Although Africa's return to growth in the 2000s, coterminous with significantly increasing foreign direct investment, has led to renewed interest in Human Resource Management (HRM) on the continent, much of the literature has tended to focus on cross-culturally imposed variations in HRM and employment practices and the impact of foreign investment from the developed world. Policy and strategy in managing human resources, most notably those from emerging market multinational enterprises (MNEs), has been neglected. Opening this special issue, this article highlights present trends and debates, and reviews more recent contributions to knowledge of this area. Our analysis critically evaluates the use of new categories of expatriate workers including semi-skilled and relatively unskilled home country expatriates deployed in emerging market MNEs in African countries, the uneven nature of regulation, structural changes in African economies, and the consequences of national institutional restraints for multinational HRM. We identify an agenda for further research.

Multinational firms from emerging economies in Africa: implications for research and practice in human resource management

Orientation: Leadership styles influence knowledge workers’ job-stress-related presenteeism (JSRP) and, ultimately, organisational performance. Knowledge workers generally work under strict deadlines in fast-paced, stressful environments, and require organisational support. Research purpose: The objective of this study was to examine empirically the effect of three leadership styles, namely transformational, transactional and laissez-faire, on job-relatedstress presenteeism in knowledge workers across a number of industries in South Africa. Motivation for the study: Absenteeism has been the subject of much investigation but more research is required into the antecedents and consequences of presenteeism, the phenomenon of employees being physically present at work, but not fully functional and therefore unproductive. Illness as an antecedent to presenteeism has been studied, but limited attention has been given to presenteeism caused by stress. There are very few studies that investigate leadership styles as antecedents for JSRP and this study therefore sets out to provide quantitative evidence of this relationship. Research design, approach and method: The researchers used a cross-sectional quantitative approach within the positivism research philosophy. Two questionnaires were administered: the multifactor leadership questionnaire form 6S and the job-related-stress presenteeism questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s product-moment correlation were used to answer the research questions. The participants ( N = 242) were knowledge workers, representing 12 widely categorised industries. The researchers analysed job role descriptions to ensure the respondents were all knowledge workers. Main findings: Transformational leadership has a higher negative correlation with JSRP than does transactional leadership, whereas laissez-faire leadership has no significant relationship with job stress or JSRP. Practical/managerial implications: The research provides a compelling case for investment into transformational and transactional leadership development by showing the preventative effect that transformational leadership and, to a lesser degree, transactional leadership, has on stress-associated presenteeism. Contribution/value-add: Presenteeism lowers organisational performance even more than absenteeism does, and exists at huge cost to employees’ quality of work-life. This empirical study, the first to use valid, reliable questionnaires to investigate the relationship between transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership on the one hand, and JSRP on the other, suggests that transformational leadership development should be prioritised.

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An investigation into the effect of leadership style on stress-related presenteeism in South African knowledge workers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between complexity leadership and contextual ambidexterity as well as the mediating effect of organisational innovation climate in this link. This study is an answer to a call on which leadership approach and mediating factors can meet today’s seemingly contradictory challenges of efficiently managing business demands, while simultaneously searching for new opportunities.,The researchers analysed 1,204 usable survey responses from employees of South African organisations. Analysis was in the form of structural equation modelling. Mediation analysis was carried out on estimates of the indirect effect.,Results show that complexity leadership was a strong predictor of innovation climate; in turn, innovation climate positively impacts exploratory innovation by 64 per cent; complexity leadership and innovation climate positively affect exploitation by 57 per cent. The innovation climate plays a total mediator role between complexity leadership and exploratory innovation and a partial effect on exploitation.,This study gives human resource management (HRM) insight into strategically directing leadership recruitment and development towards creating an organisational climate to enhance ambidexterity. HRM must conduct regular climate surveys to ascertain whether current leadership is creating an environment that enables exploratory and exploitative innovation.,The authors’ contribution includes a theoretical contribution to the emerging field of complexity leadership by offering conceptual as well as empirical evidence of its role in ambidexterity. This study extends previous research in highlighting organisational climate’s mediating role of being open to new ideas to enable exploratory innovation.

