Shelter is a basic human right that was recognised by the South African constitution and this led to the government's partnership with the private sector together with NGO's in responding to the huge housing demand for the poor. Due to the RDP's failure in delivering houses to the poor masses, the government introduced a social housing programme in Walmer, Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. The Walmer Link social housing programme has been able to give poor people an alternative than being backyard shack dwellers. The rental complex offers good quality housing with secured features at very low prices based on individual income. This initiative has been able to ease the pressure of providing houses to the poor from government and has also been able to lower poverty levels in the Port Elizabeth area.

Patient safety is a primary concern of members of the surgical team. Professional nurses working in the operating room play a vital role in the safety of the patients from the moment the patient enters the operating room to the discharge of the patient to the unit. Quality nursing care is of the utmost importance and therefore it is the responsibility of a professional nurse to ensure patient safety during the peri-operative period. Team work and good communication in the operating room are essential in order to ensure patient safety. Nursing care practices related to patient safety should be a key aspect to consider in rendering care to the surgical patient and professional nurses should perform their duties to the best of their ability despite lack of resources and shortage of staff. The main purpose of the study was to explore and describe nursing care practice related to patient safety in the operating room at hospitals in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan area. Once this was established recommendations on how to enhance nursing care practice related to patient safety in the operating room were made. This study is based on a quantitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual design. Convenient sampling was used in this study. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Ethical considerations were adhered to and the findings of the research will be disseminated appropriately. Recommendations based on the findings that emerge from the data, as well as the literature review, will be offered to enhance nursing care practice related to patient safety in the operating room.

Literature on effectiveness indicates the interest of researchers in the role that teams play within organisations. The conclusion is that different variables affect team performance effectiveness. A further analysis of literature on team effectiveness enabled the researcher to develop a matrix of assessment of team effectiveness from these variables to serve as a benchmark. In addition to this, a matrix consisting of perceived variables of team effectiveness was constructed from the outcome of in-depth interviews and focus group sessions with the members of management committees of community-based organisations (CBOs) based within Port Elizabeth townships. These matrixes were used by the researcher to assess the operationalisation of these variables within the CBO management committees. The research indicates that management committees either did not operationalise these variables within their teams or did not do so to their fullest capacity. The overall outcome of these assessments indicates the areas that require attention, and provides opportunity for group practitioners to assist CBO management committees to enhance their effectiveness as teams. It is suggested that group practitioners together with members of CBO management committees, embark as a task team project to develop a strategy to refine the perceived variables guided by those emphasised by experts within this field, to strategise a clear path towards enhanced team effectiveness.

The Port Elizabeth (PE) hospital complex is one of the public hospital groups in South Africa facing a critical shortage of medical practitioners, with reference to doctors in particular. In the quest of finding how to retain doctors in the hospital complex, the aims of this research were to survey doctors’ career intentions; to investigate factors that could be contributing to these career intentions so as to uncover some of the reasons why doctors are leaving the public sector; and to identify effective ways in which the government and hospitals might improve retention by pointing out areas that need improvement. The factors that influence doctors’ career intention included income, work conditions, risk of contracting infection, risk of injury at work, hours of work, work load, work related stress, paid leave days, resources, personal growth and development opportunities, ongoing training opportunities, advancement and promotion opportunities, relation with co-workers, relations with supervisor/superiors, and sense of meaning. Findings revealed that even though the tendency to leave’ group (43%) was smaller than the ‘tendency to stay’ (57%), the majority (85%) of those who intended to leave were younger doctors. Despite some significant differences in responses between the two groups, results revealed that both groups were dissatisfied with almost all conditions of work apart from relationships with supervisors and co-workers. To a large extent, both groups revealed that work conditions are better in the private hospitals than in their current hospitals. viii The fact that some doctors could stay in the public hospital sector despite intense dissatisfaction with conditions of work, and despite the perception that that there are better options in the private hospitals could be attributed to the fact that most of these doctors are older and are at their retirement stage . Adding to this is that most of these doctors, who indicated willingness to say, scored high in sense of meaning as a factor influencing their career intention. This research was based on the assumption that there was no retention strategy put in place to solve the problems facing PE hospital complex. However, during this research a strategy was being developed and implemented by the Eastern Cape Department of Health. Therefore, evaluation and recommendations of the strategy are provided in the conclusions of the study. These recommendations relate not only to the implementation of the strategy, but improving it to accommodate all problems currently facing the doctors and finding ways and means of making the strategy sustainable; creating private-public partnerships; focusing on creating a sense of meaning amongst the doctors (especially the younger ones) and focusing on retaining the risk group which was the younger doctors.

