Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xv, 210 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-198).

Thesis (MTech (Quality))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010. / Computacenter SA (CCSA), serves as focus of this study. One of CCSA's clients is Unipart and therefore will be used as the example to mitigate the research problem, serving to demonstrate how Service Levels are structured and how they are monitored. According to the Company policy and agreed Service Level Agreements (SLA's), an acceptance level of 95% should be reached in terms of service delivery. Anything below 95% would be considered a failure, and therefore constitutes a breach of the agreement. The tool used by Computacenter South Africa (CCSA), to measure or monitor the SLA is referred to as Service Flow. Within Service Flow there are mechanisms known as 'pre exception result and a 'post exception result'. These concepts constitute a report, which is compiled on a monthly basis to check and evaluate performance, Should a request from a client not be met and there is a valid reason for the non compliance of the request. It can however bean exception and can therefore be processed as being successfully executed within the context of the SLA. If no valid reasons are, however logged in the request work log, the request constitutes as failed and can therefore lead to the team not achieving their agreed SLA with the customer.

Engagement of stakeholders in government website communication has emerged as an important strategy that can build trust, improve transparency and strengthen loyalty between governments and their citizens. This is because websites provide access to a broader spectrum, offer unlimited storage of information and rapid feedback. This main purpose of the study therefore was to find out how the Lesotho and South African national governments utilise their websites to engage stakeholder’s in websites communication for maintaining and building mutual relationships. The literature review for this study covered the role of public relations in government, different kinds of governments’ stakeholders and the importance of engaging stakeholders in website communication for relationship building and maintenance of such relationships. The methodology that was employed involved analysis of twenty websites which were selected using purposive sampling technique. Coding sheets were designed and used to collect data based on the three principles of dialogic communication namely: Ease of interface, Generation of return visits, Usefulness of information and the two models of communication which are One-way communication and Two-way communication. The results revealed limited efforts for stakeholder’s engagement in both Lesotho and South African government ministries and made recommendations on how this challenge can be addressed. The study concluded that the two countries can improve stakeholders’ participation and engagement in websites communication by aligning their websites with the three principles of dialogic communication and two models of communication.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Thesis ( M. Tech. (School of Information Technology )) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2014 / The aim of this study has been to find out how the community in the remote areas of South Africa access government information. The study is based on four villages, two in the Northern Cape Province (Heuningvlei and Galeshewe) and two in Limpopo Province (The Oaks and Finala). A quantitative design was used. Open and closed-ended questionnaires were used to collect data from the community. Out of 200 questionnaires distributed only 144 responses were received. Responses in the questionnaires were tabulated, coded and processed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) programme. Based on the analysis in Table 4.13, the study showed that 44 percent of the sampled community have access to information through Television which they classified as technology. Shortage of telecentres, distance to telecentres, age, lack of education, monthly income, infrastructure and transport cost were some of the important factors contributing to a lack of access to information. Some of the findings are that most of the telecentres are located far from towns, more than 7 kilometres from the village. Ideally, telecentres should be located near the community, within a short walking distance. It is recommended that provision/establishment for easy access to information and communication services by the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) in the remote areas in the Northern Cape and Limpopo province is strongly considered for implementation. This will overcome the gap that exists between the urban and semi-urban communities regarding access to human rights information such as rights to life, equality, freedom of speech, assembly and access to information. It is also assumed that the implementation of telecentres and Internet Cafes, in order to facilitate the adoption of e-government information by people residing in remote areas (semi-urban areas) such as Heuningvlei, Galeshewe, The Oaks and Finala will contribute to better access to human rights. The study also recommends that the service costs charged by the telecentre and Internet Cafes should not be expensive. This will assist the community to afford to pay Internet services. Information is important for decision-making. For this reason, it is recommended that continued campaigns on awareness about the mportance of access to information through telecentres and Internet Cafes should be conducted.

