Organizational cohesion is a multifaceted construct that has been defined and assessed in a multitude of ways. For the purpose of this study, the researcher has defined organizational cohesion as the extent to which employees within an organization feel a sense of unity with one another. Practitioners are often faced with uncertainty regarding the necessary assessment materials when trying to evaluate organizational cohesion. An easily accessible and valid scale had yet to be created to measure organizational cohesion. The Organizational Cohesion Scale (OCS) is an eight-item assessment of an employee’s perception of the cohesion they have experienced with their peers within an organizational setting. The present research attempted to provide construct validity for the OCS. Assessments of the convergent and discriminant validity of the OCS were conducted; although the results did not provide strong evidence for construct validity of the OCS, the confirmatory factor analysis and criterion validity provided support for additional research to be conducted.

Filipino internationally educated nurses (IENs) constitute a major portion of the IENs in Manitoba and Canada. Acculturating to Canada can be difficult and can affect job satisfaction and retention. The focus of this research is on Filipino IENs’ acculturation to Canada, sources of workplace support and perceived job satisfaction. Berry’s (1997) acculturation framework guided the study. A cross-sectional descriptive-correlational method was used. An on-line survey resulted in a study sample of 124 participants. Quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques were used to determine relationships among the variables and to identify recommendations to assist other IENs. Job satisfaction was positively associated with one dimension of acculturation and informal sources of workplace support by immigrants and Canadian co-workers, administration, and the union. When these independent variables were entered into a multiple regression model, only administration support significantly predicted job satisfaction. Implications for nursing practice, leadership and research are discussed.

The researcher conducted an ethnographic study looking at how employers can build more inclusive workplaces and support the adaptation of immigrants into the Canadian workplace culture. The research consisted of ethnographic interviews with 15 immigrant employees living and working in British Columbia. The focus of the research study was to investigate how the various aspects of the employer-sponsored programs influence the cross-cultural adaptation from the perspective of the immigrant employee. Results from the study support that immigrant friendly practices and initiatives facilitate the adaptation process of immigrant employees. Practical implications and recommendations for employers are also discussed in the study.

Few social boundaries still exist regarding tattooed individuals in Western society, yet the professional workplace remains a barrier to heavily tattooed individuals today. The historical stigma attached to heavily tattooed people is still pervasive across many professional communities. A series of ethnographic interviews examine the decision heavily tattooed professionals make to "cover up" their tattoos. Focusing on identity management as it relates to tattoo wearers in a professional context, the research seeks to explain the communicative processes that heavily tattooed individuals use to negotiate professional life. This perspective will work to explore the impact of identity and authenticity on the tattooed self, the safety provided by covering-up in the workplace, and the identity struggle faced by heavily tattooed individuals when covering up.

The importance of human resource development as a means of ensuring that the organisation and institution maintain their competitiveness cannot be over-emphasised. Training and development of employees are critical to organisations, because it ensures the acquisition of required skills, which is paramount for the provision of effective service delivery, in particular local sphere of government. The Workplace Skills training that refers to the strategic human resource training and development, aims at developing the workforce, labour skills capacity, thereby achieving the institutional goals, policies and objectives of the institution. The Workplace Skills Plan is the key strategic planning document relating to workplace training, career pathing and employment equity for the Municipality. It details the training planned by a municipality in a given financial year as legislated by the Local Government Sector Education Training Authority (LGSETA). Workplace Skills Plan, through LGSETA, the Skills Development Legislative framework and the Employment Equity Act, makes provision, ensuring that employees in the public service should enhance their skills in order to deliver effective services to its customers, the public. For quality and effective service delivery at the Nigel Local Municipality to take place, the implementation of the Workplace Skills training is imperative for the enhancement of a skill workforce that will be able to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the product and service rendered by the employees. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

