This study explores what motivates engineers in their early-mid career to change careers. It first establishes the definition of a career change from the perspective of those who have changed careers, and then examines what drives, influences and facilitates a career change, as well as how a career change is enacted physically and emotionally. This has been looked at through the contemporary lens of the ‘intelligent career framework’. This research adopted a qualitative, abductive approach following an initial inductive small-scale exploratory study. The fieldwork consisted of a pilot and main study using semi-structured interviews. For the main study, 22 interviews were conducted within one organisation in order to elicit the subjective experiences of engineers who had undertaken a career change. The findings show how the driving factors relate predominantly to knowing-why and knowing-where. The influencing and facilitating factors vary by individual, and relate to knowing-what, knowing-how knowing-when and knowing-whom. Six clusters of interacting factors were observed with knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-when at the core. Whilst the process of career change was complex and long, differing pathways through which individuals changed careers were evident, as well as emotions that needed to be managed. This study contributes to knowledge in the area of contemporary career theory by exploring career change through a new lens: the intelligent career framework. It demonstrates how individuals use their ‘career capital’ to effect a career change and the ways in which the six knowings interact to bring about a career change. It extends the understanding of the process of career change and discovers some of the organisational factors that influence or facilitate individuals making a career change. All of these contributions address identifiable gaps in the literature.

Employee turnover is important to individuals; organizations and society. From an individual’s perspective, turnover can have both potentially positive and negative consequences not just on himself or herself, but also on his or her family members and those who remain with the organization, irrespective of whether they are close associates with the person who has decided to leave the organization. From the organizational perspective, employee turnover can be costly - time and effort on loss recruitment, training, socialization investments, disruption, etc. From the societal perspective, turnover can bring in significant consequences which include mobility and migration to new industries and organizations for economic development. This study focuses on the relationship between one of the antecedents of organizational commitment – group/leader relations and the turnover intention of local marketing officers in securities firms owned by foreign interests in Hong Kong. Various studies have shown that the antecedents of organizational commitment such as personal traits, job characteristics, group and leader relations and company attributes are related to the turnover intention of staff but not much of it has been done in Hong Kong. The primary objective of this study is to propose a parsimonious model to address the issue of employee withdrawal among a sample of marketing executives working in foreign securities firms in Hong Kong SAR. The research design is quantitative in nature, testing various hypotheses on two levels of exchange within organizations - between subordinate and organization and between subordinate and supervisor. Factors involved in the first category of exchange – subordinate/organization are referred to as organizational factors and those in the second category (subordinate/supervisor) as supervisory factors. / These factors were regressed against turnover intention to establish their role in the employee withdrawal process. Organization commitment was then introduced into the model as a mediating variable and results on further regression of the organizational and supervisory factors against turnover intention were noted. Before organizational commitment was introduced as a mediating variable, all the hypotheses with the exception of leader participation were rejected. When organizational commitment was introduced as a mediating variable on the regression of turnover intention on organizational and supervisory constructs, all of the hypotheses with the exception of group cohesiveness and leader participation were rejected. While the results seemed to lend some support to the postulation on the important role played by organizational commitment and group/leader relations in the employee withdrawal process, more studies must be carried out to substantiate the findings. Directions on future study were discussed and managerial implications for both practitioners and researchers were suggested.

