La présente thèse a pour objet l'étude de l'appropriation de nouvelles pratiques au sein des organisations. Cette problématique est abordée par le prisme des processus psychologiques développementaux, cognitifs et sociaux en jeu dans le développement des compétences des acteurs. Notre réflexion théorique nous amène à présenter les travaux précurseurs lewiniens, quelques modèles significatifs du changement organisationnel et de l'apprentissage organisationnel, puis un modèle d'analyse des compétences permettant de décrire les schèmes d'activité des acteurs en matière d'invariants opératoires (i.e., ce qui est tenu pour vrai ou pertinent) et de règles d'action (i.e., actions effectrices sur l'environnement). La mise en place d'une série d'études expérimentales nous permet de conclure que le développement des compétences individuelles et collectives est facilité lorsque le dispositif d'apprentissage permet aux acteurs d'associer la conceptualisation des invariants opératoires à la production des règles d'action. Ces résultats sont expliqués principalement au regard du concept piagétien de prise de conscience. Les contributions et limites de la thèse sont finalement discutées. / This thesis focuses on the appropriation of new practices within organizations. This topic is analyzed through the lens of the developmental, cognitive and social psychological processes involved in the development of stakeholders' competencies. Our theoretical discussion presents the Lewinian approach to change management, several significant organizational change and organizational learning models, as well as a model of competencies analysis that breaks down stakeholder's activity schemes into operational invariants (i.e., what is held for true or relevant) and action rules (i.e., actions effecting the environment). A series of experimental studies reveals that the development of individual and collective competencies is facilitated when the learning material allows stakeholders to link the conceptualization of operational invariants to the production of action rules. These results are mostly explained in terms of the Piagetian concept of awareness. The contributions and limits of the thesis are finally discusse

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The public health sector over the years had been under constant criticism for the lack of or substandard service delivery. The post1994 democratic era was accompanied by slogans such as ‘a better life for all ’. These slogans in part stem from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. The Constitution, chapter two, in its discussion on the Bill of Rights states that everyone has the right to quality health care services. The critics argue that the fundamental r right enshrined with in the Constitution in as far as it pertains to healthcare has been violated. The state introduced various interventions, such as human resource capacity development t programs, to turn the dismal state of public health care around. This research focused on the impact and the relevance of the human resource development within the public health sector. The following research question had been formulated to guide the research; is skills development within the state undertaken for compliance sake or is it a focused interventionist approach aimed at improving the skills set of staff to perform effectively and efficiently? The research was qualitative in nature and the case methodology was used. In this regard Tygerberg hospital was used as the case study. A number of findings emanated from the data collection process, amongst other, that the skills development is not workplace specific but rather undertaken for compliance sake. Furthermore, that no individual staff development plans exist. The end result is that the skills development intervention aimed at improving the staff capacity and the state of health service generally is not making any meaningful impact. The major recommendation is that a health audit must be done, which must inform the development of the hospital staff skills development plan. This in turn must be used to develop individual staff f development plans. This alignment of development plans from provincial level to hospitals and then to the individual will result in a more focussed skills intervention and ultimately an improved public health sector.

