Micro-consultants are from small independent consultancy practices; who sometimes work directly with a single client on embedded assignments. Embedded microconsultants operate within the ambiguous and fragmented environments of their client’s. Micro-consultants have to quickly make sense of their client’s working environments; adapting their operations and identities within these, to ensure appropriate advice and support is provided. When embedded, micro-consultants are usually expected to represent their client; whilst also retaining their independence. Consequently, micro-consultants can sometimes be unsure who they represent (themselves or their client) and which identity aspects they should be promoting. Identity is the sum of, lifestyle, experiences and knowledge of an individual which is developed over time, and provides awareness and guidance for future activities. To some extent micro-consultants can choose which aspects of their identity they wish to promote or suppress. However, some groups can enforce aspects of their identity on their members which can contradict the micro-consultant’s base awareness and guidelines which can lead to dilemmas and uncertainties. This research explores the interactions, changing identities and ensuing tensions of a micro-consultant during a long term embedded assignment with a single client. The ethnographic study uses authoethnographic narrative, along with participant observation techniques and reflective practices, to provide insights on the key influences and other factors which can affect micro-consultant identities. This thesis also provides an indication of the complexities and ambiguities faced by a micro-consultant working on an embedded assignment. The research also highlights some of the many dilemmas and uncertainties facing a micro-consultant in this environment; focussing on identity related dilemmas. These lead to a number of identity related paradoxes for the micro-consultant; including assignment success, relationships and the provision of knowledge. There have been many corporate ethnographic studies examining different parts of organisation behaviour, including consultancy houses and organisation change environments. However, this is the first study to provide detailed insights into the world of a micro-consultant change management specialist, his operations interactions and dilemmas; providing a significant contribution to the world of management consultancy and organisation behaviour.

The theoretical underpinning of Human Resource Management assumes the existence of individual motivation, which can be manipulated or managed in a way that enables organisational objectives to be achieved with the compliance and commitment of the individual worker. However, the increasing incidence of mergers, takeovers and reengineering has imposed on the individuals caught up in it change and challenge, which leaves even those retaining their employment doubtful of the benefits of HRM proclaimed by employers. Job insecurity has been well researched by those who wish to examine how enforced change affects the survivors both within the organisation and those who move on to alternative employment elsewhere. Charting the change undergone by individuals suffering such enforced change at work has traditionally involved attempts to measure the antecedents of change and correlating it to the consequences of the change. In this way the effects of imposed change on individuals can be linked to organisational consequences like intention to leave or job satisfaction. The present research allows individuals to reflect on their own confirmed and disconfirmed expectancies following the experience of enforced change at work. It allows them to examine what assumptions they had about their employer's behaviour during enforced change and how far they have accepted or rejected the legitimacy of that behaviour. For each of them this has involved interpreting events occurring during enforced change. Such interpretation may reinforce the meaning of work and its inherent value or threaten continued belief in the value of employers' promises of employment and career development. Identifying expectancies enables the researcher to examine the different responses to questions of attribution, self-sufficiency and the traditional elements of loyalty and trust together with the individual's assessment of how he or she would respond to a repeat of such enforced change. The conclusions of the present research indicate that individuals who maintain traditional beliefs of loyalty and trust are more likely to experience alienation than those who evince an independence who seek to use working experience to gain more knowledge and skill and so increase their own employability. The future dependence of employers on traditional promises of career development and life long learning would seem to have been circumscribed by the many individuals whose experience of enforced change has convinced them they need to take ownership of their own destiny in which different employers will play but a fleeting part.

“Intrapreneurship is not a choice, it is the only survival attitude” (Pinchot, 2000, p.75). In 1985 Pinchot coined the term ‘intrapreneurship’, short for intra-corporate entrepreneurship, which describes the practice of entrepreneurship within organisations. Intrapreneurship is increasingly becoming a term used in the business world to describe organisations that are willing to pursue opportunities, initiate actions, and emphasise new, innovative products or services. Due to the dynamic nature of modern organisations, it is imperative that organisations and their managers remain receptive to new ideas, approaches and attitudes. It is therefore the belief that rapid and cost-effective innovation is the primary source of lasting competitive advantage in the twenty-first century, leaving organisations no alternative but to become intrapreneurial or cease to exist. This thesis focuses on this need and examines ways in which intrapreneurship can be measured in organisations in order to provide a benchmark for further organisational development. A questionnaire (known as the Intrapreneurial Intensity Index) was designed and distributed to a sample of 500 employees working in large South African organisations, which classified themselves as ‘forward-thinking’ and aimed for an intrapreneurial ‘type of thinking’. The results obtained from these questionnaires underwent item analysis, after which the questionnaire was redesigned in an electronic format. A pilot case study was then conducted in order to test the reliability of the instrument. Finally the questionnaire was redistributed to a sample of six organisations that are viewed as being ‘intrapreneurial’ and two that are regarded as being ‘non-intrapreneurial’. The data from this sample was used to test the validity of the Intrapreneurial Intensity Index and to demonstrate its application. This study resulted in an instrument that can be used to ascertain the intensity of intrapreneurship present in a large organisation. Specifically, this instrument can provide an overall view of the organisation’s intrapreneurial ability, as well as identify the specific areas in the organisation that require change or modification in order to become more intrapreneurial. This instrument provides a valuable means of identifying areas in need of organisational change, by determining an organisation’s intrapreneurial properties in the organisation’s core areas.

