As argued by authors like Franzen on whose work the greater part of the introduction, the main problem and sub-problem has been based, the objective of this study was to establish the extent to which the performance evaluation system currently in use at the subject Institution conforms to the benchmark performance management systems as espoused in literature. Further, the objective was to establish the differences and commonalities between the performance management systems practiced in the corporate sector and current practice at the subject Institution. Best practice was thus lifted to form part of the recommendation of this study. A questionaire was designed based on the guidelines in the literature study in order to determine how the subject Institution conducts its performance appraisal and how this relates to the four general purposes of performance management mentioned in the study. The respondents' opinion obtained from the questionaire were compared with the guidelines in literature and clustered around the four identifiable general purposes of performance management. The study concludes with a statement of current practice at the subject Institution, and outlines the extent of conformance to benchmark practice on performance management systems. Recommendations are made based on best practice and direction is given to future research into contemporary practices with the express aim of enhancing quality in higher education applying the quality-related procedures of industry and commerce, where quality is crucial to success (Winch, 1996: 9-13). The current performance management system at the subject Institution proves to be largely conforming to the benchmark. However it should require comments made by the respondents that pertain to improvement.

This study examined the existing levels of effectiveness and efficiency in local government with the application of performance management systems in the provision of municipal services. The provision of district-wide water services in Cacadu District Municipality in the Province of the Eastern Cape, South Africa is used for particular reference. Local government reforms after 1994 led to the creation of the district municipality (which groups together a number of local municipalities) to drive district-wide services provision, the introduction of systematic services provision standards and performance management as part of management reforms in municipalities. The problem for the research deals with how the Cacadu District Council and the councils of the local municipalities within the district are collaborating in using performance management systems, what effects this could have on programmes and services provision and how communication of performance information would improve service provision. Conceptual and practical difficulties encountered in effective and efficient utilisation and some obstacles that contribute to impeding progress in the use of performance management systems in municipalities were analysed. The qualitative research included a review of documents from the public administration and management literature; discourse analysis of interviews with municipal councilors and appointed officials, community members and provincial managers. The document review included a review of municipal documents that incorporated performance management or described development and use of performance management systems. It also included the legal frameworks and statutory requirements for municipal government and administration. All the responding municipal councils within the Cacadu District Municipality reported using performance management over the past five years yet little empirical evidence explains usage for district-wide programmes and services provision. Research shows that a comprehensive performance management approach to programmes and services has a more effective and efficient impact on service improvement than utilisation of personnnel appraisal (Ammons and Rivenbark, 2005). Despite the expected benefits, personnel performance appraisal is often flawed and the need exists in the district municipal model to develop and utilise performance management systems that validly assess the work performance of personnel (Hindo, 2010). Performance management system utilisation in decision making management is more related to the long-term benefits of effectiveness and efficiency than personnel appraisal for performance rewards and reporting. To overcome and address a situation of managing performance without a performance management system the study proposes a programme performance measurement and management system which incorporates information on management inputs, programme-specific data and citizens' feedback for outcomes and impact of the service. The suggested design for district-wide and specific municipal services provision elicit and provide relevant and appropriate performance information for management, decision-making and accountability to community. The effectiveness of the proposed system is to provide information for decision-making, long-term planning, strategic management and accountability reporting. The proposal is built on the exisiting method and thus efficient in the utilisation of resources. This has implications both for the theory of Public Administration and Management and the practical application of performamce management in public institutions. The study explicity provides a Public Administration perspective on management in a multi-municipal district context with different authorities. The study contributes to the theory of administrative policy and management context of the municipality with special attention to functions for which different authorities are responsible and the role of a performance system for better insught into managing overlapping authority, gaps and duplications. A central purpose of public management research is to theorise and influence practice. The practical utilisation of the proposed method is intended to assist managers and politicians with better understanding of a sustainable performance management system.

