Sustainability indicates one of the core topics among society as well as in current business life. On this account it seems highly important to elaborate further on this crucial issue. This research focuses in particular on the implications of the implementation of Corporate Sustainability on the organizational as well as the private values of the employee. To analyse this issue, both theoretical secondary literature and empirical data from expert interviews was used. The research indicated three core findings. 1.) A unified and globally accepted definition and interpretation of Corporate Sustainability seems to be missing. This led to the understanding that organizations use various different methods and tools during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability. 2.) On the basis of the first finding as well as the theoretical background and empirical input, a framework was drawn which may guide organizations during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability. 3.) On the basis of this framework and the interpretations of scholars and experts it emerged, that the key issue during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability seems to be the corporate culture and values. Therefore, it emerges, that the employee has to take a central or key role within such an attempt, as the organizational culture is defined as the sum of the individual values of the employees. In principle, as found, indicates Corporate Sustainability a rather extensive change process, which has its roots and implications on the employee and their values.

Organizations constantly face the challenge of identifying, adopting and implementing necessary changes in order to stay competitive. An option for executing these changes is to contract an external management consultant with experience and expertise in organizational development. Our aim is to find if and how certain demographic variables of management consultants’ background affect how they identify an organizational development problem. This thesis is focused on management consultants within organizational development, and their responses when presented with a laboratory business simulation. There are limited generalization parallels to other consultancy areas and situations beyond the specific area of organizational development. We conducted a descriptive experimental study with 83 responding management consultants. Participants answered a questionnaire in combination with the presented business simulation, regarding how they identify problems based on their personal background. The data set was compiled statistically and rendered in IBM SPSS. Furthermore the answers were analyzed using multiple regression analysis and single correlation test statistics. We found that Management consultants showed a preference towards external environment as major contributing factor to the problem(s) at hand. Furthermore we found a positive relation to “Age” and “School”, and negative relation to “Work-life experience”. Consequently, management consultants do differ in their problem identification approach based on their personal background. With greater understanding of how management consultant differ, clients and supplier of management consulting services can better align consultants with organizational problem(s), in order to generate better synergy effect.

Private Fachhochschule für Wirtschaft und Technik, Diplomarbeit--Vechta/Diepholz/Oldenburg, 2006.

Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2007 u.d.T.: Fackelmann, Bettina: Spezifika der internen Kommunikation des öffentlichen Sektors und ihre Auswirkungen auf Veränderungsprozesse

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration, Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology, 2008. / Telkom SA, over the last decade and a half, has undergone major change in terms of the manner in which it does business. From being a state-owned company to becoming a para-statal, to being run by foreigners and, finally, being run by local leaders within the company, Telkom SA has transformed as a company. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of change implementation on staff turnover in Telkom SA by reviewing the following key issues: The implementation of change within Telkom SA, benchmarked against international best practices; the communication of change/re-structuring initiatives by management in Telkom SA; the effect of change implementation on staff turnover; and the effect of change implementation on employee morale and retention. The rationale of this study is to allow Telkom SA management to review their current implementation strategy of change management initiatives in Telkom SA. Thereafter, it will provide guidelines for improvements in change implementation for the management of Telkom SA. Staff turnover and employee morale can negatively impact service delivery and financial performance of a company, so these recommendations are aimed at improving service delivery and financial performance. The study was descriptive, cross sectional and quantitative, involving the application of a questionnaire, via e-mail and personal interviews, with a sample of staff from the core planning section in the Network Infrastructure Provisioning division, where a high staff turnover rate existed. The questionnaire focused on assessing the impact of the implementation of change management processes on staff turnover at Telkom SA and was developed from the literature review. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 15 for both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings show that a significant percentage of respondents were v vi dissatisfied with the way management had handled issues related to change implementation, communication, turnover, morale and retention. With this in mind, recommendations on ways to reduce the impact of the key issues on the organisation were made. These included the recommendation of lean methodology in order to deal with the first three key issues, namely, implementation, communication, and turnover. Thereafter the ‘four cores of credibility’ model was recommended to improve employee morale. Finally recommendations were made on ways to improve employee retention. The overarching issue that has come to light is that although management is, to a degree, communicating change implementation, there is a noticeable lack of engagement with employees. The onus, therefore, lies with leadership to lift the levels of engagement with employees, thereby reducing the impact of change implementation on the organisation by increasing the level of transparency in the organisation. Improving communication would lead to improved trust, which would then result in improved employee morale, ultimately leading to a reduction in the staff turnover rate.

The Swaziland Association of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (S ASCCO) has been the focus of this study. It is envisaged that the research undertaken will be used to benchmark the cooperative's current strategy (reorganization) and help identify factors that will lead to a successful reorganization. SASCCO was officially registered as an apex body for all Savings and Credit Cooperatives (Saccos) in 1988 under the Cooperative Act of 1964. SASCCO is at present constructing a multi-million Emalangeni Cooperative Centre that will be wholly funded by its members. Dividends for members are expected to be not less than 12% a year. The cooperative is at its maturity stage. Its grand strategy is joint venturing with other cooperatives. It has further formed partnerships and strategic alliances with both local and international organizations. Its generic strategy is to create, market unique products and services for varied customer groups through differentiation. Its mission statement is "to be a member controlled and owned financial cooperative that establishes financially strong and sound savings and credit cooperative societies by providing them with quality financial, education and technical services in order to improve the socio-economic needs of their members at grass roots level". The management problem is finding a suitable reorganization strategy that will maximise shareholders' wealth and correctly position the Cooperative for the proposed Cooperative Bank. The Cooperative has serious financial problems, operating a poor balance sheet and lacks some key skills. The main objective of the research is, therefore, to analyze, assess and evaluate suitability of the Cooperative's current strategy based on both strategic and financial management views and then recommend a right way to a successful reorganization. A modified model adapted from (Johnson and Scholes, 1999) was used to map the whole study. The main findings centred on the Cooperative's reorganization's strategy and its suitability. Management is clear with the strategic direction. However, the strategy is not implemented and executed very well. SASCCO is capable and has the opportunity to own the largest market share in the financial arena due to the low interest rates it offers. It was concluded that the cooperative suffers because of its imbalanced capital structure and recommended that a suitable optimal capital structure would be found by gearing the cooperative adequately. However, due to the exploratory nature of the study, it was difficult to empirically investigate some of the issues fully. As a result, a further, more representative sample that will be able to generalize the results to the whole population is recommended. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

This study sought to further our understanding of the antecedents of employee perceptions of organisational justice in the context of organisational restructuring. As such, this study focussed on the previously under-researched change management practices of support for downsizing victims and organisational communication quality, and the similarly under-researched organisational justice dimensions of interpersonal and informational justice, while also hypothesising a moderating effect of perceived supervisor support between these two sets of variables. Using an online survey, a total of 234 employees from a large New Zealand organisation in the Education sector were invited to participate in the study, with 71 volunteering to complete the online survey. The results showed no moderating effects of perceived supervisor support, but did show strong, significant main effects of victim support and communication quality on both interpersonal and informational justice. These findings highlight the importance of change management practices in maximising positive outcomes post-restructuring for the organisation and its employees.

This study investigates the social dynamics of a pre-merger process between two tertiary education organisations in Christchurch, New Zealand. An emic/ insider research approach was used as the author was an employee of one of the merging organisations. Primary data was collected through personal observations and unstructured and semi-structured interviews with thirty merger participants consisting of, general and academic staff, management, and one student. Secondary data sources included existing merger literature, organisational communication and change policies, and press articles. The study focused on four aspects of social dynamics: i) use of language, ii) expression of emotions, iii) meaning making, and iv) exit behaviour. The use of language depicted the merger as a battle that felt like a war-zone, while humour was used as a prop and revealed sub-text of negative emotions. Expression of emotions portrayed the intensity of feeling, acted as a lens to process meaning, and heightened the organisational atmosphere. Recipients of the merger such as, staff attributed different meanings to the change than those in charge of the merger did such as, management, which impacted relationships, self-confidence, career direction, and provoked self-assessment. Overall, staff felt excluded from the merger process and as a result exercised a range of exit behaviours including escapism, withholding of effort, disengagement, and defiance. This study suggests that minimising dysfunctional exit behaviour can be achieved through inclusive communication processes, transparent decision-making, and acknowledgement and management of emotions. An inclusive merger structure should provide mechanisms for staff to express emotions as well as integrate roles that enable what is important to staff to be built into the process. Additionally, as mergers are likely to be contested processes, management skill is required to defuse stress and tension, and to resolve conflicts.

Bakgrund: Ledarskap har sedan länge varit ett väl undersökt ämne. På senare tid har forskare dock riktat in sig på ledarskap i förändringar. Organisationer förändras i större utsträckning, än tidigare, då både samhället förändrats och konkurrensen företag emellan ökat radikalt. Problem: Problem som kan uppstå vid organisationsförändringar att personalstyrkan möjligtvis inte håller med om det som ska genomföras, och därför drar åt olika håll. Syfte: Att visa hur en på bästa sätt tacklar förändringar samt motivera de anställda att arbeta framåt så målet till slut uppnås. Metod: För att uppfylla syftet med rapporten har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ studie. I studien ingår både anställda i företag som genomgår förändringar, samt en av de anställdas VD har visat oss de material denne skickade ut till de anställda när dem informerades om förändringen. Slutsats: Den främsta slutsatsen vi kan dra efter att arbetat med denna uppsats, läst litteratur om ämnet och lyssnat på vår intervjuperson samt tittat på Vd:ns video material, är att organisationer är ständigt i förändring. För att kunna konkurrera med andra organisationer inom liknande områden och kraven som ställs från samhället behöver organisationer arbeta med förändringar. Det är inte bara att genomföra förändringar, utan det är en lång och i vissa fall en smärtsam process

Sustainability and corporate responsibility appears to be spoken topics in the business world. Due to this, companies may have to reconsider the way they operate their business. The previous studies within this field are mostly done for large companies and leave SMEs with limited focus. Therefore, this study investigates how SMEs manage their change towards corporate sustainability. The literature used in this study includes theory about change management in general, change management process towards corporate sustainability, and SMEs’ special characters. Based on the knowledge of the existing literature four case companies were investigated and analysed. These chosen SMEs have moved through a successful change process towards sustainable business. The findings revealed that an external pressure such as image, is often the reason for the change. However, when planning and implementing the change, SMEs usually lack knowledge and expertise about sustainability, which hampers the change process. Commitment from employees and especially the management is vital for the change to succeed. Moreover it is crucial that company culture changes in order to complete the change process. Additionally, continuing to evolve is important in order to maintain the change process, and avoid the risk of taking steps back.