Weak form market efficiency of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange : pre during and post the 2008 global financial crisis
- Authors: Futshane, Olwetu
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009 Efficient market theory Random walks (Mathematics)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/11895 , vital:39116
- Description: The importance of the efficiency of the stock market cannot be underestimated, given that it brings together those who demand and supply development finance. It is against this background that this study focused on analysing the weak form efficiency of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for the period 2005 to 2016. The study reviewed the theoretical and empirical literatures which have tried to examine the market efficiency of the Johannesburg stock exchange and whether the JSE follows that random walk. Based on the review of literature, several methodologies such as (unit root tests, autocorrelation test) were employed in the study obtaining robust results that the JSE price indices (All Share, Resources and Financials) follow the random walk process. To further confirm the findings in this research, the variance ratio test is conducted under heteroscedasticity and homoscedasticity it also strongly verified that the existence of a random walk process cannot be rejected in the JSE. The empirical results from all the various tests reveal that the null hypothesis of random walk cannot be rejected. These results thus suggest that the JSE is efficient in its weak form. This commends all the measures which have been carried out to ensure that the market is efficient.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Wellness strategies for unskilled and semi-skilled employees in the built environment
- Authors: Dido, Romano William
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Employee health promotion
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/6929 , vital:21168
- Description: More employees in organisations in the built environment are beginning to suffer from ill health related to work when compared with employees in other industries. There are many reasons for this, such as: unsuitable working conditions, physical demands linked to the occupation and the high proportion of transient unskilled and semi-skilled employees. A study concerning the wellness levels of unskilled and semi-skilled employees therefore contributes to the understanding and improvement of employee health within the industry. The main objective of this study was therefore to identify the wellness levels of employees in the built environment and their perceptions of the extent to which their company provides wellness interventions or strategies. The methodological approach used in this study was within a quantitative paradigm, and a questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. The findings indicated that the employees engaged in healthy activities and that the organisation encouraged the employees to maintain healthy lifestyles. However, there were areas that required consideration. Specifically, more attention should be given to budgeting for wellness interventions, regular health screenings should take place and more attention to substance abuse is required.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Where the body ends
- Authors: Hardy, Stacy
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:6004 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021212
- Description: My collection of stories explores the intersection of the human body and the body of text via the tropes of disease and animality. Drawing on my experience of living with tuberculosis for many years, I attempt to write disease differently – not merely to be survived, overcome, cured, eradicated, but as something to be embraced via the Deleuzian affirmation of being worthy of what happens to us. Taking my cue from Sontag, I use a creaturely approach to writing, “an infinitely varied register of forms and tonalities for transporting the human voice into prose narrative”, emphasising the shared embodiedness of humans and animals so as to challenge the omnipotence of thought that subjugates and colonises the body as exclusively human.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Women in decision making positions in the South African National Defence Force
- Authors: Mpendulo, Bongiwe Wendy
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Decision making -- Women -- South Africa Leadership in women -- South Africa Women in public life -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/12242 , vital:27047
- Description: This study investigates the women in decision-making positions in the South African Defence Force (SANDF), with a special focus on the Human Resources Division. The Security Sector, a previously male-dominated sector, is investigated. The environment, the enabling qualities, policy formulation, implementation of gender-sensitive policies, monitoring of the implementation of gender policies and opportunities are explored to investigate their impact on decision-making by women. This research report is based on the hypothesis that, despite the appointment of women in key-decision-making positions, their role in these positions does not make an impact on their overall decision-making, as they are not empowered to perform at their best due to various factors that are analysed in this report. Factors that contribute to or impede impactful decision-making by women in decision-making positions in the Security Sector are investigated in this report. This report acknowledges the efforts made by the SANDF to comply with the required legislation for the empowerment of women in decision-making positions. However the environment, stereotypes and other factors pose a challenge to the impact that women potentially have in decision-making positions. The number of women in decision-making positions poses a challenge to the influence that these appointed women can have in their positions.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Work engagement ,organizational commitment and perceived organizational support within a South African agricultural organization
- Authors: Van der Byl, Sally Louise
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Organizational commitment Employee motivation -- Agriculture , Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/45580 , vital:38915
- Description: As organisations focus on cultivating extraordinary performance and developing human strength, the need for understanding related constructs has increased. Work engagement, organisational commitment and POS are associated with positive experiences in the workplace. By better understanding these constructs within the agricultural industry, agricultural organisations can focus and develop these constructs in order to increase their sustained competitive advantage. A self-report electronic questionnaire was distributed to employees (N = 126) of a large agricultural organisation whose employees are located throughout South Africa. The measuring instrument measured demographic variables, work engagement, organisational commitment and POS. descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The results indicate that both the work engagement and POS constructs are related to affective, normative and overall organisational commitment. A substantial relationship was also established between work engagement and POS. It was also determined that employees with specialised industry skills are more engaged and committed than their colleagues whose skills are not directly related to agriculture.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Workplace bullying and job engagement on the intention to leave among nurses at selected hospitals in the Chris Hani district, Eastern Cap
- Authors: Ngamani, Theolin Busisiwe
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Bullying in the workplace -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Harassment -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Intimidation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/12700 , vital:39300
