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This study investigates the relationships between ownership, control, organisational structure and company operational costs. The workers’ perceptions of participation (financial and decision-making) and empowerment are measured between two labour intensive factories with different ownership structures. The first factory (Kopano) has a workforce that shares equity ownership, or holds proprietary title. It is significant to note that the Kopano workers share in the ownership of the manufacturing section only, and not the upstream activities (mining, etc.), nor the downstream activities (despatch, selling, marketing, etc.). Accordingly, the Kopano owner-workers concentrate on manufacturing only. Employees at the second factory (Lawley) have no equity stake; they do not hold proprietary title and are “normal” salaried employees. The hypotheses seek to identify differences between the two factories, relative to the worker’s sense of participation (financial and decision-making) and empowerment. The rationale is that the workers who hold proprietary title (Kopano) should have a greater sense of financial participation, decision-making participation and empowerment than the workers (Lawley) who do not hold proprietary title. This is tested via questionnaires at both factories and the results obtained strongly support the hypotheses. Given the abovementioned findings, the study then seeks to establish that there will be greater savings in operational costs at Kopano factory (where the workers hold equity title) compared to Lawley (where the workers are not involved in ownership participation). The rationale behind this hypothesis is that operational costs at Kopano should be lower than the operational costs at Lawley (because of the different ownership positions). An analysis of operational costs between factories supports this argument. The study finally seeks to establish a strong balance of probability that the results obtained are because of the different ownership structures. This is confirmed using Mill’s Method of Difference. However, identified weaknesses with this analytical tool suggest that conclusive declaration to this end be the subject of future research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This study was done in order to determine whether teachers are taking on leadership roles in their schools. The following questions were posed: What factors exist in schools that help or hinder teacher leadership? What structures need to be in place for teachers to be leaders? How does the culture of the school support or creates barriers to teacher leadership? And, finally , what personal factors enhance or inhibit teacher leadership? This dissertation takes the form of case studies of three urban primary schools in the Pietermaritzburg region. The study is qualitative in nature and examines the leadership roles that teachers are undertaking, with the intention of identifying and exploring the factors that help or hinder teacher leadership. To ascertain the responses of teachers, a questionnaire, as well as semi-structured interviews were used. The principals who participated in the study were also interviewed to ascertain their views on teacher leadership. South Africa is a relatively new democracy with a host of new policies. The one that is of relevance to this study is the Norms and Standards for Educators (2000). This policy prescribes that teachers are required to undertake seven roles . Of these seven roles , the one that is of particular relevance to this study, is the role of leader, administrator and manager. This role, as prescribed by policy, implies that teachers are expected to undertake leadership roles , both in and out of the classroom. What is of interest, however, is whether and to what extent, this policy prescription is implemented in the school. The findings revealed that schools in the study were characterized by structures that were 'top-down' , and that leadership roles in these schools were delegated, rather than distributed. Findings also pointed to a number of barriers to teachers taking on leadership roles . These included time constraints, rigid attitudes of principals and school management team members as well as the impact of taking on additional roles and responsibilities, on the personal lives of teachers. Some recommendations in order for leadership to succeed in South Africa would be, firstly , that steps should to be taken to implement and encourage teacher leadership. This would entail a change in mindset on the part of principals in particular, many of whom would have to radically revise their views of what constitutes leadership and who should lead. Secondly, there should be a movement away from delegated leadership towards a more distributed form of leadership. Thirdly, it is also the recommendation of this study that the creation of a collaborative culture in schools will create an enabling environment for teacher leadership to flourish. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

A lack of managerial skills has been cited by many as the cause of small business failure in South Africa. Internal factors are said to be responsible for many of these small business failures. With human capital being undeniably a valuable resource, it has the potential to provide one of the most sustainable competitive advantages in the market place. It is therefore crucial that managers, who are responsible for directing and shaping the organisation possess and constantly improve their competencies because these are crucial factors for success of managers and the business. This study explores multi-rater feedback to gain insight into managerial competencies for the purpose of contributing to managerial development. Comparison of employee and manager self-evaluations can identify gaps or areas requiring improvement as they provide different perspectives on the same phenomena. The degree of consensus/agreement amongst the ratings provides valuable information and assists in identifying possible areas for development. Feedback is critical for self-perception accuracy and self-other agreement and impacts on training and development. This study comprised of 25 managers and 75 employees from the restaurant business and compared their views on managerial competencies. Results showed positive agreement between manager and employee ratings and showed no gender differences in the ratings regarding managerial competencies. Both managers and employees, through the process of upward appraisals, indicated positive feedback towards managerial development in the future. This is encouraging and creates an opportunity for further research and exploration of how this can best be achieved using unconventional approaches. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

