Network Direct Selling Organisations (NDSOs) exist in more than 50 countries and have more than 74 million members. The most recent statistical information reveals that the vast majority of members do not earn significant income. Criticism of these organisations revolves around the ethicality of consumption, the commercialisation of personal relationships, and the exploitation of unrealistic expectations. This study aims to explore how communication creates networks that sustain an industry of this kind despite the improbability of its existence. The study commences with a description of NDSOs from historical, operational, tactical, and strategic perspectives. Given the broader context created by the global presence of this industry, cybernetics has been selected as a meta-theoretical perspective for the study of communication. The more recent development of second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis are introduced to communication theory as a field. Niklas Luhmann‟s new social theory of communication is assessed and applied in relation to existing communication theory. New conceptual models are developed to explore communication as the unity of the synthesis of information, utterance, understanding, and expectations as selections that occur both consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally. These models indicate the multiplexity of individual and social operationally closed, yet informationally open systems, and they are used here to provide a systemic and coherent alternative to orthodox communication approaches to the study of organisations. The study adopts a constructivist epistemological stance and propounds throughout the necessity of further interdisciplinary collaboration. The study concludes that individuals are composite unities of self-creating systems, and they co-create social systems by self-creating and co-creating meaning. Meaning is described as the continuous virtualisation and actualisation of potentialities that in turn coordinate individual and social systems‟ actions. A communication process flow model is created to provide a theoretical explanation for the existence of NDSOs as self-creating systems. The study aims to show that communication has arguably become the most pervasive discipline as a result of the globally interactive era. It is shown that second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis raise several further questions to be explored within communication theory as a field. / Communication, first-order cybernetics, second-order cybernetics, Complexity and complex systems, autopoiesis, self-reference, recursivity, operational closure, system boundaries, Network Direct Selling Organisations / Communication / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

The aim of this study is to investigate the validity of an assessment centre as a predictor of managerial training results. For this purpose, the assessment ratings of 77 white, male, middle managers, who had taken part in a Middle Management Assessment Centre (MMAC) in a South African service organisation, were compared to the results they achieved on a Senior Management Training Course. From the statistical analyses conducted, correlation coefficients, corrected for restriction of range, of -0, 03, 0,32 and 0,22 were obtained between the Overall Assessment Rating and a theoretical, practical and total grade criterion respectively. These results indicated that the MMAC was a valid predictor of practical and total course grades, but an invalid predictor of theoretical course grades. Explanations for the results obtained are provided and three recommendations are made concerning the use of the MMAC to predict training results. Directions for possible future research are also provided. / Die doel van hierdie studie is om die geldigheid van 'n takseersentrum as 'n voorspeller van bestuursopleiding resultate te ondersoek. Vir hierdie doel is die takseeraanslae van 77 blanke, manlike bestuurders, wat aan 'n takseersentrum vir middelbestuur in 'n Suid-Afrikaanse diensorganisasie deelgeneem het, met die resul tate wat hulle tydens 'n Senior Bestuur Opleidingskursus behaal het, vergelyk. Die statistiese ontleding wat uitgevoer is het korrelasiekoeffisiente, na regstelling vir die beperking van verspreiding (correction for restriction of range), van -0,03, 0,32 en 0,22 tussen die Totale Punt Beoordeling van die takseersentrum en drie opleidingskriteria opgelewer. Hierdie drie opleidingskriteria was 'n teoretiese-, praktiese-, en totale opleidingspunt onderskeidelik. Verduidelikkings vir die resultate wat behaal is word verskaf en drie aanbevelings word gemaak met betrekking tot die gebruik van die takseersentrum om opleidingsresultate te voorspel. Rigtings vir moontlike toekomstige navorsing word ook aangedui. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

