In order for organisations to grow and maintain their competitive advantage, change has become the norm. The healthcare industry and especially private healthcare organisations, is no exception. Organisational change often implies a change in organisational culture. The concept of culture refers to the ways of thinking, values and ideas of things rather than the concrete, objective and more visible part of the organisation. Organisational culture is not to be viewed in isolation as culture and leadership are intertwined. Leaders shape cultures and their fundamental role is affecting others and making changes that increase organisational efficiency and performance. Patient safety, cost-effective care based on the best available evidence and patient satisfaction are top priorities of healthcare organisations, especially intensive care units where critically ill patients are cared for. Alignment of the organisational culture and leadership with a hospital‘s vision, namely to deliver quality patient care, is thus essential. A positivistic research paradigm, with a quantitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual approach was used to conduct the study. The study explored whether transformational organisational culture, leadership and desired organisational change outcomes existed in private intensive care units in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan and East London areas. It aimed at exploring the relationship between selected demographic variables, culture, leadership and organisational change outcomes. Lastly, the relationship between organisational culture and leadership (independent variables) and organisational change outcomes (dependent variable) was explored. The sample comprised 130 professional nurses who were selected from all the adult intensive care units in the private healthcare industry in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan and East London areas. A structured questionnaire with a Cronbach‘s alpha of more than 0.8 was used to collect data. The empirical results indicated that transformational leadership and a conducive organisational culture existed in the private intensive care units sampled. However, it was found that innovation and innovative care practices could be improved. Care practices were not necessarily aligned with the latest, available innovative techniques, procedures and practices. Reflective practices and in-service training to improve care practices and encourage and promote innovative care practices were not always optimised. Recommendations related to the findings were made for managers, as well as for research, education and practice. Ethical principles were maintained throughout the study.

xii, 114 p. : ill. / The banking sector has been extensively analyzed in economics. On the microeconomic side, research has advanced our understanding of banks and the inverse relationship between market power and bank production. The macroeconomic side of research has focused on the transmission of monetary policy, and it is understood that the financial system, including banks, plays an integral role in transmitting monetary policy decisions to economic variables such as investment, consumption, and GDP. There is limited understanding, however, about how market power and bank concentration affects the transmission of monetary policy. The main focus of this dissertation is to address this gap in the literature and is achieved by three contributions. First, I develop a theory of banking behavior that accounts for competition and monetary policy. I empirically test the theory and show that banking concentration dampens the impact of monetary policy on lending activity in the short-run. My second contribution involves building a theoretical model with these short-run lending effects incorporated into an endogenous growth model that allows agents, banks, and the central bank to interact. This model shows how short-run lending is tied to growth. Again, monetary policy is less effective in markets with higher concentration. The last contribution is made by empirically testing the second contribution. The empirical findings are consistent with both the first and second contributions; banking markets with less competition adversely affect growth and also diminish the long-run impact of monetary policy. / Committee in charge: Dr. Mark Thoma, Co-Chair; Dr. Wesley Wilson, Co-Chair; Dr. Shankha Chakraborty, Member; Dr. Larry Dann, Outside Member

No description available.

Through different learning portals, computer-assisted assessment (CAA) tools have improved considerably over the past few decades. In a CAA community, these tools are categorised into types of questions, types of testing, and types of assessment. Most of these provide the assessment of multiple-choice questions, true and false questions, or matching questions. Other CAA tools evaluate short and long essay questions, each of which different grading methods and techniques in terms of style and content have. However, due to the complexity involved in analysing free text writing, the development and evaluation of accurate, easy to use, and effective tools is questionable. This research proposes a new contextual framework as a novel approach to the investigation of a new CAA tool which auto-generates feedback on project proposals. This research follows a Design Science Research paradigm to achieve and evaluate the accuracy, ease of use, and effectiveness of the new tool in the computer science domain in higher education institutes. This is achieved in three interrelated cycles:(1) based on the existent literature on this topic and an exploratory study on the currently available approaches to the provision of feedback on final year project proposals, a proposed framework to auto-generate feedback on any electronically submitted coursework is constructed in order to gain a clear understanding on how such a CAA tool might work; (2) a contextual framework based on the proposed framework for final year project proposals is constructed by considering both the style and content of the free text and using different text mining techniques; and (3) the accuracy, easy to use, and effectiveness of the implemented web-based CAA application named Feedback Automated Tool (FEAT)is evaluated based on the contextual framework. This research applies CAA and text mining techniques to identify and model the key elements of the framework and its components in order to enable the development and evaluation of a novel CAA contextual framework which can be utilised for auto-generating accurate, easy to use, and effective feedback on final year project proposals.

