Conflict management mechanisms for workplace harassment: a case study of a provincial government department of basic education in Johannesburg, South Africa
- Authors: Monakali, Robin
- Date: 2024-12
- Subjects: Conflict management -- South Africa , Bullying in the workplace , Harassment
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/70353 , vital:78342
- Description: Workplace harassment remains a significant concern globally, affecting organizational culture and employee well-being. This study aims to develop an integrated conflict management framework to manage workplace harassment in a selected provincial government department in Johannesburg, Gauteng province. The theoretical frameworks guiding this study included organizational theory, socio-cultural theory, and intersectional feminism. Through a mixed methods approach, which involved combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, this research examines the mechanisms in place to deal with workplace harassment in a selected provincial government department. The qualitative research method that was used comprised online, semi-structured, individual interviews with four Human Resource managers, four departmental managers, four line managers and four non-management employees and the quantitative research method involved the completion of self-administered questionnaires by 153 employees from the provincial government department. The researcher used a purposive sampling design for the interviews and simple random sampling for the questionnaires. The findings reveal that the department has internal structures in place to address harassment, yet a gap that was identified was the implementation and application of the policy as many cases go underreported or unresolved. A novel, integrated conflict management framework was developed, which emphasizes both prevention and intervention strategies to deal with workplace harassment. This study adds to existing knowledge of workplace harassment and can also serve as a reference point for further research undertaken by individuals, policymakers, and scholars. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Governmental and Social Sciences, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-12
The management of conflict between employees: a case study of an information technology company in Johannesburg
- Authors: Monakali, Robin
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Conflict management -- South Africa -- Johannesburg , Conflict management -- Case studies Interpersonal relations Personnel management -- Psychological aspects Management
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/41997 , vital:36616
- Description: The global working environment has transformed significantly over the last two decades, with rapid advancements in technology and information as well as the levels of diversity in the workplace. This process of adaptation, the failure to adapt or weaknesses in adaptation can be an underlying cause of conflict within organizations. For an organization to be successful, there must be effective conflict management techniques in place in order to resolve or keep the conflict at a minimum. The aim of this exploratory case study was to therefore explore the management of conflict between employees in an Information Technology company in Johannesburg. The human needs theory, which states that the deprivation of human needs is a major source of conflict, was used as the theoretical framework guiding this study. A mixed methods approach, also known as methodological triangulation, was used, which involved combining qualitative and quantitative research methods in order to achieve triangulation of data. The qualitative research method that was used comprised individual semi-structured interviews with two Human Resources managers and the quantitative research method involved the completion of self-administered questionnaires by 94 employees of the IT company. The researcher used a purposive sampling design for the interviews and simple random sampling for the questionnaires. Ethics permission for this research was received from Nelson Mandela University’s Research Ethics Committee and the study was conducted in accordance with the university’s Policy on Research Ethics. The findings of this study have revealed that the type of conflict mainly experienced in this organization was employee conflict, due to interpersonal clashes relating to personality differences. The employees were unanimous that conflict can have both a positive and negative effect. The interviews confirmed that the IT company makes use of negotiation and mediation to resolve workplace conflict, with the literature review providing evidence that negotiation and mediation are useful means of managing conflict between employees. However, the results from the completed questionnaires revealed that employees attempt to manage conflict by avoiding the conflict, which could be due to employees having limited awareness of the organization’s procedures to address conflict. This study can therefore potentially be beneficial to organizations and assist the latter in developing conflict management skills and practices, which can enhance organizational performance, productivity and employee retention.
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- Date Issued: 2019