The overarching purpose of this collected papers dissertation was to examine the experience of being a gay officer in the masculinized industry of law enforcement (LE). In general, in LE careers, gay men are less accepted, perceived as less capable and less masculine, and typecast or pigeonholed into certain roles. Yet, research on the lived experiences of gay male law enforcement officers (LEOs) is scant. This dissertation unfolded across three studies and four collected papers. Study #1, a structured literature review of masculinized industries, supported a forward-looking understanding of what makes an industry masculinized, namely that these industries perpetuate implicit division between heterosexual and gay officers as a form of symbolic privilege and homo-resistance. Study #2, an explanatory and instrumental case study of gay former police officer Mike Verdugo, elucidated the possibility that LE, as a masculinized industry, may inhibit the experiences of gay LEOs by placing a greater value on the perspectives and opinions of heterosexual officers than on those of gay LEOs. Study #3.1, a phenomenology utilizing inductive analysis, articulated five tacit rules of engagement that 12 gay LEOs perceived and followed as a part of a survival consciousness developed to enable them to cope with LE as a heterosexual context that dictates dissimilar experiences across the domains of gender and sexual orientation. Study #3.2, a phenomenology utilizing deductive analysis, was based on Derlega and Grzelak’s (1979) five functions of self-disclosure (expression, self-clarification, social validation, relationship development, and social control). Study #3.2 shed light on some important aspects of the disclosure experiences of the 12 gay LEO participants, among these aspects that coming out is not always an option and that heteronormativity and microagressions limit control over disclosure processes and decisions. Overall, the insights from the data reported across all four collected papers provide clues for human resource and other professionals employed in law enforcement, who wish to be inclusive of gay officers but are not sure how to be so. The studies each provide hints that further understandings of how gay LEOs experience work as frequent exceptions to male privilege and gendered rules on the job.

A theoretical part of the diploma thesis summarizes the current generally accepted theories on a corporate training and human resource development in an organization. The practical part aims to present a subject of enterprise and an organizational structure of a selected multinational company and analyzes its current form of a staff training and personnel work. On the basis of the analysis there are suggested measures that should make the human resource management in the company more efficient.

This phenomenological study explored how West Indian professionals in South Florida perceive their career construction. The study used Savickas’s (2005) theory of career construction as its theoretical framework. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed for 15 West Indian professionals, who self-identified as West Indians and met all the criteria for this study. Interview data were analyzed using inductive, deductive, and comparative analyses. Five themes emerged from the inductive analysis of the data: (a) vocational influences, (b) adjustment challenges, (c) employment patterns, (d) career mobility patterns, and (d) career success perceptions. The theory of career construction guided the deductive analysis. The deductive analysis revealed that both extrinsic and intrinsic influences were equally influential in shaping the participants’ vocational personalities. The deductive analysis also revealed that the participants used three of the career adaptive dimensions: career concern, control, and confidence. Career concern manifested as planning for the future through educational attainment and performing meaningful work. Career control manifested as continuous learning and maintaining secondary careers. Career confidence manifested as self-efficacy expectations, beliefs about one’s ability to perform a behavior that produces desired outcomes. The participants’ life themes or challenges included navigating their identity, starting over, and adjusting to their environment. The comparative analysis revealed that all five themes from the inductive analysis were evident in each of the three tenets of Savickas’s (2005) career construction theory (i.e., vocational personality, career adaptability, and life themes). Career compromises emerged as coping behavior to facilitate the participants’ social and occupational integration. The findings of this study imply that the participants constructed their sense of self in relation to those around them and that their vocational behaviors tend to mobilize and reinforce a mixture of personality and ability. The findings also imply that the participants’ decision-making style and habitual pattern of decision making, may be embedded in their culturally norms, producing a specific cognitive style. Finally, the findings imply that the participants’ career adaptive dimensions were grounded in their attitudes, beliefs, and competencies and overall self-concept. Recommendations for further research are given.

