We investigated patterns of power within top management teams (TMTs) by addressing three research questions: What is the shape of TMT power distribution? Is TMT power distribution associated with firm performance? If so, are there distinguishing TMT characteristics between high and low performers? We evaluate these questions using survey data from top managers in 51 hospitals who identified power relationships among their team members. We find that while the CEO is almost always the most powerful TMT member, no teams in our sample have simply a dominant CEO surrounded by powerless team members. We find that the power inequality within a team is positively associated with firm performance. A TMT is more likely to be associated with strong performance when an executive pair garnered most of the power, and when that pair incorporated different world views, as indicated by differences in functional background and industry experience.

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to open up the black boxed TMT process by examining the interaction between TMT members using cognitive and demographic diversity variables, and to see how organisational performance could be affected by the process. By opening the process, a model of the process was developed, which can be tested in further research. The major findings are that there are some aspects that stand out; the CEO and the functional responsibilities that influence the process. Further, the integration within the TMT is not that high, so the upper echelon theory should not be used without considerations on studies where composition is related to organisational performance. These have shown to influence performance in different ways. The functional responsibility has shown to create subgroups that practice problem solving and decision making more frequent than the TMT hence also communicate more.</p>

Corporations nowadays are in a highly accelerated stage, facing an ever-changing environment. It is no longer accomplishable by a one-man team to survive and prosper in such competitive environment. Hambrick & Mason¡¦s upper echelons theory points out that the top management team (TMT) is an organization¡¦s main decision maker, not individuals. The follow-up researches mostly focus on the relationship between TMT and organizational performance, but lack info on the construction of a TMT and its associated operations. It is therefore this research directs its focus towards how, when today¡¦s corporations start to adopt the TMT theory into their strategy, the number of team members, the selection process, member criteria, and the roles and responsibilities, are decided, and what elements will affect the conflicting communication and decision making process. This research is composed by case studies, and the following is a qualitative analysis conclusion of interviews with six corporations and seven senior managers: 1. There is a close-bonding relationship between the construction of TMT and corporation structure, managerial cognition, and corporation size. Mid-level and small corporations usually base their TMT selection on subjective decisions of the owners, while large corporations base TMT selections on protocols, through set channels such as recruitment or promotion. 2. TMT operation is related to corporation structure and owner¡¦s control. The role of TMT on major decision making depends on the owner¡¦s degree of empowerment. Communication between team members tend to be face-to-face communication, and senior management usually see positive conflicts to be of beneficiary value to the organization, while negative conflicts would be controlled under rules and protocols. It is therefore positive conflicts are not avoided, and actually encouraged, to increase innovation in the organization.

The purpose of this thesis was to open up the black boxed TMT process by examining the interaction between TMT members using cognitive and demographic diversity variables, and to see how organisational performance could be affected by the process. By opening the process, a model of the process was developed, which can be tested in further research. The major findings are that there are some aspects that stand out; the CEO and the functional responsibilities that influence the process. Further, the integration within the TMT is not that high, so the upper echelon theory should not be used without considerations on studies where composition is related to organisational performance. These have shown to influence performance in different ways. The functional responsibility has shown to create subgroups that practice problem solving and decision making more frequent than the TMT hence also communicate more.

Despite an abundance of executive turnover research in the context of large public firms, little has focused on top executive change in entrepreneurial settings. This study attempts to develop a foundation of theory and evidence on management team restructuring and executive exit in new venture firms, especially for ventures which eventually go public. Taking a political perspective, the study develops and empirically tests a power model of management team restructuring and executive exit in the pre- and post-IPO periods. A central thesis of this study is that the relative power of the executive cadre shifts as an entrepreneurial firm converts from a private venture to a public company, due to the drastic change in firm political coalition structure and the skill requirements for executives. The change of power distribution among the top executives affects the likelihood of management team restructuring and executive exit. Both firm level and individual level factors were examined. The study also investigates the performance implications of pre-IPO management team restructuring and post-IPO executive exit. Empirical results support the major propositions of the power model. VC prestige was found to have a positive impact on management team restructuring and new executive entry before the IPO. Technical skills are negatively associated with pre-IPO executive exit but positively associated with post-IPO executive exit. The addition of new senior executives in the post-IPO period increases the likelihood of executive exit. In addition, when firm performance is low, adding new outside directors tends to increase the probability of executive exit in the post-IPO stage. The study found that firms that had restructured management teams before the IPO tend to have lower likelihood of executive exit in the post-IPO period. In the post-IPO stage, executives with prior public company managerial experience have a significantly lower likelihood of exit than non-managerial executives. Further, the study found that pre-IPO management team restructuring improves the firm??s pre-money market valuation at the IPO. The exits of managerial executives in the post-IPO period have negative effects on subsequent average ROA. The exits of financial executives negatively affect average shareholder return in the years following the exit events.

