Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The study focuses on implementation challenges of Local Economic Development (LED) programmes within Molemole Local Municipality in Limpopo Province. The specific focus areas of the study are Mogwadi and Matoks, where attention was given to Molemole Indigenous Food Processing Cooperative and Sekwena Arts and Craft Project. This study was undertaken as an attempt to investigate challenges pertaining to implementation of LED programmes within Molemole Local Municipality (MLM). Data was collected through questionnaires, documentary analysis of published municipal documents such as Annual Performance Plans, Annual Reports, IDP and LED Strategy of MLM covering the period of 2009/2010 to 2013/2014. Site visits to selected LED projects sites were also undertaken. The overall findings in this study indicate that there is generally a poor understanding of the LED concept in MLM. These findings further point out that there are a number of challenges hindering effective implementation of LED programmes that include inter alia lack of local government collaboration with the private sector and community sectors, lack of appropriate structures for the full implementation and success of LED initiatives, inadequate funding for LED programmes and capacity constraints emanating from a constrained education and ultimately skills void. In view of these findings, some of the recommendations include addressing skewed skills levels of LED staff across the municipality to achieve LED policy objectives, collaboration of Molemole Local Municipality with the private sector and community sectors in order for them to play a meaningful role in LED initiatives, a need for financial support to facilitate LED implementation within the municipality, and remedial action in respect of awareness, and publicity initiatives being stepped up to address the problem of general poor understanding of the LED concept in MLM.

This thesis aims to examine why IT-projects in the public sector frequently exceed their budgets. The study is delimited to risk management and the thesis opts to answer the following question: Which risks have not been successfully managed in public sector IT-projects which exceeded their budgets? The study was conducted through qualitative individual interviews with six project managers and four project owners. The choice to interview both project managers and project owners was made in order to gather information from two different perspectives. To further validate the collected information project plans, risk management documents and completion reports where requested and analysed. The result from the study shows that new or altered requirements, unforeseen risks and lack of competence are the main reasons for budget overruns. The conclusion is therefore that estimations for a correct budget, to keep the resources and work proactively to make room for risk management are important factors to finalizing successful IT-projects. A final factor which must be accounted for is that the project budget is just an estimate on what the project will cost, thus making a poor measurement on what makes a successful project. The thesis is written in swedish. / Målet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka varför statliga IT-projekt går över budget. För att avgränsa valdes riskhantering som fokus och frågeställningen blev: Vilka risker har inte lyckats hanteras i statliga IT-projekt som gått över budget? Undersökningen genomfördes genom kvalitativa individuella intervjuer med sex projektledare och fyra projektägare. Valet av både projektledare och projektägare gjordes för att få information om projekten från två olika perspektiv. Som komplement och för att ytterligare validera den insamlade empirin efterfrågades även projektplaner, riskhanteringsdokument och slutrapporter. Huvudresultaten av undersökningen är att nya eller förändrade krav, oförutsedda risker och kompetensbrist är det som till största del gör att projekt går över budget. Slutsatsen är därför att tidsestimering för att få en korrekt budget, att få behålla sina resurser samt arbeta proaktivt så att det finns utrymme för att hantera risker att är viktiga faktorer för att genomföra ett lyckat projekt. Slutligen en faktor som bör tas i beaktning är att projektbudget bara är ett estimat på vad man tror projektet kommer kosta och på så sätt utgör ett dåligt mätvärde på misslyckade projekt.

Within the body of work is an description and analysis of the method of financing choosen by a given company. Also included is a comparison to two other offers for financing the project from other banking institutions, which amongst them have comparative track records in this type of field. The analysis should provide the reader with a clear understanding into the process of financing development projects.

<p>U okviru disertacije se ispituje mogućnost za unapređenje upravljanja projektima u konzervaciji i restauraciji kulturnog nasleđa. Kvalitativnim istraživačkim metodama ispitivani su rizici i izazovi sa kojima se susreću i kako njima upravljaju ovi izrazito multidisciplinarni i intersektorski projekti saradnje. Kao rezultat istraživanja i originalan naučni doprinos disertacije predložen je set preporuka za unapređenje upravljanja rizicima u projektima u konzervaciji i restuaraciji kulturnog nasleđa.</p> / <p>The dissertation examines the possibility of advancing project management in conservation and restoration of cultural heritage. A survey was conducted in order to examine how increased complexity of cross-disciplinary setting influences project management challenges and risks in heritage conservation. As a research result and the original scientific contribution of the dissertation, a set of recommendations for advancement of project risk management in conservation and restoration of cultural heritage has been proposed.</p>

