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The topic of this Master's thesis is "Intercultural 'Landeskunde' in the field of German as a foreign language at Canadian unversities: a documentation of a case study in the Department of German Studies at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada". In the introduction "Landeskunde" itself will be defined as well as its role in the teaching of a language. The three main approaches to "Landeskunde" will be studied, by which more emphasis will be laid on the intercultural approach, which will then be elucidated through a practical example. In chapters two, three and four the background information leading up to the development and implementation of the new "Landeskunde" course will be explained. In the main chapter of the thesis, chapter five, the structure of the course will be presented and analysed in detail. This chapter will be completed by a documentation of the course materials used, quotes from the students' logbooks as well as a summary of the main ideas and suggestions for improvement. The sixth chapter is a general assessment of the course, demonstrating how it could be used as a model for intercultural learning in Canadian universities and as such offer suggestions for alternative methods in the teaching of German as a foreign language.

The study set out to investigate the infusion of Project Management into public service in order to improve service delivery, and to look at the advantage of using Project Management as a management tool. Enabling legislations were referred to, and brief background was made. The advantage of applying Project Management by the North West Provincial Government was highlighted through a reference of a case study of the province as opposed to the service rendered by DCS in the province. The study used a questionnaire to collect data, 50 employees were surveyed through questionnaires over a period of two weeks. Four areas were covered, that is, the Area commissioner's office, Rooigrond Prison, Mafikeng Prison and Mafikeng Community Corrections. The results revealed that most employees were not competent with Project Management, only few have an idea of what Project Management is. The response from participants exceeded expectations, because all questionnaires were received without any problems. The researcher recommends that Rooigrond Area Commissioner must apply Project Management in its structure to render services, and to offer training to the members in order to empower them. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

The subjective reactions of listeners from various backgrounds to speech varieties used in Medellin, Colombia, were investigated using the matched-guise technique with a series of measuring scales. In all three dimensions of a semantic differential scale-namely, competence, personal integrity, and social attractiveness-Non-Antioqueno Dialect (NAD) speakers were rated significantly higher than Antioqueno Dialect (AD) speakers regardless of the sex or the dialect of the subject, or the sex of the speaker. In the case of social attractiveness, however, for female subjects the difference between NAD speakers and AD speakers was somewhat larger than for the male subjects.The evaluations of male speakers were significantly higher than those of female speakers regardless of the sex of the subject, the dialect of the subject, or the dialect of the speaker. For AD subjects the difference in ratings between male and female speakers was about the same for male and female subjects; however, for NAD female subjects this difference was somewhat larger than for the NAD male subjects.In general, the evaluations of speakers by different age groups indicated a significant difference, between older and younger subjects. The younger subjects rated speakers significantly lower. than the older subjects did for all three variables of evaluation, that is, competence, personal integrity and social attractiveness.While no significant effect was found for socio-economic status (SES) non the variables of personal integrity and social attractiveness, SES was found to have a significant effect on evaluations of competence. In this dimension of evaluation, lowermiddle class subjects rated speakers significantly differently from the middle-middle class and the upper-middle class subjects. The former ranked speakers higher on competence than the middle-middle class and the upper-middle class subjects did.Finally, subjects assigned prestigious professions to NAD speakers, while only non-prestigious occupations were matched with the AD speakers. Additionally, the proportion of times male speakers were judged to have a prestigious occupation was significantly higher than the proportion of times female speakers were judged so.Within the theoretical framework of this study, differential reactions to the guises assumed by the speakers were interpreted as revealing differential attitudes towards the speech varieties. The evaluations are taken to be attitudes not only toward the speakers themselves, but also toward the language forms of the varieties involved. / Department of English

This study sought to empirically investigate operational effectiveness in the central region of the North West Department of Education following the extensive restructuring exercise initiated in 1999. It further sought to determine the impact on schools, and the level of support offered by the corporate centre to the region as it implemented the restructuring blueprint The literature survey covers theories of organisational restructuring as well as the research findings on this aspect in the private and public sectors in both developed and developing countries. The data was collected using the survey method. The subjects of the empirical investigation were 71 randomly selected managers in different management categories at all levels within the region. A pre-tested questionnaire was employed to analyse post restructuring operational effectiveness on four criteria Corporate support during restructuring and managerial response to the challenges posed by restructuring were also assessed. The empirical investigation found that restructuring had no positive impact on the effectiveness of operational units in the region. It was further found that the levels of support schools received was adversely affected by lack of a proper post-restructuring monitoring and support plan from the corporate centre. Implementation of the department's strategic priorities was also found to be ineffective as a result. The study recommends that for restructuring exercises to be successful, support from the corporate centre is crucial, and that restructuring organisations should undertake regular impact assessments of the process. Finally, it is recommended that people, not technical procedures, get priority if the restructuring effort is to have any chance of success at all. / MBA (General Management) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

South African government has set out a policy and strategy for 'e-government'. This initiative is intended to position information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a tool to facilitate innovative service delivery to citizens. The goals within the strategy include aspects such as lowered costs, increased productivity, citizen convenience, security, and interoperability, reducing duplication and economies of scale. Achievement of these strategic goals and objectives depend on the strategies developed for delivery. Each government department is required to establish strategic ICT investment plans that appropriately and correctly support their business environment. Furthermore, these plans must be aligned with broader national ICT requirements and goals in order to realise the e-government objectives. The ICT organisational structure and its placement in the department are considered as important factors for the successful implementation of the strategy. The aim of this study was to develop a framework for Information Technology organizational structure that is not absolute in a dynamic environment for the National Department Transport. The framework was meant to clarify the different roles of both user divisions or line function divisions and the Corporate Information Technology sub-division. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2004

The focal point on this research project is restructuring which is intended at producing an efficient public service capable of meeting developmental and socio economic challenges facing the National Department of Public Works in the North West Province. The problem facing the department is that the department's operational plans could not be met due to high vacancies within the management/supervisory levels. One other problem that related to restructuring was that there was no clear description of what the department's strategic vision and plans were. Qualitative method was identified as the most suitable method for this research. The data was collected by means of questionnaires given to both senior and junior managers. A sample of 71 respondents randomly selected from a population of 182 employees. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted in order to get the perception of how people think about restructuring. The aim was to collect information from both senior managers and lower levels. The findings from the collected data is that employees do not understand the business processes in order to gain confidence in what the Department wants to achieve. The expectation from employees was that Human Resource division will develop an HR plan which will accommodate employees with lower qualifications, current and past experience expertise in the relevant fields of work. This emphasizes the need for more engagement between management and staff. Some of recommendations are:- • Information technology infrastructure must fully support new processes thereby enabling the achievement of departmental objectives. • Restructuring must create a conducive environment which encourages or facilitates effective utilization of resources. • Policies to be clear and applied uniformly • The department must consider the constitutional obligation to transform the Public Service to ensure the delivery of quality service in accordance with the mandate of a better life for all. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005