This thesis lies at the nexus of scenario planning and strategy. Scenario planning is a foresight activity used extensively in strategic planning and public policy development to imagine alternative, plausible futures as means to understand the driving forces behind the uncertainties and possibilities of a changing environment. Despite significant application in both private and public sectors, and a growing body of academic and practitioner-orientated literature, little empirical evidence exists about how organisations actually use scenario planning to inform strategy. Moreover, the emerging Strategy-as-Practice (S-as-P) perspective, which has exposed strategy to more sociological pursuits, presented a way of conceiving and studying strategy not as something an organisation has, but rather as something people do. By examining the activities of scenario planning, understanding its use as an example of episodic, interactive strategizing, S-as-P provides a theoretical lens through which to perform a much-needed empirical analysis of the scenario-to-strategy process. A second goal of the thesis is to advance understanding of the S-as-P perspective by addressing recent criticisms as well as contributing to the growing body of practice-based research. The central research question which guides the thesis is, how does an organisation use scenario planning to inform the strategic planning process? To answer this question, the research vehicle is a single, in-depth case study of community planning in Fife, which extends from 1999 until April 2008. A detailed, longitudinal narrative of Fife’s scenario planning and strategy process is presented before using empirical evidence from the case to understand how an organisation manages the scenario planning process, how scenario planning affects policy development, and how cognitive processes manifest physically in an organisation. The thesis concludes that scenario planning created a sensemaking/sensegiving framework that provided structural and interpretive legitimacy which facilitated communicative activities and helped the Fife Partnership understand and improve the interconnectedness of Fife’s public services and community planning process. While contributing to the S-as-P research agenda, the investigation of the scenario-to-strategy process also revealed, and solidified, a number of criticisms that challenge the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical validity of the strategy-as-practice perspective.

This study examined the effects of entrepreneurship level and legal regulatory environment on environmental scanning in one component of the health services industry, private practice physical therapy. Two aspects of scanning served as dependent variables: (1) extent to which firms scrutinized six environmental sectors (competitor, customer, technological, regulatory, economic, social-political) and (2) frequency of information source use (human vs. written). Availability of information was a covariate for frequency of source use. Three levels of entrepreneurship were determined by scores on the Covin and Slevin (1986) entrepreneurship scale. Firms were placed in one of three legal regulatory categories according to the state in which the firm delivered services. A structured questionnaire was sent to 450 randomly selected members of the American Physical Therapy Association's Private Practice Section. Respondents were major decision makers, e.g., owners, chief executive officers. The sample was stratified according to three types of regulatory environment. A response rate of 75% was achieved (n = 318) with equal representation from each stratum. All questionnaire subscales exhibited high internal reliability and validity. The study used a 3x3 factorial design to analyze the data. Two multivariate analyses were conducted, one for each dependent variable set. Results indicated that "high" entrepreneurial level firms scanned the technological, competitor and customer environmental sectors to a significantly greater degree than "middle" or "low" level groups, regardless of type of legal regulatory environment. Also, "high" level firms were found to use human sources to a significantly greater degree than did lower level groups. Empirical evidence supporting Miles and Snow's (1978) proposition that "high" level entrepreneurial firms (prospectors) monitor a wider range of environmental conditions when compared to "low" level (defender) firms was presented. The results also confirmed that market and technological environments were scanned most often. Finally, the results added to the construct validity of the Covin and Slevin entrepreneurship scale and provided evidence of its generalizability to small businesses.

