Thesis (MTech (Marketing))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2005 / Although South African companies seem to make an attempt to employ more women to meet the required employment quotas, not enough is being done to allow women to grow beyond certain levels in their jobs, and it appears that women are still under-represented at top management level in corporate S.A. Despite employment-equity laws, gender inequalities regarding representative male-female ratios in corporate S.A. still appear to be prevalent at executive level. A more representative profile of male-female ratios at executive level in corporate S.A. might contribute towards a higher level of bottom-line performance for any organisation. The underlying premise is that by recognizing and utilizing their human potential to the fullest, the under-utilised available female talents and skills can contribute towards a larger skills pool within the organisation. In an attempt to assist m bridging the gap of gender inequality in corporate S.A., professional women may be branded as a valuable company asset. For females to be accepted and recognized by corporate S.A. as a brand, it is important to position them as a brand. To position a brand means emphasizing the distinctive characteristics that differentiate that brand from its competitors in a way that appeals to its target market. Identity, quality, differentiation, guaranteed consistency and clear communication to the target audience are the cornerstones of the branding process. In order for female professionals to be identified as a successful brand. these elements of the branding process need to be adhered to. What have traditionally been perceived to be inherent female qualities appear to meet the demands of contemporary management and leadership paradigms in a way that adds benefit to any leadership or management role in corporate S.A.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology) / During the past decades married women increasingly joined the labour market due to financial reasons as well as a need for self-actualisation, and this has had significant consequences for these womens' marriages and family lives. In addition to women joining the labour market for financial reasons, more and more women are obtaining higher academic qualifications enabling them to pursue professional careers and apply to join traditional male professional occupations, such as the medical and dental professions, the law professions, the engineering and architectural professions, as well as various other professions. Professions have been described by certain sociologists as greedy occupations. Professions tend to absorb workers to such an extent that work remain central in their thoughts even when at home, and sometimes compel them to work long hours, weekends and holidays. The division between home life and .work life becomes blurred and, to a certain extent, professional work becomes a style of life. Since the practising of a professional career requires rigorous work hours, dedication, as well as commitment, and the implications of practising such a career for the married woman with children, especially small children, are substantial. Firstly, to what extent will she be able to comply with the requirements of a professional career and adequately care for her family? Secondly, how will a professional career affect the quality of her marriage and family life? Will she be able to commit herself to both a family as well as a career? This study deals with research into the commitment of 642 married working women in the PWV-area to their work. Respondents were selected by means of a random sample obtained from the telephone directories of the PWV-area. Data was collected by means of conducting a telephonic and postal survey with the help of the opinion survey centre of the Human Sciences Research Council.

M.Ed. / This study researches the working mother's experience of her world in order to explore and describe it. The aim of the study is to make recommendations to the educational psychologist (who is involved in the development and education of the child) resulting from the experiences of the different mothers. The research report starts with the contextualization of the study in Chapter 1, by creating a social- and theoretical framework. The theoretical framework places the woman in a system of interdependent relations, placing her internal experience and her external participation in society, in context. In Chapter 2 the exploratory, descriptive, contextual and qualitative study that was done, is described. To collect the data, phenomenological interviewing was done. The interviews were taped and then transcribed. The test sample consists of five women with professional careers or who used to have professional careers. The collected data was processed with a combination of Tesch's method, Kerlinger's method and categorisation.

Family businesses are major contributors to economies around the world. It is also recognised that family businesses are critical to entrepreneurship, socio- economic development and industrialisation around the world. Women in family business are major contributors to the success of the family business around the world. Limited research is available on the role of women in family business. The research conducted yielded similar results for South Africa. The impact of family business on entrepreneurship and the economy, with respect to socio- economic development, has placed great interest in family business studies in South Africa. This study focused on the role of women in black family business in South Africa. This research found that women in black family business focus on bringing softer skills to the business which are beneficial for people management. In their capacity as managers in the family business, women tend to take on a supportive role to the spouse; they tend to focus on ensuring a harmonious and peaceful culture in the work place. Women in family business have a dual role of ensuring business success and quality family life. They prefer to work in the shadow of their male counterparts. Challenges faced by women in black family business have been identified as the lack of inclusion in strategic decision- making, lack of decision-making career opportunities and the lack of consideration for succession within the business, a lack of business mentorship and ambiguity of roles in the business and in the family. It has been found that the role of women in black family business may be enhanced going forward. This may be done through educational programmes or workshops for management skills for women, networking opportunities and support groups, counselling on work/family management strategies, and spousal sharing of responsibilities in the work- family management relationship. A suggested area for future research is the impact of culture in family business in South Africa.