Syfte – Ett IT-projekt påverkas av faktorer som i olika faser på olika sätt leder till positiva eller negativa konsekvenser. Dessa faktorer bör identifieras, analyseras och hanteras för att skapa ett lyckat IT-projekt. Därmed är studiens syfte: Undersöka viktiga aspekter som påverkar ett IT-projekt. Metod – En fallstudie med intervjuer på ett utvalt fallföretag har genomförts. Intervjuerna har analyserats med hjälp av det teoretiska ramverket för att därefter besvara studiens två frågeställningar och uppnå syftet med studien. Resultat – Resultatet från fallstudien visar på 16 faktorer som påverkar ett IT-projekt: strategi, ledarskap, stöd, team, management, plan, extern, kultur, förändring, process, kommunikation, teknik, utbildning, användare och egenmakt. Faktorerna ledarskap, stöd, kompetens, kultur och kommunikation är betydelsefulla i alla projektets faser medan de övriga faktorerna visar sig har mer eller mindre påverkan beroende på vilken fas projektet befinner sig i. Faktorernas betydelse på projektet och faserna varierar även beroende på projektmedlemmarnas roll. Resultatet från fallstudien redogör för de tre viktigaste faktorerna som bidrar till om ett projekt blir lyckat eller ej vilka är: kommunikation, ledarskap och egenmakt. Implikationer – Studien ger en generell bild över hur påverkansfaktorer i ett IT-projekt bör hanteras. De viktigaste faktorerna i olika faser belyses, därmed kan studiens resultat finnas som en vägledning för verksamheter som arbetar med IT-projekt. Studien kan finnas som stöd för verksamheter genom att identifiera de faktorer som avgör om projektet blir lyckat eller ej. Begränsningar – Denna studie har genomförts på ett fallföretag. Om fler fallföretag blivit studerade hade reliabiliteten blivit större. / Purpose – An IT project is affected by factors in different phases that in different ways lead to positive or negative consequences. These factors should be identified, analyzed and managed to create a successful IT project. The purpose of the study is thus to: Investigate important aspects that affect an IT project. Method – A case study with interviews at a selected case company has been conducted. The interviews were analyzed using the theoretical framework in order to answer the study's two questions and achieve the purpose of the study. Findings – The result from the case study shows 16 factors that affect an IT project: strategy, leadership, support, team, management, plan, external, culture, change, process, communication, technology, education, users and empowerment. The factors of leadership, support, competence, culture and communication are important in all phases of the project, while the other factors appear to have more or less influence depending on the phase of the project. The results from the case study describe the three most important factors that contribute to whether or not a project is successful: communication, leadership and empowerment. Implications – The study provides a general picture of how impacting factors in an IT project should be managed. The most important factors in different phases are highlighted, thus the study's results can serve as a guide for businesses working on IT projects. The study can be used to support businesses by identifying the factors that determine whether the project is successful or not. Limitations – This study was conducted at one company. If more case companies had been studied, reliability would have been greater.

En la actualidad, muchas empresas que ejecutan proyectos eléctricos carecen del conocimiento teórico sobre el cómo desarrollarlos correctamente debido a que se basan en el conocimiento empírico. Por tanto, presentamos una nueva forma de dar soluciones prácticas y económicas a las organizaciones; la propuesta a presentar es la ejecución de 2 enfoques como lo son la filosofía lean y gestión de proyectos. A través de la recopilación de los casos de estudio, la literatura cita una demostración sobre la importancia de realizar una apropiada planificación en base a los pilares del costo y tiempo que deberían identificarse y mejorarse para garantizar mejores resultados, estos pilares fueron analizados a través de las herramientas de Ishikawa y árbol de problemas. Para ello, se escogieron algunas de las herramientas lean como lo son: 5’S, gestión visual y círculos de calidad, las cuales mediante las directrices de la gestión de proyectos, específicamente los 47 procesos publicados en la 5ª edición del Cuerpo de Conocimientos de Gestión de Proyectos, dictaminaron el modelo desarrollado en la investigación en una empresa piloto donde se contrastaron los resultados del cómo esta combinación de soluciones disminuyen los plazos de entrega en dicha organización / Currently, many companies that execute electrical projects lack the theoretical knowledge on how to develop them correctly because they are based on empirical knowledge. That is why it has developed from the need to implement the lean philosophy and project management as distinctive and well-known pillars that guarantee high competitiveness in the market of the sector under study. Through the compilation of case studies, the literature cites a demonstration on the importance of making appropriate planning based on the cost and time pillars that should be identified and improved to guarantee better results. These pillars were analyzed using the Ishikawa tools and problem tree. For this, some of the lean tools were chosen such as: 5'S, visual management and quality circles, which through the project management guidelines, specifically the 47 processes published in the 5th edition of the Body of Knowledge of Management of Projects, ruled the model developed in the research in a pilot company where the results of how this combination of solutions decrease delivery times in said organization were contrasted. / Tesis

