Specifically, this study is about the effects of culture, organisational culture and postmodernism on the Olympic Games and the perceptions of Australian Olympic athletes, both past and present and their understanding of the culture of the Olympic Games. The focus of this research examines the culture of the Olympic Games and provides insights into the background of the Games from Australian athlete's perspective. The study explores this theme further in order to understand those areas of culture which Australian athletes rarely get the opportunity to talk about and thereby offers the occasion to open new avenues for research into the culture of organisations, such as the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, the thesis probes into the culture of the Olympic Games using the theoretical structures of Organisational Culture and Postmodernism to provide a better understanding and knowledge base for the discipline. Also, the research reports upon the athlete's perspectives in the light of the two previous theoretical structures. In spite of these previous points, little is known regarding the cultural aspects of the Olympic Games and even less is known of the culture of the Olympic Games from the athletes' perspective. Participants in an Olympic Games - athletes, officials, dignitaries, press, technicians and support personnel all experience the cultural mix of individuals at the Games first hand. However, it would certainly be of importance to understand how athletes communicate and relate to each other and how all participants within the Olympic Games organisation relate and communicate with each other. However, there is a need to acknowledge that politics exists within the Olympic Games and that its existence should be brought out of the background and placed on the agenda so that political action within the Games can be avoided in order that they might function more effectively and at a higher standard. A knowledge of culture and politics and the pitfalls and problems associated with change in the Olympic Games would support the building between individual athletes rather than allow conflict and competition to occur. This implies that, if individuals can work together without having to consider politics, then the system will benefit.

While there is significant interest in the area of learning organisations, research in this field has been fragmented. There is a need for an holistic model of learning organisations and a measurement system that can be used by both researchers and practitioners. This thesis applies Dilemma Theory as a means of meeting this need. An holistic model was developed based on a definition of learning organisations as ones that consciously seek to balance capacities with demands. In seeking this balance, an organisation will undertake a learning journey in which it encounters a variety of learning dilemmas: points where it must choose between alternative approaches to learning, each of which is attractive. In making these choices, learning-related values are established in the organisation. These values are the basis for a "learning culture" which shapes the way learning is understood and approached by the organisational community. Presenting people within an organisation with learning-related dilemmas allows learning cultures to be charted, thus providing the basis for a measurement system. Fifteen learning-related dilemmas were identified using three processes. Firstly, literature on learning organisations was reviewed to identify conflicts between metaphors used to explain the learning organisation. Secondly, a group of New Zealand consultants took part in a Delphi Technique process, in which they established criteria for identifying learning organisations and surfaced dilemmas embedded in the criteria. Finally, 'Culture Exploration Workshops' were conducted in three organisations to surface dilemmas experienced by business practitioners engaged in learning journeys. The 15 dilemmas identified were used to chart differences between 5 organisations. The measurement system was successful in identifying differences between organisations. Results were also consistent with values that might be expected from sub-cultures represented in the sample. The study concluded by outlining a programme of research aimed at refining the measurement system and applying it to the study of learning organisations.

While there is significant interest in the area of learning organisations, research in this field has been fragmented. There is a need for an holistic model of learning organisations and a measurement system that can be used by both researchers and practitioners. This thesis applies Dilemma Theory as a means of meeting this need. An holistic model was developed based on a definition of learning organisations as ones that consciously seek to balance capacities with demands. In seeking this balance, an organisation will undertake a learning journey in which it encounters a variety of learning dilemmas: points where it must choose between alternative approaches to learning, each of which is attractive. In making these choices, learning-related values are established in the organisation. These values are the basis for a "learning culture" which shapes the way learning is understood and approached by the organisational community. Presenting people within an organisation with learning-related dilemmas allows learning cultures to be charted, thus providing the basis for a measurement system. Fifteen learning-related dilemmas were identified using three processes. Firstly, literature on learning organisations was reviewed to identify conflicts between metaphors used to explain the learning organisation. Secondly, a group of New Zealand consultants took part in a Delphi Technique process, in which they established criteria for identifying learning organisations and surfaced dilemmas embedded in the criteria. Finally, 'Culture Exploration Workshops' were conducted in three organisations to surface dilemmas experienced by business practitioners engaged in learning journeys. The 15 dilemmas identified were used to chart differences between 5 organisations. The measurement system was successful in identifying differences between organisations. Results were also consistent with values that might be expected from sub-cultures represented in the sample. The study concluded by outlining a programme of research aimed at refining the measurement system and applying it to the study of learning organisations.

