M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship that might exist between conflict manifestation and conflict potential. A secondary aim was to determine whether conflict potential can be determined by the mere measurement of conflict manifestation. A comparative literature study of conflict manifestation is presented in order to facilitate the understanding of conflict potential and the relationship that might exist between the two dimensions. Eight companies and 2 091 workers in the Pretoria, Johannesburg and East Rand geographic areas were used as a test sample. The conflict catastrophe theory was used to determine the conflict potential in the various companies that were included in the test sample. A questionnaire, the conflict manifestation questionnaire, was developed to measure conflict behaviour in the sampled companies.

Background: The zone-of-tolerance (ZOT) is used in customer management to determine which customer interventions a company should focus their attention on. This research seeks to apply the ZOT to talent management in a South African context. The ZOT was used to investigate which HRM practices organisations should focus on and how the different social grouping and organisational tenure may change the focus of these HRM practices. Results: It was found that career and performance management, communication and employee reward showed significant lower impacts on employee satisfaction when an employee was inside the ZOT across all social groups. At a detailed level though there were differences among the social groups on which aspects of each element lowered the impact on employee satisfaction when inside the ZOT. Conclusion: Talented employees in a South African context value autonomy, training, adequate staffing and reduced job stress. These elements need to be managed regardless of whether the employee is in the ZOT or not. Career and performance management and employee reward, underpinned by clear career paths and performance based remuneration need to be monitored, as the impact of these on employee satisfaction is much lower when in the ZOT. All management interventions need to be supported by transparency and clear communication. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This paper will show the similarities in the overall perspective of the Polysem-ployee’s psychological contract with both their employing organisation and their client organisations, although in favour of the employing organisation. Over 100 IT employees active in client engagements from project implementations to support and outsourcing of varying periods of time were surveyed with a cross-sectional questionnaire to identify differences in psychological contracts and attitudes towards their client and employing organisations. We found that there were very few differences in the way the psychological contract is perceived from the perspective of the employee in the triangular relationship although marginally in favour of the employing organisation. Additionally we found that there was a significant relationship between the tenure with the employing organisation and tenure with the client organisation and that there were further indications that this was linked to an issue of life stage. We also conclude that generally the psychological contract of Polysem-ployee’s in the IT industry can be considered flexible or unstable, broad in scope, tangible and more relational in nature. The findings have implications for HR management practices of IT consultancies and outsourcing organisations operating in environments with unacceptably high rates of turnover. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The study of social welfare and personnel management is justified by the possibility of providing in the work situation the early detection and treatment of persons with social needs. The advantages of developing an increased sensitivity in personnel managers to the pathogenic conditions present in economic organizations is a further reason for studying the subject of this thesis. Encouraging results have been achieved by other professions, such as industrial medicine, which have placed themselves in the most strategic location to workers. This thesis attempts to discover what social welfare elements are present in the field of personnel management, and to map a course of action for the social work profession to follow in its relationship to personnel management groups. Data was gathered by reviewing literature that described industrial social work and/or the social welfare practices of personnel managers. Theoretical descriptions of the personnel manager's job and of his training were studied to determine the social welfare content of his general duties. An operational definition and interview structure were developed. These were used in personal interviews to provide data on the practices of seven reasonably representative personnel managers in the Greater Vancouver area. Several significant conclusions for Social Welfare were discovered in the data of this thesis. Personnel managers are directly involved in several major social welfare activities. They are concerned about the provision of income protection and health care for their employees, and are often involved in the treatment of crippling personal problems experienced by employees. Personnel managers consider their social welfare activities of vital importance to their organizations because of the effect of these activities on employee morale. Within the limits set by their organizational settings, personnel managers have a unique contribution to make to Social Welfare. The transfer of employees to new jobs and the retraining of employees are two actions that personnel managers can, and do take, to prevent individual cases of unemployment. Large organizations should experiment with the establishment of industrial social work positions. The results of this thesis indicate a need for further studies of the subject of social welfare and personnel management. The area of union relations and collective bargaining is important to the social welfare actions of economic organizations and also requires special study. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

In recent years a number of personnel planning techniques and manpower models have been developed to improve long range planning in the personnel field. A review of the literature on manpower planning revealed that models had been developed to consider quite specific problems and that the quantitative techniques had considered only a very simple manpower structure. The simplicity of the existing models, together with the widely varying assumptions upon which the models were based, indicated that the factors to be included in a general manpower planning model required investigation. The investigation demonstrated that one of the major weaknesses of the existing models was their failure to include provision for promoting employees through a hierarchical structure. The decision was made to construct a forecasting model which included this feature together with the other factors required to forecast labour requirements for production workers and non-professional staff positions. A model was constructed to reflect these factors and a computer programme written for the model. Initial investigations with the model indicated that promotions increased exponentially as turnover increased, and that the timing of hiring decisions depended upon the training times in the organizational structure. The conclusion of this investigation was that the hierarchical structure would be required in a general model. The existing models may be underestimating the time lags and training costs by falling to consider promotions. The study concluded with an analysis of the problems that would be encountered in constructing a more complex model and in adding cost-optimizing features to it. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