This research study seeks to examine the challenges faced by School Management Teams in terms of school safety at schools in the Motetema Circuit. The problem is the disruption of lessons and the number of cases reported to the nearest police station from schools in the Motetema Circuit. Learners and educators tend to be concerned about their safety instead of concentrating on learning and teaching. Local and international articles and other sources were used in the literature review to form the basis of my study. Most of the literature studied reveals that if learners and educators do not feel safe, learning and teaching will not be effective. Learning should be conducted in a safe environment. Well-disciplined schools should be established and programmes should be developed to address school safety. Three schools were sampled in the Motetema Circuit, Greater Sekhukhune District, Limpopo Province in South Africa. Data was collected through interviews, observations and document analysis. At each school SMT members were engaged in focus group interviews for a period of one and half hours. Categories and themes were used to analyse the data collected. In consideration of all the challenges associated with school safety, School Management Teams need to have sufficient knowledge, skills and resources to promote safety at school. Copyright / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree MASTER OF EDUCATION in the Department of Educational Psychology of the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, 1999. / The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the school management team in promoting a culture of teaching and learning. From the literature study it became evident that the culture of teaching and learning in many South African schools has almost disappeared in its entirety. Most of the schools of the former education departments responsible for black education are characterised by a high failure rate, early school dropout, lack of discipline, low morale and an anti-academic attitude amongst teachers as well as learners. To these schools very little has changed since 1994 when the new government came into power. It would appear that a culture of teaching and learning in these schools does not exists. The ongoing turmoil in these schools underscores, inter alia, the failure of school management teams in assuming responsibility for promoting a culture of teaching and learning. Promoting a culture of teaching and learning involves a collaborative act between school management, teachers and learners. Many stakeholders in education seem to be helpless when confronted with problems related to teaching and learning in schools. It often seems as if their hope rests in the initiatives of school management teams to promote a culture of teaching and learning. The members of school management teams, as educational leaders, therefore have a vital role to play in creating a culture of teaching and learning. Although it is generally believed that school management teams, as educational leaders, are responsible for promoting a culture of teaching and learning, the situation is far from satisfactory. The causes for the absence of a culture of teaching and learning can be attributed to factors concerning the learners, factors concerning the school environment, societal factors and problems concerning the homes of learners and their living environment as well as the lack of parental involvement in the formal education of their children. Members of school management teams should have no uncertainties as to their responsibilities as educational leaders. Principals, deputy principals and heads of departments are both educational leaders and managers and their primary task or responsibility is to ensure that effective teaching and learning takes place. For the purpose of the empirical investigation a self structured questionnaire for members of school management teams was utilised. The data obtained from the completed questionnaires were processed and analyzed by means of descriptive statistics. Findings confirmed that the school management team has a significant role to play in promoting a culture of teaching and learning. In conclusion a summary was presented on the findings of the study and the following are some of the recommendations that were made: The members of the school management team must inculculate positive attitudes and values in teachers and learners. All teachers should be governed by a code of conduct that will prohibit unprofessional behaviour. The management team must ensure the adoption of a code of conduct for learners.

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Master of Public Health - MPH / Decentralisation of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) services has resulted in improved access to care, with community-based treatment of MDR-TB shown to be more effective than centralised hospital-based care. Furthermore, increasing bed shortages resulted in the National Department of Health establishing MDR-TB policy guidelines in 2011. However, the extent to which this policy has been implemented by the decentralised MDR- TB sites and the factors influencing implementation of the policy from a management perspective were not well described. The aim of this study was therefore to explore and compare the actual and ascribed roles and responsibilities of key management-level role players at the decentralised MDR-TB sites, and to explore the factors influencing implementation of the MDR-TB decentralisation policy (2011).

Organizations are in today’s business society faced with an increasing number of crises. The knowledge about how to manage a crisis has become an important tool for competitive advantage. The question is no longer if or when an organization will experience a crisis, but rather in what form and how prepared it is when a crisis actually occurs. The many networks of today’s business society make organizations even more vulnerable to the possibility of indirectly being affected by a crisis. This paper focuses on the banking industry as banks form an important part of many business networks. Furthermore, focus is put on the immediate form of a crisis and specifically robberies. The immediate crisis reflects the importance for an organization to be prepared as the immediate crisis by its nature gives little or no warning, following that it is more difficult to prevent these types of crises. The banking industry is often discussed in terms of stability and security whereas the crisis brings instability and uncertainty and challenges the organization’s structure. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how and why crisis management concerning robberies is implemented within a bank organization. This paper looks into the current theories discussed in the literature and the field of crisis management, the authors have chosen a qualitative approach and have performed a number of interviews, both with internal and external parties. Through the research performed the conclusion was drawn that the bank organization is very professional in their handling of crisis management concerning robberies. The bank has identified the importance of having a well prepared plan as a crisis situation such as robbery occur and the policies on crisis management concerning robberies has, for an extensive time period, continuously been processed and developed. The policies developed include all aspects of a crisis, both educational program in the Pre-crisis stage, aspects to consider and how to act when a robbery occurs, and also how the organization responds in the Post-crisis stage. The bank organization has in their approach chosen to a great extent to handle the work with crisis management internally. It was concluded that, since the bank organization has, during an extensive period of time, identified the risk of being robbed as a constantly relevant issue, the policies has been processed and developed repeatedly to cover all aspects of a crisis. The implementation of the policies is in the Pre-crisis and Crisis stage performed without any flexibility as they are explicit in their design and covers every aspect of a crisis. Contrary, the implementation in the Post-crisis stage has a more flexible approach as the Crisis group is working with people that experiences a situation of trauma. It is acknowledged that the bank organization is following the different stages of crisis in their policies, dividing the responsibility of the implementation of crisis management in each and every stage.