This study seeks to answer the question of what significant barriers are present for women managers in the organisational structure of hotels in Australia and New Zealand that impedes their progress to top management positions. Women seem to be under-represented at senior management levels in hotel companies and this exploratory research endeavoured to find out why this is the case.The research was carried out in conjunction with a major international group represented by more than 30 hotels in both countries. It consisted of an online survey sent to the hotel group's female supervisors and managers and a series of 18 follow up interviews. There was a high response rate to the survey and from respondents wishing to be interviewed. Issues arising from the research included organisational culture, the Old Boy Network, geographical mobility, role models, and the pathway to General Manager.The research concluded that for female managers aspiring to proceed up the career ladder in Australian or New Zealand hotels, it would be difficult for them to combine family life and career in the same manner as their male colleagues. There were also negative aspects of hotel culture and organisational practices that disadvantaged women at various stages of their career life cycle. If hotels companies wish to retain more women, they need to review whether their organisations consist of 'opportunity 'structures' (Scully 2003) or 'inequality regimes' (Acker 2006) for women.

Master of Pharmacy / Medicines are a fundamental healthcare intervention, but the benefits they provide depend entirely on the way in which they are used. This begins with prescribing, a complex task with substantial risks. Systematic evaluation of biomedical factors may be viewed as an essential component of this task, but prescribers also integrate an array of individual, social, cultural, environmental and commercial factors into their prescribing decisions. Furthermore, social and cultural characteristics of the prescriber’s workplace may influence how well prescribing decisions are carried out. Whilst numerous research efforts have helped to construct an in-depth understanding of non-biomedical influences on GP’s prescribing patterns, the characteristics of corresponding sorts of influences in teaching hospitals have not been well determined. In hospitals, supervised medical trainees, registrars and consultants prescribe within the framework of medicines management systems involving nurses, pharmacists and patients. Currently, little is known about whether each of these groups has distinct beliefs, attitudes and values that may affect either prescribing behaviour or how prescribing skills of medical trainees are acquired. The aim of this study was to explore the social and cultural dynamics of prescribing and prescriber training in teaching hospitals. To do this, established qualitative methods were employed. Junior doctors, registrars, consultants, nurses, and pharmacists from two metropolitan teaching hospitals were sampled purposively and invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. A brief questionnaire was used to collect demographic and contextual information. In the interviews, participants were asked about their attitudes towards prescribing, their perceptions of roles and responsibilities, how they communicated prescribing decisions, their perceptions of influences on prescribing, and their perceptions of factors contributing to prescribing errors. Participants were also asked for their opinions on various aspects of new prescriber training. Sampling proceeded until redundancy of themes was established. A pilot study was conducted with one participant from each professional group to optimise the interview schedule, and then using this tool, a further 38 participants were interviewed. In total, eight consultants, eight registrars, nine junior doctors, eleven pharmacists, and seven nurses participated. Using reiterative content analysis of a third of all transcripts, a coding scheme was developed, which was used to label and categorise the remaining transcripts. Categories were further developed and refined. The resultant core themes were cross indexed against the five different health professional types using thematic charts to explore patterns. The main lines of enquiry for this research were mapped, the properties of these categories and interrelationships explored in detail, and a model of the prescribing process was developed. Prescribing at the teaching hospitals was a complex process consisting of multiple steps undertaken by several different health professionals of varying levels of experience from three different health care disciplines. Because of the intricate separation of responsibilities, the operation of the process was highly reliant on the behaviours of each player and their relationships with each other. Key prescribing decisions associated with patient admissions were made, almost exclusively, by medical teams. Prescribing was therefore chiefly characterised by factors influencing the behaviours of the doctors. Their behaviours were influenced by factors relating to their individual characteristics (eg, knowledge, skills, experience); but also by a web of socio-cultural determinants inherent to the environment in which they worked. These factors were related to: the organisational structure of the prescribing process; the knowledge characteristics of the doctors; the communication patterns they used; the underlying assumptions they made about prescribing; and the work environment.

