Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Patrick A. Knight / Today the geographic distance between workers is increasing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the distributed work environment by specifically focusing on leader behavior and its impact on subordinate outcomes. This study asked if the traditional core set of leadership behaviors is effective in distributed work environments, and how those behaviors impact employee outcomes such as commitment and satisfaction with supervision. Several fundamental and explored questions included: Do essential management behaviors such as consideration and initiating structure materialize differently in face-to-face versus remote situations, what type of leadership will have the most positive impact on employee's perceptions of satisfaction with supervision and organizational commitment, and does this differ according to the amount of face time between the manager and employee? Correlational data results did not support the hypotheses that face to face interaction scores were positively correlated with affective commitment, or satisfaction with supervision. Face to face interaction was not negatively correlated with continuance commitment. Non-remote employees reported significantly higher levels of satisfaction with supervision than remote employees. There was a significant difference between remote and non remote employees with non remote employees reporting higher levels of career advancement than remote employees. There was a stronger relationship between initiating structure and satisfaction with supervision when spatial distance was high. It appears that spatial distance acted as an enhancer. Two scales, company support for remote management and remote management specific behaviors, were analyzed to obtain preliminary data for future research.

M.Phil. (Industrial Psychology) / The primary purpose of this exploratory research study was to qualitatively explore industrial psychological perspectives regarding labour unrest within the South African mining sector from the period 2008 - 2011. This was done owing to the lack of literature pertaining to the field of industrial psychology in this regard. In order to achieve the above objective, semi structured interviews were conducted with industrial psychologists working in practice and associated directly with the mining sector. Additionally, semi structured interviews were conducted with industrial psychologists working in academia, which served as a peer review, hence making the outcome of the study more credible. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and thereafter, thematic content analysis was conducted in order to identify prominent, recurring themes associated with industrial psychological perspectives regarding the subject matter ...

Organisations today, regardless of their function, exist in an environment that is characterised by change. In order to maintain a competitive advantage it is vital that organisations manage such change and are sensitive to their human resource. It is imperative for organisations to understand and explore the factors that impact on employee satisfaction and overall organisational performance. The hospitality industry is an industry that is notorious for low levels of pay and long working hours, and often dissatisfied employees. This research focused on a hotel, that is part of an international chain of hotels, which has recently undergone a rebranding process (a change from within). This research aimed to assess and explore factors that impact on levels of employee satisfaction and organisation/hotel performance, in other words it aimed to 'diagnose' the hotel's current status. The research was conducted in two phases. Phase one made use of a widely used measure of job satisfaction, the job descriptive index (JDI), that looked at five facets of job satisfaction namely: pay, opportunity for promotion, co-workers, supervision and the nature of work. Phase two further explored the results of the JDI (staff being very dissatisfied with pay and promotions opportunity) and further explored other areas of the organisation/hotel with the use of an organisational development model, Weisbord's Six-Box Model (1990). The 'boxes' included areas of purpose, structure, relationships, leadership, rewards and helpful mechanisms. These areas were explored with staff using focus groups. Heads of departments (management) and the deputy general manager of the hotel were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format, exploring similar issues to those researched with staff. Results indicated problems in the hotel with regard to purpose, a severe lack of communication and staff feeling they have little chance for promotion as well as pay structures being perceived as unfair. The overall leadership at the hotel was described as erratic, and relationships between management revealed high levels of mistrust. Due to limited research in the South African hospitality industry, much of the literature available is based on experiences in the United States of America or the United Kingdom. For this research, the researcher had few previous published findings and was unsure of the many issues that could possibly arise. However, the intervention was enjoyable and recommendations have been provided for the hotel to consider, so the hotel can go from "good to great".