In May of 1967, Dr. L. F. Moore of the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration at UBC received a grant from the Institute of Industrial Relations, in order to undertake a research study into the "Development of an Integrated Data Bank for Manpower Management and Research." In part, he stated that "It would appear that much of the data obtained on employee record forms may be made suitable for computer storage, retrieval and analysis. In addition, much of this data is usable in multiple areas of analysis and research." This thesis, "Personnel Management Information Systems" closely parallels the work of Dr. Moore, as the writer worked for him during the summer of 1967 in the capacity of a research assistant. The content of the thesis to a very large extent represents the work done for Dr. Moore, and is an attempt to lay much of the groundwork in what is eventually to become a more detailed and comprehensive study. The main problems dealt with in this thesis are fourfold. The initial problem was to ascertain the basic functions of the personnel department in terms of procedures, records and forms employed, information flows etc. and to determine if these functions could be centrally integrated through the use of a manpower data bank. A further area examined was the feasibility or practicability, in terms of advantages and limitations, inherent in the concept of computerizing personnel records. The third problem involved definition of some of the procedures and methods which are prerequisite to the installation of a manpower data bank. The fourth problem was met in ascertaining the extent to which such installations are presently employed by corporations. As the concept of personnel management information systems is relatively new, little information was available from the literature. The investigation therefore was carried out through the following procedures: personal interviews with firms in Vancouver; correspondence with large Canadian and U.S. Corporations and the United States government; a review of recent periodicals covering the Personnel function; and from occasional papers covering this aspect of computer applications. Several conclusions were reached as a result of this study. In view of the many forms, procedures and voluminous amounts of data, it was concluded that the personnel department functions can and should be adapted to computerization through the creation of a manpower data bank. The unlimited potential of such a system is obvious in light of the many functions it can perform. There may be disadvantages for certain firms to implement a system of this nature, but on the whole the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The systems analysis approach to the problem of determining procedures to take in implementing the system was judged the best technique to follow. At the present time, computerized personnel records are being employed by many large corporations, with varying degrees of success. Many systems were initially designed with a limited purpose in mind and do not resemble the integrated manpower data bank as presented in this thesis. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

