Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-160). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Mestre -- Escola Nacional de Saude Publica, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.

Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-06T01:12:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) 234.pdf: 2027329 bytes, checksum: 5e7dfbebac52486eedb77dd4a4e77ec9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001 / Os transplantados de medula óssea, säo pacientes submetidos a intensos efeitos adversos causados pelas drogas administradas e/ou pelas reaçöes da própria medula infundida. Tal estado de fragilidade requer a assistência de uma equipe de enfermagem especializada e adequadamente estruturada. O dimensionamento de recursos humanos para a assistência de enfermagem em transplante de medula óssea, ainda se constitui em um processo realizado de forma empírica, fundamentado na prática cotidiana ou com base em fórmulas internacionais näo específicas e inadequadas para aplicaçäo em diferentes realidades institucionais. Apresenta uma proposta para dimensionar os recursos humanos de enfermagem necessários para a assistência ao paciente transplantado de medula óssea. O estudo do tipo descritivo, tem como referencial a metodologia de Ramey (1973: 98-104), que modificada e adequada para a situaçäo específica - Transplante de Medula Ossea - se baseia na avaliaçäo do grau de dependência dos pacientes, considera o processo de trabalho da enfermagem nas suas atividades diretas e indiretas e, principalmente, observa e calcula as horas necessárias de enfermagem tendo em vista o dimensionamento dos recursos humanos. O campo de estudo foi o Centro de Transplante de Medula Ossea do Instituto Nacional de Câncer do Rio de Janeiro, considerado como referência nacional em transplante de medula óssea. Com base na análise de prontuários, do manual de procedimentos e de entrevistas com a equipe de enfermagem, foram confeccionadas seis planilhas de atividades diretas e indiretas do enfermeiro e do auxiliar de enfermagem englobando as fases pré-transplante, pós-transplante e reinternaçäo. A observaçäo e avaliaçäo dos procedimentos da equipe de enfermagem nas vinte e quatro horas permitiram a construçäo de um dimensionamento que pode ser aplicado em outras unidades, desde que adequado às realidades locais.

Our employment law which originates from the common principles has in recent years undergone significant changes. Under common law the employers and employees capacity to regulate their relationship has always been limited. The recommendations of the Wiehahn Commission introduced amendments to the Labour Relations Act of 1956. The introduction of the unfair labour practice concept and the establishment of the Industrial Court was a direct consequence of the recommendation of the Wiehahn Commission. The Industrial Court together with the higher courts developed new principles regarding unfair labour practices. In the process, a wealth of unfair labour practice jurisprudence was developed by these courts. However, the unfair labour practice definition did not include dismissals. The coming into power of the democratic government played an important role in transforming our labour law system. After the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 was implemented on 11 November 1996, the old Labour Relations Act of 1956 was repealed. The law on retrenchment forms an integral part of our law of dismissals. The South African labour market has in the past years been characterised by restructuring and consequently retrenchment of employees. In most cases, employer’s decisions to retrench were challenged by the employees and unions in our courts. Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 stipulates procedures to be followed by an employer when contemplating dismissal of one or more employees for reasons based on operational requirements. The employer does not only have to follow the procedures set out in section 189 to render dismissals for operational reasons fair, but there must also be a valid reason to dismiss. The courts have always not been willing to second-guess the employer’s decision to retrench provided that the decision is made in good faith. Whilst section 189 deals with small-scale retrenchments, section 189A applies to large-scale retrenchments. These are employers who employ more than 50 employees and who contemplate retrenchment of more than the number of employees provided for in section 189(1)(a) or (b). Section 189A also introduced a facilitation process to be conducted in terms of regulations made by the Minister of Labour. The amendments to section 189 should be seen as an attempt to tighten the procedural aspect of retrenchments. The new law on retrenchments is a product of tough negotiations between the social partners at NEDLAC in which compromises were reached. There are still certain areas of concern to both labour and business. In those areas in which uncertainty still exists, the courts will be required to provide some guidance.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / Constant organisational change can be attributed to many factors, including competition among peers in the same markets, globalisation, privatisation of public sector organisations, technological advances, and operational requirements. These factors almost always lead to organisations reducing headcount. One such organisation is Telkom, which bi-annually embarks on large-scale retrenchments. Service organisations within the company were chosen at random to participate in this study. Telkom’s Human Resource Management, Legal Services, Employee Relations, and the organisation’s recognised unions participated in this study. / South Africa

