Abstract:
The aim of this study has been to develop a model from the attributes of existing management teams within a financial organisation, which can be used as a selection strategy to select more effective management teams in future. The observed attributes were linked to the managers’ work performance and behaviour. It is imperative to continuously search for valid and reliable methods to establish and improve effective combinations of selection instruments and criteria for best employment practices. Systems theory is used as a framework for this study to analyse and describe middle management teams as sub-systems of the financial organisation as a larger system. The identification of effective management teams is an attempt to combat entropy in a search for order, and to support the organisation’s survival during a period of transformation and disorder. The independent variables for the purpose of this study are divided in three themes, namely demographic attributes (job experience and academic qualifications), work performance, and personality and competencies. Work performance is described as the outcome of two measurements, namely the performance management evaluation, as well as an evaluation of their behaviour by their superiors using the Inventory of Management Competencies. Their personality and competencies were evaluated by means of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Occupational Personality Questionnaire Concept Model 4.2. Their team role preferences, as identified by Belbin, were calculated using the results of the Occupational Personality Questionnaire. The requirements of the managers’ positions were obtained by means of the Work Profiling System. The match of the profiles of the managers to the requirements of their positions was obtained by means of a computerized fit between their Occupational Personality Questionnaire profiles and the desired personality profiles as a product of the Work Profiling System. The success criteria of the research design are based on the employee-client-profit-chain model. The amount of job satisfaction experienced by employees, the satisfaction which clients experience with regard to the service they received, as well as the extent of financial growth, is identified as the dependent variables. Descriptive statistics revealed certain patterns in the data. Principal component analysis was used to condense the number of independent variables in the study. Canonical correlations were executed to determine which combinations of independent variables were associated with the dependent variables, but the correlations tended to be low. Multiple regression analysis was then utilised with respect to the three distinct dependent variables. The results culminated in the four selection models for the four manager positions in the team.
