The aim of this study was to assess life satisfaction and coping behaviour of orphaned children. The study used a quantitative cross sectional survey research design. The sample comprised 466 participants including both male and female orphans (n= 235) and a control group of non-orphaned (n=231) children selected from primary and secondary schools in Mafikeng.The age of participants ranged from 9 to 16 years. Test of significance including student t- test and chi-test analysis were used to verify the study hypotheses. Results showed that, non-orphaned children report higher levels of life satisfaction and cope better compared to orphaned children. It was also found that gender does not play any significant role in determining life satisfaction and coping of orphaned children. Lastly, satisfaction with life of orphaned children is not dependent on the children's age, however the coping behaviour depends on the age of individuals. Recommendations were made in line with the findings of the study. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.(Clinical Psychology) North-West University, Mafikeng campus, 2013

The aim of this thesis is to study the influence that the human resource allocation process carried out at ALLEGION has over the employee satisfaction level of its employees. ALLEGION is an international manufacturing project-oriented company based in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, which operates with over 8,500 employees. Up until the development of this thesis, ALLEGION had never contemplated the job satisfaction level of its employees as a result of the human resource allocation process carried out in the company. Some studies have previously paid attention to the impact that best practices in human resource management have in employee performance, however, to our knowledge, it has never been discussed how the allocation of the human resources in a company can influence job satisfaction. For this reason, we believe is pertinent to conduct a study focusing on this topic. This thesis is presented as a case study of ALLEGION which follows a qualitative method and an inductive approach, where we as researchers, explored the influence that the current method followed by the company to allocate its human resources to projects has over the job satisfaction level of its employees. The first section of this thesis is dedicated to discuss the background of our research topic and to examine relevant literature focused in the subjects of human resource allocation and employee satisfaction. As part of this section, we encountered that four factors are consistently mentioned in the literature related to these core topics having an intrinsic relationship among them. We found that these factors were utilised by some scholars in the development of models to optimise the human resource allocation process and also during the measurement of employee satisfaction in different contexts. The four factors are: personal qualifications –referring to skills utilisation and expertise–, personal aspirations –referring to career development and personal growth–, group relationships –referring to personal relationships with co-workers and managers–, and finally, personal motivations –referring to job motivations–. At the end of this section we present a theoretical model that summarises our findings and highlights the correlations of the factors we identified from the literature. The central part of this thesis focuses on our practical method which comprised nine interviews with employees and project managers of ALLEGION. Our interviews were aimed to discover the relationship and influence that the human resource allocation process implemented in the company had over the job satisfaction level in its employees respectively. As part of our findings we discovered that four elements were contributors to such influence and simultaneously were related to the findings obtained during our literature review. Based upon these four factors, we drew our conclusions for the study. As a conclusion of this thesis, we found that the human resource allocation process conducted at ALLEGION holds a significant influence in the job satisfaction of its employees working in projects, and that four distinct factors should be taken into consideration during the process that functional managers carry out when they have to allocate their human resources to a certain project. These factors are: skills utilisation, career development, individual relationships of the employees with their co-workers and managers, and finally, job motivations. We concluded that the extent to which these elements are considered as part of the decision-making involved in the human resource allocation process will bring as a result a positive or negative outcome in terms of employee satisfaction among the projects of the organisation.

Published Article / 'n Groot hoeveelheid eiendomsagente het tot die eiendomsagentskapsbedryf toegetree in die laaste paar jaar. Tersel fdertyd het die kliënte se beoordeling van die kwaliteit van dienslewering deur eiendomsagente in die bedryf 'n afwaartse neiging getoon. Hierdie persepsie van swak kwaliteit lei tot 'n negatiewe impak op die bedryf. Navorsing gedurende 2004 het uitgewys dat kliënte in die Bloemfontein streek oor die algemeen nie tevrede is met die gehalte van dienslewering deur eiendomsagente in die bedryf nie. Respondente het sekere areas waar verbeterde hoë vlak dienslewering kan plaasvind, uitgewys. Hierdie navorsing en aanbevelings het dit moontlik gemaak om 'n model te ontwikkel vir die verkryging van maksimale tevredenheid van beide kopers en verkopers. A large number of estate agents entered the real estate industry in the last few years. At the same time the client rating of the quality of services offered by estate agents in the industry followed a downward trend. This perception of poor quality is causing a negative impact on the industry. Research done in 2004 has identified that clients within the Bloemfontein region are generally not satisfied with the level of service delivery by estate agents within the industry. Respondents did identify certain areas that could be improved in order for estate agents to deliver a superior level of service. On the basis of this research and recommendations, it was possible to develop a model of the service delivery that will maximise the satisfaction of both buyers and sellers.

The purpose of the research is to investigate the impact of constant change on the motivation and satisfaction of employees involved in a strategic alliance environment. The conclusions highlighted that employees wholly understand the need for the organisation to change; however, employees note that employee involvement, communication and effective leadership were poorly implemented during the change process. Furthermore, the existence of various sub-cultures led to cultural differences that had an impact on the success of the change initiatives. Despite these challenges, the results showed the motivation and job satisfaction levels of employees were high and employee commitment to the organisation was positive. Employees considered the following as crucial to their support, namely, strong, consistent and inspiring leadership, urgency around decision-making, and honest and frequent communication. The report is concluded with recommendations to assist the organisation in managing future changes. It is recommended the organisation change its culture to one more conducive to change in the strategic direction of the organisation. It is further recommended future organisational change be preceded by explicit and ongoing communication. It is critical managers be fully equipped to handle change management and able to provide strong, inspiring leadership amidst the uncertainties and insecurities that arise when change is implemented.

