The study has established that modernisation development paradigm is currently governing the contemporary world of conventional development. Globalisation is the tool currently in use for modernisation, drummed up by the North, largely targeting the resources of the Southern hemisphere, through Structural Adjustment Programmes. Social welfare development interventions have been devised to provide safety-net for the poor, social casualities of modernisation process. The short cut has been to bail them out through relief handouts. Participatory development concept, is built on the belief that the world had the means to improve the situation of the poor through fair redistribution of wealth, technology, knowledge, and ideas accruing from modernisation. But this calls for the political will to address the issue of inequality, power imbalance and social injustice as a primary goal. Achieving economic growth and ensuring equitable distribution should, of necessity, be compatible. Participatory development approach is to be preferred as it is accommodative, open and creative, drawing heavily from life experiences of those involved. It also puts people at the centre of development process. It is a paradigm that seeks to empower people to assume full responsibility for their own development including the consequences of their decisions and actions. It has been established that management boards and staff are the main prime movers of strategic planning activities in an organisation. Strategic planning was appreciated by the organisational staff as an opportunity to converge their views and towards influencing organisational policy, a precious window of opportunity for them to participate in causing organisational change. Notably, donor partners generally played a minimal role in this regard. Ironically, community constituency played the least role in the planning activities owing to their often marginal disposition among stakeholders. The most satisfactory outcome of participatory strategic planning was the clarity in the future direction of an organisations and more refined planning with sense of collective responsibility. It can authoritatively be declared here that participatory strategic planning is significantly efficacious as a tool for organisation building, but under certain conditions discussed in the concluding Chapter of the thesis. / Development Studies / D. Litt et Phil. (Development Studies)

The study has established that modernisation development paradigm is currently governing the contemporary world of conventional development. Globalisation is the tool currently in use for modernisation, drummed up by the North, largely targeting the resources of the Southern hemisphere, through Structural Adjustment Programmes. Social welfare development interventions have been devised to provide safety-net for the poor, social casualities of modernisation process. The short cut has been to bail them out through relief handouts. Participatory development concept, is built on the belief that the world had the means to improve the situation of the poor through fair redistribution of wealth, technology, knowledge, and ideas accruing from modernisation. But this calls for the political will to address the issue of inequality, power imbalance and social injustice as a primary goal. Achieving economic growth and ensuring equitable distribution should, of necessity, be compatible. Participatory development approach is to be preferred as it is accommodative, open and creative, drawing heavily from life experiences of those involved. It also puts people at the centre of development process. It is a paradigm that seeks to empower people to assume full responsibility for their own development including the consequences of their decisions and actions. It has been established that management boards and staff are the main prime movers of strategic planning activities in an organisation. Strategic planning was appreciated by the organisational staff as an opportunity to converge their views and towards influencing organisational policy, a precious window of opportunity for them to participate in causing organisational change. Notably, donor partners generally played a minimal role in this regard. Ironically, community constituency played the least role in the planning activities owing to their often marginal disposition among stakeholders. The most satisfactory outcome of participatory strategic planning was the clarity in the future direction of an organisations and more refined planning with sense of collective responsibility. It can authoritatively be declared here that participatory strategic planning is significantly efficacious as a tool for organisation building, but under certain conditions discussed in the concluding Chapter of the thesis. / Development Studies / D. Litt et Phil. (Development Studies)

Sustainable development aims at improving human well-being, particularly by alleviating poverty, increasing gender equality, and improving health, human resources, and stewardship of the natural environment. Sustainable development is based on three pillars, namely, environmental protection and social progress and economic development. This study intended to contribute to sustainable development in the area of developmental social work practice by addressing the issues of new conceptualisations of social work practice, and in particular of intervention strategies, within the paradigm of sustainable social work practice. The purpose of this study was to explore and construct a foundation of general perceptions and tentative theories with regard to sustainable development and the position and value of the social work profession within the sustainable development paradigm. The goal of this research study was to explore current social work practice with regard to sustainable development and identify new challenges and opportunities for sustainable social work practice in the changing South Africa. The researcher utilised focus group discussions as a method of generating data and an exploratory research purpose as little is known about the topic of investigation and the utilization of focus groups are particularly useful in its ability to explore the topic. This study was a process of discovery and not the testing of a hypothesis. The researcher entered the realm of the participants’ everyday experience and through conversation extracted detailed descriptions of their perceptions, ideas and concerns. In this qualitative research the emphasis was on understanding the experiences, attitudes, assumptions and perspectives of the participants. The instrumental case study was used to provide insight into sustainable development as a new paradigm within the social welfare field and to discover the issues and challenges faced by the social work profession as it pertained to sustainable development. The data was organised around emerging themes and subsequently examined in relation to the literature. Based on the findings and conclusions drawn, the following recommendations were made: - The social work profession needs an information-sharing platform. - Collaboration and cooperation are crucial components in the process of sustainable development. - Social work practitioners have to become self-directed and lifelong learners who will be able to adapt to the changing circumstances in society. - Social work practitioners need to develop creative strategies within a multidisciplinary approach to address the issues of poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment in a sustainable manner. - Social work practitioners need to actively contribute to processes and structures that support the delivery of adult literacy and skills training efforts. - Social work practitioners need to explore ways and means of facilitating economic opportunities by addressing the obstacles and/or regulations that prevent people from accessing available markets. / Thesis (DPhil (Social Work))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Social Work / unrestricted

