In their exploratory study Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) found three markers of a brand community: a sense of belonging, rituals and tradition and a sense of duty toward the community. Two of the three markers of community have been included in conceptual models on brand communities. However, the third marker (sense of duty) has not been implemented up to now. Hence, the objective of this thesis is to extend Bagozzi & Dholakia’s (2006) brand community model by incorporating the construct “sense of duty”. In this research, a conceptual model of brand communities is developed. Overall, the findings support the conceptual model. The results show that sense of duty is a decisive mediator of brand community behaviours and that sense of duty is divided into three distinct components: new member integration, product usage and member retention. Further, this research indicates that community-related behavioural intentions are not significantly related to purchase intentions.

The concept of metamemory proposes that supplementary to typically measured memory abilities, memory monitoring and control processes are used to optimise learning. Accurate memory monitoring appears to be underpinned by a range of cognitive, and possibly affective, contributions. In populations with these deficits, metamemory has been shown to be impaired. In Multiple Sclerosis (MS), only a limited metamemory literature exists, surprising given that MS is a leading cause of disability among people of working age, and cognitive and mood disorder is common. Using structural equation modelling, this study of 100 people with MS explored factors contributing to performance on episodic Judgment of Learning, Retrospective Confidence and Feeling of Knowing. Given its negative influence on cognitive domains in MS, the impact of information processing deficits on metamemory was also investigated. Finally, memory self-report, a frequently used clinical indicator of memory functioning, was assessed. Findings suggest that memory complaint is associated with mood, and is unrelated to tested memory. Second, Retrospective Confidence Judgments were predictive of memory performance, even in the presence of memory impairment. Third, an unusual finding of maintained underconfidence at delay was observed in the Judgment of Learning task. Finally, Feeling of Knowing judgments related to executive, but not to memory ability. A novel finding in respect of this judgment was of processing speed relating negatively to accuracy, in the context of executive dysfunction. This suggests that some top-down direction of processing resources may be a factor in supporting accuracy, rather than the speed at which information is processed. Of all the task-based judgments, accuracy in this judgment was the only one with a reliable association with mood. Faster processing speed, executive dysfunction and least depression symptomatology related to low accuracy, perhaps typifying a profile of disinhibition seen in MS, characterised by poorly constrained processing and apparently elevated mood.

In 1996, Professor Robert J House published a reformulated Path-Goal Theory of Work Unit Leadership, based on his earlier 1971 and 1974 theories. Path-goal leadership attempts to explain the impact that leader behaviour has on subordinate motivation, satisfaction and performance. The aim of this context-specific study is to evaluate this reformulated ‘1996 Theory’ via Structural Equation Modelling with engineers from the Royal Air Force as the primary data source. This thesis offers a revised methodology to test path-goal leadership. In detail, three moderator variables are modelled with four independent variables to establish association with two dependent variables. In addition, five propositions from the ‘1996 Theory’ are examined. The analysis suggests that: the moderator influences preference for a particular type of leadership behaviour (by the subordinate); leader behaviour has an impact on subordinate satisfaction; leader behaviour affects satisfaction directly and performance indirectly; subordinate satisfaction has a direct affect on subordinate performance; and performance is influenced by the type of task demand. It is considered that there is association between the variables; however, the direction of this association is not known and it is difficult to predict accurately. Without further research, which is replicated and revalidated with other cohorts, causality in the leader behaviour — outcome variable paradigm cannot be argued. Due to time constraints, the research has several limitations. Not all propositions cited in the ‘1996 Theory’ are tested and several other variables are not examined. Finally, recommendations are made for future study, particularly replication with other cohorts in the public, private and third sectors to ensure validity. This will help in determining causality with leader behaviour and motivation, satisfaction and performance.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has received considerable attention in the behavioural literature, but not in the tax compliance domain. The key purpose of this study is to determine the influence of selected tax compliance variables on tax compliance behaviour. The secondary objectives are to explore the applicability of the TPB in predicting and explaining tax compliance behaviour, and to provide justification for the application of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) employing the Partial Least Squares (PLS) statistical software or PLS-Graph (which has not been widely used in tax compliance research). The results provide evidence supporting the use of PLS-Graph in undertaking SEM analysis in tax compliance research, especially when smaller samples are involved and the data collected may not be normally distributed. This study also demonstrated the wide applicability of the TPB, including its application in tax compliance research. This study modified and extended the standard TPB behavioural model with the inclusion of a number of economic and noneconomic constructs. Most of the constructs used for this study are grounded in a number of theories: Deterrence Theory; Procedural Justice Theory; and Motivational Posturing Theory; in addition to the TPB. Data to test the research hypotheses was collected using a mail and a web-based survey. The results of this study suggest that noneconomic variables, such as beliefs and attitudes, are good predictors of tax compliance behaviour. Consistent with the majority of studies, the most influential factor in predicting and explaining tax compliance behaviour (through the mediating effects of behavioural intention) is attitude towards the behaviour. Other factors such as personal, social and societal norms were also significant predictors of tax compliance behaviour. Perceived behavioural control was only significant for the taxpayers but not for the tax agents. In contrast, perception of the tax authority was significant for New Zealand tax agents, but not for taxpayers. The results also suggest that tax compliance behaviour is complex, and different determinants of compliance behaviour affects different sub-groups of taxpayers differently. The results lend further support to the literature that indicates that taxpayers are not a homogeneous group. This study also found that taxpayers and tax agents generally perceive tax noncompliance as less serious relative to a number of other similar civil offences. This perception may explain why respondents (from both sample groups) who were penalised for noncompliance felt that the penalties imposed were harsh, unfair and excessive. Overall, the current study illustrates the importance of incorporating noneconomic variables comprising beliefs, attitudes, and norms, with widely used economic variables such as penalties and other enforcement tools, for achieving an optimal compliance strategy.