The study investigates the role of women in development which is a favourite topic of the researcher. It investigates some aspects of the process of development involving women. It is obvious that the research was provoked by the legal framework directed at the transformation agenda that represents the democratic process of the country. The role of women, in other sectors, who were excluded from issues of community management, politics and government of the country, became obvious for the researcher due to their strategic role in society which is being undermined. The above view poses the challenge of power-sharing with men. This constituted a huge challenge that emanated from a stereotypical perspective and the fear of the unknown. Considerable pieces of legislation, policies, convention resolutions, conferences and publications became catalysts to intervene in the traditional challenge based on the societal construction. This, to the researcher, presents a clear historical anomaly where government has to address all the streamlining and implementation of policies. There should be sustainability through an Integrated Development Plan. The aim of the historical background of women, as envisaged by the study, is to highlight a contextualised role of women in the development of the transformation process and investigate numerous reasons that impede participation and the readiness of government in addressing these issues. Some questions that the researcher had to as relate to; What the impediments causing non-participation of women are; What elements contribute to the participation of women; What government strategies have unlocked non-participation of women; Why women’s contribution is critical to development; What strategies are deployed by government for women’s involvement? What the socio-economic benefits of participation by women are. It is the researcher’s opinion that the municipality should be complimented on its endeavours. However, they need to establish a strategic programme for empowering women to participate in development as a human rights issue.

This research addressed the study of entry strategies by Chinese sports-shoe manufacturers into the South African sports-shoe market. The goal of this research is to investigate what are the appropriate entry strategies for Chinese sports-shoe companies to enter the South African sports-shoe market. A Chinese sports-shoe company, Li Ning Limited, was used as a case study to illustrate the methods to explore appropriate entry strategies. The research methodology included: {u10007A} A literature study to explore the popular entry strategies used to enter the South African and also global markets was conducted. In addition, the South African and Chinese market environments were investigated. {u10007A} An empirical study, a survey of sports-shoe customers and sports-shoe shops owners, was done in order to explore the advisable entry strategies for Chinese sports-shoe companies to enter the South African sports-shoe market. According to the literature study as well as the empirical study, the research explored some advisable entry strategies for Chinese sports-shoe companies into the South African domain.

The informal economy in South Africa and other parts of the continent is a safe haven for many who are unable to find jobs in the formal sector of the economy. In the case of South Africa, it is not only the nationals of the country who are striving to survive and generate their income from this sector. Since 1994, the country has experienced a huge influx of immigrants from other parts of the continent some escaping from dire living conditions in their home countries and looking for better life opportunities while many others were forced to migrate from their own countries as a result of political unrest and lack of stability and security. Among these later example is the Somali community who are the subject matter of this study. Many of these mainly African immigrants including Somalis got involved themselves in the informal sector of the South Africa. This has increased the competition in this sector and caused clashes between South Africans and immigrants who were also involved in the sector. This study examines the involvement of the Somali immigrants in South Africa’s informal sector. The study is exploratory in nature and tried to find the surrounding factors that impacted on the involvement of Somalis in the informal economy of Motherwell. The study has found that Somalis who arrived in Motherwell are generally young unmarried men who were attracted to the area mainly because there were affordable business opportunities in the township. Somalis financed their businesses through various resources including their savings from working while working inside and outside South Africa and from the contributions by their families and friends. Despite facing high levels of crime where many Somalis were killed and their property looted, they are still determined to stay in the township. This can be shown by their high level of savings and their intention to invest in the township. Although this research does not aim to be comparative in nature, personal and business characteristics of Somalis as well as South Africans who are also involved in the sector vii were compared. Because of this comparison, it has became clear that though price is an important factor in the business competition between the two groups, it is not the only factor, neither the most important, that creates friction and the shift of loyalty of customers from one side to another. Quality of service, the number of the people working in the business, responsibility towards the area the business serves, the strictness or the leniency towards customers who want to buy but are short of money and many other factors created a friendly atmosphere between the businesses run by the Somalis and their customers. The study showed that some of the Somali as well South African business owners were of this view. Although the vast majority of the Somalis have a minimum level of education, they still contribute positively to the economy of the township and the greater Nelson Mandela Bay. This is done through renting business premises, paying both direct and indirect taxes and taking the business services to remote areas of Motherwell. The study suggests that there is a need to sooth the relationship between the two groups particularly between Somalis and South Africans who are involved in grocery businesses through meetings, seminars, and other get-together activities. This can be done by South African Police Service, Somali Association of South Africa in Korsten, community elders from both sides and other concerned government institutions as well as the academic institutions particularly Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The business skills of both groups need to be uplifted in order to maximise their profitability and contribution to the people in the area.

