The study focused on funding availability for small and medium enterprises for women entrepreneurs. In order to do a situational analysis the study was conducted in the Nelson Mandela Metro looking at the operations of Community Investment Fund (CIF) as a case study. The CIF was a partnership between a local non-governmental organization (NGO) operating in the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth and one of the four big banks in the Republic of South Africa. The study investigated the challenges that women as entrepreneurs face in particular. The qualitative approach was used as methodology and the sampling of five (5) of the seventeen (17) women beneficiaries and their businesses were conducted. Given the fact that the Republic of South Africa has a high unemployment rate and the government‟s strategy of providing support for small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs), the study provided an opportunity to look at the realities that people with ideas are faced when starting what seemed to be a daunting task of starting a business. The research findings provides conclusive evidence that starting a business in the current economic climate is a difficult task and it is more challenging if you are a woman with no financial securities. It is therefore of imperative importance that an approach to funding and supporting women entrepreneurs be implemented to create much needed jobs in the country and address the gap between the first and second economy.

Many countries that have achieved economic development have a dynamic co-operative sector which contributes substantially to the development of these economies. From a global perspective, co-operatives have been proven to be flexible in meeting a wide variety of social and economic human needs such as job creation, alleviation of poverty and building of communities. With the drive to decrease poverty in South Africa, there has been an increased interest to support co-operatives with the intention to provide employment, social development and building communities/ community care. It seems, however, that South Africa has not yet reached the same momentum in the co-operatives movement as elsewhere in the world and the economy is still characterized by a high unemployment rate and a low growth rate (Van der Walt, 2002). This study is an attempt to determine the factors for business success in co-operatives by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of co-operative businesses within the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape. The study includes an extensive literature review on the nature and prevalence of co-operatives in South Africa where challenges faced by South African co-operatives and particularly those in the Eastern Cape Province, are indicated. It also highlights international best practice and reveals that for co-operative success, apart for functioning by the International Seven Cooperative Principles, knowledge and expertise in business management are absolutely necessary so that co-operatives can be profitable and sustainable. With this knowledge, an adapted form of the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) Small Business Assessment Tool was used to formulate the questionnaire and to review business management literature. A survey conducted involved fifty-one co-operative members on the database of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Business Unit. The opinions of the respondents were compared with the guidelines provided by the literature in the study in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these co-operatives, which then determine the critical success factors for business success in co-operatives. The empirical results show that the co-operative members understand co-operative principles and function through them. They have a fairly general knowledge of business management. The results also show significantly positive correlations between Marketing Management, Financial Management, Operations Management, Human Resources Management and General Management, on the one hand, and the business success of co-operatives, on the other hand. This indicates that these respondents recognize the importance of these business functions in the success of their businesses. However, failures and weaknesses experienced in these areas lead to the recommendations that they need to be mentored as they cannot put this knowledge into application, and secondly, they need financial assistance and support to sustain the co-operative businesses.

Poverty is generally acknowledged as one of the most serious problems facing post-apartheid South Africa. The biggest challenge facing South Africa localities today is their ability to cope with alarmingly high levels of unemployment that are severely retarding both economic growth and poverty. The growth of the poverty in South Africa increases the spread of poverty in communities in which the cycle of their poverty can be passed onto the next generation if not well addressed. South Africa is characterised by inequitable growth and development, a high degree of poverty, increasing demands and limited resources and challenge of integration. In order to fight poverty the South African government has introduced mechanisms and plans to alleviate poverty and to monitor and evaluate the impact of their policies and programmes on reduction of poverty, the government has prioritized poverty alleviation in its development agenda. To fight poverty the South African government introduced a well planned and coordinated programme known an Integrated and Development programme (IDP) with its main purpose that is to enhance service delivery and fight poverty through an integrated and aligned approach between different role players and stakeholders. The IDP seeks to promote integration by balancing the social, economic and ecological pillars of sustainability without compromising the institutional capacity required in the implementation.

