Thesis (Ph. D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2005. / "Submitted to Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 230-247).

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Klagenfurt. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [151]-161) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, June 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo Akademi University, 2005. / Added t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

Assignment (MComm)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

M.Com. (Business Management) / More than fifteen years have gone by since the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa (SA) in 1994. From 1994, it became critical for every institution of the government to work towards the transformation of the public sector. The ultimate aim of this transformation has been to bring about a better life for all. However, the pace at which improvement in the general life of people from the historically disadvantaged communities is moving slowly. The best weapon that can be employed to ensure that life is improved is through the provision of quality education. There is a serious need for an improvement in the educational system of our country which is counted among the lowest in the world in terms of literacy and mathematics. This situation is continuing to prevail despite the fact that South Africa has some of the best infrastructure in the world. The researcher has undertaken this study with the assumption that the Supply Chain Management (SCM) plays a critical role in the improvement of service delivery and cost reduction as well as inventory reduction. Initially, the SCM was applied in the private sector only where the focus is on profitability. However, for the past few years, the SCM has been overlapping into the public sector. The SA government is amongst the first to adopt SCM as a tool to improve service delivery and to reduce costs. The focus of the SCM in the SA public sector is efficiency, effectiveness and the economic use of resources in the context of development and equity. There are many potential benefits that can be gained in the public sector when SCM is implemented effectively. These benefits include improved service delivery, inventory reduction and cost reduction. The Department of Basic Education (DoBE) is investing heavily towards the improvement of the standard of education in the country. Despite this, there are still learners who attend schools without all the necessary textbooks, the basic source of information for learning. The shortage of books prevails even in Limpopo Province which is one of the poorest provinces in SA. As a poor province, learners in Limpopo do not have easy access to other sources of information such as the internet and only very few schools in Limpopo Province have libraries. These learners rely on the textbooks to get information and therefore the failure to provide adequate textbooks to these learners leaves them with nothing to depend on for their studies. Consequently, their performance at schools is affected to the point that they may fail at the end of the school year.

M.Phil. (Leadership, Performance & Change) / *Orientation - More and more South African organisations are turning to prominent productivity improvement systems such as Lean Production (LP). Sustaining LP, however, requires the creation of a discernible management system. One of the perennial questions in LP is whether a management system with such a strong Japanese orientation can be successfully transplanted into a heterogeneous culture such as South Africa. * Research purpose - This research aimed to investigate whether the behaviours and values adopted by successful middle managers in supporting a sustainable LP management system differ from those identified by Van Dun (2008) in a comparative study conducted in the Netherlands. The research also aimed to establish whether managers from different ethnic groups in South Africa adopt different behaviours and values. * Motivation for the study – Identifying the behaviours and values of LP middle managers in the context of both national and sub-cultures will assist in making the necessary allowances in order to limit dissonance and strengthen LP transformation. * Research design, approach and method – The study was conducted in two phases. Firstly, a two round Delphi-study was undertaken to identify criteria for the identification of successful LP middle managers, and to ensure that the Behavioural Leadership Questionnaire developed in the Netherlands has theoretical equivalence in South Africa. During the second phase, successful LP managers, their immediate superiors, subordinates and internal LP practitioners were surveyed in order to identify the extent to which certain LP behaviours and values were demonstrated. The data from the survey was analysed using parametric and comparative statistics. * Main findings – The results indicate that altough LP behaviours and values appear universal, these behaviours and values are to a large extent influenced by national culture. Cross-cultural influences based on racial demographics in South Africa is however inconsequential.

