The present study aimed to explore employee images of organisational culture within a South African organisation. In order to investigate the aim of the present study, the following research question was put forward. What, if any, insights do the images elicited from the employees provide about the culture of the organisation. The present study is classified as a qualitative, non-experimental, and an ex-post facto design. A sample of seven employees from the organisation was interviewed using an explorative technique, which made use of metaphors. The results of the present study indicated that the case study organisation’s culture could be assessed and accessed by means of metaphorical language.

Published Article / The political and social transformation process in South Africa is forcing organisations to avoid the sensitive, unpleasant and potentially volatile behaviour at workplace that can arise when groups or individuals who differ work together or come into close contact with each other. Therefore, management developed a corporate culture which creates an environment that is conducive to performance improvement, shapes the way people act and interact, as a result, this culture influences how things get done. The corporate culture encompasses the organisation's goals, business ethics and dominant ideologies. Based on the results of this study, these cultural changes ought to be driven by the fact that employees respond to the way in which the organisation treats them. The research aims to investigate the impact of organisational culture on the gold mining activities. The impact of organisational culture is demonstrated through a sense of identity and unity of purpose by the members of the organisation, commitment of employees to their work and existence of strategies and programmes which provide guidance on what is expected. The premise is that organisational culture determines socialisation, power relationship, policies and procedures, reward systems, communication systems and ideology, all of which have a significant impact on the day to day experiences of all employees.

This research exposed some of the factors that affected organisational culture and group behaviour in Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) from its inception in 2007 through to 2014, when it became a Bespoke Trading Entity. The factors that were examined included organisationally legitimised personal, social and geographic identity, and linguistic difference and group size. Metaphor was also used by group members to describe the relationship they had with their groups. Group size was another factor that affected group behaviour. Finally, the effects of socio-technical induction and socio-cultural integration were seen to be additional factors that allowed cultural drag to occur within DE&S. The research was an insider ethnographic study that used a qualitative, multi-factorial approach which encompassed 6 years of observations, 124 interviews, and included the analysis of appropriate DE&S policy documents. This thesis is considered to be unique because no research of this nature, or at this level, has been carried out in DE&S, the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) and the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO). In addition, no studies have investigated the organisational culture of DE&S, apart from Kirke (2007a unpublished), Kirke (2010), which was a published article that was informed by that pilot study. The factors that were identified combined to produce both an organisation that possessed multiple organisational cultures and one single ethos which was that of delivering equipment to troops and supporting the troops, described as ‘front-line-first’. There was also an organisational culture that was affected by both the socio-technical and socio-cultural interactions of its members and of unconscious behaviours. All of those factors acted together as a system of interactions, with different factors taking primacy depending on the organisational context, no single factor being consistently more important than any other. The ethos of “front-line-first” was embedded within the DE&S organisational culture as a value which may have been used as a metaphor for the primacy of the overarching organisational culture of supporting the front-line.

The research question underpinning this study is ‘How is learning organised within the context of social work practice in the third sector?’ The research objective is to establish conceptual frameworks that theorise the organisation of learning in this context. Drawing upon literatures from Organisational Behaviour, Management, Social Work, Sociology and Psychology (e.g., Ballew and Mink 1996; Foucault 1995; Mayer and Salovey 1997; Ouchi 1979; Weihrich 1982) and undertaking an ethnographic inquiry in the Old-Five-Old Foundation in Taiwan, which collects documents as secondary data and gathers primary data through participant observations and interviews, this study establishes interdisciplinary frameworks to answer this research question. It argues that practitioners’ learning is organised by five kinds of structuring forces. At the macro level, practitioners’ direction of learning is organised by service purchasers’ demanding (an inter-organisational level structuring force) and the service provider’s planning (an organisational level structuring force). The evaluation of practitioners’ learning is organised by the service provider’s monitoring (an organisational level structuring force). At the micro level, practitioners’ methods of learning are organised by practitioners’ puzzle solving and instructors’ instructing (individual level structuring forces). By looking at the macro and micro structuring forces (cross level analysis) that organise practitioners’ learning, including their direction and methods of learning and the evaluation of their learning (process analysis), this study systematically analyses the organising of learning through both a cross-level analysis and a process analysis, deepening an understanding of the organising of learning and thus making an original contribution to previous studies of learning in the organisational setting (e.g., Argyris and ch n 1978; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Senge 1990; Wenger 1998, 2000).

South Africa had the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in the world in 2012 at 8%. This increased to 32% in 2016 but the progress is still slow. Return to work is one of the main reasons working women stop breastfeeding. A descriptive qualitative research design was used to guide this study, which explored support for workplace breastfeeding. This study focused on a vulnerable group of low-income women working in clothing factories in Cape Town, a female dominated industry in South Africa. The research aimed to develop an improved understanding of breastfeeding support at work for these women. Given South Africa's legacy of colonialism and apartheid, these women are mainly black and poor. High poverty rates in this context often mean that they return to work soon after childbirth because of economic necessity, placing further constraints on breastfeeding. The study's findings confirm that despite legislated maternity protection and breastfeeding breaks, the enforcement of these laws is very low. In investigating the ways low-skilled, low paid women in clothing factories navigate this situation, four key themes emerged: 1) their workplaces are designed for men and machines; 2) they receive limited workplace breastfeeding support; 3) there is a lack of communication and transparency about breastfeeding at work and 4) their social and economic context plays a role in their ability to breastfeed at work. With these findings, low-cost recommendations for improving workplace support for breastfeeding are presented.