This study sought to understand the application of the BSC as a tool that facilitates customer satisfaction in local government service delivery. The main thrust was on its application in South African metropolitan municipalities with a view of establishing means of improving its adoption for better customer-focused performance measurement. This area has not received much attention, yet local government performance is in an unacceptable state. The study employed a secondary data analysis approach and findings from the study reflect widespread usage of the BSC but without proper consideration of factors influencing its successful application. Findings of this study reinforce previous study results that there is poor communication with regards to how the BSC must be applied. Its application is also faced with the challenge of lack of training on the use and application of the BSC. However, the tool has significantly transformed and shaped the functioning of South Africa’s two best performing metropolitan municipalities and altered their performance in a favourable manner. Through the BSC approach, the City of Cape Town and the City of Johannesburg have moved towards improving their relations with the customers they serve. The BSC allows the municipalities to take into consideration the non-financial assets that were previously not considered valuable in organisations. Accommodating the views of customers has gained much traction in these municipalities and measures have been put in place to ensure real time data enables managers to make decisions that attempt to address people’s needs and expectations. Conclusively, the study recommends strong improvement in training and communication of the objectives and goals of a PMS within an organisation. Strong emphasis should also be placed on listening to what the customers say and expect from service delivery. This will strengthen the use and value of CSS and CBP and help improve performance and the achievement of the NDP goals of 2030 through local government. This study sought to understand the application of the BSC as a tool that facilitates customer satisfaction in local government service delivery. The main thrust was on its application in South African metropolitan municipalities with a view of establishing means of improving its adoption for better customer-focused performance measurement. This area has not received much attention, yet local government performance is in an unacceptable state. The study employed a secondary data analysis approach and findings from the study reflect widespread usage of the BSC but without proper consideration of factors influencing its successful application. Findings of this study reinforce previous study results that there is poor communication with regards to how the BSC must be applied. Its application is also faced with the challenge of lack of training on the use and application of the BSC. However, the tool has significantly transformed and shaped the functioning of South Africa’s two best performing metropolitan municipalities and altered their performance in a favourable manner. Through the BSC approach, the City of Cape Town and the City of Johannesburg have moved towards improving their relations with the customers they serve. The BSC allows the municipalities to take into consideration the non-financial assets that were previously not considered valuable in organisations. Accommodating the views of customers has gained much traction in these municipalities and measures have been put in place to ensure real time data enables managers to make decisions that attempt to address people’s needs and expectations. Conclusively, the study recommends strong improvement in training and communication of the objectives and goals of a PMS within an organisation. Strong emphasis should also be placed on listening to what the customers say and expect from service delivery. This will strengthen the use and value of CSS and CBP and help improve performance and the achievement of the NDP goals of 2030 through local government..

abstract: ABSTRACT Recent studies indicate that top-performing companies have higher-performing work environments than average companies. They receive higher scores for worker satisfaction with their overall physical work environment as well as higher effectiveness ratings for their workspaces (Gensler, 2008; Harter et al., 2003). While these studies indicate a relationship between effective office design and satisfaction they have not explored which specific space types may contribute to workers' overall satisfaction with their physical work environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between workers' overall satisfaction with their physical work environments and their perception of the effectiveness of spaces designed for Conceptual Age work including learning, focusing, collaborating, and socializing tasks. This research is designed to identify which workspace types are related to workers' satisfaction with their overall work environment and which are perceived to be most and least effective. To accomplish this two primary and four secondary research questions were developed for this study. The first primary question considers overall workers' satisfaction with their overall physical work environments (offices, workstations, hallways, common areas, reception, waiting areas, etc.) related to the effective use of work mode workspaces (learning, focusing, collaborating, socializing). The second primary research question was developed to identify which of the four work mode space types had the greatest and least relationship to workers' satisfaction with the overall physical work environment. Secondary research questions were developed to address workers' perceptions of effectiveness of each space type. This research project used data from a previous study collected from 2007 to 2012. Responses were from all staff levels of US office-based office workers and resulted in a blind sample of approximately 48,000 respondents. The data for this study were developed from SPSS data reports that included descriptive data and Pearson correlations. Findings were developed from those statistics using coefficient of determination. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Design 2013

The overall objective of this study was to study Corporate Performance Management (CPM) with specific reference to best practice in CPM. Every organisation, regardless of type, needs a clear and cohesive performance measurement framework that is understood by all levels of the organisation and that supports the execution of strategy. CPM describes the methodologies, metrics, processes and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance of an enterprise. CPM is one the hottest trends in business intelligence. CPM is an enterprise-wide strategy that seeks to align departmental initiatives to prevent managers from optimising local business at the expense of the overall corporate performance. One of the key issues in business performance is not only the development of strategy, but ensuring that the strategy is executed. Therefore, an organisation requires a performance management process that is integrated with the strategy management process. The ability to execute a chosen strategy is as important as the strategy itself. Executives must have the ability to execute against a chosen strategy. With the right processes, methodologies, measurements and technology support, today’s companies can develop the competencies needed to execute its strategic vision in even the most turbulent of times. CPM solutions offer organisations these right processes, methodologies, measurements and technology to successfully execute against their strategies. Best practice can be defined as those practices that have produced outstanding results in other organisations that can be adapted for use in your own organisation. In implementing a CPM solution in an organisation it is possible to learn from best practice applications already in use. Best practice companies understand that effective management reporting is a balance among quality, quantity and speed of information. The problem is not necessarily the quantity or speed but rather the quality of the information. Best practice assists organisations in finding this balance. Organisations attempt to implement performance management solutions, often without success. If a framework of best practice was adopted the chances of success would have been greatly improved. The challenges of performance management are readily addressable through improved technology and best-practice processes. Studies have identified common critical success factors and best practices when implementing CPM solutions at organisations. Organisations can greatly increase the chance of successful implementations by taking cognisance of best practice in CPM / Prof. W.M. Conradie