D.Ed. / The Republic of South Africa has had a democratic Constitution since 1996 (RSA, 1996 (a)). All other laws must be in accordance with the Constitution since it is the highest law in the country. Important values in which South Africa as a democratic state is based are contained in the Constitution. These values and principles, which take into account democratic school governance, include: Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedom. Non-racialism and non-sexism.The rule of law applies, in other words, the Constitution and other laws as enforced by the Courts have higher authority than Parliament or the Government. All adults must be able to vote and there must be regular elections, a multi-party system of democratic government, accountability and openness (Potgieter, Visser, Van der Bank, Mothata & Squelch, 1997:5). The Constitution takes cognisance of the fact that all South African citizens have the right to basic education (RSA, 1996a:14). The Constitution also requires that school education must be transformed and democratised so that the aforementioned four values and principles are enshrined in the democratisation of education. The installation of a democratically elected Government has transformedy of the fundamental policies in respect of education. Over time this policy changes must have effects at the level of practice and effect every institution and individual involved in the education system. These developments will have a profound effect on the formal education system at every level and must consequently impact on the structure and forms of management in the evolution of a democratic system.A serious challenge lies ahead for the management and administration of the education system of the future. Educationists at every level of the management process must therefore understand the underlying values and principles which are set out in the policy perspectives of government. By the end of 1997, all schools should have implemented school-based decision-making. Local school governing bodies would be responsible for the way in which the schools are being managed and controlled. The fundamental challenge to all those in education, and especially those at school level, is the ability to organise schools so that the potential for the development of a culture of learning and teaching (COLTS) is reintroduced (Godden, Buckland, Coombe, Dladla, Madisha, Mahanjana, Thurlow, Ngcongo & McLennan: 1996:19). The real challenge that schools face is that of change in order to meet the needs of a new developing demoCracy and how schools should be managed. Changing management to manage change is the essential challenge to bring about democratic education. However, it is always easier to design policies than to implement them and to date the changes have been laboriously slow.

In my diploma thesis I'm dealing with questions of visual communication and corporate identity in connection with company's management. At first I briefly characterize termins connected with this topic such as communication, visual communication, corporate identity. In the second part of my thesis I made a set of advices and recommendations for management of small companies, which should help them to orient in the problematics of corporate identity and visual style. These recommendations are supported by practical example of graphical manual I made for that.

This thesis explores the relationship between designer intent and consumer response. A novel approach to evaluate the degree of correspondence between designer intent and consumer perceptions has been proposed. The empirical results have shown the influence of consumers’ cultural backgrounds on the way they perceive semantic and symbolic product personalities (characteristics of a product and its owner, respectively), comparing British and Japanese consumer groups. Semantic product personalities are more likely to be universally perceived and more easily intentionally elicited from consumers than symbolic product personalities. The research project consists of a pilot study (Phases I) and an experiment (Phase II) in which mixed methods of interview and survey are employed. Phase I seeks to explore the in-depth understanding of a designer’s thoughts by interviews, and to develop and test newly elaborated consumer surveys termed Designer-driven semantic differentials and Consumer-driven adjective selection. The findings have been considered to construct an analytical framework, characterised by Agreement among consumer perceptions and Correspondence between designer intent and the consumer perceptions, for evaluation of designers’ elicitation of intended product personalities from consumers. Phase II conducts a statistical examination of the impact of cultural difference on consumer perceptions under experimental conditions. The perception of target and non-target consumer groups as categorised by nationality were gauged by Designer-driven semantic differentials and Personality selection, specifically perception of USB sticks designed by three different designers. The survey results are analysed by using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and Chi-squared test within the analytical framework. Subsequently, the results from Phase I and II are extensively discussed based on a framework based on brand personality and Affect Control Theory, both of which may involve potential impact on the development of design research into product development with emotional attachment. The scene is set for future research opportunities based on the approach and findings of this study.