Begreppen organisationskultur och kompetensutvecklingsinsatser är båda väl utforskade ur en organisatorisk aspekt och även dess förankring till varandra. I befintlig litteratur saknas studier som fokuserar på individens synvinkel vilket lett fram till studiens syfte: Att beskriva individens upplevda organisationskultur i två olika organisationer samt förklara hur denna syn påverkar upplevelsen av kompetensutvecklingsinsatser. Detta syfte besvaras med hjälp av två forskningsfrågor: 1. Vilken är individens upplevelse av företagets organisationskultur? 2. Hur påverkar individuell upplevelse av företagets organisationskultur individens upplevelse av kompetensutvecklingsinsatser? Då inga studier med samma individuella perspektiv gjorts tidigare kan resultatet präglas av många faktorer. För att bemöta detta förhåller sig studien induktivt. Genom en kvalitativ metod samt genom semistrukturerade intervjuer på respondenternas arbetsplats har empiri samlats in. Denna data bearbetas sedan med hjälp av ett hermeneutiskt förhållningssätt. Detta leder fram till fyra kategorier som respondenterna valt för att beskriva verksamheternas organisationskulturer. Dessa kategorier är hierarki, relationer med kollegor och chefer, transparens samt organisatoriska mål och milstolpar. Genom vidare analys identifieras fyra teman inom dessa kategorier som tycks prägla individens syn på organisationskultur. Dessa teman används för att besvara studiens första forskningsfråga. De fyra teman är individuell upplevd rangordning, relationers utveckling över tid, graden av öppenhet inom organisationen samt tillgängligheten av organisatoriska och individuella mål. Men hjälp av dessa teman, bakgrunden till studien, förankring till nya teorier samt genom jämförelser skapas en figur. Denna figur bidrar i sin tur till insikt i hur upplevd organisationskultur påverkar upplevelsen av individens kompetensutvecklingsinsatser. / The concepts of organizational culture and human resource development are both well researched from an organizational aspect and also their connection with one another. In existing literature studies with a focus of the individual aspect is missing which has led to the purpose of the study: Describe the individual’s experienced organizational culture in two specific organizations and to explain how this point of view affect the experience of competence development. This purpose is separated into two research questions: 1. What is the individual experience of the culture within the organization? 2. How does the individual experience of the organizational culture affect the individual experienced outcome of human resource development? The lack of earlier similar studies with an individual focus makes it so that many factors can characterize the results. In response to this the study maintains an inductive manner. The data is collected through a qualitative method and through semi-structured interviews at the respondent’s workplace. This data is then processed through a hermeneutic approach. This leads to four categories that the respondents have used to describe their organizational culture. These categories are hierarchy, relationships between employees and manager, transparency and lastly organizational goals and milestones. Through further analysis four other categories are found within the first ones that seems to affect the individual’s view of the organizational culture and thereby answering the study’s first question. These categories are individual experienced rank, relationships development through time, the degree of openness within the organization and lastly the availability of the organization’s goals and milestones. With the help of these categories, background, anchoring with new theories together with comparison between the cases, a new model is created. This model helps to get an understanding of how experienced organizational culture affects the experienced outcome of the individual human resource development.

Coachande ledarskap tillhör det nya ledarskapsparadigmet och då organisationer verkar i en alltmer komplex omvärld har det blivit viktigare för ledare att underlätta för anställdas lärande. Det coachande ledarskapet kan bidra med just lärande och utveckling av medarbetare. Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och få fördjupad förståelse för betydelsen av coachande ledarskap för det individuella lärandet inom organisationen och hur det i sin tur gynnar organisationen utifrån coachande medarbetare och coachande ledares perspektiv. I denna kvalitativa studie genomfördes fem intervjuer, varav tre med coachande ledare och två med coachade medarbetare vid två anonyma företag i Sverige. Av resultatet framkommer bland annat att coachande ledarskap har betydelse för både för kognitivt, emotionellt och färdighetsbaserat lärresultat. En bra relationik är dock en grundläggande förutsättning för det individuella lärandet av det coachande ledarskapet och kan förklaras av de grundläggande behov som finns hos människor av trygghet och sociala relationer. Dessutom tyder resultatet på att ledarskapet och ledarens beteenden och färdigheter samt lärtillfällen har en betydande roll i sammanhanget. Nyttan för organisationen är framförallt, ökad effektivitet, ökade idéer och innovation samt förbättrade prestationer. Hilmarsson (2020) påpekar att ”syftet med det coachande ledarskapet är att skapa en positiv kultur där det finns samarbete, effektivitet och hälsa” (Hilmarsson, 2020, s.17). Till det bör tilläggas att det coachande ledarskap även kan leda till lärande och organizational development (OD) inom organisationer. Denna studie har till största del bekräftat tidigare forskning på området och ger en inblick i coachande ledare och coachade medarbetare upplevelser av det individuella lärandet inom organisationer och hur det kommer organisationer till nytta. Då studiens resultat tyder på att relationik, ledarskap och lärtillfällen samverkar och påverkar varandra och förefaller ha betydelse för det individuella lärandet så bör det finnas en möjlighet att optimera lärandet av det coachande ledarskapet och dess resultat om hänsyn tas till detta. Lärresultatet affektivt lärande förefaller vara en stor del av lärresultatet av coachande ledarskap, medan för coaching förefaller det vara kognitiva lärresultat är en skillnad som studien kastat ytterligare ljus på.

