Public sector management has, through the years, been characterised by a hierarchical system whereby red tape and bureaucracy were the order of the day. Towards the latter part of the apartheid era, management had complete autonomy in the functioning of the human resource management, financial management, operations and so on, of government organisations. Top management, and to a large extent middle management, in most governmental departments comprised predominantly people classified as White. With the launch of the New Democratic Government in 1994, new legislation in the form of the Labour Relations Act of 1995, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997 and the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, was instituted. This transformation heralded an about-turn and rethink by government about policies and strategies governing employees and the workplace; for example, the Labour Relations Act of 1995 restricts the concept of unfair labour practices by employers. The employee’s interest was considered in the new legislation, and is currently part of employee wellbeing programmes initiated by government and incorporated into work schedules. In addition, government has launched strategies such as “Batho Pele” (put people first) and “a home for all” (a Western Cape Provincial Government initiative to improve the image of government) to improve service delivery to communities. The above-mentioned political and legislative changes increasingly required a shift from an autocratic to a team-orientated leadership style and from an exclusively task-orientated to a people-orientated organisational culture. The study explored whether management styles, organisational culture, job satisfaction and job performance have changed in the Provincial Government Western Cape (PGWC) after the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994. The specific research questions that were pursued included (i) has there been a shift from autocratic to a team-orientated management style in the PGWC?, (ii) has there been a shift from a task-orientated to a people-orientated v organisational culture in the PGWC?, (iii) what were the levels of job satisfaction among the employees, and (iv) how did these changes (if any) in organisational culture, management styles and job satisfaction impact the perceived job performance of these employees. The sample consisted of 100 managers selected from various departments in the PGWC. The empirical results indicated that there has been a shift to a team-orientated management style; that there has not been a shift from a task-orientated to a people-orientated organisational culture; that the perceived levels of job satisfaction and job performance levels are high; and that job satisfaction, especially as it relates to a challenging job content and job fit (in terms of personality, ability and skills), was the main determinant of the perceived job performance of the managers in the PGWC. The managerial implications of these empirical results are discussed and recommendations are proposed on the grounds of these discussions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8624 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Springfield, Ronald Winston |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | 75 pages, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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