The Church social missions have undergone different paradigm shifts whilst trying to respond to challenges faced by the poor in the society. It seems that at the beginning the Development paradigm was the one used by churches in designing their social mission strategies. According to this paradigm, help for the poor in the society was to come from the Western countries’ development initiatives; in the process of implementing such strategies the local people’s cultural aspirations were often neglected. On the other hand, the poor were not given a chance to take destiny into their own hands in order to define the solutions to their problems. However, this paradigm was later declared a failure and a need to move to the Post Development Paradigm was advocated. This study argues that most churches in Mankweng still base their social missions strategies on the Development paradigm and therefore they fail to adequately respond to the challenges faced by the poor in that community. The study therefore looks at a possibility of developing a new social mission strategyin Mankweng that is based on the Post Development Paradigm. Though the title is about Mankweng, the focus of the study is on the Western part of the Township called Ntshitshane. Observations and interviews were conducted amongst the community members in that area. After a thorough analysis of the findings it was established that the poor in that context relies among other things on their cultural ethic of bothoas a means of addressing their social challenges. This study concludes that the same cultural ethic of botho used by the poor there can be a viable point of departure in defining a social mission strategy within that context. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

The Church social missions have undergone different paradigm shifts whilst trying to respond to challenges faced by the poor in the society. It seems that at the beginning the Development paradigm was the one used by churches in designing their social mission strategies. According to this paradigm, help for the poor in the society was to come from the Western countries’ development initiatives; in the process of implementing such strategies the local people’s cultural aspirations were often neglected. On the other hand, the poor were not given a chance to take destiny into their own hands in order to define the solutions to their problems. However, this paradigm was later declared a failure and a need to move to the Post Development Paradigm was advocated. This study argues that most churches in Mankweng still base their social missions strategies on the Development paradigm and therefore they fail to adequately respond to the challenges faced by the poor in that community. The study therefore looks at a possibility of developing a new social mission strategyin Mankweng that is based on the Post Development Paradigm. Though the title is about Mankweng, the focus of the study is on the Western part of the Township called Ntshitshane. Observations and interviews were conducted amongst the community members in that area. After a thorough analysis of the findings it was established that the poor in that context relies among other things on their cultural ethic of bothoas a means of addressing their social challenges. This study concludes that the same cultural ethic of botho used by the poor there can be a viable point of departure in defining a social mission strategy within that context. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:51:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DanielAM_TESE.pdf: 4551921 bytes, checksum: 78231b4f7adec59846b9fe6cce21a5f6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-04 / Some authors have shown the need of understanding the technological structuring process in contemporary firms. From this perspective, the software industry is a very important element because it provides products and services directly to many organizations from many fields. In this case, the Brazilian software industry has some peculiarities that distinguish it from other industries located in developed countries, which makes its understanding even more relevant. There is evidence that local firms take different strategies and structural configurations to enter into a market naturally dominated by large multinational firms. Therefore, this study aims to understand not only the structural configurations assumed by domestic firms but also the dynamic and the process that lead to these different configurations. To do so, this PhD dissertation investigates the institutional environment, its entities and the isomorphic movements, by employing an exploratory, descriptive and explanatory multiple cases study. Eight software development companies from the Recife's information technology Cluster were visited. Also, a form was applied and an interview with one of the main firm s professional was conducted. Although the study is predominantly qualitative, part of the data was analyzed through charts and graphs, providing a companies and environment overview that was very useful to analysis done through the interviews interpretation. As a result, it was realized that companies are structured around hybrids business models from two ideal types of software development companies, which are: software factory and technology-based company. Regarding the development process, it was found that there is a balanced distribution between the traditional and agile development paradigm. Among