Economies worldwide have become more integrated and competitive due to the phenomenon of globalisation and its antecedents, which are improved technological communication, the use of technology in production, ever improving management of skills as well as standards of education. Amongst the consequences have been changing demands and rising expectations in terms of employee remuneration, job security and conditions of work. This has at the same time been accompanied by employers expecting greater profit. Against this backdrop, this treatise seeks to interrogate and to explain the processes that should constitute fair, rational and justifiable employee dismissal for operational purposes. This is done bearing in mind the global economic crisis and its impact on employees. The treatise constitutes an attempt to carve a cushioning mechanism for employees in the midst of the global economic storm. We consider the inadequacies of common law principles. We also submit that section 189 in its present form and its application by courts do not provide for substantive fairness interrogation when dealing with dismissal for operational reasons. We explore the legislative framework, interpretation by leading academics as well as applications by courts of section 189A, which prescribes that if dismissal is based on operational reasons, consideration must not only be based on substantive and procedural fairness but also that proper consideration of alternatives must have been explored before dismissal is effected.

Previously, the Labour Relations Act made it compulsory for the employer to consult on appropriate measures to avoid, minimise and change the timing of dismissals, mitigate the adverse effect of the dismissals, the method for selecting the employees to be dismissed, and severance pay for the dismissed employees. The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA) specifies the steps that must be followed when they consider dismissing employees for reasons based on the operational requirements of their business. The necessary and appropriate steps to be followed for dismissal for operational reasons are contained in Section 189 of the LRA. Before an employer can start the retrenchment process, he/she is required by law to give a written notice inviting the other parties to consult and the employer must be prepared to disclose all relevant information. The new law that governs disclosure states that if an arbitrator or the Labour Court is required to decide whether or not information is relevant to the proposed retrenchments, the onus is on the employer to prove that any information that it refuses to disclose is not relevant for the purpose for which it is sought. It is also provided that if a consulting party makes any representation to the employer in writing, the employer must respond in writing. In terms of Section 189A (19) of the LRA clear guidance is given as to when will a fair reason be granted to dismiss for reasons based on operational requirements. This Section, further suggests that the Labour Court must ascertain that an employee was dismissed for a fair reason if: the dismissal was for requirements based on the employer's economic, technological, structural or similar needs; the dismissal was operationally justifiable on reasonable grounds; there was a proper consideration of other options to save job loses; and criteria used for selecting people for retrenchment were fair and objective. This is a much stricter test for substantive fairness than was previously applied. The aim of this study is to determine whether the retrenchment processes and procedures practiced in the motor manufacturing company in the Eastern Cape are compliant with the legislative framework. The company policy was examined against the literature available and the retrenchment processes of different authors were investigated. For the purpose of this study, the researcher used a structured self-administered questionnaire to collect data from the respondents. The questionnaire was delivered by hand to each respondent and collected later. The questionnaire was carefully designed considering the main components and aspects of dismissal for operational requirements as revealed in the theory. The results of the empirical study revealed that the company conducts fair and proper retrenchment processes and procedures, consults with all the relevant stakeholders, follows the right consulting process when it contemplates dismissing employees for operational requirements, uses fair selection criteria and does not unfairly discriminate against employees based on arbitrary grounds. In respect of disclosure of information, the respondents were aware of what information is shared and disclosed and for what purposes. The findings indicated that the majority of the retrenchment processes and procedures applied in the motor manufacturing company in the Eastern Cape are in line with the best practise and compliant with legislative framework. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommends that the employer should create awareness and educate employees on the importance of the dimensions related to retrenchment processes and procedures whenever the company embarks on dismissal for operational requirements.

