The Constitution, 1996 requires that the public participate in policy making and planning in local government. To ensure compliance, legislation prescribes that local government needs to establish mechanisms, processes and procedures for public participation. However, neither the Constitution, 1996 nor legislation describes what public participation is, and how it should be implemented. Moreover, different people view public participation differently. There is thus a lack of definition and implementation of public participation in the policy making and planning processes of local government. To understand what public participation means, a conceptual analysis was conducted, resulting in the delivery of a working definition of public participation. The definition conveyed indicators of public participation, namely, the public, the levels of participation, the mechanisms for participation, the scope of participation and public influence in decision-making in participation. These indicators were studied qualitatively for description in a metropolitan municipality in South Africa in a single case study using multiple methods. The methods used were a survey questionnaire, a document study and analysis and an interview questionnaire. The findings indicate that the public who participated in the policy making and planning processes in the metropolitan municipality were mainly advantaged instead of disadvantaged people. They participated at the levels of informing, consulting, implementing, and reviewing. Public participation was not attained at the levels of educating, deciding and reporting back. The study established that the municipality employed various public participation mechanisms for informing and consulting the public. The scope of public participation was found to be reasonably broad. Though evidence suggests that the public participated in decisions pertaining to budget ward allocations, no evidence could be found that the public had an influence in decision-making in participation on the whole. It was found that public officials had the influence over public participation decision-making while politicians had the final say. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)

Facing increasingly complex policy issues and diminishing citizen satisfaction with government and service performance, managing the quality of citizen relationship management has become a main challenge for public managers. Solutions to complex policy problems of service performance and low level of citizen participation often must be developed by encouraging citizens to make their voices heard through the various participation mechanisms. Reflecting on this need, the municipal governments in the U.S. have developed centralized customer systems for citizen relationship management. 311 centralized customer system (named 311 in this study) has the functions of citizen-initiated contact, service-coproduction, and transaction, and many local governments launch 311 to maintain or enhance their relationship with the public. Using 311 is an easy and free technically for citizens, but ensuring some degree of citizen engagement and citizens’ 311 use has been challenging for local public managers of municipalities. Despite calls for the importance of 311 in the service and information delivery process, fair treatment and access to use of governmental information, citizen participation, government responsiveness, and citizen satisfaction, to the best of our understanding, no empirical studies explore citizens’ 311 behaviors in the micro and individual level in the field of public administration. This dissertation provides a comprehensive understanding of the 311 centralized customer system, helps local public managers know citizens’ perceived perspectives toward the operation of 311, and assists these managers to develop an effective 311 system in municipalities. The dissertation’s main purpose is to clarify the importance of 311 to citizen relationship management and provide insights into citizens’ 311 use behaviors. More specifically, this dissertation tries to answers the following questions: a. Why do citizens use 311? Do the various groups of the population access and use 311 in San Francisco equally? If not, what factors influence the citizens’ 311 citizen-initiated contact behaviors? b. Why do citizens choose the 311 digital channel to contact with local governments? c. Why do citizens use 311 frequently? This dissertation will address these questions and draws on data from the 2011 citizen survey of City of San Francisco to explore citizens’ 311 use behaviors by examining them from citizens’ perspectives. The main arguments of each question listed above are: 1. 311 citizen-initiated contact is different from traditional citizen-initiated contact, and exposure to governmental-ICT environment, gender, income, and race are the factors influencing 311 citizen-initiated contact. 2. The digital divide, including the social side of the digital divide and access-side of the digital divide, influences citizens’ 311 channel choice. 3. Citizens’ technology acceptance, citizen satisfaction, and frequent use of public services influence the frequency of citizens’ 311 use.

Local governments do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, they are part of a complex “polycentric” system of governments where politically autonomous and self-ruled cities compete with one another over taxable wealth. Missing from the scholarship on metropolitan governance is an understanding of the factors driving competition among local governments. The purpose of this dissertation is to fill this gap by examining how interjurisdictional competition over economic development impacts a city’s choice of strategies for attracting business and residential investment and how those strategies affect revenue collection. First, this dissertation examines whether cities, knowing the economic development strategies of their neighboring cities, pursue similar types of businesses? Or do cities strategically target different types of businesses as a way to avoid the negative consequences of competition? Second, this dissertation explores what impact the decision to pursue similar or dissimilar businesses has on the revenue collection of local governments. Using spatial data analysis to analyze a sample of 2,299 cities, this dissertation finds general support for both theoretical frameworks presented. Overall, the findings from both analyses provide unique insights into metropolitan governance and interjurisdictional competition.