M.Phil. / Within the South African context a government of national unity has been elected. Before and after the election, mention was made of the corporatisation and/or the privatisation of state owned assets and parastatals such as Eskom, Telkom and Spoomet. The corporatisation and/or privatisation of these state assets would result in an increase in funds for the government to spend on the Reconstruction and Development Programme, as well as lead to the increase in efficiency of some of these state owned assets. Every day more comment is being made on the possibility of Eskom corporatising. This research proposed to study certain current management philosophies and methodologies being used within Eskom's Technology, Research and Investigations (T-R-I) with a view to corporatisation. This was done by comparing current management practices found in T-R-I, to both literature and prominent engineering companies in South Africa. Topics included the concept of engineering management, marketing, organisational structures, project management and change management. A literature review on strategic planning was also performed and this lay the foundation for personalised interviews with managers in prominent South African engineering companies. The interviews were conducted by means of a structured questionnaire and a statistical analysis, and comparisons of the various methodologies in terms of strategic planning within these engineering companies, were subsequently performed. A visit was also undertaken to Australian utilities which have already been through the corporatisation process. Here, first hand knowledge of the various experiences of corporatisation was obtained. T-R-I is a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting organisation which undertakes investigations, studies, applied research and testing for Eskom and other companies. It employs 308 technical people in modem laboratories. T-R-I operates in an engineering environment and following from the literature search, it is believed that T-R-I should apply the principles of engineering management. A comprehensive overview of marketing and all the aspects associated therewith was performed. It is recommended that T-R-I develop a marketing intelligence system and one comprehensive marketing plan. T-R-I also needs to develop a decision support system that will assist in making better analyses and decisions as far as product development and entry into the market is concerned. Competitors also need to be studied in more detail. Three organisational designs were investigated, i.e. the functional organisation, the product organisation and the matrix organisation. Since all of T-R-I's work is based on projects, it is recommended that T-R-I follow a matrix type structure for the effective execution of its projects. Six key activities for successful change implementation were highlighted in this study. Strategic planning was analysed by means of what literature promotes as an effective business plan. The purpose of the vision, mission, philosophy, environmental analysis and goals was discussed and comparisons were made between the literature studies and T-R-I's business plan. A structured questionnaire was developed in order to facilitate interviews with managers of five prominent South African engineering companies. A detailed statistical analysis of the resultant discussions is presented in the thesis. The questionnaire extracted information on organisational nature, organisational principles of operation, people development, management aspects and strategic planning. By comparing T-R-I's current methodology and detailed contents of the business plan to these five engineering companies, it was found that T-R-I acknowledged and responded to all of the main issues and methodologies. The Australian electricity industry has already been corporatised. A visit to five utilities in Australia was undertaken to discuss how corporatisation has affected them. What was very clear in the discussions, was that T-R-I will not survive as an "Eskom only" service provider but that it needs to expand its market. T-R-I cannot take it for granted that it has a captive market in Eskom. All of the Australian utilities visited, however, indicated that they believed that corporatisation was well worth it. It is, however, recommended that comparative studies be performed in order to evaluate what companies did to transform from parastatals or military supporting companies to successful companies in the private sector (eg. Denel, Sentech and the Atomic Energy Corporation). In-depth studies focusing on these organisations will add to the identification of those inefficiencies within T-R-I that would enhance its capabilities, should they be positively addressed, in order to sustain itself in the future and be a successfully corporatised entity.

