No description available.

SMEs in the 21 century have to cope with an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment. In order to work effectively within this environment, SMEs have to collaborate with other enterprises in forms of virtual organisations. Despite the increased interest in the area of virtual organisation collaboration, useful information is still lacking about the risk sources of virtual organisation, where the enterprise face more complicated risk threats than those in traditional enterprise due to the new form of relationships between partners. The aim of this research was to identify a risk management contribution where this research has identified key areas of risk that SMEs are likely to face when working collaboratively in VO. It also enables SMEs to understand the relative importance of these risks. A further contribution is made by use of tools (ISM and ANP) to enable SMEs to understand the inter-relationships of risk sources. Multiple analysis techniques provide triangulation of analysis results, leading to validation of results. The secondary research showed all of the risk sources identified in the relevant literature and some of the relationships between them, whilst the primary research addressed all of the direct and indirect relationships using the Interpretive Structural Modeling. Also the primary data sources from the questionnaires and the case study shed light on the relative importance of these sources using the Analytical Network Process. Areas for further research are suggested to close the gaps and to continue enriching the research.

The changing world of work that we live in is characterised by forming part of globalisation and virtualness. The previous era managers focused on how to make money and how this money can work for them. The changing world of work is characterised by global competitiveness in delivering quality products quicker and cheaper. Globalisation presents continuous advancements in technology, which requires a new mindset. These technological advancements have a profound effect on culture, training and management of staff. This brings about change in flexible working arrangements and the traditional office made space within certain organisations for virtual offices. The move towards virtualness causes companies to work more closely with their customers to be able to coordinate rapid changes in products (Schuh, Millarg & Gorannson, 1998; Weissenfeld, Fisscher, Pearson & Brockhoff, 200 1). The financial institution referred to in this study was also driven by globalisation and technological advancements to re-engineer the current way in which they do business. It became evidently clear that there was a need for a shift towards virtualness, which called for the identifying of relevant competencies; needed by employees for working in a virtual environment. These competencies will enable the organisation to select the right employees and provide them with information that could be utilised in training the current virtual employees according to the competencies identified. The objectives of this research were firstly to conduct a job analysis to determine the important competencies needed by virtual workers, in a specific job at a financial institution in South Africa. Secondly to compare the current competencies of the virtual workers (who took part in the research) with the competencies identified by the job analysis to be important for this specific job. Thirdly to determine the skills required for virtual workers and compare these skills with the skills ranked by the current virtual workers to be important. Fourthly to identify how these virtual workers experienced the effect of virtualness on their performance. Lastly to make recommendations regarding future training and selection purposes. A survey design (cross-sectional) was used to determine competencies needed by virtual workers for a specific job at a financial institution in South Africa. The study population consisted of (N= 71) employees in a virtual job at a financial institution in South Africa. The Work Profile Systems (WPS), Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ), Performance Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) and a Skills Audit (SA) were administered. Results of the research indicated that 44% of the study population exhibits the competencies needed by virtual workers as indicated by the Inventory of Management Competencies (IMC) Profile of the WPS. The results of the Performance Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) indicated that the current virtual workers experienced the greatest impact of virtualness on improving the attainment of personal goals, as well as improving the achievement of organisational goals. The results from the Skills Audit (SA) identified skills that were essential for virtual workers in a specific job within a virtual environment, according to the feedback received from the current virtual workers. They compared favourably with the skills identified by literature as being important. Recommendations to the organisation and for future research have been made and limitations were also discussed. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

The changing world of work that we live in is characterised by forming part of globalisation and virtualness. The previous era managers focused on how to make money and how this money can work for them. The changing world of work is characterised by global competitiveness in delivering quality products quicker and cheaper. Globalisation presents continuous advancements in technology, which requires a new mindset. These technological advancements have a profound effect on culture, training and management of staff. This brings about change in flexible working arrangements and the traditional office made space within certain organisations for virtual offices. The move towards virtualness causes companies to work more closely with their customers to be able to coordinate rapid changes in products (Schuh, Millarg & Gorannson, 1998; Weissenfeld, Fisscher, Pearson & Brockhoff, 200 1). The financial institution referred to in this study was also driven by globalisation and technological advancements to re-engineer the current way in which they do business. It became evidently clear that there was a need for a shift towards virtualness, which called for the identifying of relevant competencies; needed by employees for working in a virtual environment. These competencies will enable the organisation to select the right employees and provide them with information that could be utilised in training the current virtual employees according to the competencies identified. The objectives of this research were firstly to conduct a job analysis to determine the important competencies needed by virtual workers, in a specific job at a financial institution in South Africa. Secondly to compare the current competencies of the virtual workers (who took part in the research) with the competencies identified by the job analysis to be important for this specific job. Thirdly to determine the skills required for virtual workers and compare these skills with the skills ranked by the current virtual workers to be important. Fourthly to identify how these virtual workers experienced the effect of virtualness on their performance. Lastly to make recommendations regarding future training and selection purposes. A survey design (cross-sectional) was used to determine competencies needed by virtual workers for a specific job at a financial institution in South Africa. The study population consisted of (N= 71) employees in a virtual job at a financial institution in South Africa. The Work Profile Systems (WPS), Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ), Performance Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) and a Skills Audit (SA) were administered. Results of the research indicated that 44% of the study population exhibits the competencies needed by virtual workers as indicated by the Inventory of Management Competencies (IMC) Profile of the WPS. The results of the Performance Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) indicated that the current virtual workers experienced the greatest impact of virtualness on improving the attainment of personal goals, as well as improving the achievement of organisational goals. The results from the Skills Audit (SA) identified skills that were essential for virtual workers in a specific job within a virtual environment, according to the feedback received from the current virtual workers. They compared favourably with the skills identified by literature as being important. Recommendations to the organisation and for future research have been made and limitations were also discussed. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

