The mining industry in South Africa plays a significant role in the economy of the country. South Africa is rated as one of the world’s largest producers of key reserves - gold, manganese ore and platinum– and the high level of industrial and production skills in the mines also contributes to the country’s success. Although the gold mining industry’s contribution is of the utmost importance, it is also under pressure to remain competitive and cost–efficient. Old shafts, worsening health of employees, ore bodies that are not always in their prime phase, the radical increase in the annual electricity tariffs and the possibility of decreased gold prices contribute to the decline in the gold mining industry’s success. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between role–specific stress and physical and psychological health, and to determine whether social support has a moderating effect in this relationship for employees in a mining training academy. A cross–sectional survey design was used and a convenience sample (n=437) was taken from a South African gold mining company, where the only criterium for inclusion was to be employed by the organisation at the time the research took place. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The measuring instruments used in this study were proven to be reliable. The results indicate that role stressors and physical and psychological health problems are positively related. It also shows that social support can decrease role–specific stress and that social support – especially from colleagues and supervisors – can help to reduce depression and improve the quality of sleep. Furthermore, logistic regression analyses were used to determine whether role stress and social support hold any predictive value regarding physical and psychological health. It was found that if participants’ experience role–specific stress and they receive support – especially from supervisors – it can predict their quality of sleep and the use of medication (physical viii health). The findings also indicate that role stress can predict the experience of depression with regards to psychological health. However, the moderating effect of social support between role stress and depression was not supported in this research. To conclude, recommendations for the organisation and future research are made. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

INTRODUCTION: In Canada, the role of Telehealth Coordinator is relatively new. Provider institutions and telehealth networks developed the role to support implementation and use of videoconferencing technology in health care delivery. As telehealth usage grows, an increasing number of Canadian nurses, other regulated health care professionals and unregulated workers are being called upon to function as Telehealth Coordinators. However, in some organizations, this role remains poorly understood and generally, little is known about the demographics of Canada’s Telehealth Coordinator community of practice. PURPOSE: Using Role Theory concepts and the tenets of Nursing Informatics, the broad aim of this qualitative study was to gain a better understanding of the demographics and role that nurses, other regulated health professionals and unregulated workers play in sustainable telehealth technology implementation and use in Canada. This is important in the context of leveraging technology to meet the challenges of an ageing population and increasing burden of chronic illness. METHODS: Qualitative exploratory study design using mixed methods. Telehealth Coordinators from the Canadian Society of Telehealth (CST) and Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) were invited to take part in an online survey (33 items) and telephone interview (20 items). RESULTS: From two identified populations – a provincial sample from Ontario and a national sample from other Canadian provinces and territories, 47 Telehealth Coordinators provided responses that could be analyzed. Over half of the respondents (56%) reported being between the ages of 40 – 59 years and 75% were female. Nurses and other regulated health care professionals comprised 53% of the sample. Of the respondents, 66% reported working in a health care provider organization. Responses to the qualitative questions are presented within the context of Role Theory and Nursing Informatics. CONCLUSIONS: Canada’s Telehealth Coordinators are an eclectic community of practice with varying roles, responsibilities, educational backgrounds and experience. Although the role of Telehealth Coordinator varied across organizations and regions in Canada, important commonalities were also found. Participants expressed a need and desire for standards, ongoing professional education opportunities and credentialing – especially if the role involved patient care. Major factors contributing to Canadian Telehealth Coordinators work satisfaction were: 1. patient contact and knowledge that they were making health care more accessible 2. educating others in the use of videoconferencing technology and 3. autonomy. Organizational issues including a lack of resources and understanding of the role by senior executives provided the least satisfaction for Telehealth Coordinators. Strong organizational support for Telehealth Coordinators will increase the probability of successful videoconferencing technology implementation and use.

