People are without a doubt our most important asset. It is imperative that companies develop their people to unleash their full potential, which will in turn be a benefit to the company. The future of successful, competitive companies will depend on the work force of that company. The context that organisations operate within has undergone a change from a hierarchical structure to one of building of human capital. This means that organisations need leadership as a vehicle to ensure successful empowerment. It is essential that leaders utilise and develop the potential of their people. This study conceptualises empowerment from a psychological and organizational perspective. Empowerment is defined and divided into the categories of leadership empowering behaviour, motivational empowerment (psychological empowerment) and structural empowerment. The psychological perspective measures the four cognitions (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) that provide employees with a sense of empowerment. The objective of this study is to determine the levels of psychological empowerment, leader-empowering behaviour, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Data were gathered from 90 employees of the financial division within a recruitment company. The research results of the empirical study were reported and discussed according to the empirical objectives. The descriptive statistics and the internal consistency of the measuring instruments of the total population were highlighted. Thereafter reliability and validity of the measuring instruments were discussed. A correlation design was applied to determine the relationship between the constructs. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient and factor analysis was determined for the measuring instrument and the Pearson correlation was computed. A regression analysis has been conducted to determine to what extent psychological empowerment and leader empowering behaviour predicts job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Results of the empirical study indicated that differences exist between organizational levels, tenure, age and gender groups in terms of psychological empowerment, leader empowering behaviour, job satisfaction and organisational commitment experienced. Employees reflected a positive experience with regard to psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and organisational commitment whereas leader empowering behaviour is not experienced at a positive level. Recommendations are based on the research results. The implications of psychologically empowered employees for organisations were discussed. The recommendations focus on management and leader development, career development, career counselling, creating a motivational climate, performance and team development. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

The pace of changes in South African education institutions has profound effects on the teachers. Due to internal and external influences teaching is a much more demanding occupation than in the past, with significant consequences for the teacher. All the changes in the education system cause stress. Possible outcomes impacting on the teacher are burnout, work disengagement, job dissatisfaction and organisational commitment. The objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between occupational stress, burnout, job satisfaction, work engagement and organisational commitment of educators on senior level in the Sedibeng West District - Vanderbijlpark. The research method was by means of two separate studies, each consisting of a brief literature overview and an empirical study. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A stratified random sample of educators on senior level in the Sedibeng West District - Vanderbijlpark (N = 140) was used. Six questionnaires were administered, namely, the Maslach Burnout Inventory- General Survey (MBI-GS), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), the ASSET Organisational Stress Screening Tool, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire and a Biographical questionnaire. Statistical analysis was carried out with the help of the SAS-program and Amos. Limitations of the research are discussed, followed by ecommendations for the teaching profession and future research. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Organisations have been under enormous pressure due to the changes that they are constantly faced with. Most organisations have at some stage been involved in restructuring, laying-off of employees, and outsourcing of non-core business activities with the aim of coping with the change process. When organisations go through these changes, they still need to support their employees. They must ensure that the employees' roles are clarified, and that they feel secure in their jobs in order to improve their commitment to the organisation. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between perceived organisational support, role clarity, job insecurity and organisational commitment. Employees from a business unit in a petrochemical organisation were targeted for this research. The study population included employees from managerial, non-managerial and specialist categories. A cross-sectional design was used to achieve the research objectives. Measures of Perceived Organisational Support (POSQ), Role Clarity (RCQ), Job Insecurity (JIQ), Affective Organisational Commitment (OCQ) and a biographical questionnaire were administered for the study. The statistical analysis was carried out with the help of the SPSS program as well as the AMOS program. Pearson product-moment correlations indicated that when perceived organisational support increases, affective organisational commitment and role clarity will also increase. When perceived organisational support increases, role conflict and job insecurity will Vll decrease. Affective organisational commitment as well as role clarity is predicted by perceived organisational support. MANOYA analysis indicated that male employees experience higher levels of role conflict than their female counterparts. It seems that employees in first line management and professional categories experience significantly higher levels of perceived role conflict than employees in lower level positions. Employees in non-management positions experience significantly higher levels of affective job insecurity than employees in senior management positions. Employees in senior management positions experience significantly lower levels of cognitive job insecurity than employees in non-management positions. Recommendations were made for future research. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

