Bibliography: leaves 417-464. / xii, 464 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 1995?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New School for Social Research, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 272-282).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-102).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-147).

Individual monetary incentive systems usually include performance feedback as part of the intervention package. However, there is no experimental evidence to suggest that feedback has any functional effect on work performance above and beyond the effects of the incentive systems. It may be that incentive systems have such powerful effects on work behavior that the additional contingencies provided by a feedback system are unnecessary. The present laboratory study investigated the supplemental effects of feedback on work performance under a monetary incentive system. Four subjects were hired to work seven hours a day for four and a half weeks. The experimental work task was a simulation of a proof operator’s job at a bank and involved typing dollar values of “checks” into a computer. Subjects were paid a base salary per session plus incentive money for performance above a criterion. The main dependent variable was the number of correctly completed checks per session. The amount of time off task and rate of responding were also investigated. Subjects were exposed to an ABA experimental design involving; (A) the monetary incentive system without performance feedback, (B) the incentive system with performance feedback, and (A) return to the incentive system without performance feedback. The introduction of feedback resulted in small to moderate performance improvements in two of the four subjects. Possible reasons for the small and inconsistent effects were explored with special attention paid to the functional role of feedback and monetary incentives. It was proposed that small amounts of incentive money and performance feedback may not improve productivity in the absence of other stimulus events inherent in real organizational settings, such as the possibility for pay raises, promotions, and/or the threat of being fired. These variables may have function-altering effects on incentive money and performance feedback. Future laboratory simulations might experimentally manipulate these variables to further investigate the efficacy of monetary incentive systems. / Graduate

M.Com. (Business Management) / A higher standard of living is one of the greatest needs of the South African population. Labour movements believe that a higher standard of living can actually be achieved by paying higher wages. Unfortunately higher wages are demanded and paid at the expense of productivity which is a vital ingredient for economic growth and ultimately economic survival. Employers within the South African economy can address the low productivity ratios through the implementation of performance related schemes. Gain sharing is one of many interventions management can implement to achieve greater performance through labour. By implementing a gain sharing scheme management is able to relate pay to performance and address efficiency ratios which ultimately affects the competitiveness of South African goods and services against world competitors.

M.B.A. / Many organisations have approached employee remuneration in new ways in recent years. Most of these new approaches are based on the principles of aligning a portion of individual or team remuneration to achievement against specific goals. Such systems are most commonly referred to as performance based remuneration systems. Alpha (Pty) Ltd has very recently introduced a performance based remuneration system aimed at individuals within the organisation. It is evident that there is no single system that can be applied across the infinite number of organisations globally, and that developing any ideal performance related system requires careful consideration of many variables. To develop and implement an effective system within any organisation, requires custom tailoring the system to best suit that organisation. This research paper aims to analyse what impact the introduction of an individual performance based remuneration system has had within the cement business unit of Alpha (Pty) Ltd, how the findings of the research compare to the theoretical reference on the subject, and whether there is room for improvement to the existing system.

To gain workforce support and commitment, organisations should offer remuneration and rewards that are internally and externally equitable, as inequity in remuneration is the source of employee discontent and turnover. To succeed, organisations have to communicate the total value of rewards allocated to employees. Communication is the foundation of reward management and organisational success. Communication helps employees to understand that the rewards they receive are worth having. Remuneration and rewards communicate the value that organisations place on their employees. To deliver the proper messages, remuneration objectives and strategies should be aligned with the overall business strategy of the organisation. Alignment enables organisations to deliver the right type of rewards to the right people, at the right time, and for the right reasons. The only way the organisation can deliver the correct reward and remuneration, is to implement a total reward system together with a total pay system. Effective total pay system covers base pay, skills and competency pay, variable performance pay, recognition, and benefits. Total reward system cover investment in people, development and training, performance management, and career management. To motivate and retain employees, and to improve organisation’s profitability, a right mix of total pay and total rewards should be made available to employees as employees’ needs differ. With this information, an empirical study was developed and conducted at Lobels Bread in Zimbabwe. The results of this survey indicated that Lobels Bread uses traditional base pay system and benefits as a way of motivating and retaining its employees. This pay system seems to be insufficient to motivate and retain employees. To motivate and retain employees, the company should implement a total reward system, which includes total pay system, investment in people, career enhancement, open communications, involvement, and performance management.

No description available.

This study addresses the empirical question of heterogeneous market efficiency characteristics, specifically as they are attributable to divergent levels of professional securities analyst attention. As a significant group of information intermediaries, analyst institutions conceivably influence, in a profound manner, the efficiency with which security prices respond to new information. Consistent with this notion is the hypothesis that the securities of firms which are neglected in terms of analyst coverage exhibit price inefficiencies relative to their closely followed counterparts. Two market efficiency constructs with respect to annual earnings announcements are examined in this study. Preannouncement information efficiency is guaged by the degree to which security prices appear to lead or anticipate the information content of subsequent public earnings releases. Such price behavior is indicative of the market's ability to acquire and, process interim, signals that are relevant to the determination of proper and timely security valuations. Postannouncement, or semi-strong-form, efficiency is in turn referenced by the relative absence of anomalous "drifting" patterns in postdisclosure returns. The presence of significant drifts is inconsistent with a market that adjusts quickly and unbiasedly to signals that are transmitted publicly. Sample firms taken from the NYSE are ranked into three groups according to their relative following by the professional securities analyst community. Analyst attention is surrogated by the number of investment houses providing annual earnings per share forecasts for companies listed in the Institutional Brokers Estimate System (IBES) computer file. The delineation of the three attention concentration groups' relative efficiency profiles is accomplished by means of two uniquely derived metrics that restate cumulative abnormal returns (CAR's) into an ordered domain of pre- and postannouncement efficiency structures. The CAR's are derived from dailly price data immediately surrounding annual earnings announcement dates for the calendar years ended 1976 through 1982. Owing to the nonnormal distributional properties of the inefficiency metrics, two nonparametric procedures are employed to detect group mean differences. The results overwhelmingly indicate that both pre- and postannouncement efficiency are positively associated with professional analyst attention. Moreover, the detected efficiency differences cannot be attributed to firm size effects or to the extent of the market's forecast error -- two factors that have previously been established in the empirical literature to be associated with event period CAR magnitudes. / Ph. D.