Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1976. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-180). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Human resource management advocates consider that obtaining employees' affective commitment to the organisation is an important objective. A key part of this concept is concerned with employees' identification with organisational goals and values. Recent research however, indicates that employers want employees to maintain their commitment levels even though organisations are undergoing periods ofextensive change that impact on many aspects of these goals and values. In the literature, employee commitment is regarded as a stable construct that nothing seems to alter. Despite this, there is increasing evidence to suggest that commitment may change if something in the organisation changes. To date, little research has sought to measure the impact of organisational changes on employee commitment. This study seeks to find out if commitment is altered by organisational changes or if commitment remains constant after the implementation of change. It also examines the impact of a range ofvariables on employees' commitment levels not previously addressed in the literature. The study adopted a cross sectional design. Data was collected by use of both quantitative techniques, (incorporating the British Organisational Commitment Scale or BOCS) and qualitative approaches, in three organisations located in the South East of England. An evaluation of the BOCS' reliability and dimensionality was carried out. In contrast to the literature, an eight item scale was shown to be superior, providing the best fit to the data. BOCS was found to comprise two distinct, but related components, hence the measure is considered bi-dimensional. The study makes several contributions to the literature. In particular, the: process of change (i.e. strategy used by each organisation to elicit organisational changes); antecedents to commitment (i.e. personal and work related variables); extent to which changes are experienced and content of change (i.e. the changes themselves) are all shown to affect the outcomes for individuals' commitment after periods of change in the organisation. Of the changes examined, almost all lead to increased levels ofemployees' self reported commitment. This challenges the claims that suggest commitment is stable and unchangeable. The study also revealed a number of factors lead to increased commitment amongst the workforce after change. These represent employee perceptions of change. Researchers and practitioners will need to focus on these issues in the future when considering commitment if they are to safeguard it after changes in the workplace.

Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management and Information Systems))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015 / The objectives of the study were to explore the extent to which three management characteristics related to organisational entrepreneurship in not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) in Gauteng, as well as the relation between organisational entrepreneurship and the organisational performance. The research was based on a quantitative approach which involved a random sample of 257 NPO managers who responded via a self-administered questionnaire. The research instrument measured management’s commitment to their occupation, management’s continuous education and management ethics, as well as organisational entrepreneurship and organisational performance. Data analysis techniques comprised of structural equation modelling which focused on confirmatory factory analysis to confirm conceptual relations and path model analysis to determine the causal relations between each management characteristics with organisational entrepreneurship, and organisational entrepreneurship with organisational performance. Path analysis results returned significant at the 99% confidence level that management’s continuous education and management’s ethics had strong positive causal relations to organisational entrepreneurship, as well as the positive relation of organisational entrepreneurship with organisational performance. The research noted implications for NPO management teams, including the renovation of business model structures to incorporate continuous learning and constructive risk-taking in order to take advantage of the performance benefits derived from organisational entrepreneurship. The study also recommends further research into potential citizenship bodies for NPO management team to foster commitment to their occupation in the non-profit sector.