This study focused on exploring and finding the ideal performance management system suitable for the South African Broadcasting Corporation by establishing an understanding of employees’ experiences and perceptions of the previous and a proposed performance management systems and their value to SABC employees. This was done by eliciting how employees see, make sense of and interpret their everyday experiences of performance management systems, in order to develop a more suitable inclusive performance management system. A qualitative study was used to seek answers to the research questions. A focus group interview was selected for data collection. The data was analysed according to guidelines indicated and proposed by Creswell (1998:147-148). The researcher made use of convenience sampling to select 45 participants in 5 groups for the focus groups. One group consisted of managers/supervisors, and the other four groups were employees from four different business units. Participants were guaranteed confidentiality. Credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability were used as the main components in the model, to determine the truth-value of the study. Findings indicated that there was a fair understanding of the previous performance management system but there had been poor implementation of the system. The participants concurred that the previous performance iv management systems in the organisations were not adding any value to their lives. They pointed out that there was no reward in place for high performers and no action taken for non-performers, and this impacted negatively on how implementation was perceived and experienced. The recommendations are that the revised performance management system should have a stronger emphasis on effective management, monitoring, feedback and reward. Furthermore, the system should close the current gaps of reward for high performance and correction of low performance. It was further concluded that for a performance management system to be effective, it should incorporate updated job descriptions, performance measures and standards, as well as evaluator training and guidelines for improvement, employee input, compensation and/or rewards.

Training is widely conducted in organizations and is actively encouraged by the recent legislation in South Africa. Millions of Rands are spent building human resource capabilities. Organizations therefore need to know whether this investment in training is bearing fruit in terms of changes in individual performance and overall impact on service delivery. The need to improve Transversal Training Management Agency (TTMA) training programmes and skills development impact to government departments has triggered the survey. Three interdependent themes are explored: training evaluation in `government departments, influence of non-training factors and human dynamics between stakeholders in the training evaluation process. Structured questionnaires, based on best practises in literature were administered to key stakeholders involved in TTMA training programmes. Training managers and the Office of the Premier (OTP) Human Resource Development (HRD) officials were interviewed, while supervisors, trainees and trainers verified the data by post. Data were collected from the Department of Basic Education, Eastern Cape (EC), TTMA trainers and trainees. Findings show that The Department of Basic Education in the EC does not fully follow a system’s approach. Evaluations done during classroom sessions focus mainly on the reaction of participants to training and not on the behaviour change in the workplace. Training participants are not prepared for training; sometimes they do not even know why they attend training. Some trainees go to training just to get certificates that increase their CV’s for promotion purposes or to run away from the stressful work environment and not for individual growth. Recommendations to use a systemic evaluation approach and involvement of trainees in their career development process are made. Further research is recommended on the managing of non-training factors that impede learning transfer.

We developed a diffusive load balancing scheme that equalizes the available capacities of nodes in a peer-to-peer (P2P) system. These nodes may have different resource capacities, geographic locations, or availabilities (i.e., length of time being part of the peer-to-peer system). The services on these nodes may have different service times and arrival rates of requests. Using the diffusive scheme, the system is able to maintain similar response times for its services. Our scheme is a modification of the diffusive load balancing algorithms proposed for parallel computing systems. This scheme is able to handle services with heterogeneous resource requirements and P2P nodes with heterogeneous capacities. We also adapted the diffusive scheme to clustered peer-to-peer system, where a load balancing operation may move services or nodes between clusters. After a literature survey of this field, this thesis investigates the following issues using analytical reasoning and extensive simulation studies. The load balancing operations equalize the available capacities of the nodes in a neighborhood to their averages. As a result, the available capacities of all nodes in the P2P system converge to a global average. We found that this convergence is faster when the scheme uses neighborhoods defined by the structure of the structured P2P overlay network rather than using randomly selected neighbors. For a system with churn (i.e. nodes joining and leaving), the load balancing operations maintain the standard deviation of the available capacities of nodes within a bound. This bound depends on the amount of churn and the frequency of load balancing operations, as well as on the capacities of the nodes. However, the sizes of the services have little impact on this bound. In a clustered peer-to-peer system, the size of the bound largely depends on the average cluster size. When nodes are moved among clusters for load balancing, the numbers of cluster splits and merges are reduced. This may reduce the maintenance cost of the overlay network.

This study provides a comprehensive look at the current state of best practices in performance appraisal systems in the public and private sector. From this, the main objective for this research paper is to investigate the reasons why INGOs are not currently able to properly implement a ‘best practices’ based performance appraisal system. Furthermore, this paper will provide both future research questions, as well as practitioner based recommendations. In addition, it will examine the need for higher levels of accountability in INGOs through appropriate performance appraisal systems.

This thesis deals with corporate management and measurement of strategic business performance. The main object of this thesis is to design a system for strategic management of service organization and try to apply this model in environment of chosen service. Balanced Scorecard methodology was used to achieve this objective and the metric model and strategy map of service organization is based on its principles. The first part of the thesis is aimed at theoretical aspects of corporate management and measurement of strategic business performance, so it focused on Balanced Scorecard, Business Intelligence and Corporate performance management. This part provides theoretical framework for the next part of this thesis. The next part deals with applicability of theoretical concepts at chosen service company. The objective was to implement some metrics originating from the previously constructed metric model using Business Intelligence. The outputs of this part are metric model depicted in the form of strategy map and management reports in form of graphs and tables that monitor the business performance through chosen metrics.