Master of Pharmacy / Medicines are a fundamental healthcare intervention, but the benefits they provide depend entirely on the way in which they are used. This begins with prescribing, a complex task with substantial risks. Systematic evaluation of biomedical factors may be viewed as an essential component of this task, but prescribers also integrate an array of individual, social, cultural, environmental and commercial factors into their prescribing decisions. Furthermore, social and cultural characteristics of the prescriber’s workplace may influence how well prescribing decisions are carried out. Whilst numerous research efforts have helped to construct an in-depth understanding of non-biomedical influences on GP’s prescribing patterns, the characteristics of corresponding sorts of influences in teaching hospitals have not been well determined. In hospitals, supervised medical trainees, registrars and consultants prescribe within the framework of medicines management systems involving nurses, pharmacists and patients. Currently, little is known about whether each of these groups has distinct beliefs, attitudes and values that may affect either prescribing behaviour or how prescribing skills of medical trainees are acquired. The aim of this study was to explore the social and cultural dynamics of prescribing and prescriber training in teaching hospitals. To do this, established qualitative methods were employed. Junior doctors, registrars, consultants, nurses, and pharmacists from two metropolitan teaching hospitals were sampled purposively and invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. A brief questionnaire was used to collect demographic and contextual information. In the interviews, participants were asked about their attitudes towards prescribing, their perceptions of roles and responsibilities, how they communicated prescribing decisions, their perceptions of influences on prescribing, and their perceptions of factors contributing to prescribing errors. Participants were also asked for their opinions on various aspects of new prescriber training. Sampling proceeded until redundancy of themes was established. A pilot study was conducted with one participant from each professional group to optimise the interview schedule, and then using this tool, a further 38 participants were interviewed. In total, eight consultants, eight registrars, nine junior doctors, eleven pharmacists, and seven nurses participated. Using reiterative content analysis of a third of all transcripts, a coding scheme was developed, which was used to label and categorise the remaining transcripts. Categories were further developed and refined. The resultant core themes were cross indexed against the five different health professional types using thematic charts to explore patterns. The main lines of enquiry for this research were mapped, the properties of these categories and interrelationships explored in detail, and a model of the prescribing process was developed. Prescribing at the teaching hospitals was a complex process consisting of multiple steps undertaken by several different health professionals of varying levels of experience from three different health care disciplines. Because of the intricate separation of responsibilities, the operation of the process was highly reliant on the behaviours of each player and their relationships with each other. Key prescribing decisions associated with patient admissions were made, almost exclusively, by medical teams. Prescribing was therefore chiefly characterised by factors influencing the behaviours of the doctors. Their behaviours were influenced by factors relating to their individual characteristics (eg, knowledge, skills, experience); but also by a web of socio-cultural determinants inherent to the environment in which they worked. These factors were related to: the organisational structure of the prescribing process; the knowledge characteristics of the doctors; the communication patterns they used; the underlying assumptions they made about prescribing; and the work environment.

<p>Increasing competitions in the markets, companies are tending to acquire different potential competitive advantages. Cost-effective ways of doing business have been deeply underpinned in every leader’s minds. However, the problem is how to obtain the most cost-effective way to operate business apart from cutting costs or other strategies which only focus on short-term measures. Nowadays, employees’ creativity are claimed to be highly valuable for the organisation to become successful and sustainable. Since, we are interested in what kind of organisational structure, culture and working environment would have positive influence on employees’ creativity at work, how those working qualities are able for employees to increase their capability on creativity; and also the constraints of those working environment on employees’ creativity will also be discussed.</p><p>To have a better understanding of our research area, a single case study is introduced as a tool helping us to get to know more about the real life and in a practical perspective. Since, a Swedish company has been chosen as our case study here.</p><p>In order to reach the purpose of our study, our research questions focused on what factors in the organisation and what characteristics of leadership styles can beneficial to employees’ creativity, and the constraints of the organisation for the employees’ creativity.</p><p>Based on our frame of reference and our research questions, we investigated the relevant literatures for our better understanding of the research area. It is also used as a guide for us to collecting data. We used qualitative single case study as our approach to acquire data and interviews were conducted with the IKEA managers.</p><p>A qualitative inquiry method is used, entailing in-depth interviews with four employees of IKEA with different types of positions and departments. The results show that their impression and experience of the company vary in some aspects, as different positions might perceive differently.</p>

