The society in which we live is economically based and the greater part of our activities centres in the economy. Within this context, the Department of Trade and Industry recognized that small business development was an important area for government intervention. A long process of highlighting the importance of this sector and creating the right environment in which small businesses could grow and flourish was initiated at the level of policy and legislation. In the Labour Relations field, an attempt at achieving some measure of certainty in previously disputed areas was made through the passing of the Labour Relations Act of 1995. This study aims at exploring the effects of this Act on the growth and development of the small business sector in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. In fulfilling this aim, the focus was restricted to factors such as dismissal of workers, strikes and lock-outs, freedom of association and dispute resolution. The theory pertaining to Labour Legislation and small business development was obtained by means of conducting a comprehensive literature study. The literature study included all relevant perspectives on the Labour Relations Act and Government Policy on small businesses. From the study, a questionnaire was developed to test the impact of the Act on the growth and development of the small business sector in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. The empirical results, in general, indicated non-compliance with the Labour Relations Act and negative views on the value of the Act on the growth and development of the small business sector in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. From the literature study and the findings of the research questionnaire, it became apparent that: · A comprehensive audit of the small business sector in the Nelson Mandela Metropole is needed. The aim of the audit would be to review the current operations of the small business sector in the Metropole. This outcome will indicate the extent of understanding and compliance with the various aspects of the Labour Relations Act. · The acquisition of industrial relations knowledge and skills by owners and leaders in the sector is vital for the development of the sector. The Skills Development Act provides a funding framework for skills training that is relevant to a specific industry. The small business sector could benefit significantly from the provision of this piece of legislation. · A comprehensive support programme for SMME’s is a necessary prerequisite for the growth and development of the sector. The support system could include tax incentives, flexible labour legislation and training as indicated in the above paragraph.

To ensure a long-term successful product brand, it is important to build brand awareness, to reach the consumer’s mind, encourage a consumer to develop a preference and eventually provide a positive contribution to consumer decision-making. Therefore, there is a need to understand and identify the role of brand awareness in the purchase process. An understanding of students as consumers and their brand awareness is important to marketers, particularly as students are recognised as a specialised market segment for a variety of products. The research focused on identifying the differences, if any, in brand awareness and its role in students’ purchase of sportswear clothing and sportswear shoes (high-involvement products) and coffee (a low-involvement product). A drop-off survey was used to collect the required empirical data from a convenience sample of 450 students enrolled at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The empirical findings showed that students were more aware of sportswear clothing and shoe brands than of coffee brands. Advertising played an important role in the awareness of sportswear shoes and clothing brands, but seemed unimportant in the case of coffee. Brand elements were found to enhance brand awareness. The brand name was important for coffee, while the name and the logo played a role in students’ awareness of sportswear brands. The study deduced that differences in brand awareness between high-involvement and low-involvement products exist among the students. Marketers thus need to choose appropriate strategies to create and increase brand awareness for the different products.

The years spent studying towards a degree represent many challenges to the learner1. These pressures increase once that learner moves into the post-graduate level of professional study. Faced with the pressure of having to perform suitably in order to remain on the programme, the learner finds himself or herself under conditions which may present as stress or illness, depending upon the availability of coping resources and strategies. This study adopted a psychofortigenic2 approach and explored and described the coping (i.e., coping resources and sense of coherence) and subjective well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life, happiness and general psychiatric health) of post-graduate learners in the following six departments of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU): Psychology; Human Movement Science and Sport Management; Environmental Health and Social Development Professions (incorporating MA Health and Welfare Management); Pharmacy; Nursing Science; Biomedical Technology and Radiography. An exploratory descriptive research design was used and the participants were selected by means of non-probability, convenience sampling. The sample consisted of 60 male and female masters and doctoral post-graduate learners in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Biographical data was gathered by means of the administration of a questionnaire. Hammer and Marting’s (1988) Coping Resources Inventory was used to measure the students’ available coping resources. Furthermore, Antonovsky’s (1987) Orientation to Life Scale was used to measure the construct of Sense of Coherence. The Satisfaction with Life Scale by Diener, Emmons, Larson and Griffin (1985) was used to assess the respondents’ overall satisfaction with life. Kamman and Flett’s (1983) Affectometer-2 was used to measure participants’ subjective global happiness. The General Health Questionnaire of Goldberg and Williams (1988) was used to measure the psychiatric morbidity or general psychiatric health of the participants. The data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. A Hotellings T² was computed with subsequent t-tests to draw inferences about differences in the means of established groups across the five measures. The results indicated that the participants were generally coping and experiencing subjective well-being. The results indicated two clusters to significantly differ from one another across the five measures. The first cluster could be characterized as high in psychofortology and presented with better coping and subjective well-being. The second cluster could be characterized as low in psychofortology and presented with poorer coping and subjective well-being.