Pour répondre à un marché de plus en plus concurrentiel, les organisations tendent aujourd'hui à se regrouper sous la forme d'organisations virtuelles (OV). Concevoir le système d'information (SI) d'une OV sur la base des SI des organisations participantes pose des problèmes méthodologiques et techniques. En particulier, l'identification et l'expression des besoins, déjà difficile lors du développement d'un SI « classique », représente un enjeu important. Le SI de l'OV jouant un rôle prépondérant pour la collaboration et la coopération des organisations participantes et l'atteinte de l'objectif commun. Nous proposons des critères permettant d'identifier et de classifier précisément et à un niveau intentionnel, les différentes informations nécessaires à la conception du SI de l'OV ainsi que des modèles graphiques et textuels simples. Notre travail comprend une transformation partielle à partir des modèles intentionnels jusqu'aux modèles de processus métier de base au niveau organisationnel. / Nowadays, organizations which aim to be competitive in a more concurrent market, tend to group together into virtual organizations (VO). Designing the information system (IS) of such a VO on the basis of the IS of those participating arises methodological and technical problems. Particularly, the formal identification and representation of requirements which has been researched to a large extent for a single organization, is not adequate for a VO. Indeed, the IS of a VO plays an important role in the collaboration and the cooperation of the participants organizations to achieve a common goal. We propose at an intentional level, criteria allowing virtual organizations to be identified and classified, as well as simple graphical and textual models to design the virtual organization's IS. Our work includes a partial transformation proposal from the intentional models to basic business process models at the organizational level.

More public and private organisations offer working from home as an alternative way of working for their employees. Working from home (WFH) has both benefits and drawbacks for the employees when it is compared to the office working. While some of the researchers, such as Shafizadeh et al. (2000) claim that working from home increases the productivity of the employees, other researchers, such as Monteiro et al. (2019) claim the opposite. This study analysed five research articles published in year 2000 and five research articles published in years 2019 and 2020 to discover the factors having an influence on the productivity of the employees who work from home, whether the influence of these factors have on the productivity is positive or negative and whether the factors have changed from year 2000 to the recent years (2019 and 2020). The study results indicate that working from home has an influence on productivity of the employees. While influences of some of the factors are either positive or negative, the influence of some of the factors depend on the characteristics and attitude of the employees and the circumstances.

Für das Management virtueller Teams sind traditionelle, etablierte Werkzeuge der Mitarbeiterführung und -motivation nicht ausreichend. Vorliegende empirische Befunde zum Erfolg virtueller Teams weisen etwa auf den Stellenwert eindeutiger Ziel- und Rollendefinitionen aber gerade auch auf das wechselseitige Vertrauen zwischen den Kooperationspartnern hin. Steht nun die Vertrauensforschung für virtuelle Kontexte generell erst am Beginn, gilt dies umso mehr für den spezifischen Aspekt erlebten Misstrauens, der primär als Gegenpol zum Vertrauen konzeptualisiert wird. In diesem Beitrag wird jedoch Misstrauen als eigenständiges psychologisches Konstrukt begriffen, dem sowohl dysfunktionale als auch funktionale Korrelate zuzuordnen sind. Unter dieser theoretischen Prämisse werden erste Ergebnisse einer diesbezüglichen qualitativen Studie zum Stellenwert von Misstrauen für die Motivation und Bindung von Mitarbeiter/innen dargestellt. Implikationen für die weitere Forschung und die berufliche Praxis in virtuellen Organisationen werden abschließend aufgezeigt.

No description available.

Für das Management virtueller Teams sind traditionelle, etablierte Werkzeuge der Mitarbeiterführung und -motivation nicht ausreichend. Vorliegende empirische Befunde zum Erfolg virtueller Teams weisen etwa auf den Stellenwert eindeutiger Ziel- und Rollendefinitionen aber gerade auch auf das wechselseitige Vertrauen zwischen den Kooperationspartnern hin. Steht nun die Vertrauensforschung für virtuelle Kontexte generell erst am Beginn, gilt dies umso mehr für den spezifischen Aspekt erlebten Misstrauens, der primär als Gegenpol zum Vertrauen konzeptualisiert wird. In diesem Beitrag wird jedoch Misstrauen als eigenständiges psychologisches Konstrukt begriffen, dem sowohl dysfunktionale als auch funktionale Korrelate zuzuordnen sind. Unter dieser theoretischen Prämisse werden erste Ergebnisse einer diesbezüglichen qualitativen Studie zum Stellenwert von Misstrauen für die Motivation und Bindung von Mitarbeiter/innen dargestellt. Implikationen für die weitere Forschung und die berufliche Praxis in virtuellen Organisationen werden abschließend aufgezeigt.