Thesis (M. Sc. Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The President of South Africa signed the National Minimum Wage Act, the amendment of both the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Labour Relations Act on Friday, 23 November 2018. These Acts, which were with effect from 1 January 2019, oblige all employers to pay at least the national minimum wage of R20.00/hr. and the agricultural sector has been given an exemption to pay 90% respectively of the national minimum wage (Truter, 2018). Employers in the farming sector are expected to pay at least R18.00 per hour to farm workers. However, farmers are different in terms of their characteristics and farming capacities, and they hold different perceptions towards the revised 2018 agricultural minimum wage. According to Sechaba (2017), it is believed that there will always be different views on what constitutes a decent and acceptable minimum wage. This study investigated the perception of both smallholder and commercial farmers towards the 2018 agricultural minimum wage in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality of the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The study had three objectives; the first objective was to identify and describe the socio-economic characteristics of farmers, the second one was to assess the perception of farmers on the 2018 agricultural minimum wage and the third one was to analyse socio-economic factors influencing the perception of farmers towards agricultural minimum wage in Bushbuckridge Municipality. Purposive sampling was used to collect primary data from 160 smallholder and commercial farmers (Crop and Livestock) in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (BLM). For empirical analysis the Multinomial Logistic Model was applied for data analysis based on information generated using the Likert scale and the two formulated assumptions; firstly, farmers do not have negative perceptions towards the 2018 agricultural minimum wage and lastly socioeconomic factors do not influence farmers’ perception towards the 2018 agricultural minimum wage. For empirical analysis, Multinomial logistic regression model was run on spss and the descriptive statistics was used to analyse the perception of famers based on the rank data from the Likert scale. Results from Multinomial regression analysis indicated that demographic factors such as number of hectares, household size, age, farming experience, marital status, and labour productivity were found to be significant vi (at 1, 5 and 10%) in distinguishing between pairs of groups and contribution, which they make to change the odds of being in one dependent variable group rather than the other. About 48.8% sampled farmers in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality showed negative perceptions towards the 2018 agricultural minimum wage and were not likely to comply with the 2018 agricultural minimum wage legislation in a sense that they had not been paying the prescribed agricultural minimum wage to farm workers. Those who had positive perceptions and were willing to comply were only 15.0% and those who were uncertain on whether to comply or not comply with the 2018 agricultural minimum wage were 36.2%. Therefore, it can be concluded from results that smallholder and commercial farmers perceive the agricultural minimum wage differently and with majority of them not willing to comply or pay the prescribed amount. Additionally, several factors influences the perception on whether farmers were likely to comply or not to comply by paying the prescribed minimum wage to farm workers, based on the 2018 agricultural minimum wage. Variables: number of hectares, household size, age, experience, marital status and minimum wage were found to be significant (at different significant levels 1, 5 and 10%) in determining whether farmers were more likely or less likely to comply and pay the 2018 agricultural minimum wage. These variables plays a key role in determining farmers’ decision to comply or not to comply with the 2018 agricultural minimum wage. However, gender, minimum wage for farmers, distance to market, access to mechanisation, co-operative membership, access to news, pensioner and educational status were found to be insignificant (at different significant levels 1%, 5% and 10%) at determining whether farmers were likely to comply or not comply with the 2018 agricultural minimum wage. Thus, it is recommended that farmers, regardless of their production scale should be consulted and given a fair platform to articulate their views during the process of policy formulation. Policy makers and government should refrain from using a blanket approach when formulating a policy and taking into consideration the issue of disparities in the agricultural sector, subsectors, regions and operational scale of farmers when discussing the agricultural minimum wage policy.

