Master´s thesis focuses on analysis of changes connected to companies growth. Company growth typically results in creation of specific departments and tasks segmentation, which may lead to the occurrence of communication problems and the need of functional coordination. In accord with these changes new management roles appear and the company organization scheme becomes a matter of rearrangement.

The ability to delegate some of ones activities to other organizations is something that has been used for many years by different types of organizations in different areas. This type of delegation to make use of external knowledge has been found to have many benefits such as improved quality of decision making,shorter decision paths and redistribution of resources to improve processes. Unfortunately, it has also been found that in some activities, delegation can lead to problems with, for example, information access. The purpose of this paper was therefore to investigate whether one authority's delegation of activities to another organization affects access to information based on the concept of public documents. The research questions that formed the basis of the investigation were 1) Are there information losses, based on the concept of public documents, that can arise in connection with the delegated activity, and which are they? and 2) What consequences can information loss have when looking at the principle of public access to official records? This paper has had a qualitative approach where interviews and document studies have been used as methods for gathering information regarding the two research questions. The main conclusion drawn from this thesis is that if the Swedish Transport Agency uses certain types of organizations for delegation of activities, extensive information loss can be incurred regarding information linked to certain parts of its activities and as an authority run the risk of being in conflict with the principle of public access to official records.

Delegationsordningen påverkar socialsekreterares handlingsutrymme att leva upp till barnets bästa. Socialsekreterare styrs dagligen i sitt yrkesutövande av politiska beslut som utgörs av lagstiftning. Det politiska landskapet avser att bidra till en demokratisk process med avsikt att leda till likabehandling och rättssäkerhet för att stärka legitimiteten inom välfärden. Samtidigt är individer i behov av individuella lösningar och behovsanpassade insatser, något som lämnar socialsekreterare med ett handlingsutrymme att agera efter egen yrkesprofessionalism i försök att leva upp till barnets bästa. Socialsekreterare lever i ett mellanting mellan dessa två världar där organisationsprofessionalism och yrkesprofessionalism möts. Studiens resultat visar på svårigheter att definiera barnets bästa vilket medför en prövning av socialsekreterarens handlingsutrymme och flexibilitet i varje enskilt fall. Dessutom framgår det av det empiriska materialet att tillit utgör grundval för att handlingsutrymme ska bli önskvärt hos socialsekreterare. På barn- och utredningsenheten där studien utfördes upplever socialsekreterare generellt att de har tillit från ledningen på arbetsplatsen. Däremot framkommer det att delegationsordningen upplevs som ett ekonomiskt styrmedel för att reglera de offentliga utgifterna. Slutligen visar resultatet att socialsekreterare är oense om vem som ska vara yttersta beslutsfattare och efterfrågar expertkunskap i socialnämnden där de tyngsta besluten fattas. / The delegation of authority affects social workers discretion to live up to the best interests of the child. Social workers are affected daily by political decisions. The political landscape contribute to a democratic process with the intention of leading to equal treatment and the rule of law. At the same time, individuals are in need of individual solutions and needsadapted efforts, which leaves the social worker with the discretion to use occupational professionalism in an attempt to live up to the child's best of interests. Social workers act in between two worlds where organisational professionalism and occupational professionalism meet. The results of the study show difficulties in defining the best interests of the child, which challenges the social workers discretion in each single case. Trust is the foundation for making discretion desirable amongst social workers. At the child welfare unit, social workers feel that they have trust from their management. On the other hand, the delegation of authority is perceived as an economic instrument for regulating public expenditure. Finally, the results shows that the social workers disagrees on who should be the ultimate decisionmaker and demand expertise among the politicians in the social committee where the toughest decisions are made.

The hierarchal distributed database, Domain Name System (DNS) provides name resolution for network applications, which is vital for the functionality of the Internet. An important part of the system design is to distribute the administration by delegation of domains. To maintain the availability of domains it is important that configuration is accurately per-formed. Zonemaster is a tool used for validating the quality of a DNS delegation by testing of misconfigurations. This thesis evaluates Zonemaster and how it relates to other DNS tools. The evaluation was conducted by identifying and designing configuration errors re-garding DNS delegation. These errors were tested by each tool. Their responses together with the extent of documentation regarding test specification was analyzed. The analyzed data was then divided into three categories: number of implemented tests, detected errors and if the test specification referred to a reliable source. The results showed that Zonemas-ter had all the tests implemented, detected and referred to 91,7% of them. / Den hierarkiska distribuerade databasen, domännamnssystem (DNS) utför namnuppslag-ningar för nätverksapplikationer, vilket är en viktig del för Internets funktionalitet. Dess systemdesign möjliggör distribuerad administration genom delegering av domäner. För att behålla tillgängligheten av domäner är det viktigt att konfigurationen utförs korrekt. Zone-master är ett verktyg som används för att validera kvaliteten av en DNS-delegation genom att identifiera felkonfigureringar. Detta examensarbete utvärderar Zonemaster och dess re-lation till andra DNS-verktyg. Utvärderingen genomfördes genom att identifiera och ut-forma konfigurationsfel avseende DNS-delegering. Dessa fel testades av varje verktyg och deras svar, tillsammans med tillhörande testspecifikation analyserades. Analyserat data de-lades sedan in i tre kategorier: antal genomförda test, upptäckta fel och om testspecifikat-ionerna hänvisade till tillförlitliga källor. Resultaten visade att Zonemaster hade alla tester implementerade samt upptäckte och hänvisade till 91,7% av dem.