In order to understand better the relationship between personal and environmental variables as determinants of performance, the present study investigated relevant literature in the behavioral sciences on motivation, emotion, ability and performance. Maier's performance formula and Vroom's motivation equation were analyzed and re-interpreted, using the concepts of vector and scalar quantities and taking into consideration human limitations. It was demonstrated theoretically that Maier's performance formula does not account for the possibility that performance could decrease when a subject is highly motivated, although Young, McClelland and others have found that this is possible empirically. Emotion was postulated to be the cause of this phenomenon. Based on the theory of emotion as advanced by Leeper, Duffy and Young, and the theory of activation as formulated by Malmo, Hebb, Schlosberg and Lindsley, emotion was postulated as a possible moderator influencing the relationship between motivation and performance. Behavioral efficiency in work performance was assumed to be an inverted U-shaped function of emotion arousal. The motivation variable in the performance formula was based on the cognitive theory of motivation as postulated by Tolman and Lewis and subsequently modified by Vroom and Lawler and Porter. However, the concept of a reciprocating contractual relationship between performance and reward and the concept of a "multiple-discount" for the interactive relationship between valence and expectancy were incorporated into the cognitive theory of motivation. By using qualitative interactive tests and hypothetical values for the variables, the interactive relationship between expectancy and valence in determining motivation was found to be algebraic multiplicative and the interactive relationship among motivation components toward various incentive components were found to be vector additive. Further, the algebraic multiplicative operator was found to be most appropriate to describe the interaction among ability, motivation and behavioral efficiency as determinants of performance. It was concluded that the theoretical formula could be operationalized and that it could help managers to understand better the relationships between behavioral and economic variables so that scarce economic resources could be more efficiently utilized. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This dissertation is an attempt to make social scientific sense of common sense knowledge involved in the social production of organizational succession, where succession is defined as the change in the incumbent of an organizational position. Past succession research is typified in terms of two approaches, both of which are made problematic by the present study. The conventional quantitative approach ignores concrete activities and actors' meanings involved in the succession process, and reifies the formal structure of organizations by literally interpreting them. The qualitative approach also reifies formal structures, and has failed to yield explicit theoretical propositions concerning succession. The present study attempts to overcome the limitations of previous research by engaging in theory construction which focuses on actors' meanings and sensemaking practices related to succession. Ethnomethodological concepts and concerns form the background to an approach which assumes succession is inextricably related to the interpretive procedures and practices actors utilize in accomplishing and discussing succession. The concept of programmatic construction is developed as a scientific concept describing an important sensemaking practice whereby structurings of the life world are methodically enacted and employed as interpretive schemes in common sensemaking. Such structurings or programmatically constructed entities include 1) the social order, 2) social institutions, 3) organizations and 4) persons. Persons are recurrently typified in terms of one or more of four analytically distinct selves; the physiological self, the financial self, the social-psychological self, and the professional self. Characteristics of these programmatically constructed entities and the process of programmatic construction which are discussed include the important suggestion that each entity is verbally constructed in one or more of three typical forms - as a model of functional integrity, compliance or style. Five substantive types of succession are outlined - succession due to the death of a predecessor, voluntary resignation, status degradation (demotion or firing), retirement and advancement. Stages in cases of succession are also discussed. Orienting propositions are then outlined as the basis for the current research. These propositions relate programmatic construction and sensemaking to the types of stages of succession. Data for elaboration of the orienting propositions were collected by preparing transcripts from tape recordings of unstructured interviews with ten administrators - five administrators from each of two different organizations, a government and a college. Each respondent described cases of each of the five types of succession. Qualitative analysis of the case descriptions is undertaken in five chapters where each chapter focuses on one type of succession by applying the theoretical concepts to the case descriptions. A low order substantive theoretical model of each type of succession is inductively constructed: propositions in the substantive, succession-type specific models relate programmatically constructed entities to respondents' determination of the causes and consequences of predecessor departure, successor selection, and the stages involved in succession. The substantive models therefore explain members' meanings and practical activities related to the accomplishment and common language description of each type of succession. The final chapter of the dissertation involves a comparative analysis of the types of succession, and a discussion of human sense-making as a general theoretical topic. Substantive succession-type models are integrated into higher order propositions which explain the similarities and differences among specific cases and types of succession. Programmatic construction of entities is found to be an important sense-making practice underlying the accomplishment of organizational succession and descriptions of succession. The concept of programmatic construction and the types of entities produced in succession cases are given extensive consideration. Other sensemaking practices involved in succession are then discussed: certain practices proposed in previous ethnomethodological studies are related to current findings, and several additions are offered to a preliminary list of sensemaking practices. Finally, the broad implications of the present research are discussed in terms of 1) differences among the present approach and more conventional approaches to succession research, 2) future research on succession and 3) the importance of studying human sensemaking in other substantive contexts. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

M.Comm. / Changes in society, the nature of work, workplaces and employer-employee relationships have made traditional approaches to career development in organizations inadequate with powerful impacts on the employees. New concepts of career and life planning will be needed if such changes continue to take place. This study aims to obtain an overview of how career development is related to traditional human resource systems in organizations, discuss the protean career as a contemporary approach to careers and to explore the implications of the prQtean approach to career development for organizations. The study comprises an analysis of the literature relevant to the protean career concept, career development practice and human resource systems. In order to understand the implications of the protean career, an overview of how career development relates to traditional human resource systems is first undertaken. The fundamental interdependence between an individual's career plans and an organization's human resource plans is illustrated by considering the essential career-oriented human resource systems characteristics, namely organizational-level activities, the individual-level activities and the matching process. The study focuses in particular on the features of the protean career concept as a contemporary approach to career development in organizations. The protean person's own personal career choices and self-fulfilment are the unifying and integrative elements in the person's life. This implies a relational approach to the career development practice in human resources systems. Pursuing a protean career means, therefore, the development of a new psychological contract. Whereas in the past, the contract was with the organization, in the protean career, the contract is with the self. The protean career is therefore a process that the person and not the organization is managing with the criterion for success being internal (psychological) and not external.

M.B.A. / Organisations today face increasing challenges and operate in climates of increasing turbulence, complexity and surprise (Manning, 1998: 27 - 35). Some of the realities that paralyse managers of organisations in these turbulent times are: • Socio-political and economic uncertainties threaten the unwary • Competition is escalating rapidly • The power of many stakeholders is increasing rapidly • Technology is transforming the way products and services are created, delivered and bought The aim of this research is to determine the effective human resource management practices applied by organisations that have sustainable competitive advantage.