Thesis (MBA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Local governments have been identified as the main catalyst for service delivery provisions. However, challenges, such as capacity and lack of financial sustainability, means many municipalities struggle to meet this obligation. This study sought to evaluate the challenges the Musina Local Municipality faces in their attempt to manage their finances for financial sustainability. The study adopted a quantitative approach. A structured self-administered questionnaire was employed as a data collection tool from sampled respondents. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the gathered data. The findings of this study indicate that the main challenge confronting the Musina Local Municipality was the low revenue collection. This is mostly as a consequence of community members’ inability to pay for services due to their unaffordability. The findings reveal that the Musina Local municipality made most of its revenue income from property rates, services charged on tariffs and fines. As such, failure by customers often left it in financial distress. The municipality’s poor financial position leads to other challenges, such as inability to pay creditors, lack of financial reserves, diversion of grant funding to fund the operation deficits. The study, therefore, concludes that the municipality is not financially sustainable. The study recommends that the municipality should develop a sound billing and revenue collection structure and place more emphasis on revenue collection of monies owed to them for amenities rendered.

PhD. (Business Administration, Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Given the inevitable changes and dynamics in the nature of the global market, the recruitment, attraction, employment, motivation and retention of valuable workers has become critical for the continued success of both employees and organisations. Organisations are continuously faced with the dilemma of uncovering and understanding employment packages that are essential in attracting fitting individuals to join their establishment and remain in such organisations for a longer period of time. Similarly, people spend a substantial amount of effort and time searching for organisations and jobs that matches their qualifications and skills; fulfil their specific needs, while meeting their goals and values. This study investigated the influence employee fit dimensions (person-job fit, person-environment fit and person-organisation fit) on job satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour and intention to stay. These different conceptualisations of fit have typically been studied independently, but this study responded to calls that proposed for a study that incorporated multiple types of employee fit dimensions in a single study. When deliberating on the different fit concepts, some empirical evidence confirmed the existing conceptual distinctions between the three types of fit such as person-job fit, person-environment fit, and person-organisation fit and how each fit dimension positively or negatively influences job satisfaction and the extent to which job satisfaction influences organisational citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, the study examined the influence of organisational citizenship dimension on intention to stay. This study is embedded in a post-positivist quantitative research paradigm. The positivism paradigm was adopted as its underlying philosophy is grounded on cause-effect relationships amongst constructs within a given theoretical model. Since the study was descriptive in nature, the reliability and validity of data was analysed and correlation analysis and regression analysis were also computed. The exploratory factor analysis was performed using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity in order to examine the appropriateness of data for factor analysis and to establish the interrelationship amongst constructs. Preceding the main study’s data collection process, a pilot survey was undertaken to examine the correctness and accuracy of the questionnaire. The data collected were examined with the use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 25.0. The KMO values of all the constructs were above 0.80 which is well within the acceptable value of 0.50. Normality tests were performed using the skewness and kurtosis values and the standard deviation values ranged from 0.65311 to 1.05471 indicating that data was normally distributed. To confirm the consistency of the measuring instrument and its items, reliability tests were carried out and the results indicated that all the constructs were within range (0.786 to 0.891), having surpassed the threshold for reliability of 0.70. The results of the consistency of measures demonstrated that the measuring instrument was reliable. The correlation analysis revealed that there is a strong relationship between person-job fit, person-environment fit, person-organisation fit and job satisfaction. The results further disclosed a moderate association between job satisfaction with altruism, courtesy and civic virtue. A negative relationship is reported between job satisfactions and sportsmanship. A weak but positive relationship is shown between job satisfaction and conscientiousness. The results further indicate a moderate relationship between altruism, conscientiousness and intention to stay. The relationship between courtesy, sportsmanship and intention to stay is reportedly weak. The results indicate that a positive relationship exists between civic virtue and intention to stay. Regression analysis was also performed in order to establish the predictive relationships between variables. The regression analysis results indicate that person-job fit, person-environment fit and person-organisation fit are positive predictors of job satisfaction. Further, altruism, courtesy, civic virtue and conscientiousness contributed positively towards predicting job satisfaction. The results further reveal that sportsmanship showed no relationship with job satisfaction and weak predictor of job satisfaction. The results of the regression analysis further revealed that altruism, courtesy, civic virtue and conscientiousness showed no predictive relationship with intention to stay. However, sportsmanship showed strong predictive relationship towards intention to stay. The study proposes both the theoretical and practical contributions to the organisational behaviour and human resource management literature in the form of recommendations. Limitations and implications for further research is alluded to. The outcome of this study advanced a framework of the influence of employee fit dimensions on job satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour and intention to stay which may possibly benefit future researchers.

Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The study sought to assess the effectiveness of Integrated Development Planning as a tool to promote community participation in Fetakgomo Tubatse Municipality, Limpopo Province. A qualitative approach was used for data collection from a sample size of 20 municipal officials. An interview schedule was the chosen research instrument. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis. Measures were taken to ensure that the study results were credible, transferable, dependable, and confirmable. The study findings revealed that the effectiveness of the IDP as a tool for enhancing community participation was being hampered by loss of confidence in the IDP by the community; the COVID-19 pandemic; poor participation and lack of leadership commitment. In addition to the fact that community participation within the municipality was affected by challenges such as low literacy levels in the community the municipality also failed to deliver on past promises and logistical challenges. It was recommended that the municipality put plans into action to regain public confidence; introduce ward-level participation; use social media to reach wider audience and form an oversight committee to oversee the municipality’s financial accountability issues.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Public Administration)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The New Public Management (NPM) movement brought about by the changes that occurred after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. The changes impact on how the three spheres of government; that is, National, Provincial and Local ought to operate when rendering services to the public. These imperatives inspired this research project. Furthermore, quality service is expected to meet acceptable service standards as promulgated in the Act of Parliament. One of them being the Batho Pele White Paper (White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service, 1997). Public Administration is governed by principles and values as enshrined in Chapter 10 of the Constitution, Section 195(1). These legislations and related regulations bring competitive public value approach in the running of local municipalities. Locals municipalities are considered drivers of service delivery in the local government sphere, one may call it the engine or heart of Public Administration. This study, therefore, seeks to highlight leadership challenges in South African municipalities from an organisational culture and leadership perspective, with the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as a research site. This study is guided by the following research questions: Why is service delivery remaining a challenge amidst the existence of regulatory and institutional frameworks in South African municipalities? How can leadership be used to influence change in the municipalities? In South Africa, the local government has undergone numerous reforms, yet elements of bureaucracy are still highly prevalent. Bureaucratic structures like municipalities require leaders and employees with specific behaviours in a particular manner and according to a specific rule. Bureaucracy by its nature limits leaders from being flexible in making decisions that are suitable to address specific issues in different situations while at the same time being compliant with the legislation that governs them. Municipalities are then faced with a challenge of not having flexible and innovative leadership that is willing to boldly take calculated risks to address the challenges of service delivery within the legal framework. This leadership challenge makes it difficult to embed culture change in the public sector. This study posits that there is a need for a culture change to outgrow the outdated bureaucracies in an effort to allow for flexibility, innovation in leadership to ease the tension between these bureaucracies and have the desire to provide quality service while being compliant with the legislation. This research argues that organisational culture is tied to leadership traits when attempting to address service delivery challenges in South African municipalities. A responsive and accountable culture should model the values and principles of the Constitution without fear or favour, and make realistic cost-effective and visible change that will address the imbalances of apartheid municipal system of government. This research has it that leadership influences culture and supports and operationalises it. As much as it acknowledges other theories of leadership in the context of the current diverse challenges that municipalities confront, this study perceives that the contingency theory stands out. The contingency theory allows innovation and flexibility for different situations. It is not rigid and allows for the internal and external adaptation of culture that is effective and suitable for different situations. One size does not fit all in the application of the contingency theory leadership approach. Municipalities and organisations need leadership that is open to change, encourage and