Evidências empíricas contábeis não só destacam o papel do controller nas empresas, como também salientam situações organizacionais que criam tensões como conflito e ambiguidade de função. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar com que intensidade o conflito e ambiguidade de função percebida pelos controllers brasileiros incidem sobre a satisfação no trabalho. A amostra foi composta por 114 controllers das maiores empresas do Brasil segundo a base de dados da revista M&M. A coleta dos dados foi viabilizada por meio de questionário online. O instrumento utilizado para a mensuração das variáveis conflito e ambiguidade de função foi o desenvolvido por Rizzo et al (1970), e, para satisfação no trabalho, foi utilizado Job Satisfaction Index apresentado no trabalho de Tarrant (2008). Para a análise dos dados, foi utilizada a técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais (SEM-PLS) bem como estatísticas descritivas. Não foram rejeitadas as duas hipóteses de estudo, demonstrando, com base em evidências estatísticas, que o conflito e a ambiguidade de função são percebidos pelos controllers brasileiros e, de fato, incidem negativamente sobre a satisfação no trabalho. Ademais, a amostra sustenta que o conflito de função afeta menos a satisfação no trabalho do que a ambiguidade. Além disso, os dados suportam que a falta de clareza sobre os objetivos e responsabilidades do controller acarretam em maiores níveis de ambiguidade de função e que o conflito percebido, aumentava em situações nas quais o executivo tinha que ignorar ou deixar de considerar uma regra ou política organizacional a fim de desempenhar alguma das suas funções. Finalmente, foi constatado que, apesar dos controllers perceberem esses dois tipos de tensão, em geral, eles se sentem satisfeitos com sua atual situação de trabalho. Uma das situações que menos contribuiu para a satisfação no trabalho dos controllers brasileiros foi a remuneração. / Empirical accounting evidences not only highlight the role of the controller in the companies, but also emphasize organizational situations that create stresses like role conflict and role ambiguity. In this context, this research aims to identify in what extent the role conflict and role ambiguity, perceived by Brazilian controllers, have an affect on job satisfaction. The sample comprised 114 controllers of the largest companies in Brazil, obtained from M&M magazine database. Data collection was conducted through a online questionnaire. The instrument used to measure the variables role conflict and role ambiguity was developed by Rizzo et al (1970), and to job satisfaction, was used the Job Satisfaction Index presented on Tarrant\'s (2008) work. We used the technique of structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) as well as descriptive statistics for data analysis. The two study hypotheses were not rejected, demonstrating, based on statistical evidence, that role conflict and role ambiguity, perceived by Brazilian controllers, surely affect negatively on job satisfaction. Moreover, the sample sustains that the role conflict function affects less job satisfaction than role ambiguity. Furthermore, the data supports that the lack of clarity about the controller\'s goals and responsibilities, lead to higher levels of role ambiguity, and the perceived conflict increased in situations where the executive had to ignore or fail to consider a rule or organizational policy in order to perform any of its functions. Finally, it was found that despite the controllers realize these two types of stress, in general, they feel satisfied with their current employment situation. One of the situations that less contributed to the Brazilian controllers\' job satisfaction was the remuneration.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:31:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rubens de Almeida Zimbres.pdf: 953627 bytes, checksum: 788a11f034cfb7d55e50c105894ec1f3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-02 / Wolfram Research, Inc. / The main goal of this thesis was to verify the influence of clients and providers role clarity in quality perception of esthetic services. Starting from a dyadic perspective, we studied how interactions during service cycle clarify roles of its participants, generating cognitive and emotional involvement, thus influencing quality perception and behavioral intentions. We did a quali-quantitative research, and had developed a scale for measuring the constructs. We evaluated psychometric properties of the scale and results suggest that relationships proposed and the scale for measuring constructs are valid. Results also show that there are perception discrepancies related to quality criteria among clients and providers. The use of control variables allowed to understand better clients and providers idiosyncrasies. After data analysis, we developed an artificial society based in cellular automata concept. Simulation results allowed to understand information diffusion in the social network and may be useful for service cycle management and development of Marketing strategies based in market segmentation. / A presente tese teve como objetivo verificar a influência da clareza do papel de clientes e provedores de serviços estéticos na percepção de qualidade dos mesmos. Partindo de uma perspectiva diádica, estudou-se como as interações durante o ciclo de serviço esclarecem os papéis dos participantes do mesmo, gerando envolvimento cognitivo e emocional, e influenciando assim a percepção de qualidade de serviço e as intenções comportamentais. Foi realizada uma pesquisa quali-quantitativa longitudinal, onde foram desenvolvidas escalas para mensuração dos construtos estudados. Foram avaliadas as propriedades psicométricas da escala desenvolvida e os resultados sugerem que as relações propostas e a escala desenvolvida apresentam validade. Os resultados também mostram que existem discrepâncias de percepção com relação aos critérios de qualidade entre clientes e provedores e o uso de variáveis de controle permitiu aprofundar o conhecimento das idiossincrasias de clientes e provedores. Após a análise dos dados, procedeu-se à construção de uma sociedade artificial baseada no conceito de autômatos celulares. Os resultados da simulação permitiram entender melhor a dinâmica de evolução de opiniões na rede social estudada, podendo ser úteis para gestão do ciclo de serviço e desenvolvimento de estratégias de Marketing baseadas em segmentação de mercado.

A renewed interest in work has developed world-wide during the last decade. One of the reasons for this is that organizations are responding to the changing economic, social, technological and environmental demands in ways that are fundamentally transforming the nature of organizations and the meaning of work for employees. Work has changed tremendously, not only in nature but also its importance. The current demands placed on organizations and employees include, among others, global competition, cost-cutting, downsizing and restructuring and information processing on a large scale. It is intuitive to think that these changes and demands will affect employees in some way or the other. For many employees changes brought different job descriptions, more roles to fulfil and more complicated tasks to complete with more uncertainty and less clear-cut instructions. The work commitment construct has been part of a lively debate since Morrow's (1983) call for a moratorium on the development of further work commitment measures due to the existence of concept redundancy within and among the work commitment facets. It has been proposed that the work commitment construct consists of four main facets i.e. job involvement, organizational commitment, career commitment and work values. It has been unclear up to now on how these facets are interrelated. The relationships between the work commitment facets, role strain and intention to quit have also not been studied together in a single study before. The current study investigated the underlying dimensions of the work commitment construct, the underlying dimensions of each proposed facet, as well as determined the relationships among the work commitment facets, role strain and intention to quit, based on a large diverse South African sample. This was done by using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses, the calculation of intercorrelations and Structural Equation Modeling. Each instrument was standardized for South African conditions. The results indicated that although the instruments were portable to South Africa, unique results and factors were obtained. Promising results were obtained with regard to the causal relationships among the variables. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 1997. / gm2014 / Psychology / Unrestricted

