Wits Business School (ETDs)

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Browsing Wits Business School (ETDs) by SDG "SDG-16: Peace, justice and strong institutions"

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    Barriers to Effective Performance Management in South African Public Administration
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Chetty, Paragasen Perumal; Ouma, Wycliffe
    This study evaluates barriers to effective performance management within the South African public sector. The purpose of the study was to understand if barriers to effective performance management had an impact on performance appraisal outcomes, transformational leadership style, and public service motivation levels. The study further assessed transformational leadership’s ability to mediate between performance barriers and public service motivational levels. Study approach was a quantitative methodology supported by an online survey for collection of primary data from South African civil servants. An exploratory analysis and inductive reasoning method was supported by the cross-sectional observational design of the research. The research outcomes confirmed that barriers to effective performance management had a significant and negative influence on performance appraisals worth, there was also a significant and negative effect on transformational leadership style, and barriers to effective performance management reduced public service motivation levels. The findings also confirmed that transformational leadership style partially mediated between performance barriers and public service motivation levels. The implication is that whilst transformational leadership style partially mediated the impact of barriers on public service motivation, if public sector leadership does not act to assuage performance barriers, then endeavours at performance appraisals will become a cursory exercise, stratagems for public sector transformational leadership will be distrusted and team members with high public service motivation levels will exit the administration. Exorbitant costs for reduced quality of public sector services will become a common occurrence. With the help of transformational leadership strategies, employee public service motivation can be increased whilst reducing the influence that performance barrier wields over performance improvement. When barriers are reduced performance appraisal information can become more meaningful and useful for improved employee performance
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    Church brands and management styles: The case of South African Protestant churches
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Juqu, Thando Buhle; Saruchera, Fanny
    Protestant church brands continuously fail to recognise that their brands are indeed brands. South African church brands have continuously been accused of engaging in activities that detract and decrease their customer bases. Their roles are to ensure that the customers’ needs are met and are satisfactory. This study aimed to measure the perceived relationships between brand management and other variables such as customer loyalty and consumer behaviours. Do church members and other stakeholders agree that church brands are brands and attest to this statement by identifying as customers to the brand? Guided by the positivism approach and descriptive research design, the study utilized a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 171 respondents who were members of the South African Protestant churches. The study established that communication remains a key pillar to the growth and sustenance of any relationship. The study further proved that proper befitting brand management styles play a role in the growth of brands. Under the agency theory, the study highlighted that these customers need to be noticed and heard by protestant church brands. About Thirty six percent (36.3%) of respondents highlighted that brands did not communicate internal issues and scandals. The study further cited poor brand management and the lack of communication, and that a decrease in brand management led to detracting customer loyalty and brand trust, putting these non-profit organisations at significant risk. The study concluded that adopting proper management styles and CRM activities and observing proper brand management styles in these protestant church brands allows brand growth. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by enriching the theoretical scope of theology and brand management in the context of protestant church brands. This ultimately leads to custodians of brands becoming great stewards of the brand
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    Examining The Use of Evaluative Evidence in Decision- Making Within Catholic Faith-Based Organisations
    (University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Ebong, Fotoh Paul; Masvaure, Steven
    Catholic Faith-Based Organisations are critical in contributing to social betterment through various development initiatives(Camilleri & Winkworth, 2004). The use of evaluations conducted in these organisations to enhance learning, programme improvement and eventually social betterment through informed decision-making is the concern of this research. Literature on the use of evaluations underlines the fact that evaluations are aimed at providing relevant information to various stakeholders for their decision-making and improvement of the evaluand as well as assessing their merits and worth (Alkin, 1975; Maloney, 2017a; Patton, 2012; Stufflebeam, 2001a). As a widely researched phenomenon, the use of evaluation has been identified by various authors to include instrumental use, conceptual use, process use, and symbolic use (Alkin & Christie, 2004; Johnson et al., 2009). The need to make evaluations useful has, therefore, been the driving force behind the development of the different approaches to evaluation, evaluation principles and standards, as well as the creation of various voluntary associations to sustain and promote the professionalism of the field (Stufflebeam, 2004). Even though Catholic faith-based organisations conduct evaluations, little is documented about the extent to which these evaluations were used in decision-making processes, if any, and what role the evaluation characteristic factors, organisational and human factors play in influencing use. To investigate the extent to which these organisations use these evaluations and the extent to which evaluation distinct variables play a role in enhancing use, a mixed method was undertaken to gather quantitative and qualitative data from 43 respondents who were selected purposefully among the eligible organisations for the study. A questionnaire was administered online, followed by key informant interviews. The findings show that most organisations make use of evaluations to inform practice. Still, since the evaluations are commissioned mainly by the funders, the willingness of these organisations to take the initiative of conducting their evaluations is less evident. To some, carrying out evaluations is merely to comply with the funding requirements rather than seeking evidence based upon which informed decisions can be made. Therefore, I recommend that Catholic faith-based organisations institutionalise monitoring and evaluation units within their organisations to strengthen their internal capacity to generate and use evidence in decision-making. This would equally build evidence-use awareness and establish a culture of evaluative thinking in organisational practices.