Ecological evaluation techniques have been used to classify or evaluate the relative conservation worthiness of a portion of the Eastern Cape coastal zone from Cannon Rocks to Port Alfred. A system-based approach, using a basic GIS, was used to compare three aspects of the coastal zone. Two existing planning documents (EMATEK/s Coastal Vegetation Importance Rating plan and CPA's Cape Coastal Conservation plan) were statistically compared - based primarily on the size and number of the landscape fragments (environmental criteria polygons). The resultant plan, an Intermediate Sensitivity Class map, was further integrated with the biophysical aspect of the coastal zone - coastal dunes. The final map is the product of these overlays to be used as a-working overlay for coastal zone decision-making. This is an Environmental Sensitivity map, which has no particular direct reference to any particular biophysical criteria, which categorizes the coastal zone according to the environmental sensitivity or conservation worthiness of the site. The categories are listed according to a sliding-scale of sensitivity or worthiness. There is, however, it strong association between the final map and the vegetation status of the coastline, as a direct result of the vegetation rating map and indirectly from the perception based coastal conservation plan. The formation of most assessment or evaluation plans are based on the vegetation status of the area. This map can be overlayed over the particular stretch of the coastline which it covers and the particular conservation status noted. There are numerous techniques available for assessment and evaluation each having their own specific merits and advantages. This plan, however, is a first attempt at integrating other specific plans into a single working document for the coastal zone manager.

M.A. / As a result of political, socio-demographical and economic pressures, South African organisations are constantly pressured to move towards a non-racial, democratic and fully representative environment. Companies are currently embarking on programs for the development and employment of previously discriminated against groups, in order to assimilate them into the current organisational culture. Given the pressing demands for human resource development, the results of affirmative action and the process of assimilation are still perceived as unsatisfactory and the management of diversity in South Africa is viewed with growing interest. Literature regarding the management of diversity exists primarily of American journals and case-studies. To date, there are few South African initiated publications on this subject. The management of diversity interventions, guidelines and principles was systematically studied to establish a theoretical framework for the development of a strategic approach in which communication development is seen as a central aspect. A lack of a coherent strategic visioning in the approach towards the management of diversity as well as a need for a planned, structured and developed communication strategy has been identified. In the absence of a coherent strategic vision on the management of diversity, a framework for the development of such a strategy, was developed to serve as guideline. The need for and guidelines for the development of a communication development strategy was identified to facilitate the process.

D.Comm. (Business Management) / Market orientation is increasingly becoming recognized as the basis and the starting point of effective business management. It has received extensive publicity in recent years, indeed so much so that the notion that businesses need to respond to markets and satisfy their customers' needs seems to be so widely accepted now that it scarcely needs saying. As the marketplace evolves under the converging pressures of changing demographics, economics, technology, and social mores, so do organisations change, along with the nature of cooperation and competition among them. As organisations change, so must their management philosophies. To survive in the future, everybusiness will have to be customer focused and market-driven and flexible in its ability to deliver superior value to changing customers in the competitive marketplace. On the grounds of poor service rendered by South African enterprises in general and manufacturing enterprises in particular, the research problem chosen for this study was the cloud of suspicion hanging over the market orientation and quality of service characterising South African manufacturing enterprises. The main emphasis was on market orientation and more particularly on determining whether manufacturers of consumer and industrial products and the different branches of the manufacturing industry differed to a statistically significant extent in their market orientation. A questionnaire was sent to respondents by mail to collect the necessary information. Sections A, Band C of the questionnaire were subjected to factor analyses and coefficient alpha in order to determine the validity and dependability of the questionnaire. The statistical analyses revealed that the questionnaire has a high degree of internal validity and dependability. Besides determining normal descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, averages and standard deviations, routine statistical tests, such as t-tests, Chi-squared tests and variance analyses were performec' where necessary. A significance level of 0,05 was used throughout. In the case of significant variance analyses post-hoc Tukey tests were performed to determine which groups differ in their average scores for the dimensions of market orientation. It is concluded that South African manufacturing enterprises are not fully market oriented yet. A difference in market orientation between manufacturers of consumer and industrial products was found, namely that market orientation is more pronounced among manufacturers of industrial than of consumer products, albeit not to a statistically significant extent. It was also found that the branches of the manufacturing industry do not differ to an statistically significant extent regarding their market orientation. On balance it is clear that South African manufacturing enterprises will have to pay closer attention to the handling of complaints, to personnel focus and to internal as well as external communication if they are to become more market oriented.