This thesis deals with possibilities of strategic measurement of performance in Czech industrial firm and application of distinguished metrics using Business Intelligence tools. In particular it is a firm called Linde Pohony s.r.o. that produces axes and half axes for forklifts. This thesis is based on contemporary information about strategic performance management and its tools. The main aim of this thesis is to demonstrate possibilities of using Business Intelligence in order to measure key performance metrics. Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 with its Analysis and Integration services are used to prove it. It was necessary to create model of metrics at first. First part of the thesis deals with several ways and methods how to measure firm's performance. Then a proper method to measure performance is chosen. In following chapters ways how Business Intelligence tools can contribute to industrial firms are discussed. Then the real implementation of few metrics is described following with an outline of firm's software architecture. Main contribution of this thesis is particularly in demonstrating power of Business Intelligence tools when they are used along with Balanced Scorecard methodics in small or medium sized Czech industrial firm. Also Linde Pohony s.r.o. can profit from this work -- considering that many administrative tasks are much easier and faster and management has much better view into their firm. Keywords Business Intelligence, industrial firm, Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, Strategic performance management, metric

As a result of the financial crisis are companies forced to face uncertainties which significantly affect corporate governance. Companies have many ways how to face this issue. This work is focused on the possibility of using modern system Corporate Performance Management. The first part describes the impact of financial crisis on the Czech economy, business environment and are being defined most characteristic uncertainties, businesses must address. In this section is also mentioned the historical development of information technology and management information systems, which are closely linked with the managerial decision-making and enterprise management. In next section of the work are mentioned reasons of emergence of Corporate Performance Management, being described the basic principles of continuity with Business Intelligence and are being defined methodologies, metrics, processes and technology. Based on the study of literature has been chosen model of strategic management principles the Balanced Scorecard within which have been defined the mission and vision of companies located in times of certainty and uncertainty. Also were established strategic objectives of both different situations whit which were applied of appropriate metrics. Another part is focused on process of business planning reflected again in different situations certainties and uncertainties. Being mentioned theoretical facts associated with the basic management disciplines and are created by different planning models. In conclusion it is mentioned the question of implementation, the mapping of the largest providers of modern solutions and are being set trends for future years.

In the present day planning and budgeting is a vital and an irreplaceable instrument for managers. Through planning and budgeting they control management and development of a company. Planning and budgeting no longer is a competitive advantage, but has become a necessary condition for an efficiently run company. Increasing complexity of the environment impacts the requirements for planning and budgeting -- the need to be more complex, the need to include more relations and more specifications. Company's reaction to these demands is usually an implementation of special tools that allow the company to accomplish these requirements. Although, implementation of these instruments along with planning and budgeting generally troubles many companies, some are already looking for new ways to further develop planning; better said budgeting. Today companies are believed to receive a competitive advantage from compiling consolidated budgets for a business unit that is to say from the possibility to budget a business unit as a whole. The main purpose of this research paper is to develop a methodology for budgeting a business unit and its technology support. This methodology due to its newness of this issue has not yet been defined. Reaching the set goal depends on completion of predefined sub goals. The main content of sub goals, as defined in literature and based on my own experience with planning and budget analysis, is to describe this issue and thus enable the reader to understand and be able to implement this methodology on the job. The text of this research paper is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter the reader is introduced to the issue of planning, and learns about the goals, results and conceptual solutions of this paper. The second chapter is dedicated to the issue of planning and budgeting -- it explains its importance, analyzes its functions and aspects that are influenced by it. The third chapter ties back to the general definitions of budgeting from the second chapter and provides further details. This chapter identifies and describes techniques of compiling budgets, the techniques' strengths and weaknesses. The chapter describes the most common shortfalls of budgeting and its solutions; also, outlines the best budgeting practices. The fourth chapter stems from chapter two and three -- following the issue in which the reader is introduced to the characteristics of budgeting for a business unit, and moreover defines the methodology presumption and the methodology itself. The end of the chapter evaluates the results of the execution of the presumed methodology and its usability on the job. The fifth chapter summarizes the conclusions and the level of success on execution of this paper. Keywords: Planning, Budgeting, Budgeting Techniques, Consolidation, Business Unit, Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Best Practices.