Thesis (MTech (Public Relations Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / This study was conducted to determine the extent to which strategic employee communication existed in Parliament of the Republic of South Africa during the period of transition. Its objectives were to test the communication skills of the parliamentary supervisors in various divisions; to investigate communication satisfaction amongst employees; to establish communication channels to get the message through, and to discover how often feedback was provided. This study sought to achieve the research objectives by using a quantitative research methodology in order to measure the level of communication skills. The researcher collected data using questionnaires as a measuring instrument in order to determine the levels of communication satisfaction. Questionnaires were distributed to 45 participants in all divisions irrespective of race, gender or age. The results of the study revealed that communication at Parliament needed to be aligned. It was also revealed that employees and supervisors were not familiar with the vision of the institution. It was recommended that Parliament needed to conduct SWOT analysis before bringing about any changes. Employees should be provided with communication skills training. Managers should pay serious attention to internal communication. There should be constant feedback regarding progress when a process of change is embarked upon. It was also recommended that Parliament, as the highest democratic institution in the country, should lead in putting strategic internal communication in place in order to set an example for other institutions.

The tourism sector has been identified as an industry that has the potential to make a substantial contribution to job creation, economic growth, and redressing past imbalances in South Africa as it has been recognised as an underexploited sector with considerable potential for growth. The majority of tourism enterprises fall within the definition of small businesses, which have been identified as the most appropriate enterprises through which the economic challenges facing South Africa can be addressed. Small businesses differ from their larger counterparts not only in terms of size, but also in regard to access to resources and marketing expertise. Not surprisingly, one of the issues identified as preventing this sector from reaching its full potential is access to markets. The focus of this study is to identify the primary factors driving the success of the use of the Internet for marketing in small businesses operating in the tourism sector in South Africa. If these factors can be identified, this will allow existing and emerging small businesses to access markets and retain customers more easily leading to a proliferation of these enterprises. A theoretical model was formulated from the literature in which the factors influencing the success of Internet marketing were identified. These factors can broadly be divided into generic (marketing or management) factors and Internet specific factors. The technological aspects of the Internet were not ignored, but regarded as a resource to be managed rather than an autonomous source of competitive advantage. This model was tested by making use of a large-scale empirical study. Convenience sampling was used and the data was collected from small tourism businesses (that is businesses with fewer than 100 employees) in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces of South Africa. The factors were identified using exploratory factor analysis and the Cronbach alpha coefficients were assessed to confirm the reliability of these scales. Structural equation modelling was used as the principal mode of statistical analysis to measure the relationships amongst the variables in the model proposed in this study. A correlation analysis was used to measure the impact of marketing objectives on the success of Internet marketing. The primary determinants of the success of Internet marketing in small businesses operating in the tow-ism sector in South Africa were identified by the empirical study as: Product champion Links Alliances Owner-manager knowledge Entrepreneurial orientation Owner-manager vision Customer orientation Marketing objectives Interestingly, one factor, Strategic planning, recorded a negative influence on the success of Internet marketing. This is possibly because the owner-manager felt that this was a redundant exercise given the dominant and pervasive influence of the owner-manager in all spheres of the business. Nevertheless, if small tourism firms consider the factors identified in this thesis as essential aspects in the use of the Internet for marketing, this will allow them to overcome one of the biggest hurdles to their prosperity, namely, the access to markets.

The purpose of this research is to highlight the importance of identifying the communication frequency within the leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship, and to appreciate what the positive or negative effect of a low or high LMX frequency has on this relationship and on staff morale. Management is for the most part responsible for communication frequency and is in a position and has the means to change such frequency or to add additional communication channels. The research was based on a program introduced in a South African retail company three years ago. Data was collected from 64 stores in the Western Cape and the results were statistically analysed on the SPSS16 program. The results clearly supported the hypotheses that, in a low-communication frequency area, an increase in communication frequency has a positive effect on staff morale and that the proximity to head office (or lack of it) does not have a negative effect on staff morale.

Theory-metodological part: definition of basic terms as corporation -- corporation surroundings, corporate identity and image; extraordinary incident, crisis situation, crisis, crisis management; brief definition of legislative-juristic environment. Definition of the term communications -- common aspects and types of communication. Crisis communication, analysis of available methods of crisis communication in a company, analysis of available tools of crisis communication in a company. Practical part: manual for crisis communication of a company applied in bank's environment.

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