Occupational risk management can be a catalyst in generating superior returns for all stakeholders on a sustainable basis. A number of companies in South Africa have implemented Cardinal Rules of Safety adopted from international companies to ensure the safety of their employees. The purpose of this study was to measure the impact of the cardinal rules on employee safety behaviour implemented at power stations in Mpumalanga. The empirical study was done by using a questionnaire as measuring instrument. The questionnaire was developed from a literature review and contains questions and items relevant to the initial research problem. The questionnaire comprised of five–point Likert scale type questions.The convenience sampling method was applied identifying 90 participants at three different power stations in Mpumalanga taking part in the study. Statistical analysis was performed by the Statistical Consulting Service of the North–West University using SPSS. Cronbach’s alpha co–efficients was used to determine the reliability of the factors. Descriptive statistics (Mean, standard, deviation, were used in the compiling of the profile of the results. While Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient was calculated to identify practically significant associations between variables and factors The research findings suggest that there is practical significant correlation between the factors that were measured. The opinion given by respondents suggests that cardinal rules of safety were implemented, given all the necessary support by management and enforced throughout the organisation. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Occupational risk management can be a catalyst in generating superior returns for all stakeholders on a sustainable basis. A number of companies in South Africa have implemented Cardinal Rules of Safety adopted from international companies to ensure the safety of their employees. The purpose of this study was to measure the impact of the cardinal rules on employee safety behaviour implemented at power stations in Mpumalanga. The empirical study was done by using a questionnaire as measuring instrument. The questionnaire was developed from a literature review and contains questions and items relevant to the initial research problem. The questionnaire comprised of five–point Likert scale type questions.The convenience sampling method was applied identifying 90 participants at three different power stations in Mpumalanga taking part in the study. Statistical analysis was performed by the Statistical Consulting Service of the North–West University using SPSS. Cronbach’s alpha co–efficients was used to determine the reliability of the factors. Descriptive statistics (Mean, standard, deviation, were used in the compiling of the profile of the results. While Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient was calculated to identify practically significant associations between variables and factors The research findings suggest that there is practical significant correlation between the factors that were measured. The opinion given by respondents suggests that cardinal rules of safety were implemented, given all the necessary support by management and enforced throughout the organisation. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Top management commitment and employees empowerment is one of the most important and vital principle in total quality management, because it is often assumes to have a strong relationship with customer satisfaction. In TQM implementation top management commitment in creating an organizational climate that empowers employees is very imperative. Thus, this can be achieved with top management commitment in training employees and giving employees opportunities to be responsible for the quality of their work. TQM strategy brings about a turn around in corporate culture as compared to the old traditional system of management in which the top management simply give orders and the employees merely obey them. In this study we’ll show that TQM objective of quality improvement and customer satisfaction can be better achieve if the top management are committed to empower employees to be responsible for the quality of their work and also empowerment in relation to decision making authority and process. We’ll as well show that empowerment in TQM brings about a flattened organizational chart where there is a shared responsibility between the managers and the employees. Despite some arguments put forward by some researchers to criticize employee empowerment, we’ll as well show that employees’ empowerment and improved level of job satisfaction can be facilitated by top management leadership and commitment to the goal of customer satisfaction in TQM organization. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Problem – Lean is a concept used by organizations to become more efficient, thus more competitive. However, it has been documented that only a small portion of all implementations actually succeeds. Research has suggested critical success factors and pointed out top management commitment as being vital for a successful implementation. It is therefore confirmed that without top managers’ involvement, the venture cannot succeed. However, despite existing research on how to succeed, top managers are still lacking commitment which has caused many implementations to fail. Purpose – This study aims to use the side-bet theory of Becker (1960) to explore the phenomena to why top managers’ commitment is vacillating during the implementation of Lean. The research question is; Why is top managers’ commitment not consistent to Lean implementation when regarding their side-bets? Methodology – Data collecting has been qualitative where semi structured interviews have been executed with five top managers of different organizations. Some have succeeded to implement Lean and some have not. The side-bet theory has been used to create a framework for where the empirical data is constrained to. Conclusions – Before and during the implementation, top managers are only committed to a successful implementation if they find themselves having enough penalties associated with a failed implementation. Only when they realize that there exists side-bets and penalties of enough magnitude, their commitment will be consistent and the implementation successful. The side-bets which have shown to be decisive to determine a consistent or deviating commitment are the ones belonging to ‘Generalized cultural expectations’ and ‘Impersonal bureaucratic arrangements’. The penalties associated with these side-bets have been of socially form than economically. Furthermore, these side-bets and penalties have shown to arise when top managers and their organization have made it clear that the Lean venture is of highest priority and any sidestep from it is considered as wrong. Implications – This study has contributed with an understanding of why top manager’s commitment is consistent or deviating during the Lean implementation. Research so far has suggested how top managers’ commitment is deviating and consistent. This study provides the explanation of why. By exploring the answer to why top managers lack commitment, the possibility of ensuring consistent commitment is raised. Referring to Becker (1960) people operates only when they understand why and find value in a certain kind of activity.  Delimitations – The study is only focused on the dimension of continuance commitment. There is a possibility to study other dimensions of commitment in this field of research (i.e. affective and normative commitment).  The findings are based on Swedish top managers, thus using the findings outside Sweden should be proceeded with caution since culture has effect on commitment.

Applying self-determination and conservation of resources theories, our study investigates the additive and interactive effects of management commitment to service quality, customer orientation, and hindrance and challenge stress in the employee engagement process. The role of employee engagement as a central intervening variable that transmits the effects of job resources and demands is critically evaluated. The current work assessed the aforesaid relationships based on data gathered from a time-lagged sample of frontline hotel employees and their direct supervisors using robust maximum likelihood estimation in MPlus 7.4. The findings reveal that management commitment to service quality and customer orientation exert significant impacts on job performance and turnover intentions through employee engagement and hindrance stress. The interaction between management commitment to service quality and customer orientation mitigates both challenge and hindrance stress. Our study provides discussions for theoretical and practical implications.

Yes / We examine corporate inertia towards circularity transition using organisational case studies, observations, and qualitative interviews with business executives. The study explores how the values and beliefs of business leaders and managers promote or inhibit internal and external stakeholder engagement to enable transition to circular business models. We focus on four large UK food companies, conducting interviews with 11 senior managers. Rather than a lack of awareness of the circular economy (CE), the results demonstrate that business leaders are not persuaded by the short-to medium-term business case for a CE. There is misalignment between values and beliefs of business executives and the circularity values and goals of their organisations. The misaligned values and beliefs inhibit relevant stakeholder engagement for transitions to a CE with responsibility shifted to civil society and public institutions. Management commitment to circularity transitions are at best a sophisticated form of circularity greenwashing. The study further suggests a general lack of collective disposition to foster collaborations with sectoral and supply chain partners to engender circularity transitions due to the absence of any standard systems for CE performance indicators. Circularity education and training play a positive mediatory role in changing negative assumptions, including the promotion of managers' engagement with other relevant stakeholders to build synergies and strategies for CE systems. The findings contribute to understanding the dynamics of corporate inertia regarding transitions to CE and highlight the relevance of aligning the personal values and beliefs of top management with organisational, sectoral, and supply chain partners’ values and goals.

Yes / Achieving energy efficiency through adoption of energy management practices remain top priorities among industry. Studies focusing on energy management practices are scarce and this area needs to be focused. Building on the perspective of resource-based view and behavioral theory of corporate governance, the purpose of the study is to develop and test an integrative framework linking manufacturing firm's energy management practices (EMPs) to environmental and financial performance through mediating roles played by energy efficiency and audit. The moderating role played by the top management commitment is further examined. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses alongside Hayes' PROCESS to check moderation effects. Results from a survey of 637 employees working in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Indian manufacturing firms indicate that EMPs result into increased environmental as well as financial performance of the firm. It was also found that energy efficiency mediates the relationship between the adoption of EMPs and environmental performance, amplified by top management commitment. Further, energy audit mediates the effect of EMPs on energy efficiency. The study contributes to offering the new research directions to identify alternatives that monetises environmental concepts such as energy efficiency, leading to higher performance of SMEs. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 20 Dec 2022.