With the advancement of technology and rapid globalisation, organisations need to be alert and responsive to changes in the marketplace. It is expected of organisations to be lean, low cost producers of goods or providers of services. Those that do not fit this general description are mercilessly raked aside to make way for new competitors. Those that do survive cannot stagnate into old style business operations, but have new adopt new ways to forge forward or suffer a similar fate of other organisations, forced to close their doors by being uncompetitive. In the world competitiveness report, seen below, much to the dismay of a handful of brilliant businessmen, South Africa features in the twenties and thirties, and has for the past five years shown fair but not rapid signs of advancement into the top twenty. What needs to be explored are the reasons behind this phenomena. Is South Africa simply not trying as a nation to move up the competitiveness ranks? It is obvious that the answer is a simple negative. South Africa is certainly trying, but while we begin to get into the mode of being competitive, our competitors in the rest of the world have already begun this process two decades ago and are well experienced in being competitive and forcing organisations into survival and success. Bayside Aluminium, a subsidiary of BHPBilliton, the worlds largest mining group, did exactly that. Bayside Aluminium decided to implement two such reengineering processes. The first reengineering process, called the BRP or Bayside Renewal Process was an issue of survival. In other words had Bayside Aluminium not gone through this process, the smelter would have faced closure within one year. The objective of this process was to allow Bayside Aluminium to survive for at least the next decade. The success of this process will be discussed at a later stage in this thesis in Chapter 2. The second reengineering process had distinct differences in the way it was conducted and had a similar objectives but with a different time frame. The second reengineering process was called the CTG or 'close the gap". The main objective of this process was to close the competitive gap between Bayside Aluminium and its competitors in the medium term in order to maintain long term survival. This process was done with the view of accelerating cost saving exercises like natural attrition, which are more medium term. Also one of the objectives was to do such an exercise whilst the company was not under pressure to reduce costs immediately. The thesis attempts to display the success of the two reengineering processes, whilst critically evaluating the methods used to implement the two process with a greater emphasis on the CTG process, being the latter process which BHPBilliton is exercising at other subsidiaries. Issues discussed and critically analysed in detail are • Real time cost benefits • Full time employee reduction success • Organisational climate before and after the process and its effect on the plant performance including the future impact of cooperation by Unions • Bayside Aluminium's movement on the cost curve after the exercise The learnings that arise out of this study could easily be applied to any organisation embarking on a similar exercise without having to make the costly mistakes that sometimes arise during reengineering exercises due to inexperience. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This study was concerned with determining and providing recommendations for the possible strategic gaps of Amalahle Maintenance Services. This company is a small to medium enterprise offering maintenances services within the Power Generation industry of Eskom. During the study, an in-depth literature review was done to analyse the 21 st century strategy trends, the impact of these trends on small to medium enterprises such as AMS, the reasons for failures among small to medium enterprises, a comparison of strategy theories appropriate to AMS current situation and a review of maintenance and safety management techniques. This review was performed to determine the importance of strategic management for small to medium enterprises in the new economy. The review also determined the importance of strategic management in the new economy for the survival of companies large and small. A case study research strategy was chosen due to the unknown strategic gaps. The research was both qualitative and exploratory as the study concentrated on finding the possible strategic gaps. A literature review was also performed on the strategic management process in order to develop a framework to determine the current situation faced by the firm and to evaluate the current situation to determine the strategic gaps and also to provide recommendations. The strategic management process developed by Johnson and Scholes (1998) was adapted to determine and provide recommendations concerning the possible strategic gaps. The management process included three categories of strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation. These three categories were utilised to determine the current strategic analysis, that is, the external and internal environment of AMS, current business level and functional level strategic choices made by the firm, and the current strategic implementation, which included the firm's structure, controls, culture and leadership. The three categories of strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation were thereafter evaluated to determine the possible strategic gaps. The evaluation process was also broken up into the three strategic management processes. The strategic analysis included the STEEP, industry, competitor, stakeholder, functional capability and resource, and the SWOT analysis techniques. The SWOT analysis technique was also utilised to determine the current strategic options for AMS. The strategic choices made by the firm, together with the strategic options determined by the SWOT analyses were evaluated by the following techniques: SWOT interaction matrix, industry life cycle, positioning, value chain, grand strategy matrix and the grand strategy cluster to determine the possible strategic gaps and provide recommendations for strategic choices. The strategic implementation was evaluated by comparing the theories in Chapter Two to the current situation of the strategic implementation represented in Chapter Three. The evaluation of the strategic implementation determined the strategic gaps between the strategic choices and implementation. The final step included the recommendations for each of the evaluated strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation categories and their respective subcategories. Since the strategic gaps were unknown it was appropriate to utilise the entire management process as a strategic fault finding tool. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2006.