Innovation climate mediating complexity leadership and ambidexterity

Career advancement challenges facing people with disabilities in South Africa

This article explicates how a shared psychological contract was negotiated with senior undergraduate students at the beginning of a new academic year. The guiding idea behind the investigation is that students’ voice should be heard when mutual role expectations associated with the lecturer-student relationship are clarified and agreed upon. This provides lecturers with an excellent opportunity to reflect on how to adapt their behaviour to optimize the lecturer-student relationship. The Nominal Group Technique was adapted to collect data from individual students and to reach group consensus about the content of the agreement. General themes representative of individual students’ shared expectations about the role of the lecturer and their own roles were identified. The entitlement beliefs and obligations of students and their professor were rated and incorporated into a psychological contract that was subsequently adopted by both parties. The findings show that senior undergraduate students (individually and as a group) have realistic ideological, transactional and relational expectations at the commencement of a new teaching year, and that the negotiation of a collective agreement is a viable option. Such agreements should be renegotiated at critical junctures during the academic year to regulate and manage mutual role expectations in the lecturer-student relationship. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n7p25

https://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/viewFile/2454/2422

Negotiating a Shared Psychological Contract with Students

Orientation: Human resource practices influence the psychological contract between employee and employer and, ultimately, organisational performance. Research purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of human resource practices on the types of psychological contracts in an iron ore mining company in South Africa empirically. Motivation for the study: Although there have been a number of conceptual studies on the effect of human resource practices on psychological contracts, there has been no effort to synthesise the links between these contracts and various human resource practices systematically. This study endeavoured to provide quantitative evidence to verify or refute conceptual studies on this relationship. Its findings could inform human resource strategies and, ultimately, the prioritisation of human resource practices to improve the cost-effective allocation of resources. Research design, approach and method: The researchers administered two questionnaires. These were Rousseau’s Psychological Contract Inventory (2000) and the Human Resource Practices Scale of Geringer, Colette and Milliman (2002). The researchers conducted the study with 936 knowledge workers at an iron ore mining company in South Africa. They achieved a 32% response rate. Main findings: The findings showed that most participants have relational contracts with the organisation. Another 22% have balanced contracts, 8% have transitional contracts whilst only 1% have transactional contracts. The study suggests that there are relationships between these psychological contracts and specific human resource practices. The study found that training and development was the most important human resource practice for developing relational and balanced contracts. Employees thought that they contributed more than their employer did to the relationship. The researchers developed a model to illustrate the influence of the various human resource practices on psychological contracts. Practical/managerial implications: The influence of human resource practices on relational contracts could assist organisations to invest in human resource practices. During recessions, organisations tend to reduce expenditure on human resource practices, especially training and development. The findings of this study, about the relationship between training and development and relational contracts, highlight the negative effect that this trend could have on psychological contracts, individual and organisational behaviour and, ultimately, organisational performance. Contribution/value-add: Based on this empirical study, the researchers proposed a conceptual model to illustrate the relationship between different psychological contracts and specific human resource practices, like training and development, which had the strongest relationships with relational contracts.

/pdf/the-effect-of-human-resource-practices-on-psychological-1b085om3si.pdf

The effect of human resource practices on psychological contracts at an iron ore mining company in South Africa

Orientation: Human resource practices influence the psychological contract between employee and employer and, ultimately, organisational performance. 
Research purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of human resource practices on the types of psychological contracts in an iron ore mining company in South Africa empirically. 
Motivation for the study: Although there have been a number of conceptual studies on the effect of human resource practices on psychological contracts, there has been no effort to synthesise the links between these contracts and various human resource practices systematically. This study endeavoured to provide quantitative evidence to verify or refute conceptual studies on this relationship. Its findings could inform human resource strategies and, ultimately, the prioritisation of human resource practices to improve the cost-effective allocation of resources. 
Research design, approach and method: The researchers administered two questionnaires. These were Rousseau's Psychological Contract Inventory (2000) and the Human Resource Practices Scale of Geringer, Colette and Milliman (2002). The researchers conducted the study with 936 knowledge workers at an iron ore mining company in South Africa. They achieved a 32% response rate. 
Main findings: The findings showed that most participants have relational contracts with the organisation. Another 22% have balanced contracts, 8% have transitional contracts whilst only 1% have transactional contracts. The study suggests that there are relationships between these psychological contracts and specific human resource practices. The study found that training and development was the most important human resource practice for developing relational and balanced contracts. Employees thought that they contributed more than their employer did to the relationship. The researchers developed a model to illustrate the influence of the various human resource practices on psychological contracts. 
Practical / managerial implications: The influence of human resource practices on relational contracts could assist organisations to invest in human resource practices. During recessions, organisations tend to reduce expenditure on human resource practices, especially training and development. The findings of this study, about the relationship between training and development and relational contracts, highlight the negative effect that this trend could have on psychological contracts, individual and organisational behaviour and, ultimately, organisational performance. 
Contribution / value-add: Based on this empirical study, the researchers proposed a conceptual model to illustrate the relationship between different psychological contracts and specific human resource practices, like training and development, which had the strongest relationships with relational contracts.

Johannes Gotsilemang Shuping

Papers

The effect of human resource practices on psychological contracts at an iron ore mining company in South Africa

The effect of human resource practices on psychological contracts at an iron ore mining company in South Africa : original research