M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Telkom's revenue started to decline due to the high churn rate of fixed line customers. Telkom's deployment of the fixed mobile technology was intended to be a solution to the revenue decline. The development of unique products using Fixed Mobile Convergence remains a major challenge for Telkom. The study was undertaken as a case study with the intention of determining whether Telkom had the ability to converge the fixed line and mobile technologies respectively in order to boost its revenues by gaining competitive advantage. Primary data was collected through questionnaires that were completed by ten managers employed at Telkom SA within the fixed mobile division. Secondary data was collected from sources such as relevant literature, business and academic journals, books, the media, and the internet.

M.Comm.

This dissertation explores the applicability of the Critical System Thinking (CST) methodology known as Total Systems Intervention (TSI) version one to the complex problems related to the practice of the Performance Management System at Telkom SA. As a point of departure, this research provides a historical analysis of a non-systemic management approach - Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and several uni-demensional hard and soft systems approaches and their contributions to the emergence and development of CST. It is argued that, given the messy and ill-structured problems that emerge as a result of the implementation of Performance Management Systems (PMS) at Telkom, a pluralist problem solving methodology such as TSI is the appropriate methodology applicable to the problem under concern. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Thesis (M.A. (Journalism & Media Studies))--Rhodes University, 2004.

M.Comm. / Although "work" is one of the most familiar words in the vocabulary it can be used in many different ways. For the purpose of this dissertation the definition of "work" is taken from the Oxford dictionary as "action involving effort or exertion directed to a definite end; what a person does to earn a living" (Oxford, 1994: 926). Earning one's living does not necessarily mean working for money. Housewives receive no salary for the job they do. Housework does, however, fall within the definition, since it involves considerable effort directed towards family living and creating and maintaining a home. The most obvious feature of work is the vast range of activities by which people can earn their living. Equally vast are the personality and temperament differences between workers that determine their needs and expectations. This radically influences people's perceptions. To an intellectual, the task of working on a production line, the monotony, noise and other discomforts would be almost an unbearable penance. To the person doing the job it is a way of earning a living and it is acceptable as such. The person may not enjoy the task, but at least it is something that he/she knows they can do. When Adam had eaten from the forbidden tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, the Lord said to him: Gen. 3:17-19 "...all the days of your life; ... by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread" (Bible, 1998: 4). Work is a life sentence; it absorbs the major portion of each day; for most of one's life. 1 Workers are not alike; they are not cast from the same mould. They come in assorted shapes, sizes, colours, education and experience, attitudes and ambitions. Some work for a living; for others working is a living. Some think of work as their central purpose in life; others think of work as a way of providing the necessities and look at time away from work as the real joy of living. Thus, there are many different reasons why people work. Since the beginning of this century, employers and social scientists have started looking at the role that work fulfils in satisfying man's needs and in the utilisation and development of his abilities. Emphasis has been placed primarily on the psychological and sociological aspects of work. Management have been interested in these developments primarily for increasing productivity. From this research into man's needs, a number of theories have evolved relating to work motivation. In today's competitive world and market it is essential that a company have positively motivated employees to improve productivity and efficiency. Motivation is one of the factors that influence performance. The purpose of this study is to do a study on motivation of employees within a technical division of Telkom SA. The aim is to establish the causes for the level of motivation and to present to management a proposal on improving the level of motivation.

M.Comm. (Business Management) / The statement at the core of the thesis is that the success of the call centre depends on a strategic benefits model. The search for the proof will be conducted within the systems theory framework. The call centre is depicted as a micro system of the bigger organisation. This micro system is influenced by external factors. Factors that are external to the organisation and factors that are external to the call centre but forms part of the rest of the organisation. Systems have internal processes that deliver specific outputs, therefore the saying that the system is perfectly engineered for the results it achieves. The call centre has internal processes to deliver certain outputs. This study tries to identify what internal processes will have an impact on a strategic benefits model for the success of the call centre. 3 Systems theory is known to have feedback loops. The call centre operation should have similar feedback loops. Call centre feedback is received from three different perspectives, that of the customer, the employees and management. The study concludes by indicating how the benefits model ensures the success of the call centre. The primary objective of the study is to determine if the success of the call centre depends on a strategic benefits model. The secondary objectives of the study are to: • Develop a model that can be used for the design, assessment and running of the call centre, • Determine which factors influence the functioning of a call centre operation, • Determine the impact of the call centre on meeting customer expectations, • Develop a measure for call centre benefits. The elements of such a strategic benefits model had to be described for the analysis.