the traditional methodologies, the Rational Unified Process (RUP) is predominant. The Scrum is the most used methodology among the organizations based on the Agile Manifesto's principles. Regarding the structuring process, each institutional entity acts in such way that generates different isomorphic pressure. Emphasis was given to entities such as customers, research agencies, clusters, market-leading businesses, public universities, incubators, software industry organizations, technology vendors, development tool suppliers and manager s school and background because they relate themselves in a close way with the software firms. About this relationship, a dual and bilateral influence was found. Finally, the structuring level of the organizational field has been also identified as low, which gives a chance to organizational actors of acting independently / Alguns autores t?m apontado para a necessidade de se compreender o processo de estrutura??o tecnol?gica nas empresas contempor?neas. Nesta perspectiva, a ind?stria de software tem tido papel fundamental, pois fornecem produtos e servi?os diretamente vinculados ? estrutura??o tecnol?gica de organiza??es das mais diversas ?reas de atua??o. No caso, a ind?stria brasileira de software apresenta algumas particularidades que a diferenciam de outras ind?strias situadas em pa?ses centrais, o que torna seu entendimento ainda mais relevante. H? evid?ncias de que as empresas nacionais assumem configura??es estruturais e estrat?gicas diferenciadas para ocupar esse mercado naturalmente dominado por empresas multinacionais de grande porte. Por essa raz?o, a presente tese tem como objetivo compreender n?o s? as configura??es assumidas pelas empresas nacionais de desenvolvimento de software, como tamb?m a din?mica e o processo que as levam a tal estrutura??o. Para isso, a pesquisa investiga o ambiente institucional, suas entidades e, consequentemente, os movimentos isom?rficos associados ? ind?stria de software, empregando um estudo, fundamentalmente, qualitativo, explorat?rio, descritivo e explicativo, atrav?s da estrat?gia de estudo de m?ltiplos casos. Foram feitas visitas t?cnicas ? 8 empresas do polo de tecnologia da informa??o da regi?o metropolitana de Recife, sendo aplicado um formul?rio e realizada uma entrevista com profissional em cargo de destaque dentro de cada empresa. Apesar de o estudo ser, predominantemente, qualitativo, parte dos dados coletados foi processada atrav?s de tabelas e gr?ficos, fornecendo uma vis?o geral das empresas e do ambiente investigados e subsidiando as an?lises em profundidade feitas a partir da interpreta??o do conte?do obtido com as entrevistas. Como resultado, pode-se dizer que as empresas se estruturam em torno de modelos de neg?cio h?bridos provenientes de dois tipos ideais de empresas de desenvolvimento de software, quais sejam: f?brica de software e empresa de base tecnol?gica. No que diz respeito ao processo produtivo, verificou-se que existe uma distribui??o equilibrada entre o paradigma de desenvolvimento tradicional e o ?gil. Dentre as metodologias tradicionais, a Rational Unified Process (RUP) ? a predominante. J? a metodologia Scrum ? a mais empregada entre empresas estruturadas a partir dos princ?pios do manifesto ?gil. Quanto ao processo de estrutura??o, foi encontrado que as entidades presentes no ambiente institucional atuam de forma diferente umas das outras, gerando for?as isom?rficas distintas e com variada intensidade. Destaque deve ser dado ?s entidades como clientes, ?rg?os de fomento ? pesquisa, arranjos produtivos locais, empresas l?deres de mercado, universidades p?blicas, incubadoras, entidades setoriais, fornecedores de tecnologia para o desenvolvimento de software e escola de forma??o e o background dos gestores, pois esses mant?m estreita rela??o com a estrutura??o das organiza??es investigadas. Acerca dessa rela??o, pode-se dizer que existe dualidade, tornando bilateral o tr?nsito de for?as isom?rficas. Por fim, constatou-se que o campo organizacional identificado ainda possui baixo n?vel de estrutura??o, o que abre espa?o para a a??o aut?noma dos atores organizacionais e, consequentemente, para as empresas de desenvolvimento de software

The Thesis "The Change of Development Aid's Paradigm on the Microfinance Example" deals with the issue of microfinance from the point of view of development theories. Microfinance as a form of development aid is a relatively new phenomenon. It is a form of a direct financial support of small entrepreneurs in developing countries. Since the 90s commercial institutions have become increasingly involved in the process of microfinancing and projects and financing have gone beyond borders of individual states. After 2000 microfinance has become a part of the agenda of international organizations. In the last century, there was a dynamic development in the area of development theories. The change of development aid's paradigm, which took place during the 90s, marked a culmination of this process. Since the 90s the term Comprehensive Development Framework is being used. This thesis verifies validity of the subsequent hypothesis, interest in microfinancing is in accordance with the change of development theories paradigm. The incorporation of microfinance into the development aid's agenda is assessed by concepts the new paradigm works with; the human potential (individual as an active player of development), role of the institutional environment, multidisciplinarity and sustainable development.