E-Government applications have emerged rapidly in the developing world. This is due to its usefulness as an enabling tool to increase efficiency and enhance transparency. This research focuses on insights into the implementation process of e-Government within the context of developing countries. Institutional theory was the change theory applied since it explains why organisational structures and values endure. The neo-institutional theory was adopted by using multi-level approach and multi-stakeholder analysis, and these enable environmental forces to be used with other factors such as organisational and role of network actors. Due to its flexibility, institutional theory has been combined it with other theories and models such as: Lewin’s 3-stage model (deeply enriches understanding of how change occurs as well as the role of change agent); Driver-Barrier model (to assist in recognising the potential drivers and barriers that might influence successful e-Government implementation); Comprehensive Barrier framework (relevant for study of e-Government and information system barriers that could be used as checklist for project planning and evaluation);and Three-Quarter Moon model (developed for e-Commerce adoption and applied the model to e-Government implementation) The research questions and proposed framework were tested and validated by carrying out qualitative analysis using multi-methods approach for data collection. Case study research was adopted with focus on government-to-employee (G2E) within public sector organisations in Nigeria, West Africa. The research collection strategy included an in-depth investigation of organisations’ information systems using both primary and secondary data collection. The series of techniques adopted are questionnaire responses, interviews, document analysis and observation. The research findings suppose that most of the factors – internal and external, and characteristics – benefits, barriers and risks, identified as influential to e-Government implementation are similar to those discussed in existing literature, although some may be specific to the Nigerian public sector context. Based in the findings, the researcher was able to reconceptualise the developed model for e-Government implementation, which was specific to the case study. The model was then extended for application by other countries. A novel subset model – Rectangular Four-Actor-Activity - was also developed for identifying e-Government implementation key actors and their main activities, which is a subset of the holistic framework. The conceptualised model should help managers and academicians to understand the step-by-step guide to e-Government implementing process by ranking and mapping of relevant concepts and factors within the framework, understanding the difference between theory and practice in terms of e-Government implementation. The researcher therefore accomplishes that this study extends to the knowledge in the aspect of e-Government implementation from organisational perspectives, Government-to-Employee (G2E); thus contributing to the Information System (and e-Government implementation) literature through reviewing the range of studies using a wider multi-level and multi-method approach. This includes combining institutional theory with other models. This enables development of a holistic conceptual model for implementing e-Government, including a subset model for e-Government key actors and their main activities throughout the development life cycle.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Since the dawn of democracy, South Africa has experienced continued service delivery protests. The extent to which these protests manifest themselves could be indicative of the communication gap that exists between local councillors and communities. In response, communities might use protests to serve as a medium of communication to highlight their unhappiness with service delivery. The e-participation programme is an intervention introduced by the German International Cooperation to explore the potential and assist municipalities with the implementation of a short message system-based, two-way channel for citizen-municipality communication. This study examined the level of readiness of municipalities with regard to the implementation and the sustainability of the e-participation programme. It used a mixed method approach to investigate a sample of municipalities. Findings and recommendations to government on considerations for implementation of the programme is discussed. The study concludes by highlighting earned benefits that can be enjoyed by all South African municipalities by employing the core pillars of various models used in other countries in implementing e-participation.

M.Comm. / An operational information model is adapted in this study to suit the current municipal applications. Problems arising from the current changing environment will have to be dealt with to ensure future success of municipalities. A control centre forms the basis of the model from where the relevant information can be supplied to employees in a robust form for outdoor use. The information is updated regularly and control measures are in place for issuing of the information. The effective management of the system will ensure that functions such as training, reporting, safety, labour relations, etc. are optimally implemented.

MSc., Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / The purpose of the study is to investigate possible reasons as to why different surveys conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) give different estimates of the percentages in the different employment categories. In order to investigate the different sources of variability, that is, surveys done in different years, surveys using different questionnaires, different sample designs and different employment profiles, the following comparisons were done for Gauteng and the Eastern Cape: • To compare estimates of employment status over time for the March Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2006 and 2007; September LFS 2006 and 2007; and General Household Survey (GHS) September 2006 and July 2007. • To compare estimates of employment status across surveys for LFS September 2006; GHS September 2006; and LFS September 2007, July GHS 2007 and Community Survey (CS) October 2007. In order to generate a set of comparable estimates across surveys and within surveys over time, this study identifies and addresses the various sources of potential non-comparability. The methodologies utilised are Chi-squared Automatic Detection (CHAID) and multinomial logistic regression. These statistical techniques were used to identify variables which are associated with employment status. The predictor variables included in the analysis are age group, highest level of education, marital status, population group, sex and source data. The results from CHAID for all data sets show that age group is the most significant predictor on which data on employment status can be segmented. At the root node (the first level of the CHAID tree), data was partitioned by the categories of age group. Highest level of education, sex, population group and province were significant within the categories of age group. Either province or population group was significant within the age group 20–29 years old depending on the data that is being analysed. Sex was most significant within the age group 50–65 years old. The results of multinomial regression show several significant interactions involving from five to seven factors for different data sets. The logistic regression results were not as good as those of the CHAID analyses, but both techniques give us an indication of the relationships between the predictor variables and employment. The analysis of the CS, LFS and GHS in 2007, when explaining employment status, split on age group. Highest level of education was the most significant predictor when comparing the three data sets. There are differences among the three data sets when explaining employment status. This is due to the use of different mid-year population estimates, differences in the instructions given in the questionnaire for CS 2007 and other surveys, as well as the sample size of the surveys. There are indeed significant differences between Gauteng and Eastern Cape in relation to employment status.