The main research of the study was: How is integrated communication applied in the UKZN AIDS Programme at Westville Campus? The following six subsidiary research questions were formulated to address this topic:  How is communication aligned with the strategic focus in the UKZN AIDS Programme?  How consistent are messages and media used in and outside the UKZN AIDS Programme?  What is the status of infrastructure for integration within the UKZN AIDS Programme?  What is the status of internal stakeholder orientation and differentiation in the UKZN AIDS Programme?  What are the mechanisms put in place to coordinate communication efforts and action within the UKZN AIDS Programme?  What is the status of free flow of information within the UKZN AIDS Programme? A qualitative research design was conducted using field and survey research. These two research methods may be used for descriptive, exploratory, and explanatory research (Mouton 1996:232). Descriptive and exploratory field and survey research were used to ascertain the integrated communication applied in the UKZN AIDS Programme. Data was collected from sixteen UKZN AIDS Programme employees and eight students using semi-structured focus group and in-depth interviews respectively. Data collected was analysed using thematic analysis a technique that involves identifying, analysing and reporting in detail patterns or themes within data.The study found that the UKZN AIDS Programme focuses mostly on the University as its main stakeholder. Therefore, there is little emphasis on employees and students. Besides, the study revealed that there is poor alignment of the programme’s communication strategy with the programme’s strategy. To achieve the UKZN AIDS Programmes’ strategic objectives and mission, there is need to reassess the efforts of the programme and re-strategise. Findings on the consistency of messages and media in the UKZN AIDS Programme reveal that all communications are managed by senior employees and consistent in terms of programme identity by using the university identity, and website messages. The status of the consistency of messages and media in the programme can be improved if a comprehensive approach can be used in communicating internal messages. Findings on the consistency of messages and media in external communication show that the programme tries to communicate different prevention messages using channels favoured by students. However, channels such as drama and peer educators have weaknesses that need to be addressed in addition to employing diverse communication channels. Findings show that some of the messages communicated are relevant in the sense that they address students’ sexual risk behaviour while others are not as they are off tangent such that they address issues students are not concerned about. In addition, findings show that peer educators were not exemplary in their work while drama programmes did not allow students to actively participate in the prevention activities. On infrastructure for integration, the study found that there is infrastructure and several prospects for information sharing in the programme created by information technology though not fully explored. With regards the free flow and sharing of information, the study established that the required systems for communication exist but not adequately utilised. Findings on the co-ordination of communication efforts and actions to promote integrated communication show flaws. Departments in the programme function in silos due to lack of cross-functional planning. The integrated communication conceptual framework used in the study was useful in making the study successfully ascertain integrated communication applied by the UKZN AIDS Programme. The conceptual framework can therefore be used to underpin any research topic on health integrated communication. / Communication Science / MA (Communication) / 1 online resource (v, 222 leaves)

Namibia continues to face an ongoing struggle in protecting the rights and civil liberties of its LGBT population with LGBT rights-based organisations in the country strongly relying upon their volunteers to take advantage of political opportunities and manage multiple visibilities. Despite a growing body of international research into volunteer motivation and the beneficial application of such knowledge in volunteer management strategies, a dearth of literature exists on the motives of volunteers within LGBT rights-based organisations. This study uses data from qualitative interviews with 6 formal volunteers from Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations to explore volunteer motivations. A thematic analysis of the research findings reveal the complex motivations underlying volunteering in these organisations. Volunteer motivations in Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations included: (a) addressing and promoting humanitarian concerns; (b) improved social interaction, integration and support; (c) self-regulatory opportunities for personal enhancement; (d) developing career prospects; and (e) responding to past homophobic incidents. Barriers to volunteering were also identified and included: (a) strained organisational resources; (b) LGBT discrimination; and (c) complacency. For volunteer recruitment and retention strategies to be effective, organisations need to recognise and satisfy volunteers’ motives while also properly training and assisting volunteers in their respective roles. Also, given the local LGBT community’s sense of complacency, Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations would greatly benefit by strategically engaging community members and working to overcome the community’s lack of urgency. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The aim of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was to represent the interests of all South African students nationally and internationally. The challenge then to the liberal NUSAS leadership was how to meet the demands of black students for a politically relevant policy while simultaneously retaining the loyalty of its white middle class and often conservative membership. In 1957, the black University College of Fort Hare returned to NUSAS to participate in the national union’s campaign against the imposition of apartheid on the universities. Consequently, NUSAS adopted the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the foundation of its policy. Sharpeville and the increasing number of black students associated with NUSAS contributed to the further politicisation and leftward movement of the national union. The emergence of two new exclusively African student organisations together with the decision of a student seminar in Dar es Salaam that NUSAS be barred from all international student forums as its demographics precluded it from representing the aspirations of the black majority was the pretext for a far-reaching interrogation of NUSAS’s structure and functioning. Henceforward NUSAS would play a ‘radical role’ in society. This played into the hands of the government and its proxies, the new conservative students associations which sought to slice away NUSAS’s moderate to conservative white membership. The arrest of current and former NUSAS officers implicated in sabotage provided more grist to the right wing mill. In an attempt to manage this most serious crisis, as well as to continue functioning in the increasingly authoritarian and almost wholly segregated milieu of the mid-1960s, NUSAS abandoned its ‘radical role’ and increasingly focussed on university and educational matters. Nonetheless, the state intensified its campaign to weaken NUSAS. By means of legislation, the utilisation of conservative student structures and the intimidation of university authorities, the government attempted to ensure that segregation was applied at all NUSAS-affiliated universities. It was the application of segregation by cowed university authorities that precipitated the New Left-inspired student protests at NUSAS-affiliated campuses in the late 1960s as well as the establishment of the separate black South African Students Organisation, the latter leading to the exodus of all black students from NUSAS. / History / D. Litt. et Phil. (History)

