3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Information sharing in self-directed work groups in a competitive environment.(2012-07-09) Jackson, BronwynSelf-directed work groups are a growing phenomenon in the field of organisational psychology (Kauffeld, 2006; Neck & Manz, 1994). While much is known about what factors affect information sharing in these kinds of groups, little is known about why these factors have an impact and how they relate to each other. Through the concept of hidden profiles (tasks that by nature have shared and unshared information), this study explored the information sharing and group decision making processes and aimed to illuminate the group processes involved. The study employed a qualitative, ideographic approach where case studies were used. The sample consisted of twenty four undergraduate and postgraduate students studying at the University of the Witwatersrand divided into groups of four members each. A group task to rank the best candidate for a job was self-designed based on the theory and design utilized by Stasser and Titus (1985; 1987). This was first completed individually and then as a group – the group discussion was filmed and coded using a self-developed observation rubric. Participants also completed a self-developed post-task questionnaire regarding their perspectives of various aspects of the decision making process. The analysis was carried out using frequency counts and thematic content analysis. It was found that all the groups discussed more shared information and more unshared negative information was discussed than unshared positive information. Information sharing increased when there was debate about which pieces of information were relevant. In most cases, group members were motivated to share information because they wanted to have their opinion heard. Although the majority of the sample stated that they did not withhold any information, there was evidence of strategic information sharing. Group 5 made a decision that was closest to the ideal decision. Characteristics of this group that could have contributed to this included: long duration of discussion; high number of talking turns; respecting each other’s talking turns; moderate levels of disagreement; no obvious role of leader; moderately high levels of group familiarity; diversity in race not gender; similar educational backgrounds and a norm of critical evaluation. The study found that the interactions between factors that were perceived to affect the information sharing and decision-making (such as duration of discussion, number of talking turns, group familiarity, competitive aspects, group composition and group roles) were more interwoven than previously thought.Item Investigating the role of transnational networks on migration decision timing: the case of immigrants in the Johannesburg inner-city(2009-01-22T12:29:39Z) Nshimiyamana, TheogeneAbstract It is no longer contested that migrant transnational linkages are becoming a replacement social organization where nation-states’ institutions and regulatory capacities are increasingly failing to guarantee decent livelihoods or, at least peace, to their citizens, and where potential destination countries’ policies are restrictive of immigrants. This essay explores the patterns and correlates of the contemporary migration decision-making and its timing, focusing on the role of transnational networks in that process. It is a quantitative study that uses a comprehensive dataset that Forced Migration Studies Programme collected in 2006 on the South African, Mozambican, Congolese and Somali immigrants residing in the Inner-city of Johannesburg. Based on personal experience of 594 international immigrants among those, the study challenges the well established argument in international migration theories that position economic opportunities as the primary explanatory factor underlying the contemporary migration decisions. While the study recognize the importance of economic factors, the study reveals that the entrenched history of migration between countries of origin and destinations and the resultant web of transnational ties explain better than economic factors the contemporary African migration decisions and their timing. With its relatively new approach to analysis of the patterns and correlates of migration decision timing, the study manages to position the importance of transnational ties in migration decisions and to show how they command the swiftness of migration decision-making processes.Item Legislative Committees and Deliberative Democracy: the Committee System of the South African Parliament with Specific Reference to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA).(2007-03-02T11:26:11Z) Obiyo, Robert EgwimThis thesis examines the status and role of parliamentary committees in democratic theory with a view to critically assessing the performance of one such committee, the South African version of the PAC, SCOPA. It advances a pluralist theory of popular sovereignty according to which there is no single institutional complex or site, which exclusively expresses the will of the people. The latter is the case in monist theories, which reduce democracy to its practice in a single site. Rousseau and Weber are critically examined in this connection. In the pluralist notion advanced in this thesis the popular will is expressed and realized in a plurality of institutional sites and modalities of exercise. On this perspective parliamentary committees perform a function vital to the constitution of popular sovereignty itself. They are indispensable to the formation by the people of an accurate perception by it of what the Executive is doing in its name. Their investigative work is thus constitutive of the formation of a democratic subject and will. Parliamentary committees are thus central to the satisfaction of the conditions of the deliberative dimension of democracy. On this definition, parliamentary committees must in addition themselves conform to the principles of deliberation in their own practice. This specifically deliberative conception of democracy is then further delineated by distinguishing it from the aggregation – majoritarian perspective and defending it against a variety of criticisms, including that of Chantal Mouffe. With this conceptual and normative framework in place, the British and American committee systems are examined in order to establish some reference points in terms of the institutional practice of parliamentary committees. The focus then shifts to the parliamentary committees of the South African Parliament. The constitutional and legal foundation for parliamentary committees (in the South African system) is examined with particular reference to SCOPA itself and the first five years of the new parliamentary committee system identified as a period during which several South African parliamentary committees, including SCOPA, effectively exercised their “oversight” function. Once the Government’s SDP entered the scene all things changed. This thesis examines the formation of the JIT, paying particular attention to the exclusion of the HSIU and the interventions of the Speaker, Hon Frene Ginwala. It identifies in close detail all the flaws in the SDP procurement process as well as the contradictions and lacunae in the final JIT Report itself. These are of such a magnitude as to render unreasonable any claim to the contrary and in endorsing the Report SCOPA thus clearly failed in its essential function. The notion of a threshold concept of reasonable adequacy is introduced as limiting the conditions under which committee decisions can legitimately be taken via majority voting. The argument is advanced that these were clearly not met in the case of the SCOPA decision under discussion. The implications of this “collapse” of SCOPA for South African democracy more broadly are then identified and discussed in terms of deliberative democratic theory.