The current study aimed to examine whether or not employee perceptions of their organisations corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices impacted upon organisational commitment and intention to stay. Moreover, this research aimed to determine whether or not an individual’s perception of their organisations CSR practices was impacted upon by their preference for CSR. As an initial step, it was essential to determine whether or not individuals had a preference for certain CSR practices. The current study defined CSR in terms of three distinct constructs: environmental CSR, external social CSR and internal social CSR. Environmental CSR encompassed any action undertaken in order to promote environmental sustainability while external social CSR dealt with initiatives aimed at assisting individuals and communities in need. Lastly, internal social CSR was operationalised as the degree to which organisations address social asymmetries with regards to gender, race, sexual orientation and disability. An exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that employee perceptions of CSR do not occur in terms of the three distinct constructs described above. Rather, employee perceptions occur in terms of actions which impact employees within the workplace, labelled internal CSR, and those that are focused outside the organisation, termed external CSR. Employee perceptions of internal CSR are thus concerned with the degree to which organisations adequately address social asymmetries based on gender, race, sexual orientation and disability. Conversely, perceptions of external CSR are concerned with the adequacy of organisational initiatives aimed at environmental sustainability and assisting individuals and communities in need. The results derived from the multiple regression suggests that both internal and external CSR predict organisational commitment ( = 4.92, p < .0001; = 2.64, p = 0.0095 respectively) and intention to stay ( = 0.13, p = 0.0032; = 0.15, p < .0001 respectively). In terms of the strength of the predictions, internal CSR is a moderate predictor while external CSR is a weak predictor of both organisational commitment and intention to stay. With regards to employee preference for CSR practices; results derived from analytic hierarchy process and ward’s minimum variance clustering method demonstrate that the sample, composed of 119 participants, could be split into two clusters. Both clusters demonstrated that external social CSR was the most preferred CSR practice. Results from t-tests demonstrated that employee preference did not impact upon employee perceptions of external CSR ( = 0.10; p = 0.92) and internal CSR ( = 0.25; p = 0.80).

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between self-aspects, sources of workplace satisfaction and types of organisational commitment. This study tested three expectations. The first was that employees with strongly developed relational self-aspects who find satisfaction in workplace relationships with their direct managers and colleagues were likely to experience affective committed towards their organisation. The second was that employees with strongly developed individual selfaspects who find satisfaction in the job itself were likely to experience continuance commitment towards their organisation. The third was that employees with strongly developed collective self-aspects who find satisfaction in the organisation as well as its senior management were likely to experience normative committed towards their organisation. To test these hypotheses, three empirical studies were conducted. In Study 1 respondents (N = 140) were drawn from a large aged care nursing facility. Using separate regression analyses, support was found for the expectation that relational self-aspects would predict satisfaction with colleague relationships and that satisfaction with colleague and manager relationships would predict affective commitment. Support was also found for the expectation that collective self-aspects would predict satisfaction with the organisation and its senior management, however only satisfaction with the organisation was found to predict normative commitment. The expected relationship between individual self-aspects, job satisfaction and continuance commitment was not supported. It was argued that the strong relational nature of the sample and the high percentage (87%) of females within the sample may have influenced the results. Study 2 was designed to reconfirm the expected relationship between sources of workplace satisfaction and types of organisational commitment using a broader sample. Respondents (N = 146; females =86, males = 60) were drawn from four sources; a credit co-op, an adventure based training organisation, a commercial cleaning organisation, and a Graduate School of Business. As expected, satisfaction with colleague relationships was a significant predictor of affective commitment, while a non-significant trend was observed for satisfaction with manager relationships. Some support was found for the expectation that job satisfaction would be a significant predictor of continuance commitment through an observed non-significant trend. Satisfaction with the organisation was a significant predictor of normative commitment, while satisfaction with senior management was not. The influence of gender on these results were also examined and discussed. The purpose of Study 3 was to introduce a newly developed work specific selfaspects scale and test the integrated model that examined the relationship between three types of self-aspects, three sources of workplace satisfaction on three types of organisational commitment. The influence of gender was also examined and discussed. Respondents (N= 119) were drawn from an Australian financial institution. Using standard regression analysis to test the model, it was found that collective work selfaspects together with satisfaction with colleague and manager relationships were the only predictors of affective commitment, while collective work self-aspects together with satisfaction with the organisation were the only predictors of normative commitment. No support was found for the expectation that individual self-aspects together with job satisfaction would significantly predict continuous commitment. The results of this research provided some support for the view that the strength of an employee's self-aspects may determine the type of workplace experiences they are likely to find satisfying. Furthermore, these sources of workplace satisfaction are likely to lead to different forms of organisational commitment. It was argued that the results observed across the three studies may have been influenced by organisational context. It was suggested that further research should sample a broader range of organisations in order to test the validity of the integrated model.

Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2006.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2007.