The global perspective on digital revolution is one that has received a rapturous approval from information professionals, scholars and practitioners. However, such an approval has come at a great cost to memory institutions as the preservation of digital information has proved to be a complex phenomenon to memory institutions. Guided by the multi method design and underpinned by the triangulation of questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis, the study examined digital preservation of e-government in Ghana. Findings revealed that the creation of databases, digital publication, emails, website information and tweets were often ocassioned by the use of ICT, e-government, and application of legislations and public policies. It observed that these types of digital records were in urgent need for preservation as most of the ministries and agencies were unable to access their digital records. While the application of a digital preservation tool (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) was a familiar terrain to the ministries and agencies, there was expressed lack of awareness about digital preservation support organisations and digital preservation standards. The study identified funding, level of security and privacy, skills training and technological obsolescence as factors that pose key threats to digital preservation. It noted backup strategy, migration, metadata and trusted repositories as the most widely implemented preservation strategy across the ministries and agencies. On the other hand, cloud computing, refreshing and emulation were the least implemented preservation strategies used to address the digital preservation challenges . The study recommends that the ministries and agencies can address many of the digital preservation challenges if they leverage on collaborative and participatory opportunities. Such collaborative and participatory opportunities involve the use of experts from other institutions to share resources and use a common protocol through cloud computing and Open Data. It further recommends that the process of developing a digital preservation policy can be guided by a template document from other jurisdictions / Information Science / D. Litt et Phil. (Information Science)

Dissertation deals with ?coming out? process from view of homosexuals and parents. In theoretical part are decribed processes and terms, which are directly related to ?coming out? and decribe views of homosexuals and their parents. In first part is explained what is homosexuality, thereafter I focus on ?coming out? process and public point of view of the issue (point of view which stems from history and even contemporary majority point of view). Then follows a brief description and functions of organisations, which are main participants in helping to homosexuals in Czech Republic. Closing article of the theoretical part speaks about family, functions and its approaches to homosexuality as such. Practical part of the dissertation comes with interview with homosexuals and their parents.Interviews based on the theoretical part were given to both groups and show how process of coming out differs between parents and children. Goals and main points of interviews are shown in arranged tables. Conclusion is made from discussion of the results and deduction from conclusions of the whole dissertation.

The diploma work describes and shows the development of education in the town of Vodňany. At the beginning it concerns with the basic data about Vodňany and its history. Afterwards it mentions the education from the point of view of the Czech history. It focuses on the beginnings and the development of education in Vodňany to the year 1989. The dissertation deals with the opportunities of education in Vodňany with regard to the process of changes in the historical level and with regard to the transformations of school system in the Czech lands.

Au-delà du cadre classique de la production du logement, des projets originaux à l’initiative de citoyens ou impliquant fortement des habitants, se développent sur le territoire européen et notamment français. S‘émancipant de l’offre professionnelle privée ou publique, ces maîtrises d’ouvrages d’usagers produisent un habitat original, tant du point de vue architectural et environnemental, que de l’insertion sociale et au territoire qui l’accueille. Ce type de dynamique n’est pas un phénomène nouveau. En Amérique Latine notamment, des mouvements populaires et coopératifs développent ce type de démarche depuis plusieurs décennies. Insuffisamment étudié, ce phénomène mérite d’être analysé plus précisément, en particulier dans le champ de l’architecture et du point de vue des porteurs de ces projets : les habitants. Cette recherche vise à montrer, par une analyse des différentes typologies d’organisations collectives, adoptées par ces maîtrises d’ouvrage non professionnelles d’habitants, les atouts et les résultats de leur production, du point de vue de : la question « spatiale », qui interroge la notion de l’habitat et de son usage ; la question du « métier » du concepteur, qui interroge le mode de production du projet au travers de la relation architecte – maîtrise d’ouvrage (non professionnelle) ; et enfin la question de « l’insertion spatiale et sociale », qui interroge la dimension urbaine de ces projets et citoyenne de leurs promoteurs. Se basant sur les notions de « droit à l’œuvre » et de « droit à la ville » définies par Henri Lefebvre et de « bien commun » définie par Elinor Ostrom, cette thèse propose un apport de connaissances visant à contribuer à la réponse des professionnels et des politiques publiques, à une demande sociale chaque jour plus présente en matière d’initiatives citoyennes dans la production de l’habitat. / Further to the production of housing within a traditional Framework are curently developed all over europe and specialy in France. Moving away from public or private standar models, the projects inspired by the end users tend to produce very original habitats, in terms of architecture and environment as well as social and territorial insertion. This kind of dynamic is not a new phenomenom. Particulary in Latin America, popular and cooperative movements have developed this type of approach for decades. Insufficiently studied, this phenomenom merits more precise analysis, particulary in the field of architecture and from the point of view of the managers of such projects : the inhabitants. This research aims to demonstrate, through an analysis of different types of collective organizations adopted by these non-professional inhabitants leadership, the benefits and results of their production, in terms of: the "spacial" question, which looks at the concept of habitat and its use ; the issue of "skill" of the designer, who questions the mode of production of the project through the architect relationship - project management (non-occupational) ; and finally the area of "spatial and social inclusion", which looks at the urban dimension of these projects and their "property developers". Based on the concepts of "right to do" and "right to the city" defined by Henri Lefebvre and "common good" defined by Elinor Ostrom, this thesis provides a contribution of knowledge to contribute to the response of professionals and public policy, to a real social demand present every day in terms of citizen initiatives in the production of housing.