The recent global economic challenges have drastically impacted several economic sectors across the world. As such, Eskom, the South African electricity utility, has experienced a number of changes, ranging from the organisational structure to the functional processes or models, to meet the demands of the volatile global market. This research acknowledges that the Eskom Transmission organisation, a division within Eskom, has interrelated departmental processes. However, the transition from the conceptual phase to the execution (implementation) phase had a number of misalignments. These manifested in the following challenges, amongst others: late execution and completion of projects which often results in cost overruns; poor quality completed projects; a high number of projects at execution stage with inadequately defined scope of work which led to scope changes during implementation; and a high staff turnover, particularly of project managers. As such, the project lifecycle model was adapted to address these challenges. This research focused on the change management principles that were followed in realising the new Eskom Transmission lifecycle model, and investigated the impact that this had on the people “living” with the new model as well as the inter-departmental relations, control mechanisms, attitude towards the management, and organisational performance. Available literature on change management, as well as some aspects of organisational behaviour, such as organisational performance, were utilised to try and provide an understanding of the above-mentioned areas of interest. The chosen and most appropriate methodology for collecting data was the qualitative approach as it allowed for descriptive and extensive information gathering. The researcher sought subjective information through human interpretation. For data collection, a comprehensive questionnaire for all the stakeholder groups was used, as well as documentation analysis. The data was then analysed and interpreted, which allowed for pertinent findings and recommendations to be made. The findings included the establishment that Eskom Transmission adapted Kotter’s (1988) eight stage model in implementing its new lifecycle model. The impact of Eskom Transmission’s new lifecycle model on the people “living” with this model was found to be premature to measure. However, an improvement has been noted in the definition of the scope of work for projects, possibly owing to more effective interactions between employees during project meetings and is an indication that the new model is a contributor towards improving Eskom’s organisational performance. Further findings included inadequate stakeholder consultation, which rendered the followed implementation strategy non-optimal; as well as varied stakeholder views on the support of the new lifecycle model for Eskom Transmission’s goals and vision. The latter suggests an opportunity for Eskom Transmission management to review the lifecycle model to improve its alignment to the division’s goals and vision in order to encourage commitment levels which, amongst others, impact organisational effectiveness. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

When it comes to improving tax revenues in developing countries, we do not have a clear understanding of whether it is more important to have democracy or state effectiveness. Two theories have prevailed in the literature; one is to focus on building strong states that can have financial autonomy, the other is to promote democracy with the assumption that democracy brings about economic growth. Yet, for over four decades, developing countries’ tax to GDP ratio is still desperately low. On average, developing countries ‘tax to the GDP ratio is less that half that of the OCDE countries. This article contends that greater taxation outcomes result from the synergistic combination between democracy and state effectiveness. Empirical evidence from a time-series-cross-sectional dataset covering up to 120 countries during the 2003-2012 time period supports the conclusion that the two attributes working together increase tax revenue by 16% because they force political leaders to focus on citizens by improving their political participation (democracy) and by meeting voters’ basic needs (performance).

How can we successfully complete our missions while we are stuck in bunkers? A question representative of a hot topic of discussion regarding the restrictions of force protection measures that are placed on US troops conducting military operations abroad. The discussion, which peaked during the late 1990s early 2000s, was heavily weighted in one direction, namely claiming that force protection has a negative impact on military effectiveness. As the claim generalises force protection, a concept that has numerous definitions and even more interpretations, it therefore seems unlikely that such a generalisation can be made. This study analyses the claim using an idea analysis method, questioning its sustainability and presenting a way of understanding its limitations. In studying the circumstances of the reports that triggered this discussion, the analysis allows us to see the limited relevance of the claim with regard to the broader concept of force protection, while acknowledging its possible relevance regarding the specific aspects that are more commonly associated with the concept.