Trade unions are juristic entities and volitional associations that have, historically and ideologically, represented the aggregate strength of labour to maximise their effectiveness in their endeavour to fulfil their core responsibilities and principal functions. However, Ceronie (2007) postulates that, in South Africa, there has been a loss of ideological support for unions since the dawn of democracy. The establishment of the democracy had the effect that a huge driving gear to belong to a union was lost. The mandate of trade unions is to, inter alia, protect, maintain, and improve the working conditions of their members. They fulfil this mandate by ensuring that they offer services that meet, if not exceed, members' satisfaction levels. Trade unions ultimately exist to protect both the work- and non-work-related interest of their members, whether these be economic, social, political, or environmental (Venter, 2003). Nel et al. (2005) asseverate that trade unions are membership organisations: They exist because of their members, they are made up of members, they serve their members' interest, and they are governed by their members. That is, they derive their authority and mandate from the members. Therefore, trade union are service providers. They must give employees enough reason to become attracted to them as members and to remain members. Simply put, trade unions, as the embodiment of workers' aspirations, owe a duty of care to their members, and thus should at all times, act in their best interests. Thus, the kind and quality of services offered by trade unions should be perceived by members as sufficient and satisfactory. Highly satisfied and committed union members are more likely to support and participate in trade union activities. Trade unions, like any other organisation that provides services, are faced with challenges of membership decline due to perceived poor services or the lack thereof, and are therefore required to devise remedial measures to mitigate the membership decline. Against the backdrop of the foregoing, the aim of the study was to examine if there is a relationship between the quality of services and benefits offered by unions to their members and member satisfaction. The sample comprised members of the three major unions within the public service of South Africa. Using the quantitative paradigm, primary empirical data were collected by distributing 500 questionnaires, which yielded a 48.9% response rate. Data were analysed using the SPSS Statistics 23 software program. The questionnaire was valid and reliable, with an overall scale reliability coefficient of α = .975. The findings revealed moderate levels of member satisfaction (56%) with low dissatisfaction (16%), and a significantly high participation rate in union activities (61%), and union effectiveness (80%). That is, the findings revealed that members were generally satisfied with their unions' performance. The findings affirm union instrumentality, union effectiveness, and member participation as antecedents of union commitment, and also confirm unions' performance and effectiveness as significant determinants of members' satisfaction with a union. Therefore, in a quest to maintain and/or increase their relevance, trade unions must examine their current services and benefits, in order to determine whether they still meet their members' preferences, and, if not, to develop and provide a new service mix that will not only appeal to unionised members, but will also attract non-unionised workers. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Human Resource Management / PhD / Unrestricted

The efficacy of leadership coaching to improve leader and organizational outcomes cannot be overstated. However, a thorough understanding of some of the inputs and process variables involved in coaching has not been empirically established to date. To address this issue in the leader development and coaching literature, I examined the characteristics of the coaches and the coachees and their relationships with two relational variables potentially involved in coaching relationships (i.e., leader-member exchange and trust). The importance of leadership to work outcomes and leader development is highlighted, followed by a discussion of the specific leader development technique of coaching. The discussion then moves to the relational variables of interest involved in coaching, namely leader-member exchange (LMX) and trust, drawing from research on team and leadership phenomena. Specific inputs (e.g., coach and coachee characteristics) and their impacts on the relationships of interest are discussed. This work focuses on hypotheses in three streams of research: characteristics of coaches and coachees, LMX, and trust. The findings from this research indicate that a coach's experience, specifically operationalized as the activities he or she has experience in, positively predicts LMX, and self-efficacy positively predicts LMX and trust in the coaching relationships. The theoretical and practical implications of this project are noted.

Scrutiny of legislative behaviour of members of parliament (MPs) has a long tradition in Western Europe. Nonetheless, there has been a research gap in the Czech Republic. Thus, the dissertation thesis identifies the most burning and exciting questions and delivers the answers as a collection of to some extent separated but still interconnected studies. To be more specific, I employ quantitative methods of analysis. I deal with the data on all the members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic who held the mandate between 1993 and 2017. Overall, the original and unique dataset consists of 1,518 legislators and their comprehensive parliamentary activity. The results suggest that two main conflicts drive parliamentary politics - the institutional division between ruling parties and opposition, and the ideological left-right socio-economic dimension. Besides this, the thesis shows that both the age and tenure of the MPs noticeably affect their parliamentary activity. While older and more experienced MPs propose more bills, address more speeches and obtain more intra- parliamentary posts than young novices, the latter group focuses on the work outside of the parliament. Next, the gender differences in the parliamentary activity of Czech legislators resemble patterns from...

The goal of this study is to stimulate dialog in the research community around a model of learning linked to leadership in organizations. It is an attempt to integrate various communities of practice and divergent approaches by placing equal emphasis on developing a model of organizational learning as well as on embedding the development process itself into the context of a scientific dialog. A model of how learning in organizations can be conceptualized as a role negotiated between superiors and their subordinates is developed and investigated. The model postulates that individuals in organizations accomplish learning by specializing in certain learning tasks. This specialization is based on role behaviors and resources that constrain or facilitate learning opportunities negotiated in the workplace between subordinates and their superiors. How this learning may be shared to result in organizational learning and implications for theory development are discussed.

This report presents the results of a stratigraphic study of the Worm Creek quartzite, the basal member of the St. Charles formation of Upper Cambrian age. The member is present in the Bear River Range, the Malad Range, and the Promontory Range of Northern Utah and southeastern Idaho. The Worm Creek quartzite was differential as the basal unit of the St. Charles formation by Richardson (1913) and named for its occurrence in Worm Creek Canyon in the Bear River Range, Bear Lake County, Idaho.

The paper uses an impact assessment methodology with ex-ante indicator for free tradeagreement to test the trade of the European Union and countries of the FennoscandianPeninsula included Iceland. By estimates intraregional trade share, regional trade introversionindex and intraregional trade intensity the objective is to evaluate if their trade have any signsfor being natural or unnatural and if this could be because of the trade agreements. Thefoundation in trade theory is that trade should be accomplished by buying (and selling) of thecheapest producer, being neutral in their selection and choosing careful from price is positive.When this requirement does not hold trade could be expensive and therefore negative. Whentrade is conducted by choice and not by “natural roads” it could be biased, trade should befounded by comparative advantage to be positive and considered natural. The study showsthat the European Union free trade agreement have a great capital validity and some smalllevel of bias trade, although this does not mean it is bad, some level of bias trade could behard to avoid being a Union. The Nordic countries shows a biased trade, even though beingmembers of the EU or EES. The conclusion is that it is not possible to determine if the EUtrade agreement is subconsciously developing unnatural trade, but the study shows that somepartners in the union have biased trade. If this is because of the trade agreement is at this levelleft unanswered.

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<p>The literature on how employees conceptualize organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) has not been well integrated. Research on employee conceptualizations of OCB is comprehensively reviewed and a model is proposed linking leader-member exchange (LMX), employee conceptualizations of OCB and supervisory ratings of OCB. I found support for the discriminant validity of three key facets of how employees conceptualize OCB: perceived role breadth, perceived instrumentality of OCB and perceived leader expectations for OCB. These facet conceptualizations mediated the relationship between LMX and OCB. My findings challenge past practices of blurring distinctions among facets of employee conceptualizations of OCB and provide new insights into the process by which LMX influences OCB. Implications for research and for practice are discussed.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)