of social capital versus employment, the desire to recruit versus perceptions of the risk of needing to terminate employment, the benefits of additional human capital versus the costs and other risks, and different degrees of formality in employment practices. The implications of these insights are profound, in the light of the need to facilitate employment in small firms. They point to ways that support practices might be better tailored to meet the needs of this significantly large group of owner managers. It is suggested that through sustained engagement and mechanisms which serve to support owner-managers in the development of social and business networks, both social and economic benefits will be accrued.