The software development business today is a land of constant change. The change requires the organizations who operate within this business to be flexible and quick to respond. This has led to multiple agile organization methods being developed, one of them is DevOps. A cornerstone in DevOps is self-selection - a method for assembling teams. This method gives hope of less administration, autonomy in teams and increased performance. In this essay we investigate the promises - the challenges and the possibilities - of self-selection. The case in this essay is IFS - a big software development company, implementing self-selection department by department also facing the challenges of combining traditional project values with the short iterations of an agile method. Our qualitative study investigates which the main challenges and possibilities are. We also investigate how these findings should be managed. How could the diversity, team size and autonomy be enhanced or diminished? We found that some parts of the case, and practice, were like our prior literature - but some were not. For example, the feeling of being in homogeneous teams were not always negative, and the majority of those taking part of the self-selection at IFS said they chose team by assignment - not social network as the prior literature said. Our conclusion reveals that there are several different factors to consider when having selfselection implemented in a traditional project environment. The main areas where we have found possible improvements are Team Choice, Team Diversity, Overlapping Assignments, Experienced Ownership, Management Influence and Performance.

This study aims to investigate and analyse organisational learning in project-based organisations (PBOs) that work with complex projects. The focus is to contribute to the knowledge about how PBOs can enhance the management of experiences derived from complex projects to promote organisational learning. This is investigated by studying how experience is captured and transferred within a project, across different projects, from project to the line organization and reintegrated into new projects. Additionally, the study examines challenges related to knowledge transfer and evaluates human and structural capital. To fulfil this, a case study is conducted on a consulting PBO that works with complex infrastructure projects. Qualitative interviews were conducted with individuals in various roles within the organisation. Furthermore, participant observations were conducted on meetings where project experience was discussed, both during ongoing projects and at project completion. The findings show that employees have a lot of knowledge and experience after working in complex projects. Experiences are collected and shared with other colleagues in various forums in complex projects. The findings suggest that PBOs can enhance their management of experiences from complex projects by the following strategies: (1) creating time for reflection to collect, discuss and evaluate experiences on an ongoing basis, (2) promoting knowledge exchange among colleagues to transfer tacit knowledge, (3) making documentation searchable and accessible beyond the project organization and (4) conducting regular and in-depth analysis to uncover patterns that can improve the structural capital. In future studies, it would be interesting to explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning could aid in conducting in-depth analysis of experiential data from complex projects. This to facilitate the identification of patterns and relationships within the data, providing valuable insight for enhancing organisational learning in PBOs.

Combat aircraft programs between a manufacturer and government are critical for both parties, asit involves significant costs, lengthy development times, and high risks. If successful, suchprograms can result in improved defense capabilities for the government and financial gains forthe manufacturer. However, due to the high technical uncertainty, value creation in the programscan be challenging. The purpose of this study was thus to examine how the total value creation,consisting of value for both parties, can be increased by choosing suitable contract models for theprogram, as contract model is of utmost importance due to its direct implication on value creationfor both actors in the programs. The purpose was answered by conducting a literature and casestudy, where the latter was made on the context of combat aircraft programs between Saab ABAeronautics and The Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV). From the literature study, relevant theory regarding value creation, co-creation of value, andcontract models were identified and compiled. Different drivers of value were researched, basedon potential benefits and sacrifices for the actors in the combat aircraft programs, and categorizedinto technical and commercial factors. Extensive dialogues, risk sharing, and structures fordecision making, were identified as important mechanisms of co-creation of value. Finally,different contract models, categorized into fixed-price contracts, incentive contracts, and cost-pluscontracts, and their influence on the drivers of value and co-creation of value was discussed. Fromthe literature study, it was clear that there was no consensus of what contract model is most suitablefor a combat aircraft program, even though there were similarities in the literature of some authors. The case study consisted of eight interviews with representatives of both Saab AB Aeronauticsand FMV. Based on the answers of the interviews, a deeper understanding of what drives valueand co-creation of value in the programs was established, as well as how the contract models affectthese factors. When analyzing the empirics of the case study with the literature study, it was clearthat different phases of the program were of utmost interest, since what drives value differs in eachphase. Thus, as different contract models are suitable for different reasons, it was apparent thatone contract model is not sufficient for the whole program. Instead, the recommendation of thisstudy is that different contract models during different phases are suitable to increase the totalvalue creation in a combat aircraft program. For the first two phases of the program, initial studies and conceptualization, a cost-plus contractis recommended, as it could be damaging for technical value creation with incentives for costsavings. For the third phase, development and industrialization, an incentive contract isrecommended, since it enables experimentation and creation of technical value, while stilldecreasing the risk of excess spending and cost for the actors. For the final phase, production, afixed-price contract is recommended, as it allows for commercial value creation for both actors,without risk damaging the technical value creation. To conclude, this study develops the previousliterature with new findings on the connection of the theoretical areas. Further, it provides practicalrecommendations for manufacturers and governments involved in combat aircraft programs.