This project investigates why alumni do not become donors to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Interviews with non-donors created the opportunity for an in depth qualitative examination of the motivating process that led these non-donors to abstain from giving. This study used the Van Slyke and Brooks (Van Slyke & Brooks, 2005) model of alumni giving and the Schervish (Schervish, The spiritual horizon of philianthropy: New directors for money and motives, 2000) supply side theory of philanthropy, which has been successfully applied in similar studies (Wastyn, 2008), to provide the conceptual framework. This framework maintains that donors and non-donors differ in that the manner in which they socially construct their university experience in creating their own realities. This constructed reality becomes the filter through which non-donors pass requests for financial support (whether direct or indirect) from the institution. The study revealed that at NMMU factors including generic donor behaviour among alumni, the status of current non-donors as being mostly past donors to their respective constituent institution, attitudes toward the institutional reputation (or aspects thereof) of the NMMU, identified obstacles to engagement, pervasive negative attitudes to institutional giving and alumni support for commercialised but not tiered giving activities, can play a major role in restructuring the manner in which non-donor alumni should be approached. The study demonstrates the need to include non-donors in research that explores alumni giving to the university. It confirms the distinct impact of the abnormally distributed demographic characteristics of this university and confirms that examining the impact of these characteristics and experiences cannot be effectively done by simply relying on one or two simple variables. Being a management project, 13 (thirteen) distinct categories of management recommendations are made, ranging from strategy development, through accounting and budgeting practice, to proposing specific revenue generating initiatives. The study concludes with the view that Alumni can and should be able to make a notable contribution to the revenue of the university and in so doing, contribute to the sustainability of the pro-social transformation process of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

In the knowledge world into which mankind has progressed, universities are engines of economic growth. Their role has changed from producers of labour force to equal contributors - along with government and industry- in regional and national economic and social growth and development. Universities that will survive and succeed in this new climate must embrace entrepreneurship - become entrepreneurially oriented. As in any other organisation corporate entrepreneurship processes explain how entrepreneurship is implemented and diffused throughout a university, and its members must perceive the internal organisational culture as innovation supporting for entrepreneurship to flourish. Hence, the importance of studying internal environmental conditions that influence / enable corporate entrepreneurship. This study investigated NMMU’s entrepreneurial orientation by first determining what an entrepreneurial university is and its key attributes. Next it identified the key structural factors influencing university entrepreneurship and enquired how these structural factors can be influenced to enhance entrepreneurship at NMMU. To this end, survey method was used to sample perception of the university middle managers. The study first determined the level of entrepreneurship in NMMU by measuring its entrepreneurial intensity and then attempted to locate its position on the entrepreneurial grid. Next the level of the university’s internal environmental support for entrepreneurship was determined. The university’s culture was found to be the key factor influencing entrepreneurship with time availability and work discretion as key internal factors through which NMMU’s entrepreneurial culture could be improved. Proactivity and frequency dimensions of entrepreneurship were found to lead to significant improvement in the university’s entrepreneurial output and based on the outcome of the study; suggestions were made on ways of incorporating findings to better improve entrepreneurial orientation.

The primary motivation for this research was to examine political apathy amongst students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The secondary motivation was to question whether youth political apathy threatens the consolidation of democracy. More specifically, the purpose of the study was to critically analyze contemporary literature on the politics of young people in post apartheid South Africa, in order to identify its shortcomings and give an in-depth explanation for youth political apathy, and how it impacts democracy. The writer has employed a qualitative method. Four focus groups were arranged by the researcher at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. All participants of the study were Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) undergraduate and postgraduate black students aged 21-35. The sample of this study included fifty participants. Thus the researcher has utilized a purposive sampling technique. Participants were encouraged by the researcher to have maximum participation in the focus group deliberations. The researcher also made use of elite interviews in the study. The findings of this study suggest that political apathy amongst students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University does exist. Most of the participants in the focus groups indicated that young people in post-apartheid South Africa have no interest in politics.