support innovation for its competitiveness and survival. For the success of culture change, leaders of organisations need to change their leadership practices, behaviour, decision making, communicate, and create a conducive environment for new ideas, constructive criticism, responsive and accountable. Kanyane (2014:89) reminds us that “the need to improve performance was underpinned by the State’s acceptance of the municipal service delivery challenges that to access descent municipal services was no longer a privilege to be enjoyed by a few.” Leaders are agents and catalyst of change. As Schein,2004: 20 puts it, “Leadership and change are two sides of a coin, the one cannot exist without the other.” Further, leaders must walk the talk if they want to lead. Should they fail to manage the sub-cultures in the organisations they lead, those sub-cultures will end up managing the overall organisational culture. Municipalities and organisations need leaders who are keen to introduce effective culture change that is results-oriented. The stability of effective culture change comes through feedback from the environment and not from the leader because the recipient of service shall have experienced it (Kuppler & Schein, 2016 / National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) and South African Humanities Deans’ Association (SAHUDA)

Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study examined the role of the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) towards effective financial management in a case study of City of Mbombela Municipality in the Mpumalanga Province. The MPAC is established in terms of sections 33 and 79 of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000 (Act 32 of 2000), to provide an oversight role and functions on behalf of council. Literature attest to the role of MPAC as to scrutinize the spending of the municipal budget at the end of the financial year, which mirrors the work done by the finance committee before the beginning of the financial year. The qualitative research method using semi-structured interviews was conducted with specific role-players as part of the identified population who were the most important participants and have contributed to the research outcome. The respondents were selected in a purposive manner by targeting MPAC members and Senior Managers of the municipality, on account of their positions and experience, have more information than ordinary potential respondents. The study found that members of the MPAC do possess the required skills, knowledge and experience to perform their roles. Therefore, the study also reveals that most members of the MPAC do have financial management and accounting capacity hence they are capable in doing the oversight role in the municipality. Therefore, it is recommended that the municipality should develop and adopt a comprehensive MPAC policy. The adopted comprehensive policy should be used as a strategic tool to inform council on the effective performance of the MPAC or lack thereof. The study concludes by recommended that further researches should be undertaken on the oversight role of the MPAC with comparative approach to other municipalities within the province could give more depth and the municipalities can learn from each other.

A municipal government’s worksite exercise program was evaluated to determine its effect upon health care costs and employee absenteeism. Thirty-two employees who had participated for four and one-half years were compared to 32 nonparticipating employees. Results of this evaluation indicated that participants were significantly more often female, younger, higher paid, and in higher job classifications. No significant differences in smoking status and marital status were observed between groups. Results also revealed that participants did not use significantly fewer sick hours or health care dollars as compared to nonparticipants. However, after an initial increase in both variables the year after the program began, reductions were seen for participants in the following years. An evaluation of data prior to installation of the program showed that those joining the exercise program were not already using significantly fewer health care dollars or sick days than nonparticipants. Focus groups conducted with nonparticipants disclosed that most employees know exercise is beneficial; however, nonparticipation was largely due to a lack of time to exercise. Findings of this research suggest that health care costs and absenteeism can be reduced over time by implementing worksite exercise programs. Worksite exercise programs need to be marketed toward older, male, lower paid workers in lower job classifications since these groups tend to not join as readily as workers who are younger, female, and higher paid. / Master of Science