D.Litt. et Phil. / The purpose of this study was to determine on a theoretical level what the role of communication climate in the formation of perceptions of organizational climate of the formal organization is. To achieve this purpose, existing conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the climate construct had to be alleviated. This was achieved through the operational definition of the construct within the framework of an organizational model, whereby a nomological net could be established for the construct. A theoretical framework within which the operational definition of the construct could be undertaken, was constructed through a systematic synthesis of available literature. Through structural functional analysis of existing systems theoretical approaches to the study of organization systems, a social systems model of organizational functioning was constructed. within this explicit theoretical framework the construct organizational climate, as well as the construct communication climate was operationally defined according to the role each plays in terms of the organization's functioning. By representing these constructs in relation to each other within the framework of an organizational model, a theoretical link between these two constructs could be specified. It was indicated that the determinants of organizational climate are the organizational processes which link organizational structures to functions. It was determined that the organizational climate construct consists of two sub constructs, i.e. communication climate and transformation climate. It was also noted that both these constructs are related to communication constructs, and thus the climate they generate is related to a climate for communication. The conclusion was 'thus made that organizational climate is a communication construct, which is indicative of the climate for organizational functioning which is provided by communication. It was also shown that the relationship by which the constructs communication climate and transformation climate determine organizational .climate cannot be specified in a general way. The reason for this is that the specific processes emphasized by the organization in its functioning will determine the relationship between these two constructs in the formation of the organizational climate of the formal organization. Finally, the methodological implications of this theoretical viewpoint were discussed.

M.Ing. / The modelling of water quality in distribution systems is a relatively new field. It has become necessary to attend to the problem of water quality at the consumer's tap because water quality after treatment is not a guarantee for the water that reaches the consumer. It is increasingly important to design and manage distribution systems carefully to ensure safe drinking water up to the consumer's tap. This report gives the results and a discussion thereof on the chlorine decay in laboratory batch tests as well as on pipeline systems. Significant contributions were made to the different objectives of the study. Standardised test procedures for both free chlorine and monochloramine were developed. It was found that the n th-order, 1 parameter model described the decay of chlorine significantly better than did the generally assumed first order mathematical model. It was also found that the reaction orders are different for different water sources, and even different for the same water source at different times. It was also clear that the rate constants are dependent on temperature - the higher the temperature, the higher the decay rate constants. The reaction order for free chlorine varied from 0.36 to 1.22 with no apparent underlying pattern. For monochloramine, the reaction order fell into two distinctively different categories. For monochloramine decay up to 24 hours, the reaction order varied from 0.02 to 0.05. For monochloramine decay from 24 hours onwards, the reaction order varied from 0.92 to 0.95. As was expected, the free chlorine decay rates obtained in pipelines were higher than in parallel bulk decay rate tests. On the assumption that the bulk decay reaction order is equal to one, the mass transfer coefficient between the bulk flow and the pipe wall varied between 0.0065 m/h and 0.0457 m/h. Further research is highly recommended on the effect of secondary and tertiary chlorination as well as on more direct methods of estimating pipe wall-related chlorine reaction constants.

M.Sc. (Geography) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Com. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Com. (Business Management) / Companies in the Republic of South Africa are under increasing pressure to improve productivity, due to increased world market competition and change in market situations. For a country to grow economically, to create job opportunities and to restrict inflation and increases in labour costs, productivity improvement is essential. If the real output per worker increases the real income will increase, and will lead to an increased living standard. Productivity improvement within a business enterprise organisation cannot be applied to one aspect only. There is a relation between factors that influence productivity. Productivity improvement can only improve successfully within a business enterprise if management, workers and work groups strive together to solve productivity problems. Group based incentive schemes have always been used, especially at top management level. It has only recently drawn attention as a total organisation incentive scheme. Management started believing that all workers can play a role and make a contribution to productivity improvement. Group productivity incentive schemes encourage management, workers and work groups to work together to solve productivity problems. Management and workers can benefit by a properly designed productivity incentive scheme. Workers earn a higher income, as well as improving their standard of living, enabling them to gain better job security. The company can increase its level of productivity to become more competitive and to improve profitability. This study determines: All the important aspects which must be considered for the successful use of group incentive schemes to increase the productivity of direct labour in the manufacturing