Gender disparities are still prevalent universally, and are often expressly and tacitly condoned, even in highly developed societies. In South Africa, women make up 52% of the population yet, only 44% of working South Africans are women (BWASA, 2012). However, recent trends show that a significant enough number of women do make it to all levels of positions in organisations, and that women generally have a great desire to lead. Conversely, very few women think or believe that their organisations provide them with the necessary and adequate support, in order to be able do so. Thus, in spite of the active efforts and commitments made by many South African organisations to influence women’s career advancement, it is still unfortunately not clear if the initiatives and programmes that are implemented are a core strategic imperative, or whether they are merely part of a peripheral agenda. As a result, this study takes a contingency approach to examine whether the career advancement of women is indeed a core strategic initiative, or whether it is peripheral in South African organisations. The good news is that some organisations are excelling in their commitment to empowering female roles and role-models in the workplace, and this study aims to understand why these organisations are doing exceptionally well, and why others are lagging behind. A qualitative method, which is exploratory in nature, was adopted to collect and analyse the data for this study. Fifteen individuals, who constitute a sample, were interviewed; and the scope was limited to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Human Resource executives or any other executives responsible for diversity in the respective organisation. The main findings in this research were as follows: Firstly, the agenda that is most likely to be framing women’s career advancement in the organisations is one that is underscored by moral or ethical imperatives, and this is done in order to attempt to ensure that all forms of inequalities that existed are eradicated, so as to respond to the social pressure for ethical and moral transparency. Secondly, the organisations do understand the critical issues of women’s career advancement, but they fail to recognize the significant rewards of real women empowerment. Thirdly, some organisations seem to be doing exceptionally well, while others are sadly lagging behind. Finally, most organisations do not have clear measurement and monitoring frameworks to track their progress and impact in women career advancement initiatives. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M.A. / One of the most significant trends of our time, manifesting world wide as well as in South Africa and affecting family life extensively, is the continuous rise in the rate of married women entering the labour market. The increasing interface between work and family life, within the work/ family spillover model, has led to the conventional belief that female employment, due to the stress within the work-situation, and marital dissolution are causally related. In more recent studies however, researchers are no longer concentrating only on the detrimental effects of the dual-earner family lifestyle, but are increasingly investigating intervening variables which alleviate stress in dual-earner families and which could actually contribute to higher experience of marital integration and quality. As a result of this perspective on family life of the working married woman, the question arose as to what the situation in this regard in South Africa may be. The aim with this research was to determine the nature of the mediating influence of intervening variables on the correlation between the woman's participation in the labour market and her experience of marital integration. Respondents from Johannesburg, East Rand, West Rand and Pretoria were selected by means of purposive and snowball sampling. A total of 300 respondents completed a questionnaire, which included items on biographical information and Likert type questions regarding the respondents' experiences of both family and work related aspects. In order to measure these aspects, eight scales were developed by means of factor analysis and item analysis, namely the respondent's experience of her husband's performance of domestic obligations; her husband's care-taking of the children; her husband's performance of emotion work; her commitment to growth in the marriage; her experience of marital integration; her involvement in her work; her experience of occupational stress; and occupational satisfaction. An analysis was made to determine the differences between groups that can be divided into more numerous discreet categories, by making use of multivariate and one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe's paired comparisons, as well as Hotelling T 2 and t-tests and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients. Three regression models were developed in order to determine the predictors of marital integration, involvement in work and occupational satisfaction. The following results regarding the family related scales were found: Respondents experience their husbands' performance of emotion work to a greater degree, than their husbands' performance of domestic obligations and care-taking of the children. In comparison with the other scales, the respondent's experience of her husband's performance of emotion work indicated the highest statistical significant correlation with her experience of marital integration. Therefore the husband's performance of emotion work may be considered as a very important variable in predicting the working wife's experience of marital integration. In the case of the correlation between the family related and the work related scales, it was found that, unlike the respondent's experience of occupational stress, both the respondent's commitment to work and her experience of occupational satisfaction indicated a statistical significant correlation with her experience of marital integration. By means of path analysis, it was possible to determine that in both the models for path analysis in the case of marital integration (endogenous variable) and involvement in work (exogenous variable), -and in—the case—of marital—integration (endogenous variable) and occupational satisfaction (exogenous variable),, in the event of controlling for the family related variables, the partial correlations between marital integration and involvement in work, as well as between marital integration and occupational satisfaction, declined. Therefore it may be said that the family related variables, namely the respondent's commitment to growth in the marriage; her experience of her husband's performance of emotion work; her experience of her husband's care-taking of the children; and her experience of her husband's performance of domestic obligations, may lead to an enhancement of the working married woman's experience of marital integration. Knowledge of these intervening variables may not only help the dual-earner family in coping with the strenuous dilemmas, but may actually contribute to a better marital and familial relationship.