Trust in information systems stem from two key properties of responses to queries regarding the state of the system, viz., i) authoritativeness, and ii) unbiasedness. That the response is authoritative implies that i) the provider (source) of the response, and ii) the chain of delegations through which the provider obtained the authority to respond, can be verified. The property of unbiasedness implies that no system data relevant to the query is deliberately or accidentally suppressed. The need for guaranteeing these two important properties stem from the impracticality for the verifier to exhaustively verify the correctness of every system process, and the integrity of the platform on which system processes are executed. For instance, the integrity of a process may be jeopardized by i) bugs (attacks) in computing hardware like Random Access Memory (RAM), input/output channels (I/O), and Central Processing Unit( CPU), ii) exploitable defects in an operating system, iii) logical bugs in program implementation, and iv) a wide range of other embedded malfunctions, among others. A first step in ensuing AU properties of geographic queries is the need to ensure AU responses to a specific type of geographic query, viz., point-location. The focus of this dissertation is on strategies to leverage assured point-location, for i) ensuring authoritativeness and unbiasedness (AU) of responses to a wide range of geographic queries; and ii) useful applications like Secure Queryable Dynamic Maps (SQDM) and trustworthy redistricting protocol. The specific strategies used for guaranteeing AU properties of geographic services include i) use of novel Merkle-hash tree- based data structures, and ii) blockchain networks to guarantee the integrity of the processes.

In 2009 Operation Clean Audit was launched with the objective that all municipalities must achieve a clean audit by the 2014 financial year. A clean audit is an audit opinion when the financial statements are unqualified; no adverse findings were identified on compliance with laws and regulations as well as on predetermined objectives. The overall aim of the programme is to clean up the governance of municipalities and to enhance service delivery. In both the public and the private sector internal control is crucial. It is seen as one of the key elements of good governance, it provides assurance of the rendering of reliable financial statements, of compliance with legislation and it also indicates how the organisation performs against its objectives. Budgetary control in local government can be used as an effective internal control method by legally limiting the authorised expenditure and to monitor the actual service delivery against the budgeted targets. If variances are identified in the budget or with regard to service delivery objectives, remedial action can be taken. If municipalities do not provide services to communities in a sustainable manner, it contravenes its constitutional mandate as stipulated in section 152(1)(b) of the Constitution of South Africa. The qualitative research method, in the format of a case study of the Tlokwe City Council, a local municipality in the North West Province, was chosen for this research. In the 2010 financial year, the Auditor General reflected that the Tlokwe City Council experienced deficiencies in the key fundamentals of internal control: leadership, financial and performance management, and governance which could directly be linked to the basis of the qualification of the financial statements, findings on predetermined objectives and compliance with legislation. The material underspending of the capital budget was also found to be affecting service delivery negatively. The purpose of this study is to benchmark the internal budgetary control systems of municipalities in South Africa, which have already achieved clean audit reports for consecutive years, to improve the internal budgetary control system of the Tlokwe City Council. This research was formulated in such a way that — through the findings obtained in the literature study with regard to the legislative framework regulating the budget formulation, internal and budgetary control of the local government sphere in South Africa, analysis of the internal budgetary control deficiencies at the Tlokwe City Council and the benchmarking exercise with the Swartland and Steve Tshwete local municipalities — a strategy can be developed to provide for effective budgeting and to improve the internal control system of the Tlokwe City Council. Potential benefits that can arise from the implementation of the recommended strategy to improve the internal budgetary control system of the Tlokwe City Council are the attainment of a clean audit opinion by the Auditor General and subsequently the enhancement of service delivery to the community. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In 2009 Operation Clean Audit was launched with the objective that all municipalities must achieve a clean audit by the 2014 financial year. A clean audit is an audit opinion when the financial statements are unqualified; no adverse findings were identified on compliance with laws and regulations as well as on predetermined objectives. The overall aim of the programme is to clean up the governance of municipalities and to enhance service delivery. In both the public and the private sector internal control is crucial. It is seen as one of the key elements of good governance, it provides assurance of the rendering of reliable financial statements, of compliance with legislation and it also indicates how the organisation performs against its objectives. Budgetary control in local government can be used as an effective internal control method by legally limiting the authorised expenditure and to monitor the actual service delivery against the budgeted targets. If variances are identified in the budget or with regard to service delivery objectives, remedial action can be taken. If municipalities do not provide services to communities in a sustainable manner, it contravenes its constitutional mandate as stipulated in section 152(1)(b) of the Constitution of South Africa. The qualitative research method, in the format of a case study of the Tlokwe City Council, a local municipality in the North West Province, was chosen for this research. In the 2010 financial year, the Auditor General reflected that the Tlokwe City Council experienced deficiencies in the key fundamentals of internal control: leadership, financial and performance management, and governance which could directly be linked to the basis of the qualification of the financial statements, findings on predetermined objectives and compliance with legislation. The material underspending of the capital budget was also found to be affecting service delivery negatively. The purpose of this study is to benchmark the internal budgetary control systems of municipalities in South Africa, which have already achieved clean audit reports for consecutive years, to improve the internal budgetary control system of the Tlokwe City Council. This research was formulated in such a way that — through the findings obtained in the literature study with regard to the legislative framework regulating the budget formulation, internal and budgetary control of the local government sphere in South Africa, analysis of the internal budgetary control deficiencies at the Tlokwe City Council and the benchmarking exercise with the Swartland and Steve Tshwete local municipalities — a strategy can be developed to provide for effective budgeting and to improve the internal control system of the Tlokwe City Council. Potential benefits that can arise from the implementation of the recommended strategy to improve the internal budgetary control system of the Tlokwe City Council are the attainment of a clean audit opinion by the Auditor General and subsequently the enhancement of service delivery to the community. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Interactive version of the thesis is filed with the printed copy in the UNISA archives / The study investigated and described public hospitals in terms of management processes with reference to financial planning, organizing, leading and control in order to identify deficiencies in the financial management of public hospitals. The aim was to identify gaps in the management of financial processes and to provide guidelines and strategies to improve these. The purpose of the research was addressed within a quantitative approach applying exploratory and descriptive designs. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data that fit the objectives of the research. The study population compassed all 27 public hospitals as study units in a specific geographic area, namely Mpumalanga Province with the following inclusion criteria: active patient capacity of 100 beds and more, which employ personnel such as (1) medical, (2) paramedical and (3) administrative and a working application of the BAS as financial accounting system since its interception in the year 2000. Nine public hospitals were randomly selected as the sample hospitals. Within the nine hospitals, four groups of staff were selected by means of stratified random sampling, namely management, health professionals, and financial and administrative staff. The number of staff selected within each hospital differed, from 15 to 50, amounting to a sample size of three hundred (n=300). A response rate of 66.66% v (n=182) was achieved. The sample consisted of 4 (2.27%) chief executive officers, 3 (1.70%) financial managers, 84 (47.72%) unit managers and 91 (50.00%) subordinates. The response rate of 66.66% in this study was an indication of the unavailability of the health care professionals (which include management, health professionals and financial and administrative staff) within the nine public hospitals. The major inferences drawn from this study are that the different health care professions have a poor perception of the scope of financial management in terms of financial needs, utilization of resources, the scope and function of leading and delegation, and applying appropriate financial control methods. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Services Management)

