Bibliography: leaves 119-140.

Includes bibliographical references. / The changing nature of work and an increased global need for organisations to remain competitive in the war for scarce skills and talent has influenced the manner in which organisations manage their talent. Organisations are altering their strategic imperatives to include more effective and highly attractive reward packages that attract top talented employees. As a result this could increase their competitive advantage in the market. Lately however, financial rewards and money is no longer enough to attract, motivate or retain employees. These changes have led organisations to seek out non-financial attraction rewards that are most effective in harnessing top talent. The main objective of this study was to establish which non-financial rewards and what combinations of these rewards were perceived to be most attractive to employees when considering a job offering. A secondary objective was to establish which non-financial rewards were most attractive to various demographic groups namely: gender, race, and age.

Orientation: In order to maintain a competitive advantage, employers need to understand the various factors (antecedents) that are conducive to employee retention and engagement. Social ties is one such factor that is believed to be related to job embeddedness and the intention to quit. Better understanding the role that social ties play in employee engagement and the intention to quit will hopefully aid the development of effective retention strategies. Research Purpose: An empirical study was conducted, within a sample obtained from the pharmaceutical industry, to investigate the relationship between social ties and intention to quit as mediated by job embeddedness. Motivation for the Study: The pharmaceutical industry is experiencing severe skills shortages, particularly in terms of pharmacists. Developing a better understanding of the role that social ties play in employee retention may assist these organisations in putting interventions in place to reduce undesirable voluntary employee turnover. Method: A quantitative research approach was employed to investigate the broad research question i.e. if the relationship between organisational and occupational social ties and intention to quit is mediated by organisational and occupational job embeddedness. A descriptive research design was employed and a questionnaire consisting of 36 items was designed using existing measures, to collect data. The questionnaire was distributed on l in e and convenience sampling was used to collect data across the pharmaceutical industry (n = 524). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlations analyses and multiple regression analysis. Main Findings: Significant negative relationships were found between organisational social ties and intention to quit, and between occupational social ties and intention to quit. It was further found that organisational job embeddedness completely mediated the relationship between organisational social ties and intention to quit. Occupational job embeddedness completely mediated the relationship between occupational social ties and intention to quit. Practical / Managerial Implications: The value of social ties in an organisational setting is an under-researched aspect of employee retention. By developing retention strategies aimed at enhancing organisational ties and by facilitating occupational ties with co-workers, employers may be able to reduce turnover and so retain scarce skills. Contribution: The present study contributes to the current body of social science research as few studies have empirically demonstrated the mediating role of job embeddedness in the relationship between social ties and intention to quit. There is also limited empirical research conducted in South Africa that has investigated the relationships between organisational and occupational social ties, organisational and occupational job embeddedness and intention to quit. These results will hopefully be used to develop more effective retention strategies in the pharmaceutical industry.

This study examined the relationship between work-family enrichment and well-being amongst working fathers in South Africa (N= 242). Convenience sampling was first employed as approval was granted from human resource managers and directors from several organisations in order to survey their employees. Due to a low response rate, snow-ball sampling was then also employed. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the work-family enrichment scale is uni-directional as fathers did not distinguish between the two directions of enrichment. A three dimensional well-being scale measuring: social, emotional and psychological well-being was used to measure well-being of working fathers. Exploratory factor analysis however revealed that the well-being scale is bi-dimensional as fathers did not distinguish between the psychological and emotional well-being subscales. A composite variable called ‘psych-emotional well-being’ was therefore created. Correlation analyses revealed weak to strong correlations between work-family enrichment and both health and work-related well-being. Hierarchical multiple analyses showed that work-family enrichment predicted physical, psych-emotional and social well-being and work-engagement amongst working fathers. Management implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The importance of employee work engagement in modern organisations is evident in the global interest in human capital development. Positive outcomes associated with work engagement, such as job satisfaction and job performance, have been linked to constructs such as psychological capital. Mindfulness is a fairly new construct that has not been widely applied to work settings. Deriving from this lack of application of mindfulness to the work setting, this study sought to expand on the relationship between psychological capital and work engagement through the introduction of mindfulness as a mediator variable. A descriptive cross-sectional study of white-collar workers was conducted in South Africa and Zimbabwe. A survey was distributed to a sample of 203 participants, of which 52% were female and 47% were male. Consistent with previous research, the current study found that psychological capital was a predictor of work engagement, indicating a positive relationship between the constructs. Unique to this study was the result that psychological capital and work engagement both had positive relationships with mindfulness, and that mindfulness partially mediated the relationship between psychological capital and work engagement. This study also found that there were differences in the perceptions of psychological capital between South African and Zimbabwean employees in this sample. The findings of this study indicated the positive benefits that organisations can derive from developing psychological capital and mindfulness in their employees, such as improved work engagement, job satisfaction and organisational success. This study also provided unique contributions that can be investigated in future research.