Women remain notably underrepresented in management and leadership positions despite the enactment of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action policies. A critical literature review yielded evidence of a multitude of barriers inhibiting women’s career advancement beyond an apparent glass ceiling, but not which of the factors constitute the major barriers. A knowledge gap was further identified in research pertaining to characteristics of successful professional women and the environments that enable them to succeed in their professions. The purpose of the current study is to expand the empirical body of research and knowledge on factors contributing to the success of professional women, and of factors inhibiting the career progression of women in business. The study extends that of Punnett, Duffy, Fox, Gregory, Lituchy, Monserrat, Olivas-Luján and Santos (2006) and of Duffy, Fox, Punnett, Gregory, Lituchy, Monserrat, Olivas-Luján, Santos and Miller (2006), conducted in the Americas, to the South African context. The study suggests a conceptual framework for investigating factors that influence professional success of women. The developed conceptual framework of factors perceived to influence professional success was employed to empirically test the relationships between the variables presented. The empirical data collected was subjected to a series of statistical tests and the results considered in testing the hypotheses. Statistica 10 was employed to analyse the empirical data collected. Univariate and multivariate tests (MANOVA) were employed to determine whether sufficient evidence existed to make conclusions about hypotheses one to five of the study, relating to differences between two success groups of women based on their demographics and the selected variables. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (Pearson r) was employed to determine whether sufficient evidence existed to make conclusions about vi hypotheses six to ten, relating to significant relationships between the selected independent variables for the study and the professional success of women. Professional success was measured as job seniority level. For the pipeline success group, professional success was measured as seniority in relation to years in the employment sector and age. The contribution of the study to management science and possible limitations are discussed and recommendations made for future research. Recommendations for the development of women and for the social transformation of organisations are made. The study identifies a number of internal organisational support factors and government interventions which are recommended for inclusion in development initiatives for the achievement of gender equity.

The family roles and responsibilities are still allocated along the gender lines. Women assume primary child care and household roles despite working fulltime. They suffer from work-family conflict as they battle with these competing demands. A phenomenological approach was adopted for this study. The existing literature was used in defining work-family conflict, looking at different work-family theories; development of gendered defined roles, motherhood and demands brought on by women working fulltime. The semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The themes which emerged showed that women experience strong emotions associated with raising children whilst working. There is compromise on quality time dedicated in each role. Women assume sole custodian over their children’s upbringing. Women enter into a second shift after work. Having a career and children, is made easier through adoption of strong coping strategies and mechanisms. The conclusions and recommendations were made for future a research and organisational practices. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psycology))

The family roles and responsibilities are still allocated along the gender lines. Women assume primary child care and household roles despite working fulltime. They suffer from work-family conflict as they battle with these competing demands. A phenomenological approach was adopted for this study. The existing literature was used in defining work-family conflict, looking at different work-family theories; development of gendered defined roles, motherhood and demands brought on by women working fulltime. The semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The themes which emerged showed that women experience strong emotions associated with raising children whilst working. There is compromise on quality time dedicated in each role. Women assume sole custodian over their children’s upbringing. Women enter into a second shift after work. Having a career and children, is made easier through adoption of strong coping strategies and mechanisms. The conclusions and recommendations were made for future a research and organisational practices. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psycology))