M.Comm. / In our ever-changing, fast paced world, competitive relationships can shift quickly when organizations respond too slowly to increased competition in their industry group. Succeeding in such a competitive and changing environment demands that organizations be reshaped to meet the challenges and competitive realities. The changes organizations are being forced to make merely to stay competitive are so fundamental that they must take root in an organization's culture and be managed. The idea of managing organizational culture is still quite new to most managers - at best they have a vague sense of what it means. They lack insight into the concept organizational culture, the complexity of integrating organizational culture and strategy and the managing of organizational cultural change. The lack of managerial insight can be attributed to the fact that organizational culture wears many cloaks and the fact that various definitions are being used to describe the concept. A clear conceptual understanding of the terminology is essential if the role and influence of organizational culture in the change process is to be understood, therefore various definitions are being focused on. Due to the changes taking place in the environment in which organizations operate, managers will increasingly find that they are confronted with major questions of how to position their organizations in a new business environment and how to change fundamentally the organizational culture. The interaction that takes place between organizational culture and organizational strategy in formulating and implementing organizational strategy is discussed. Whether organizational culture can be changed successfully has led to a debate among researchers. In order to implement strategic change the organization needs to manage cultural change to achieve congruency between culture and strategy. Organizational leadership is a critical factor in the change process and is analysed with reference to the role to be played by management in the creation of shared patterns of beliefs and values. Various managerial systems exist for achieving change within the organizational culture and it is essential that managers use a combination of these systems. Systems such as communication, reward systems and human resource management are discussed to establish their role in the process. The aim of the study is therefore to gain a clear insight in the concept organizational culture, the interaction of organizational culture and strategy and the change of organizational culture in the ever-changing business environment by focusing on various factors which are present in the afore-mentioned processes.

M.Comm. / Business process reengineering seeks radical rather than merely continuous improvement. escalates the efforts of just-in-time and total quality management to aUkI e process orientation a strategic tool and a core co petence of the organisation. Business process reengineering concentrates on core business processes. To quote Michael ammer, "The job of business reengineering is to rip the guts out of an organisation and reassemble them in the context of today's changing business worl 99 (An ews, 1994:1). Correctly implemented, business process reengineering should considerably improve profits, as well as strengthen and revitalise an organisation. Business process ree gineering is the fundamental) re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvement. Reengineering is about finding or inventing better ways to give customers what they want while simultaneously achieving huge gains in performance and productivity. The focus is on finding the best, most effacient way to deliver to customers what they want - and this focus lands squarely on core processes. Core processes create a product or service of value to external customers d are a key source of competitive advantage. Reaping the benefits of massive reengineering efforts are not easy. Successfully challenging and changing existing paradigms take skilful leadership which focuses on two entwined aspects of reengineering - the technical side and the human side. The technical side addresses the steps to reinvent the process. The human side addresses the creation of an organisation in which the reinvented process ca i thrive. ecause of the drastic nature of change in reengineering efforts, the human side is particularly important. A successful reengineering project requires the perfect marriage of the technical and the human elements. this study, the concept of business process reengineering, with reference to the different stages and the human side of the process, are dealt with

D.Phil. / One of the principal reasons people form organisations is to focus attention and energy on a selected goal - this goal being the provisioning of products and/or services to clients. Due to forces demanding change, organisations are required to change to be able to continue their existence, making change unavoidable and part of the organisation's life cycle. The premise is that if change is unavoidable, it needs to be managed to serve the best interests of the organisation, thus the need for change management. Research indicates that 50 to 75% of all major corporate change efforts fail and that resistance is the "little-recognised but critically important contributor'' to the failure of change efforts, and central to the change problem. Also, central to the change problem and successful change management lie the following factors: • The reality that people tend to resist change. • The issue of measurement for change management intervention purposes. Research Objectives The objectives of this study are divided into literature and empirical research objectives, each posing primary and secondary objectives. The primary literature review objective is to create a theoretical frame of reference for the interrelated concepts of change, change management and barriers-to-change. The primary empirical research objective is to apply Barriers-to-Change Questionnaire (BCQ), developed in meeting the literature review objectives, to a Governmental service delivery type organisation with the purpose of determining which barriers-to-change is evident in such an environment. Literature Research A review of the literature revealed that there is no integrated view on change and barriers-to-change, but it also revealed that the concept of barriers-to-change has been prominent in organisational and management literature for quite some time. However, no evidence could be found of a measuring instrument focused on measuring barriers-to-change as a whole. During the literature research the concepts of organisational development, organisational change, change management, resistance to change and barriers-tochange were investigated, clarified and reported upon. The above-mentioned concepts were integrated into a theoretical frame of reference called the SCM, which served the purposes of providing a framework from where barriers-to-change can be understood, explained and managed as well as providing a firm base from where the BCQ was developed to measure barriers-to-change in a specific environment. It was concluded, for the purposes of this study, that barriers-to-change can be grouped into two types of barriers, being hard and soft. It was also concluded that there are four causes (or groupings) of barriers-to-change, being barriers inherent to the change project, people barriers, organisational barriers and barriers from the environment, each with specific sub-dimensions. Each sub dimension is supported by an appropriate number of questionnaire items, contained in the BCQ, which were administered to the target organisation.