Dans la nouvelle économie caractérisée par des propriétés telles que la mondialisation, l'intangibilité et l'interconnectivité, les organisations éducatives sont nécessaires pour surmonter les nouveaux défis, en particulier la nature changeante du dynamisme accru et de la complexité des exigences des organisations éducatives. L'une des philosophies stratégiques actuelles aidant les organisations éducatives à développer des capacités stratégiques traitant de l'incertitude est la gestion des connaissances (GC). Grâce à l'acquisition systématique, la création, le partage et l'utilisation des connaissances, les organisations développent, renouvellent et exploitent leurs ressources fondées sur le savoir, leur permettant ainsi d'être proactifs et adaptables aux changements extérieurs et d'atteindre le succès concurrentiel. Apparaissant comme un moyen puissant de maintien, de la compétitivité de l'organisation, GC a été largement étudiée et ce à partir de différentes perspectives. Toutefois, seul un nombre limité de recherches ont visé les ressources des organisations éducatives pour examiner empiriquement les relations entre l'infrastructure GC et les différentes stratégies pour investir les actifs humains. Pendant ce temps, la recherche sur les approches GC à partir d'une approche dynamique a été la plupart du temps de nature conceptuelle. Il est proposé ici que l'omission d'appliquer le processus GC peut entraver la contribution intégrée, potentiellement utile aux stratégies organisationnelles afin d'améliorer l'éducation des principaux éléments qui constituent les approches GC. En outre, un examen de la littérature montre que les preuves les plus empiriques ont été obtenues dans le cadre des pays développés. La possibilité que ces modèles pourraient être adoptés dans les organisations éducatives pour répondre aux spécificités des pays en développement a reçu très peu d'attention à ce jour. En se basant sur la théorie de l'apprentissage social prolongé par les approches basées sur la capacité des connaissances dynamiques, cette recherche développe un modèle théorique d'intégration de la capacité GC. L'examen empirique des relations hypothétiques entre les variables est réalisé au moyen de questionnaires de sondage en Arabie Saoudite. Pour l'étude pilote, 30 projets de questionnaires ont été distribués directement aux cadres supérieurs participants au forum « société Global Knowledge 2013 » qui a eu lieu au centre du Roi Abdulaziz pour la Culture Mondiale du groupe ARAMCO Arabie Saoudite, le 9-10 Décembre 2103. [...] / In the New Economy characterized by properties such as globalization, intangibility and inter-connectivity, educational organizations are required to overcome the new challenges, especially the changing nature of the enhanced dynamism and complexity of the requirements from the educational organizations. One of the current strategic philosophies assisting educational organizations to develop strategic capabilities dealing with uncertainty is knowledge management (KM). Through the systematic acquisition, creation, sharing, and use of knowledge, organizations develop, renew and exploit their knowledge-based resources, thereby allowing them to be proactive and adaptable to external changes and attain competitive success. Emerging as a powerful means for sustaining organizational competitiveness, KM has been widely investigated from different perspectives. However, only a limited number of researches have adopted the resource based view of the educational organizations to empirically examine the relationships between KM infrastructure and the different strategies for investing human assets. Meanwhile, research on KM approaches from a dynamic capability approach has been mostly conceptual in nature. It is proposed here that a failure to apply KM approaches may hinder the potentially valuable integrated contribution to organizational strategies for enhancing education of the major components that constitute KM approaches. In addition, a review of the literature shows that most empirical evidence has been obtained in the context of developed countries. The possibility that such models might be adopted in educational organizations to fit the specificities of the developing countries has received very little attention to date. Relying on social learning theory extended by the knowledge and dynamic capability based approaches, this research develops an integrative theoretical mode) of KM capability. Empirical examination of the hypothesized relationships among variables is conducted by means of questionnaire surveys in Saudi Arabia. For the pilot study, 30 draft questionnaires were directly distributed to senior managers participating in the Global Knowledge Society Forum 2013 took place in King Abdul Aziz Center for World Culture, ARAMCO Saudi Arabia, during the period of9-10 December 2103. The responses returned with complete data were assessed, using factor analysis and reliability testing, to refine and finalize the questionnaire administered in the main survey.