The increase of motor vehicles, especially in cities, cause transport problems of traffic congestion, vehicle accidents, air pollution and a lack of public spaces. The increasing number of motor vehicles consumes huge amounts of finite petrol energy and emits large amounts of gases that are harmful to the atmosphere and the natural environment. Therefore, the current road transport network is not a sustainable form of public transport for the future. In order to seek a suitable transportation mode, the Infrastructure and Engineering Business Unit of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) did some feasibility studies about light rail transit (LRT) from 1984 to 1988. The NMBM-report (1988: 8) concluded that a LRT system would provide the most suitable and primary mode to serve Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB). Although LRT was regarded as the most suitable primary mode of transport at that time (1988), further studies that were reported in 2006 recommended an alternative public transportation system. This research refers to these studies done for the NMB area and other studies and reports for other areas, but focus on the identification of the most suitable civil engineering components for a conceptual elevated light rail transit (ELRT) model. Electrical driven LRT systems have advantages over internal-combustion driven vehicles in terms of environmental protection. Traditional LRT systems are at ground level and are integrated with the existing road network. Some successful LRT systems indicate that the success of LRT systems is mainly dependent on integration with the existing road network. However, the integration of road transport systems with LRT systems cause increased congestion and accidents. An ELRT system can solve these problems. Bangkok has already built an ELRT system to solve its severe traffic congestion. 4 In order to develop a conceptual ELRT model, this research aimed to determine the most suitable civil engineering components for a conceptual ELRT model, including: (i) the most suitable type of bridge foundation; (ii) the most suitable type bridge girder; (iii) the most suitable type of sleeper; and (iv) whether the track should be a ballasted or non-ballasted type. The grounded theory approach was adopted to build up sets of data from which the most suitable components could be selected. In addition, design analyses were done of the various types of components to determine their suitability for a conceptual ELRT model. Experienced engineers and experts were also consulted to identify the most suitable components. After analyses and selection of the most suitable components, outstanding experts were approached to evaluate the components that showed up as the most suitable through the research. The research results indicated that bored and cast-in-place piles, a double-cell trapezoidal segmental box girder, and twin-block sleepers on a non-ballasted sleeper bed are the most suitable civil engineering components.

Construction management competencies are essential to realise sound practices among and to realise optimum performance by, inter alia, emerging civil engineering contractors. Such competencies enable a clear focus on the business of construction and the management of projects, with increased efficiency and reduced costs as a benefit. The objective of the MSc (Built Environment) treatise study were to determine the current practices and performance of emerging civil engineering construction contractors operating in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropole. The descriptive method was adopted in the empirical study. The salient findings of the study are: most of the emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations lack construction management competencies; construction resources are inappropriately managed leading to construction failures; most of the emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations lack adequate supervision resulting to poor workmanship; there is a shortage of skilled labour amongst emerging civil engineering construction contractors; procurement processes are inappropriate leading to under capacitated emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations being awarded contracts; most emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations lack the requisite aptitude for construction; there is a lack of capacity at all management levels of emerging civil engineering construction organisations in managing the business of construction and that of projects; the nine functions of organisations are not comprehensively represented, and self-ratings indicate inadequacy relative to the management function of control, and relative to certain activities of the organising function. Conclusions include that emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to be comprised of technical teams that possess adequate competencies and that use the construction technology to its full use enabling their organisations to stay abreast of their competitors. Recommendations that can contribute towards improving the status quo include: formal civil engineering and construction management education, resources must be present and training should be promoted throughout the industry at all levels of management to ensure proper supervision and correct use of adequately trained labour, skilled or semi-skilled, incapacitated emerging civil engineering construction contractors should be awarded contracts through appropriately and structured procurement procedures, adequate aptitude in construction should be promoted and enhanced in order to realise conceptualisation and visualisation capabilities, comply with legislation, maintain records and communicate using state of the art technology, optimally manage the finances, have the requisite resources and undertake the work efficiently, interact with the respective publics, and market the organisation to ensure sustainability thereof.

This research study has been conducted to explore and describe the perceptions and experiences of out-of-school youth regarding their access to the youth services available to them. A qualitative approach is followed and an exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design is utilized. The sample of the study was procured by means of purposive sampling. Data were collected by means of focus group discussions which were conducted using a questioning guide. Data were analysed according to the steps for qualitative data analysis provided by Tesch in Creswell (1994). To ensure the trustworthiness of the research findings, Guba’s model in Krefting (1991) was employed. The research findings were verified against the existing body of knowledge in order to compare and contrast the themes and sub-themes that emerged from the process of data analysis. The main themes that emerged from the study are lack of knowledge regarding available services, Needs or desires of out-of-school youth, hindrances or obstacles to access available youth services, suggestions for services relevant to needs of out-of-school youth and suggestions to make out-of-school youth aware of available services.