This study explores what motivates engineers in their early-mid career to change careers. It first establishes the definition of a career change from the perspective of those who have changed careers, and then examines what drives, influences and facilitates a career change, as well as how a career change is enacted physically and emotionally. This has been looked at through the contemporary lens of the ‘intelligent career framework’. This research adopted a qualitative, abductive approach following an initial inductive small-scale exploratory study. The fieldwork consisted of a pilot and main study using semi-structured interviews. For the main study, 22 interviews were conducted within one organisation in order to elicit the subjective experiences of engineers who had undertaken a career change. The findings show how the driving factors relate predominantly to knowing-why and knowing-where. The influencing and facilitating factors vary by individual, and relate to knowing-what, knowing-how knowing-when and knowing-whom. Six clusters of interacting factors were observed with knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-when at the core. Whilst the process of career change was complex and long, differing pathways through which individuals changed careers were evident, as well as emotions that needed to be managed. This study contributes to knowledge in the area of contemporary career theory by exploring career change through a new lens: the intelligent career framework. It demonstrates how individuals use their ‘career capital’ to effect a career change and the ways in which the six knowings interact to bring about a career change. It extends the understanding of the process of career change and discovers some of the organisational factors that influence or facilitate individuals making a career change. All of these contributions address identifiable gaps in the literature.

Facing global challenges in the knowledge economy, the competitiveness of business organisations has transformed dramatically in recent years. With the increase in the significance of knowledge sharing to organisational growth, a lot of resources have been invested to the management of knowledge via technological applications. In the same line of argument, a wide range of literature has argued for the contribution of employees in the sharing of knowledge. However, there are few literature that discussed the impact of organisational factors on the integration of business processes and knowledge sharing. Given the amount of research on the importance of knowledge management to improve business processes and organisational knowledge, it becomes imperative to develop a clear understanding of the impact of organisational factors on knowledge sharing performance. Therefore, the primary aim of this research is develop and validate a functional knowledge sharing model which can facilitate and enhance organisational performance considering the impact of organisational factors for business-knowledge implementation. A conceptual framework is built based on thorough literature review of knowledge management, organisational factors, performance and in-depth discussion with knowledge experts. The proposed conceptual framework is empirically tested adopting a quantitative method with survey data using over 300 responses from manufacturing and service industries in seven countries across three continents for a comprehensive and balanced view. The data from the survey are analysed by using integrated techniques of both Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The fsQCA phase of this study discussed the comparative impact of organisational factors in the seven countries where survey data were collected and formulated the input and output variables for the measurement of knowledge sharing performance using DEA. With regard to the findings of the empirical research, three main constructs (knowledge sharing, organisational factors and performance) were successfully validated as dimensional constructs. The structural paths support conceptual framework that knowledge sharing has a positive influence on organisational competitive advantage, and organisational factors such as culture has a strong contribution to knowledge sharing performance. However, the direct impact of knowledge sharing on organisational performance is insignificant when key performance indicators are not identified. Various manufacturing and service organisations will potentially benefit from applying the results of this study to their knowledge sharing practices when seeking greater integration of multi business processes with accrued knowledge. The theoretical contribution of this study includes an integrated framework and model for knowledge transformation processes, knowledge sharing processes and knowledge sharing decision making for organisational performance.

Security breaches have attracted attention from corporations and scholars alike. The major organisations are determined to stop security breaches as they are detrimental to their success. Arguably the most common factor contributing to these breaches is employee behaviour, which suggests that changes in employee behaviour can have an impact on improving security. This research aims to study the critical factors (CFs) that impact on employee behaviours toward compliance with their organisation's information security policy. This investigation will focus on the various critical success factors based on their grouping into one of the following three major categories, namely: organisational factors, behavioural factors and training factors. Each of these categories affects a different aspect of information security and the objective is to not only understand the interaction of different factors but also to study further the aims in order to provide practical recommendations for improving organisational information security management. This study has utilised empirical research through the use of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to inform each stage of the research. This study focused on the health, business and education sectors by empirically evaluating the obstacles and success factors that affect employee compliance to organisational security policies. In addition, this study also evaluated the affect of the socio-technical impact on organisational information security management. The final stage of the research focused on developing an effective training and awareness programme. This training programme was constructed by incorporating the techniques that were identified as enhancing employee perceptions, attitudes and motivations, in order to facilitate a better transference of skills and more sustainable and appropriate behaviours to improve organisational information security management in the workplace. The techniques utilised included: effective communication, knowledge reinforcement, pre- and post-assessment and motivational techniques.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the total quality management of the academic administration services’ post–graduate department within the Potchefstroom Campus of the North–West University, in terms of the following: – The implementation of TQM at the University – The organisational profiles of the University – How the organisation’s goals and missions are structured around the needs of its customers – Total Quality Management is a concept generally used throughout organisations providing tertiary education in South Africa. There are, however, some universities that do not use TQM. This study investigates the use of TQM within a tertiary education institution at the post–graduate administration department. The results of the problems experienced through the implementation of TQM are reported in this study. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the total quality management of the academic administration services’ post–graduate department within the Potchefstroom Campus of the North–West University, in terms of the following: – The implementation of TQM at the University – The organisational profiles of the University – How the organisation’s goals and missions are structured around the needs of its customers – Total Quality Management is a concept generally used throughout organisations providing tertiary education in South Africa. There are, however, some universities that do not use TQM. This study investigates the use of TQM within a tertiary education institution at the post–graduate administration department. The results of the problems experienced through the implementation of TQM are reported in this study. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