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the manner in which the concept of communication is discursively constructed in a South African insurance company. The company recently underwent a merger which, according to the literature, should increase its awareness of communicative practices. The thesis builds on recent theoretical developments in organisational studies, more specifically, the linguistic turn. The focus falls on the way in which organisational communication is constructed by implementing the analytical tools of thematic analysis and discourse analysis. All of the participants in this study were involved with the merger that the company underwent. The sample of twenty-three participants included eighteen employees who took part in an electronic survey questionnaire and five employees who were individually interviewed. Additionally, documents concerning the merger were analysed to reveal the way in which the company’s organisational communication is constructed by managers. During the data collection, participants were questioned about their perspectives of organisational communication and organisational culture with regard to the merger. The data strongly shows that communication is generally not considered an important aspect in an organisation during the merging process. Interestingly, when participants’ attention is, however, drawn to specifically the concept of communication, a mechanistic view of communication is presented with only selected communicative practices considered as ‘communication’. The analysis further indicates changing communicative practices in the newly merged company. In conclusion, this study argues that organisations, especially in a merging context, can benefit from a greater awareness regarding the importance of organisational communication. Further linguistic research in the form of organisational studies in this regard is suggested. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek die wyse waarop die konsep van kommunikasie deur diskoers gekonstrueer word in ʼn Suid-Afrikaanse versekeringsmaatskappy. Hierdie organisasie het onlangs ʼn amalgameringsproses ondergaan wat volgens die literatuur behoort te lei tot ʼn toename in bewustheid van kommunikatiewe praktyke en veroorsaak dat die konteks ʼn kardinale element in die navorsing is. Hierdie tesis bou op onlangse teoretiese ontwikkelings in organisatoriese studies, met ‘n spesifieke fokus op diskoers en taal (die ‘linguistic turn’). Die fokus val op die manier waarop organisatoriese kommunikasie gekonstrueer word deur die analitiese metodes van tematiese analise en diskoersanalise te implementeer. Al die deelnemers in hierdie studie was betrokke by die amalgamering van die maatskappy. Die steekproef van drie-en-twintig deelnemers sluit agtien werknemers in wat aan die elektroniese opname deelgeneem het en vyf werknemers waarmee individuele onderhoude gevoer is. Dokumente aangaande die amalgamering is addisioneel geanaliseer om sodoende die wyse waarop die maatskappy se organisatoriese kommunikasie gekonstrueer word deur bestuurders, aan die lig te bring. Gedurende die data-insameling is deelnemers ondervra aangaande hulle perspektiewe op organisatoriese kommunikasie en organisatoriese kultuur ten opsigte van die amalgamering. Die data dui daarop dat kommunikasie oor die algemeen nie beskou word as ʼn belangrike aspek van ʼn organisasie tydens die amalgameringsproses nie. Tog, wanneer die deelnemers se aandag daarop gevestig word en hul gevra word om spesifiek te fokus op die konsep van kommunikasie, word ʼn meganiese uitkyk van kommunikasie voorgestel met slegs geselekteerde kommunikatiewe praktyke wat as ‘kommunikasie’ beskou word. Die analise lig verder die idee van veranderlike kommunikatiewe praktyke in die nuwe geamalgameerde maatskappy uit. Ter opsomming voer hierdie studie aan dat organisasies, veral in ʼn amalgameringskonteks, baat kan vind by ʼn groter bewustheid omtrent die belangrikheid van organisatoriese kommunikasie. Verdere linguistiese navorsing in organisatoriese studies in hierdie verband word voorgestel.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / The functions of management and leadership are not new to the business fraternity. Whilst these functions are as pervasive and ubiquitous as the corporate organizations themselves, the same cannot be said of the organizational successes emanating from these functions. These functions have been cited throughout literature as pivotal in the successful running of businesses. By the same token, they have also been cited as the major causes of failed businesses within the corporate landscape. This has been established throughout small and big organizations alike. This unfortunate phenomenon has continued to attract significant academic and business research over the years with an overall intent of establishing why it is the case. Whilst there are varied reasons for the successes and failures of most organizations, the quality of both functions of leadership and management seem to take the larger portion of the praise and/or blame. These functions are regarded as key determinants of organizational success and survival into the future. Subsequently, this has culminated in myriad theories, frameworks and approaches around management and leadership as significantly different functions which yield different results in business organizations. At the core of the debate has been that management and leadership functions are different and depending on whether an organization is managed or led determines its future success and overall sustainability. It is therefore the intention of this study to comparatively analyze both functions of management and leadership in as far as they impact organizational sustainability and success. A case study of Jwaneng Diamond Mine in Botswana is used to do this comparative study of the two functions of management and leadership within the Executive team to try and affirm some of the key factors as alluded to within the business landscape. In this comparative study it is noted that whilst management and leadership are two different functions, they are however symbiotic in nature and successful organizations tap into both functions as they develop and build sustainable businesses for the future. The Jwaneng Mine case study showed that in an executive team, it is vital to have a balance between managers (those who provide management capabilities) and leaders (those that provide leadership) if the organization is to be successful going into the future.

The topic of emotional intelligence (EQ) and organisational culture has attracted considerable interest from both academics and practitioners for many years. Much of the interest in the two areas is based on explicit and implicit claims that both leader's emotional intelligence and organisational culture are linked to organisational performance. However, while the links between emotional intelligence and organisational performance and between organisational culture and organisational performance have been examined independently, few studies have investigated the association among the three concepts. This study examines the nature of this relationship and presents empirical evidence that suggests there is a complex relationship between emotional intelligence, organisational culture and organisational performance. The study concludes with implications for theory and practice. / Graduate SBL / D.B.L.