Thesis (MPA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The upsurge in the number of public protests in most South African municipalities, including the City of Cape Town, continues unabated. While public protest is a democratic right, provided for in the Constitution (RSA 1996), the violent nature and persistence of protests at municipal level are a cause for concern. The associated violence often leads to the destruction of both public and private property, disruptions in economic activities, loss of lives and severe injuries to innocent victims. The prevalence of public protests continues despite the fact that the new democratic dispensation ushered in a paradigm geared for transforming local government from a racially-segregated institution into a democratic and autonomous sphere of government, with a broad developmental mandate. This new dispensation gave birth to the “invited spaces” of participation, which are aimed at providing scope for the public to influence, direct, control and own the development and decision-making processes. In order to determine factors that contribute to public protests in Khayelitsha the study adopted a qualitative research paradigm. Personal interviews, focus group discussion and participatory observation were some of the research methods used to collect primary data. The study indicates that lack of authentic and empowering public participation opportunities in the decision-making processes of the City of Cape Town alienates the public and leads to public disengagement from available municipal processes. It has been during this period of alienation that the public have been “inventing own spaces” of participation, in the form of public protests demanding that public voices be heard. The study also indicates that poverty, unemployment and glaring gaps of social inequality, reinforced by comparison to available examples in the neighbourhood, are root causes of public protests. The new public participation model that has been developed from this research should be adopted by South African municipalities as an essential public participation strategy. It empowers the public to negotiate a new “social contract” with the authorities primarily based on the public’s terms. It is only when authentic and empowering public participation is practised by municipalities that violent public protests can be minimised. Such authentic and empowering public participation provides latitude for the public to influence, direct, control and even own their “own” development and decision-making processes. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die toename in voorvalle van openbare protes in byna alle Suid-Afrikaanse munisipale gebiede, insluitend die van die Stad Kaapstad, duur onverpoosd voort. Terwyl openbare protes weliswaar ’n demokratiese reg is wat in die Grondwet (RSA 1996) verskans word, is die huidige ingeburgerde en gewelddadige aard daarvan rede tot ernstige kommer. Hierdie gewelddadigheid lei dikwels tot vernietiging van sowel openbare as private eiendom. Ook ekonomiese aktiwiteite word ontwrig; daar is lewensverlies en ernstige beserings aan onskuldige slagoffers . Die hoë voorkoms van openbare protes duur voort, ondanks die feit dat die nuwe demokratiese bestel ’n paradigmaskuif ten gunste van transformasie in die plaaslike regeringstelsel beteken het. Alles was in plek om weg te beweeg van rasgesegregeerde instellings na ’n demokratiese, outonome regeringsfeer met ’n breë, ontwikkelingsgedrewe mandaat. Hierdie nuwe bedeling het “genooide ruimtes” vir deelname geskep, wat geleentheid sou skep om invloed en rigtinggewende beheer te verkry oor daardie prosesse van besluitneming wat deelnemers se eie lewens raak. Om die faktore te bepaal wat tot openbare protes in Khayelitsha bydra, is ’n kwalitatiewe navorsingsparadigma gekies. Persoonlike onderhoud, fokusgroepbespreking en deelnemende waarneming is van die navorsingsmetodes wat ingespan is om primêre data te versamel. Hierdie navorsingstudie het bevind dat, ondanks die “genooide ruimtes”, daar steeds ’n gebrek aan egte en bemagtigende openbare deelnemingsgeleenthede in die besluitnemingsproses van die Stad Kaapstad bestaan, en dat dit die publiek vervreem en daartoe lei dat burgers hul aan die beskikbare deelnemingsgeleenthede onttrek. Gedurende hierdie periode van vervreemding het die publiek van Khayelitsha hulle eie “geskepde ruimtes” ontwikkel. Dit was gegiet in die vorm van openbare protes, waar die stemme van die algemene publiek gehoor kon word. Die studie het ook aangedui dat armoede, werkloosheid en opvallende voorbeelde van sosiale ongelykheid (te vinde in die onmiddellike omgewing) aanleidende faktore vir protesaksie was. Die nuwe openbare deelnemingsmodel wat uit die navorsing ontwikkel is, kan aan alle Suid-Afrikaanse munisipaliteite ’n onontbeerlike geleentheid bied om ’n doeltreffende openbare deelnemingstrategie te ontwikkel. Dit bemagtig die publiek om ’n nuwe onderhandelde “maatskaplike kontrak” met die owerhede, hoofsaaklik op die publiek se terme, te sluit. Slegs wanneer die publiek aan egte, bemagtigende openbare deelname blootgestel word, sal daar sprake van ’n vertrouensverhouding met die owerhede wees en sal gewelddadige protesaksie tot die minimum beperk kan word. Sodanige egte en bemagtigende openbare deelname skep ruimte vir die publiek om hulle “eie” ontwikkeling te beïnvloed en mede-beheer te bekom oor die besluitnemingsprosesse wat daarmee gemoeid is.