A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering / The purpose of the study was to investigate ways of providing corporate real estate management services in the South African context. The data collection process started with a pilot study using a questionnaire. A qualitative approach was used with semi-structured interviews of six Corporate Real Estate managers from companies of various industries in Johannesburg in March 2014. The larger organizations prefer to have a formalized Corporate Real Estate unit that is situated at headquarters and have no links with core business. These companies refer to their corporate real estate units as facilities management, property management and workplace management, the actual term “corporate real estate” is not used in South Africa. The companies that have the formalized Corporate Real Estate units own their Corporate Real Estate or are triple net leasing their Corporate Real Estate. Respondent companies prefer to manage strategic aspects in-house and outsource the operational activities, because real estate is not their core business. Some of the respondents did not experience challenges with either outsourcing or in-house management. Respondents that experienced challenges with outsourcing had problems with performance issues, lack of knowledge and experience by service providers, the quality of the service and the lack of performance measurement tools. The challenges experienced with managing in-house included performance issues, lack of accountability from internal staff, lack of flexibility, and lack of skill and experience on the part of internal staff. South African practice may appear to match international best practice; however, more studies might be needed to validate the results. Key words: South Africa, corporate real estate management, outsourcing, in-house management

The ability to understand the individuals that we deal with on a daily basis can give anyone who focuses on this knowledge a competitive advantage in today's business world. In today's fast paced and globally expanding business world, it is critical to explore innovative approaches that will facilitate the process and time it typically takes to establish business relationships. When it is imperative to quickly create a business relationship between individuals that are unknown to each other, identifying the city or region of the individual with whom a relationship is being formed and understanding that culture will help build a common ground which will facilitate and enhance the newly established working relationship. This paper shows how this can be achieved. / by Walter N. Burton. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This dissertation examines how different United States Department of the Interior (USDOI) employees’ perceive fairness and support for diversity. The USDOI is an agency with numerous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) employees who have the opportunity to influence future generations through their STEM internship. Specifically, this dissertation examines the relationship between: (1) the perceived fairness of performance appraisals and the empowerment index, demographic characteristics, satisfaction, accountability and recognition; and (2) the perceived support (or lack thereof) of departmental programs and supervisors to foster diversity in the workforce and the empowerment index and demographic characteristics. This dissertation accomplishes several things. First, it provides a review of literature relating to gender diversity. Second, it provides a brief history of organizations that were created and acts/executive orders that were passed in order to support women in their fight against gender discrimination. Fourth, it provides a review of the USDOI’s recruitment, promotion, and employment policies. Finally, it presents an analysis of how USDOI employees’ perceptions of diversity differ by gender. This inquiry utilizes a theoretical framework based on Thomas and Ely’s (1996) and Selden and Selden’s (2001) four diversity paradigms; “discrimination and fairness,” “access and legitimacy,” “learning and effectiveness,” and “valuing and integrating.” These paradigms suggest that the true benefits of diversity can only be realized in the valuing and integrating paradigm where employees’ individual differences are used for the betterment of the organization. It is found that women tend not to perceive that their organization supports diversity. It is also found that the empowerment index, federal tenure, pay category, satisfaction, accountability and recognition are important in explaining employees’ perceptions of fairness and that the empowerment index, federal tenure, supervisory status, gender, and minority status are important in explaining employees’ perceptions of support for diversity. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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The theoretic part of this Thesis tries to point out the position of an organizational culture in the corporate identity of a firm. It describes the most important organizational culture typologies, its elements and instruments, and last but not least explains the modification process concerning the corporate structure. The practical part then offers a view of a certain company regarding the market positioning, functioning and organization. Finally applies the theory onto the current situation in the certain company. The paper proposes and suggests the new possible organizational culture changeover and also recommends also adjustments of hierarchy and job positions in the company.