The main objective of the study was to define FM in its broader context and identify ways of exposing its value to the organisation’s core business. The study firstly included defining FM, its scope and nature to provide an in-depth overview and understanding of the discipline. Secondly, the study discussed in detail the level of support of FM by top or senior management. Thirdly, the study discussed the importance of quality management in enhancing the value of FM within an organisation. Lastly, the study discussed how service level agreements can be utilised to enhance the value of FM within the organisation. Questionnaires were distributed via electronic mail and some hand-delivered to private, public organisations and government parastatals to gather their views on how they think FM can add value to their organisations. Questionnaires were sent out to various professionals from various organisations that employ FM services based on the aforementioned objectives. The findings from the survey showed that most organisations understand and have the knowledge about FM but there is no set and defined scope; the scope of FM differs in various organisations; soft services are grouped together and branded as FM services; FM is moderately incorporated throughout and top management still sees FM as adding no value to the organisation’s core business. The results also show that FM needs to adopt strategies such as understanding and working towards the organisation’s goals and objectives; ensuring sustainability in FM services; providing superior quality service and projecting defined and improved levels of service linking service to the organisation’s culture and facilitating organisational change for it to gain support from top management. The majority of respondents incorporating FM in their organisations agree with the benefits afforded by this discipline and have developed and implemented quality management systems that are linked to their business strategies and, by doing so, have enhanced their organisation’s performance levels. Service Level agreements are not being utilised by the majority of the organisations the few organisations that utilise SLA’s, have benefited a great deal from SLAs.

Absenteeism is a complex set of behaviours masquerading as a unitary phenomenon. Absenteeism is a big problem in the motor manufacturing industry, especially, because of the number of processes that are labour intensive. Absenteeism is a multifaceted problem with many antecedents which make it challenging to resolve or contain. Financial impact is one of the consequences of absenteeism on a business, especially when one thinks that the primary objective of a firm in to make money. Absenteeism defeats these objectives through cost incurred for overtime to catch up production losses. Furthermore, in cases where replacement of personnel is necessary, this may include administrative costs related to the time human resource personnel spend looking for replacement employees or the time production management spends re-assigning employees. Absenteeism results in decreased productivity and may affect the quality of the product due to the increased workload and burden put on employees who are at work. Absenteeism is classified into scheduled and unscheduled absenteeism. Although some absenteeism is avoidable, it is important to understand that some absence is unavoidable. This is because people may fall ill, get injured or have unavoidable obligations which may lead to absenteeism. The purpose of this study was to identify the antecedents of absenteeism, with the assumption that once they are identified, they can be controlled, reduced or eliminated and the absenteeism rate thus reduced. The theoretical study focused on defining absenteeism, ascertaining the impact of absenteeism in the workplace, especially in an international organisation in the motor manufacturing industry and discussing the antecedents of absenteeism and strategies that can be used to manage these antecedents. The empirical study consisted of a survey, with a questionnaire as a data collecting tool. The process used to conduct the survey was to distribute the questionnaire among production employees in three operational units; namely Final Assembly, Paint Shop and Body Shop at a motor manufacturing company. Employees were approached, the purpose of the questionnaire explained and they were asked if they would be willing to complete the questionnaire. Employees who agreed to complete the questionnaire were briefed on the contents of the questionnaire and the completion process. The relationship between biographical variables and absenteeism was discussed. For the purpose of this study the following independent variables were discussed: age, marital status, gender, work area, length of service and number of dependents. The empirical study focused on the antecedents of absenteeism, and specifically job, organisational and personal factors, as well supervisors‟ attempts to manage absenteeism. The respondents indicated that they believed absenteeism was a problem in the study and that people stayed away for reasons other than genuine illness. It was recommended that absenteeism figures, such as the overall Gross Absence Rate (GAR) and Absence Frequency Rate for the organisation, and specific work areas and teams, are regularly communicated to employees and displayed prominently to emphasise the importance of attendance. Some suggestions were that: Supervisors should foster a genuinely respectful relationship between themselves and employees which will results in employees feeling obliged to be at work. The company should introduce a day care or crèche at work to allow female employees to bring their kids to work in the event they are unable to be looked after at home. Alcohol and drug abuse should not be seen as an external problem in the organisation but rather as something an organisation should get involved in to assist employee who might have a problem. The first step was to create a channel where employee can feel free to approach the company if they are in need of help. The study demonstrated that it was important to identify antecedents in order to address the real problems related to absenteeism.