In many organisations, project management is no longer a separately identified function, but is entrenched in the overall management of the business. The typical project management environment has become multi-project. Most of the project decisions require consideration of schedule, resource and cost concerns on other project work, necessitating the review and evaluation of multi-project data. Resource management is at least as important as schedule (time) management. Functional managers, supporting multiple projects with shared and limited resources, need to know the demands on their resources and the impact of new project loads and changing priorities. This means that the effectiveness of project management is not only influenced by the function itself, but it permeates throughout the entire organisation, for which the overriding goal is to survive and prosper in a competitive environment. The research problem of this study is to assess how effective project management practices in the South African communications’ industry are, by using Telkom SA as the selected target group. The research method employed was to first identify the best practices of project management, by focusing on generally accepted standards and practices, that is those which are particularly effective in helping an organisation to achieve its objectives. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) which is considered to be the international standard for project management, was used as the framework for identifying the best practices. The identified best practices were used as an assessment tool to determine to what extent these practices are applied in Telkom SA.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / Constant organisational change can be attributed to many factors, including competition among peers in the same markets, globalisation, privatisation of public sector organisations, technological advances, and operational requirements. These factors almost always lead to organisations reducing headcount. One such organisation is Telkom, which bi-annually embarks on large-scale retrenchments. Service organisations within the company were chosen at random to participate in this study. Telkom’s Human Resource Management, Legal Services, Employee Relations, and the organisation’s recognised unions participated in this study. / South Africa

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / People and change management within an organisation deals with the philosophies, policies, procedures, practices and decisions that affect individuals and groups who are employed by an organisation. The overall purpose of people management is to create a synergistic environment for both the functional (or line groups) and the cross functional groups so that the operational and strategic objectives can be achieved. Globalisation and innovation, the new knowledge economy and re-engineering of corporations have presented new challenges to both management and leadership of organisations in South Africa. It is becoming increasingly evident that competitiveness is locked in peoples' knowledge and skills. The implication is that if South African businesses are to survive and grow, companies must include executive development as an essential part of their corporate strategy. However, these changes have left many managers around the world confused, anxious and disillusioned, with a decreased ability to understand the situations and their future significance, and therefore cannot plan for change. Resistance to change may result, which is detrimental to the organisation and its most important resource - human capital. Emotionally, they may feel that their careers' existence is threatened and that derailment is imminent. Summarising their feelings would indicate that there are issues - particularly important issues - that need to be identified, understood, and respected. Interventions to address these very hot ''burning issues" then need to be actioned and evaluated. The study investigated a homogenous population, represented by the Western Region Managers of Telkom SA, to identify current or impending burning issues, and recommend specific interventions for Telkom SA. The company is currently the sole provider of fixed line telephony in the country. The South African State owns 70% of Telkom SA and the company is currently preparing for a public listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in October 2001. Almost all of Telkom SA's business processes have been reviewed and changed where necessary, as efforts to improve service delivery are pursued. This study could thus assist the People Management policies and procedures within the Human Resource management division by proactively identifying and confirming the existence of certain burning issues which affect the Western Cape managers. The burning issues identified by the questionnaires distributed to the managers are: • The need for heightened levels of productivity • Developing processes that facilitate a culture of mutual respect and trust, co-operation, cohesion and the pursuit of common goals • The management of human capital • Managing the stress involved in organisational change • Developing customer-driven processes and structures • Reducing the impact of people related risks, e.g. highly intellectual, capital leaving the organisations, HIV/AIDS, brain drain in key positions. • Turning the negativity around in the workplace. It is hoped that by studying the changes and its effects occurring in Telkom SA, a model for large scale South African organisational restructuring can be created-especially for those state-owned enterprises which still have to undergo the process of privatisation.

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Only a minority of companies invest resources in the task of creating an effective repatriation programme, even though repatriation is more challenging than expatriation. A qualitative method was chosen and was conducted on two South African multinational companies (MNCs), AEL and Telkom to establish the extent to which these companies' repatriation programmes comply with international models of repatriation. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the two South African MNCs do not have formal repatriation programmes and management of repatriates needs to be further implemented within the company. For example an articulated process consisting of the three different steps: before, during and after the assignment should be elaborated for the company to reduce anxiety and repatriation turnover.