The first South African woman to obtain a doctorate in Contact Centre Management, Dr Khopotso Matsoso, is among the three exceptional ladies from the Tshwane University of Technology’s (TUT) Department of Business and Information Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, who received their doctoral degrees at the 2024 Spring graduation ceremonies.
DR Khopotso Matsoso
Dr Estelle Bruhns, Head of the Department of Business and Information Management at the Faculty of Management Sciences, said they are really proud of the trio for their amazing achievements. At the moment, the Department has 17 full-time staff members with nine holding doctoral degrees,” she added.
Dr Matsoso’s research focused on ways in which the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) can revolutionise the contact centre industry and societal structures globally, including law enforcement and emergency contact centres. She is committed to advancing the contact centre industry, emphasising the need for growth, and attaining a deeper understanding of 4IR, particularly the crucial role of having skilled and qualified employees in shaping the future of the contact centre field.
Dr Ndaba’s thesis titled “A Client Engagement Strategy for Continuous Optimisation of the Administrative Information Management (AIM) Process at the Department of Home Affairs within the Tshwane District, explored the integration of the client engagement strategies into the AIM process, to continuously optimise service quality and enhance value creation in the public sector.
Using a qualitative approach, she extended the Client-oriented AIM framework, offering a unique combination of two distinct models from different academic disciplines, providing practical insights for managers and policymakers. One article from her research has already been presented at the Biennial Interdisciplinary Conference of Business and Information (BICBIM) that was hosted in Durban and accepted by a peer-reviewed journal.
In her thesis entitled, “A framework for ethical climate, work engagement and job satisfaction in the South African Public Sector”, Dr Ramajoe investigated the relationships between ethical climate, work engagement and job satisfaction, whether ethical climate and work engagement predict job satisfaction and the mediating effect of ethical climate on work engagement and job satisfaction.
As a result of the uniqueness of this research, one article has already been published in a peer-reviewed journal (South African Journal of Human Resource Management) and the second article has been submitted for publication to the (Journal for New Generation Sciences).
Dr Given Ramajoe
Dr Zuki Ndaba