Management performance measurement of business educated managers in the North West and Vaal triangle areas

Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.The age of industrialisation in the nineteenth century and the subsequent emergence of large corporations called for new approaches to the way in which organisations are managed. Business today operates in a world of constant change. Technology and society are changing more rapidly than ever before. The workplace has become increasingly diverse, as pressure is mounting for the previously disadvantaged and women to ascend the echelons of organisations. Concern for the environment has forced companies to think about how their actions affect the quality of the air, land, and water. Competition is more fierce than ever, because companies from all over the world now try to sell their products and services to the same customers. All these changes not only require of those who manage these organisations to be in procession of relevant professional skills, but it also require of them to be competent in conducting their business of managing. The aim of the study was to construct a conceptual framework to measure the identified skills for management competence. The study builds a conceptual framework using identified skills and also presents the interrelationships between the skills. The primary theoretical background and concepts about skills for managerial competence for this study, range from the historical perspective of MBA education as it is the cutting edge of business education to management models identified from the literature. The extensive review of the literature and three different management models and the key common managerial competencies led to the development of an initial model based on the literature wherein the required skills for managerial competence were identified as self awareness skills (SA), self directed career planning skills (SP), general interactive skills (IS), planning and control skills (PC), organising skills (OS), leading skills (LS), and managing change skills (MC). The empirical study which followed was conducted among a sample of 395 business administration students from the three campuses of the North West University business school in Mafikeng and the Potchefstroom Business School. The empirical study based on the seven skills for managerial competence yielded results that measured the strength of each managerial skill and the interrelationship among different skills. The results were analysed by the process of factor analysis and it was clear from the analysis that there are a number of unreliable factors which led to a number of questions having to be discarded. As a result the original model had to be restructured to develop an alternative managerial skill model. After the initial model was restructured, the results wherein thirteen factors loaded heavily on the factor were realised. Of the thirteen factors, factor 1 had nineteen factors that loaded heavy and had to be restructured again in order to make sense of the data. Once a further restructuring was done the results were that factor 1 had three sub factors that loaded heavy on the factor which led to the conclusion that the alternative managerial skill model comprised thirteen factors wherein factor 1 had three sub factors. The value of the study lies in the fact that managerial models identified in the literature are orthodox in nature, and they do not progress further to explore skills for managerial competence. Given the orthodox nature of models identified in the literature, this study purports to suggest a framework that could be adapted to measure skills for management competence. This study further contributes to the discipline of organisational leadership and management, particularly with regard to practices regarding leader and manager development within the context of a dynamic, changing organisational environment.Doctora