This study sets out to prove that Activity-Based Management is still a relevant instrument to facilitate effective management decision-making and organisational improvement. In the light of all the latest techniques and methodologies that currently exist to measure and rectify organisational performance, the obvious question might be “but why Activity-Based Management?”. Whilst certain techniques and methodologies concentrate on either inputs, outputs and / or on the entire process, Activity-Based Management was selected because it specifically analyses the activities (transformation component) of a business, plus the fact that this methodology has been refined and tested with great success in large organisations such as Eskom. Given the selection of management tools available, an instrument such as Activity-Based Management is usually not implemented alone, but may be supported by one or more other approaches. For this reason, Activity-Based Management is contrasted with several other popular instruments in the literature review. If properly applied, Activity-Based Management can provide management with a sound decision-making platform for correctly aligning resources and work activities. It produces cost information by linking human resource costs to activities and then tracks these human resource costs (inputs) by activity (transformation) and traces them to the point where products and / or services (outputs) reach their destination / customers (result). It also serves as a useful base to improve strategic and operational decisions and for reviewing and updating the organisation structure of a business. This study reworks and researches previous data related to a project carried out by Eskom (exploratory research) with the purpose of testing the primary research objective. Based on a predetermined dictionary of activities and an associated data collection form, a census was used to collect the data. The resulting reports highlight the main obstructions to effective performance and they mainly relate to an imbalance of time expenditure amongst the various activities performed, an outdated organisation structure and a misalignment of effort with the new vision and strategies formulated. The study is concluded with a number of recommendations for improvement and for further study. Briefly, these recommendations address:  shifting the focus from support to core activities and placing a higher emphasis on activities that support the new vision and strategies of the business;  eliminating unnecessary activities and reducing the amount of time wasted; and  eliminating fragmented work, dealing with surplus manpower numbers and revising the organisation structure. / Prof. H.E.C. de Bruyn

M.Com. (Business Management) / Imperative changes in the global economy continue to change the complexion of many organisations in their quest to remain competitive. Hitherto, their strive to have sustainable competitive advantage is challenged by factors such as increased competition, market volatility, geographically dispersed operations, customer awareness, raising workforce diversity and stringent regulatory regimes. These factors have driven, and in turn, have been driven by an increasing complexity of products, services and the processes that create value, resulting in changes in the structural and functional dimensions of the organisation. Equally, industry captains and scholars alike acknowledge the shift in value creating assets from the traditional land, labour and capital to intangible assets such as knowledge and information becoming the most important resources an organisation can muster. The combination and integration of intangible assets such as human resources, structural and relational resources have been grouped under the umbrella of intellectual capital. This study sheds light on the unique variables which accelerate intellectual capital as leverage for optimising competitive advantage and collates them with the case study findings of the research conducted at an international oil and gas company headquartered in South Africa. These variables include human capital attributes, such as competencies, tacit knowledge or experience, communities of practice, and competitive intelligence; relational capital attributes such as brand, customer loyalty, corporate social responsibility, and partnerships or joint ventures; and structural capital attributes such as corporate culture, leadership philosophy, and technology or systems. The research design follows a case study approach and applies the method of content analysis of annual reports and of analysing the content of the oil and gas company, Sasol's, four-year annual reports to establish the disclosure of intellectual capital. In conclusion, this study finds that the realisation of sustainable competitive advantage for any organisation, particularly blue chip companies like Sasol, is the choice to implement a unique wealth-creating strategy, namely leveraging its intellectual capital. This study highlights that intellectual capital has the potential to offer companies sustainable long-term benefits through intangible assets that are inimitable, that is, current and potential competitors would not be able to duplicate of imitate.

Unlike other studies incorporating the traditional Hughes and Morgan (2007) entrepreneurial orientation (EO) scale, the current study accepted the challenge issued by Lyon, Lumpkin and Dess (2000) evaluating EO in a new approach. As incorporated by Short, Broberg, Cogliser and Brigham (2009), this study too made use of content analysis to evaluate the dimensions of EO in order to comprehend whether the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) are more associated with top performing firms in comparison to less performing firms in the context of South Africa. The study reviewed 21 highgrowth firms that initially listed on the Alternative Exchange (AltX) and subsequently promoted to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) mainboard. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted