Collaborative Learning among South African MBA Students

The purpose of this study was to explore how learning amongst South African MBA students could be enhanced through collaborative learning.Collaborative learning groups are established in MBA programmes to build team-working skills, which will enhance the employability of MBAgraduates and foster good performance in workplace settings. However, it had been observed that not all students agreed that this outcomematerialized, although schools advised that the syndicate groups created by the school were the ideal vehicle for learning, where interaction and debate could flourish. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to gather qualitative data from a purposively selected sample of 13 current MBA students from accredited business schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Data were analyzed through coding, classifying and mapping of transcripts. The key insight was that “learning” (i.e. “conent”) did not emerge as an objective, either overtly or covertly. Students were adamant that their goal was to submit an assignment and learn something about teams in the process. Business schools should re-evaluate their assumptions about effective group learning, and modify the assessments to maximize both team effectiveness and learning. Students need to embrace opportunities to facilitate their own group processes (including diversity management and dealing effectively with conflict) to achieve their goals.&nbsp

Quality strategy of small businesses in Hong Kong.

TQM has been widely recognized and successfully implemented in many large enterprises, giving these businesses the edge in both international and local competitiveness through the production of quality products that delight the customer. The thesis serves to lay the foundation for investigating quality strategy of small businesses in Hong Kong, many of which do not have the same management capabilities, incentives and resources as do large businesses.The results, in general, indicate that the enforcement of total quality management (TQM) in these small business concerns has been dissatisfactory. On the whole, enthusiasm was found among them, but there were inadequate and misunderstanding of the TQM concept. However, there are several small wonders who was on the route to total quality management and their lessons of "best practices" is discussed. Recommendation is drawn on the kind of quality strategies small-sized companies may adopt in pursuing their competitive edge

An evaluation of social team building intervention on MBA group formation

Teamwork and the ability to work effectively in a team is a critical skill in a technologically complex workplace where no individual can possess all the knowledge and skills. MBA programmes, therefore, require students to work in collaborative learning groups in order to not only share their knowledge and skills, but also to develop the needed team-based competencies. However, collaborative learning groups are prone to many pitfalls that could result in intra-group conflict and inefficiencies such as social loafing, where the group performance is less than the sum of the output of the individual members when working alone. Team development interventions (TDI) aim to improve team-based competencies of a team. One type of TDI that is often employed is social team building. It typically consists of a one-day extra-mural excursion involving some non-work-related tasks performed by teams to improve interpersonal relationships. The MBA groups are pre-allocated at the start of the academic programme and team building interventions are therefore needed to facilitate group formation. The main research question in this study deals with the effectiveness of these social team building TDI’s to promote group formation. The literature of teams and the factors that influence team effectivity were reviewed. Input-Process-Output models relate the factors that drive team performance. Three team viability measures critical to a teams’ performance were identified namely, group cohesion, group communication and goal-setting. There is strong empirical evidence that these factors contribute positively to the performance of the team. The influence of team building interventions on each of these factors were discussed. There is empirical evidence for the impact of team building interventions on these affective outcomes. However, empirical evidence for the link to objective performance measures is still lackin

An investigation into the influence of personality factors on cultural intelligence and the direct and moderating effects of international experience

Globalization has created tremendous opportunities for organizations, but also created challenges due to cultural diversity, highlighting the importance of cross-cultural competencies in becoming successful nowadays. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) has emerged as an important concept describing the individual capabilities needed to effectively interact across cultures. Utilizing the theory of evolutionary personality psychology, several relationships are predicted between certain personality traits and factors of CQ. In addition, social learning theory is applied to explain the expected relationships between international experience and CQ. Thirdly, several hypotheses are developed to investigate if international experience strengthens the relationship between certain personality traits and elements of CQ. Based on a sample size of 197 employees from a financial services company, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses validate the theorized four-factor CQ model. The results, based on stepwise regression analyses, confirm the expected relationship between international experience and all factors of CQ, except BCQ. In addition, the results reveal several significant relationships between personality factors and CQ. Novel for the research on CQ is the confirmation of several significant correlations between “dark-side“ personality traits (which have been characterized as ineffective behaviours) and elements of CQ. This study also shows several moderating relationships, providing new insights and posing important questions for future research, contributing to the accumulating literature on CQ. In addition, the results of this study provide interesting suggestions for practice, emphasizing the importance of adapting Human Resources policies to recruit, enable and retain those employees who are likely to successfully grasp the opportunities that globalization offers. In order to achieve this, organizations should rely on a broad range of assessment and development tools, focussing on CQ, personality traits and previous international experience, when selecting and preparing individuals for cross-cultural careers

Investigating How Individual Differences in Organisations are Associated with Employee Performance, Job Satisfaction and Climate for Innovation: A Quantitative Study in Jordan’s Middle Eastern Context

For this PhD thesis, individual differences in the workplace are studied, with the focus being on the key personality characteristics and styles identified in the field of business and organisational psychology: the Big Five, Team Roles, Conflict Management Styles, and Decision Making Styles. Some personality characteristics and styles have been identified as ‘healthy’ and productive, whilst others are considered ‘unhealthy’ and dysfunctional. Measuring individual differences in the workplace is seen as highly beneficial in view of its diagnostic potential. Furthermore, these constructs have been found to be significantly associated with employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation. The literature is scant with regards to studying these constructs under one umbrella to investigate their associations with employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation. Moreover, most of the evidence, to date, has been collected in Western contexts and studies from Middle Eastern countries are rare. The aim of this thesis is to address this research gap, by presenting a series of studies from Jordan – a collectivist society, which is becoming increasingly important in terms of economic growth and companies’ roles in the world market. Specifically, three empirical studies are presented that examine the structure of these individual differences constructs and how they are associated with employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation. For Study 1, the structure of individual differences constructs is investigated using a sample recruited from two of the top 20 companies in Jordan: a shipping and logistics company (n=224) and a telecommunications company (n=219). Confirmatory Factor Analyses largely confirmed the factorial structures found in studies in Western cultures: The big five were measured with the short and a longer version of the Big Five Inventory (i.e. BFI-10 and BFI-44), and a 5-factor structure was confirmed for the long, but not the short version. Team roles were measured with the Team Role Experience and Orientation questionnaire, and a 6-factor structure was confirmed. Conflict management styles were measured with the Dutch test for Conflict Handling, with a 5-factor structure being confirmed. Decision making styles were measured with the General Decision-Making Style questionnaire and a 5-factor structure was confirmed. Lastly, climate for innovation was measured with the Team Climate Inventory, with a 4-factor structure being confirmed. Study 2 involved examining how individual differences are associated with employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation. For this purpose, data were collected from a new sample (n=249) from the shipping and logistics company. For employee performance, regression analysis identified conscientiousness from the big five and the problem-solving conflict management style as significant predictors (both positive). For job satisfaction, regression analysis identified neuroticism from the big five and avoidant decision-making style as significant predictors (both negative). For climate for innovation, regression analysis identified agreeableness (positive) and neuroticism (negative) from the big five as significant predictors, along with the problem-solving conflict management style (positive) and rational decision-making style (positive). Study 3 was aimed at replicating the findings from Study 2 in a sample from the Jordanian general population. Further, an additional more reliable measure of employee performance, the Individual Work Performance Questionnaire was used. Three hundred and ninety Jordanian employees participated. The findings from Study 2 were largely confirmed. Furthermore, from the regression analysis, additional predictors of employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation emerged. i.e. neuroticism (negative), rational decision-making style (positive), and avoidant decision-making style (negative), were significant predictors of employee performance. Agreeableness (positive), the problem-solving conflict-management style (positive), and the rational decision-making style (positive) were significant predictors of job satisfaction. Moreover, the avoidant decision-making style was found to be a negative predictor of climate for innovation. These studies contribute to knowledge in several ways: first, by examining the factorial structure of the instruments used in a Jordanian, rather than a Western context and second, by investigating the individual differences constructs simultaneously under one umbrella, thereby identifying the most and least effective characteristics that contribute to high levels of employee performance, job satisfaction and climate for innovation in Jordan’s Middle Eastern context

1990-1992 Xavier University College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business Administration, College of Social Sciences Course Catalog

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