Sustainability has gained considerable interest from businesses, academics and in the press in the last two decades. However, the existing sustainability literature says little about what banks gain from moving towards sustainable development. Studies on the relationship between sustainability practices and performance in banks are extremely scarce and have produced inconclusive results. This thesis has two major purposes: to investigate the current sustainability practices in the banking sector and to examine the relationship between sustainability and performance in the banking sector. To achieve this, a sustainability model has been developed for the banking sector taking stakeholders’ effects into consideration. Content analysis was employed to collect the necessary data on stakeholder engagement, communication efforts to stakeholders, strategy and sustainability information. Performance data were obtained from the Bankscope database and 483 bank reports for EU & USA banks over the period 2006-2012 were examined. The data were first analysed using descriptive statistics. The main analysis involved bivariate tests and structural equation modelling path analysis. The results indicate that European banks pay more attention and communicate significantly more with different stakeholder groups than American banks. Banks responded to different degrees to stakeholder issues in their sustainability reports. Moreover, the results show that EU banks carry out more sustainability practices than USA banks. The results also show positive relationships between stakeholders’ salience and all aspects of sustainability; stakeholders’ communications and the environmental aspects of sustainability; size and all sustainability aspects except product sociology. The effect of stakeholder salience on sustainability is more significant in European banks pursuing a sustainability strategy while the effects of communications on sustainability are more significant in American banks with a non-sustainability strategy. Size affects sustainability more in banks with a non-sustainability strategy, but no differences were found for the effect of size on sustainability between the two regions. Furthermore, the results show that the environmental aspects of sustainability are not related to the banks’ performance, but a positive association with the social aspects of sustainability was found. This study is the first to develop a sustainability model for the banking sector. Hence, it makes significant contributions to the sustainability literature. It helps improve our understanding of the different dimensions of sustainability, how they are affected by different stakeholders and strategic orientations, and how they affect the performance of banks. The results of this study can help EU and USA banks to direct their efforts to areas that improve their engagement with stakeholders and their own performance.

Many cultural and social psychological studies have been conducted at the societal level and at the individual level and generalised for all members in that society. This ignores the fact that there are many distinctive subgroups with their own subgroup cultures within a society. These subgroup cultures also have an influence on individuals, and need to be explored at an individual level. A survey in both English and Chinese was posted to 1,869 Chinese private equity professionals in the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong and resulted in 376 responses. The survey measured the core values and beliefs of individualism, collectivism, power distance, social axioms, Machiavellianism, Confucianism, and preferred negotiation style for those who have had overseas exposure in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who have not. The theories employed in the study were institutional theory, the resource-based view, and social psychological theories. A partial least squares structural equation model was used to determine relationships. Significant differences between Chinese private equity professionals who have worked or studied in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who had not were found for individualism, vertical collectivism, Machiavellian control and status, three aspects of Confucianism, and also the controlling negotiation style. The model devised can be adapted for other societal subgroups to measure, not just preferred negotiation styles, but other important organizational relationship-dependent factors such as leadership style, decision-making, and trust. The model can be employed to further understand many types of organisations and industries anywhere in the world.

