https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/77 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:32:34 GMT 2026-04-15T03:32:34Z https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/3903 Title: The influence of organizational policies on office administrators’ ethics in selected financial services companies in South Africa Authors: Da Costa, Mario Peter Abstract: This thesis sought to explore the alignment between individual ethical values and organizational policies and value systems that are embedded within decision-making processes within the financial services industry. The assumption was that financial services administrators are very often the first persons who are blamed for the ethical indiscretions that abound within the financial services industry. The financial industry is tainted with ethical scandals involving all levels of employees. Business ethics is viewed as an oxymoron with the perception that business and ethics cannot find common ground in relation to a harmonious partnership so as to generate a profit resulting in utilitarian consequences. Global and national economic developments have placed great demands on businesses to remain competitive. As businesses strive to achieve competitive advantage, employees are placed under extreme pressure to meet their own financial needs and the targets set by companies. A current tendency is to capture what is assumed to be generally acceptable ethical and behavioural belief systems of employees in policy documents to regulate operating processes leading to compliance. It has always been assumed that ethical conduct of workers is always influenced by institutions such as religious or cultural affiliations within an egalitarian society. The need to survive is the predominant reason amongst employees why they work, and this need results in obsessive egocentric approaches to achieving sales targets thus ignoring social teachings that were supposed to be their moral guide. Employees are always ambivalent around their own value systems, company policies and their own material desires that need to be satisfied. Businesses are faced with challenges relating to ethical management and corporate governance forcing them to implement ethical codes of conduct mitigating against all kinds of risks they face. The theoretical foundations used by business to inform their ethical guide is found in social norms and standards of behaviour captured within legislation utilized within the macro-economic environment in which they operate. Given the above the study reviewed process modelling for policy formulation within organizations and endeavoured to develop a process for decision-making underpinned by structuration theory. The study was further motivated by the fact that in most organizations and in particular, in the financial service industry, there is a wide gap between what policies and values hope to achieve and what employees do. It is argued that the problem that organizations are faced with is to find congruence between organizational codes of ethics, policies, individual ethics, and decision-making. The study used a theoretical framework that provides new insights into how organizational policies and individual ethics impact on decision-making within the financial services industry. The study was conducted using empirical evidence derived from 220 questionnaires as the primary measuring tool from a 45% response rate. The main findings exposed the notion that ethical codes of conduct or policies direct the behaviour of employees. The result of this research indicate that structure is the medium for action and that employees interact with a structure that is formed by rules in whose formation they have participated. Structure therefor has a greater influence in individuals than individuals have on structure. The outcome of the study illuminates the fact that organizational policies have an impact on the decision-making of office administrators and that greater participation in the formulation of policies results in greater compliance. The implication is that employees must be the custodians of the structure that underpins process and rules. Description: Thesis (DTech (Office Management and Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2022 Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/3903 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/3140 Title: The influence of virtual teams on business communication in a selected South African financial organisation Authors: Hendricks, Nazley Abstract: This study focused on the influence of virtual teams on business communication in selected South African financial and non-profit organisations. The aim of the case study was to observe and understand business communication practices, in terms of the creation of meaning, the development of relationships and how messages are received and interpreted (Mastersincommunication.com 2019), among virtual teams, as a basis to recommend effective and efficient guidelines to improve the use of communications technology practices, that is, the technology, systems, and channels used to deliver different modes of communication (Mastersincommunication.com 2019), to enhance trust and shared identity within these organisations in South Africa as well as adding much needed research data on virtual teams in the South African context. This study was conducted using a descriptive research process with a core purpose to describe the situation as it was at the time of the research. The researcher used empirical and ethnographic research since she had personal experience and observation opportunities in both companies in daily operations. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in questionnaires for the purpose of measuring feedback and responses to questions and analysing the themes of open-ended questions. The main findings confirm existing literature and respond to the key research questions, namely, what the existing communication practices in the organisation are, what communications technologies do these organisations incorporate to enable effective virtual team productivity and how do communication practices in virtual teams affect trust and shared identity in these organisations. The study revealed that the organisations in this study incorporated adequate communications technologies but did not incorporate sufficient training on the technical aspect of utilising these technologies. The organisations in this study incorporated most of the common technologies for virtual teams, that there is a high level of shared identity in co-located teams compared with their virtual team members and while trust levels in these organisations are acceptable for individuals to work together, more work can be done to improve trust to enhance productivity The implications of the study reveal that there are still trust issues in the South African organisational environment and the biggest contribution of this study was to add insights from the South African perspective to existing literature on virtual teams. Description: Thesis (MTech (Office Management and Technology)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2020 Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/3140 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/2912 Title: Impact of the administrative services offered at a university of technology in South Africa Authors: Mfecane, Nandipa Abstract: The higher education system in South Africa has gone through significant restructuring and transformation since the dawn of democracy. One of these changes in the higher education landscape was the establishment of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) which appointed a permanent Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). The major functions of the HEQC are to ensure quality, audit the quality assurance mechanisms and accredit programmes in higher education. The HEQC is however adamant that responsibility for the programmes and for institutional quality rests primarily with the institution itself. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are therefore under pressure and are facing tough competition to ensure that programmes and services they offer are of the best quality. It is assumed that clients' (students and visitors) first point of contact in a university is the administrative office. In an HEI there are numerous departments offering administrative support, for example, during student registration, academic clearance is performed by the relevant department; financial clearance is performed by the student debtors' department and access to registration is performed at the faculty. Therefore, students are required to deal with all these departments to complete their registration when they access the HEI. With the aim to determine the effects of administrative services offered to stakeholders by the faculty and all departments involved with admissions and registration, this research question was posed: How do administrative services offered to stakeholders within the faculty affect service delivery at a university of technology in the Western Cape, South Africa? The participants included students and administrative staff members involved with student registration. A sample size consisted of 187 students and seven staff members. Data was collected using both qualitative and quantitative means in order to determine the administrative service culture in place as well as the beliefs of the participants. Basically, data was gathered through individual questionnaires, one-on-one interviews and focus-group discussions. R-Statistical Computing was used to analyse quantitative data while the narrative research was utilised to analyse qualitative data. The findings identified that a majority of research participants believe that a considerable improvement in quality of services offered at a university is required. This may be achieved by creating awareness of services offered and proper implementation of policies, as well as improvement of systems in place which may eradicate the level of stakeholder dissatisfaction with service quality. Description: Thesis (MTech (Office Management and Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/2912 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/2888 Title: Futuristic whole-brain success profile for the administrative professional in a South African context Authors: Venter, Aletta Johanna Abstract: The rapid economic developments of the last decade have been driven by the impact of the revolutionary developments in information and communications technologies. The increasingly complex and specialised effect of this explosion of information technology and its diversity has not been limited to the business environment and educational and training institutions. These technological developments irreversibly and significantly affected the role of the administrative professional with regard to the assimilation, processing and utilisation of information. Administrative professionals are, therefore, expected to align their knowledge and skills with the characteristics and requirements of the new world of work. They have had to adjust from the role of executing duties on the instructions of the manager during the service economy to an economy based on the demand for innovation and creativity skills to contribute towards the creation of unique value and experiences for consumers, referred to as the experience economy. The relationship economy has prompted a shift towards another conformation, namely interpersonal and intuitive skills. An immense skill disruption, which has set the stage for the sharing economy, is evident in skills such as social, cognitive abilities, technical, resource management, process, content, system and complex problem-solving, but also requires one to be flexible and able to adapt to change. Being flexible and adaptable are skills required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), taking into consideration the technological advances that are driven by extreme automation and connectivity through artificial intelligence. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of the global and national key drivers of change and transformation on the future success profile for optimal effectiveness of the administrative professional. This was achieved by means of a national skills survey conducted among administrative professionals in the public and the private sectors, followed by constructing a futuristic whole-brain success profile for administrative professionals in the South African context. The study used a mixed methods approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data. An electronic structured questionnaire was employed to achieve the primary purpose of the study, in order to assess the impact of the global key drivers of change on administrative professionals becoming whole-brain thinkers in executing their role effectively. The survey questionnaire was distributed through a professional association using nonprobability sampling of the population, namely members in the public and the private sectors in all the provinces. The questionnaire was completed by 219 respondents. The findings revealed that the global and national key drivers of change and transformation has not negatively affected the current knowledge and skills set of administrative professionals at national level. The only skill shortages identified were in the category of web-based applications. In addition, qualitative data were gathered by means of semi-structured interviews conducted with five individuals in order to investigate the perspectives of various stakeholders on the current gap in the literature regarding the required competencies and capabilities of administrative professionals (participants) in the public and the private sectors. It has been found that the mentioned skills continue to be important skills to remain effective within the next ten years. The current knowledge and skills required by administrative professionals, which have been determined by an international investigation and research studies, were compared to the directives of key drivers of change. These directives consist of models such as the Lifelong Learning Skills, Future Work Skills 2020 and the Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Existing theories and approaches pertaining to whole-brain human information processing selected to frame this study, were Herrmann’s Whole Brain® Model, Taggart’s whole-brain human information processing theory, Sternberg’s theory of thinking styles and Kirton’s model of cognitive style. These whole-brain human information processing theories and approaches were applied to discover and interpret the perceived impact of the global key drivers of change and transformation on administrative professionals for effective performance in the changing world of work from a whole-brain perspective. Concurrent with the aim of the study, the Whole Brain® Model of Ned Herrmann served as the conceptual framework within which to construct a futuristic whole-brain success profile for the administrative professional in the South African context. The data gathered from both of the international and national investigations have been combined with the data gathered from the literature review to construct a futuristic whole-brain success profile for the administrative professional. The future success profile involves three different gathering processes, namely the first phase that summarises the skills and knowledge gaps that emerged from the international investigation. The skills and knowledge gaps that emanated from the literature are summarised as Phase 2, followed by the findings of the national skills survey summarised as Phase 3. One of the conclusions derived from the research study was that this future success profile has definite implications for the individual administrative professional, administrative professionals’ associations and educational institutions. Description: Thesis (DTech (Office Management and Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018 Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://etd.cput.ac.za/handle/20.500.11838/2888 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z