People are without a doubt our most important asset. It is imperative that companies develop their people to unleash their full potential, which will in turn be a benefit to the company. The future of successful, competitive companies will depend on the work force of that company. The context that organisations operate within has undergone a change from a hierarchical structure to one of building of human capital. This means that organisations need leadership as a vehicle to ensure successful empowerment. It is essential that leaders utilise and develop the potential of their people. This study conceptualises empowerment from a psychological and organizational perspective. Empowerment is defined and divided into the categories of leadership empowering behaviour, motivational empowerment (psychological empowerment) and structural empowerment. The psychological perspective measures the four cognitions (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) that provide employees with a sense of empowerment. The objective of this study is to determine the levels of psychological empowerment, leader-empowering behaviour, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Data were gathered from 90 employees of the financial division within a recruitment company. The research results of the empirical study were reported and discussed according to the empirical objectives. The descriptive statistics and the internal consistency of the measuring instruments of the total population were highlighted. Thereafter reliability and validity of the measuring instruments were discussed. A correlation design was applied to determine the relationship between the constructs. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient and factor analysis was determined for the measuring instrument and the Pearson correlation was computed. A regression analysis has been conducted to determine to what extent psychological empowerment and leader empowering behaviour predicts job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Results of the empirical study indicated that differences exist between organizational levels, tenure, age and gender groups in terms of psychological empowerment, leader empowering behaviour, job satisfaction and organisational commitment experienced. Employees reflected a positive experience with regard to psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and organisational commitment whereas leader empowering behaviour is not experienced at a positive level. Recommendations are based on the research results. The implications of psychologically empowered employees for organisations were discussed. The recommendations focus on management and leader development, career development, career counselling, creating a motivational climate, performance and team development. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

The importance of human resource development as a means of ensuring that the organisation and institution maintain their competitiveness cannot be over-emphasised. Training and development of employees are critical to organisations, because it ensures the acquisition of required skills, which is paramount for the provision of effective service delivery, in particular local sphere of government. The Workplace Skills training that refers to the strategic human resource training and development, aims at developing the workforce, labour skills capacity, thereby achieving the institutional goals, policies and objectives of the institution. The Workplace Skills Plan is the key strategic planning document relating to workplace training, career pathing and employment equity for the Municipality. It details the training planned by a municipality in a given financial year as legislated by the Local Government Sector Education Training Authority (LGSETA). Workplace Skills Plan, through LGSETA, the Skills Development Legislative framework and the Employment Equity Act, makes provision, ensuring that employees in the public service should enhance their skills in order to deliver effective services to its customers, the public. For quality and effective service delivery at the Nigel Local Municipality to take place, the implementation of the Workplace Skills training is imperative for the enhancement of a skill workforce that will be able to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the product and service rendered by the employees. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

With the global trend of transnational migration, a huge influx of highly skilled immigrants has been influencing Canadian society and economy. However, there is little literature that illuminates highly skilled migrants’ workplace experiences and their identities in terms of second language acquisition. This multiple case study explores three highly skilled Korean immigrants’ experiences, focusing on the interplay of their language learning, identity, and workplace communities. Grounded in the notion of “imagined communities” (Kano & Norton, 2003) and the theory of “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991), this study analyzes the process of how highly skilled migrants have constructed their imagined workplace communities. By revealing the multiple dynamic negotiations co-constructed by the workplace contexts and the individuals, this study shows the interlocked relationship between second language learning, identity, and the given community. This study also argues the importance of membership and positive social arrangements in a community for language learning.

This study means to research the importance and significance of the social and informal learning opportunities offered at a workplace. With Wenger’s theory about social learning and communities of practice as a starting point, this study will create understanding about how teachers at a school comprehend their opportunities for learning within the teacher community. The study is conducted at an independent school in Sweden, and is based on interviews with eight of the teachers employed at the school. The purpose of the study was to research how employees perceive how their social interactions with their colleagues can create learning, and what obstacles they might face along the way. Our results showed that the teachers at this workplace found that most of the learning that took place in their everyday worklife was performed in an informal and social way with lots of helping each other out and social interactions between the colleagues.

As an initial qualitative enquiry into the dynamics of learning transfer in the museum sector, this dissertation explores a range of largely positive learning transfer experiences within four museum case settings, and highlights the interdependent roles of museum climates and learners’ agency in supporting prolonged and complex processes of adapting learning to meet situated needs. Key findings from a cross-case thematic analysis include the influential roles that learners’ mastery of content, positional autonomy, perception of affordances, dispositions, values and goals, initiative and professional affiliations play in initiating transfer in museum contexts that tend to be inspiring, rewarding, but benignly un-strategic in their efforts to support the transfer of learning. My focus on learning that continues after participants leave the classroom illuminates how complex, situated, subjective, and meaningful continuing professional education can be in museum settings—and how it continues to involve the learner and the museum long after the educator’s work is done. / Graduate