3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The effect of personality and culture in client/provider interactions and its effect on customer relationships(2014) Croll, Jennifer AnneLiving as we do in a multicultural society, the potential for misinterpretation is significant. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to examine whether culture and personality affect customer relations in a multi-cultural context. This study seeks to understand the way in which people respond to each other in business encounters in order to determine potential best practices relating to this interaction. This research specifically looks at the contact between the student and support staff within a business school context. It is not designed to provide definitive answers to the questions, but should provide some guidelines which could be followed in the interaction between students and support staff to make relationships better and the experience of both parties satisfactory. The research used mixed methods, comprising a survey delivered to all academic students at Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, and interviews with support staff. The survey contained both questions and free-text sections and was designed to disclose the personality and culture of the students, the free text sections looked at what the students expected from support services at the university and what they actually received. The interviews engaged the local faculty office, the library and the programme managers in order to discover what they felt the students wanted and the way in which student problems were addressed. Results indicated that the majority of students were assertive and demanding, sometimes to the frustration of the support staff who fall back on the university policies and procedures when the students become too aggressive in their demands. There is a communication problem at the Business School, as the students feel their legitimate demands and not being met, and the support staff feel handicapped as policies do not allow them to meet these demands. Suggestions are made to improve communication and also to encourage cultural sensitivity among the support staff as differing cultural problems may need to be addressed in the future.Item Business information sources in Gauteng(2014-02-17) Croll, Jennifer AnneThis research investigated the way in which an academic library could add value to the research undertaken by the business community in Johannesburg. The research was qualitative and data was collected via interviews, both telephonic and face-to-face. Two research questions were examined: 1. Where does corporate South Africa access information? 2. Why does corporate South Africa access information? The results were collated and themes drawn to reach conclusions. It was initially thought that researchers in the business community used Google and social media extensively in order to trace information for innovation, the development of new products, and marketing. A significant theme that emerged during the research was that people actually prefer personal contact, either face-to-face or via conferences and telephonically. This contradicts the library literature which maintains that libraries need to maintain a profile in the social media since this is where people are looking for information. It was also discovered that while researchers are using Google extensively, they are not using libraries to any significant extent. It is recommended that libraries consider linking into communities of practice in order to ensure that they are part of the research process and, at the same time, part of the community of practice, and so are able to anticipate the research needs of their community. The research highlights the need for libraries to actively market their resources to their communities to increase their visibility in order to validate the value they can add to the bottom line of an organisation.