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The call centre industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in South Africa. Call centres have for most companies become a basic business requirement for servicing customers. Zapf, Isic, Bechtoldt and Blau (2003: 311) argue that there are high levels of stress amongst employees in call centres, which they believe to be the result of both the work tasks and the interactions with customers. The aim of this study was to establish whether call centre work design and structure contributed to role stress amongst client service representatives (CSRs). It was also the aim of this study to establish whether role stress affected the CSRs' levels of job satisfaction and their intentions to quit from their jobs. / South Africa

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role ambiguity, role conflict, and job satisfaction perceptions among selected Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioners. The study's target population was the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)—Dallas Chapter. The independent variables used in this study consisted of HRD practitioners' gender, age, length of HRD experience, educational level, and HRD role category.

No description available.

I många år har studier genomförts över hur HR-arbete ska organiseras mellan HR-funktionen och linjechefer. Grundtanken bakom delegeringen av HR-arbete till linjechefer är att det ska bli mer effektivt, om linjecheferna som är närmare kärnverksamheten hanterar mer HR-uppgifter skapas det utrymme för HR-funktionen att arbeta mer strategiskt. Delegering av HR-arbete till linjechefer är mer komplext i praktiken jämfört med teorin. Det föreligger en svårighet för linjecheferna eftersom kompetensen, arbetsbelastningen och tidsutrymmet påverkar utförandet av HR-arbete. Problematiken som föreligger är även rolltvetydigheten mellan HR-funktionen och linjecheferna, att det inte finns en uttalad praxis för hur arbetet ska fördelas mellan dem. Samspelet mellan HR-funktionen och linjecheferna är ett ömsesidigt beroende som inte alltid lever upp till bägge parters förväntningar på varandra. Syftet med studien är att bidra med kunskap om hur HR-arbetet organiseras mellan HR-funktionen och linjechefer. Vidare är syftet att få kunskap om hur rollerna påverkas av HR-organiseringen. I studien har en kvalitativ metod använts där semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts för att nå en djupare kunskap. Studien baseras på två privata företag i Västra Götaland där en HR-ansvarig och fyra linjechefer från respektive företag har intervjuats. Studiens resultat visar att linjecheferna erhåller personalansvaret och att HR-ansvarig agerar som ett stöd för linjecheferna. Det framkommer även att företagens stödfunktioner inte utnyttjas på ett effektivt sätt vilket gör att HR-ansvariga blir tvungna att arbeta nära det operativa och stötta linjecheferna. Vidare leder det till att det tänkta effektiva stödet för linjecheferna samt HR-ansvarigas utrymme för det strategiska arbetet, går förlorat. Konsekvenserna av HR-organiseringen gör att HR-funktionen har svårt att arbeta strategiskt samt att linjechefernas ökade arbetsbelastning påverkar deras förmåga att vara närvarande i den operativa verksamheten. Studiens resultat visar även att ett nära samarbete under en längre tid minskar rolltvetydigheten. Utmaningen som framkommer i studien är att linjechefernas kompetens inte är tillräcklig för att klara av HR-arbetet på ett bra sätt. / There have over many years been studies regarding how HR-tasks should be organized between the HR-function and line managers. The basic idea with delegating HR-tasks to line managers is to make it more efficient, by having line managers that are closer to the core-business handle more HR-tasks, creating space for the HR-function to work more strategically. Delegating HR-tasks to line managers is more complex in practice than in theory. There is a difficulty for line managers since the competency, workload and the time required affect how HR-tasks are to be performed. Another problem for the HR-function and the line managers, is the role ambiguity between them caused by there not being a defined practice for how work should be divided between them. There is a mutual dependency on the interaction between the HR-function and line managers that does not always live up to the expectancies both parties have on their respective ends. The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge about how HR-tasks are organized between the HR-function and line managers. Furthermore, the purpose is to gather information about how the roles are affected by the HR-organization.  In the study, a qualitative method has been used and semi-structured interviews have been performed to reach a deeper understanding. The study is based on two private companies within Västra Götaland county and interviews were held with the person responsible for HR and four line managers from each company. The result of this study shows that the line managers are responsible for the personnel, and that the HR-responsible is acting as a support for the line managers. It also becomes apparent that the companies supporting functions are not being used in an efficient manner, which forces the HR-responsible to work close with the operative business to support the line managers. Furthermore, this leads to the planned efficient support for line managers as well as the capacity for the HR-responsible to perform strategic work, are both lost. The consequence of the HR-organization makes it difficult for the HR-function to work strategically, also, the increased workload on line managers affect their ability to be present in the operative business. This study also shows that a close co-operation over a longer period of time lessens the role ambiguity. The challenge that becomes apparent in the study is that the line manager’s competency is not sufficient to handle HR-tasks in a good way.

No description available.