The most basic role of operations is to execute a strategy (Pycraft, Singh, Phihlela, Slack, Chambers & Johnston, 2010). The aim of this study is to make a contribution to operational performance by analysing the effectiveness of strategy execution at a confectionery manufacturing facility situated in the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB). The primary objective of the study is to improve strategy execution at this manufacturing facility by investigating the influence of strategy; business processes; organisational factors; human resources; macro factors and leadership toward the success of strategy execution. The researcher gave consideration to whether this manufacturing facility measured on a strategy grid, is in a professional (champions’) league, headed towards a spectacular success; or headed towards being relegated and failure; or will it achieve somewhere in between like playing in the amateur (first division). The study was conducted in the quantitative paradigm. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire and sourced instruments were used to measure the variables in the hypothesised model. The objective of the questionnaire was to analyse the respondent’s understanding of how strategy is executed, thereby identifying the possible areas that need to be improved. It was found that most managers disagreed that the business processes, organisational factors and human resources effectively support the execution of the operational strategy and that the average response from the managers were neutral in respect of effectiveness of strategy and leadership. The inference is that although this manufacturing facility has a fair strategy, execution thereof is below average. The researcher therefore deduced that the most appropriate section for the manufacturing facility is between the first division and relegation. The research findings indicate that the management team is not effectively executing the operational strategy. The management implication of this finding translates into lost opportunities. These lost opportunities probably contributed to the poor results reported by the plant director in his quarterly performance review. The empirical results are discussed and recommendations are proposed to improve strategy execution, complementing the manufacturing facility’s goals to deliver the best performance and ultimately realise their stated vision: “to be the best and most loved confectionary site in the world”.

Section 153 of the Constitution of South Africa (RSA, 1996) states that “a municipality must structure and manage its administration, budgeting and planning process to give priority to the needs of the community and to promote the social and economic development of the community”. Despite this mandate placed on local government, De Wet and Moseki (2015, p. 61) write that insurgent South Africans engage in violent protests against continued “municipal ineffectiveness in service delivery, poor responsiveness to citizens’ grievances, and a conspicuous consumption entailed by a culture of self-enrichment on the part of councillors and staff”. The Department of Corporate Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA ) (2014) identify huge service delivery backlogs, poor communication and accountability relationships with communities, corruption and fraud, poor financial management and insufficient municipal capacity as a result of lack of scarce skills as some of the priority areas impacting hardest on the municipality’s ability to function as a well-performing municipality. Mpofu and Hlatywayo (2015) report that poor performance by workers in local government has been established as one of the major issues affecting the efficient provision of municipal services by municipalities. It thus follows that the performance and conduct of municipal employees need to be improved in order to improve the delivery of basic services to the communities they are to serve. Hanyane and Naidoo (2015) hold the view that without proper service delivery, the achievement of good governance and the effective use of public resources will remain elusive. The primary objective of this study was to contribute to improving the levels of service delivery at a selected municipality by identifying which factors the employees of the municipality consider most effective in improving their levels of service delivery within the organisation. A questionnaire was structured and used to conduct a survey with 65 middle-level managers, senior-level supervisors, middle-level supervisors and operational staff.The study concluded that talent management and retention strategies were the only independent variable that proved to have a significant positive relationship with service delivery within the selected municipality.

Focusing on the policy context for social entrepreneurship in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM), this dissertation examines the processes through which social entrepreneurs participate in the processes of development of the municipality because; social entrepreneurship is increasingly being recognised as a mechanism for creating social and economic value. Social entrepreneurs play a significant role in fulfilling unmet societal needs and in filling gaps, particularly in areas where government and the market fall short. Based on this view, this study raises questions about the integrated policy guiding social entrepreneurship for better development outcomes. It aims to contribute to the body of literature on social entrepreneurship and development by examining the processes through which social entrepreneurs participate in the development of the communities at the local level. Using the Grounded Theory method, this study found that there is no integrated policy on social entrepreneurship in the NMBM and that the deficiency created by the lack of an integrated policy engenders Social Revisioning. The substantive theory of Social Revisioning emerged from the data to explain the processes through which social entrepreneurs participate in the development of communities when there is no integrated policy on social entrepreneurship. In response to the deficiencies in the policy context, differentiated and autonomous entities within and outside of the municipal government step in and support social entrepreneurs to provide services and participate in the processes of development. However, even though Social Revisioning can be used to address the policy deficiencies in social entrepreneurship and development, the differentiations and autonomy that characterise the entities, role players and processes embodied in Social Revisioning prevent cohesion among them and again beg for an integrated policy that will incorporate them.

As a clinic supervisor overseeing a cluster of clinics in the Nelson Mandela Bay Health District (NMBHD), the researcher observed a number of problems with the implementation of the re-engineering of the primary health care (RPHC) programme. The problems observed include inadequate supervision of RPHC staff, poor communication and conflict between clinic and RPHC staff, failure to filter RPHC statistics into clinic statistics and the incorrect management of patients by RPHC staff. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore and describe the experiences of professional nurses regarding the implementation of the RPHC programme in the NMBHD and to make recommendations the district manager could use to address the research findings. The study used a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual design. The research population consisted of professional nurses who are implementing the RPHC programme in the NMBHD, and the sampling technique was a non-probability, purposive technique for the selection of the research sample. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data and Tesch’s model respectively. The researcher adhered to ethical considerations throughout the study and ensured trustworthiness of the data by using the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability. Three themes were identified; namely; the professional nurses expression of their concerns regarding poor working conditions; issues regarding the community health workers and their positive experiences associated with the RPHC programme. The study concludes with recommendations made to the District manager with regard to nursing practice, as well as recommendations to nursing education and research.

