<p>The processes that link High Performance Work System (HPWS) practices and organizational performance are not fully understood. Using resource-based theory, this research focuses on training, by separating it from other HPWS practices, and human capital development as a source of sustained competitive advantage. The first purpose of my research is to examine the relationships between the HPWS practice of training, innovation, and organizational performance, and look at the mediating effect of innovation over time at the workplace level. The results indicate that the temporal pathway from training to innovation to organizational performance is positive and significant even after controlling for reverse-causality. Strategic activity is also explored and is found to be a significant moderator. This study contributes to knowledge by identifying the importance of aligning business strategy with training, as well as other HPWS practices and innovation to achieve improved organizational performance outcomes. The second purpose of this research is to explore the factors that act to expand or limit the HPWS practice of training, with a focus on the outcomes of employers' decisions to offer training, employees' decisions to accept or decline training, and the job-related training received by employees. The results indicate that the employee-level factors: participating in HPWS practices, use of technology, and using new technology are significant contributors to employers' decisions to offer and employees' receipt of training. Further, employees' perception of the existence of a gap between the skills required for the job and their current skills contributes to employees accepting employer offers of training.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Research report presented to the Unisa School of Business Leadership / The dynamic nature of the university environment is described from a strategic and operational perspective. Council, Senate and Executive Management had a direct role in maintaining corporate governance while the HR department is mandated to manage compliance. This brought about certain challenges since the achievement of HR objectives through innovation allowed a greater degree of freedom in comparison to the degree of control prescribed by compliance management.

By triangulation of three longitudinal case studies with change leader practitioner survey, this research identified the following seven generative Employee Relationship Planning (ERPII) management strategies: 1. People Strategy 2. Capital Strategy 3. Information Strategy 4. Experience Strategy 5. Opportunity Strategy 6. Crisis Strategy 7. Result/Reward Strategy ERPII management strategies may facilitate development of organisational cultures where management enables employees to become aware of relevant capital, information, experience, opportunity and crisis situations to attain the result/reward of their collaboration and participation in business process reengineering activities for continuous improvements. These ERPI management strategies may facilitate practical application of current approaches in positive leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Spiritual Intelligence, Appreciative Inquiry and Kaizen.

Organizations are facing a distinctive new challenge: the ever-increasing presence of Millennials in the workplace. The Millennial generation, comprised of those born arguably between 1980 and 1998, possess unique attitudes, behaviors, and desires within the workplace, therefore prompting numerous studies on Millennial engagement and retention. This paper contributes to current literature by investigating engagement and retention of Millennial employees specifically within their entry-level experience. By focusing on the unique experiences and needs during this entry-level phase, organizations will have the knowledge necessary to retain their young employees from the start of their career. This qualitative study utilizes interviews with 11 Millennial professionals to give voice to a generation that is predominantly understood through quantitative statistics. This paper outlines the discovered needs and desires of entry-level Millennial employees, how this compares to the current understanding of engagement of the Millennial generation as a whole, and opportunities for organizational improvement within the entry-level experience.

For the last three decades, semiconductor industry has played an important role in Taiwan economics. The analysis of Taiwan electronics industry has been focused on most channels & logistics. Due to previous working experiences, we will like to do a research of international companies’ sales incentive program in terms of value, culture, core competence, and sales strategy. As we know that R&D, marketing, sales, production, finance, human resource all play the important role in a company. The sales revenue, sales growth, and sales margin play even more decisive role on the stock price. It is very important for company to drive sale team with the incentive, compensation strategy, entrepreneurial culture, and strategy will be discussed in the following chapters. This study will cover a small portion of the criteria to evaluate company’s sales performance which provide a better guidance for my future sales strategy to capture some existing companies’ business models and phenomena.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between narcissism, cultural adjustment, and leadership of expatriates. Specifically, it was predicted that cultural adjustment would partially mediate the relationship between narcissism and selfperceptions of leadership effectiveness such that narcissism would be negatively related to cultural adjustment, and cultural adjustment would be positively related to selfperceptions of leadership effectiveness. It was also predicted that cultural adjustment would partially mediate the relationship between narcissism and LMX perceptions such that narcissism would be negatively related to cultural adjustment, and cultural adjustment would be positively related to LMX perceptions. Fifty-three participants completed an online survey through Qualtrics. Participants consisted of individuals who were teaching abroad for an extended period of time. Results indicated support for the mediating role of cultural adjustment in the relationship between narcissism and perceived leadership effectiveness, but not in the relationship between narcissism and LMX perceptions. Results also indicated positive correlations between narcissism and cultural adjustment. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed, and multiple directions for future research are suggested.

The present study examined justice perceptions of an intercollegiate athlete who was punished for a team rule violation outside of competition. This scenario study is a modified replication of Severs’ (2009) study on justice perceptions of intercollegiate athletes; one additional factor, importance of the next competition, was examined in the current study. Perceptions of fairness and perceptions of likelihood of deterring future misconduct were examined using a factorial design with two levels of punishment severity (severe and moderate), two levels of misconduct severity (severe and moderate), two types of punishment distribution (consistent and conditional), and two types of game importance (exhibition and post-season). Consistently applying punishment had a highly significant effect on perceptions of fairness to the punished athlete and to teammates, and on the likelihood the punishment will deter future misconduct by the punished athlete and by teammates. Interactions, with small effects, indicated that the severity of the punishment should match the severity of the violation; that females more than males perceive conditional punishment as less fair; and that the importance of the next competition increases fairness perceptions of conditional punishment. Implications for practice are clear. Consistently apply team rules and punishment for violations of those rules is effective in creating perceptions of fairness of the punishment and deterring future misconduct.

Data on the managerial and professional specialty occupations that were specified by the United States Census of the Population for the years 1950 through 1980 were used to analyze the influence of occupational sex ratios, growth rates, and male and female salary levels on the ability of females to move into those occupations. An analysis of the change in the Standardized Occupational Sex Ratio (SSR) showed that, over the thirty year period studied, growth rates became more important than salary levels in influencing movement toward parity in high status occupations. Before the 1980 census year, occupational growth rates were found to interact with both male and female salary levels. During all four census years, slowly growing occupations experienced the smallest movement toward parity regardless of salary level. The lack of movement toward parity in slowly growing occupations shows evidence of gender division. In rapidly growing fields, lower salary levels for both males and females led to greater movement toward parity for females. Movement toward parity in rapidly growing fields that offered lower salaries was taken as evidence of less sheltering. In declining fields, occupations with above median female salaries allowed greater female entry than did those with below median female salaries. The opportunity for women to move into declining fields showed evidence of chain mobility. By 1980, females were moving into managerial and professional specialty occupations at every salary level and growth rate; however, the greatest movement toward parity occurred in those occupations that were rapidly growing. Movement toward parity in rapidly growing occupations provided evidence of structural mobility. By 1980, rapidly growing occupations were experiencing fair sharing of occupational opportunity. The slowly growing occupations, though experiencing some female growth, still showed evidence of male sheltering.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.