The current thesis presents five studies which consider the structure of normal range human personality as measured by psychometric inventories. The primary aim of the thesis was to develop a hierarchical model of the structure of human personality, which not only encapsulated the content of extant personality inventories, but extended the extant models to better represent the accumulated knowledge in the field of personality research. To do so, the thesis reports on the largest item level exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic investigation of the structure of personality to date. In Study 1, the utility of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the investigation of personality structure was established by conducting dimensionality, structural and invariance analysis of the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, Version 5, using the US Standardization sample. The results clearly demonstrated that confirmatory models of personality inventories can display model fit, and that structures can be identified which are invariant across samples. In Study 2, 1,772 items from the Eugene-Springfield community sample were used to locate 78 unidimensional narrow personality facets, which were both substantively consistent and displayed strong psychometric properties. These 78 facets were then used to identify a second order 11 factor global structure to human personality, the 11+ Model. The 11+ Model was robust over different rotational criteria, and displayed excellent theoretical coverage of the personality sphere. However, confirmatory factor analyses of the 11 factor solution failed to demonstrate model fit. As a result, three further studies were conducted to explore the possible reasons for model misfit. In Study 3, the model fit of the new exploratory 11 factor solution was considered against model fit for extant structures and inventories. The results showed that across modelling strategy, the fit of newly identified structure was comparable to the extant inventories. In Study 4, the claim the model misfit is caused by the inherent complexity in personality was considered through an application of exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM). ESEM has been argued to more adequately represent such complexity. Results suggested that the ESEM framework fails to offer additional information to help resolve the substantive problems in personality research. Finally, in Study 5, the sample size required to reliably estimate single factor confirmatory models, and second order structural models, was investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. The results suggest that samples of over 2000 are required to reliably estimate second order structural parameters in confirmatory factor analytic models. This finding suggests the samples used in much published research to investigate confirmatory structural models of personality inventories may be deficient.

In many developing economies, access to and subsequent utilisation of mainstream financial services act as a barrier to financial inclusion. The merging of financial services and information technology, especially by means of mobile devices, result in consumers being able to make use of financial services at any time and place, thereby overcoming the distribution challenges and subsequent use (Gu, Lee, & Suh, 2009). This research examined the factors influencing the continued use of tech-based financial services post adoption by the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) in South Africa. The research uses the risk-benefit framework to understand usage behaviour focusing on cost, convenience, perceived ease of use and risk (security and operational) as predictor variables. The research makes use of analysed secondary data on 481 low-income individuals using the Structural equation modelling (SEM).The partial least squares structural modelling was utilised to test the hypotheses and relationship between the variables. The findings indicate that perceived benefit has a greater influence on usage than perceived risk. Even though consumers consider both benefit and risk in decision making, the expectation of potential benefits is a greater driver of usage. Convenience, cost and perceived ease of use were found to have significant impacts on usage, with the latter two having the greatest impacts. Perceived risk had a significant but weak impact on usage, with operating risk influencing usage more than security risk. The research recommends that when creating a value proposition for Fintech products, resources should be weighted more towards improving and highlighting those factors that drive the perception of benefit or value added to customers (cheaper, quicker etc.) vs. those that manage a potential risk. Customers are likely to respond positively and increase usage when there is an additional benefit to be derived.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) is carried out with the aim of testing hypotheses on the model of the researcher in a quantitative way, using the sampled data. Although SEM has developed in many aspects over the past few decades, there are still numerous advances which can make SEM an even more powerful technique. We propose representing the nal theoretical SEM by a Bayesian Network (BN), which we would like to call a Probabilistic Structural Equation Model (PSEM). With the PSEM, we can take things a step further and conduct inference by explicitly entering evidence into the network and performing di erent types of inferences. Because the direction of the inference is not an issue, various scenarios can be simulated using the BN. The augmentation of SEM with BN provides signi cant contributions to the eld. Firstly, structural learning can mine data for additional causal information which is not necessarily clear when hypothesising causality from theory. Secondly, the inference ability of the BN provides not only insight as mentioned before, but acts as an interactive tool as the `what-if' analysis is dynamic. / Mini Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Statistics / MCom / Unrestricted

Many cultural and social psychological studies have been conducted at the societal level and at the individual level and generalised for all members in that society. This ignores the fact that there are many distinctive subgroups with their own subgroup cultures within a society. These subgroup cultures also have an influence on individuals, and need to be explored at an individual level. A survey in both English and Chinese was posted to 1,869 Chinese private equity professionals in the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong and resulted in 376 responses. The survey measured the core values and beliefs of individualism, collectivism, power distance, social axioms, Machiavellianism, Confucianism, and preferred negotiation style for those who have had overseas exposure in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who have not. The theories employed in the study were institutional theory, the resource-based view, and social psychological theories. A partial least squares structural equation model was used to determine relationships. Significant differences between Chinese private equity professionals who have worked or studied in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who had not were found for individualism, vertical collectivism, Machiavellian control and status, three aspects of Confucianism, and also the controlling negotiation style. The model devised can be adapted for other societal subgroups to measure, not just preferred negotiation styles, but other important organizational relationship-dependent factors such as leadership style, decision-making, and trust. The model can be employed to further understand many types of organisations and industries anywhere in the world.