L'ère industrielle et la formation des premiers systèmes socio-techniques modernes a conduit à l'irruption du risque dans le champ social. Le concept de risque a connu à cette occasion une évolution de son contenu : pensé, avant la Révolution Industrielle, d'un point de vue théologique, la nouveauté du risque industriel a imposé une nouvelle approche scientifique pour en décrire la réalité. D'abord focalisées sur l'aspect technique, les premières approches ont évolué vers une prise en compte des dimensions humaines et organisationnelles des organisations sous la pression de catastrophes majeures. Cette thématique du risque concerne très directement GrDF en raison de la nature dangereuse du gaz naturel. Cette entreprise est une organisation récente mais héritière d'une histoire importante où la volonté de maîtriser et réduire les risques est un élément clé de l'éthique de l'entreprise. Des accidents récents ont cependant souligné l'atteinte d'une asymptote dans ce domaine, suscitant une volonté managériale de changement majeur. Plusieurs démarches ont ainsi été lancées, avec pour point commun l'intégration du paradigme des facteurs humain et organisationnel de la sécurité. Les démarches de renouvellement du retour d'expérience et de création d'un simulateur à destination des responsables opérationnels de l'exploitation du réseau de distribution de gaz font l'objet de ce manuscrit. Les premiers résultats collectés montrent un changement en profondeur des comportements managériaux et de terrain. Cependant, des limites persistent et illustrent le conflit suscité par l'insertion dans une organisation structurée autour des principes de l'organisation scientifique du travail et du paradigme de la sûreté de fonctionnement d'une nouvelle approche de la sécurité. Ce cas d'étude vise ainsi, par la présentation des compromis opérationnels et managériaux observés, à proposer une meilleure compréhension des déterminants de la réussite d'un tel projet dans le cadre d'une opposition forte entre différentes conceptions de la sécurité. / The industrial era and the subsequent development of the first modern socio-technical systems led to the necessity of taking risk into account. This concept, thought before the French Revolution on a theological basis, had to evolve in a more scientific direction. If the technical aspect focused interest at first, the human and organizational dimension had to be integrated, following major accidents. Risk management is a major concern for GrDF due to the nature of natural gas. Created recently, this company inherited a strong preoccupation for the reduction of risks. However, recent events demonstrated the existence of a threshold in this progression. The need for change led to the development of two important projects concerning the learning from past experience process and the formation process. First results show that a major evolution is reshaping managerial and field behaviors. Some perduring limits illustrates however that this change process faces strong resistance from an organization structured around the paradigm of technical safety. This case study first aims at identifying the key factors of success in such a process by developing a better understanding of managerial and operational trade-offs through observation.