This thesis focusses on the subject of leadership. It describes various leadership styles, considers the personality of a leader and whether or not it is possible to learn to be a good leader. It also addresses the issue of teamwork; what is a team, what are the characteristics of a successful team, and what causes a team to fail in its task. In addition, the thesis also looks at volunteer work; who is a volunteer, what is the volunteer's role in an organization, and what are their needs, and some issues faced in developing human resources. The practical part on this thesis is focussed on Fusion; it describes Fusion's activities, and how it functions in the Czech Republic and abroad. Based on field research, it highlights the needs of Fusion leaders, and proposes the needed leadership training and development to fulfill this need. Key words: Leadership, Teamwork, Volunteering, Human Resource Development, Fusion

South Africa (SA) is undergoing a transformation of governance from apartheid to a new country of inclusion and involvement of previously disenfranchised groups. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is as an official document to guide efforts at nation-building. Human resource development (HRD) is a key component. As used in this study, HRD is broadly conceptualized as the deployment of human resources for the purposes of nation- building in SA. Consequently, an integral part of the program is the role of adult learning in this process. Literature indicates that blacks experience slower rates of moving up the corporate ladder, especially at senior management levels, and therefore they are not represented according to their proportion. Missing is the significant understanding of the experience and perception of black managers themselves. The purpose of this study was to gain some understanding of what black SA managers perceive to be their limited opportunities related to their corporate career. An additional aim was to determine the perceived impact that corporations and government policies, programs and legislation might play in addressing this problem. A survey was employed and descriptive statistics were used to generate data. A sample of 488 black managers listed in the SA Directory of Black Managers and the Executive 200 was surveyed. The results provide an understanding of factors black managers perceived as problems that impact them personally, and also have implications for corporations as well as the implementation of the RDP and therefore nation-building. This study demonstrated that black managers perceive personal, corporate- and government-related factors as serious problems contributing to their lack of corporate career success. These were: lack of work experience; lack of planning for career development of blacks; cronyism; lack of appropriate mentors for black managers; insufficient number of black managers to fill the positions available; their own lack of technical competence; and lack of government enforcement of affirmative action. Additionally, the insight provided by the findings in this study suggest that in a situation where they were experiencing difficulty moving up the corporate ladder, the most likely action black mangers would take would be to leave their companies. / Ph. D.

Abstract The aim of this research analyses municipal economic development capacity, using Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) as a case study. The research report endeavours to find out whether EMM’s Local Economic Development (LED) unit is adequately equipped to implement the Policy Guidelines for Implementing Local Economic Development in South Africa (a draft LED policy). This report argues that municipalities must be well resourced or capacitated to implement local economic development. However, the capacity problem has been a serious challenge in South Africa, particularly on issues of service delivery, nevertheless, studies have not adequately been done in relation to municipal capacity to implement LED. Additionally, this report established an understanding with regard to the role of municipalities in implementing LED. The report also discusses challenges confronting EMM’s LED unit as an institution to promote LED within the metro. However, this report also concludes that EMM’s LED unit is one of the well performing, perhaps resourced municipalities in terms of LED implementation.