Students in the future can expect to partake in two life roles as adults: a work role and family role. This study investigated the life role salience of students studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (N = 191) and examined the extent to which their gender role ideology and perceived parental work-family conflict are predictors of life role salience. Regression analysis showed that students with traditional gender role ideologies had greater family role salience and students with egalitarian gender role ideologies had greater work role salience. Further analysis showed that students' family role salience was predicted by the work-family conflict of their same-sex parent. The implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

A Southern African (Zimbabwean) nickel refinery's team-based employee involvement initiative is studied using a qualitative, single case design with the objective of describing, understanding and characterising a Self Directed Work Team's experience in its context. It is found, through a variety of triangulated case study methods, that the selected team's work, and its members' perception of it, have changed significantly from traditional 'foreman supervised' and ' gang-leader driven' organization to relatively informed decision making, objective driven, multi-skilled teamwork. Findings are analysed in the light of international and Southern African literature and case studies of enterprise level, team-based employee involvement in work related decision making. Context considerations, in understanding the team and its potential for self direction were found to be pervasive. The initiative was found to be part of a bundle of complementary interventions that top management perceived to be organizational survival imperatives. Successful implementation was largely limited to the Smelter and Refinery Business Units (BSR Ltd) which were led by a succession of dynamic and committed senior line managers. The failure to diffuse the initiative to the rest of the organization (the organization's mining division) was blamed on the departure of the key sponsor as well as wider corporate and societal systemic constraints. The contextualised study suggests ways of seeing, and possibly going beyond the claimed and real constraints.

Word processed copy. / Includes bibliographical references. / Stress in the South African hospitality industry is an important but neglected topic in the stress literature. This research report investigates the stressors affecting hospitality workers, the consequences of stress amongst hospitality workers and the coping mechanisms that they employ to deal with these stressors.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-80) / Trust is proposed as being a critical determinant of organisational success and stability and has been asserted as contributing to employee wellness (Shaw, 1997). Furthermore, trust has been related to a number of positive outcomes such as employee satisfaction, organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour (Gillespie & Mann, 2004). These findings have stimulated the exploration of how factors such as leadershipstyle and leader emotional intelligence are related to trust in the leader and whether or not organisational context is a moderator of these relationships. Quantitative data was collected from two hospitals in the Western Cape. The current study found that organisational context, in the form of the low- and high-velocity context, did to some extent moderate the relationship between leadership style, leader emotional intelligence and trust in the leader.Transformational leadership and leader emotional intelligence were found to have the strongest correlations with trust in the leader. Furthermore, leader emotional intelligence was found to be the greatest predictor of trust in the leader. In order to cultivate high levels of trust and obtain the aforementioned outcomes, nurse leaders should focus on developing a more transformational leadership style and higher levels of emotional intelligence.

Employee engagement (ENG) is a concern for most organisations as it influences productivity rates and ultimately the financial outcome of an organisation. In order to increase the levels of ENG it is important that organisations identify the antecedents of ENG. There are many antecedents of ENG, for the purposes of this study, the antecedents are: transformational leadership (TFL) and perceived support (PS). It is also important for organisations to gain an understanding of how employee engagement influences employees' intention to quit (ITQ) an organisation. This study is an exploratory attempt to see if firstly, direct relationships exist between the constructs: TFL and ENG; ENG and ITQ; PS and ENG; TFL and PS; TFL and ITQ; PS and ITQ. Secondly, to see if indirect relationships exist between: TFL and ITQ when mediated by ENG and PS and ITQ when mediated by ENG. Pearson's Product Moment correlations, Standard Multiple Regression and partial correlation were used to assess the above propositions. Baron and Kenny's (1986) 3 step process was used to test for mediation. The sample consisted of 43 employees from a financial institution. A significant positive relationship was found between: TFL and ENG; TFL and PS; PS and ENG. A direct negative relationship was found between: ENG and ITQ; TFL and ITQ; PS and ITQ. The TFL-ITQ relationship was found to be completely mediated by ENG. The PS-ITQ relationship was found to be partially mediated by ENG. PS was the only construct that made a unique contribution when predicting ENG and ITQ. Implications include the fact that PS in organisations may be crucial. It not only has a significant contribution to ENG, but to retaining employees as well. If organisations seek to maximise their resources, they need to focus on the implications that PS has on ENG. Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-61).