Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-114). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Mtech(Business Administration)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2001 / The researcher identified an absenteeism problem at the Cape Technikon Library and sees the effect of it on a daily basis. It is a costly and disruptive problem and places unnecessary pressure on staff that are at work. From the outset, companies might not realise the cost of absenteeism until they actually measure it. Absenteeism of other staff members create various problems such as low morale, increased stress, break in team work, etc. between the staff that are at work. To reduce the absenteeism rate, certain measures and control systems should be put in place. Absenteeism can either be addressed by putting a reward system in place or making use of punishment contingencies, or using a combination of both. If staff members see that other staff members get away with excessive absenteeism, they will soon follow. Within the context of the Cape Technikon Library, a culture of absenteeism has been created and it is not easy to break that culture. This study considered possible reasons for the absenteeism as well as possible solutions. To improve productivity and cost-effectiveness, the Gross Absence Rate (GAR) should be less than 3% (Van der Merwe: 1988:25). According to Van der Merwe (1988:25) an absence rate of 10% is extremely serious and any absence rate of more than 5% should be regarded as an indicator of a situation needing further investigation. An absence rate of less than 3% can be regarded as satisfactory, although capable of furtherimprovement. On some days the absenteeism rate at the Cape Technikon Library is approximately 12%.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Imperative changes in the global economy continue to change the complexion of many organisations in their quest to remain competitive. Hitherto, their strive to have sustainable competitive advantage is challenged by factors such as increased competition, market volatility, geographically dispersed operations, customer awareness, raising workforce diversity and stringent regulatory regimes. These factors have driven, and in turn, have been driven by an increasing complexity of products, services and the processes that create value, resulting in changes in the structural and functional dimensions of the organisation. Equally, industry captains and scholars alike acknowledge the shift in value creating assets from the traditional land, labour and capital to intangible assets such as knowledge and information becoming the most important resources an organisation can muster. The combination and integration of intangible assets such as human resources, structural and relational resources have been grouped under the umbrella of intellectual capital. This study sheds light on the unique variables which accelerate intellectual capital as leverage for optimising competitive advantage and collates them with the case study findings of the research conducted at an international oil and gas company headquartered in South Africa. These variables include human capital attributes, such as competencies, tacit knowledge or experience, communities of practice, and competitive intelligence; relational capital attributes such as brand, customer loyalty, corporate social responsibility, and partnerships or joint ventures; and structural capital attributes such as corporate culture, leadership philosophy, and technology or systems. The research design follows a case study approach and applies the method of content analysis of annual reports and of analysing the content of the oil and gas company, Sasol's, four-year annual reports to establish the disclosure of intellectual capital. In conclusion, this study finds that the realisation of sustainable competitive advantage for any organisation, particularly blue chip companies like Sasol, is the choice to implement a unique wealth-creating strategy, namely leveraging its intellectual capital. This study highlights that intellectual capital has the potential to offer companies sustainable long-term benefits through intangible assets that are inimitable, that is, current and potential competitors would not be able to duplicate of imitate.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Michael R. Langemeier / The objective of this thesis is to examine differences in labor efficiency and to find what is driving those differences among Kansas farms. The results provide a quantified understanding of the variation in labor productivity and labor efficiency relating to three categories of variables: farm characteristics, financial performance, and specialization. This research uses regression estimates from a data set of 1,145 Kansas farms to quantify how farm characteristics are related to labor productivity and labor efficiency. There are two main models. Labor productivity, expressed as value of farm production divided by the number of workers, is regressed on three categories of variables: farm characteristics, financial performance, and specialization. Labor efficiency, expressed as labor costs divided by value of farm production, is also regressed on the same categories of variables. The research found that farm size, managerial ability, and age were the most influential and significant variables in the labor productivity model. Farm size, managerial ability, and land tenure were the most influential and significant variables in the labor efficiency model. Farm size is a variable important to both models, and when evaluated at $100,000 of VFP, labor productivity has a value of 152,122 and a labor efficiency value of 0.271 (all else constant). When evaluated at a VFP of $500,000, labor productivity and labor efficiency improve to values of 217,914 and 0.246, respectively.

M.Ing. / The ability of construction firms to stay solvent largely depends on productivity. Productivity improvement is the key to economic prosperity in the long term. It provides the basis for increasing wages and more prosperous firms. Various methods can be implemented to measure and increase productivity which will result an increased output and efficiency. The aim of this work is to address the methods to be used for labour productivity measurement and improvement in civil engineering context. A case study will be done on a current construction project.

An inquiry was carried out into the effects of involvement in decision-making, related to how to perform a given task, on the productivity of three-man laboratory groups. One of the possible explanations for the wealth of contradictory findings in the literature is that the "motivational" effects of being involved indecision-making and the efficacy of decisions made appear to be two logically separable effects, although both are often treated as one. As a consequence, an attempt was made to control the effectiveness of the strategy used between the two treatment conditions. The theoretical basis for the experiment was McGregor's (I960) adaptation of need theory for the organizational context and Lowin's (1968) analysis of the potential effects of participative decision-making on productivity. The three hypotheses, derived there from, which guided the investigation were: (1) groups involved in decision-making would be more productive than groups which were not; (2) would implement the strategy designed to accomplish the task more faithfully, and; (3) given the choice, subjects in the experiment would choose to perform in a situation in which they were involved in decision-making rather than one in which they were not. The task involved the assembly of matrices from component pieces. The measure of productivity was time to successful completion. Results did not agree with predictions. In all three cases the hypotheses were not confirmed. Additionally productivity and choice results were significant in the opposite direction to that predicted by the experimenter . The experimental procedures, assumptions concerning the nature of the test population and the theory itself were re-examined in an attempt to offer possible explanations for these findings. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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