Joha Louw-Potgieter

Career Success of Women Academics in South Africa

We used career psychology variables found in the literature to explain the career success of academic women in South Africa. The impact of work centrality (moderated by care-giving), motivation, career anchors, and self-efficacy on career success was examined. The sample (N = 372) included permanently employed women academics in public universities. Path analysis was used to test the proposed model of career success. Seven independent variables remained in the final path model, namely, work centrality; the motivational factors of self-efficacy, motivational expectations, and motivational valence; and three career anchors (autonomy, entrepreneurial creativity, and service/dedication to a cause). These variables explained the variance of distinctly different dependent variables. For objective career success, publication output and qualifications were positively related to the career anchor autonomy, and negatively to service and entrepreneurial creativity. Teaching evaluation and community service were positively related to motivational valence. Subjective career success was positively related to work centrality, motivational expectancy, and self-efficacy, and negatively to motivational valence. Care-giving responsibility did not impact on work centrality. When the final path model was examined further for differences based on race, career stage (race combined with age), and career progress (job level combined with length of service), career progress was the only significant participant classification criterion. The results of this study were used to develop a framework of excellence promotion for academic women. The study was limited by the type of modelling used and the convenience sample.

Communicative dynamics of police-civilian encounters: South African and American interethnic data

Research in the American West, China, and Taiwan has shown that officers’ communication accommodative practices (and attributed trust in them) can be more potent predictors of satisfaction with the police than are the sociodemographic characteristics of those judging. With Black and White respondents, this study continues this line of work in Louisiana and South Africa and tests a new model about the relationships among perceived officer accommodation, trust in the police, and reported voluntary compliance from civilians. In addition to an array of differences that emerged between nations and ethnicities, officer accommodativeness indirectly predicted civilian compliance through trust. The hypothesized model was partially supported and culturally-sensitive.

Development of Cross-Cultural Psychological Capital and Its Relationship With Cultural Intelligence and Ethnocentrism

As a key construct in the field of positive organizational behavior, positive psychological capital (or PsyCap) has been well established in the work domain. In the current study, the applicability of PsyCap was extended into the domain of cross-cultural interactions and was tested via a training intervention in the United States (n = 130) and South Africa (n = 71). Psychological resource training targeting the underlying components of hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism resulted in significant gains in cross-cultural PsyCap, cultural intelligence, and positive emotions as well as decreases in ethnocentrism. In the South African sample, gains in PsyCap and cultural intelligence were maintained one month following training. Results are discussed within the context of psychological resource training for employees working in a diverse environment. This intervention study extends and applies PsyCap into the domain of cross-cultural development and management.

Professional work and actual work : the case of industrial psychologists in South Africa

In this study we sought to answer the question: What work activities do industrial psychologists perform on a daily basis? Our results, based on the responses of a sample of 129 registered industrial psychologists, showed that they spent most of their time performing general human resource work. We also found that industrial psychologists identified strongly with their profession and less strongly with voluntary associations like SIOPSA. We found no significant relationship between psychological acts performed by industrial psychologists and their identification with the profession. More men than women indicated that they performed psychological assessment activities in their daily work. Moreover, women tended to perform the more routine psychological assessment activities (e.g., test administration) and men the more high-level assessment activities (e.g., interpretation of test results). The results are explained in terms of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and specifically the social creativity strategies used by a group whose high status is under threat.

AN OUTCOME EVALUATION OF A YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

The Child Care Act of South Africa (1983) requires children who are in children’s homes to leave these places of care once they reach 18 years of age. Research indicates that youths aging out of foster care are more likely to experience homelessness, unemployment, substance abuse and lack of basic healthcare services (Courtney, Drowsy, Ruth, Havelock & Boost, 2005). Atkinson (2008:195) points out that as a result a life marked by traumatic experiences and their lengthy time on the streets, foster care youths often lack the basic skills necessary for independence such as keeping appointments, managing a bank account, finding housing, shopping for groceries, cooking meals, driving a car and taking public transportation.

Mobile phone technology and reading behaviour: Commentary on the FunDza programme

South African learners generally perform badly on external tests of reading literacy. In the 2011 international Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), South African Grade 4 learners performed poorly in comparison with their international counterparts, especially on higher order comprehension (Howie, van Staden, Tshele, Dowse, & Zimmerman, 2012). The 2013 Annual National Assessments reported a national average percentage of 43% for Grade 9 learners in their home language and 35% in a first additional language, which often is English (Department of Basic Education, 2013). The Departments report recommended that learners be encouraged to read additional books, and more widely, to improve their scholastic attainment. There is much evidence to support the argument that reading for pleasure has a positive effect on both personal and educational development (e.g. Clark, 2011). Encouraging learners to engage in self-initiated reading as a leisure activity therefore may be positively related to reading literacy. Unfortunately, many South African learners attend schools with no libraries, and come from households without resources, including books, to promote reading (Howie et al., 2012).

A PROCESS EVALUATION OF A PROGRAMME FOR STREET PEOPLE

The plight of the homeless in South Africa has been graphically described by Cross and Seager (2010a:18) as “the proverbial skeletons at the feast, the excluded poorest who enter unobserved and stand by gaunt and starved, terrifying to the invited guests but deprived of any capacity to join the party.”