https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/19912 Thu, 22 Oct 2026 12:25:01 GMT 2026-10-22T12:25:01Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/33188 Creating a climate and culture for sustainable organisational change Botha, A.D. Rapid changes in the business landscape, increased . competition and higher customer expectations mean that businesses today have to find ways to establish and keep a competitive advantage. One way businesses can remain competitive is by becoming learning organisations. Organisations need to use their human resources optimally. But organisations do not only need to change into learning organisations but its people need to apply their learning in more creative ways to stay ahead of the competition. An important ingredient of the success of organisational learning is teamwork. Teams allow for innovative problem solving and for the development of synergy either to apply collective knowledge and skills to problems or to develop new or innovative ideas. In the study Standard Bank is identified as an example of an organisation that is attempting to change into a learning organisation. Standard Bank has recently launched a program called "Ordinary-To-Innovative (021)" and "Winning Ways", a process where teams of people work together to find innovative solutions to problems and share ideas. The research attempts to show the relationship between the leadership skills of team leaders and the willingness of team members to change. The change that is referred to is the willingness of team members to become more innovative, to interact in the teams, to learn through this interaction with the purpose of creating value for the organisation. In terms of the effect of either transformational or transactional leadership on willingness to change and creating a climate and culture for innovative change, the research results show that transformational change shows higher frequency, and in a sense better correlations but transactio_nal leadership is quite strong as well. The literature suggests that if an organisation like Standard Bank wants to make the paradigm shift to being more creative and innovative they should train their leaders in transformational leadership skills. These transformational team leaders will assist Standard Bank in creating a climate and culture for sustainable organisational change. Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/33188 2005-07-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32732 The constructs of effective supply chain management in the South African IT printer and consumables industry Jacobs, Shirlinia This research was undertaken to obtain a clearer understanding of the constructs of winning supply chain management strategies of key players in the South African IT printer and consumables industry by looking at strategies that have provided companies with a distinctive competitive advantage, identifying the required key competencies, skills and resources needed in the supply chain to improve efficiencies, and understanding the ideal partnership characteristics and attributes for sustainability and survival in this specific industry. The results indicated that the industry is ready to embrace the concept that effective supply chain management strategies can provide organisations with a competitive advantage and sustainability if implemented successfully. Project management and demand planning skills were revealed as crucial for the supply chain, while the biggest challenge remains systems integration and automation across the channel. The research further revealed that true supply chain excellence can only be achieved through strong partnerships and networks that support collaboration and improved service delivery. Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32732 2007-11-19T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32592 An exploratory study of voluntary human capital disclosure practices in South Africa Van Wyk, Melanie This study concerns the increasing importance of voluntary disclosures in South African annual reports in order to enable better investor decision-making. As intangible assets play an ever more important role in companies' value-creating process, it has become more important to communicate these "hiddenn assets to external stakeholders. As the traditional financial accounting standards are insufficient to capture and communicate the value of intangibles, companies are encouraged to use voluntary disclosure to incorporate transparency with regards to human capital. In this study companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) have been explored. The study is limited to human capital disclosure by examining what type of human capital information is presented in annual reports. The study has shown that voluntary disclosure practices in South Africa are very strongly driven by legislative requirements. Very little comparison exists among disclosures of companies in different sectors. This indicates the need for a standardised measure for the reporting of human capital. Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32592 2006-01-30T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32588 Strategic management of change within the production department at the Rosslyn plant of Nissan South Africa Hunter, W. A. In the heart of the well-known industrial area, Rosslyn, just north of Pretoria, lies one of several formidable motor manufacturers. Nissan South Africa, (from here on known as NSA) is currently on the rise to become one of the global competitors in the global Japanese family of Nissan (Ghosn, 2005). Having excelled in the B0's, struggled in the 90's and after a global revival plan, under the direction of Carlos Ghosn, has continued through the last decade to surprise our local consumers with it's impressive line-up of luxury and sporty automobiles, receiving accolade after accolade in both manufacturing as well as after market service and support. (Ghosn, 2005). With a work force boasting 924 salaried employees, 300 temorary staff and 1590 hourly paid employees, NSA contributes around 55000 vehicles per annum combined to either the domestic market or West African export market. An unusual event took place recently at the Rosslyn plant, which was to change the face and attitude of the manufacturing team at NSA. The organisation was about to join it's competitors and roll out it's plan for a new, fully integrated ERP-system in the form of SAP. This project began in July 2003 and through some hard work and combined effort of the organisation's staff and it's IT partner, EDS (Electronic Data Services), was eventually rolled out to business on July 11th 2005. With SAP being the chosen tool, the eventual implementation and roll-out of the ERPsystem to NSA, particularly to the manufacturing division was not seen as a great success. The organisation found itself with tremendous inventory inaccuracies and as a result brought it's manufacturing facility to a grinding halt several days after the go-live date, triggering the need for emergency proposals and counter activities to take place. The resulting impact on NSA, it's marketing and sales division and ultimately it's dealer network and consumers was catastrophic. This put incredible pressure on not only NSA's executive and staff but had Japan and it's executive suddenly scrutinise their overseas market with intensive interest. This is the reason why the researcher has chosen the topic of attempting to understand the real issues that NSA were exposed to during this period of 2003-2005, and identify the root cause of the temporary cease of production within NSA's manufacturing facility. The findings were analysed from a set of data captured as a result of a survey that was presented to a sample group of employees and contractors associated specifically to the production activities and production supporting departments. Further data was captured as a result of structured interviews with a select group of individuals representing the senior executive within NSA that were particularly involved in the ERP-project as a whole. As a result of a survey which was conducted during late September 2006, areas such as resistance to change, the lack of participation, training issues and general "buy-in" from the employees within NSA during this period prior to the go-live stage of the ERP-project were explored. A review of supporting literature will be shared to determine some of the reasons why the organisation was faced with such a difficult task of implementing an ERP-solution for NSA, as well as establish typical norms within industry that contribute to failure in these areas. Furthermore, the researcher will, with the help of business models, attempt to understand some of the issues that could have been avoided, and of course focus on those areas which were seen as being unsuccessful and possible contributing factors to the lack of success of the ERP-project implementation. Areas such as lack of participation, lack of project awareness and general resistance to change were found to be significantly high during the survey conducted during September 2006, approximately 14 months after the actual go-live activity. The data will be reported and discussed within chapter 5, and made visual to the reader. The paradigm chosen for this research project is phenomenological due to the large impact on the human issues and requires both quantitative data types found in the questionnaire as well as qualitative data found during the structured interview sessions, where open ended questions were posed to the executive. Once the data was analysed and processed for understanding and presentation, a number of conclusions were then drawn to allow focus on particularly the vital few areas where the organisation can seriously understand, accept and through adapting their business can avoid a re-occurrence of this in the future. We will discuss the importance of models such as organisational learning, as well as the typical POCA-cycle, which will be explained later and with the introduction of supporting literature be able to provide the organisation with justified recommendations. These recommendations are aimed at returning to basics and are designed to be in line with Nissan's global strategic requirements and most importantly should be seen as realisticaly possible to implement. The proposed recommendations will also be a result of a number of structured interview sessions conducted with the NSA executive to determine the reality and sustainability of the management of change and transformation within NSA regarding future projects. The interview sessions will be a discussion with the executive regarding the results of the questionnaire, and their input regarding possible contributory factors to these results. Some of the recommendations include, a suggested return to basics, improved communication and a commitment from senior management to ensure that NSA follows the advice and way forward provided to us by our Japanese collegues in the form of "The Nissan way", Genba Kanri, Hoshin Kanri and Nissan's newly added V-Up methodology. Finally after recommendations to NSA's top executive, the researcher will reflect on the journey taken to get to the stage where all the models, the literature and the understanding have almost become a day to day activity of seeking continuous improvement both within it's own manufacturing boundaries as well as those of it's suppliers. This important reflection will hopefully provide guidance to future students and possibly offer areas that can be further investigated or researched. Text in English with abstract and no authors keywords Mon, 20 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32588 2006-11-20T00:00:00Z