With the accelerated process of political and socio-economic transformation in South Africa, revolutionary organisational change has become a given in contemporary South African business life (Human & Horwitz, 1992). For revolutionary organisational change to succeed in South Africa, middle managers who represent the 'cement' of the organisation, need to adjust at the individual level. However, the literature on organisational change remains curiously silent about individual adjustment (Ashford, 1988). The goals of the research were firstly, to recount the middle manager's perceptions and experiences of revolutionary organisational change. Secondly, to detail the psychological re-<lrientation and reidentification of middle managers within their 'changed' organisational context. Thirdly, to understand the relative success of middle managers' psychological adjustment. A single case study design was most appropriate as the study represented a unique case in that it was the most transformed public organisation in South Africa. An initial research group and two theoretically relevant sub-groups were created through theoretical sampling. The data collected through in-depth interviews, direct observation and documentation, and the analysis of this data were jointly undertaken. The results indicate that the respondents perceived a necessity for revolutionary organisational change due to the political changes within South Africa. However, the actual management of the change process was perceived to be poor as the respondent's experienced a lack of participation and a lack of communication. The traumatic 'side effects' of these experiences included feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty which increased the level of organisational stress. Specific individual differences proved largely ineffective in moderating the increased stress. This was attributed to the violation of the individual respondents' psychological contract and the subsequent shared psychological disorientation. The violation resulted in feelings of hurt, betrayal and resentment which shifted the respondents view of the employment relationship. The respondents were therefore unable to identify with the 'new' organisation. This was evident in their attitudinal and behavioural responses which included a lack of trust, lack of organisational commitment and a shift in work satisfaction as weU as ensuing 'offsetting' behaviour and a reluctance to engage in organisational citizenship behaviour. These attitudinal and behavioural responses strongly suggested that the respondents' psychological adjustment was predominantly ineffectual.

M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / The main objective of this study was to establish whether Generation Y job seekers consider the ethical reputation of organisations in their job-seeking endeavours. Further objectives were to identify whether job seekers from this generational group would, despite their preferences, consider working for any organisation that 1) is prepared to provide them with employment, or 2) offers competitive financial remuneration. A quantitative research study was conducted, utilising a self-developed questionnaire, labelled the Organisational Choice Indicator (OCI). Due to the inherent difficulty of obtaining unbiased responses on sensitive topics, the questionnaire measured respondents’ responses from two perspectives —self-report and non-self-report. The questionnaire was administered using a sample of convenience at a South African-based university (n = 1 992). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted, using principal axis factoring with direct oblimin rotation to facilitate interpretation. One reliable factor was extracted, containing the eight ethics-related items included in the questionnaire, and was labelled Ethical reputation. Three other (non-ethics-related) reliable factors were extracted, namely Organisational characteristics, Opportunities and benefits, and Transformation. Findings show that, although ethical reputation is a factor for consideration, the Opportunities and benefits factor has the highest mean score, and is thus considered more important than any of the other factors when making organisational choices. The analyses of variance showed that the respondents who indicated that they will consider the organisation's ethical reputation as a factor in their decision-making, in turn also admitted that they will work for any organisation that offers them employment. This could be due to the high levels of job scarcity leading to survival ethics. Furthermore, those individuals who indicated that they would consider the ethical reputation of the organisation in their job-seeking endeavours, later indicated that they will not work for any organisation purely because the pay is good. This indicates that these individuals will not work for any organisation, regardless of the financial package being offered, without considering the ethical reputation of the organisation. The four factors that were reliably extracted (Ethical reputation, Organisational characteristics, Opportunities and benefits, and Transformation) were significantly positively inter-correlated. In addition, the findings indicate that respondents tend to respond in a similar manner when reporting on the self and on the non-self.

M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / Orientation: An increasing number of women entering the workplace are experiencing inter-role conflict in their home and work domains. As a result, work-family conflict may occur. This may impact level of work engagement women experience. Research purpose: The study aimed to determine the effect of work-family conflict on work engagement amidst working mothers. In addition, the study investigated the moderating effect of the personality traits extraversion and agreeableness on the correlation between work engagement and work-family conflict. Motivation for the study: A narrow body of knowledge exists that explores the implications of work-family conflict in the South African context, particularly among working mothers. Research design, approach and method: The research design was quantitative and cross-sectional. The sample (n=326) encompassed working mothers. The data was collected by using the Work-to-Family Conflict questionnaire (Netemeyer, Boles & McMurrian, 1996), the Basic Traits Inventory (BTI) (Taylor & de Bruin, 2006) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) (Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá & Bakker, 2002). Main finding: This study found that work-family conflict predicts work engagement among working mothers. In addition, the personality traits extraversion and agreeableness predict work engagement but do not moderate the relationship between work-family conflict and work engagement within this sample. Practical/managerial implications: The results of this investigation contribute to the narrow amount of research conducted in the South African context with regard to work-family conflict and work engagement, especially among working mothers. In addition, organisations may gain insight into the effects of work-family conflict on work engagement. Organisations should therefore take measures to provide support to employees so as to decrease the level of iv work-family conflict they experience and consequently, increase work engagement. This study also demonstrates the effect of personality on work engagement.

