Salutogenesis and sense of coherence : their promotion in a South African organisation

Leaders are in a key position to promote healthy organisations and transform negatively perceived work experiences and interactions, which might lead to ill health, increased medical costs and employee turnover, into positive responses. This paper addresses salutogenesis (health), sense of coherence and leadership from a context-specific positive organisational behaviour perspective by following a mixed-methods case study approach within the pragmatism research paradigm. The unit of analysis was all the top and middle managers (n = 31) at a selected public utility in the Eastern Cape Province. Data was gathered by the Antonovsky Sense of Coherence questionnaire, in-depth interviews and observation. Research findings indicated that manageability and comprehensibility were more important than meaningfulness; there was significant difference between gender and the average meaningfulness orientation scale; and Indian respondents scoring significantly higher on meaningfulness than African and White respondents. The qualitative data supported the quantitative findings.