M.A. / Transformation in the social welfare arena implies new developments and changes in social work education. The past decade has seen various changes in social work in South-Africa. Changes in the international social welfare context are also reflected in the South-African scenario and educators need to be aware of these changes and influences. The study aims at the development of an understanding of the current trends that have an influence on effective social work education. Although the South-African trends are the main focus of the study, it is important to also take the global trends into consideration. The researcher identified the White Paper on Social Welfare (1997), changes in the South-African Education Context as determined by the SA Qualifications Act (58/1995), the Council for Social Service Professions, international trends and the changing South-African environment as the major contributors to the need for urgent change in Social work curriculum. The researcher utilizes qualitative methodology to identify the variables influencing transformation in social work. The mentioned variables were described by means of specific themes relevant to social work education. The description is practice-relevant since the information was collected from academic faculty members and social work students. The data was collected by means of focus groups and interviews guided by a structured interview schedule. A theoretical framework was used to describe the context of social work transformation and relevant influences. A small scale meta-analysis of the current trends in social work literature guided the researcher towards an understanding of the current trends relevant to social work education. Deductive reasoning was used to combine the main moments of the theoretical framework and the themes derived from the collected data. The data were analyzed by a process of categorizing and coding as suggested by De Vos (1997). A protocol was developed in order to analyze the data in a consistent and structured manner. Guba’s model (1990) on trustworthiness was used to validate the themes. Finally, methodological and contextual conclusions were formulated. The conclusions and themes formed a basis for the formulation of recommendations which can contribute to social work education in South-Africa. / Prof. W.A. Mitchell Prof. C.B. Fouchè

M.Comm. (Business Management) / Over the past ten years the insurance industry has been subject to extreme losses due to dual exposure in both underwriting and investments. Financial survival was the number one priority for many insurance firms in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack in America in 2001, the natural catastrophe losses across the USA, and most recently the global financial crisis. Multinational European and North American insurance firms have been forced to focus on core business activities, and this has necessitated improvement of holistic risk and capital management of global and regional operations. Against this evolving microeconomic and managerial backdrop, multinational insurance firms withdrew from the South African insurance market in an attempt to improve financial performance by recapitalising funds to their core operations in Europe and America, and to mitigate their international risk exposure in developing countries. This study explores the phenomenon of how an entrepreneurial entity experienced opportunity realisation within the South African insurance industry when multinational insurance firms withdrew from the South African market. This research employed qualitative case study methodology to illustrate the phenomenon under investigation. Participants of this study included a purposefully selected group consisting of 12 candidates who have been directly involved in the opportunity realisation of the entrepreneurial entity. Grounded Theory analysis allowed for insightful descriptions of opportunity realisation within the South African insurance industry. The empirical evidence suggest opportunity realisation to be impacted by five dominant forces, namely, the South African insurance market, an entrepreneurial entity, opportunity identification, strategic development, and organisational design. Collectively, these five forces constitute the Inductive Opportunity Realisation (IOR) theory. This study focuses on entrepreneurial behaviour to realise opportunities within the South African insurance industry. The IOR theory also highlights the important role of constructive and deconstructive entrepreneurial behaviour in realising opportunities.

D.Com. / Traditional strategic management thinking is no longer appropriate within a prevailing context of discontinuous and rapid environmental change. A swiftly changing environment necessitates the need for a new approach to strategic management. Executives frequently experiences great difficulty. in managing strategic and organizational change. Managing strategic change requires a new way of dealing with the future, one often requiring executives to go against practice anchored in experience and traditional theory, frequently acquired within a less volatile context. A dynamic unpredictable and swiftly changing context provides impetus for challenging and researching the underlying assumptions on which the tradi tional strategic management paradigm is based. This study is thus directed at acquiring an understanding of the complexities and dynamics involved in managing strategic change, within a turbulent context. In this study an endeavour is made to gain an understanding of strategic and organizational change, from a theoretical and a practical perspective. A central premises of this study is that in order to understand the management of strategic change a clear understanding must be attained, as regards the dynamics of environmental change. Privatisation and deregulation, as environmental determinants, will in all probability have a profound impact on organizations in the public sector and they thus serve as an ideal frame of reference for researching the management of strategic and corporate change. An analytic-descriptive research approach is followed. The study is based on two fundamental foundations, namely acquiring a sound theoretical understanding of the concepts and processes involved in managing strategic change within a turbulent context and substantiating these insights acquired, by means of interviews conducted with management practitioners from selected organizations in both the public and the private sector. The former organizations in particular have been subjected to a traumatic period of micro- and macro-environmental change, stimulated by the privatisation process. It is concluded from this study that the future can no longer be extrapolated in terms of historical trends or events, as the future rarely resembles the past. Visionary leadership, incorporating the unknown in a dynamic context, is identified as being a vital dimension in managing strategic change. Management must in particular note that an established organizational culture can generate resistance to change, resulting in stagnation, thus preventing the organization from realizing its vision and strategic objectives. In conclusion it is affirmed that a holistic management approach is vital for contending with corporate and strategic change in a dynamic future milieu.