Organizational change and development (OCD) has been studied by researchers to identify the effectiveness of change initiatives. Because of the broad scope of interventions in OCD, these studies have covered a range of areas including multiple interventions and the methodological rigor used by researchers. However, few have looked at organizational versus individual change within an organization, to examine whether individual change is more effective than organizational change. The purpose of this study is to determine if organizational change occurs in a top down or bottom up manner. A meta-analysis was conducted using 238 field experiments. Each study was coded for intervention and organizational outcome and for individual or organizational level variables. Effect sizes were calculated for each study, each level, and each level by intervention and outcome measure. Results indicate that while OCD interventions overall had a moderate effect size, the level of intervention or outcome was not a moderating variable.

Malgré l'intérêt suscité par l’étude des comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle (OCB), un problème de définition semble exister. Des études supposent que les OCB sont considérés comme extra-rôle dans différentes organisations et même des différentes cultures. Ainsi, une même définition et échelles semblables ont été utilisées pour mesurer les OCB dans ces contextes totalement différents. Toutefois, selon les contextes culturels et organisationnels, il est évident que les individus peuvent différer dans la manière dont ils définissent leurs emplois. Cette recherche propose d’examiné si la catégorisation de rôle d'un employé est essentielle pour comprendre ce qu’est l’OCB, et pourquoi les employés développent ces comportements. Les résultats indiquent que l’OCB n'est pas une construction claire pour les employés. La catégorisation du comportement in-rôle et extra-rôle varie d'une personne à l'autre. En d'autres termes, la plupart des employés considèrent ces comportements dans le cadre de leur travail. Les résultats sont importants d'un point de vue théorique, car ils indiquent que le extra-rôle approche ne suffit pas à expliquer la construction de l’OCB. Sur la base de ces résultats, une nouvelle définition de l’OCB a été proposée, et un nouveau modèle a été développé pour expliquer le mécanisme de la motivation de ces comportements en mettant les définitions de rôles en avant.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the complexity of modern-day hiring discrimination against gay men. This is the first study known to the author that experimentally manipulated gender presentation (feminine or masculine), sexual orientation (gay or heterosexual), and job type (gay- and female-typed or heterosexual- and male-typed) to examine their collective effect on hiring recommendation. Furthermore, much remains to be understood about how descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes operate to explain hiring discrimination against gay men. Drawing on implicit inversion theory, social cognitive career theory, and the lack of fit model, a descriptive stereotype model was proposed to investigate the influence of descriptive stereotypes (perceptions of communality and agency) about male subtypes (gender presentation-sexual orientation combinations), in conjunction with occupational stereotypes about the extent to which different male subtypes are believed to occupy specific job types, on perceptions of job fit and hiring recommendation. Drawing on expectancy violation theory, a prescriptive stereotype model was also proposed to explore the influence of stereotypical expectations about male subtypes, and male subtype-job type combinations, on consequences of prescriptive stereotype violation (perceptions of respect) and hiring recommendation. Sexual orientation did not have an effect in the descriptive or prescriptive stereotype models. However, results of the descriptive stereotype model revealed that perceptions of job fit decreased when gender presentation misaligned with job type (feminine-presenting men who applied to the heterosexual- and male-typed job and masculine-presenting men who applied to the gay- and female-typed job). Evidence of moderated mediation indicated that when applying to the heterosexual- and male-typed job, feminine-presenting men were seen as less agentic, and thus received lower ratings for hiring recommendation, than masculine-presenting men. In contrast, when applying to the gay- and female-typed job, masculine-presenting men were seen as less communal, and thus received lower ratings for hiring recommendation, than feminine-presenting men. These findings suggest that perceptions of agency and communality, and job fit, were serial mediators that positively correlated with hiring recommendation. Evidence of moderated mediation for the prescriptive stereotype model occurred only for the gay- and female-typed job, revealing that masculine-presenting men were less respected, and thus received lower ratings for hiring recommendation, than feminine-presenting men. Follow-up research to develop and refine the proposed descriptive and prescriptive stereotype models is crucial to furthering our understanding of hiring discrimination against gay men in today’s organizations.

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