As a result of global competitiveness and a continuously changing business environment, organisations are constantly seeking for ways and means to enhance their profitability. The current organisational trend for businesses to gain competitive advantage is to restructure them to leaner and more flexible organisations. Businesses are striving to increase shareholder value by increasing performance through corporate restructuring to obtain an increase in efficiency and production. Unfortunately restructuring affects employees and could result in uncertainty with potential side effects in the work environment that could influence the employees‘ trust within the organisation. Damage to institutional trust, or trustworthiness as perceived by employees, could affect how employees engage within the organisation and impact on the profitability of such an organisation. A quantitative research study was conducted to determine if corporate restructuring affects institutional trust. It also investigated the relationship between institutional trust and employee engagement to determine if corporate restructuring affects employee engagement. The main findings of the research are that corporate restructuring has a profound impact on institutional trust and that damage to institutional trust affects how employees engage within the organisation. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Turbocharged spark-ignited engines may encounter stochastic events of premature ignition of the fuel-air mixture, termed as pre-ignition. Pre-ignition often leads to extremely high peak pressure and pressure oscillations, causing engine damage. A review of pre-ignition in historic times is done in this dissertation, and the similarities and differences compared to modern pre-ignition issue are brought forth. Experiments conducted with varying injection strategies yielded varying pre-ignition tendency. The pre-ignition tendency correlated with the charge cooling tendency and the mass of liquid fuel impinging on the cylinder liner and diluting the oil film. The diluted oil is trapped in the piston ring area and from time-to-time gets launched into the combustion chamber near top dead center. The fuel-oil mixture droplet may ignite the surrounding charge before the spark timing. Experiments conducted with varying exhaust back pressure showed dependence of pre-ignition tendency on in-cylinder temperature near top dead center, for cases when intake pressure is higher than exhaust pressures. For exhaust pressure higher than intake pressure, fuel wall impingement was critical to pre-ignition. This research also devised ion-current based sensors for pre-ignition detection. Initial experiments were done with DC-power based ion-current sensor, which detected a pre-ignition event when a flame brushed past the sensor. There was a need of faster-response sensor with high signal-to-noise ratio, that would allow pre-ignition detection at its inception stage, thereby giving enough time to trigger an evasive action. In this regard, an AC-powered ion-current sensor was devised and patented. Sudden fuel enrichment at the time of pre-ignition detection was investigated as an evasive method. Various strategies were investigated for their pre-ignition suppression tendency. Split injection, water injection, Octane-on-Demand, injecting different fluids in late compression stroke and dual fuel operation with gasoline and methane were found to be highly effective at suppressing pre-ignition completely. Use of ethanol in blends with different FACE gasolines is investigated to suggest fuel effects on pre-ignition. The strategies were successful at either reducing the mass of liquid fuel impinging the liner, reducing the in-cylinder temperature near top dead center or reducing the potential of residual gas content to trigger pre-ignition in the next cycle.

There is an increased use of downsizing across telecommunications in the northeast United States, and organizational leaders are challenged to motivate the productivity of the retained employees. Guided by systems theory, the purpose of this single case study was to explore successful downsizing strategies of a small group of organizational leaders and managers in the operations of telecommunications in the northeast United States. The study participants, chosen for their motivation success in motivation after downsizing, consisted of 2 purposefully selected business leaders who completed individual, face-to-face interviews and a focus group of 5 managers. The coding of data and word clusters from data obtained from the interviews and focus group led to 4 emergent themes of organizational communication, leadership, employee motivation, and work-life balance. The participant responses showed through topic saturation that communication and work-life balance were the most important major themes. The findings from this study suggest that communication during all phases of downsizing can add to the employees' motivation and employees understanding of what leadership expects from them. When organizational leaders communicate a message of a better work-life balance, positive social change may occur, creating a more productive and loyal employee. When employees have a healthy work-life balance, there are significant benefits to their work organizations, families, and home lives.