The purpose of the study is to analyze whether perceived customer service directly related to customer satisfaction regarding the National Alcohol & Liquor Factory (NALF) customers in Addis Ababa. The findings of the study indicated that five service quality dimensions were positively related to overall service quality and are indeed drivers of service quality which in turn has an impact on customer satisfaction. The study findings also indicated that all the standardized coefficients relating the service quality dimensions to overall service quality and to customer satisfaction have the expected positive sign and are statistically significant.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes a model of how to configure settings on instrumentation. For any given instrument there may be 100s of settings that can be set to various values. However, randomly selecting values for each setting is not likely to produce a valid configuration. By "valid" we mean a set of setting values that can be implemented by each instrument. The valid configurations must satisfy a set of dependency rules between the settings and other constraints. The formalization provided allows for identification of different sets of configurations settings under control by different systems and organizations. Similarly, different rule sets are identified. A primary application of this model is in the context of a multi-vendor system especially when including vendors that maintain proprietary rules governing their systems. This thus leads to a discussion of an application user interface (API) between different systems with different rules and settings.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology in the Faculty of Commerce, 2008 / The conditions for doing business are changing rapidly. In the last decade, the resin market has witnessed a substantial growth and rapid changes globally as well as domestically. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the success of any business system, hence, one of the key challenges of this market is how to satisfy and retain their customers. This issue is strongly related to how service quality is managed and which holds a significant importance to customers’ satisfaction and their perceived performance of companies. In order for companies to survive and grow, they must find new ways of thinking, which has led to doing marketing researches, especially those related to customer satisfaction. In this study, the SERVQUAL model was employed to establish the customers’ perceptions versus their expectations of service quality at Cray Valley Resins. Both primary and secondary data were used to inform this particular research. The research was quantitative in nature and conducted in the form of a self-administered survey. The type of study used was the cross-sectional analytical survey method. The summary of the findings reveals that the dimensions with the highest expectation were tangibles followed by responsiveness. Coincidently these two dimensions also had the largest gap scores. The overall mean gap score (-0.326) is relatively small. Thus, it can be concluded that although the customers hold a good opinion of the quality of the services provided, expectations of the services were higher.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Marketing, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / Store layout is an important factor affecting consumer behaviour and a critical determinant towards the creation of store image. Well designed layouts are extremely important because they strongly influence in-store traffic patterns, shopping atmosphere, shopping behaviour, and operational efficiency (Vrechopoulos et al., 2004: 13). When an inconsistency occurs, some consumers will abandon that establishment in search of another one which offers fast, convenient and better services (Andersen, 1997: 118). Taking a more strategic approach to store layout can reap big rewards by boosting sales, increasing customer loyalty and ultimately increasing turnover (Clark, 2003: 42). The overall aim of the study was to ascertain if independent convenience stores in Kwa Mashu are aware of the impact of store layout on purchasing patterns of consumers. In order to accomplish the objectives of the study, a quantitative study was conducted at the convenience stores at Kwa Mashu by means of self-administered questionnaires. A sample of 400 respondents was asked questions pertaining to the study. The respondents were selected through non-probability sampling within which convenience sampling was applied. Conclusions and recommendations were thereafter drawn from the literature and the findings of the study. The results of this study show that consumers experience problems with store layout. It was found that appearance of the store, merchandise display, store atmosphere, instore service and accessibility are the major causes of this discomfort. Therefore, it is recommended that convenience retail owners in Kwa Mashu attend to those areas and see to it that necessary strategies are implemented to help customers where there is a need.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration, Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology, 2008. / This paper examines the issue of job satisfaction within a freight forwarding company. The widespread dissatisfaction coupled with high staff turnover has necessitated a study of this nature. Due to the broad nature of this topic, this study focused specifically on company factors with the intention of determining which of these factors, if at all, were primarily responsible for the dissatisfaction that was prevalent. Company factors, upon which the study was based, were identified to try to assist management understand the full extent of the dissatisfaction. The intention was to identify the specific company factors that were contributing to the dissatisfaction in order to help curb the high level of staff turnover within the company. The study was conducted as staff were leaving at an alarming rate without the necessary steps being taken to address the problem. The methodology that was used was to send out a questionnaire to a broad section of the staff where the company factors were outlined and staff had to rate their level of satisfaction. The results that were obtained outlined which of these company factors contributed to the dissatisfaction that was prevalent. It zoned in on the important issues that needed to be addressed as opposed to addressing issues that were not as important. There were some distinct patterns that were found in the data. None of the factors investigated scored ratings of 4 or 5 (satisfied or highly satisfied) and the results showed a general dissatisfaction within the company. This research is an invaluable source of information not only to this company, but to other freight forwarding companies to prepare them for similar problems that they may encounter within their companies. It is envisaged that companies who take heed of the findings will not experience high levels of dissatisfaction as well as high staff turnover but they would retain their personnel especially their skilled workforce.

Job satisfaction has effects that touch both the employee and employer, these effects include career success, work-family facilitation, turnover intentions, engagement, absenteeism, and quality of work. Having work flexibility measures in the work place can lead to improved job satisfaction. In this dissertation, we study the relationship between work flexibility and job satisfaction through investigating the mediating role of employee empowerment. Building on extant theories, a partial least square structural model is developed to study the relationships between work flexibility, empowerment, and job satisfaction. Perceptions of pay and turnover intentions are included in the model as dependent constructs. The model shows strong links between work flexibility and job satisfaction. Also, it is concluded that empowerment plays an important role in mediating the relationship between work flexibility and job satisfaction. It is observed that empowerment leads to improved perceptions of pay and that improved perceptions of pay together with job satisfaction lead to lower turnover intentions.