Faculty of Social Sciences

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14155/173

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Browsing Faculty of Social Sciences by Author "Khaola, P."

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    Environmental concern, attitude towards green products and green purchase intentions of consumers in Lesotho
    (Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management, 2014) Khaola, P.; Mokhethi, M.; Potiane, B.
    Even though many people show high concern for the environment, the existing literature suggests a disjuncture between peoples� environmental concern and their shopping behaviours. Based on a survey of 200 shoppers around the precincts of two shopping malls in Lesotho, the objective of this paper is to examine the relationships among consumers� environmental concern, attitude towards green products, and green purchase intentions. Factor and regression analyses are mainly used to analyse data. The results show that environmental concern is strongly related to attitude towards green products and weakly related to green purchase intentions respectively. When environmental concern and attitude towards green products are entered simultaneously to predict green purchase intentions, the influence of environmental concern becomes insignificant. The mediated relationship suggests that environmental concern affects green purchase intentions indirectly through attitude towards green products, which in turn directly affects green purchase intentions. Based on the results of the study, we provide policy implications and prospects for future research.
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    The influence of organisational culture and job satisfaction on intentions to leave: The cse of clay brick manufacturing company in Lesotho
    (Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, 2013) Khaola, P.; Leisanyane, K
    Employee turnover or retention has dominated the research agenda and attracted practitioners� attention for decades. Previous research has, however, suffered from lack of macro perspective in understanding employee turnover in organizations. Based on the survey of employees in a clay brick manufacturing company in Lesotho, the purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of job satisfaction and cultural traits on turnover intentions. There was a negative and significant correlation between job satisfaction and turnover intentions, and all cultural traits and turnover intentions. Though the variance contributed by cultural traits (stability and flexibility) over demographic factors and job satisfaction was only marginally significant, and the impact of flexibility cultural trait became insignificant in the regression analysis, the influence of stability cultural trait remained strong in both correlation and regression analyses. Managerial and theoretical implications are also discussed in this study.
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    Leadership, organisational citizenship and innovative work behaviours in Lesotho: Exploratory evidence
    (Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2013) Khaola, P.; Sephelane, R. L
    Although organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and innovative work behaviour (IWB) have attracted considerable attention in recent years, empirical studies on how leadership relates to each construct within the same research design in non-western environments are limited. Based on a sample of 100 participants in Lesotho, we explored how OCB and IWB related to each other, and how leadership related to each construct. The findings suggested that OCB and IWB were highly correlated, and while transformational leadership related to each concept positively, passive-avoidant dimension of transactional leadership related to each negatively. Furthermore, age, tenure, management level and level of education were all significantly related to both OCB and IWB. We submit that the participants could probably not differentiate between OCB and IWB as the two concepts probably represent a behavioural manifestation of the same latent construct. We recommend that managers who want to influence subordinates to adopt OCB and IWB should apply transformational leadership.
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    Pay or Job satisfaction? Explaining turnover intent of nurses in Lesotho
    (African Journal of Public Administration and Management, 2013) Khaola, P.; Letsika, K.
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    Perception of library service quality, satisfaction and frequency of use of library resources
    (Proceedings of UKZN's 8th Annual Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Conference - 2014, 2014) Khaola, P.; Mabilikoane, M
    The aims of this paper are to assess the students' perceived levels of library service quality, satisfaction with the library, frequency of use of library resources, and whether or not there are relationships among these variables. A survey research methodology using LibQUAL+TM instrument was used to collect data from a sample of 400 students at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to students during class hours. Frequencies, means, standard deviations, correlations, regression and factor analysis were used to analyse data. As expected, factor analysis of LibQUAL+TM items yielded 3 factors - affect of service, information control and library as a place. On average, the respondents did not perceive quality service in terms of service provided by the library staff, and easy access and control of information. The majority of respondents also rarely used the library website. There was a strong and positive correlation between all attributes of library quality service and satisfaction with the library. Even though information control and affect of service had a slight correlation with the use of library website, the relationship became insignificant in regression analysis. There was no relationship between satisfaction and frequency of library usage. The paper concludes that LibQUAL+TM has acceptable applicability in Lesotho, and further recommends how affect of service and information control dimensions of library service quality at NUL can be improved.
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    The relationships among students' commitment, self-esteem, orgaisational citizenship behaviour and academic performance
    (Africa Education Review, 2014) Khaola, P.
    As one of the most important dependent variables in education and work research, performance has been operationalised either as the proficiency with which core tasks are performed (task performance), or as extra-role behaviours that support core activities (organisational citizenship behaviours).Relative to academic performance (core academic achievement), there has been little research on the extent to which students practise organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in their academic work. The aim of the present study was to explore some correlates of both OCB and academic performance. Data used in the study were obtained from 185 students enrolled in a business course at the National University of Lesotho. Survey questionnaires inquiring about students� commitment, self-esteem, and OCB were administered to 204 third-year students. These were correlated with formal academic performance before and after the survey. Students� commitment was significantly related to both OCB and academic performance. Self-esteem was significantly correlated with OCB, but not academic performance. Two dimensions of OCB (altruism and civic virtue) were moderately but significantly related to academic performance. Results suggest that improving self-esteem might affect OCB, and improving commitment and certain elements of OCB might improve academic achievement.
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    Students' experiences of undergraduate Business Research and supervision at the National University of Lesotho
    (Proceedings of UKZN�s 8th Annual Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Conference - 2014, 2014) Khaola, P.
    The research dissertation and its supervision have been described by researchers as the most advanced levels of learning and teaching respectively. In spite of the intrinsic value of research and its supervision, there are few studies that document the lived experiences of undergraduate students in these areas. Existing studies are dominated by the opinions and experiences of academic staff, and are primarily limited to the issues of research assessment. To our knowledge, there is paucity of research on the lived experiences of undergraduate students in Lesotho. The aim of this paper is to explicate the students' lived experiences of undergraduate dissertation and its supervision at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). We used interpretive qualitative research to give 'voice' to the participants, and identified and interpreted key themes from interviews conducted over a period of two academic years. We specifically used data collected from 17 interviewees in six focus groups, 11 interviewees a year later, documentary analysis and observation over a period of two academic years. The interviews were unstructured, and took between 60 and 120 minutes. We ended the interviews once we realised that no new experiences were related by participants. The analysis of data resulted in nine themes. In general, students expressed positive views about dissertation as an important mode of learning and assessment; acknowledged the important role of research methodology course in undertaking research; found challenges in undertaking some parts of dissertation; and complained about supervisors who were not available, approachable, nurturing, organised, and did not communicate constructive feedback on timely basis using modern communication channels. While qualitative research findings cannot be generalised, we submit that understanding learner experiences can respectively benefit and inform undergraduate learning and supervision at universities.