Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The phenomenon of change has been the subject of debate for decades. Whether the change was planned or as the result of a catastrophic event, change affects nations, people, businesses, the economy and the environment. Typical changes in businesses are mergers, restructuring, transformations and retrenchments. Consequently, to this contentious phenomenon, change has been the subject of research by social scientists, behavioural theorists and analysts. Their collective endeavours have provided the world with a wealth of scientific knowledge. The Metro District Health Services in the Western Cape have undergone major restructuring and transformation. It is with this premise the question is posed, are change agents, leaders, and employees sufficiently empowered to mitigate the challenges and appease the expectations associated with restructuring, transformation and change?Supporting and contextualizing the study to the existing body of knowledge, previous research is reflected upon in an attempt to add value to future change initiatives. The reflections include different perspectives of change management, the multifaceted and evolutionary nature of change. The theoretical framework underpinnings of organisational development and transformation were also explored. One point of departure was to establish what is needed to ensure organisational success and describes activities, action plans and strategies, which modifies the organisational structures. The suggested methodologies, dimensions, variables influencing or enabling transformation formed the baseline for this study, with the emphasis placed on models of change, communication, theories of success formulae for organisational change, competencies of change agents, behaviour and attitudes of all stakeholders. Circumventing the purpose and contextualizing the baseline for this research, the survivor syndrome was explored and the dimensions of different change elements offered value to this study. The intent of the restructuring and transformation initiative, was to strengthen the Metro District Health Services by decentralizing Primary Health Care Services. Selected employees were tasked as change agents to facilitate the process and were simultaneously directly impacted by the process. The objective of this study is to explore and understand the effects of change on selected employees functioning at different levels within the Metro District Health Services during restructuring and transformation of the provisioning of healthcare services. In determining the effects the variables explored were their attitude towards change, their commitment to the organisation, the barriers and challenges encountered with the implementation of the process.The selected participants were part of an intensive restructuring and transformation process. The sample chosen from the population of 350 employees at the regional office of the Metro District Health Service and was representative of the greater population. The sample includes selected managers and employees at different hierarchal levels ranging from salary levels five to fourteen. Ensuring representativeness the different departments were used as strata and within each department a random sampling method was used to select respondents. Support was provided to explain that stratified sampling is a procedure of selecting a probability sample where a heterogeneous population is first divided into subgroups (known as strata) on the sampling frame, and simple random samples are drawn from each stratum. The research methodology was a combination of qualitative and quantitative research design. A questionnaire was distributed consisting of three sections, Section A Biographical Information, Section B Structured Interview (10 participants), Senior Managers were approached to conduct the structured face to face interviews asking open ended questions and Section C Survey Questionnaire was completed by the rest of the sample group by indicating on a likert scale their agreement or disagreement with the statements. The questionnaires have been demonstrated to be psychometrically sound in that their reliability and validity have been reported on and supported in previous studies. The analysis of the raw data involved statistical computations using Statistical Package for Social Science called Moonstats© and Thematic Content Analysis for the interpretation of the qualitative data. The limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future change initiatives and future research projects on the subject.