- Description: Orientation: Workplace bullying and job engagement influence the degree of employees’ intention to leave their jobs. Research purpose: The overall objective of this research was to establish the relationship between workplace bullying and job engagement and how they impact on the intention to leave. Motivation for the study: Nursing turnover seems to be one of the challenges facing health care sector in South Africa. Workplace bullying and job engagement need to be examined in order to retain best nurses as they influence the degree of employee’s intention to leave. Research approach, design and method: A quantitative research design was used to investigate the degree to which workplace bullying and job engagement predict on the intention to leave. The data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire from a simple random sample of 228 nurses. Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were employed to test the relationship between workplace bullying, job engagement and the intention to leave. Main findings: Four hypotheses were extracted: There is a significant relationship between workplace bullying and the intention to leave, there is a significant relationship between job engagement and the intention to leave, there is a significant relationship between workplace bullying and job engagement, and there is a significant combined effect of workplace bullying and job engagement on prediction of the intention to leave. The results highlighted a significant combined effect of workplace bullying and job engagement on prediction of the intention to leave. Practical Implications: Based on the findings, the study concludes that workplace bullying and job engagement in nursing are prevalent and have a negative impact on the intention to leave as most of the victims are thinking of quitting once bullying has taken place. Contribution: This study provides a holistic understanding of workplace bullying and job engagement and how they impact on the intention to leave. The findings reflect a significant combined effect of workplace bullying and job engagement on prediction of the intention to leave. It was indicated that workplace bullying and job engagement influenced the extent of employees’ intention to leave.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Workplace violence among professional nurses in a private healthcare facility
- Authors: Schlebusch-Marie, Linda
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Violence in the workplace -- Nursing -- South Africa Nurses -- Violence against -- South Africa , Health facilities -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCur
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/12801 , vital:27122
- Description: Workplace violence is an international problem and has negative consequences for individuals, organizations and communities. For individuals, the effect includes symptoms of fear, stress, irritability, feelings of isolation, insecurity, and low selfesteem. Healthcare organizations incur increased cost due to litigation due to poor quality of care, high staff turnovers and absenteeism, and their brands are negatively affected. Community members, who are the recipients of care, are placed in danger and are indirectly the victims of such workplace violence, which in turn affects their trust in private healthcare organizations or professions to provide the quality health care that they expect and deserve. Workplace violence takes many forms such as incivility, horizontal violence and bullying to name but a few. The perpetrators of such violence are doctors, nurses, patients and relatives. Workplace violence takes place in South Africa however, paucity in research was found by the researcher. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the experiences of professional nurses regarding workplace violence in a private healthcare facility in order to develop guidelines to address workplace violence in such a facility. A qualitative, explorative, contextual and descriptive study was conducted, using the Critical Social Theory as the paradigm. Data were gathered from professional nurses that have experienced workplace violence utilizing narratives. Fourteen narrative interviews were done until data was saturated. The data was transcribed verbatim and Tesch’s method of thematic synthesis was used to analyse the data. The three themes that emerged from the data were: Professional nurses acknowledge the existence of workplace violence where they work, Participants described the effect of workplace violence on themselves, others and the work environment, and Participants discussed their views regarding management of violence in the workplace. A thick description of the data with a literature control was provided. Thereafter inferences were made regarding the main themes of the guidelines and these focussed on: Preventing and addressing workplace violence by Nursing Service Managers; Preventing and addressing workplace violence by Nurse Unit Managers and Empowering professional nurses to address workplace violence. To ensure rigour and trustworthiness of the study, the researcher used Lincoln and Guba’s criteria namely: credibility, dependability, conformability and transferability. To protect the right and dignity of the participants and to safeguard the integrity of the study the researcher complied with the following ethical principles: beneficence, non- maleficence, autonomy, justice, veracity, privacy, and confidentiality. The limitations of this study were that data was collected from only one category of nurses and only one private healthcare facility was used. Recommendations from this study include implementation of the guidelines to establish their effectiveness. The findings of this study can be used to empower professional nurses to deal with workplace violence and to prevent the short and long term effects of workplace violence on the individual, the organization and the community. Nursing education institutions can also incorporate workplace violence into their curriculum to increase the awareness of students regarding this phenomenon.
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- Date Issued: 2016
“Just trying to live our lives”: gay, lesbian and bisexual students’ experiences of being “at home” in university residence life
- Authors: Munyuki, Chipo Lidia
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Homosexuality and education -- South Africa , Gay students , Lesbian students , Bisexual students , Transsexual students , Student housing , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2893 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020341
- Description: Higher education in South Africa is faced with a paramount task to help erode the social and structural inequalities that have been inherited from the Apartheid system (Department of Education 1997; Council on Higher Education 2000:12). The findings from the Soudien Report (2008:116-117) point out that the post-Apartheid higher education system in South Africa is characterised by various forms of discrimination and institutional cultures that marginalise some members of institutions resulting in pervasive feelings of alienation. In the South African higher education field, the concept of a “home” for all has been used by a variety of commentators to depict a vision of what transformed, inclusive higher education institutional cultures might look like. In this thesis, I interpret the experiences of residence life on the part of gay, lesbian and bisexual students on a largely residential campus. I ask how gay, lesbian and bisexual students experience being “at home” in the campus’s residence system. The thesis is based on 18 in-depth qualitative interviews with students who self-identify as gay/lesbian or bisexual who have experienced residence life on the campus for a period longer than six months. A wide literature exists on the concept of “home”. Drawing from many different disciplines including anthropology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, architecture and sociology, I distil the essential features of “at homeness” as incorporating comfort, privacy, security, acceptance, companionship and community. The research was concerned to inquire into how central the idea of home is to human flourishing and then into how gay, lesbian and bisexual students are routinely denied many of the essential comforts associated with being “at home” that heterosexual students have the privilege of taking for granted.
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- Date Issued: 2016