D.Phil. / In spite of developments in the field of Human Resource Development (HRD field) with regard to the development of human resources, the HRD field has no universally accepted evaluation paradigm that could be utilised for evaluating the impact of HRD interventions. This unsatisfactory state of evaluation was brought about, firstly, by the prevailing dominance of the Kirkpatrick approach (1994) towards evaluation and, secondly, by the absence of empirically-tested evaluation models. Although the Kirkpatrick approach to evaluation establishes a logical frame of reference for evaluation, this approach could be considered controversial and restrictive. Furthermore, the taxonomic nature of the Kirkpatrick approach provides limited prospects for explaining the contribution and impact HRD interventions could have on enhanced organisational effectiveness. Consequently, a need exists for an innovative HRD evaluation paradigm that offers satisfactory exposition possibilities with regard to the effectiveness of interventions. Furthermore, the Human Resource Development field is characterised by a lack of terminological congruence particularly with regard to such concepts as evaluation, Human Resource Development and organisational effectiveness. In order to overcome the problem, concepts that are applicable to the study in question, were defined and a few objectives that could be achieved by means of evaluation were explained/highlighted. From further analysis of a variety of evaluation approaches propounded in literature it appears that the conceptualisation of evaluation areas such as reaction, learning and performance could be considered problematic. Furthermore, these evaluation approaches focus mainly on evaluating the impact of a few interventions without determining the contribution of most interventions for enhanced organisational effectiveness. Bearing relation to the aforementioned, important variables that occur on individual, group and organisational levels, and that influence the effectiveness of an intervention, are not considered. The aforementioned, therefore, does not indicate that the evaluation approaches followed could be considered as faulty, but instead that these approaches could be regarded as incomplete. Against the above background, an Evaluation Model has been formulated that could overcome evaluation problems. The model includes five major factors, namely individual, group and organisational factors, the learning environment and the components of the training cycle. It has been hypothesised that these factors mutually interact with each other and transform HRD inputs into specific outputs. These elements also serve as outputs of the HRD function and it has been argued that the factors could be considered as indicative of effective HRD iniatives. The elements of the transformational process serve as one of three key evaluation areas, of which the other two evaluation areas are organisational effectiveness and external factors. The proposed evaluation approach thus pays attention to the impact and interaction between the different elements, the point of departure being that effective transformation (that is, processing HRD inputs to outputs) would only be possible if full functional discharge occurs in all the elements.

D.Phil. / In today's knowledge-intensive economy, an organisation's available knowledge is becoming an increasingly important strategic resource. The effective management of this resource is, consequently, one of the most important challenges facing today's organisation. Organisational learning processes which are responsible for the creation and sharing of knowledge should produce a core competence, which represents a form of valuable intellectual capital for the organisation and this has become a business imperative in the knowledgeintensive economy Without knowledge sharing between individuals, in groups, amongst groups and in the organisation as a whole there can be no knowledge and no sustainable competitive advantage through the use of organisational knowledge. Discovering the enablers and barriers to knowledge sharing is one of the aims of the study. I believe the proposed study could contribute to the "how" of knowledge sharing. This study will explore what the systemic relationship between knowledge management; knowledge sharing and organisational ethos is with the aim of developing a substantive knowledge-sharing model that explicates the knowledge-sharing processes. Based on the literature review, the reasons for organisations to focus on knowledge management and knowledge sharing are relatively consistent across organisations. At one level, organisations are concerned with keeping people informed regarding information and business processes to avoid duplication of effort, but also to stimulate collaboration and encourage group sharing. On a deeper level, most executives would agree that focusing on knowledge management is likely to increase organisational adaptability and competitiveness. Knowledge sharing can be viewed as a type of constant business innovation process.