Inom en organisation finns det insiders med direkt tillgång till konfidentiell och känslig information. Insiderhot kan antingen vara avsiktliga eller oavsiktliga och båda typerna kan utgöra förödande konsekvenser. Frågan är egentligen hur organisationer ska säkerställa informationssäkerhet när anställda har en daglig tillgång till information. Det som organisationer behöver implementera är särskilda säkerhetsåtgärder. Förebyggande säkerhetsåtgärder kan delas upp som tekniska och administrativa. Denna uppsats har genomfört en systematisk litteraturöversikt med en tematisk analys för att undersöka vad tidigare forskning rekommenderar för administrativa säkerhetsåtgärder för att tackla problemet. Undersökningens slutsatser kommer fram till att avsiktliga och oavsiktliga insiderhot kräver olika typer av säkerhetsåtgärder, samtidigt som en del åtgärder kan förebygga båda problemen. För att förebygga avsiktliga insiderhot behövs det straffande åtgärder som till exempel sanktioner och det behövs en informationssäkerhetskultur som tar i hänsyn till olika teorier. För att förebygga oavsiktliga insiderhot behöver fokus ligga på utbildning, träning och medvetenhet samt tillämpandet av en informationssäkerhetskultur som reducerar stress. Slutligen behövs det en informationssäkerhetspolicy och en kombination av positiva samt negativa incitament, vilket kan förebygga både avsiktliga och oavsiktliga insiderhot.

Various challenges in local government are forcing municipalities to consider alternative models and methodologies of management to deliver services and improve the quality of people’s lives. A literature review of the entrepreneurship field of study confirms the need for entrepreneurship in the public sector, which includes local government, and indicates that it is not only applicable but in fact essential for the public sector to become more entrepreneurial. The research study examines specific individual behavioural and organisational factors that facilitate knowledge creation and enhance the potential of entrepreneurial success in public institutions and local government specifically. The city where the research was conducted implemented alternative operating models and structures by establishing separate utilities and agencies for trading and key service delivery functions, that relate to the concepts of public and corporate entrepreneurship (CE). The research objective was to determine whether the interventions implemented contributed to entrepreneurial knowledge creation, affected managerial behaviour, and had any relationship with the entrepreneurial characteristics and performance of the relevant entities (agencies) and traditional core departments that were maintained. The entrepreneurial performance (intensity), organisational characteristics and key business dimensions as variables related to firm-level entrepreneurial orientation (organisational culture), as well as knowledge creation dimensions (learning styles) of managerial staff, which include the concepts of ‘cognitive analytical propensity’ (CAP) and ‘progressive action propensity’ (PAP), were assessed. The entrepreneurial performance index (EPI) measurement instrument was used to assess the performance of each selected agency and core department. The CAP as well as PAP levels of managerial staff were measured by the Honey and Momford (1992) learning style questionnaire (LSQ). The results indicate that there are no significant variances in the entrepreneurial performance of core departments and independent municipal entities (agencies) of the local government organisation. Significant variances in key business dimensions of core departments and municipal agencies have however been identified, which indicate that the managerial staff regard agencies as being less bureaucratic in terms of resource management practices. Organisational characteristics and ‘Active initiative’ (AI) levels of senior management staff have a positive correlation with entrepreneurial performance, while CAP levels of managerial staff have a negative correlation. These findings have serious and extensive implications for the nature of recruitment, as well as training and development practices to promote entrepreneurship in general and in local government specifically. The primary emphasis that is currently placed on the development of ‘cognitive’ competencies to promote entrepreneurship is subsequently questioned and it is accordingly argued that ‘active initiative’ should be developed instead. The study concludes that the extensive transformation programme that was implemented in the local government organisation, and that resulted in the establishment of independent municipal agencies did not have a significant positive effect on the entrepreneurial and overall performance of organisational units. It is further deduced that the adjustment of structures, operating practices and corporatisation alone are not sufficient to improve entrepreneurial and overall performance and that the primary distinguishing factor might in effect be related to entrepreneurial behaviour, leadership skills and competencies of managerial staff which should be developed. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Business Management / unrestricted