Since 1994 a number of health reforms took place in furthering democracy. These changes included the decentralisation of Primary Health Care Services. This study is a phenomenological research that chronicles the Primary Health Care decentralisation experiences in the Bophirima District of the North-West Province. Using a descriptive phenomenological orientation, the purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of participants associated with decentralisation in the Bophirima District. Also, to illustrate how the participants perceive these experiences in relation to Primary Health Care services. Furthermore, to provide scientific evidence regarding factors related to the decentralisation of PHC services in the Bophirima District. These and other issues remain of paramount importance given the current state of health care in the South Africa. This study took place in the outskirts of the semi-rural area of Bophirima and Central District in the North-West Province. The investigation followed qualitative research design that was descriptive, exploratory, contextual and phenomenological in nature. The sampling procedure involved non-probability purposive, sampling technique with a sample size of five participants. Data was collected by using an unstructured interview technique. The modified Giorgi method of analysis was used for qualitative data analysis. These are contained in Burns and Grove (2001:596) and Polit and Beck (2004:394) are fully explicated in Chapter Four. Guba model (in Babbie & Mouton, 2001:180) was utilised to ensure the trustworthiness of the study. Ethical requirements were considered throughout and these are reflected in chapter four of the thesis.Three forms of decentralisation: deconcentration, delegation and devolution were identified in the findings. The investigation further indicated that the integration of primary health care services was also underway at the time of decentralisation. This integration triggered different psychological and emotional states amongst research participants. Most importantly, the research revealed that the interest of leadership across three spheres of government played a key role in the decentralisation of PHCs and integration of PHCs, while highlighting the importance of community participation in health service delivery (CP). In conclusion, the decentralisation process was generally perceived as empowering although, nationally, leadership needs to be strengthened to support provinces and districts regarding major policy issues such decentralisation. Key recommendations were made and further research was suggested. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

Since 1994, the South African education system has been undergoing continuous transformation which has had an impact on the governance of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges. This study, which focused on an investigation of the principles of effective governance at FET colleges, was conducted in three purposefully sampled FET colleges. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse data collected using semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis. The main finding of this study revealed that college councils do not have either the capacity or the resources to develop policies for colleges, nor is there a clear and documented reporting process in place. The study highlighted that the roles and responsibilities of college council’s sub-committees are not clearly defined in the 2006 FETC Act. Based on the research findings, recommendations were made in respect of the effective participation of college councils in the governance of FET colleges. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)