A common issue in leadership development is the high flyers who reach a position where their lack of “soft” skills hampers their performance and proves a barrier to their continued progression to higher levels of responsibility (Newell, 2002: 288). Business Schools offering Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programmes assist in developing managers with not just managerial competence but also with “soft” skills. By delivering educated business managers, these managers through their intellectual skills and community sensitive values, will lead future transformational processes. It is useful and interesting to consider how important emotional intelligence is for effective performance at work. A considerable body of research suggests that an employee’s ability to perceive, identify, and manage emotion provides the basis for the kinds of social and emotional competencies that are important for success in almost any position. Furthermore, as the pace of change increases and the world of work make ever-greater demands on an employee’s cognitive, emotional, and physical resources, this particular set of abilities will become increasingly important (Cherniss, 2000). The primary objective of this study is to determine the perceptions of the Masters in Business Administration (MBA), B-Tech in Business Administration (BBA), Advanced Business Programme (ABP) programmes and the Business School Alumni to determine the overall emotional intelligence profile of students as well as the effective team functions of the syndicate groups. Based on the main findings of the survey, it was concluded that emotional intelligence is an important factor for the NMMU Business School, MBA Unit students. The skills attained through the course work will not only improve team effectiveness in the syndicate group functioning but also enhance their performance in the business environment. The MBA team learning experiences enhances workplace learning as the ability to work in a team and ability to think and act independently are highly desired skills and competencies for success in the workplace.

To be competitive, organisations need to ensure that all their resources are functioning at optimal level. The most important of these resources being its employees. This is because their commitment can guarantee the attainment of organisational goals. Commitment can be attained by an organisation through the payment of internally and externally competitive remuneration and reward packages, that communicate the value of the employees to the organisation. Remuneration and reward strategies are a critical tool for organisations, as they can motivate, attract and retain high performing employees. The theories of motivation, such as, the equity theory, state that employees compare their compensation with that of others and that if they perceive inequity, can be de-motivated or leave an organisation. Therefore, it is imperative for an organisation to ensure that its remuneration and reward strategy is aligned with its business strategy, to ensure clear communication of goals. In order to prevent labour turnover and to ensure commitment and retention, the employer needs to offer total rewards, which include base pay, benefits, variable performance pay, recognition and an enabling work environment. These can be effective as they meet all employee needs as in Maslow‟s hierarchy of needs and ensure the satisfaction of the organisation‟s need for goal attainment. To gain more insight, an empirical study was conducted at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The results of the survey indicated that the NMMU‟s remuneration and reward strategy contained certain elements of the total rewards strategy. These are variable pay in the form of a service bonus and benefits plus based pay. This strategy seems to be ineffective to motivate and retain employees due to lack of clear communication and recognition. To motivate and retain its employees, the NMMU should improve its communication and engage employees and unions in defining remuneration and reward strategies through collaboration.

A customer relationship management programme is a management tool that enables organisations to identify, satisfy and retain customers profitably by leveraging information technology. In addition to this the programme also links all the functional business units of the organisation together to operate as a single cohesive unit. This paper investigates whether or not SAB Miller should utilise a customer relationship management programme to provide off-trade retailers with world-class customer service. An important reason for this investigation is that the local beer market has experienced declining growth over the past few years. Furthermore SAB Miller which has had a monopoly in the South African beer market now faces increased competition in the premium segment of the beer market, which is experiencing growth and has good margins. In order to determine whether or not SAB Miller should institute a customer relationship management programme, a theoretical and empirical investigation was undertaken. The theoretical investigation provided a background to what components make up a customer relationship management programme and how these components are used to develop a customer relationship management strategic framework. Due to customer relationship management programmes not operating in isolation, the various key functions that support a customer relationship management programme were also introduced. Both the advantages and disadvantages of using such a programme were also introduced. The information technology aspects of the customer relationship management programme were also investigated. In terms of the empirical study it was determined that SAB Miller is not currently using a customer relationship management programme. The company, however, does make use of a tailored service package to segment their customers, to determine call frequencies by representatives, the financial needs of customers and what level of service to provide to customers. However, after conducting personal interviews with a sample of off-trade retailers in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality, it was determined that SAB Miller and Namibian Breweries Ltd (Brandhouse) provided very similar levels of service in terms of key functions supported by a customer relationship management programme. Therefore, by introducing a customer relationship management programme, SAB Miller could enhance their service levels and profitability to off-trade retailers in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality.

This study is about the analysis of perceptions and attitudes concerning the study of isiXhosa at tertiary level Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth. The objective of this study is to investigate negative attitudes of African students with special reference to isiXhosa. Chapter One looks at the objectives of the research, the research problem, and its theoretical framework, as well as the literature review, the significance of the study, the research methods and definition of terms. Chapter Two deals with language planning and the current negative attitudes towards African languages, with special reference to isiXhosa. Chapter Three deals with status planning, the teaching of isiXhosa, language maintenance and multilingual education policy. Chapter Four discusses corpus planning, the role that Xhosa educators and students should play in the development of the language. Chapter Five discusses acquisition planning, the attitudes towards isiXhosa language and the maintenance of the language. Chapter Six concludes the study by presenting the summary and recommendations for the future research.