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
Navigating change: a critical analysis of social media’s role in shaping gender activists’ perspectives
- Authors: Dias, Sasha Elliot
- Date: 2024-10-11
- Subjects: Social media and society , Sexual minority activists South Africa , Political activism , Gender digital divide , Harassment , Cyberfeminism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/466128 , vital:76699
- Description: This research explores the unique challenges and opportunities that social media offers gender activists fighting for equality and social justice. It examines the negative and positive elements of social media, highlighting the ways it can be adopted to build communities, amplify voices, and advance social change in unique ways, but also the ways in which it can adversely contribute to existing power imbalances and inequalities. This research does not concentrate on any specific gender-based movement, but rather aims to understand how gender activists in South Africa have embraced social media in their local activism. The study followed a qualitative approach and collected the data through in-depth semi-structured interviews. It also followed a thematic framework in its analysis of the data collected from the interviews. The study found that, while online gender activism in South Africa faces challenges such as harassment and the digital gender divide, there is still progress in terms of community building and political engagement on social media. The findings suggest that, in spite of the challenges, social media can still be an important tool for advancing gender-based social justice in South Africa. This research made use of Counter-publics and Cyberfeminism as guiding theoretical frameworks. The theory of Counter-publics provides a valuable way of understanding how virtual groups emerge and challenge dominant societal norms and values. Cyberfeminism provides insight into how women have challenged contemporary inequalities through the adoption of technologies such as social media. As sub-components to Cyber-feminism, Intersectionality and Standpoint perspectives were used to understand how activists’ diverse identities and social positions influence their individual forms of activism. , Thesis (MSocSci) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-10-11