In this economically challenging era, companies have got to find the best system that can help to enhance productivity. A very important method is by encouraging takeholders through various forms of incentives. The gain-sharing incentive has been adopted by many organisations today to enhance staff loyalty and productivity. A gain-sharing programme ensures that both the organisation and team members benefit from the expected performances, rather than an individual or group incentive which is given based on a specific finite goal which could be achieved at the cost of other key critical business need. A couple of years ago Autocast Aluminium decided to enhance employee performance by initiating the gain-sharing incentive programme. After the programme was rolled out, the organisation is yet to examine the extent to which it enhances job satisfaction in the organisation. The primary objective or aim of the study is to examine the extent to which gain-sharing at Autocast meets the purpose for which it was created. The sample of the study was 176 of the employees at Autocast Aluminium; however 130 questionnaires were distributed. A total of 88 questionnaires were returned, of which 80 were usable, whilst eight were scrapped due to more half of the questionnaire having missing data. This resulted in a 68 % response rate. A framework has been developed to measure to what extent does the programme enable employees to feel satisfied with their jobs. The empirical results revealed that out of six independent variables tested: fair payment, involvement, personal growth, communication, job security and leadership style, only three that plays significant role on employee job satisfaction. These are fair payment, communication and leadership style.

Globally, the nursing profession is faced with a decline in school-leavers’ interest in nursing as a career. The decline in school leavers entering the nursing profession poses a threat to the future of nursing because, globally, the average age of nurses in many countries exceeds 40 years (International Council of Nurses, 2008). The role of marketing in attracting school leavers to careers of choice is well documented; however, there is a lack of documented marketing attempts by Nursing Education Institutions to market nursing as a career at secondary schools in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The purpose of the study was to determine the views that grade nine learners have regarding the marketing of nursing as a career to attract school-leavers to the profession. The researcher also explored and described how grade nine learners are being informed or wish to be informed of nursing as a career. Based on the findings of the study, broad guidelines were developed for nurse educators at Nursing Education Institutions so as to facilitate the marketing of nursing as a career for school leavers. To achieve the purpose of this study, a quantitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual study design was used. The study was conducted at selected senior secondary schools in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The research population in this study comprised of all grade nine learners at secondary schools in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. A simple random sampling method was used to select participants. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. The data collected were analysed with the help of the statistician, using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings revealed that grade nine learners in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality had a positive response to choosing nursing as a career and that schools situated in the lower socio-economic areas had the highest percentage of grade nine learners indicating an interest in nursing as a career. The study concludes with recommendations for nursing practice, education and research. Ethical principles have been maintained throughout the study.

Ephemeral wetlands provide numerous ecosystem services, but are disappearing due to urbanisation and habitat fragmentation. Knowledge is required to conserve these systems, but ephemeral wetland research in South Africa is lacking. As primary producers, microalgae provide a key link between the biotic and abiotic components of aquatic ecosystems. Despite their importance, there is a paucity in information concerning microalgal dynamics in ephemeral wetlands. The aim of this study was to understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of microalgae in ephemeral wetlands of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropole. The research followed a funnel-based approach that assessed 35 wetlands at a regional level, followed by a temporal assessment of six wetlands, monitored biweekly, monthly or quarterly. Thereafter, a case study at local scale was carried out to address wetland connectivity and Hydrogeomorphic unit trends. The research culminated in a benthic flux chamber experiment, addressing the influence of microalgal-mediated processes on wetland development for a month post inundation. Phytoplankton biomass showed strong regional associations with rainfall zone, with Chl a concentrations of 17; 4.6; and 25 µg.L-1 in the high, intermediate and low rainfall zones, respectively. The MPB communities in Seeps, Depressions and Wetland flats, comprised between 45 and 60 % diatoms, whilst other microalgal groups were dominant in the water columns (> 90 %). Phytoplankton and MPB interactions facilitated significant night-time NH4+ and SRP effluxes, (1.5 and 0.4 mg.m-2.h-1, respectively) four days post inundation. High Silica uptake in the latter stages, was attributed to an increase in diatom abundance. Within the chambers, MPB growth was continuous whilst phytoplankton exhibited cyclical growth as the system approached dynamic equilibrium. This study demonstrated the importance of nutrient cycling in structuring aquatic food webs, and indicated the sensitivity of ephemeral wetlands to environmental perturbations.