Contracting is a fundamental aspect of social work supervision. Supervision without sufficient or proper contracting can become ineffective. Therefore, if contracting is not properly applied in practice, it can undermine the effective implementation of social work supervision. In view of the above, the goal of this study was to explore the nature and role of contracting in social work supervision in the South African National Defense Force (SANDF). The research question stemming from the goal of the study was: What is the nature and the role of contracting in social work supervision in the SANDF? A qualitative, explorative study was conducted, with the following objectives:  To determine the nature and the role of contracting in social work supervision by conducting a literature study on the topic.  To conduct an empirical study to explore the nature and role of contracting in social work supervision in the SANDF.  To propose recommendations and guidelines regarding the implementation of contracting in social work supervision in the SANDF. All the supervisors and social workers in the Tshwane Metropolitan Region (Pretoria) of the SANDF formed the sample for the study. After the conclusion of a literature study and pilot study, data collection was based on semi-structured interviews with supervisors and focus group interviews with supervisees. The main conclusions drawn from the research findings were that contracting in social work supervision plays an important role in the SANDF and [that supervision] is viewed as a building block towards both personal and professional development. Although supervisors seem to have knowledge and understanding of the nature and role of contracting in social work supervision, supervisees seem to be unsure about certain aspects involved in such contracting. The study indicated a need for the generation of more in-depth literature on contracting in social work supervision and an enrichment of the theoretical base thereof. The study was concluded by relevant recommendations to the SANDF. / Dissertation (MSD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Farmers will supply the raw ingredients for the emerging cellulosic ethanol industry. The long-term relationship between a farmer and a processing firm is expected to be contractual. A processing firm has an incentive to sign long-term contracts to ensure a cost-efficient level of raw ingredient supply. However, farmers generally prefer to operate with either no contract or a short-term contract in order to maintain options for adjustments in future acreage allocations due to changes in relative prices. Of interest in this research is to understand the incentives of farmers and calculating the efficient level of the “inflexibility premium”, which a processing firm must provide to a farmer when a long term contract is signed. A stochastic dynamic programming model is solved and with the help of Microsoft Excel numerically evaluated to illustrate the marginal inflexibility premium is increasing with contract length and the level of price variability, and is decreasing with the size of acreage adjustment costs. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

System operation contracts were introduced by C. Larman as an application of the notion of Design by Contract (DbC) to the description of high-level system operations derived from requirements. A system operation contract specifies an operation in terms of changes induced in the domain. In the Responsibility Driven Development (RDD) process proposed by Larman, operation contracts play an important role in identifying and assigning systems' responsibilities, and help construct a sound design in later phases. Larman's notation for operation contracts is textual. In this thesis, we propose an alternative visual notation for operation contracts. As part of the process for the definition of this visual notation, we extended and clarified some informal aspects of Larman's notation in order to better accurately capture important aspects of system operations. Our extension allows the specification of data constraints, alternatives, and the temporal dimension of created domain objects, in addition to the description of changes in the state and associations of domain objects. The syntax of the visual notation for operation contracts aims to be cognitively effective and to reuse available UML notation. New visual elements were introduced only in the absence of corresponding elements in the UML. Elements reused from the UML are slightly modified to enhance their cognitive effectiveness. The introduced elements, on the other hand, are designed with the goal of not conflicting with the general theme of the UML. We used The Physics of Notations as a general guide and evaluation criteria. The Physics of Notations is a leading evaluation and design theory for visual models in software engineering. We propose a prototype tool (ViOpContract) that implements the proposed visual notation for operation contracts. ViOpContract is an Eclipse plug-in tool that helps to draw and manage visual operation contracts. The tool provides the capability to generate contracts in textual form from visual contracts.

The purpose of this research study was to measure and understand if there was a change in the psychological contract post-acquisition and if so, did this change have a positive, negative or no effect on employee performance. Previous research and literature has suggested that identity was a critical measure of post-acquisition success (2011, p. 26; Weber&Drori, 2011, p. 76) leaving employee performance unmeasured. Rouzies (2011) further suggested that a merger or acquisition can lead to a drop in psychological attachment, identification and commitment to the acquired organisation (2011, p. 25). In addition, Chambers (2008) also made mention of personnel and culture integration being underestimated (p. 16). Therefore, this research has measured psychological contract (identity, culture and communication) in terms of employee performance (potential turnover, job satisfaction and productivity) in the context of post-acquisition integration.The results showed that changes in the psychological contract affect employee performance positively. Equally, if not more, important is maintaining the psychological contract in the post-acquisition integration process and thereby avoiding a drop in employee and acquisition performance.Identity and culture are strong influences of employee performance. The data collected suggested that identity positively impacts employee performance. More specifically, there was a slight positive impact on potential turnover and a more positive impact on job satisfaction and productivity. Culture also positively impacted employee performance. When measured against potential turnover, this impact was slightly positive while job satisfaction and productivity were more positively impacted.Communication was found to be important in reducing potential turnover. From data collected, communication does not impact job satisfaction and productivity. However, the data suggests that communication was adequately handled in the post-acquisition integration process.Recommendations were made dealing with principles to be considered preacquisition, on the importance of minimising disruption and maintaining continuity during post-acquisition. Based on the findings in this research, the psychological contract needs to be maintained in terms of identity, culture and communication. This will in turn ensure that employee performance is maintained post-acquisition. This implies that in addition to financial due-diligence being performed prior to a merger or acquisition, organisations need to be aware of employees’ feelings and attitudes towards the impending change.Future research may look at measuring psychological contract and employee performance in post-acquisition integration across different industries and countries or the same variables could also be measured pre-acquisition. Alternatively, additional variables such as extra-role behaviour and affective commitment could be added to the assessment tool to measure employee performance more closely. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

No / There is hardly any substantive difference between ‘utmost good faith’ and ‘good faith’. In insurance law there is not a general and independent duty to act in good faith. This is because the requirement of good faith in insurance law, although being both general and independent, is neither a statutory duty nor a common-law duty the breach of which usually gives rise to a cause of action. Instead it is an interpretative principle in the common law of insurance. Similarly in civil law jurisdictions, it is not a legal duty either but instead an interpretative principle.

No / Over the past two decades, protecting contractual parties’ reasonable expectations has incrementally gained judicial recognition in English contract law. In contrast, however, the similar ‘doctrine’ of ‘policyholder’s reasonable expectations’ has been largely rejected in English insurance law. This is injurious, firstly, to both the consumer and business policyholder’s reasonable expectations of coverage of particular risks, and, secondly, to consumer policyholder’s reasonable expectations of bonuses in with-profits life insurance. To remedy these problems, this book argues for an incremental but definite acceptance of the conception of policyholder’s reasonable expectations in English insurance law. It firstly discusses the homogeneity between insurance law and contract law, as well as the role of (reasonable) expectations and their relevance to the emerging duty of good faith in contract law. Secondly, following a review and re-characterisation of the American insurance law ‘doctrine’ of reasonable expectations, the book addresses the conventional English objections to the reasonable expectations approach in insurance law. In passing, it also rethinks the approach to the protection of policyholder’s reasonable expectations of bonuses in with-profits life insurance through a revisit to the (in)famous case Equitable Life Assurance Society v Hyman [2000] UKHL 39, particularly to its relevant business and regulatory background.

Over the years, shortage of funds has resulted in a huge deficit in government budgets for infrastructure, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the huge costs involved in infrastructure procurement in relation to other competing demands on government spending, it is no longer feasible for governments to bear the entire burden of infrastructural development. This is especially the case in Nigeria, where annual infrastructure deficit is estimated at a massive $8 billion. Moreover, public officials have demonstrated incompetence in making public corporations profitable. Accordingly, Nigeria has adopted the public-private partnership model of infrastructure procurement to allow for the participation of the private sector in the design, funding, construction, management, and operation of public infrastructure. However, Nigeria’s legal framework for managing public-private partnership is not clearly defined, leading to gaps in policy and overlapping laws that make implementation of PPP very difficult. Unsurprisingly, public-private partnership in Nigeria have, thus far, produced mixed results, thereby raising a need for clear policy guidelines on streamlining overlapping laws to attract, sustain and reward investor interest. In what ways do Nigeria’s legal and policy framework for public-private partnership protect private investors’ funds? This study examines the concept of PPP and its practice in Nigeria, arguing that the regulatory framework be designed or enhanced to protect investors’ assets in public-private partnership projects and ensure they achieve proportional return on investments. Beyond the problem of overlapping laws, the study finds that political interference, weak institutional mechanisms and poor respect for the rule of law and sanctity of contract underlie the ineffectiveness of public-private partnership in Nigeria. Drawing from the public-private partnership experience in South Africa, it recommends holistic strategies for protecting investors’ assets and unlocking the local financial market for sourcing project funding. These strategies are notably the provision of guarantees, making the process less cumbersome, provision of incentives for investors and project companies and ensuring that the host community for public-private partnership projects are involved in the process from inception to operation to get their support.

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The aim of this thesis is to introduce the topic „Financial management of a construction contract from the perspective of a contractor“ and to point at possibilities and process of contract funding. This thesis also deals with risks which can affect funding of contract and based on this analysis recommends possible arrangements.