The motivation behind this research is the prevalence of challenges and ambiguity associated with successful organizational change and the numerous available approaches in dealing with these challenges and ambiguity. Many definitions and methods have been suggested to manage change; however, organizations still report a high failure rate of their change initiatives. These high failure rates highlight the continuing need for research and investigation, and imply a lack of a valid framework for managing successful organizational change. This dissertation critically reviews the concept of having one change approach as the “silver-bullet”. In pursuit of this goal, this research contributes a roadmap to the change management literature and provides definitions for describing change types, change methods and change outcomes. This dissertation also develops a conceptual model that proposes relationships and connections between the change types, change method and change outcomes that is assumed to enable successful change. To validate the research conceptual model, two hypotheses were developed and a self-administered survey was created and administered (paper survey and online). The respondents were professionals involved in change projects in the Central Florida region. The unit of analysis in this research was a completed change project. Respondents were asked to complete the survey for two different projects: a successful project and an unsuccessful iii project. Statistical processes were applied to verify the conceptual model and test the research hypotheses. Based on the data collected, exploratory factor analysis was used to verify the validity and reliability of the conceptual model measures. Results of the hypotheses testing revealed that there are relationships between the complexity of the change type and the use of change methods that significantly relate to successful change. The results also revealed that the alignment of the change type and change methods significantly relates to successful change. From the viewpoint of change project managers, the results of this dissertation have confirmed that the complexity of the change project type negatively correlates with change success and the increased use of change methods positively correlates with change success. The results also confirmed that the methods that highly correlate to change success address the following: (a) the situation that needs changing, (b) the proper implementation of change, (c) the establishment of suitable plans and controls to sustain change, and (d) the presence of a credible team leader who influences the major decisions during the change project.

Data from rating scale assessments have rank-invariant properties only, which means that the data represent an ordering, but lack of standardized magnitude, inter-categorical distances, and linearity. Even though the judgments often are coded by natural numbers they are not really metric. The aim of this thesis is to further develop the nonparametric rank-based Svensson methods for paired ordinal data that are based on the rank-invariant properties only. The thesis consists of five papers. In Paper I the asymptotic properties of the measure of systematic disagreement in paired ordinal data, the Relative Position (RP), and the difference in RP between groups were studied. Based on the findings of asymptotic normality, two tests for analyses of change within group and between groups were proposed. In Paper II the asymptotic properties of rank-based measures, e.g. the Svensson’s measures of systematic disagreement and of additional individual variability were discussed, and a numerical method for approximation was suggested. In Paper III the asymptotic properties of the measures for paired ordinal data, discussed in Paper II, were verified by simulations. Furthermore, the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient (rs) and the Svensson’s augmented rank-order agreement coefficient (ra) were compared. By demonstrating how they differ and why they differ, it is emphasized that they measure different things. In Paper IV the proposed test in Paper I for comparing two groups of systematic changes in paired ordinal data was compared with other nonparametric tests for group changes, both regarding different approaches of categorising changes. The simulation reveals that the proposed test works better for small and unbalanced samples. Paper V demonstrates that rank invariant approaches can also be used in analysis of ordinal data from multi-item scales, which is an appealing and appropriate alternative to calculating sum scores.

The chair/dean relationship often has a direct impact on departmental success. What happens when the there is a change in deanship? The presenters will share their experience of having five deans in five years. Through case studies and dialogue, strategies for navigating dean transitions will be shared and examined.

In recent years, collaboration between different companies especially global collaboration on oversea product development becomes more and more popular. Forming efficient product design team becomes an important concern for these companies. Team formation strategies not only consider team member's skills and availability, but also gender, race and cultural background. Personality traits are also increasingly considered when composing a team, based on the hypothesis that diversity in personality traits within a team will improve the team's ability to innovate (Park, 2014, Figure 6-3). Wilde released his 20-item psychological preference test together with his Teamology teaming strategy in 2008, with the assumption that its resulting reliability would be approximately 80% over time due to their similarity to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) questions (Kirby et al, 2007). In this thesis, the overall test-retest reliability of Teamology instrument is proved good since consistency over time for all four Dimensions are higher than 80%. For each of the 20 items, some are considered not reliable with low consistency over time. Systematic change for consistency data over time is discussed as well, a tendency is figured out that for Dimension EI and SN, graduate participants tend to change their preference on dimension EI and SN over time, while no obvious change is shown for Dimension JP and TF. When the culture and language difference is concerned, all four dimensions have good consistency over time, which means language and culture difference will not affect the consistency of Teamology test score. Finally for Park Creativity Index and MBTI Creativity Index, the reliability over time is tested and judged acceptable with Pearson's correlation data of 0.528 and 0.516. / Master of Science

This research focused on how school principals in the Limpopo Province apply induction to the newly appointed teachers. The school principals, SMTs and senior teachers are responsible for inducting and mentoring newly appointed teachers with the purpose of developing them professionally and to help them adjust to the school environment. Principals play a major role in seeing to it that newly appointed educators do not feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the teaching profession and the practice of teaching learners. The study aims at exploring the educator experiences of the induction process as well as to explore the process followed by principals in inducting educators. The research methodology used in this study is a qualitative case study which is explorative and descriptive by nature. Data was collected through one-on-one interviews, which involved principals and newly appointed teachers. The collected data was analysed and categorised into specific themes. The findings from data revealed numerous challenges that principals and newly appointed teachers experience during the induction process. Findings revealed that the induction process was not adequate and that the time allocated for induction was very little. There were neither standardised and continuous induction programmes nor educational support mechanisms to support newly appointed educators. Recommendations were that schools should be provided with the opportunity to review the induction process in line with the systemic changes in education in order to develop educators professionally. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Humanity is at the starting point of a new industrial revolution, affecting our daily life, work and way of thinking. New technologies and breakthroughs drives the fourth industrial revolution, transforming the structure of the world economy, society and its people. The key component of these changes is the rapid technological development, which relies on the high degree of digitalization. The work with digitalization is a highly discussed topic, but no general or standardized method for digital improvement efforts has been established. In order to face the challenges associated with the technological development, which forces organizations to invest time and resources to create their own methods for working with digital improvements. This study focus on the common characteristics or elements found in previous digital improvement efforts, in an attempt to summarize and identify the success-factors. These elements were further analyzed and evaluated against established theory, to assess the element’s trustworthiness and generalizability, resulting in a conceptual framework. The conceptual framework was tested and evaluated in a case study concerning two case companies to achieve practical applicability, leading to the final framework. This final framework, focusing on information flows connected to an organization processes, was found capable of identifying, analyzing and prioritizing digital improvement opportunities, by utilizing external and internal factors. Thus, answering the research questions: RQ 1: How would a framework capable of identifying digital improvement opportunities, based on common characteristics found in literature, be presented? RQ 2: How can digital improvement opportunities be prioritized and evaluated, to create value for an organization, whilst being practicable? RQ 3: Which information is necessary to retrieve, to successfully implement digital improvements?