How can social enterprises harmonise social and commercial value logics? This thesis examines the challenge that social enterprises face to create social and commercial value in an integrated, complementary and harmonious manner. Preliminary research has highlighted that efforts to harmonise these two seemingly opposing value sets, referred to in this thesis as Blended Value Creation (BVC), are on the rise. However, while preliminary research highlights an increased interest in BVC, it also highlights that respective research efforts remain conceptual, scattered and lack consensus. In an attempt to contribute to the study of BVC, this thesis starts by examining and clustering existing works within the social entrepreneurship research domain that discuss BVC within the last fifteen years (see chapter 2). This examination has led to a more synthesised overview of BVC, thus contributing to social enterprise management theory. Having examined BVC from existing theory (in chapter 2), this thesis goes on to contribute to a more applied understanding of BVC by examining four cases of social enterprises in Bangladesh using a grounded theory approach (see chapter 3, 4 and 5). In-depth interviews were conducted with 4 social entrepreneurs for 4 months. Respective field data has helped to further explore the social entrepreneurship process through the lens of organisational identity theory and legitimacy theory. Research has contributed in a number of ways to the social entrepreneurship research domain. Firstly, it proposes a seven-themed framework to aid social enterprises in efforts to embed BVC in their management practices. Secondly, through the application of organisational identity theory, new findings have been unearthed regarding stakeholder management practices for social enterprises. Furthermore, by applying legitimacy theory, this thesis provides novel insights into the relationships that social enterprises form with non-governmental organisations to enhance BVC. Most significantly however, research for this thesis has furthered existing research efforts to understanding a pivotal management challenge for the social entrepreneurship process; harmonising social and commercial value.

Indonesia’s Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (known as BMT Islamic cooperatives; henceforth BMTs), are an important phenomenon in Indonesia due to their rapid growth (i.e. numbers, assets, members) and spread across the nation. BMTs are seen as organisations that fill a gap in the market by catering for small-micro-sized enterprises (SMEs) by which because of their size find it difficult to obtain access to the usual financial intermediaries such as banks. BMTs also have an important social role of contributing to poverty alleviation, since SMEs are perceived as vehicles through which wealth and prosperity can be improved. However, in contrast to what we would expect from organisations espousing Islamic values, in recent years there have been a number of frauds involving BMTs which both socially and economically has had a detrimental effect on society. This contradiction merits examination. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine stakeholders’ perceptions of fraud in BMTs. The research is comprised of three main stages: a critical literature review, an archival media analysis, and semi-structured interviews; followed by an analysis of the findings using stakeholder theory as an analytical tool. The literature is explored on three main issues: corporate governance, non-traditional organisation, and fraud. This research utilises the narrative case study method and content analysis. The narrative case study is adopted to gain in-depth understanding of fraud problems such as rigorous examination of stakeholders (i.e. managers, members, employees, authorities, society). This study finds that the fraud incidents in BMTs as a systematic failure as all stakeholder groups have their responsibilities on these failures. There are overlapping values between micro (individual) values and macro values (especially Islamic and cultural values) which enabled fraud to occur. This study contributes to the theory and literature by emphasises the importance of cultural and religious aspects to the analysis of corporate governance theories. This study also contributes to the practice of BMTs and mutuals by provide relevant insights and guidelines to policymakers and practitioners for the future development of BMT governance in Indonesia, particularly the fraud prevention strategies.

Thesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018. / In today’s world, organisations cannot exist without having information readily available. The protection of information relies not only on technology but also on the behaviour of employees. The failure to institutionalise an information security culture inside an organisation will cause the continued occurrence of security breaches. The aim of the research is to explore how an information security culture can be institutionalised within a petroleum organisation in the Western Cape. The primary research question is posed as follows: “What are the factors affecting the institutionalisation of an information security culture?” To answer the research question, a study was conducted at a petroleum organisation in the Western Cape. A subjectivist ontological and interpretivist epistemological stance has been adopted and an inductive research approach was followed. The research strategy was a case study. Data for this study were gathered through interviews (12 in total) using semi-structured questionnaires. The data collected were transcribed, summarised, and categorised to provide a clear understanding of the data. For this study, twenty-four findings and seven themes were identified. The themes are: i) user awareness training and education; ii) user management; iii) compliance and monitoring; iv) change management; v) process simplification; vi) communication strategy; and vii) top management support. Guidelines are proposed, comprising four primary components. Ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the Ethics committee of CPUT and permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the petroleum organisation. The findings point to collaboration between employees, the Information Security department, and management in order to institute a culture of security inside the organisation.