Teams play a key role in organisational success and it is imperative to proactively manage team performance needs in order to influence team effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of a group of employees in a sales-driven organisation on how the application of Neethling’s thinking style preferences influenced team performance following their participation in Neethling’s thinking style preferences training. The qualitative exploratory study was conducted with 19 employees in the Finance and Insurance department of a sales-driven organisation. The data were collected by means of in-depth individual interviews and focus group interviews. A nonprobability purposive sample technique was used to identify participants for the two focus group interviews and six individual interviews. Evidence provided in the findings concluded that Neethling's thinking style preferences can be used as a viable tool to enhance team performance in an organisation as the participants’ perceptions and experiences of the advantages of these preferences and the findings in the literature on effective teams, concurred. There were also strong indications that the team performed better in terms of their internal team processes, leading to team outputs such as better communication, cooperation, understanding and relationships between team members. Participants also recognised that the team’s performance led to the achievement of organisational results or outcome goals such as improved productivity, profitability, organisational image and customer satisfaction. The study represents original research, extending the current body of knowledge on the perceptions of employees’ team performance related to Neethling’s thinking style preferences. Neethling’s thinking style preferences could have a high influence on identified elements of team performance and could be viewed by employees as a viable tool for enhancing team performance. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Although social capital had been found to solve collective action problems, social capital at work or workplace social capital has only recently begun to be researched. This is noteworthy given that most of our waking hours are spent in the workplace. While workplace social capital is suggested to improve workplace performance, job satisfaction had been found to improve workplace performance. However, workplace social capital and job satisfaction have never been examined together with regard to workplace performance. Furthermore, most studies on workplace performance have focused on developed countries with evidence from developing countries is lacking. The aims of this thesis were to investigate 1) whether workplace social capital affects job satisfaction; 2) the relationship of social capital, job satisfaction and workplace performance; 3) whether individual characteristics differ in determining job satisfaction in developed and developing countries; and 4) whether context of organisations in developed and developing countries differ in determining the relationship of social capital, job satisfaction and workplace performance. To achieve those aims, this thesis selects two sets of secondary data representing developed countries: EWCS2010 in Europe combining workers with their regions and countries and WERS2011 in Britain linking workers to their workplaces; while primary data froma developing country have been gathered from public hospitals in Indonesia associating workers with workplaces. As such, this thesis exploits two approaches using structural equation modelling in multilevel models. First, the customary Macro-micro approach is used to examine the relationship between workplace social capital and job satisfaction treating both variables as latent constructs. Second, the less common micro-Macro approach is exercised to investigate the relationship between workplace social capital, job satisfaction and workplace performance. Results from developed countries show that workplace social capital is positively associated with individual outcomes such as job satisfaction and well-being even in times of financial crisis. Comparing the results between developed and developing countries, workplace social capital is positively significantly associated with job satisfaction in Britain and in Indonesia. With regard to higher level outcomes, workplace social capital is associated with better financial performance, while job satisfaction is associated with higher quality in British general industry. Turning to results from Indonesia, workplace social capital is associated with lower expenditure per bed; job satisfaction, however, failed to be associated with any workplace performance measures. Several individual and workplace characteristics in both developed and developing countries have similar influences on job satisfaction and workplace performance. Nevertheless, there are some contrasting results regarding the influence of those characteristics in developed and developing countries.