This study examined role centrality and gender role ideology as antecedents of workfamily conflict amongst white-collar working fathers in South Africa (N = 369). Crosssectional, self-report survey data was collected. Exploratory factor analysis supported the bidirectional nature of work-family conflict. Interestingly, work and family role centrality did not explain a significant variance in work-family conflict, however hierarchical multiple regression analysis confirmed that when family centrality interacted with gender role ideology a significant variance of both family-to-work conflict and work-to-family conflict was explained. Moreover supporting a cross-domain relationship between family centrality and work-to-family conflict when interacting with gender role ideology. In the absence of variables interacting with gender role ideology, no significant relationship was found between role centrality and work-family conflict. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

It is of theoretical and practical interest to establish the relationship between experienced workplace incivility and stress and experienced workplace incivility and turnover intentions as well as the potential role of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in influencing these relationships. The objective of the study was to explore the negative effects resulting from the experience of workplace incivility and whether employees’ levels of PsyCap reinforce or attenuate the negative effects associated with experiences of uncivil workplace behaviour. A cross-sectional study with a descriptive design was conducted. Data was gathered by means of a survey that was constructed for the purpose of the study. The survey contained the Uncivil Workplace Behaviour Questionnaire (UWBQ), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), a shortened Turnover Intention Scale (TIS-6) and the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ- 24). Convenience sampling was employed to collect data from 271 employees from local organisations, the majority of which were qualified professionals in the Western Cape and Gauteng regions. After removing 83 participants due to incomplete data and a low response rate, descriptive statistics, the non-parametric Spearman’s rho and two separate Moderated Multiple Regression (MMR) analyses were used to analyse the responses of the reduced samples (n = 188 and n = 185). The first MMR revealed extreme cases which prompted their exclusion which, after a secondary MMR, significantly changed the hypothesised relationships. The results showed that employees reported having experienced workplace incivility and that these experiences were related to both higher levels of stress and turnover intentions. PsyCap was found to influence only the experienced workplace incivility-turnover intention relationship with extreme cases. Participants with higher levels of PsyCap reported higher levels of turnover intention as a result of frequent exposure to workplace incivility suggesting that employers should consider appropriate prevention strategies to reduce its occurrence. Additionally, this study shows the importance of understanding a possibly overlooked antecedent (experienced workplace incivility) of stress and turnover intentions in South African organisations.

Bibliography: pages 88-97. / Due to significant shifts in the political, economic and demographic environment the imperatives for change within South African organisations are becoming increasingly more urgent. One strategy that organisations are adopting in the face of increased pressures is to create and maintain diverse workforces. This trend is matched on a global basis and the need to manage diversity has become commonplace. While increased workforce diversity presents a challenge to traditional organisational management it also holds the promise of providing innovative strategies for a changing work environment. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on managing diversity there is a paucity of work on the psychological, experiential aspects of working in a diverse workforce. The principal objective of this research was to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the experience of working in a diversifying workforce. The researched followed a case study approach focusing on the committee section of the South African Parliament. Data were collected from twenty committee clerks through open-ended, in-depth interviews. The data was analysed using qualitative data analysis techniques. Five major themes emerged from the interviews comprising: Confronting a Changing Workplace, Meeting and Engaging with the 'Other', Stimulating Growth and Development, Learnings and Coping Mechanisms. Each theme is made up of a series of sub-themes. The study presents these results in a diagrammatic from and provides an extended discussion of the themes and sub-themes. Analysis of the results demonstrates that working in a diversifying workforce has an enormous impact on the participant's experience of work and the quality of their working lives.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Orientation. The shortage of artisan skills remain a serious challenge in South Africa and is forcing employers to investigate which total reward factors contribute to the attraction and retention of this critical skills segment, as undifferentiated retention strategies are no longer appropriate. Research purpose. The aim of this study was to further develop the understanding of the total reward factors and the ideal combination and relative quantum of total rewards that attract and retain artisans, including artisans from various race groups and age cohorts (cohort 29 and less; cohort 30-39; cohort 40-49; and cohort 50+). Motivation for the study. The shortage of scarce skills, like those experienced in South Africa should not only be seen as comprising occupations from the higher skills bands, but should also include occupations from the intermediate skills bands, that includes artisans. Limited research is available on the total reward factors and the ideal combination and relative quantum of total rewards that attract and retain artisans. Knowing this will allow organisations to develop reward models that better attract and retain artisans. Research Design. The study followed both a quantitative and qualitative research approach while adopting a descriptive research design. Using this mixed method, primary data was collected from individuals by means of two focus groups discussions, i.e (1) a group of HR and Remuneration Managers (n=4) and (2) a group of artisans (n=7). These results were used to develop the two questionnaires that were distributed to artisans (n=143). Data from Questionnaire 1 were analysed using descriptive statistics and factor analyses. Conjoint analysis was employed to identify an ideal total rewards composition based on responses from Questionnaire 2.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-78). / This dissertation focuses on a process evaluation of the City of Cape Town (CoCT) Business Support Voucher Programme (BSVP) which assessed whether this programme was implemented as intended. The BSVP aims to provide access to quality business support services and products to entrepreneurs in order to empower them to develop and grow their businesses. The target beneficiaries of the BSVP are the over 35 year old age group (including women, youth and the disabled) who are potential or start-up entrepreneurs or who own/run existing small businesses. A service utilisation flow chart was used to review the services provided by the allocating agents and the business development service providers. Data providers included the project sponsors, the implementation agent, the allocating agents and a convenience sample of beneficiaries and service providers. Additional materials used included check lists during site visits and a review of records. The findings suggested that whilst the programme was largely implemented as planned, there could be improvements to the definition of the programme targets, the consistency of the implementation across the programme and putting monitoring and reporting systems in place. The dissertation includes selected recommendations for implementation improvement, sustainability and future outcomes and impacts.